This seminar explores three key concepts – capital, care, and the everyday – in the novels of Charles Dickens. Capital refers to systems of value, exchange, and social hierarchy; care to practices of dependency, maintenance, and affective labor; and the everyday to the routines and ordinary experiences through which social life is lived. These are central concerns in Oliver Twist, Hard Times, and Great Expectations, where Dickens represents social relations and daily life in complex and often contradictory ways. Crucially, such issues are not only thematic but shaped through narrative form, perspective, and style. The seminar approaches these concepts from a literary studies perspective, focusing on narrative techniques, other formal aspects, and relevant secondary scholarship to examine how capital, care, and everyday life are perceived and understood.
|