Fall 2001
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Students interested in taking introductory-level courses in writing should also see the Rhetoric and Composition section of the catalog. Descriptions of writing-oriented courses and procedures to be followed in order to meet the college-wide writing requirements may be found there. These courses do not count towards an English major.
Colloquia will focus on critical writing and analysis through the study of texts. These colloquia are for first-year students only, and do not count for the English major, which begins with foundation courses at the 200 level. All colloquia are Writing Intensive courses. Students in their second year or beyond should begin work in the English Department at the 200 level.
Lewis called it "a change which has left no corner of our ethics, our imagination, or our daily life untouched." From the late eleventh century to the early twenty-first, "romance" in its various forms has proved one of the most flexible and durable models for imagining the geographies of nationality and subjectivity, of class, gender, sexuality, and society. We might ask: why is romance so powerful? What functions has it served? How are its various forms related to particular cultural moments, philosophies, anxieties? What critical lenses are most useful for exploring its contours? We will begin with the medieval chivalric romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France. We will then move through a variety of novels,poems, and films: from Jane Austen's starchy Pride and Prejudice to E. M. Forster's passionate gay Maurice, from Byron's libertine Don Juan to Zora Neale Hurston's lyrical Their Eyes Were Watching God. Films may include the epic Gone With the Wind as well as a few screwball comedies. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
We typically think of a story as an account of people doing something; time and place are usually understood as the "background" against which character and action are played out. For many storytellers, though, the sense of a particular time and place is as important, if not more so. We'll discuss a group of such works, focusing on how stories of this kind of told and on their various conceptions of time and place. We'll also address the value these stories in helping us understanding the meaning of time and place in our lives.
We'll also pay close attention to how we are reading and interpreting these works to answer the questions: How do we make sense of stories? What goes into this apparently natural process? What does it mean to look at a group of texts through a particular critical or thematic lens? What is the relation of our individual experiences of works of art to the kind of knowledge and understanding we can create through critical inquiry and discussion?
We'll look at both movies: American Graffiti, The Year of Living Dangerously, Days of Heaven, and Lone Star, novels: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Thousand Acres, Housekeeping, and poems: "To Autumn," "The Bight," and "These Lacustrine Cities."
There will be frequent writing assignments with an emphasis on drafts as a process of learning and intellectual discovery and as a communication to a reader. There will also be oral presentations to help students develop skills in communication with each other in groups. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
A good number of Shakespeare's plays present material from English and classical history, thus acting out the encounter between truth and poetry, reality and the fictive world of the stage. In this course we will explore several of these plays in relation to the history they represent as reflected in other historiographic forms, and we will consider the plays themselves as embedded in history, participating in the public life of their own times. We will also explore these problems of representation, interpretation, and imaginative reconstruction in our own writing. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
What happens when theater comes down off the stage and into the world around us? This colloquium focuses on the ways that drama can engage audiences in immediate political contexts. We will be reading political plays by Bertolt Brecht and others, including more contemporary playwrights, as well as theoretical essays by Augusto Boal, Paulo Freire, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, and others. Writing will involve response papers, essays, and playwriting exercises (no prior experience expected). The course's "activist" component will consist of learning exercises from the Theater of the Oppressed and developing Forum Theater performances in conjunction with several local community groups, as well as on campus. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
An interdisciplinary analysis of dialogue in drama, poetry, fiction, films, philosophy, religion, interviews, debates, therapy, and conversation. Also, readings in theories of dialogue from Plato to Heidegger. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
This course examines questions about the relation of the present to the past by tracing variations on a character type -- the "detective" -- through a variety of texts from different periods. All of these texts portray characters seeking to learn the truth about past events and to make sense of what they find. Through careful reading and discussion of these works, we will consider questions such as: to what extent is it possible to recover the past? how does our understanding of the past shape our understanding of the present? how do our beliefs about the present shape our approach to the past? Readings include Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, classic mystery stories by Edgar Allen Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and novels by William Godwin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Raymond Chandler, Thomas Pynchon, and Antonia S. Byatt. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
This course will analyze the pedagogies through which (British) Colonialism (re)made colonial subjects and subjectivities. It will focus especially on the scenes of instruction in a variety of anglophone texts from the so-called Third World. Some of these texts include: Ama Ata Aidoo's No Sweetness Here, Salman Rushdie's Shame, Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks, Earl Lovelace's Wine of Astonishments, Tsi Tsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, and Tayeb Salib's Season of Migration to the North. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
An intensive study of the works of William Butler Yeats in their biographical, cultural and historical context. We will read a majority of Yeats' work during the semester, including his Collected Poems, several of his plays, autobiographical writings and essays, and several works by his contemporaries. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
The perspectives and standpoints which narratives and other works of the imagination seem to project or play with, and those we bring as readers, shape the way works appeal and what their apparent "content" or "meaning" is. With this in mind, we'll look at prose narratives by Borges, James, Chesnutt, O'Connor, Morrison, Butler and others, at least one graphic novel (probably Maus), The Wizard of Oz in its print and film forms, and some visual art. We may devote some time to ways in which the Internet expands, but also limits, how we see and know our world, present and past. Enrollment limit: 16 first-year students only.
