(offered every Spring, Dr. Doreen Thierauf) Prerequisite: ENG 112 This course explores the British Empire during its expansion in the 19th century, its collapse in the mid-20thcentury, and its effects on British self-identification today. We survey Britain’s role in this first true age of globalization and trace how the period’s literature reflects the Empire’s acquisitive ethos. By studying fiction, poetry, essays and speeches from the past 200 years, we will begin to grasp how the British Empire represented the endlessly diverse peoples under its rule to itself and how its cultural productions created assumptions about the world which Britain has not entirely shaken off today. Texts covered include The History of Mary Prince, Jane Eyre, and Wide Sargasso Sea.