English 12, Introduction to Literary Study, at the 12 hour, with Professor Edmondson
This course introduces the student to the aims, assumptions and methodologies of reading and the study of literature. This course is designed as an introductory course to the English literature major and other literature and humanities majors. Students must complete Writing 5 before enrolling. Texts may include theory, history of literature, and will be drawn from at least two genres and historical periods. Dist: LIT. No course group or CA tag assignments.
English 19, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian Epic and Saga, with Professor Travis at the 2A hour
An introduction both to Old English literature and to Old Norse sagas. In the first half of the course we concentrate on reading, translating and setting into cultural context selected Anglo-Saxon poems, most notably 'The Wanderer,' 'The Dream of the Rood,' and 'Beowulf.' In the second half of the course we read a variety of Old Norse sagas, including 'Egil's Saga,' 'The Saga of the People of Laxardal,' and two shorter sagas recounting contacts with North America. In addition to papers and reports, we'll discuss the new film 'Beowulf,' and each student will write a mini-version of a Norse saga. Dist: LIT; WCult: W . Course Group I. CA tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Genre-narrative.
English 24, Shakespeare I, at the 12 hour with Professor Boose
A study of about ten plays spanning Shakespeare’s career, including comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances. Attention will be paid to Shakespeare’s language; to his dramatic practices and theatrical milieu; and to the social, political, and philosophical issues raised by the action of the plays. Videotapes will supplement the reading. Exercises in close reading and interpretative papers. Prerequisite: English 2/3, English 5 or English 5 exemption status. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Ckourse Group I. CA tag Genre-drama.
English 34, Romantic Literature: Writing and English Society, 1780-1832, at the 10 hour with Professor McCann
This course offers a critical introduction to the literature produced in Britain at the time of the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars.There will be a strong emphasis throughout the course on the specific ways in which historical forces and social changes shape and are at times shaped by the formal features of literary texts. The question of whether romantic writing represents an active engagement with or an escapist idealization of the important historical developments in this period will be a continuous focus. Readings include works by Blake, Wordsworth, Helen Maria Williams, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Robert Southey, Coleridge, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Keats, and Clare. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tag National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 41, American Prose, at the 11 hour with Professor Chaney
Readings of nonfiction narratives by such American writers as Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 42, American Fiction to 1900, at the 12 hour with Professor Pease
A survey of the first century of U.S. fiction, this course focuses on historical contexts as well as social and material conditions of the production of narrative as cultural myth. The course is designed to provide an overview of the literary history of the United States novel from the National Period to the threshold of the Modern (1845-1900). To do justice to the range of works under discussion, the lectures will call attention to the heterogeneous cultural contexts out of which these works have emerged as well as the formal and structural components of the different works under discussion. In keeping with this intention, the lecturers include the so-called classic texts in American literature, The Last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, but also the newly canonized Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Life in the Iron Mills, Hope Leslie in the hope that the configuration of these works will result in an understanding of the remarkable complexity of United States literary culture. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 60.7, The Poetics of Literary Practice, at the 2 hour with Professor Finch
"Art lives upon discussion, upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints,"Henry James once wrote, in the conviction that creative writing thrives when it is supported by critical dialogue and theoretical reflection. Offering students a structured opportunity to develop their own critical thinking and creative writing practices simultaneously, this course is framed by an exploration of how modern and contemporary poets have thought about their own art. The questions we encounter through the poetry and prose criticism of others we will also ask of ourselves as writers, namely: How do our underlying theories or intuitions about language, art, culture, and history inform our expectations of and ambitions for the sorts of creative writing that we might pursue? Within such a context, students in the course will develop their own creative and critical writing practices, submit drafts for workshop critique, write annotations in conjunction with the readings, and by the end of the term complete an essay in poetics, which explores their own ideas about poetry and art while locating their creative writing within some of the perspectives of the course. Dist: ART, pending faculty approval. No Course Group. CA tags Creative Writing, Literary Theory and Criticism.
English 60.8, Native American Oral Tradition Literatures, at the 10 hour with Professor Palmer (crosslisted with NAS 34)
Published Native American writing has always incorporated a cross-cultural perspective that mediates among traditions. The novels, short stories, and essays that constitute the Native American contribution to the American literary tradition reveal the literary potential of diverse aesthetic traditions. This course will study representative authors with particular emphasis on contemporary writers. Open to all classes. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. No course group designation. CA tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Multicultural and Colonial/Postcolonial Studies.