These courses are designed to introduce students to the discipline of literary study in English through a substantial coverage of texts, instruction in the conventions of genre, period, and region as appropriate, and attention to fundamental issues and approaches in critical reading and writing.
Prerequisites: These courses are open to students who have completed any Writing Intensive course, or have gained Writing Certification in any course in the Humanities. They are also open to those who have achieved a 5 on the AP exam in English Language/Composition or English Literature/Composition, or a score of 710 or better on the SAT II Writing test. Other students may be admitted by consent of the instructor, with the understanding that students should be able to demonstrate the ability to handle writing, discussion, and analysis in ways typically taught in Writing Intensive classes.
This course will explore The Canterbury Tales in relation to the turbulent world of late-fourteenth century England, a world where the inadequacy of traditional social, religious, and gender categories was increasingly obvious. Through the competing voices of knight and miller, wife and clerk, "gelding" and "manly man," nun and Jew, realism and allegory, the Tales repeatedly test the limits of narrative and community. We will be particularly interested in the way discourse constructs -- and challenges -- social identity and subjective experience. P, EL. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
Non-dramatic poetry from the period 1580-1660, with special attention to Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and Marvell. The course will consider how these poems participate in discourses of love in the Early Modern period. P, EL. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
While the concept of royal authority seems quite foreign or even quaint to us today, such sovereignty has had serious consequences, in both practical and theoretical terms, for much of England's history. Shakespeare dramatized dozens of different kings and queens throughout his career; we will examine seven major plays whose outlines were drawn from the historical chronicles of his contemporary Raphael Holinshed. Four of these are familiar to us as "histories" (the "Henriad" sequence: Richard II, Henry IV parts i and ii, and Henry V); two as "tragedies" (King Lear and Macbeth); and one is more typically called a "romance" (Cymbeline). These generic categories are more porous than they might at first appear, and part of our task will be determining how formal expectations mutually shape and are shaped by the narratives of these rules. Some of the many problems that arise when studying Shakespearean kingship include: the status of women (often absent but sometimes significantly present); counsel and the shifting personal and political loyalties of subjects; the price of governance (economic as well as social); the consolidation of the idea of an England, often against an external threat such as France; the almost mythic alternations between weak and strong kings, reflecting ever-present concerns about transitions between reigns; the influence of religion or the supernatural in producing a sense of inevitability; the representation of divisions within and between institutions, classes, and individuals (in their personal and public roles); claims to legitimacy (on both familial and political levels); the relation between speech and action; and where (if anywhere) love fits in all of this. A portion of our work will also be historically-based, whether examining Shakespeare's sources, contemplating relations to contemporary monarchs (Elizabeth or James), or comparing his dramas of sovereignty to other playwrights' attempts at presenting similar materials. D, EL. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
A close reading of selected British and Irish fiction from the first half of the twentieth century: among books likely to be included are Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, selected stories by D. H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield, E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, and Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. Although some attention will be paid to placing these works in their historical and cultural context, the primary focus will be on the nature of their experiments in structure and style. The course will be taught by a combination of informal lectures and discussion. Evaluation will be based on class participation, two short papers (3-4 pages each), one longer paper (10-12 pages), and maybe a final exercise. Students should be aware that some of these novels are quite challenging (if exhilarating), and that those with only one previous English course might find the course heavy going at times. F, WL. Prerequisites: see headnote above. Enrollment Limit: 30.
