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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.
The English Department offers several 100-level courses intended to serve a general audience interested in learning about literature from topical approaches. Such courses do not normally qualify as Writing Intensive classes and do not count toward the English major. Students hoping to do further work in English or literary study in general should normally begin work with a First-Year Seminar and proceed directly to 200-level courses.
Many African American novelists have embedded what W. E. B. Du Bois called "double consciousness" in their forms and themes. But hybrid narratives combining residual black folklore and Western literary genres have shifted over time and been named and studied variously. This course constitutes a survey of major representative novels, or highlights, within the tradition from the 1850s through the 1970s (written by authors from William Wells Brown to Toni Morrison). Enrollment limit: 50.
This course considers the cinema as a particular media form and explores issues
and methods in cinema studies.The class focuses on questions of film form and
style (narrative, editing, sound, framing, mise-en-scène) and
introduces students to concepts in film history and theory (industry, auteurism,
spectatorship, the star system, ideology, genre). Students develop a basic critical
vocabulary for examining the cinema as an art form, an industry, and a system
of culturally meaningful representation. Identical to CINE 101. Enrollment
Limit: 60.
How did the rise of the "modern," the increase in immigration, and the unimaginable violence of the two World Wars change the conception of what America is (and what Americans are) and how to represent them? This course will explore how the "Jazz Age," the Harlem Renaissance, the Lost Generation, the tenement slums, "Modern Art," and the rise of cinema affected concepts of nation, citizenship, gender, race, and even the notion of a self. Enrollment Limit: 50.
Courses at the 200 level are designed to introduce students to the discipline of literary study in English through attention to fundamental issues and methods of interpretation in critical reading and writing, substantial coverage of texts, and instruction in the conventions of genre, period, and region as appropriate.
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.
An exploration of Shakespeare's experiments with the idea of genre, considered in both thematic and formal terms. We will study seven plays in depth, concentrating on the so-called problem comedies and late romances, probably Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale. Attention will be paid to the plays both as literature and as texts for performance. British, Pre-1700. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
This course investigates the cultural history of sentimentalism, from the eighteenth century to the present. Our particular focus will be the concept of "sympathy," which signifies the various ways in which an individual witnesses and affectively responds to the spectacle of human suffering. Readings will include the work of Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Coetzee, and Sontag. British, 1700-1900 OR Post-1900 (not both). Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
An introduction to British and American lyric poetry, with attention to the complex relation between innovation and tradition, music and discord, pattern and disruption, as well as public discourse and intimate awareness. Specific emphasis on the challenges and opportunities that lyric poems present to writers of critical prose. Readings from Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Eliot, Hughes, Moore, Lowell, Plath, Ashbery, Heaney, Graham, Komunyakaa. American, Post-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
The theme of metamorphosis in literature from Ovid to Kafka -- including Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Julio Cortázar -- and in cinema and music. Our approach will be comparative, involving lecturers from various departments and programs, in addition to discussion classes. Identical to CMPL 232. Diversity. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
This course will focus on recently published American novels. We will attend to questions of style, authorship and interpretation against the backdrop of contemporary cultural and political history, and also explore how representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class inform and shape these contemporary texts. American, Diversity, Post-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30
This course deals with how the art of American cinema is shaped by demands of business and technology. We will also explore how filmmakers used strong genres and stars, focusing on two eras of American cinema, 1939-1942 and 1966-73. American, Post-1900. Identical to CINE 272. Prerequisite: See headnote above. It is preferred that students also have taken ENGL 173/CINE 101. Enrollment limit: 30.
What kinds of theoretical models are valid for grounding literary comparisons across history, place, language, nation, culture, genre, and medium? Texts from several literary traditions will be used to answer that question and explore topics in theory, translation, East-West comparison, and literature and the other arts. Identical to CMPL 200. Diversity. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
This course will study the development of drama from the ancient Greeks to the present with the aim of promoting understanding and analysis of dramatic texts. By studying the major forms of drama--tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy--within their historical and cultural contexts, we will explore the elements common to all dramatic works, as well as the way in which those elements vary and evolve from one time and place to another. Diversity. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 30.
200-level electives differ from Gateway courses (see above) in taking a less focused approach to introducing the study of the discipline of English.
The development of English from its Anglo-Saxon beginnings to the present, focusing on lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological change, with emphasis on the intersections between language, literature, and culture. British, Pre-1700. 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: Two 200-level courses, including at least one Gateway
course; or three 200-level courses.