English 62.4, Experimental Course in Women's and Gender Studies: Queer Poetries, at the 11 hour with Professor Zeiger (crosslisted with WGST 20)
This course will explore the poetics and politics of queerness in the work of modern and contemporary American poets; we will consider not only explicit dissidence, but also the politics of forms and modes ordinarily seen as "only" aesthetic. Among the readings will be work by HD, Ginsberg, O'Hara, Ashbery, Bishop, Rich, Swenson, Rukeyser, Gunn, Lorde, Broumas, Doty, Hacker, Harjo, Hemphill, Koestenbaum, Mootoo, and Chin, as well as a selection of brief theoretical texts in queer theory. Open to all students. Dist. LIT. WCult: CI. Course Group III. Concentration area tags Genre-poetry, Genders and Sexualities.s
English 65.4, Spenser and the Faerie Queene, at the 10A hour with Professor Halasz
We'll spend most of the term reading Spenser's great epic romance, The Faerie Queene. It's a wonderful poem, deeply engaged with philosophical, poetic, ethical and political issues via compelling stories and fabulous descriptions. Shakespeare, Milton, and Monty Python are on the long list of the poem's keen readers. Experience with sixteenth century literature is not required. Patience and a willingness to read slowly and then read slowly again is required. Spenser's language is deliberately archaic at times, but it is not difficult for modern readers. Students will write three short papers (3-5 pages) and one long essay (open topic), and do one or two short oral presentations. There will not be an exam. Supplementary material will include critical essays and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I. CA tags Genre-Poetry, National Traditions and Countertraditions, Genders and Sexualities.
English 65.2, Plays, Playing, and Playhouses, at the 10 hour with Professor Crewe
Works to be read will be plays by Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries, possibly including Kyd, Marlowe, Anonymous, Marston, Jonson, Cary, Middleton, Webster, and Ford. For once, Shakespeare will not be singled out and treated separately, but read alongside some of his Elizabethan and Jacobean contemporaries. The course will investigate the conditions of performance in the public outdoor and indoor theaters, as well as in informal venues, for which these works were written. More broadly, the course will consider what has been called the theatrical culture of early modern England. Some attention will be given to the acting companies, to the printing and subsequent editing of play scripts, and to the dramatic models and conventions exploited by early modern playwrights. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course group I, CA tags Genre-drama, National Traditions and Countertraditions, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 67.3, African American Fiction Since 1990, at the 12 hour with Professor Favor (crosslisted with AAAS 36)
This course will explore African American prose fiction published since 1990 in an effort to probe the complicated question “What is Black fiction?” We shall also read extensively in African American literary criticism and theory with an eye toward learning how they have shaped the canon of African American literature. We will study novels by Morrison, Charles Johnson, Whitehead, Senna, Octavia Butler and Beatty and examine how they challenge the paradigms of Black literature. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI, pending faculty approval. Course Group III. CA tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Multicultural and Colonial/Postcolonial Studies, Literary Theory and Criticism.
English 67.8, Contemporary Asian American Literature and Culture, at the 10A hour with Professor Bahng
Emphasizing a transnational framework, this course engages contemporary debates in Asian American studies that seek to de-center the U.S. in formulations of "Asian America." As such, we will consider the literary and cultural texts that emerge out of Asian migrations to, from, and between Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America, as well as the United States. Analyzing novels, short fiction, poetry, and films by twentieth-century artists such as Joy Kogawa, Bienvenido Santos, Theresa Hak-Kyung Cha, Karen Tei Yamashita, Andrew Lam, Shani Mootoo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jessica Hagedorn, and Wayne Wang, the course highlights the heterogeneous national origins of Asian migrant groups from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and South Asia. Our examination of these texts will be in dialogue with the historical contexts that inform them, including imperialist projects in Asia and the Americas; periods of exclusion and internment; processes of racial formation; and social movements that coalesce around intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI, pending faculty approval. Course Group III. CA tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Multicultural and Colonial/Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 71.1, Charles Dickens, at the 10A hour with Professor McKee
A close reading of six or seven Dickens’ major novels from historical, formalist, psychoanalytic, and other critical perspectives. The reading will be chosen from among the following texts: Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Tale of Two Cities, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend. Prerequisite: One course either in Victorian Literature (English 36, 37) or in prose fiction (English 32, 38, 42, 53, 54, or 55) or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II, CA tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 72.1, Jews in American Culture and Theory: The New York Intellectuals, at the 2A hour with Professor Milich (crosslisted with JWST 30)
No other group of Jewish critics has been so influential in American literary and cultural politics as the New York Intellectuals, who came to prominence with the foundation of the Partisan Review (1937-2003). While some scholars interpret their political transformation from Marxist criticism to “liberal imagination” as a move from the periphery to the center of cultural critique, others consider this reconciliation with America as a depoliticization. Taking the New York Jewish Intellectuals as a paradigmatic segment of American criticism since the 1930s, this course shall focus on their political debates in the 1940s and 1950s (Marxism, the Rosenberg trials, McCarthyism), their alienation from European high culture after Fascism and Stalinism in the 1950s, their literary and cultural debates about the shift from modernism to postmodernism in the 1960s (the Beat Generation, Pop art, counterculture, the student movement), and finally their political separation since the 1980s. Starting from the assumption of what Russel Jacoby has identified as a Jewish-gentile split among the NYI, special emphasis will be laid on how the political and cultural debates informed notions of Jewish-American identity, particularly in respect to other minority groups such as African Americans. Dist: LIT: WCult: W. Course Group III. CA tags National Traditons and Countertraditons, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture
English 72.2, Virginia Woolf, at the 3A hour (Mondays 3 - 6pm) with Professor Silver
In this course we will read a number of works by Virginia Woolf, including experimental short stories, essays about language and literature, polemical writings, and novels. We will also read essays written in the early 20th century that are associated with the Modernist movement, as well as critical and theoretical essays about Woolf's work. Prerequisites include at least one course on 20th century fiction and, preferably, a course on literary theory. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III. CA tag Genre-narrative.
