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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
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