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Course Criteria
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1.00 Credits
A study of the art of discourse, with special emphasis on the dynamics of contemporary composition and argumentation. This course examines rhetorical theory from the Classical period to the New Rhetoric, as well as provides students with frequent practice in varied techniques of composing and evaluating expository prose. A wide selection of primary readings across the curriculum will include some controversial ideas about writing from Plato's Phaedrus, the heart of Aristotle's Rhetoric, and examples of the best writing in the arts and sciences. By invitation only. For students admitted to the Writing Associates Program. 1.00 units, Lecture
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0.00 Credits
The period leading to the Civil War witnessed intense conflicts not only about slavery and race but about the spread of capitalism, restrictions on women's economic and social rights, the growth of cities, and a variety of other social issues. "Literature" in this period was seldom seen as standing apart from these issues. On the contrary, art, politics, and social issues were generally seen as heavily intertwined. In this course we will look at the relationships between a number of issues prominent in ante-bellum America and works of art which at once expressed ideas about such issues and helped shape responses to them. The Amistad Affair will provide one instance; we will examine two or three others as well. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800, or a course emphasizing cultural context. Prerequisite: For English majors, English 260 with a grade of C- or higher. 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
This course will focus on the achievements of Tennyson, the Brownings, the Rossettis, Arnold, Swinburne, Hopkins, and Hardy in relation to nineteenth-century aesthetics and poetics. We will study the forms and history of specific lyric, dramatic, and epic genres as well as topics that have made Victorian poetry immensely popular and controversial: revivals of medieval and Italian Renaissance subjects and art; the relationship between poetry and the visual arts; socially conscious versus art-for-art's sake aesthetics; the gendering of lyric as feminine and epic as masculine; devotional poetics and the crisis of faith; and the impact of psychological theories and Darwinism. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
Through the close reading of eight works by African writers-encompassing a variety of forms and genres, touching on traditional Africa as well as contemporary ideas-the course will explore the variety of styles, forms, and themes in African writing. The course will examine narrative strategies, aesthetic choices, and the broader historical forces and cultural experiences informing the work of African writers. A good deal of the class will be devoted to exploring each writer's engagement with a facet of Africa's historical or post-colonial experience, and how each author seeks to reshape historical experience in fiction, drama, or memoir. We shall also investigate writers' use of memory, their integration of folktale in their narrative, and their experimentation with the wider resources of orature. We will pay attention to the tension between the individual and community, how each text defines private and public spheres, and how each writer responds to the Euro-American canon. Through the texts, we will explore such broad subjects as the roots and impact of slavery; fault lines in indigenous African societies; the colonial subjugation of Africa; the emergence of neo-colonial nation-states in Africa; post-colonial anxieties and disillusionment, and the evolution of gender relations. For the English major, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800, or a course emphasizing cultural context 1.00 units, Lecture
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0.00 Credits
A study of American fiction since the 1940s. Particular emphasis will be placed on the emergence of powerful new traditions of "minority," "ethnic," and women's writing. Among the books to be read are works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Rolando Hinojosa, Junot Diaz, Leslie Silko, Louise Erdrich, and Maxine Hong Kingston. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing cultural conte Prerequisite: English 260 with a minimum grade of C-. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large-scale internal migration reshaped the human geography of the United States. Southerners moved north, farm-dwellers moved to cities, the displaced sought economic promise in new regions. The literature written by and about these migrants presents an opportunity to study the impact of geography and environment on human imagination and cultural practice. We will read narrative representations of historic departures and resettlements, including African-Americans' Great Migration to the industrial north and Dust Bowl refugees' flight to California, in texts by such authors as Willa Cather, William Attaway, John Steinbeck, Carlos Bulosan, and Harriette Arnow. We also will write our own migration narratives and explore representations of a more recent example of internal migration-the displacement of New Orleanians by Hurricane Katrina. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800, or a course emphasizing cultural contexts. 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
A study of English and Anglophone poetry from the end of World War II to the present. After looking at the late work of key Modernists like Eliot and Auden, we will consider the rapidly changing and expanding notions of "British" poetry during the last five decades. Among topics to be examined are: expatriates who made their careers in America and elsewhere; writers who redefined "English" poetry for a new, post-war reality; and increasingly dominant voices from Ireland and the Commonwealth. Authors will include Dylan Thomas, Stevie Smith, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, and Derek Walcott. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 180 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
This seminar examines Asian American and African American literary and cultural production comparatively. We will look at primary texts, supplemented by theoretical and historical readings from various fields, including performance studies, literary studies, psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, gender studies, legal studies, and post-colonial studies, in order to critique representations of racial formations relationally rather than as strictly defined categories of identity that have, traditionally, been studied in segregated disciplines (such as Black studies, whiteness studies, Asian and Asian American studies). Along these lines, we will also account for the ways in which race intersects with other categories of identity, such as sexuality, gender, nation, and class. Texts will include works by Ann Cheng, WEB Du Bois, Christina Garcia, Moon-Ha Jung, Bill Mullen, Mira Nair, Patricia Powell, Gary Okihiro, Vijay Prashad, and Anna Deveare Smith. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing cultural contexts. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
An introduction to British and American poetry, 1885-1945. In response to the challenges of modernity, poets produced work of unprecedented variety, experimental daring, and complexity. Authors will include Yeats, Pound, Eliot, H.D., Frost, Williams, Stevens, Moore, Crane, and Auden. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800. 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
This course considers questions of identity, immigration, ethnicity, and race as they figure in a range of American texts. We will focus on authors who, by their own volition or not, have been identified as "minority writers" and who comprise an emerging multicultural canon. Among our questions: What is the usefulness, what are the limitations of various cultural categories How do authors create and/or respond to the pressures of cultural identification How do these pressures translate into aesthetic choices And what are our responsibilities as diverse readers of diverse texts Authors will include James Baldwin, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Martin Espada, as well as visual artists such as Kara Walker, Fred Wilson, and Shahzia Sikhander. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing cultural context. 1.00 units, Lecture
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