In this survey of postwar British literature, we will use drama, fiction, and film to discuss the politics of culture over the last sixty years. There were very spirited debates about the changing nature of class and sexuality during this period, and these political questions largely dominated the field of cultural production. "Masculinity," broadly defined, became an important and disputed category at this moment, and we will examine how various writers defined, claimed, contested, and undermined it as part of an evolving critical and aesthetic discourse. We will ask why men's sexuality became such a vexing question during the postwar period, and we will also consider how the problem of class informed the methods and logic behind the literary deployment of masculinity. Later in the course, we will consider how women, homosexuals, and immigrants both participated in and rejected the narratives of masculinity written during the 1950s and 60s. Authors will include Kingsley Amis, Caryl Churchill, Hanif Kuresihi, and Jeannette Winterson. F, WL. Prerequisite: Any Writing Intensive course, or Writing Certification in any course in the Humanities. Enrollment Limit: 30.
This course will trace the influence of magical realism on the American literary sphere. Why do American writers find magical realism so fascinating? How does the translation of magical realism into an American context transform the genre or alter our perceptions about our own social reality? Authors will include Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Paul Auster, Thomas Pynchon, Ana Castillo, Ntozake Shange, and Salman Rushdie. F, AL. Prerequisite: Any Writing Intensive course, or Writing Certification in any course in the Humanities. Enrollment limit: 30.
A survey of the decade of artistic production and debate in early twentieth-century American letters known as the "Harlem Renaissance" or the "New Negro Renaissance," or alternatively as the "Jazz Age" -- roughly 1919-1929 -- that explores the controversies of racial representation in this period of self-conscious artistic production. We will address key interactions on the subject of racial representation in the arts between and among black and white artists of the period, treating their essays and fiction. Authors will include Gertrude Stein, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugene O'Neill, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Nella Larsen. Our exploration will focus on the key issues in 1920s literary discourses of race and identity: race, racism, racialism, and nationalism; national culture and cultural nationalism; modernist aesthetics and modern black aesthetics. Visual art, music, and film will accompany the introduction of the texts. F, AL. Prerequisite: Any Writing Intensive course, or Writing Certification in any course in the Humanities. Enrollment limit: 30.
This course explores ways in which films tell stories. It introduces students to basic questions in cinema studies, focusing on the narrative models employed in classical Hollywood movies and in alternative modes of cinema (independent, non-American, nonfiction). Students will consider elements of film form and style (narrative, cinematography, framing, mise-en-scene, editing, sound), as well as methods and issues in film history and theory (production, distribution, exhibition, authorship, self-reflexivity, genre, the star system). F, WL. Prerequisite: any Writing Intensive course, or Writing Certification in any course in the Humanities. Enrollment limit: 30.
A survey beginning with the founding of the Abbey Theatre by W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1901, and continuing with later Irish plays by John Synge, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett, and Brendan Behan, as well as recent works by Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Sebastian Barry, and Marina Carr. D, WL. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
Courses at the 300 level are designed to broaden students' experience of literature in English while also deepening the study of the discipline through focused reading of texts, criticism, literary history and theory.
Prerequisites: These courses are open to students who have completed at least 3 courses at the new 200 level, or (for students who have taken courses prior to 1998) at least 3 courses in English at the 150 level or above, or by consent of the instructor.
The emergence of prose fiction in the eighteenth century, focusing on novelistic form, with attention to cultural and historical contexts. Authors may include Behn, Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Goldsmith, Lewis, Austen. F, EL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
A survey of fiction written in nineteenth-century Britain, with special attention being paid to historical and cultural context, serial publication and changing readerships, the emergence of a sophisticated aesthetic of fiction in critical periodicals, and the interplay between text and visual image in illustrated fiction. Works will include fiction by Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Gaskell, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Trollope, and George Eliot. F, WL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
Modern poetry between 1917 and 1945, including such developments as the reaction to imagism, expressionism, surrealism, and objectivism, and such major figures as Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Williams, and Moore. P, WL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
This course focuses on major playwrights of England and Ireland from post-World War II to the present. Some of the areas of attention will be: the "angry young men"; metadrama; gender, race, and ethnicity; responses to Thatcherism; the "new brutalism." Playwrights might include: Beckett, Osborne, Bond, Stoppard, Hare, Pinter, Griffiths, Brenton, Poliakoff, Churchill, Friel, McDonagh, Kureishi, Carr, Reid, and Kane. Students will be expected to attend productions and participate in scene enactments. D, WL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
An examination of the writings of the American Transcendentalists of the 19th century with special attention to Emerson, Thoreau, and the concept of nature. We will study some of the early contributors to this school of thought, as well as more recent expositors. Students should be prepared to tackle difficult texts that pose challenging philosophical, political, and interpretive questions. AL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
In the movies, what defines a love story? Is sexual desire or romantic longing enough, or must the story be told in a certain way? This course will examine the narrative conventions that shape the presentation and reception of sex and romance on screen. By exploring such genres as melodrama and the romantic comedy, and by investigating the culturally specific meanings of love and desire that their conventions generate, we will consider the broader relationship between form and content in the cinema. Juniors and seniors only. F, AL. Prerequisite: A previous film studies course, or three 200-level courses in ENGL. Enrollment limit: 25.
