Alok Yadav || Home page

Department of English / George Mason University
Office Robinson A471 / Office Hours TBA
Email ayadav@gmu.edu / Phone 703-993-2765
(Spring 2009)

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Current Syllabi || Course Materials || MLA Style Guide
Historical Outline of 18th-c. British Lit. || Multicultural and World Literature Anthologies
Websites for Kids

"'A mere matter of words,' we say contemptuously, forgetting that words have power to mold men's thinking, to canalize their feeling, to direct their willing and acting. Conduct and character are largely determined by the nature of the words we currently use to discuss ourselves and the world around us."
---Aldous Huxley, "Words and Their Meanings" (1940)

My Book

Before the Empire of English:
Literature, Provinciality, and Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

Current Syllabi (Spring 2009)

English 350 (The Idea of a World Literature) [PDF] || Back to Top

Course Materials (Spring 2009)

Goethe on World Literature

Archived Course Materials

Jane Barker, Bosvil and Galesia || Jane Barker, "On the Difficulties of Religion"
Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt || Aphra Behn, The History of the Nun
Eliza Haywood, The British Recluse || Eliza Haywood, Fantomina
Samuel Johnson, London || Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest
Jonathan Swift, "Description of a City Shower"

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"Certainly the eighteenth century remains one of the historical periods that fascinate me most . . . because I find it increasingly rich and multi-faceted and full of contradictory ferments that are still going on today."
---Italo Calvino, "Two Interviews on Science and Literature" (1968)

Resources for English Literary Studies

MLA Style Guide
(A guide to MLA style for essays, covering format for in-text citations and works cited lists: updated to reflect 2008 revisions to MLA style.)

Historical Outline for Restoration & 18th-Century British Literature
(A chronology of historical events and significant publications from 1642-1820, meant to provide a sense of context for students of the period.)

Multicultural and World Literature Anthologies
(A list of anthologies for those looking for a wider range of literature than that found in more traditional anthologies of British or American or Western literature.)

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Miscellaneous

Websites for Kids
(A list of engaging and educational websites suitable for kids in second or third grade, or older.)