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English 17: Introduction to New Media, Professor Evens at the 2A
hour
This course introduces the basic ideas, questions, and objects of new media
studies, offering accounts of the history, philosophy, and aesthetics of new
media, the operation of digital technologies, and the cultural repercussions of
new media. A primary emphasis on academic texts will be supplemented by
fiction, films, music, journalism, computer games, and digital artworks. Class
proceeds by group discussion, debate, student presentations, and peer critique.
Typical readings include Alan Turing, Friedrich Kittler, Ray Kurzweil, and
Henry Jenkins, plus films such as Blade Runner and eXistenZ. Dist: ART. Course
Group III. CA tags Cultural Studies and Popular Culture, Literary Theory and
Criticism.
English 18: History of the English Language, Professor Pulju at the
10 hour (cross-listed with Linguistics 18)
The development of English as a spoken and written language as a member of
the Indo-European language-family, from Old English (Beowulf), Middle English
(Chaucer), and Early Modern English (Shakespeare), to contemporary American
English. Emphasis will be given to the linguistic and cultural reasons for
‘language change,’ to the literary possibilities of the language, and to the
political significance of class and race. Dist: LIT.
English 20: Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, Professor Edmondson
at the 10 hour
An introduction to Chaucer, concentrating on ten of the Canterbury Tales,
and studying him as a social critic and literary artist. Special attention will
be paid to Chaucer’s language, the sounds of Middle English, and the
implications of verse written for the ear. Dist: LIT. Class of 2007 and
earlier: WCult: EU. Class of 2008 and later: WCult: W. Course Group I, CA tags
Genre-poetry, Genre-narrative..
English 30: Age of Satire (formerly Order and Disorder in British
Neoclassicism), Professor Cosgrove at the 10 hour
English literature from 1660 to 1789 is concerned with the problems of
regulation and excess. The return to a traditional stability promised by the
neoclassical aesthetic veils a threat from new dynamics in art and politics.
The role of the imagination in life and art, ideals of political liberty, the
emergence of women’s writing, all contribute to the underlying tensions.
Readings will be chosen from among John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe,
Alexander Pope, Mary Astell, Anne Finch, Frances Burney, Oliver Goldsmith,
Samuel Johnson, William Cowper and George Crabbe. Dist: LIT. Dist:
LIT. Class of 2007 and earlier: WCult: EU. Class of 2008 and later: WCult: W.
Course Group II, CA tag National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 36: Victorian Literature and Culture,1837-1859, Professor
McCann at the 11 hour
This course examines early Victorian poetry, prose and fiction in the
context of cultural practices and social institutions of the time. We will
locate cultural concerns among, for example, those of capitalism, political
reform, scientific knowledge, nation and empire. And we will consider revisions
of space, time, gender, sexuality, class, and public and private life that
characterized formations of British identity during this period. Texts may
include work by Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Charlotte Bronte, John Ruskin, Charles Darwin. We will also read selections
from recent criticism of Victorian culture. Dist: LIT. Class of 2007 and
earlier: WCult: EU. Class of 2008 and later: WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tag
Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 40: American Poetry, Professor Schweitzer at the 2A
hour
This course concentrates on the three major American poets writing in
English before 1900: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Herman Melville. The
work of these three will preoccupy the readings, lectures, discussions, and
examinations for the course. For their two required papers, however, students
will choose poems by any two other Anglo-American writers of the period for
close investigation. Dist: LIT. Dist: LIT. Class of 2007 and earlier:
WCult: NA. Class of 2008 and later: WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tags
Genre-poetry, National Traditions and Countertraditions
English 41: American Prose, Professor Renza at the 11
hour
Readings of nonfiction narratives by such American writers as Franklin,
Emerson, Thoreau, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac.
Dist: LIT. Class of 2007 and earlier: WCult: NA. Class of 2008 and later:
WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and
Countertraditions.
English 43: Early Black American Literature, Professor
Chaney at the 10A hour (cross-listed with AAAS 34)
A study of the foundations of Black American literature and thought, from
the colonial period through the era of Booker T. Washington. The course will
concentrate on the way in which developing Afro-American literature met the
challenges posed successively by slavery, abolition, emancipation, and the
struggle to determine directions for the twentieth century. Selections will
include: Wheatley, Life and Works; Brown, Clotel; Douglass, Narrative;
Washington, Up from Slavery; DuBois, Souls of Black Folk; Dunbar, Sport of the
Gods; Chestnut, House Behind the Cedars; Harriet Wilson, Our Nig; Johnson, The
Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man; and poems by F. W. Harper, Paul L. Dunbar
and Ann Spencer. Dist: LIT. Class of 2007 and earlier: WCult: NA. Class of 2008
and later: WCult: W. Course Group II. CA tags National Traditions and
Countertraditions, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 60.1 Experimental Novels and Their Adaptations, Professor
Gerzina, at the 2A hour
The course looks at books in which language is central, all but one of them
written in the twentieth century. In what ways are their authors playing with
words to create new meaning, and to explore historical, societal and
psychological experiences? Each of the books in the course has been adapted to
film, and we will also explore the ways that the second medium attempts to deal
with the intricacies posed by experimental language and form, and to translate
the verbal experience into the visual. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Film: 2 versions of Alice in
Wonderland Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway Film: The Hours Anthony Burgess, A
Clockwork Orange Film: A Clockwork Orange Toni Morrison, Beloved Film: Beloved
Roddy Doyle, The Commitments Film: The Commitments. Dist: LIT, pending
faculty approval. Course Group IV, CA tags Literary Theory and Criticism,
Cultural Studies and Popular Culture
English 65: Spenser and the Faerie Queene, Professor
Halasz, at the 11 hour
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. Course Group I. CA tags,
Genre-Poetry, National Traditions and Countertradtions.
