2008 Handbooks

Writers have always addressed political issues, from supporting or resisting revolution, to analysing the ethics of war or the sophistries of diplomatic or political language, to attacking the class politics of industrialisation, the racial exploitation of empire, sexual inequalities, prejudice and domestic violence. Writers have also drawn attention to the nexus between power and language. The ways in which language masks ideology, normalises inequality and stifles dissent That said, writers have also participated in the dissemination of myths, stereotypes and narratives that privilege certain world-views over others. The relationship between politics and literature, is therefore, never simple. This course is designed to spotlight a series of central political issues that writers have addressed from the Renaissance to the present Each week a writer or writers will be studied in relationship to the political issues or contexts that their work addresses.