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Welcome to The Victorian Novel!

Dear students,

I’m delighted to welcome you to our journey through the fascinating world of the Victorian Age — a time of change, complexity, and creativity. Together, we’ll explore what made this period so distinctive: its social concerns, moral questions, and the powerful role literature played in reflecting and shaping the world around it.

We’ll begin by understanding the main features of the Victorian era and how novels became the voice of their time — capturing the struggles, dreams, and hopes of a rapidly changing society.

Our companion on this journey will be Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, a novel rich with vivid characters, deep emotion, and timeless insight. Through it, we’ll see how Dickens used storytelling to illuminate the human condition and to question ideas of class, ambition, and personal growth.

I hope this course inspires you to see the Victorian novel not just as a window into the past, but as a living conversation about what it means to grow, dream, and belong.

I’m truly looking forward to exploring these stories and ideas with you!

Warmly,
Dr. Rania Elshabassy
Welcome to Elizabethan Drama!

Dear students,

I’m so happy to welcome you to this course! Together, we’ll step into one of the most exciting periods in literary history — the Elizabethan Age — a time when the stage came alive with passion, wit, and imagination.

Throughout the semester, we’ll explore what made this age so vibrant: its unique spirit, its view of the world, and the ways drama became a mirror for human experience. We’ll look closely at the key elements and characteristics of Elizabethan drama — its structure, themes, language, and the social and cultural forces that shaped it.

Our journey will take us through Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a play that captures so much of what defined Elizabethan theatre: the blend of comedy and tragedy, the moral and emotional complexities, and the power of words to question and move audiences.

I hope this course will be both an exploration and a conversation — one that helps you see drama not as something distant or old, but as something alive, daring, and deeply human.

Welcome aboard, and I look forward to discovering this world of theatre with you!

Warmly,
Dr Rania Elshabassy
This course is designed to introduce basic economic concepts related to individual decision makers in the economy -households, business firms, and governments- and how they interact. Meaning, nature, and methods of economic study are introduced. Supply, demand, and elasticity are used to analyze consumer and firm behaviors in different types of markets. Rationale for various public policies designed to modify the workings of markets will be examined.
This course is designed to introduce basic economic concepts related to individual decision makers in the economy -households, business firms, and governments- and how they interact. Meaning, nature, and methods of economic study are introduced. Supply, demand, and elasticity are used to analyze consumer and firm behaviors in different types of markets. Rationale for various public policies designed to modify the workings of markets will be examined.