English 67.4: American Fiction in the 1920s, Professor Hook at the
2A hour
In the history of nineteenth-century American literature, the decade of the
1850s has become generally recognized as the age's high point in terms of
imaginative creativity. In the case of twentieth-century American writing it is
the decade of the 1920s that has acquired parallel status. Jazz Age America saw
the emergence of a brilliant group of precocious young novelists -- including
Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner-- who moved American
fiction in new directions both in terms of form and subject-matter. American
poetry, through the work of such figures as Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost,
shared in the exhilarating creativity of this postwar decade. But just as the
social history of the period reflects a tension between new freedoms and old
restraints so its art struggled to balance the loss of old values with the
creation of new ones. In the 1930s in Tender Is The Night, Scott Ftzgerald
would write of the crucial, bloody battle-fields in France of World War I: 'All
my beautiful lovely safe world blew itself up here with a great gust of high
explosive love.' The course will consider how the writers of the 1920s
confronted such a problematic inheritance. Dist: LIT; WCult: NA. Course
Group III. CA tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and
Countertraditions.
English 67.5: Black Women Writers, Professor Vasquez at the 2A hour
(cross-listed with AAAS 86)
In this course we will examine
significant literary contributions of twentieth century Black women writers.
While we will explore the social and historical contexts that inform the work
of authors from a variety of nation states, we will also examine moments of
continuity within a Black diasporic community. For example, our discussions
will include analyses of the ways in which Western and non-Western influences
are reflected in protagonists’ use of language, their negotiation of different
locales and in their construction of female communities. To this end, we will
consider primary sources as well as critical responses to the poetry, plays,
essays and novels of a variety of writers. Authors may include Ama Ata
Aidoo, Louise Bennett, Maryse Condé, Edwidge Dandicat, Zora Neale Hurston,
Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. Dist: LIT,
pending faculty approval. Course Group III, CA tags National Traditions
and Countertraditions.
English 70: Love, Gender and Marriage in Shakespeare: Professor
Boose at the 2A hour (cross-listed with WGST 48.3)
In Shakespeare, issues so seemingly "domestic" as love, sexuality
and family are problems of such colossal significance that they could be said
to constitute the focal center of the canon itself. Hamlet and King Lear, for
instance, are plays more truly "about" the politics of family than
they are about the politics of kingdom. Focusing on 7 particular plays, this
course will interrogate the knotty issues of love, sexuality, and family. As
part of the course, students will be required to participate in at least one
scene production. Dist: LIT, pending faculty approval. Course Group
I. CA tags Genre-drama, Genders and Sexualities.
English 72.1: The Poetry of Wallace Stevens, Professor Renza at the
10A hour
The course will mostly consist of reading and discussing Stevens' collected
poems and some prose. We will also read critical interpretations of his works.
Students will give oral class reports and write two essays on approved topics.
Dist: LIT. Class of 2007 and earlier: WCult: NA. Class of 2008 and later:
WCult: W. Course Group III. CA tag Genre-poetry.
English 80.1: Creative Writing, Professor Mathis at the 10A
hour
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). Students who wish to enroll in 80 must submit their
applications to the administrative assistant in the English Office by the last
day of the term preceding the term for which they wish to enroll. Students do
not submit work for entry into the course. A brief application form is
available in the English Office. English 80 is the prerequisite to all
other Creative Writing courses. Dist: ART.
English 80.2: Creative Writing, Professor Huntington at the 2A
hour
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). Students who wish to enroll in 80 must submit their
applications to the administrative assistant in the English Office by the last
day of the term preceding the term for which they wish to enroll. Students do
not submit work for entry into the course. A brief application form is
available in the English Office. English 80 is the prerequisite to all
other Creative Writing courses. Dist: ART.
English 85.1: Senior Workshop in Creative Writing, Professor Mathis
at the 2A hour
English 85.2: Senior Workshop in Creative Writing, Professor Tudish
at the 10A hour
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