English Course Listings
English Course Listings |
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COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC COURSES
101. WritingAn introduction to the art of expository writing,
with attention to analytical reading and critical thinking in courses across the
college curriculum. Assignments offer students opportunities to read and write
about culture, politics, literature, science, and other subjects. Emphasis is
placed on helping students to develop their individual skills. Enrollment
limited.
Butos, C., Papoulis, Peltier, and Martinez
[103-01. Special Writing
Topics]Instruction and practice in expository writing,
organized around a special topic. Emphasis is placed on learning to write
engaged, effective prose with clear thought and powerful language.
[202. Expository Writing Workshop]This
intermediate workshop is designed for students who have achieved mastery in
introductory-level college writing and who want to refine their writing
abilities. Students will focus on developing stylistic strategies and techniques
when writing for numerous purposes and audiences. Students will choose from
these writing forms: interview, travel article, op-ed piece, memoir, sports
article, criticism, humor, and science and technology article. Enrollment
limited.
208. Argument and Research WritingA
writing workshop emphasizing the development of argumentation and research
skills. Students learn how to read and evaluate logical arguments, formulate
research questions, explore print and electronic resources, and frame persuasive
arguments in papers of substantial length. Frequent practice in writing and
revising. Enrollment limited.Butos,
C.
302-01. Writing Theory
and PracticeA
study of the art of discourse, with special emphasis on the dynamics of
contemporary composition and argumentation. This course examines rhetorical
theory from the Classical period to the New Rhetoric, as well as provides
students with frequent practice in varied techniques of composing and evaluating
expository prose. A wide selection of primary readings across the curriculum
will include some controversial ideas about writing from Platos Phaedrus,
the heart of Aristotles Rhetoric,
and examples of the best writing in the arts and sciences. By invitation onlyfor students admitted to the Writing Associates
Program.Papoulis
338. Political
Rhetoric and the MediaGeorge
Orwell called political language the
defense of the indefensible,
and yet democracies need a lively public culture of argument and debate in order
to come to terms with complex issues, define values, make decisions, and solve
problems. This course will explore the contemporary state of our political
rhetoric in the United States, with a focus on the dynamic interactions of
television, radio, print, and cyberspace. Students will participate in
electronic discussions with peers across the country as they debate current
issues generated by national election campaigns.Wall
CREATIVE WRITING COURSES
The
following courses emphasize the writing of prose fiction, poetry, and sometimes
drama. They are open to any student with the permission of the instructor. It
is strongly recommended that students do not enroll in more than one writing
course simultaneously during the semester.
110. Creative
Writing: FictionAn
introduction to fiction writing, critiques of student and professional work.
Enrollment limited.Albarelli
111. Creative
Writing: PoetryAn
introduction to the writing of poetry, workshop discussion of poems by students
and established poets. Enrollment limited.Ogden
334. Advanced
Creative Writing: FictionStudents
will write and rewrite fiction. The class is run as a workshop, and discussions
are devoted to analysis of student work and that of professional writers.
Prerequisite: English 110, 111, or Theater and Dance 393. This course satisfies
the requirement of a 300-level workshop for creative writing majors. Enrollment
limited.Albarelli
[336. Advanced
Creative Writing: Poetry]Students
will do in-class exercises, and write and revise their own poems. The class is
run as a workshop, and discussions are devoted to analysis of student work and
that of professional writers. Prerequisite: English 110, 111, or Theater and
Dance 393. This course satisfies the requirement of a 300-level workshop for
creative writing majors. Enrollment limited.
492. Fiction WorkshopAdvanced
seminar in the writing of fiction. Class discussions devoted primarily to the
analysis of student fiction, with some attention to examples of contemporary
short stories. This course satisfies the requirement of a 400-level workshop for
creative writing majors. Prerequisite(s): English 110, 111, and 334, or 336.
