This course will introduce students to the wealth of the English Novel in the Victorian Age. It will cover different subgenres of the Novel, such as the historical novel, the social problem or industrial novel, the romance / adventure novel and the Gothic novel. A particular focus will be on Victorian realism as the dominant narrative mode. The readings will be contextualized in the respective social and political context (such as industrialisation, Victorian capitalism, colonialism, and class and gender inequalities). We will also look at the role of readers and the publishing industry in the Victorian period: the rise of lending libraries and the three-decker novel, or formats such as the yellowback novel which provided cheap reading materials for less affluent readers. / English Travel writing from the Early Modern Period to the Present. Travellers cross boundaries, are curious and have an interest in the exchange and interaction with foreign cultures. As travel writers, they produce knowledge and shape discourses about home and abroad, about the Self and the Other - in short, travel writing is a way of seeing, imagining, aestheticising and understanding the world. The course will give an overview of the rich tradition of 500 years of British travel writing, addressing different forms and purposes of travel (among them exploration, quest, education, research, leisure, adventure, escape) and various styles and genres of travel literature. A particular focus will be on the analysis of travel writing from a postcolonial perspective and on the (quite magnificent) British tradition of female travel writers.