| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| ENGLISH 6 | LAUGHING MATTERS | HELFER, R. | Laughing Matters will examine how Shakespeare\'s comedies proceed serio ludens: they are very seriously funny. Our course will focus on Shakespeare\'s manipulations of the comic genre -- in which everyone left standing on the stage usually gets married -- and how such happy endings reflect ambiguous resolutions. Among the issues to be considered are \'merry\' battles of the sexes, mockeries of class warfare, and comic constructions of the \'other\' (not \'us\', in other words). We will read approximately 6-7 plays, write two essays, occasionally have quizzes, and then take a final exam. The plays that I hope to cover are The Comedy of Errors, Love\'s Labour\'s Lost, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, and All\'s Well That Ends Well. |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | In these sections of the E28 series described above, we will focus on poetry and its conventions. Course work will entail three papers, including one revision, and a final. |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28A | POETIC IMAGINATION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28C | REALISM & ROMANCE | STAFF | In these sections of the E28 series described above, we will focus predominantly but not exclusively on the narrative use of “realism” and “romance,” understood in a dialectical relation to each other. Course work will entail three papers, including one revision, and a final. |
| ENGLISH 28C | REALISM & ROMANCE | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28C | REALISM & ROMANCE | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28D | CRAFT OF POETRY | STAFF | This course treats roughly the same material as E28A, but was conceived with future writers in mind. It stresses the art of writing a bit more, and may offer opportunities for creative writing. E28D and E28A may not both be taken for credit. See department for additional information. |
| ENGLISH 102A | OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE TRANSLATION | GEORGIANNA, L.M. | \"Wondrous is this wall-stone, though wasted by fate.\"
This description of the Roman ruins at Bath, from an Old English poem composed sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, could well serve as a description of most Old English literature. England produced during this early period the largest body of vernacular literature in the West, and an extensive body of Latin literature as well, in genres ranging from epic and heroic history to love lyric, elegy, and religious poetry. The poetry is especially gorgeous--haunting in its evocation of the fragility of life and the monstrous forces arrayed against it. With the Norman Conquest (1066) and the sudden shift to French as the dominant language of court culture, Old English literature sank into oblivion until it was resurrected in the nineteenth century and put to use in the developing ideology of the English empire. Nowadays, though not many people read Beowulf or The Seafarer, images and ideas from these works are deeply embedded in modern English literature and in ideas of \"Englishness\" itself. In this course, we will study the forms and the fate of Old English literature, from Beowulf and Grendel to the earliest history of England\'s kings, the Venerable Bede\'s Ecclesiastical History. |
| ENGLISH 102B | RESTORATION LITERATURE | PFEIFFER, D. | Decorum and Transgression: This course aims to familiarize students with the literature of the English Restoration (1660-1700), a period given to political, social, and literary extremes. While some writers observed elaborate decorums and fashioned careful relationships to convention, others explored new literary modes and welcomed impropriety. Our primary concern will be with works self-consciously attuned to the interplay of tradition and innovation. To contextualize these works, we will look to various aspects of contemporary history, including the restoration of the monarchy, the \"glorious\" revolution, the emergence of rights-based political thought, the contribution of print to the development of a public sphere, and the advance of scientific writing. Texts by Dryden, Rochester, Behn, Milton, Wycherley, Buckingham, Cowley, Bunyan, and Pepys. |
| ENGLISH 102C | SENTIMENTALISM, GOTHICISM, AND ROMANTICISM | HENDERSON, A.K. | In this course we will examine some key topics in eighteenth- and
early-nineteenth-century art: sentimentalism, gothicism, and
