Courses

Courses

Fall 2007 Courses

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010. Transfigurations of Song
David Collings M 2:30 - 3:55, W 2:30 - 3:55 Sills-111
A course in close reading. Explores poetry, primarily in the Romantic tradition, which dallies with the dangers of lyrical transport, whether in the form of fatal quest, fusion with the divine, aesthetic seduction, beautiful horror, or physical transfiguration. Authors may include Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Christina Rossetti, Whitman, Yeats, and Hart Crane.

011. Modern American Authors: Cather (1873-1947), Hemingway (1899-1961) and Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
Celeste Goodridge T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25 CT-16 Whiteside Room
Joan Accocella noted that “Fitzgerald admired [Cather] to the point of plagiarism,” while Hemingway referred to her as a “poor woman” when responding to her World War I novel, One of Ours. Reading these three authors in concert and considering their critical reception will reveal major differences in their projects as well as the striking confluence between them.

012. The Western
Dan Moos T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25 Mass-McKeen Study
The tradition of the Western lies not so much in the space or even the history of American West as it does in the construction of an ideal—one offered in preset and often canned formats. Beginning with an exploration of western and pioneer history, as well as early Western novels such as Owen Wister’s The Virginian, turns to variations on the themes of the Western in its two major genres, literature and film. Novels and films examined include works that are distinctly anti-Western (McCabe and Mrs. Miller), revisionist Western (Dances with Wolves), or seemingly not Western at all (Blade Runner).

013. Shakespeare's Afterlives
Aaron Kitch T 2:30 - 3:55, TH 2:30 - 3:55 CT-16 Whiteside Room
Richard III in Nazi Germany. Petruchio on Broadway. King Lear on an Iowa farm. Explores both the subtle and radical ways that authors have adapted and appropriated Shakespeare over the centuries. Focuses on issues of generic transformation, political allegory, historical difference, and aesthetic desire. Readings include representative plays by Shakespeare and works by Bertolt Brecht, W.H. Auden, Robert Browning, Tom Stoppard, and Jane Smiley; also includes screenings of films by Baz Luhrman, Richard Loncraine, and Peter Greenaway.

014. Shanghai Imagined
Belinda Kong T 10:00 - 11:25, TH 10:00 - 11:25 Mass-McKeen Study
Examines literary and filmic representations of Shanghai of the 1930s and 1940s. Explores how Shanghai imagined itself through its own writers at the time as well as how it has been imagined retrospectively by contemporary writers and filmmakers, both within China and in the diaspora. Topics include conceptions of cosmopolitanism, the Second World War and the Japanese occupation, the International Settlement and colonialism, the figure of the Eurasian, the Jewish ghetto, and hybrid cultural forms such as Shanghai jazz.

015. Hawthorne
William Watterson M 2:30 - 3:55, W 2:30 - 3:55 Mass-McKeen Study
Readings include selected short stories, Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, The House of the Seven Gables, The Marble Faun, Septimus Felton, and James Mellow’s Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times.

016. What We Talk about When We Talk about Love
Guy Foster T 2:30 - 3:55, TH 2:30 - 3:55 HL-311 (third floor)
Examines literary texts in which writers from the United States and Europe follow a well-worn literary dictum to “show rather than tell” narratives dramatizing the always complex, sometimes painful, but always endlessly challenging negotiations of intimate relationships. Throughout the term, students read a variety of literary works: from an Anton Chekhov play to short stories by Edwidge Danticat and Raymond Carver. Attention given to the impact on these narratives of historical and cultural shifts in race, gender, class, and sexual discourses.

017. Animal Life
Hilary Thompson T 11:30 - 12:55, TH 11:30 - 12:55 Sills-209
Explores the ways in which the figure of the animal serves as both a point of analogy and opposition to the concept of the human, and thus has been crucial for our definitions of human life. Focusing on contemporary world literature, investigates the fantastic images and ethical quandaries that are unleashed when the dividing boundaries between human and animal life lapse. Authors studied may include J. M. Coetzee, Brigid Brophy, Philip K. Dick, Italo Calvino, Haruki Murakami, and Anita Desai.

018. Literature of United States-Middle Eastern Wars
William Arce M 1:00 - 2:25, W 1:00 - 2:25 Sills-111
When soldiers marched out into the field of battle with lance, sword and shield, writers celebrated chivalry and courage—but then came modern warfare. With its technological advances and its political complexities, modern warfare has put distance between soldiers and challenged the traditional tropes of heroism and sacrifice. How do American soldiers write about their experience of war? Can war literature still champion abstract ideals when the way in which modern warfare is conducted often fails to make distinctions between soldiers and civilians, combatants and non-combatants, military heroes and war criminals? Focuses on the three United States-Middle Eastern Wars, exploring themes traditionally associated with soldiering such as gender, patriotism, nationalism and military heroism. Includes screenings of various important war films of the period.

