Ireland in the Material World

The eighteenth-century Consumer Revolution led to profound shifts in human society and human thinking, some of which we are now trying to unravel in the face of plastic pollution and environmental crisis. This course explores industrial consumerism and its Romantic resistance through new materialist and environmental theory, focusing on Ireland and Britain. Using theorists like Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, Kathryn Yusoff, Vicky Kirby, Donna Haraway, and Serenella Iovino, we will put theory into practice through texts that are obsessed with nonhuman things and landscapes. Texts will include Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea, The Absentee (Maria Edgeworth), Lyrical Ballads, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.