Enrollment limited.Goldman
Additional courses offered which fulfill requirements in the Creative
Writing concentration:
Theater and Dance 393. PlaywritingAmerican one-act plays written in diverse styles will
be closely analyzed in terms of their structure and craftsmanship, while
students undertake their own writing projects culminating in the composition of
a one-act play. Prerequisites: Theater and Dance 107 or 108, or its equivalent
or permission of instructor. Enrollment limited. For English majors, this course
satisfies the requirement of a 300-level workshop for creative writing majors.Hall
INTRODUCTORY LITERATURE COURSES
These courses require only a minimal background in the study of
literature, but they demand close attention to the text. Students will normally
analyze literary works in class discussion and write a number of papers. Except
for seminars and writing classes, and unless otherwise specified, all English
courses are limited to 30 students.
205. Introduction to American Literature IIA survey of literatures produced in the United States
since about 1865. We will examine relationships among cultural and intellectual
currents and the political, economic, and social development of the United
States during this period, focusing particularly on race, gender, and class as
analytic categories. Authors to be read include some that are well knownsuch
as James, Hemingway, and Faulknerand
some that are less familiarsuch
as Freeman, Chesnutt, and Hurston. This course satisfies the requirement of a
course emphasizing cultural context.Lauter
210. Survey of English Literature I: Anglo-Saxon Period to 1700Through selected readings in works from the
Anglo-Saxon period to the late 17th century, this course will study the
development of English literature in the context of stylistic, cultural, and
historical changes and influences. This course satisfies the requirement of a
course emphasizing cultural context.Fisher
[234. Renaissance in
America]In
the most general terms, a renaissance
refers to a flowering of creative activity, a revival and revision of classical
texts and themes, and a period of optimism regarding human potential. This
course will focus on the 19th century American
Renaissance
and the Harlem or New Negro
Renaissance of the 20th century, as well as several larger aesthetic, cultural,
and political questions. These include: how, why and by whom is the definition
of classical applied? By what means and to what ends are old
artistic forms made new?
What social, political, and artistic conditions define the cultural climate
before, during and after a renaissance? Texts will include prose, poetry, and
short fiction by Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Douglass, Hawthorne, Melville,
Whitman, Dickinson, Chesnutt, DuBois, Schomburg, Locke, McKay, Toomer, Cullen,
Hughes, and Hurston. We will also use the collections of The Wadsworth Atheneum
to view key examples in the visual arts. This course satisfies the requirement
of a course emphasizing cultural context.
[247. Poetry Of(f) The Page]A close
listening course which foregrounds poetrys
sound text by means of reading aloud, audio and videotapes, live
poetry readings and Slams, and live class performance. We will explore: todays audio-text in relation to early oral tradition;
sound text and written text as two different texts generated by any given poem;
sound as artistic medium; the place of the spoken poem in our current U.S.A.
culture(s). The class community will do some writing, but the focus is on soundspeech, hearing, listening as embodiment of text.
This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing cultural context.
260. Introduction to Literary StudiesThis
course introduces the fundamental techniques of literary analysis. The goal of
the course is to provide the critical vocabulary and skills with which to
understand not only what a literary text means, but also how texts shape
meaning. The course will apply this critical vocabulary to close readings of a
wide range of literature in English across a variety of historical periods and
genres. The course also emphasizes development of the skills necessary for
analytical writing about literature and the importance of composing clear and
compelling arguments in the interpretation of a text. Required of all English
majors, beginning with the class of 2002. Enrollment limited to 20 students.Hunter, Peltier, Perkins, and Steadman
265. Introduction to
Film StudiesA
study of film as a genre and of the critical and technical concepts needed to
analyze it. The study is undertaken largely through the examination and
discussion of feature films chosen for variety of technique, style and cultural
context. Film screenings will be scheduled accordingly. This course satisfies
the requirement of a literary theory course or a course emphasizing cultural
context.Pfeil
274. In Good Taste:
Literature and Culinary CultureThe representation of food in
literature often serves as a highly effective way in which to represent, in
concrete and compelling terms, specific ideals and social problems, such as the
role of the sacred in everyday life; developing definitions of civilized
behavior and the idea of good
taste; and issues of national, class, and ethnic identity. We will survey a
range of poems, plays, novels, memoirs, cookbooks, and films that provide
insight into the relationship of food, literature, community, and cultural
identity. This course satisfies the
requirement of a course emphasizing cultural context.Wheatley
290.
