| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
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| ENGLISH 6 | BRIT LIT TO RENAISS | KROLL, R. | In this course we will read some of Shakespeare’s best plays, ranging from comedy to tragedy to history to romance, including most of his magnum opus, the series of four plays extending from Richard II, through the two plays about Henry IV, and culminating in Henry V. Much rubbish is talked about Shakespeare the universal genius and so forth, because the greatness of Shakespeare follows from understanding how imaginatively he dealt with the world he inhabited—specifically the end of the Tudor period under Elizabeth I, and the beginning of the Stuart period under James I. We will read his plays as responses to three contexts: the limitations of the open stage which did not appreciatively involve scenery or blocking, though The Tempest is something new because performed in the indoor Blackfriars playhouse; the fact that Shakespeare is writing in the wake of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais, which, largely in response to the religious and political crises of the 16th century, argued that humans only had very limited access to truth; and the fact that all of Shakespeare’s plays are governed by the constitutional uncertainties associated first with having a female monarch with no heirs, and then a foreign king (a Scot) who had increasing difficulties with forms of parliamentary advice. Grades will depend on attendance and participation, on quizzes, and especially on your essays. |
| ENGLISH 28B | COMIC&TRAGIC VISION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28C | REALISM & ROMANCE | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 28E | CRAFT OF FICTION | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 102A | IDEAS OF RENAISANCE | HELFER, R. | This course surveys notions of what renaissance, or rebirth, means in the writing of early modern England. Reading from a variety of authors and genres (poetry, drama, prose – fiction and non-fiction), we will consider how ‘The Past’ is re-written for ‘The Present’ in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britannia. |
| ENGLISH 102B | ANATOMIES OF POWER | LEWIS, J.E. | “I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” These words, from Thomas Hobbes’s philosophical treatise, Leviathan (1651), haunted English literature from the late seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth. In this period, dramatic social and political change forced a re-examination of traditional assumptions about what power is, where it is located (in inherited and communal forms or in individual desire?), and how it is most effectively exerted (through coercion or seduction?). And imaginative literature–poems, novels, and plays alike–played a crucial role in ‘anatomizing’ these assumptions: in breaking them down, analyzing their dynamics, and exploring their implications for real human bodies. We’ll start with a look at Hobbes’s theory of human nature as a quest for power and go on to examine works as various as Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, Wycherley’s The Country Wife, Rochester’s libertine poetry, and Behn’s romance of the slave trade, Oroonoko. These late seventeenth-century texts were all written against a background of radical anxiety about the nature and extent of authority itself; in the second half of the course, we’ll turn to eighteenth-century attempts to regulate power through indirect social analysis (the satires of Pope and Swift) and through the attempted legislation of the English language (Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language). Our survey will end with a quick look at the emergence of new conceptions of power in the wake of the French Revolution, comparing Mary Wollstonecraft and the young Wordsworth as radical respondents to the legacies of the preceding 130 years. Required work: midterm, final, one paper, one recitation or creative option for extra credit. |
| ENGLISH 102C | ROMANTIC REVOLUTION | ROBERTS, H. | This course provides an introduction to the literature of a complex and fascinating period in British social and literary history. Most of the works we will read were written while Britain was waging a counterrevolutionary war with France in the wake of the French Revolution (which began in 1789). During this period of intense political struggle and debate, a new and profoundly influential literary movement--Romanticism--began to emerge throughout Europe. We will explore both the continuities and the differences between the late Eighteenth Century literature of "sensibility" and the emergent literature of Romanticism. At the same time, we will read a number of contemporary political and philosophical documents which will allow us to relate the changing aims and concerns of the poetry we are reading to the turbulent political events of the period.
Required Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 A: The Romantic Period; Occasional handouts and web documents.