This course is about developments in literary theory in the last thirty years not as abstract systems but in the larger context of American intellectual and artistic culture. Our concern will be understanding literary theories in their historical and institutional contexts as well as considering their value as ways of thinking. We'll pay particular attention to the impact of post-structuralism on American critics, the relation of literary criticism to culture criticism, and the elaboration of the idea of post-modernity. AL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
This course offers an analysis of the narratives through which nationalisms acquire credibility and authority. This discussion-centered class will examine the nationalisms of Latin America, the Caribbean, and South Asia with particular reference to those of Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Haiti, and India. Narrative theories as deployed in and by the disciplines of History and English literary studies provide the overarching critical methodologies for interdisciplinary analysis. F, WL. Identical to HIST 367. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 25.
The course will use historical, stylistic, and feminist perspectives to explore the content and development of works by these two eminent British women writers. Texts to be read: Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda; Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves. Supplementary reading will include one or two essays by each writer and some recent criticism. F, WL. Prerequisite: Three 200-level English courses (see headnote above). Enrollment limit: 25.
Identical to CRWR 310.
Identical to CRWR 340.
Identical to CRWR 320.
Identical to RHET 481.
These courses are designed primarily for seniors and offer opportunities to do individual work based on focused reading of texts, criticism, literary history, or theory, with the goal of engaging in extended research, writing, or performance projects. Courses at the 400 level are open by application only in the semester preceding the course. Students enrolling in 400-level courses should normally have completed at least two courses at the 300 level.
Intensive work on a topic of the student's honors project, to be organized in consultation with the instructor. Consent of instructor required.
A forum for group discussion of honors projects at various stages of design and composition and for engaging with some critical theory. The first and last weeks will address the honors project as an intellectual exploration, an analytic enterprise, and a rhetorical entity. During the middle half of the semester we will examine methods and theories pertinent to the study of literature and culture. Prerequisite: Admission to the Honors Program. Note: CR/NE grading. Consent of instructor required.
One semester each year an English Department faculty member teaches courses in the Danenberg Oberlin-in-London Program. For a fuller description of the London Program in general see the London Program section of the Oberlin College course catalog.
An introduction to the history and culture of Britain, examining the roots of contemporary London and Britain by exploring selected topics in social, political, and cultural history from antiquity to the modern era. The course will be coordinated by both instructors, but taught by a series of visiting experts (who will speak and lead discussions in their fields) and supplemented by field trips to museums and pertinent historical sites. This course is for all students. Notes: CR/NE grading. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment Limit: 26.
This interdisciplinary course will explore different intersections of culture and politics in post-war Britain (1945 to the present). A focus will be on the evolution of social class: as a set of institutions, as expressed in cultural and art forms, and as debated in critical social and cultural theory. Students will explore high and popular culture, museums and monuments, and the city itself, to learn to read the articulations of class relations in the fabric of everyday life. Consent of instructors required. Enrollment Limit: 26.
This course centers on developing studentsŐ abilities to critically engage with dramatic productions. Our object of study will be the fall 2001 theater scene in London. We will develop skills in appreciating, discussing, evaluating and writing about theatrical productions. We will speculate also on the relationships reflective, constitutive, critical, and otherwise between these theatrical texts and the context of contemporary British cultural and political life. Selected readings and guest lectures will be included. D, WL. Consent of Instructor Required. Enrollment Limit: 15.
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