Introduction to Literature and Psychology--Emphasizing
the roots of literature's power to generate emotional and aesthetic
LITERATURE COURSES
Although
these are not introductory courses, many of them are open to non-English majors.
[307. Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Contemporary American Fiction]A study of American fiction since the 1940s.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the emergence of powerful new traditions
of minority and womens
writing. Among the books to be read are works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni
Morrison, Rolando Hinojosa, Leslie Silko, and Maxine Hong Kingston. This course
satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800, a
literary theory course, or a course emphasizing cultural context.
310. The Epic and The
Search for The HeroicWhat
does it mean to be a hero in The Iliad,
Gilgamesh, and The Odyssey and how
do later poets revise or strive to match the values and standards of these
poems? What makes an epic hero? Readings in Milton, Virgil, Wordsworth, William
Carlos Williams and other epics as well as The
Iliad, Odyssey, and Gilgamesh.
This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature before
1800 or a literary theory course.Ogden
[314-02. Making
It New: The Culture of Literary Modernisms]This course examines how writers such as Virginia
Woolf, in Bloomsbury, and James Joyce, in Dublin, sought to define themselves
against Victorian culture and as part of a new ideology of the modern. We
will locate texts of High
Modernism in relation to debates over history, gender, nation,
psyche, and aesthetics; and we will consider how and why these writers, instead
of some of their contemporaries, help define a Modernist canon. This course
satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800.
[317. The Inward Journey/The Outward Reach]We
will explore the discovery of self in tension with the development of cultural,
social, and political awareness in contemporary poetry. The United States will
be our focus, but we will turn our eyes to the world beyond as well. We will
read poets such as Espada, Rich, Komunyakaa, Doty, and Brooks. This course
satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800.
[318. Sylvia Plath]This
course will examine the life, death, literary work, and critical reception of
Sylvia Plath in the context of her ancestral heritage, her historical context,
and her marriage to Ted Hughes. This course satisfies the requirement of a
course emphasizing literature after 1800, or a literary theory course. Note:
This course may be used to fulfill the Literature and Psychology minor
requirements.
321. Curiosity and
LiteratureThis
course will examine the way curiosity transformed literature and culture in the
age of inquiry, when Peeping Tom was invented, modern science was
institutionalized, and the detective novel was born. We will read texts that
explore approved kinds of investigation, such as exploration of foreign lands,
scientific analysis, empirical narrative, and collecting, and disapproved kinds,
such as witchcraft, voyeurism, and the exhibition of monsters. Texts will
include drama, journalism, poetry, satire, and novels by Aphra Behn, Defoe,
Johnson, and others. This course satisfies the requirement of a course
emphasizing literature before 1800, and for a course emphasizing poetry.Benedict
324. The Resisting ReaderUsing feminist, narratological, and reader-response
approaches, we will re-examine a number of canonical American texts read against the grain.
That is, we shall pay attention to the inadvertent ways in which both central
and marginal figures are distorted in order to create stories that re-enact
central American myths of adventure, manliness, conquest, and manifest destiny.
Authors will include Sherwood Anderson, Henry James, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway,
and possibly Stowe, Cather, Richard Wright, Mailer, and Erdrich, among others.
This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after
1800, or a literary theory course.Ferriss
339. Festival and Drama--This course will examine ways in which performance is
in many cultures linked to festivals of many different kinds. More basically, it
will examine the ethos of what can be called "the festival world" in
contrast to the "workaday world."
We will consider ways of regulating time (festival time vs. clock time),
the demands of vocation vs. leisure, play vs. work. In addition to studying festival drama, we will examine the
idea of festivity and play as establishing an alternative to the
"public" world of politics and vocation in selected works of
literature. Specific works to be
studied will include Euripedes Antigone
in the context of Greek festivals, German faschtnachspiele or carnival plays by
Han Sachs, Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I,
and Dickens Hard Times.
