English 10, King James Version of the Bible I, at the 10 hour with Professor Wykes
A study of the preeminent English translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanak, or Old Testament), with special emphasis on its relationship to English literature and on the history of its interpretation. Dist: LIT; WCult: EU for the classes of 2007 and earlier. WCult: W for the classes of 2008 and later. Concentration area tag Genre-narrative.
English 20, Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, at the 11 hour with Professor Otter
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, Concentration area tags Genre-poetry, Genders and Sexualities.
English 24, Shakespeare I, at the 2 hour with Professor Campos
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. Course Group I. CA tag Genre-drama.
English 37, Victorian Literature and Culture, 1860-1901, at the 10 hour with Professor Gerzina
This course examines later nineteenth-century British 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 George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, Algernon Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling. We will also read selections from recent criticism of Victorian culture. Dist: LIT; WCult: EU for the classes of 2007 and earlier. WCult: W for the classes of 2008 and later.
English 41, American Prose, at the 12 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. Class of 2007 and earlier: WCult: NA. Class of 2008 and later: WCult: W. Course Group II. Concentration area tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 48, Contemporary American Fiction, at the 2A hour with Professor Santa Ana
Contemporary American fiction introduces the reader to the unexpected. Instead of conventionally structured stories, stereotypical heroes, traditional value systems, and familiar uses of language, the reader finds new and diverse narrative forms. Such writers as Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Silko, Norman Mailer, Don DeLillo, and Ralph Ellison, among others, have produced a body of important, innovative fiction expressive of a modern American literary sensibility. The course requires intensive class reading of this fiction and varied critical writing on postmodernism. Dist: LIT; WCult: NA. Course Group III. Concentration area tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 49, Modern Black American Literature, at the 2A hour with Professor Vasquez
A study of African American literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, this course will focus on emerging and diverging traditions of writing by African Americans. We shall also investigate the changing forms and contexts of ‘racial representation’ in the United States. Works may include those by Hurston, Hughes, Wright, Ellison, Morrison, Schuyler, West, Murray, Gates, Parks. Dist: LIT; WCult: NA. Course Group III. Concentration area tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Cultural Studies and Popular Studies.
English 60.1, History of the Book, at the 11 hour with Professor Halasz
This course examines the book as a material and cultural object. We’ll consider various practical and theoretical models for understanding the book form and investigating the materials, technologies, institutions, and practices of its production, dissemination, and reception. We’ll focus primarily on the printed book in Western Europe and North America, but we’ll also spend time talking about the emergence of the codex (book), medieval manuscript books, twentieth and twenty-first century artist’s books and the challenges posed by digitality to the book form. The readings for the course will be balanced by frequent use of exemplars drawn from Rauner Library and practical experience in the Book Arts workshop setting type. Dist: LIT, pending faculty approval. Course Group IV. CA tags Literary Criticism and Theory, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture. \
English 67.1, Caribbean Literature, at the 10A hour with Professor Vasquez (cross listed with AAAS 80 and LALACS 66)
This course will examine the work of a variety of Caribbean writers from former British colonies. We will look at several issues that reappear throughout the work of these authors. These concerns include (but are not limited to) notions of exile, the importance of language and music, the articulation of identity in varying post-colonial states, and representations of gender, race and ethnicity. The class will also analyze the socio-political events in particular nations and the ways in which these events influence writing in the archipelago. Furthermore, the course will explore shared cultural practices. For example, we will examine the ways in which a strong tradition of music as protest influences the production of particular poetic forms in Trinidad and Jamaica. The class will move from early twentieth century writers like Claude McKay to the important contributions of later writers such as Kamau Brathwaite, Jamaica Kincaid, George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon, Olive Senior and Derek Walcott. We will examine the more recent innovations in form, as musical elements are introduced by writers such as Mikey Smith and Kwame Dawes. Each week's readings will be supplemented with seminal critical writings including excerpts from the text The Empire Writes Back. Dist: LIT. WCult: for the class of 2007 and earlier NW. WCult: for the class of 2008 and later CI. Course Group III. Concentration area tags Multicultural and Colonial/Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture. Pending faculty approval.