060. English Composition
Mary Edsall T 8:30 - 9:55, TH 8:30 - 9:55 Kanbar Hall-101 Computer Lab
Practice in developing the skills needed to write and revise college-level expository essays. Explores the close relationship between critical reading and writing. Assignment sequences and different modes of analysis and response enable students to write fully developed expository essays. Does not count toward the major or minor in English.

104. From Page to Screen: Film Adaptation and Narrative
Aviva Briefel T 11:30 - 12:55, TH 11:30 - 12:55 Cleaveland-151
Explores the topic of “adaptation,” specifically, the ways in which cinematic texts transform literary narratives into visual forms. Begins with the premise that every adaptation is an interpretation, a rewriting/rethinking of an original text that offers an analysis of that text. Central to class discussions is close attention to the differences and similarities in the ways in which written and visual texts approach narratives, the means through which each medium constructs and positions its audience, and the types of critical discourses that emerge around literature and film. May include works by Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Anita Loos, Vladimir Nabokov, and Ridley Scott.

105. Introduction to Poetry
Peter Coviello M 11:30 - 12:55, W 11:30 - 12:55 Banister-106
Aims to understand poetry’s varied workings, considering, most extensively, the basic materials—words, lines, metaphors, sentences—from which poems have traditionally been assembled. By studying closely the components of meter, diction, syntax and line, rhyme, and figure—in essence how poems work—we will aim to see more clearly into the ends poems work for: meaning, rhapsody, transport, etc.

127. Nonfiction Literary Narrative
Anthony Walton M 6:30 - 9:25 Mass-McKeen Study
Engages in an intensive study of the writing of literary non-fiction narratives through the workshop method. Students are expected to engage in the study and discussion of craft techniques and issues particular to this genre, to read deeply from an assigned list of writers, and to compose a substantial narrative of their own. Formerly English 68.

204. Tolkien’s Middle Ages
Mary Edsall M 1:00 - 2:25, W 1:00 - 2:25 Sills-109
A study of the philological, historical, and literary backgrounds of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. While some attention is given to major and minor works by Tolkien, as well as to Peter Jackson’s films, the main focus of the course is on the nineteenth-century theories of philology and mythology that influenced Tolkien; on Anglo-Saxon and Middle English language, literature, and culture; as well as on Tolkien’s essays, especially those on Beowulf and on Fairie. Presumes that students have a real familiarity with the text (as opposed to the film version) of LOTR. Medieval texts may include: Snorri Sturlusons’s Gylfaginning, The Kalevala, The Battle of Maldon, Beowulf, Lanval, Sir Orfeo, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Note: This course fulfills the pre-1800 literature requirement for English majors.

210. Shakespeare’s Comedies and Romances
William Watterson M 11:30 - 12:55, W 11:30 - 12:55 Hubbard-Conference Room West
Examines A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest in light of Renaissance genre theory.Note: This course fulfills the pre-1800 literature requirement for English majors.

213. Telling Environmental Stories
Anthony Walton M 11:30 - 12:55, W 11:30 - 12:55 Hatch Library-012
Intended for students with a demonstrated interest in environmental studies, as an introduction to several modes of storytelling, which communicate ideas, historical narratives, personal experiences, and scientific and social issues in this increasingly important area of study and concern. Explores various techniques, challenges, and pleasures of storytelling, and examines some of the demands and responsibilities involved in the conveyance of different types of information with clarity and accuracy in nonfiction narrative. Engages student writing through the workshop method, and includes study of several texts, including The Control of Nature, Cadillac Desert, Living Downstream, and Field Notes from a Catastrophe. Preference given to students who have taken Environmental Studies 101.

229. Milton
Aaron Kitch T 11:30 - 12:55, TH 11:30 - 12:55 Druckenmiller-004
A critical study of Milton’s major works in poetry and prose, with special emphasis on Paradise Lost.Formerly English 222. Note: This course fulfills the pre-1800 literature requirement for English majors.

236. Romantic Sexualities
David Collings M 11:30 - 12:55, W 11:30 - 12:55 Searles-115
Investigates constructions of sexuality in English romantic writing. Examines tales of seduction by supernatural or demonic figures; the sexualized world of the Gothic; the Byronic hero; the yearning for an eroticized muse or goddess; and same-sex desire in travel writing, orientalist fantasy, diary, and realist fiction. Discusses the place of such writing in the history of sexuality, repression, the unconscious, and the sublime. Authors may include Austen, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Lister, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Wollstonecraft, alongside secondary, theoretical, and historical works. Formerly English 241.