Coursework: Students must complete one Midterm Examination, a 4-5 page paper, and a final examination. In addition, each student must post two discussion papers to the class listserv. |
| ENGLISH 102D | IRISH MODERNISM | O'CONNOR, L. | This course introduces students to some classics of twentieth-century drama, fiction, and poetry by Irish writers. We’ll read works by Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, and others in an Irish context with special attention to language issues as we examine how these writers undertook to create an other-than-English literature in English. |
| ENGLISH 103 | POET IN THE CITY | BURT, E. | A study of (mainly) 19th century discussions of the poet and the city. The guiding question will be the role of poetry and the poet in the politicized space of the city. Within the context of that question we will consider themes like work, alienation, the commodity, the spectacle, the city as archive and space of chance. Texts will be chosen from among the following: Plato, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Wordsworth, De Quincey, Poe, Rimbaud.
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| ENGLISH 103 | LATE VCTRIAN POETRY | KROLL, A. | This course will focus on Victorian poetry after 1859 (the date of publication for the first few books of Tennyson's Idylls of the King, 1859-1885), and will include the work of Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, A.C. Swinburne, William Morris, G.M. Hopkins, Oscar Wilde, and others. As we study the work of Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Rossetti and Morris, we will also consider the visual art of their circle. We will also read relevant texts on aesthetic theory by Ruskin and Pater. Two short papers (option of one long) and take-home final.
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| ENGLISH 105 | US LIT SLAVERY AGE | TAMARKIN, E. | This course traces the literary and cultural response to the institution of slavery in the years before Emancipation. We will examine the dramas of displacement and subjection that mark representations of the "middle passage," the slave trade, and life on the plantations. We will also address the languages of liberty and escape, as well as literary and visual depictions of flight, exile and freedom in the North. At the same time, the course considers the articulations and strategies of the antislavery movement and its efforts to appeal on political, religious and social grounds. Throughout the class, we will ask questions about the difficult relationship of race to national identity and of politics to both ethics and aesthetic forms.
Please note that students who were enrolled in E102C of the same title in Spring 2005 are not eligible for this course. |
| ENGLISH 106 | SHAKSPRE HIST PLAYS | HELFER, R. | This course contemplates the mystery of history in Shakespeare’s plays about England’s past. When does history become tragedy or comedy or romance (or all three)? How does history reflect upon ‘current events’? Why are history plays so popular but only so briefly? Secondary readings will include historiography and criticism. |
| ENGLISH 106 | POETIC RHYTHM | ROBERTS, H. | This course will provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the study of prosody--the critical analysis of poetic meter and poetic rhythm. The course will be taught principally via web-based modules that students will work through each week at their own pace. There will be weekly one-hour class meetings at which students can raise questions and be tested on their progress. The final grade will be based upon a final examination and a variety of shorter written assignments.
Texts: Derek Attridge, Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction and Herbert Rosengarten and Amanda Goldrick-Jones (ed.), The Broadview Anthology of Poetry.
Coursework: Four two-page prosodic analyses, a variety of shorter excersies, and a final examination. In addition, each student will be required to post certain exercises to the class's email discussion list. |
| ENGLISH 106 | LANGLAND'S PIERS PLOWMAN | GEORGIANNA, L. | A contemporary of both Chaucer and the Gawain Poet, William Langland offers in Piers Plowman a genuinely different view of fourteenth century politics, social conditions and especially religion. Variously considered a satirist, visionary, prophet, reformist and crank, he is also a great, underrated poet. We will read the poem in Middle English with help from an excellent translation, along with contemporary documents and sources. Requirements: 3-4 papers plus translation quizzes. Final optional. |
| ENGLISH 106 | COOL CATS&HIPSTERS | SZALAY, M. | This course will read American novels and poems written during the first half of the twentieth century, those typically understood as "modernist." We will spend time asking what this term means and what, also, it means to think of anything as "postmodern." Authors will include T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein. |
| ENGLISH 210 | STUDIO AUTHORSHIP OF HOLLYWOOD MOTION PICTURES | CHRISTENSEN, J. | This course advances the thesis that Hollywood films should be viewed, interpreted, and understood as meaningful acts of corporate speech. When the Lion roars, MGM speaks. That thesis will be developed in light of the history of MGM’s pursuit of its corporate objectives during the classical Hollywood era, as those objectives are stated, coded, or realized in individual films.
We will study motion pictures and related texts from three periods:
1) The Depression. which comprises the first New Deal, when Irving Thalberg was the most potent creative force at MGM, and the second New Deal, when Louis B. Mayer tried to be.