Particular attention will be paid to Caribbean Carnival as street
theatre, evolving from emancipation festivals in the 19th century.
Students thinking of going on the Trinity in Trinidad Global Learning Site
should enroll in this course, if possible.
This course satisfies the requirement of a cultural context course, a
course emphasizing literature before 1800, or a literary theory course.Riggio
344.
Representing the Old World and the New 1500-1700--
How did encounters with the indigenous cultures of the Americas shape the
literary, religious, scientific, and political imaginations of European writers?
This course will focus in particular on the works of early modern English
writers from More to Behn; English works will also be juxtaposed against
selected Incan, Aztec, Spanish, and French texts (read in translation) that
illuminate the broader contexts within which writers were shaping a distinctly
English imagination of the nature and significance of colonial conquest. This
course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature before 1800,
or a course emphasizing cultural context.Wheatley
345. ChaucerA
study of The Canterbury Tales and
related writings in the context of late medieval conceptions of society, God,
love, and marriage. Prerequisite: English 260 with a minimum grade of C-. This
course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature before 1800.Fisher
351. ShakespeareIn
this course we will study selected Shakespeare plays, with an emphasis on plays
in performance and plays in their cultural contexts. Plays to be studied may
include: Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Othello, As
You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest; these choices are subject to change, partly by student
request. Students should be available on Monday evenings for film screenings.
This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature before
1800, or a literary theory course. Riggio
[353. Challenging
Authority: Literature of the 17th Century]The
early 17th century was one of the most important and contentious periods in
English history, and literature was a formative part of its rich culture of
debate and innovation. The Stuart monarchy was trying to establish an absolutist
culture, and the resistance to it led to the first political revolution in
modern Europe. The 17th century also witnessed the movement of women into public
life and print as highly vocal poets, preachers, prophetesses, and political
theorists. Advances in scientific inquiry reshaped how writers thought about the
cosmos and their place in it. Readings will include works by Donne, Jonson,
Marvell, the women poets Lanyer and Bradstreet, the quasi-scientific writings of
Bacon and Burton, and samplings from the periods
rich popular literature and pamphlet wars. This course satisfies the requirement
of a course emphasizing literature before 1800.
359. Victorian
Heroines: Transgression and TranscendenceIn
an era characterized by the prominence of women writers and by its female
monarchy, this course will investigate the variety of ways Victorian writers
construct heroines and other exceptional women. Our focus will be on literary
texts (fiction and poetry), but we will read them in the context of selected
other Victorian writings: conduct literature, biographical texts, aesthetic
debates, the Crimean War, and writings by and about Queen Victoria. The courses goal is to give students a detailed knowledge of
some Victorian literature, and to enable them to read these works in dialogue
with Victorian history: specifically, with attention to the gendered economics
of the literary marketplace, to the emerging feminist movement in England, to
the role of women in wartime, to the conditions of the working-class, and to the
authorizing (and disabling) presence of Queen Victoria. Texts will include:
Brontλs
Jane Eyre, Tennysons
The Princess and Maud, Barrett Brownings Mary Barton,
Eliots
The Mill on the Floss, Oliphants Miss
Marjoribanks, Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles,
and Shaws Candida,
and selected writings by Hemans, Carlyle, Ruskin, Jameson, Mill, Ellis, and some
recent critics. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing
literature after 1800.Martinez
363. William Blake:
The Poet as RadicalA
study of the poets exploration and elaboration of radical political,
social, religious and poetic alternatives to established opinion and
institutions. Readings in all of Blakes
poetry include the visionary epics (the illuminated books), Miltons Paradise Lost,
as well as Locke and The Bible. This
course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature before 1800,
and for a course emphasizing poetry.Ogden
[364. The Transformation of Literature in the 18th Century]How do writers transform traditional literary forms
to express new perceptions of identity, sexuality, society and nature? In this
course, we will examine the way the poets, playwrights, journalists and fiction
writers of Restoration and 18th-century England imitated, reworked and finally
rejected Classical and Renaissance genres to forge new kinds of literary
expression. Readings include works by Aphra Behn, Dryden, Swift, Pope, Johnson,
and Goldsmith. Prerequisite: English 260 with a minimum grade of C-. This course
satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature before 1800 or a
course emphasizing cultural context. This course open to junior and senior
English majors only.
