These presentations will give you a chance to research and present to the class some of the background—historical, cultural, or critical—of one of our novels. They should involve substantial independent research, a clear and scintillating exposition to the class, a take-home treat for the audience (including a synopsis of your material and an annotated bibliography), and questions and issues for discussion that will tie your material to our reading and/or class themes. I encourage you to work with a partner on your presentation; two people can actually do more than twice as much work, and research (like love) is both more fruitful and fun when done together.
Preparing your presentation
By at least two weeks before
your presentation, meet with me to discuss your topic and possible directions
and sources. (Also, I would be very happy to discuss the actual presentation a
couple days before you give it.)
Among the things presentations should convey: why your topic is important, how
it is relevant to the novel, what light it sheds on other course materials,
what important questions and issues arise in your thinking about it and in the
scholarly discussion of it. Presentations should offer the class an entry
point into the novel, questions for discussion, and analyses of specific
passages or themes.
Delivering your presentation
Presentations should take about 10 minutes, followed by 5-10 minutes of guided discussion. Keeping track of time is an important skill that you should master. Look at the clock when you start, and before you do anything write down when you need to finish at the top of your notes. It’s also a good idea to note what time you should be at the 1/3 and 2/3 points, and to have the 1/3 and 2/3 points clearly flagged in your notes.
Presentations should begin by telling us what you’ve set out to do. You should answer the “so what” question—convey to us why the topic is important to you, and so by extension to us.
You should offer some sense of how you came to know what you’re telling us, and why you’ve reached your conclusions. Remember that the audience hasn’t read all the material you have, so when you discuss your sources, describe the kinds of positions you’re referring to, rather than just dropping names. (Critics who focus on X claim Y, while those who think W is a more important factor tend to conclude Z. Since I’m persuaded by A’s argument that Y, I tend to agree that P is decisive.)
It may help to think about your presentation in terms of three main points. At the beginning, tell us what your three points are. And as you go along, tell us when you get to point 2 and point 3. It’s often helpful to listeners if you provide synthetic statements as you go along (“So since we’ve seen that [issue 1], the question arises of [issue 2]”). It may not be obvious to listeners that you’ve switched your focus, so signpost your topics, telling us when you’ve arrived at point 2 and point 3.
When you’ve covered your material, leave us with some sense of closure. Presentations should conclude by leading the class in a discussion that connects your material with the class text. It might be helpful to have specific questions to ask, as well as specific passages to address and themes to raise.
It may help to approach your material with two large questions in mind:
First ask what is the larger context into which you are putting the text? It may help to think of this as the “forest” in which the particular “tree” of the text is situated.
Second ask, what does the text (your novel) do in this context? What work in the larger development does it perform? How does it participate in the story that the context tells? In terms of the metaphor, how does this particular “tree” show us something about the given “forest.”
The paper trail
Your presentation should include a souvenir, something to remember it by. The precise format is up to you—a one-page abstract or an outline or something more graphic or some combination of these. This is something for each of us to take home that gives key highlights of your material, what you think is important for us to know about your topic. You should include an annotated bibliography of works you’ve used in your research that you recommend to others seeking more information. The whole thing should fit on two pages. (The goal: at the end of the semester everyone will have a concise study guide to the period.)
Choosing a topic
Your research and presentation may have either a textual or contextual focus. The former will focus on the novel and criticism on it (though criticism always situates its text in some context). The latter will focus on the social or historical or cultural background in which the novel is situated (and you will help us situate the novel in this context).
I have passed out a list of suggested critical readings for each novel (on reserve in the library). You also may want to look at the following journals, which publish the best new criticism on eighteenth-century literature and culture: ELH (English Literary History), Eighteenth-Century Studies, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Eighteenth-Century Life, SEL (Studies in English Literature).
The following are some suggested topics. You are also welcome, and encouraged,
to develop your own research/presentation topic based on your interests (and
if you’d like to know how those interests could possibly connect with
eighteenth-century Britain, I’d be happy to brainstorm with you.)
Suggested topics (tied to specific novels)
Development of the novel
McKeon (marxist)
Armstrong (feminist)
Richetti (romance tradition)
Castle (Carnivalesque)
Hunter (Before Novels)
Warner (media studies)
Anderson (postcolonial)
Moll Flanders
Critical approaches to the novel
Money, finance, and capitalism
The public sphere and its discontents
Republicanism & commerce: changing political frameworks
Consumption and the world of goods: consumer society
London in the early eighteenth-century
Crime and criminal biography
Love and marriage
Pamela
Critical approaches to the novel
Separate spheres and the domestic space
Is there a “class” in this class? changing categories of social distinction
Conduct books / policing women’s roles
The material world of print: the periodical press / publishing
Readers, books, and libraries
Servants and masters
The country house
Diaries / writing one’s self
Dress and distinction
Changing marriage law
Shamela
The Pamela media event
Satire
Joseph Andrews
Critical approaches to the novel
Gender and identity in Fielding
Music: the string quartet
Art: Hogarth
Charity and the Anglican tradition
The poor and charity
Justice and law
Quixote in England
The sermon: religious and literary form
Humphry Clinker
Critical approaches to the novel
Travel and tourism in 18th-century
Picaresque & the picaro
Doctors & medicine
Art: Rowlandson
Comedy and the comic
Servants and masters II
Evelina
Critical approaches to the novel
Women’s writing
Aristocrats
Home furnishings: manners and domestic material culture
Feminism in the eighteenth century
London in the later eighteenth-century
Music: development of the symphony
Polite Rave: Vauxhall / pleasure gardens