English 8: The American Short Story in the 20th Century, Professor Wykes at the 12 hour
“American letters may still lack a novelist whose life work matches in weight the achievement of Dickens or Tolstoy, but our 20th century masters of the short story bow to no one for stylistic elegance or emotional penetration.”---Reynolds Price We will study the work of writers whose achievement has been mainly--if arguably--in the form of the short story. Authors may include: Anderson, Thurber, Hemingway, O’Hara, Welty, Salinger, O’Connor, Bertheleme, and Carver. If submissions justify it, we will spend the last two weeks reading short stories by participants in the course. Not for English major credit. Graded Credit/No Credit.
English 15: Introduction to Literary Theory, Professor Boggs at the 12 hour
The course will introduce students to some of the leading texts, concepts, and practices of what has come to be known as theoretical criticism. Topics to be considered may include some of the following: structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminism, new historicism, post-colonialism, post-modernism, queer theory, and cultural studies. Attention will also be given to historical and institutional contexts of this criticism. Intended to provide a basic, historically informed, knowledge of theoretical terms and practices, this course should enable students to read contemporary criticism with understanding and attempt theoretically informed criticism themselves. Dist: LIT. Course Group IV
English 24: Shakespeare I, Professor Crewe at the 10 hour
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 Writing 5 exemption status. Dist: LIT; WCult: EU. Course Group I, CA tag Genre-Drama.
English 50: American and British Poetry Since 1914, Professor Zeiger at the 11 hour
A survey of modern American and British poetry since the First World War, with particular emphasis on the aesthetics, philosophy and politics of modernism. The course covers such canonical and non-canonical poets as Yeats, Pound, HD, Lawrence, Eliot, Stevens, Frost, Williams, Crane, Moore, Millay, Auden, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Beats. Dist: LIT; WCult: EU or NA. Course Group III, CA tags Genre-Poetry, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 53: 20th Century British Fiction: 1900 to World War II, Professor Silver at the 10A hour
A study of major authors, texts, and literary movements, with an emphasis on literary modernism and its cultural contexts. We will read works by Conrad, Forster, Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Rhys, and Beckett, as well as writers such as Kipling, Ford, West, Waugh, Bowen, and Lowry. Dist: LIT; WCult: EU. A study of major authors, texts, and literary movements, with an emphasis on literary modernism and its cultural contexts. We will read works by Conrad, Forster, Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Rhys, and Beckett, as well as writers such as Kipling, Ford, West, Waugh, Bowen, and Lowry. Dist: LIT; WCult: EU. Course Group III. CA tags Genre-Narrative, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 62.1: Odi et Amo: Men, Women, and the Love Lyric in English, Professor Zeiger at the 12 hour
What we call “love poetry” has generally been a way of expressing much more than the emotional and erotic fascination of one person with another. Often it seems to bypass the love-object altogether, and has on different occasions been: a careerist display for beginning poets, an allegory of the poet’s fusion with the spirit of poetry, a congratulation upon one’s own taste and discernment, a place to consolidate political power, a way of bonding with other men, a feminist response to existing power relations. Beginning with several Renaissance and contemporary sonnet sequences, a moving on to a variety of other forms, our course will place poems by men and women in the context of an ongoing poetic tradition and of recent feminist criticism and theory. Course Group III. CA tags Genre-Poetry, Genders and Sexualities.
