| Description |
Resistance – whether against an unjust law, an oppressive structure, or social expectations – has always been one of the driving forces of literature. Novels, poems and plays thrive on resistance, evoking the forces that act upon us only to celebrate the counterforce that can be found in individual and social agency. In this seminar, we will investigate the role of resistance in the creation, reception, and wider impact of literature, while looking at some of the milestones of anglophone resistance literature, from John Milton’s justification of regicide through the invention of civil disobedience by Percy Shelley and Henry David Thoreau and the more nihilistic denial of Melville’s Bartleby (”I’d prefer not to.”) all the way to civil rights struggles, rebellious children and angry young men turned terrorist. |
| Literature |
Most of the historical texts will be provided in a reader through Moodle.
You will have to buy and read the following novels (any edition, resistance is futile):
- Roald Dahl, Matilda
- B.S. Johnson, Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry
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