English 67.2, Culture and Society in Modern Scottish Fiction, at the 2A hour with Professor Hook
The course will cover the period from the early 20th century to the present day. It will focus on Scotland’s historically complex national and cultural identity, and consider such themes as religion and morality, class and gender, industrialization, and rural and urban life in the Scottish Highland and Lowlands. The Irish contribution to modern literature has been universally acknowledged. The modern Scottish literary tradition now merits equally close attention. Dist: LIT. WCult: EU for the classes of 2007 and earlier. WCult: W for the classes of 2008 and later. Pending faculty approval. Course Group III. Concentration area tags Genre-narrative, National Traditions and Countertraditions, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 72.1, The Poetry of Wallace Stevens, at the 3A hour with Professor Renza
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. Concentration area tag Genre-poetry.
English 72.2, The Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, at the 11 hour with Professor Zeiger
An orphan, a female poet, a lesbian, a long-term expatriate in Brazil, Elizabeth Bishop is nowhere definitively at home; for a long time, literary criticism had trouble accommodating her as well. Recently, queer, feminist, and postcolonial analyses have provided a new critical context for this elusive poet; we will read widely in this work, while focusing on Bishop's poems, drafts, and letters. We will also consider her relationships with contemporaries like Moore and Lowell. . Dist: LIT; WCult: NA. Course Group III. CA tags Genre-poetry, Genders and Sexualities
English 80.2, Creative Writing, at the 10A hour with Professor O'Malley
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 or can be downloaded from the English Department website. Dist: ART.
English 83.1, Creative Writing, Literary Non-Fiction, at the 2A hour with Professor Huntington
This course offers students training in the writing of literary nonfiction. The class proceeds by means of group workshops on student writing, individual conferences with the instructor, and analysis of work by contemporary writers
English 85.1, Senior Workshop in Poetry and Prose Fiction, at the 3A hour with Professor Huntington
This course is to be taken by Creative Writing majors in the fall of their senior year. Each student will undertake a manuscript of poems, short fiction, or literary non-fiction. While all Creative Writing majors are guaranteed a spot in English 85, they must nonetheless submit a five-to-eight page writing sample to the administrative assistant of the English Department by May 15 of the spring term preceding their senior year. Please also pick up the "How To Apply To English 85" form from the English Department and answer all of the questions asked in a cover letter. Prerequisite: English 80 and 81, 82, or 83. Students who are not Creative Writing majors may be admitted by permission of the Creative Writing staff. Dist: ART.
English 85.2, Senior Workshop in Poetry and Prose Fiction, at the 3A hour, Professor O'Malley
This course is to be taken by Creative Writing majors in the fall of their senior year. Each student will undertake a manuscript of poems, short fiction, or literary non-fiction. While all Creative Writing majors are guaranteed a spot in English 85, they must nonetheless submit a five-to-eight page writing sample to the administrative assistant of the English Department by May 15 of the spring term preceding their senior year. Please also pick up the "How To Apply To English 85" form from the English Department and answer all of the questions asked in a cover letter. Prerequisite: English 80 and 81, 82, or 83. Students who are not Creative Writing majors may be admitted by permission of the Creative Writing staff. Dist: ART.
English 85.3, Senior Workshop in Poetry and Prose Fiction, at the 2A hour, Professor Tudish
This course is to be taken by Creative Writing majors in the fall of their senior year. Each student will undertake a manuscript of poems, short fiction, or literary non-fiction. While all Creative Writing majors are guaranteed a spot in English 85, they must nonetheless submit a five-to-eight page writing sample to the administrative assistant of the English Department by May 15 of the spring term preceding their senior year. Please also pick up the "How To Apply To English 85" form from the English Department and answer all of the questions asked in a cover letter. Prerequisite: English 80 and 81, 82, or 83. Students who are not Creative Writing majors may be admitted by permission of the Creative Writing staff. Dist: ART.