English 66.l: Whitman and Dickinson, Professor Boggs at the 2 hour
Although virtually unknown in their lifetimes, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson today attract a wide readership and extensive scholarly interest. Whitman would have been gratified by this kind of attention, Dickinson horrified. Whitman aggressively tried to promote his works, and even published – favorable -- reviews of his own writing. Although Dickinson made an early attempt to publish her poetry, she horded her poems in a dresser-drawer where they were found after her death. As an urban poet, preoccupied with the rise of commercial society and scientific progress, Whitman experimented with ways to represent the national paradox – the e pluribus unum by which the many could become one and the one contain multitudes. Choosing domestic seclusion, Dickinson experimented with lyric as a means of extreme individualism. Straining against the formal conventions of their time, when poets were expected to write in metered and rhyming verse, Whitman and Dickinson shared a fierce willingness to experiment with form, and keen critical insights into the role that gender, race, religion, science, commerce and the arts played in American society. In this course, we will develop three ways of understanding Whitman and Dickinson. We will examine their poetry in its historical context, and ask how they responded to the challenges of representing America in poetry. Second, we will study the literary devices at their disposal, focusing on the way form influences the meanings they construct and deconstruct in their poetry. Third, we will discuss the persona that emerges in the poetic enterprise of each poet. We will divide our time evenly between the poets, and study each in their own right as well as in comparison with the other. Course Group II. CA tags Genre-Poetry, Genders and Sexualities, National Traditions and Countertraditions.
English 67.1: Dylan, Professor Renza at the 10A hour
In this course, we will do close, critical readings of certain Dylan lyrics spanning his entire career, also taking into consideration their social, historical, and biographical circumstances. Oral reports as well as a long final paper will be required. Note: some attention will be given to the performance aspect of Dylan's songs, but we will not listen to them in class. All of the songs assigned and discussed will be available for your listening in the Paddock Music Library beforehand. Dist: LIT; WCult: NA. In this course, we will do close, critical readings of certain Dylan lyrics spanning his entire career, also taking into consideration their social, historical, and biographical circumstances. Oral reports as well as a long final paper will be required. Note: some attention will be given to the performance aspect of Dylan's songs, but we will not listen to them in class. All of the songs assigned and discussed will be available for your listening in the Paddock Music Library beforehand. Dist: LIT; WCult: NA. Course Group III. CA tags Genre-Poetry, Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 67.2: The Edges of Nation Making: Perspectives on Modern Indian Literatures, Professor Hariharan at the 11 hour
The focus is on a range of texts (post-1947) to be read not only as samples of modern Indian literatures but also as part of – or on the edge of -- some of the major social/ cultural debates in India in recent times. These include coming to terms with partition, borders, public and private identities; socio-political issues taken up within the mainstream; voices of resistance to mainstream ideas of the nation/ society/ literature; and views of India as written by “insiders” and “outsiders” – these terms being applicable at different levels to both Indians and non-Indians. Together, these strands make up the central concern with “nation-making”. Course Group III. CA tags National Traditions and Countertraditions, Multicultural and Colonial and Postcolonial Studies.
English 67.3: From Cyberspace to MySpace: Studies in Cyberculture, Professor Silver at the 2A hour
When William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, he introduced a realm that not only captured the popular imagination, but influenced the development of the Internet and the Web. This course will use a wide range of print and electronic texts to explore the ways in which cyberspace as a cultural phenomenon has been experienced and imagined. Texts will include cyberpunk fiction and films (Neuromancer; Blade Runner; perhaps Snow Crash or The Empire of the Senseless or The Matrix); electronic literature; computer games; and the expanding world of blogs and social networks that constitutes the Living Web. Topics we will consider: What happens to the concept of space in these sites and how is it represented? What happens to genres, narrative, identity, the body when translated into the digital world? What is the cultural role of the cyborg? Where do cyberspace and cyberpunk intersect with theories of the postmodern? And, what did Wired magazine mean when it declared in February that "'Cyberspace' is Dead"? Course Group III. CA tag Cultural Studies and Popular Culture.
English 80: Creative Writing, Professor Hebert, M/W 7 to 8:50pm
This course offers a workshop in fiction and poetry. Seminar-sized classes meet twice a week plus individual conferences. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and to first-year students who have completed their seminar. Students will be admitted on a competitive basis. Please pick up the “How To Apply To English 80” 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 poetry and/or 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. English 80 is the prerequisite to all other Creative Writing courses. It does not carry major or minor credit. Starting with Academic Year 2001-2002, this class will be graded. Dist: ART.
English 82: Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction, Professor Hebert, Tu/Th 7 to 8:50pm
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