[367. The American
Novel from Gothic to Postmodern]This course will examine the American novel in its
many incarnations. To some extent the form seems to evolve in keeping with
movements in England and the Continent, but there are clear undercurrents or
native impulses which seem to define or justify the category American. We
will trace developments in the use of point of view, character and plot, the
move away from the improbability of the romance toward the verisimilitude of
the realistic novel, the growing emphasis on character and subjectivity, and the
rejection of conventional reader-friendly narrative techniques in favor of
strategies which challenge the reader to engage with the peculiar logic of the
text. We will also look at developments in critical theory, including genre
criticism, narratology, and reception theory, and we will examine the
relationship between social and political developments and the emergence of new
literary forms. Writers will include Hawthorne, Kirkland, James, Faulkner,
Morrison, Oates, and Pynchon. This course satisfies the requirement of a
literary theory course.
368. Cross-Cultural Writing We live in a time of unprecedented migrations and
intermingling of formerly separate peoples, of dissolving borders, of the
collapsing sense of distances. For at least two decades now, world literature
has been revitalized by the cross-cultural experiences of many new writers, who
in their works straddle more than one culture in unprecedented ways. What makes
for literary originality at a time when so many are writing out of a similar,
highly politicized, cultural context? We will begin by reading predecessor
writers who were driven to reach from one culture to another, often in the face
of political and cultural pressures to which they responded in such highly
original ways that they initiated their own lines of literary tradition. We will
study their works, but also the writers themselves, and the environments that
shaped them. We will then move on to contemporary writers. Readings will be
drawn from such predecessors as Josι Martν, Machado de Assis, Jean Rhys, Zora Neale Hurston,
Gabriel Garcia Mαrquez,
V.S. Naipaul; and such more recent writers as Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro,
Jhumpa Lahri, Andrι Aciman, Jessica Hagedorn, Junot Diaz, Dagoberto Gilb,
Josι
Manuel Prieto, and Zadie Smith. This course satisfies the requirement of a
course emphasizing cultural context.Goldma
377.
Surviving UlyssesThis is a
course in the major works of High British Modernism. The poetry and prose of
this period were characterized by tremendous ambition, radical experimentation,
the questioning of conventions and the creation of new ones. In the first half
we concentrate on a single author, James Joyce, reading his major fiction
(excluding Finnegan's Wake). In the
second half we will assess the challenge Joyce -- specifically his masterpiece Ulysses
-- presented to his contemporaries: poets influenced by his use of myth (Eliot,
Pound, H.D.); Irish writers confronted with a self-proclaimed national epic (Yeats,
Beckett); other aspirants to the High Modern novel (Huxley, Woolf). Prerequisites: English 260 with a minimum grade of C-. This
course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800.Rosen
379. Character and Conditions: Fiction of the Gilded AgeHoratio Algers
books for boys set the ground rules for American upward mobility: hard work,
honesty, and a little luck led to success. This course examines this American
premise through the lens of novels written by men and women, by blacks and by
whites, and by immigrants and first-generation Americans as well as by members
of old established families. Prerequisite: English 260. This course satisfies
the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800 or a course
emphasizing cultural context.Cohn
[387. Romantic Poetry]A
study of the revolutionary impulse in poetry, criticism, and essays between the
years 1788 and 1832 in England. Readings in women writers as well as traditional
male authors. Emphasis on Wollstonecraft, Blake, William and Dorothy Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Percy and Mary Shelley, and Keats. This course satisfies the
requirement of a course emphasizing literature before 1800.
