ENGL 220 - The Booker Prize: Examining a Prize, Examining an Empire

A course for freshman and sophomores, dedicated to The Booker Prize. The Booker is awarded annually to one new novel published in English, in the UK. Students follow the year’s Booker Prize proceedings, and the class schedule is built live alongside developments in the prize season over the course of the fall semester. In addition to analyzing these texts as works of literature, students dissect the evolving aesthetics and politics of the prize and also consider prize culture in the arts more generally. Why is the Booker a cultural phenomenon in England and how do the legacies of colonization and the former “Empire” manifest in these texts? What roles do the judges, the sponsors, and the British and international reading public have? What novels are being celebrated in this particular moment in time, and why? Students read one novel from the Booker longlist, all six novels on the shortlist, as well as supplementary critical essays relevant to the texts at hand.

Credits: 1.00
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: None
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements

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