Authority and challenges to it create tensions on many levels in Shakespeare's plays. Whether authority derives from institutions such as the Church or monarchy, from patriarchal family structures or social norms, from gender expectations or sexual roles, or from literary genres and conventions -- disobedience, subversion, or critique motivate character, action, language, form, and stage interpretations in Shakespearean drama. We will study six to seven plays within histories of order and disorder in early modern England. British, Pre-1700. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
This course traces the rise of European literatures in the post-Roman world. Topics will include the Christian rejection of classical learning, the clash of monastic and heroic ideals in the age of epic, the twelfth-century renaissance, the new emphasis on love and the individual, and the birth of a flamboyant secular literary culture in French and Anglo-Norman courts. Authors may include Virgil, Augustine, Boethius, the Beowulf poet, Abelard, Heloise, Marie de France, and Chrétien de Troyes. All texts in English translation. Pre-1700. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
Central themes and conflicts in poetry since World War II, with attention to poetry's search for new forms and modes of expression in a world altered (often beyond recognition) by war, political unrest, and cultural upheaval. Lowell, Larkin, Roethke, Berryman, Plath, Rich, Ginsberg, Ashbery, O'Hara, Walcott, Heaney, Soyinka, Jay Wright, Charles Wright, Glück, Komunyakaa, Dove, Carson, Murray, Boland. American OR British (not both), Post-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
We will investigate three kinds of literary regret: Martial (regret over killing), Marital (regret over marrying), and Mortal (regret over dying). In each case, a close reading of an exemplary nineteenth-century British novel (Lord Jim, Middlemarch, Wuthering Heights) is read alongside theoretical and philosophical elaborations on regret. We also examine classic and contemporary versions of regret, including Greek and Renaissance tragedy and current poetry and film. Our aim is to generate a poetics of regret. British, 1700-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
This course will study the developments mainly in British and American drama during the last ten to fifteen years. Plays will be discussed from both a literary and theatrical point of view, with attention to their historical, cultural, and political context. Among the playwrights we will be reading, a tentative list might include Tony Kushner, David Henry Huang, Athol Fugard, Wole Soyinka, Maria Irene Fornes, Elaine Jackson, Emily Mann, Caryl Churchill, and Brian Friel. Classes will be conducted primarily through discussion supplemented by lectures. Written work will include two papers: one short (4-6 pages) and one long (8-10 pages). In addition, each student will be responsible for a performance in class of a scene from one of the plays we are reading. Diversity, Post-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
Melville's phrase captures a major concern of American writers during the antebellum period: the creation of a distinctly American literature. Directly or indirectly, many writers of the era engaged with "writing like an American" -- Melville, Emerson, Whitman, Douglass, Jacobs among them -- while a few, notably Poe, repudiated the very idea. We'll read work by the writers I've listed and by others as we consider what "writing like an American" entailed during the formative era in American culture and history. American, Diversity, 1700-1900. Prerequisite: 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. American, 1700-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
What is meant by "performativity," and why has it taken on a certain urgency in recent theory and criticism? This seminar examines the current trend of writing about the other arts in literary studies to consider ways that performance has become a metaphor for literature, especially the genre of poetry. We will read a variety of theoretical, literary, and poetic texts, as well as analyzing their performative interpretations, from opera and chamber music to theater and dance. Diversity. Identical to CMPL 367. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
The body may seem natural, but bodylore treats it as a cultural artifact inflected by ethnicity, class, gender, so on. Folklore of the body treats the body -- dead and alive -- as a site where we inscribe notions about identity and society. We will study many forms of bodylore concerning reproduction, initiation, health, beauty, gesture, etiquette, hair, body parts, beliefs, and dress by utilizing various disciplinary approaches and examples from different cultures and periods. Counts towards the Anthropology major. Diversity. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
Novels and short fiction by such recent and living writers as Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, John Banville, Ian McEwen, Doris Lessing, Martin Amis, and Patrick McCabe. Diversity, Post-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
The substantive focus of this course is to read -- closely, carefully, assiduously -- novels and essays/critical exegeses by arguably one of the most important contemporary "postcolonial" writers, J. M. Coetzee. This focus will include sustained attention to contexts -- of historical moment, location (geographical and epistemological), ideological investments -- through which his work becomes, or is made, meaningful. Post-1900. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
This course will explore cinematic authorship by focusing on directors who have defined a distinctive style despite emerging from vastly different cultural contexts. While their films reward examination in relation to these contexts and to the body of work of each director, their films also share a common domain, the contemporary international cinema of quality. In all these registers, we will examine the value and limitation of a concept of cinematic authorship. Post-1900. Identical to CINE 392. Prerequisite: CINE 101 and a Cinematic Traditions course (preferred), or see headnote above, or consent of the instructor. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
The writing of poetry. Intensive discussion of student work, accompanied by assigned reading. Admission based on a completed application form and a writing sample of six to eight poems (due in Program office by Friday, January 19, 2007). Prerequisite: CRWR 201. Identical to CRWR 310. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.
The writing of personal narratives which employ the techniques of both the traditional essay and fiction, with an emphasis on nonfiction as a literary art form. Students will read work by modern and contemporary authors with an eye toward understanding the variety of modes which come under the current heading "creative nonfiction" (memoir, meditation, travel, cultural critique, etc.), and will be asked to employ a number of these methods and approaches in their own work. Admission based on a completed application and writing sample (due in Program office by Friday, January 19, 2007). Recommended preparation: CRWR 201. Identical to CRWR 340. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.
The writing of short fiction. Admission based on a completed application form and a writing sample of at least 12 pages of fiction, made up of at least two separate pieces (due in Program office by Friday, January 19, 2007). Prerequisite: CRWR 201. Identical to CRWR 320. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.
A workshop focused on discussion of student work and on selected examples from modern and contemporary drama, working toward a staged reading of an original one-act play. The course presupposes considerable knowledge of drama. Admission based on a completed application form and writing sample (due in Program office by Friday, January 19, 2007). Identical to CRWR 330. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.
Identical to RHET 481. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.
SENIOR TUTORIALS, SEMINARS, AND HONORS PROJECTS
For English majors in either semester of their final year only, involving close work in a small group on an individual project, leading to a substantial paper. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment Limit: 9.
What are poems for? What good do they serve? How do poets describe, explain, or justify their art? The questions will guide us in a broader inquiry into poetry and its place among other arts. Poets will include Horace, Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Stevens, Bishop, Ashbery, Graham. Critics will include Lu Chi, Plato, Coleridge, Jakobson, Vendler, Bloom, Grossman. 1700-1900 OR Post-1900 (not both). Prerequisite: See headnote above. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment Limit: 12.
Intensive year-long work on a topic developed in consultation with a member of the Department, culminating in a substantial paper and a defense of that paper. Consent of instructor required.
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