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Course Criteria
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1.00 Credits
Historian Russell Shorto wrote in his book about the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam that it "would become the first multiethnic, upwardly mobile society on America's shores, a prototype of the kind of society that would be duplicated throughout the country and around the world. It was no coincidence," he continues, "that on September 11, 2001, those who wished to make a symbolic attack on the center of American power chose the World Trade Center as their target. If what made America great was its ingenious openness to different cultures, then the small triangle of land at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is the New World birthplace of that idea, the spot where it first took shape. . . . Manhattan is where America began." In this course, we will examine a variety of literary texts and a number of films to test Shorto's hypothesis and to discover the diverse ways in which Manhattan has been imagined, constructed, and experienced. Among the works we will likely read are Child's Letters from New York, Wharton's The Age of Innocence, Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain; films may include Martin Scorsese's New York, New York and Woody Allen's Manhattan. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800, or a course emphasizing cultural con 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
This course examines the evolution of the concept of adolescence in the Victorian period, focusing in particular on representations of girls growing up. What language did authors use, and what concepts did they employ, to capture young girls' experiences in an era before the theorization of adolescent development Answers will be sought in a broad range of texts, some canonical, some less well-known. Other major topics the course will address include matters of faith and doubt; the role of the private sphere in the creation of the self; the place of marriage in the social arrangement; cultural policies of inclusion and exclusion; imperial adventures and imperial invasions. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800. 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
A survey of rich traditions of oral and written literature created by North American Indians. We will begin with some classic texts of story, song, and autobiography, and more to contemporary fiction and poetry. We will also listen to recordings and view films of oral literature, chant, and the storytelling tradition. Course requirements include written responses to texts, an oral report, a midterm, and a final project. Participants must review a history of Native Americans before the class begins. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
We will explore the discovery of self in tension with the development of cultural, social, and political awareness in contemporary poetry. The United States will be our focus, but we will turn our eyes to the world beyond as well. We will read poets such as Espada, Rich, Komunyakaa, Doty, and Brooks. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
Literature is produced and consumed by literate people. Nothing could be more obvious. But how do the different ways writers and readers become literate influence the ways they write and read How have writers depicted the process of acquiring literacy and imagined its importance In this course, we will examine in both theoretical and historical terms the nature of literacy and the roles texts play in the formation of individual literacies. With a focus on the 19th- and 20th-century U.S. (and particular attention to the case of African Americans), we will look at schoolbooks, texts for young readers, and representations of literacy in literary works ranging from slave narratives to novels to films. We also will study theories of literacy from philosophical, cognitive, and educational perspectives. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a literary theory course, or a course emphasizing literature written after 1800. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
This half-credit course is for language fanatics. Whether you are a "good" writer or a "bad" writer, "good" or "bad" at English grammar, if you love the shape and flow of sentences, this course is for you. For 75 minutes each week, we will gather and explore the structure of the basic unit of thought in written English. We will diagram rock lyrics; we will diagram Shakespeare; we will diagram Biblical quotations, we will diagram Joyce, we will diagram love letters. We will search out and diagram quirky sentences from the news and the internet. We will attempt to diagram undiagrammable sentences and discover why they fail to work as units of thought. We will find multiple ways to speak a diagrammed sentence, and multiple ways to diagram the same sentence and discover its varied meanings. 0.50 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
This reading and writing intensive seminar offers an in-depth examination of the writings of Ralph Ellison. Attending closely to Ellison's fiction and non-fiction, as well as to a good sampling of the relevant critical literature, students will attain the sort of familiarity with Ellison that can come only from detailed study of his work. We will also use Ellison as a point of entry to further explore the subject of American culture. We will pay particular attention to Ellison's responses to migration, the function of culture, the role of the artist, the search for identity, and the meaning of America. For English majors, 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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1.00 Credits
This course will examine the way curiosity transformed literature and culture in the age of inquiry, when Peeping Tom was invented, modern science was institutionalized, and the detective novel was born. We will read texts that explore both approved and unapproved kinds, such as witchcraft, voyeurism, and the exhibition of monsters. Texts will include drama, journalism, poetry, satire, and novels by Aphra Behn, Defoe, Johnson, and others. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written before 1800 and for a course emphasizing poetry. Not open to first-year students. 1.00 units, Lecture
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3.00 Credits
Examination of works by Chekhov, Bergman, Wilde, Carne, Pirandello, Woolf, Freud, Jones, Olivier, Cukor, Stoppard, Bate, Allen, Branagh, and others in light of selected plays by Shakespeare. Course themes include creativity in the theater, life as a dream, sex roles and gender as performance, the presentation of self in everyday life, and performativity as being. This course can be counted toward fulfillment of requirements for the literature and psychology minor, as well as for fulfillment of the English major requirement for a theory course or of a course concentrating on literature written after 1800. 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
In the classical tradition, painting is the sister to poetry. According to this formulation, poetry is a speaking picture, while painting is a silent poem. London in the 18th century saw a massive increase of visual material--from illustrated books, to private exhibitions, to museums, to giant panoramic landscapes. In addition to reviewing some of the spectacular visuals of the period, we will look at poems about paintings, writing about art, and theories of taste, seeing and reading. Expect to learn about Protestant iconoclasm, ekphrasis, iconicity, antitheatricality and literary pictorialism. Primary source materials will include works by Lessing, Hogarth, Winckelmann, Pope, Addison, Reynolds, Hume and Blake. Contemporary theory will include works by W.J.T. Mitchell, Heffernan, Jay and Berger that explicitly consider "ways of seeing" in addition to works by Bourdieu, Foucault, Barthes, and Williams that help us place the sister arts into the larger context of cultural studies. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written before 1800 or a literary theory course. 1.00 units, Lecture
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