[388. Hysteria and
Literature]This
is a literature and psychology course examining the relationship between memory
disturbances, trauma and literary form in works by Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe,
Mary Shelley, Josef Breuer, Sigmund Freud, Pierre Janet, Helene Cixous, Bernhard
Schlink, Sylvia Plath, Juliet Mitchell, and Kenneth Branagh. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of
a literary theory course, or a course emphasizing literature after 1800. Note:
This course may be used to fulfill the Literature and Psychology minor
requirements.
399. Independent StudyA
limited number of individual tutorials in topics not currently offered by the
Department. Submission of the special registration form, available in the
Registrars Office and the approval of the instructor and
chairperson are required for enrollment. (1-2 course credits)Staff
460. TutorialSubmission
of the special registration form, available in the Registrars
Office and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for
enrollment.
466. Teaching AssistantshipStudents
may assist professors as teaching assistants, performing a variety of duties
usually involving assisting students in conceiving or revising papers; reading
and helping to evaluate papers, quizzes, and exams; and other duties as
determined by the student and instructor. See instructor of specific course for
more information. Submission of the special registration form, available in the
Registrars
Office and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for
enrollment. ( ½-1 course credit)
Senior SeminarsSenior English majors will ordinarily take at least
one Senior Seminar. They may take more than one. These courses are ordinarily
restricted to senior English majors, but non-seniors may petition individual
instructors for admission. Students who
choose to write senior theses are required to enroll in the Senior Colloquium in
the Fall of their senior year. This colloquium may also count as a senior
seminar.
495-01.
Senior Seminar: MelvilleAn intensive reading of Melville's major
fiction, from Typee through Billy
Budd, with
an emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and authority in his work,
and in the developing capitalist culture of 19th century America. Some
familiarity with Marxist, feminist, and/or psychoanalytic criticism helpful but
not required; various readings drawing on these theories will be assigned in
addition to the primary readings for the course. For English majors, this course
satisfies the requirement of a senior project.Pfeil
495-02. Senior Seminar: Senior ColloquiumThis
course is designed to teach senior English majors the techniques of research and
analysis needed for a long essay on a subject of their choice. It is intended to
prepare the students for writing theses, and to encourage them to do so.
It will deal with problems such as designing longer papers, focusing topics,
developing and limiting bibliographies, working with manuscripts, using both
library and Internet resources, and understanding the uses of theoretical
paradigms. This course fulfills the requirement of a senior seminar; it is
required of all senior English majors who are planning to write theses.Lauter
498. Senior Thesis, Part 1Individual
tutorial in the research for and writing of a thesis on a special topic in
literature or criticism. The prospectus for the thesis must be submitted to the
Department in the semester before your senior year. Submission of the special
registration form, available in the Registrars
Office and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for each
semester of this year-long thesis. (2 course credits are considered pending in
the first semester; 2 course credits will be awarded for completion in the
second semester.)Staff
601. IDP Study UnitIndependent
study guide available only to students in the Individualized Degree Program.
Permission of the instructor and a signed permission slip are required for
registration. See the IDP Catalogue
for a full listing.
602. IDP Project. Limited to students in the Individualized Degree Program. Requires
submission of a special proposal form, which is available in the IDP Office.
(0-5 course credits)
American Studies 248. Female Bodies in
19th Century American Literature and CultureCorsets, bloomers, hysteria, mammy, jezebel,
gynecology, angel on the hearth, suffragette: these are just a few of the
garments, labels, cures, and stereotypes applied to womens bodies during the last century. By reading womens fiction and autobiography, we will explore how
race, class, ethnicity, and gender operated in 19th century America and examine
moments of resistance to prevailing definitions of femininity. For English
majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing cultural
context.Steadman
American Studies 354.
Working, Buying and Becoming: Human
Rights, Race, Labor and The High Life from The Plantation to The Internet--How
do we talk about what we do for a living, what we buy and what race we give
ourselves? Does our skin color, our job, or our Jeep Cherokee define us?
We seek to understand how these factors influence our perceptions of
which we are, how we fit into society and the rights we enjoy in society.
Race, gender and the market economy - and the ways these concepts change
throughout American history - will become key issues for us to consider.