English 75.1, Alternative Modernities, at the 2 hour with Professor Giri
This course explores the discourse of modernity in its European as well as non-Western, postcolonial, and global contexts. A major part of our conversation will be devoted to examining alternative forms and theories of modernity and literary texts that engage these viewpoints. Theoretical texts to be discussed include selections from Marshall Berman's All That Is Solid Melts into Air, Jurgen Habermas' The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Arjun Appadurai's Modernity at Large and Dilip Gaonkar's Alternative Modernities. Among prose narratives Voltaire's Candide Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, Pico Ayer's Video Nights in Kathmandu, and possibly Amitav Ghosh's The Circle of Reason will be considered. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW, pending faculty approval. CA tags Multicultural and Colonial/ Postcolonial Studies, National Traditions and Countertraditions, Literary Theory and Criticism. Giri.
English 80.1, Creative Writing, at the 2A hour, with Professor Huntington
This course offers a workshop in fiction and poetry. Seminar-sized classes meet twice a week and include individual conferences. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and to first-year students who have completed Writing 5 (or have exemption status). To gain admission to English 80, you must fill out an application, available on-line or in the English Department office, and submit it to the English office no later than the last day of classes of the term preceding the one in which you wish to enroll. Please answer all questions and make sure your name is legible. Be sure to indicate clearly on your application which sections(s) of 80 you are applying for. If you do not indicate which sections work with your schedule, we will place you in whatever section is available. Changing sections after enrollment is highly discouraged and will not be possible except in extenuating circumstances. 80 is the prerequisite to all other Creative Writing courses. Dist: ART.
English 80.2, Creative Writing, at the 10A hour, with Professor Hebert
This course offers a workshop in fiction and poetry. Seminar-sized classes meet twice a week and include individual conferences. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and to first-year students who have completed Writing 5 (or have exemption status). To gain admission to English 80, you must fill out an application, available on-line or in the English Department office, and submit it to the English office no later than the last day of classes of the term preceding the one in which you wish to enroll. Please answer all questions and make sure your name is legible. Be sure to indicate clearly on your application which sections(s) of 80 you are applying for. If you do not indicate which sections work with your schedule, we will place you in whatever section is available. Changing sections after enrollment is highly discouraged and will not be possible except in extenuating circumstances. 80 is the prerequisite to all other Creative Writing courses. Dist: ART.
English 80.3, Creative Writing, at the 10A hour, with Professor Tudish
This course offers a workshop in fiction and poetry. Seminar-sized classes meet twice a week and include individual conferences. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and to first-year students who have completed Writing 5 (or have exemption status). To gain admission to English 80, you must fill out an application, available on-line or in the English Department office, and submit it to the English office no later than the last day of classes of the term preceding the one in which you wish to enroll. Please answer all questions and make sure your name is legible. Be sure to indicate clearly on your application which sections(s) of 80 you are applying for. If you do not indicate which sections work with your schedule, we will place you in whatever section is available. Changing sections after enrollment is highly discouraged and will not be possible except in extenuating circumstances. 80 is the prerequisite to all other Creative Writing courses. Dist: ART.
English 81.1, Intermediate Creative Writing-Poetry, at the 3A hour with Professor Huntington
Continued work in the writing of poetry, focusing on the development of craft, image, and voice, with emphasis on the process of revision. The class proceeds by means of group workshops on student writing, individual conferences with the instructor, and analysis of poems by contemporary writers. Prerequisite: English 80 and permission of the instructor. Please pick up the "How To Apply to English 81, 82 or 83" form from the English Department, also available online, and answer all of the questions asked in a cover letter. Students should submit a five-eight page writing sample of their poetry to the administrative assistant of the English Department by the last day of classes of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll. Dist: ART.
English 82.1, Intermediate Creative Writing-Fiction, at the 2A hour, with Professor Tudish
Continued work in the writing of fiction, focusing on short stories, although students may experiment with the novel. The class proceeds by means of group workshops on student writing, individual conferences with the instructor, and analysis of short stories by contemporary writers. Constant revision is required.
Prerequisite: English 80 and permission of the instructor. Please pick up the "How To Apply to English 81, 82 or 83" form from the English Department and answer all of the questions asked in a cover letter. Students should submit a five-eight page writing sample of their fiction to the administrative assistant of the English Department by the last day of classes of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll. Dist: ART.
