ENG 233 - Sherlock, James, and Harry

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
In this course we will examine the texts and contexts surrounding three icons of British masculinity: Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Harry Potter. While each of these figures was born in text, all three rapidly went “transmedia,” appearing in on stage, and in magazines, movies, television, comics, video games, theme parks, and across the internet. Each also has the ability to conjure up an entire literary, historical, and cultural milieu: Victorian London, Europe during the Cold War, and the Great Britain of New Labour. We will study various theories of adaptation as we follow these characters’ transmedia adventures; we will consider them as astonishingly successful representations of masculinity and nation that have been exported around the world. Satisfies departmental Prose or Drama/Transmedia requirement.