2) The Second World War—a period of unprecedented, almost embarrassing prosperity for the studio. Its elation was sobered, however, by the prospect of these postwar challenges: technological change, congressional investigations, accelerated suburbanization, international quotas, and justice department prosecution.
3) The postwar era, when MGM unsuccessfully tried to adapt to dwindling audiences, escalating costs, rebellious stars, and aging executives.
We will study four kinds of MGM films in pursuit of the definition of the studio genre:
1) Movies, such as The Crowd (1928), The Gorgeous Hussey (1936), Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry (1937), Boys Town (1938) , Tennessee Johnson (1942), , Donovan’s Brain (1953), and Executive Suite (1954) that represent what corporations are, what they do, and where they stand in relation to other forms of social and political organization. These movies engage issues that concern political theorists such as Thurman Arnold, John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, sociologists such as Margaret Mead and David Riesman, and corporate theorists, such as Ronald Coase and Peter Drucker.
2) Allegorical movies that register studio concerns as social problems, such as, Joe Smith, American (1942); Random Harvest (1942), A Guy Named Joe (1943), Lassie Come Home (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); or that have a coded significance for specific audiences, whether within or outside the studios, and that are devised as acts of persuasion to accomplish managerial objectives, such as acquiring political favors, placating the money men in New York, campaigning for academy awards, or knifing the boss. Examples include: Bombshell (1933), Babes in Arms (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Battleground (1949), Executive Suite (1954).
3) Performative movies; that is, movies that achieve studio objectives --such as punishing stars, promoting trademarks, pumping stock prices, or breaking codes—simply by being exhibited to an audience in public. Examples include, The Jazz Singer (1927), Gabriel Over the White House (1932), Grand Hotel (1932), Marie Antoinette (1938), Singin’ in the Rain (1952) The Band Wagon (1953).
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| ENGLISH 210 | CONFESSN/CONVERSION | GEORGIANNA, L. | |
| ENGLISH 210 | READING JANE AUSTEN | VAN SANT, A.J. | In describing her own method as a novelist, Austen wrote that she worked on a “little bit (two inches wide) of ivory . . . with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour.” Sir Walter Scott commented in his diary that although he could do “the big Bow-Wow strain” of novels very well, Austen had an “exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters interesting.” Modern critics have written variously of her “regulated hatred,” her conservative propaganda, and her view of social conventions as fictions.
In this seminar, students will read for class discussion 4 of Austen’s 6 completed novels in the order of their publication (Sense and Sensibility [1811], Pride and Prejudice [1813]; Mansfield Park [1814]; and Persuasion [1818]); biographical material on Austen; historical material on the period; and numerous critical works. In the main paper required for the course, students may choose to work as well on Emma (1816) and Northanger Abbey (1818).
We will consider many, often conflicting, views of her work and ask questions both about her novelistic practice (e.g., her narrative style, her use of irony) and about the social problems that her novels engage. We will also be interested in why Austen and her novels continue to draw such a devoted following, as indicated by college courses, the Jane Austen Society, and recent films.
E 106 is an advanced seminar required of majors. |
| ENGLISH 210 | RESTORATION DRAMA | KROLL, R. | This course will examine both serious plays and comedies performed between the 1660s and 1700. Apart from learning to read drama as such, I want to examine the nature of political literature in a highly politicized age, and to show that what we might now call formalist concerns are part of the means by which these plays made or debated political arguments.
