Spring 2011 London courses

Students on the program earn 14-15 credits.

All students take this team-taught course:

ENGL 902 or MHST 902. Re-envisioning the Past: Romantic Medievalism in 19th-Century Britain. Jennifer Bryan and Charles McGuire. 6 credits HU.
In the first century of British industrialization, waves of nostalgia for “the medieval” swept through the arts. The fashion for all things ruined, “romantic,” “gothic,” and Arthurian affected music, painting, architecture, poetry, design, scholarship, even bookmaking. This interdisciplinary course will explore the ways in which 19th-century British people imagined and sought to “revive” the pre-modern past and in doing so re-imagined the relations between reason and passion, nature and society, the individual and the imagination.

Students elect one of the following courses:

ENGL 901. Forms of Desire in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Jennifer Bryan. 6 credits HU. Medieval and Renaissance literature is often associated with “romance” in the high, tragic mode—think of Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guenevere, or Romeo and Juliet. But while love, sex, and desire were favorite themes for literary exploration during this period, those explorations were remarkably varied. We will consider questions of identity, madness, gender-bending, homoeroticism, holy eroticism, triangulation, and theatricality in texts ranging from chivalric romance to bawdy farce, and from devotional meditations to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

MHST 903. Soundscapes: Nostalgia, Patrimony, and Diversity in the Post-Colonial London Music Scene. Charles McGuire. 6 credits HU. In this course, we will use the music presented throughout London over the course of the semester to consider what it means to be British and a Londoner in the early 21st century. Using classical, popular, and experimental music, we will investigate whether the variety of music available in London is a positive sign of a culture successfully moving beyond its own colonial past, or if this variety is merely a continuation of connoisseur cultural consumption.

Students also elect one of the following courses:

• ENGL 918. The London Stage. Donna Vinter. 3 credits HU. This course aims to expose students to contemporary British theatre in all its variety. It will encourage critical thinking about different ways that drama may present human beings in significant action and about different ways that live performance may generate imaginative responses. At its heart will be discussion of productions in the current London repertory, with plays ranging from classical to contemporary, and venues including subsidized, commercial and fringe theatres.

• HIST 950. The History of London. Lisa Bowers Isaacson. 2 credits SS. This course explores the history of London from its Roman origins to the present day and examines how royalty, trade, religion and transport have shaped the city's pattern of growth over 2,000 years. Course work consists of weekly lectures, guided walks and discussions of readings from contemporary sources. Students are given an opportunity to investigate an aspect of London history of particular interest to them.