Romanticism. We will discuss not only various literary genres--poetry, the novel, the essay--but also other arts, particularly painting and architecture. Our goal will be to understand how social issues of the day, especially the French Revolutionary ideology of \"liberty, equality, fraternity,\" influenced both the subject matter and the form of English art in this period. Readings will include _A Sentimental Journey_, _ Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, _Frankenstein_, and poems by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Byron. |
| ENGLISH 102D | U.S. LITERATURE 1944-45 | THOMAS, B. | The ten years after the end of World War II saw numerous important changes in the US. Plunging into the Cold War almost immediately after victory in World War II, the US emerged as the major power in a newly aligned world. Hope for new possibilities of life was mixed with fears of the destructive power of the atomic bomb, perceived threats by the Soviet Union and Communism, and the reality of a racially segregated society at home. This is the period in which television entered mainstream life and the journal SPORTS ILLUSTRATED was founded. It is also the period in which two of the very best novels of the 20th century and perhaps the most famous play in US history were written. We will read HIROSHIMA, three plays by Arthur Miller--\"All My Sons,\" \"Death of a Salesman,\" and \"The Crucible\"--AMERICA IS IN THE HEART, ALL THE KING\'S MEN, and INVISIBLE MAN. |
| ENGLISH 103 | RENAISSANCE TRAGEDY | HELFER, R. | Lust, violence, treachery, madness, ambition, and fortune – this is the heady stuff of which early modern tragedies were made. Renaissance Tragedy will consider this genre from a variety of literary, cultural, and historical perspectives, examining the tension between humans and forces exterior to them that together produce tragic situations. Reading tragedies by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, we will tackle some bloody revenge tragedies such as Titus Andronicus, The Revenger\'s Tragedy, and The Spanish Tragedy, as well as complex psycho-social tragedies such as Hamlet, King Lear, The Duchess of Malfi, and \'Tis Pity She\'s a Whore, while paying attention to classical and medieval precedents. During this course, you\'ll read approximately 6-7 plays, write two essays, take occassional quizzes, write a final exam, and, hopefully, watch a movie. |
| ENGLISH 103 | COLONIALISM & THE RISE OF MODERN AFRICAN LITERATURE | NGUGI, W.T. | COLONIALISM AND THE RISE OF MODERN AFRICAN LITERATURE
Colonialism and the colonial experience have profoundly affected intellectual production in the world. With the theme of colonialism as the unifying principle, the course explores and compares the work of a number of African writers. Though based on the African literary production, the issues raised are relevant to all post-colonial societi |
| ENGLISH 103 | CAMPAIGN FEVER!: COVERING POLITICAL ELECTIONS, 1960-2000 | SZALAY, M.F. | This course will read some of the classics of twentieth-century
journalism: accounts of the circus-like process that defines the modern political campaign. Our authors will include Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, Joe McGinnis, and Michael Lewis. Students will learn about important campaigns in recent American history and study the specific strategies and political perspectives that particular journalists brought to them. Requirements will include two short exams, and one final paper. |
| ENGLISH 105 | LATINO LITERATURE | LAZO, R. | The politics of nationhood both in the United States and other countries in the Americas is one of the major concerns in writings by Latinos and Latinas. Cristina Garcia\'s novel THE AGUERO SISTERS, for example, focuses not only on the Cuban Revolution but also on the experiences of being Cuban American in the United States. In this course, we will examine a range of writings that take up issues of U.S. national definition (immigration, racial discrimination, citizenship) while engaging with the social and political contexts of other countries. We will consider how national affiliation and transnational experiences emerge as points of divergence and commonality in writings by Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and other Latina
writers. Requirements include midterm, final, group project, and a 5-page paper. |