Our reading will cover a broad swath of time, from Crevecoeur and Equiano
in the 18th century to Thoreau, and Frederick Douglass in the 19th century and
Francisco Jimιnez and Rivethead in the 20th century. Students who have
taken Working, Buying and Becoming as ENGL 254 are not eligible to take this
class. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course
emphasizing cultural context.Vogel
[Linguistics 236. Language, Meaning and Ideology]What
is the nature of the system of signification we call language, and
how is it related to the way we think and the way we know? This course will
begin with a broad historical survey of some of the answers to these questions,
as they have emerged over two and a half millennia of reflections on language.
We will then examine Saussures
work as a turning point in language theory, concluding with a consideration of
the role of post-Saussurean linguistics as a pilot-science for other
disciplines, and the pivotal place of semiotics in contemporary thought. For
English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a literary theory
course.
Women, Gender, and Sexuality
212: The History of SexualitySexuality
is commonly understood as a natural or biological instinct, but as scholars have
recently shown, it is better understood as a set of cultural practices that have
a history. Starting with the ancient Greeks, this course examines the culturally
and historically variable meanings attached to sexuality in Western culture. It
pays particular attention to the emergence of sexuality in the 19th century as
an instrument of power. It also considers how race, class, gender, and
nationality have influenced the modern organization of sexuality. Topics covered
include sex before sexuality, sexuality and colonialism, sexuality and U.S.
slavery and the emergence of the hetero/homosexual binarism in the late 19th
century. Primary readings include The
Symposium, A Passage to India,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The Well of Loneliness, and The
Swimming Pool Library. Secondary readings include work by Michel Foucault,
David Halperin, Angela Davis, Hazel Carby, Martin Duberman, George Chauncey, and
Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy. For English majors, this course satisfies
the requirement of a course emphasizing cultural context.Corber
GRADUATE COURSES
Note: English majors with grades of B- or better in three 300- or
400-level courses may enroll in these graduate courses with the instructors
permission. Instructors may give final permission only after the Graduate Office
has enrolled all graduate students.
822. Spensers
Visionary Geographies: Texts and Critical ContextsSpenser's poems occupy an important place in the English
literary canon, in part because they continue to amaze readers with their
fantastic imagination of unseen worlds both mythic and divine. Moreover, his
poetic evocations of geographically specific places, including Ireland and
America, reflect Spenser's powerful engagement with issues related to English
plantation and territorial expansion. In
this course, we will consider how Spenser's eclectic and allusive works connect
to a variety of literary, cultural, and critical contexts, with particular
attention to their status as "colonial texts." This course satisfies
the requirement of a critical theory course.Wheatley
826.
Victorian Literature and CultureVictorian novelists and poets competed in a commercial
society teeming with popular entertainment, eye-witness reportage, and a diverse
readership that was increasingly dominated by middle-class women, the
working-classes, and people from Britains colonies. While this course
introduces you to the conventions of Victorian novels and poetry and emphasizes
fictional and poetic technique, we will also attend to how authors construct
ideas of the reader and spectator in their works, especially in revealing to us
the inner workings of the home and public institutions. Examples of Victorian
illustration, painting, and design will contribute to our picture of Englands
vexed economic, social, and sexual relations. We will begin with theories of the
19th century spectator and reader and throughout the course consider
the kinds of power and responsibility that are associated with these roles.
Authors will include: Carlyle, the Brownings, Brontλ, Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell,
the Rossettis, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Wilde. This course satisfies the
requirement of a literary history course.Martinez
940. Independent StudyStaff
954. Thesis ColloquiumAs
part of the two-credit thesis requirement, the Thesis Colloquium is designed to
introduce Masters students to the fundamentals of designing a
research project, investigating the literary critical landscape in a given field
of inquiry, and completing a successful and original thesis project. The
colloquium is required of all Masters
students not involved in the Concentration in Creative Writing, and is
recommended to be taken at the beginning of the thesis writing process. It is
non-credit bearing.Kennedy
955. Thesis Part IIStaff
956. ThesisStaff