English 101
Introduction to English Studies
Professor Patricia Stephens
What does one need to know to be an English major or minor? What
do English majors and minors study and learn? What kinds
of career opportunities await those who graduate with a degree
in English? This course is designed to familiarize
students with the diversity and scope of English studies and to
introduce students to contemporary debates concerning such issues
as the connection between reading and writing, the relationship
among different interpretive/critical strategies, and the nature
and politics of the literary canon. In this course, we will
1) learn about the rise of English as a profession in the university
(within the United States) and how the profession has changed
over time; 2) focus on shifting notions of literacy and the function
of English in American society; 3) analyze the formation and politics
of the literary canon; 4) examine and experiment with numerous
methods of literary criticism and analysis; and 5) investigate
the many possible career opportunities awaiting students who graduate
with a degree in English. This course will be conducted
as a seminar, and students will be expected to participate in
and take responsibility for class discussions.
English
104
Creative Writing
Professor
Lewis Warsh
The goal of the workshop
is to expand our ideas of “what is a poem” and what is “a work of fiction.”
Are poetry and fiction exclusive or related genres? Weekly assignments
will question the preconceived notions of form, content and gender, with
emphasis on the best ways of transcribing thought processes and experiences
into writing. Work by Marguerite Duras, Frank O’Hara, William Carlos Williams,
Lydia Davis, Andre Breton and others will be discussed in class, and used
as models, but much of the workshop time will be spent reading and discussing
our own writing. A final portfolio of work will be required.
English 128
British
Literature I: The
Monstrous and the Fantastic in the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance
Professor Sealy Gilles
This course focuses on representations of the grotesque,
the semi-human, and the fairy in the first six hundred years of literature
written in the British Isles – from the monster tale of Beowulf to Shakespeare’s fantasy, The Tempest. Early
ideas of the supernatural and the subhuman reveal much about the construction
of the natural and the human. As
these texts chart the outer darknesses, the margins of civilization and humanity,
they inevitably shed light on the societies from which they have emerged
– and on the inner darknesses which haunt those cultures. The
monstrous “kin of Cain” in Beowulf, the hag turned fairy in Chaucer’s The
Wife of Bath’s Tale, and Caliban and Ariel of Shakespeare’s island romance
– all these define the limits of humanity and the price to be exacted for
exceeding or transgressing those limits.
This is a discussion class, with some brief time-outs
for background mini-lectures. I
expect you to come prepared and ready to contribute, to spend time and effort
on readings and written assignments, and to respect the views of your classmates. You
have a right to expect that I will read and listen to your work carefully
and respond quickly, respectfully, and in detail.
English 137
Major Texts of Shakespeare
Professor Joan Templeton
This course examines
Shakespeare’s sonnets and some of the major comedies and tragedies. Focusing
on the texts as scripts in theatres as well as literary texts, we see videos
of live performances and major film adaptations of the plays, and attend
one live performance together. The Shakespeare texts are The Sonnets,
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice,
Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Some of the films we will see
are Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, Roman
Polanski’s Macbeth, Kenneth Branagh’s Othello, and Laurence
Olivier’s King Lear. Requirements
are three essays, written outside of class, on texts we have studied together.
English 158
Literature of the U.S. I
Professor Patrick Horrigan
The course will survey the literature of the early republic,
from the founding of the American colonies in the seventeenth century, through
the American Revolution in the late eighteenth century, and up to the period
of industrialization and the Civil War in the mid-nineteenth century. We
will examine a variety of texts, both “classic” and less well known, including
poetry, sermons, captivity narratives, fiction, political philosophy, feminist
manifestos, and slave narratives. We will also read selections of modern
and contemporary literary criticism that shed light on the primary, literary
texts. Students will give in-class presentations and write formal and informal
essays.
English 170
West Indians in the Harlem Renaissance
Professor Louis Parascandola
Anglophone (English-speaking)
Caribbean immigrants played a vital, if often neglected, role during the
Harlem Renaissance, an important literary and cultural movement of the
1920s and early 1930s. There were, in fact, over 36,000 foreign born Blacks,
mostly West Indians, in Harlem in l920. These immigrants, despite often
facing severe discrimination, had a significant effect on American culture
and politics. We will discuss Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement
Association, particularly paying attention to the “Back to Africa” movement
and Garvey’s role as a facilitator of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition
to Garvey, we will examine the radical political writings of W.A. Domingo,
and poetry by Claude McKay, one of the seminal figures in the Harlem Renaissance,
and short stories by Eric Walrond, poetry by George Margetson, fiction/essays
by J.A. Rogers and Amy Jacques Garvey, and drama by Eulalie Spence. Finally,
we will consider the views of leading African Americans such as W.E.B.
DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes on Garvey and the West
Indian Community.
English 228
Women’s Studies, American Culture, & the Literary Imagination
Professor Kimberly Lamm
This women’s studies
course examines literary texts by and about women in late nineteenth and
twentieth-century American Culture. By attending to a wide variety of texts,
we will highlight the ideas and ideologies that form both a feminist and
an American conception of literature. What can literary representations
of women tell us about the shifting and turbulent cultural landscape of
late nineteenth and twentieth century America? Why has literature been
such an important place for women to communicate ideas and make arguments
about gender inequity? How have American myths and ideologies merged into
literary ideals, and how have American feminist writers subverted and worked
within those literary ideals? As we pursue these questions, we will also
become familiar with the basic tenets of feminist literary criticism and
feminist cultural studies. Work by the following writers included: Kate
Chopin, Angela Grimke, Harriet Jacobs, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Henry
James, Zora Neale Hurston, Djuna Barnes, Sui Sin Far, Zitkla Sa, Muriel
Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, and Teresa Hak Kyung Cha. Course Requirements:
Class presentation, mid-term take-home exam, and a final term paper.
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