The Restoration is also a first in a number of areas which affect how we read English drama: it is the first time that plays were written for and performed consistently in an indoor proscenium theater; it is the first time that actresses played women's roles; and it is the first time that authors wrote plays both for performance and to be read as printed artefacts. The theatrical monopolies of the early Restoration also encouraged something like a star system, which tended to confuse actors' private with their stage lives, and tended to typecast them in those roles. My title refers in part to the widely held view that Restoration actresses were licentious both on and off the stage: Nell Gwynn, the comic actress, was famously the mistress of Charles II himself, once styling herself before an excited crowd, the “King’s Protestant [as opposed to Catholic] whore.” The theoretical focus will be on the idea of representation: the period itself provides sophisticated debates about the nature and role of representation as such, and the relation between representation and political actualities. And again, this question of representation bears consistently on how we are to think of gender, the cultural and political values distinguishing men from women. These issues have peculiar urgency in the Restoration, because this represents a period when several systems of signification have collapsed or are in a process of radical revision and reassessment. In the wake of Charles I's execution in 1649, tokens of social value have been virtually emptied of meaning, or have lost their mystery, such that the later Stuart monarchy is always infected by a profound anxiety about its own legitimacy, and an uncertainty about how different vehicles of representation can assist or mediate the exercise of power. The period after 1660 sees a series of political crises that occur in a rapidly changing fiscal climate, where early capitalism results in a highly energized consumer culture involving increasingly visible places and means of exchange, which includes the print economy which playwrights now appeal to. The period experienced concurrently a series of crises in coinage, which both lay behind and stood as a metaphor for the crises in other forms of linguistic and social (as well as sexual) value. It appears that even the serious drama reflects on these multiple instabilities of meaning.
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| ENGLISH 210 | NOVEL OF SENSIBLITY | FOLKENFLIK, R. | This course will focus on novels of sensibility and sentimentality, as well as the reaction against them. Included are one novel usually considered as Gothic, and one slave narrative. Although the focus is on the eighteenth-century in Britain, the course will provide a backdrop for the development of sentimentality in the American novel and in Victorian Britain, as well as its implications for our moment. We will examine both male and female versions and their social, scientific, economic, historical, and cultural implications. We will examine both male and female versions and their social,
scientific, economic, historical, and cultural implications, including
attention to interrelations of art and literature, as well as book
history.
The texts, many of them short, include:
Sarah Scott, Millenium Hall (Broadview)
Oliver Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield (World’s Classics)
Laurence Sterne, Sentimental Journey (World’s Classics)
Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling (Broadview)
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative (Penguin)
Anne Radcliffe, The Italian (Penguin)
Elizabeth Inchbald, A Simple Story (Penguin)
Mary Wollstonecraft, TheWrongs of Woman (World’s Classics)
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (World’s Classics) 327
For the first meeting, read Scott’s Millenium Hall
Seminar:20-minute report turned in and developed into a 20 page paper.
Proseminar: 10-minute report turned in as a five-page paper. Final examination.
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| ENGLISH 210 | MODERNISM: THEORY | SZALAY, M. | This course will read extensively in the writings of Georg Lukács and T.S. Eliot. Each will be offered as a modernist extreme, radical and reactionary respectively; but each will be read also as similarly working through a shared set of characteristically modernist problems. We will explore modernism as an equivocally secular effort to assert the regulative and necessary function of aesthetic experience within a broader field of economic, political, and social relations—each newly conceptualized in its relation to the other. We will study the terms of these assertions as they take shape in revolutionary and Stalinist Russia on the one hand and in the Anglo-American avant-garde on the other. Crucial to our study will be the preoccupations that united these two contexts: the place and role of an avant-garde within working- and middle-class society; the antagonism between scientific instrumentalism and cultural value; the effort to reconcile thinking and ideology on the one hand and sensation and affect on the other; the relation more broadly between “theory” and aesthetics; the relative merits of “autonomous” and “committed” art; and the contingency of literary form on the states, parties and institutions that sanction and enable literary production.
Though essays by Lukács and Eliot will constitute the bulk of our reading, we will also take up the genealogies and legacies of their respective intellectual schools. Thus we will look briefly at the left Hegelian tradition that gives rise to Lukács, just as we will study Eliot’s indebtedness to Mathew Arnold, as it is explained and mediated through the words of Lionel Trilling. We will, in turn, study the afterlife of left Hegelian dialectics, principally in the figure of Fredric Jameson—similarly, we will examine some New Critical contributions to Eliot’s modernism, from I. A. Richards to Cleanth Brooks. |
| ENGLISH 225 | LITERARY GENRES | LATIOLAIS, M. | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | GOBLE, M. | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | ALLEN, E.G. | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | STAFF | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | FREELAND, N. | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | GEORGIANNA, L. | |
| ENGLISH 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | LATIOLAIS, P.M. | |
| ENGLISH 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | CHRISTENSEN, J.C. | |