246. Drama and Performance in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
Marilyn Reizbaum M 1:00 - 2:25, W 1:00 - 2:25 Chase Barn Chamber
Examines dramatic trends of the century, ranging from the social realism of Ibsen to the performance art of Laurie Anderson. Traverses national and literary traditions and demonstrates that work in translation like that of Ibsen or Brecht has a place in the body of dramatic literature in English. Discusses such topics as dramatic translation (Liz Lochhead’s translation of Moliere’s Tartuffe); epic theater and its millennial counterpart (Bertold Brecht, Tony Kushner, Caryl Churchill); political drama (Frank McGuinness, Athol Fugard); the “nihilism” of absurdist drama (Samuel Beckett); the “low” form of the musical (as presented, for example, by Woody Allen); and the relationship of dance to theater (Henrik Ibsen, Ntozake Shange, Stomp, Enda Walsh) with an eye to the cultural and sexual politics attending all of these categories. Formerly English 262.

253. Topics in 20th-Century American Lit: American Fiction Between the Wars with an Emphasis on the 1920s
Celeste Goodridge T 10:00 - 11:25, TH 10:00 - 11:25 CT-16 Whiteside Room
Authors may include Wharton, Cather, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Nella Larsen and Faulkner. Considers how these authors both reflect and subvert the dominant ideologies of the period.Note: This course fulfills the literature of the Americas requirement for English majors.

260. African American Fiction: (Re)Writing Black Masculinities
Guy Foster T 11:30 - 12:55, TH 11:30 - 12:55 Sills-109
Well over a century ago, Frederick Douglass told his white readers: “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” By employing a figure of speech known as chiasmus, Douglass highlights the extent to which African American male identity has historically rested on a troubling paradox: although black and white males share a genital sameness, the former inhabit a culturally subjugated gender identity in a society premised on both white supremacy and patriarchy. By examining a range of U.S. literary and other popular texts – from Douglass’s 1845 narrative, to the 1980s interracial buddy film genre, to contemporary works by black and non-black, as well as by male and female writers – students will examine the myriad cultural ramifications of this enduring paradox, included among them: misogyny and homophobia.. Note: This course fulfills the literature of the Americas requirement for English majors.

266. Topics in African American Literature: The Harlem Renaissance
Elizabeth Muther T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25 Mass-Faculty Room
Focuses on the African American literary and cultural call-to-arms of the 1920s. Modernist resistance languages; alliances and betrayals on the left; gender, sexuality, and cultural images; activism and literary journalism; and music and visual culture are of special interest. Note: This course fulfills the literature of the Americas requirement for English majors. Note: This course counts toward the major and minor in gender and women’s studies.

274. Asian Diaspora Literature of WWII
Belinda Kong T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25 Sills-117
Focuses on War World War II as a global moment when modernity’s two sides, its dreams and nightmares, collided. Emphasis on contemporary Asian diaspora fiction that probes the exclusions and failures of nation and empire—foundational categories of modernity—from both Western and Asian perspectives. On the one hand, World War II marks prominently the plurality of modernities in our world: as certain nations and imperial powers entered into their twilight years, others were just emerging. At the same time, World War II reveals how such grand projects of modernity as national consolidation, ethnic unification, and imperial expansion have led to consequences that include internment camps, the atom bomb, sexual slavery, genocide, and the widespread displacement of peoples that inaugurates diasporas. Diaspora literature thus constitutes one significant focal point where modernity may be critically interrogated. Part of the Other Modernities course cluster in the Asian Studies Program.

320. Victorian Epics
Aviva Briefel T 2:30 - 3:55, TH 2:30 - 3:55 Mass-McKeen Study
Examines one of the foremost literary forms of the Victorian period: the long novel. By focusing on a few central texts, investigates the ways in which narrative length shapes stories about wide-ranging issues related to nationalism, science, technology, and empire, as well as allegedly “local” issues regarding domesticity, familial relations, personal adornment, and romance. Of central concern is an inquiry into how the long novel weaves narratives about gender into its various plots. Explores recent criticism on the Victorian texts read in the course. Authors may include Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Anthony Trollope.

322. African American Literature and Visual Culture
Elizabeth Muther F 1:30 - 4:25 Mass-Faculty Room
Explores the semiotics of racial representation in African American literature and culture over the past century. Focuses on the instruments of militant image-making, both in literary and visual forms. Topics of special interest include “uplift” portrait photography, newspaper comic strips, and modernist resistance languages of the Harlem Renaissance; collage as a mid-century metaphor for invisibility and black subjectivity; and contemporary images—comics, narratives, and illustrations—that introduce alternative socio-political allegories.

323. The Joyce Revolution
Marilyn Reizbaum M 6:30 - 9:25 Kanbar Hall-109
An examination of James Joyce's signal contributions to modern writing and critical theories. Reading includes the major works (Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses), essays by Joyce, and writings by others who testify to the Joyce mystique: e.g., Oliver St. John Gogarty, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jacques Derrida, Seamus Heaney, Maud Ellmann.

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