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Summer Session One 2009
(May 16 - June 29)
English 504--Traditions & Lineages
Class ID# 5723
Professor Barbara Henning
Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:00-8:15 pm
This is writing workshop and reading seminar. You will be
reading books and participating in writing workshops. In this
seminar we will be doing close reading of five books (fiction
poetry) from 20th-to-21st Century writers, examining how these
poetics work within or transform the poetics of previous movements
or traditions such as Surrealism, the Harlem Renaissance,
Oulipo, Cubism, Negritude, Magic Realism, Projective Verse,
Language Writing, the Beat Generation and Investigative Poetry.
With each book, we’ll also be reading short excerpts
from earlier works. The goal of the class is to introduce
you to some new writers, some new ways of writing, and to
perhaps become more aware of the roots of your own practice.
Generally, our schedule will work as follows: On Thursdays
we will discuss the new books and handouts. On Tuesdays we
will hold a writing workshop. The assignment for the workshop
will relate to the readings. When the readings are assigned,
you must also write a two to three page informal response
to the book (and handouts) and be prepared to share it with
the class. At the end of the semester (6 weeks!), you will
submit a 4-5 page informal consideration of the class and
how you might now consider your own writing practice in light
of the works you read during the semester.
The books we will be reading will be as follows:
Aime Cesaire. Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
Italo Calvino. Invisible Cities
Harryette Mullen. Sleeping with the Dictionary
Roberto Bolano. By Night in Chile
Juliana Spahr. This Connection of Everyone With Lungs.
Summer Session Two 2009
(July 6 - August 16)
English 579--Seminar in Special Studies: Good or Evil?:
Debating Slavery in the 18th Century
Class ID# 7836
Professor Srividhya Swaminathan
Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:00-8:15 pm
The end of the 18th century witnessed one of the most dynamic
social movements in British history--the movement to abolish
the slave trade. No other movement at this time enlisted such
a diverse array of authors and literary media to argue both
for and against abolition. This course will analyze a representative
sampling of antislavery and proslavery literature in order
to understand the major arguments that shaped the literary
landscape in the late eighteenth century. We will mix traditional
literary periods in order to examine gothic, sentimental,
Romantic, and neo-classical texts by major writers of the
time. We will also take a broader definition of the term "literature"
and look at essays and pamphlets published to argue for each
side. Additionally, students travel to the Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture to learn how to approach and
conduct archival research. Students will engage in rhetorical
analysis and an examination of creative techniques in examining
a range of texts that truly represent the greater diversity
of English and West Indian writers of the later eighteenth
century.
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