| ENGLISH 106 | GHOST STORIES | LEWIS, J. | What is a ghost? Why do so many of them--from Hamlet’s father to Wuthering Heights’s Catherine Earnshaw--haunt the passages of literature written in English? For that matter, what does it mean for someone (a person) or something (a house, a book) to be haunted? In this seminar, we’ll be raising all these questions, and many more. Are ghosts merely the shape we give to our anxieties? How have those shapes changed over time, or have they? How are folkloric, oral ghost traditions different from their literary counterparts? Are women haunted by different ghosts from the ones that haunt men? Why are guilt and justice so central to the idea and experience of ghosts? Why does belief in them seem to have declined, or has it? What’s the difference between an English ghost and an American (or Irish or Chinese or Mexican) one? How are literary works, and even the English language itself, shaped by a past they cannot shake off? Why do ghosts wear clothes? Some sorrowful, some spine-tingling, all uncanny, the ghost stories we’ll be reading in this seminar will yield new insight not just into the literature and lore of the supernatural but also into the uncertainty of the lines we draw between the real and the unreal, the inside and the outside, the individual and the community, the present and the past. We’ll start with some very early ghost stories written in the highly rational age of the enlightenment and end with recent cinema (The Others), in between encountering a wide array of haunted pages composed in both the English and the American literary traditions. Texts include: The Castle of Otranto, The Turn of the Screw, The Haunting of Hill House, Beloved, and classic stories by Daniel Defoe, J.S. LeFanu, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, and Edith Wharton. Participants will be writing two short interpretive papers (5 to 7 pages) on texts of their choice, keeping a journal of their reading to be submitted at the end of the quarter, collaborating on a final project to be presented to the group, and contributing questions about the day’s reading to individual class meetings. Come prepared to be scared. . .and to talk about it!!! |
| ENGLISH 106 | KEATS | ROBERTS, H.J. | This course offers an in-depth study of the poems and letters of John Keats (1795-1821), one of the greatest lyric poets in the English language. In addition to detailed study of his major works, we will explore his (all too brief) life, and the social, political, and literary contexts that shaped his writing.
Texts:
John Keats, Complete Poems (Jack Stillinger, ed.) Harvard UP, 1982. John Keats, Letters of John Keats: A Selection (Robert Gittings, ed.) Oxford UP, 1970.
Coursework: Students will sit a midterm and produce either a 10-15 page final paper, or two 4-5 page papers. In addition, all students will be required to participate actively in class discussion. The final grade will be calculated as follows: 20% class participation, 20% midterm, and 60% paper(s). |
| ENGLISH 106 | FALL OF TROY | GEORGIANNA, L.M. | The reception and transformation of the legendary story of Troy\'s\' fall dramatically highlights changing attitudes toward history, war, ethics, truth, love and death. In this class we will study the legend of Troy as it operates in four major texts from different periods: Homer\'s Iliad and Virgil\'s Aeneid, two foundational classical works in the Troy tradition, and two major English works that draw from and respond to the classical Troy legend, Chaucer\'s Troilus and Criseyde, and Shakespeare\'s Troilus and Cressida. Students will write brief essays on Homer and Virgil as well as a longer comparative essay on Chaucer and Shakespeare. The class is a
seminar; frequent participation is required, either in the seminars or
privately, via email or in office hours. Requirements: 3 papers, occasional quizzes, and final exam. |
| ENGLISH 106 | MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCE | ALLEN, E.G. | Romance narratives open up worlds of magic and adventure, and thus explore new social and moral ideas. This course will explore the stories of romance heroes from Arthur and his knights to Robin Hood, and from Queen Guinevere to the Lady of Astolat. We will explore political ideas like the function of leadership and the value of loyalty both in the Round Table and in other political circumstances. We will also pay special attention to the way gender shapes the Otherworld—and to the way the Otherworld thus comments upon and reconfigures gender expectations. The readings in the class will be in Middle English, but no previous knowledge of Middle English is assumed. Romances will include Gamelyn, the Death of Arthur, Malory, and others. There will be two papers, one short and one long, with an annotated bibliography and assorted smaller written assignments. |
| ENGLISH 210 | AMERICAN LIT | LATIOLAIS, P.M. | |
| ENGLISH 210 | 18TH C AUTOBIO&NVEL | FOLKENFLIK, R. | |
| ENGLISH 210 | MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCE | ALLEN, E.G. | |
| ENGLISH 210 | RHETORIC OF SCIENCE | KROLL, R.W. | |
| ENGLISH 215 | PROSPECTUS WORKSHOP | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 230 | SHAKESPEARE | LUPTON, J.R. | |
| ENGLISH 230 | KEATS | ROBERTS, H.J. | |
| ENGLISH 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | CHRISTENSEN, J.C. | |
| ENGLISH 398 | RHET/TCHNG OF COMP | HOLLOWELL, J.W. | |