The impact of prominent Inklings author C.S. Lewis continues to grow, garnering both applause and, in other quarters, heavy criticism. Lewis is lauded as an intellectual giant, a Christian apologist without equal, and a gifted myth-maker, but also identified as misogynistic, racist, sado-masochistic, and enjoying violence. This course focuses on the literary achievement of C.S.

This course provides an intensive study of how the writers of influential nineteenth-century British literary texts (including short and long poems, a novella, novels, and prose non-fiction) chose to portray the intersection of religious faith and gender. This course not only familiarizes students with the most significant nineteenth-century British authors, but also enables a thorough exploration of two of the most prevalent areas of debate in the nineteenth century: gender roles and questions of faith.

Examines (auto)biographies as literary artifacts, responses to culture, and as texts within which identity is shaped and altered by the intentional acts of their writers. Examines current theories of (auto)biography by including life studies written by individuals whose association with the literary order has its origins in intellectual and cultural spheres. Explores how life writing participates in the construction of identity and engages subjectivity as a narrative strategy. Theorists including Paul Ricoeur, George Steiner, Richard Kearney, and Eva Hoffman are foundational to this study.

The study of the literary expression of religious desire, doubt, and despair in early-modern British literature. The aesthetic shaping of spiritual belief and sentiment within specific historical and cultural contexts is investigated in a selection of early-modern works, including those by Anne Vaughan Lock, Robert Southwell, George Herbert, John Donne, Elizabeth Melville, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw, An Collins, Thomas Traherne, John Bunyan, George Fox, and Margaret Fell Fox.

Under the direction of a supervisor, students not writing a thesis will research and write a major paper of approximately 10,000-15,000 words in length.