Fall 2027 Courses

Students majoring in any subject are encouraged to apply. Courses will fulfill specific major requirements for English and TIMARA.

ENGL/ANTH 9xx
Behind the Scenes with Darwin’s Taxidermist: A Field Guide to On the Origin of Species

(counts the equivalent of two full courses)

 Would we have Darwin’s On the Origin of Species without Darwin’s taxidermist? Or the host of Indigenous and enslaved specimen collectors, skilled and amateur illustrators, colonial and metropolitan women of science, and others who are often excluded from the story of this foundational text? This experiential learning seminar explores Origin through the lives of taxidermist John Edmonstone and others, asking, who were these contributors? What kind of work did they do? What were their stories? And how do they intersect with ours? With an eye to how historical violences and their current articulations are shaped by and in turn shape Natural History, we ask: how might we denaturalize the categories and classifications of Darwin’s London?

In addition to reading selections from On the Origin of Species and The Voyage of the Beagle, this seminar will take full advantage of the unique opportunity to study their contents in context. Site visits may include: Down House, the Natural History Museum, the Grant Museum of Zoology, Kew Gardens, the London Zoo, the Tring Museum, The Linnean Society of London, Cambridge University Botanic Garden, and Cambridge University Library. Additionally, students will experience botanical illustration, taxidermy, Jurassic Coast fossil hunting, and urban birding through one-day seminars at institutions such as the Field Studies Council, the British Academy of Taxidermy, Kew Gardens, and the Urban Birder. As a final assignment students will compile their own “field guide” to London which will contribute to their final project in either “Drawing Beaks, Sketching Streets” or “Evolution of Science Fiction.”

Two full courses, HU and SS credit. Counts as a 200-level English course and a-200 level Anthropology course. Danielle Skeehan and Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway.

ENGL 9xx
Darwin and the Evolution of Science Fiction 

Before Darwin was a scientist, he was a reader and a storyteller. He was an observer and imaginative describer of everyday details. This seminar takes as its premise that the widespread success of On the Origin of Species is due as much to its imaginative work and what we might call “literary” heft as to its scientific intervention. How, exactly, have Darwin’s ideas influenced British science fiction? And, how has nineteenth-century fiction shaped historical and contemporary trends in Western science? Both introduced new worlds, technologies, civilizations, cultures, and ways I’of ordering society…as well as monsters, creatures, alien species, and “unnatural” curiosities. At stake were and are nothing less than understandings of race, class, gender, and the “future” of human and non-human worlds. This seminar will explore London alongside authors such as Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells. We will follow their nineteenth-century characters through the streets of the modern city. Like Darwin and his literary counterparts, we will become readers, observers, and describers of our London. With this in mind, coursework will include keeping a London flânerie journal and a final creative project in which students are invited to create their own London fiction–scientific or otherwise–and become storytellers in their own right.

This course contributes to college curricula in English and the Textual Studies elective in Creative Writing but will require no prerequisites. Counts as one full 300-level English course. HU credit.  Danielle Skeehan.

ANTH 9xx
Drawing Beaks, Sketching Streets: Graphic Ways of Knowing

Though credit was often given to her husband, ornithologist John Gould, Elizabeth Gould’s sketches of variation in the beak shape of Galapagos finches played a crucial role in Darwin’s understanding of the process of natural selection. This course explores such past contributions of and future possibilities for sketching and drawing as research methods and interrogates why recognition of the value of drawing as an epistemological method often has been subsumed by the dominance of writing in institutionalized knowledge. How has and how can expanding the modalities and genres through which scholarship is generated play a role in building more collaborative, engaged, and accessible fields of study? This course explores these issues by inviting students to engage in thoughtful and critical processes of both research and placemaking in a new city through drawing and sketching. Students will be put in groups assigned to particular neighborhoods in London to explore together over the semester, experimenting with the ways that drawing and sketching can help them form local relationships with the people and non-human inhabitants of their assigned neighborhoods (and thus, might find themselves also sketching finches!). In addition to maintaining individual graphic journals, students will work together to create an illustrated portrait of their evolving relationship with their assigned area of London. No special background or skill in drawing is required, only a willingness to experiment with graphic research methods.

Full course, SS credit. Counts as one full 300-level Anthropology course, fulfilling the Methods tier of the Anthropology major requirements. Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway

LOND 907
A History of London

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 2000 years. Taught through a combination of classroom study and weekly walking tours and site visits.

Full course, SS credit. CD. Counts toward the History major. Katy Layton-Jones.

LOND 908
The London Stage

This course aims to expose students to contemporary British theatre in all its variety. 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. Field trips required.

Full course, HU credit. CD. Counts towards the English major. Gemma Miller.