All languages change over time, often in predictable patterns. Where did today’s standard English come from, and how is our sense of that standard tied to assumptions about race, class, gender, and nationality? To find out, we will begin roughly 5,000 years ago,studying the common ancestor of languages as different as English, Hindi, and Polish: Proto-Indo-European. We will learn about the prehistoric roots of English, then turn to the earliest written evidence of it: “Anglo-Saxon” or “Old English,” ca. 600-1100.The language was transformed in the wake of the Norman Invasion of 1066, as English became lower in status than both Anglo-Norman French and Latin for a few centuries. Next, we will learn about the growth of English, and its changes, in the age of Chaucer (Middle English) and Shakespeare (Early Modern English). Finally, we will explore processes of standardization, hybridization, and diffusion in the complex effects of English’s spread across the globe over the course of the past 450 years.

BUILDING: LCHAS | ROOM: 104

Eve let the Devil through the door, and her punishment was terrible pain in childbirth: for the vagina is a crossroad between the external and the internal. This course examines medieval and later texts where the feminine and the monstrous intersect: the female body is porous, secretive, associated with the abject, the messy, the sinful, the incomplete, and all the more horrifying when it’s not constrained socially and politically—a mindset that persists even now. We'll look at the “monstrous feminine” in the evil mother, the temptress, the hag, the witch, the fairy and the shapeshifter in Eve, Medea and Melusine; the vetula, the “loathly lady”; Sheela na Gig, Malleus Maleficarum, De Secretis mulierum, “Duessa” and “Error” in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, “Sin” in Milton’s Paradise Lost, films and social media about monstrous mothers, and articles from Cohen, Kristeva, Miller, Urban and Creed.

BUILDING: LCHAS | ROOM: 148

This course on tragedy has three parts. The first concentrates on ancient Greek tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles). The second considers the revival of tragedy in early modern England both as a prestigious neoclassical form and as a vehicle for domestic themes traditionally associated with comedy (Marlowe, Shakespeare, Dryden). The third takes up the disappearance--or transformation--of tragedy in more recent times (Beckett, Lorca). In addition to primary texts, we will examine a number of important theories of tragedy (Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, Weil, Benjamin, Arendt). Our readings will be guided by such questions as: what might the story of this genre tell us about the longer history of representation? And how does tragedy illuminate basic problems such as the appeal of violence and vengeance, the role of religion in society, and the difficulty of finding an ethics that works for all people?

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The class explores the full range of Shakespeare's theater, including examples of history plays, comedy, tragedy, and romance. We approach the plays from many angles, looking at their stark and extravagant language, their invention of complex, conflicted human characters, their analyses of the worlds of politics and war, their self-conscious theatricality, as well as their ways that they join together play and seriousness, the tragic and the comic. We learn about the literary and theatrical conventions that would have been second nature to Shakespeare and his audience 400 years ago, and consider how Renaissance stage practices might help us to better understand his plays and better appreciate why Renaissance audiences found them so compelling. This course fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the English major. Applicable English Clusters: Great Books, Great Authors; Plays, Playwrights, and Theater.

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This course examines the literature and culture of the Victorian period. The Victorian period was not only an era of rapid modernization, imperialist expansion, and scientific advance, it also bore witness to class tensions, urban poverty, religious doubt, and political upheaval. This turbulent era also saw the rise of numerous great literary figures (e.g. Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, and Walter Pater). In this course we will explore many of these well-known Victorian poets, novelists, and essayists, examining how the intellectual preoccupations and aesthetic strategies of these writers responded to their historical and cultural moment. Fulfills the post-1800 requirement. No prerequisites.

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This course introduces students to some of the major British novelists during the nineteenth century such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. The course will situate these novelists within the aesthetic and historical concerns of the period and cover an array of topics (e.g. the rise of the novel, the marriage plot as a narrative device, capitalism, gender, sexuality, race, and empire).

BUILDING: TODD | ROOM: 202

An isolated country parsonage. A half mad father. A profligate brother addicted to drugs. Three uniquely gifted sisters who burned their hearts and brains out on the moors, but not before leaving us some of the most passionate and revolutionary literature of the 19th c. This is the stuff of the Brontë legend. This course will explore the continuing appeal of the Brontës and the peculiar fascination that they have exercised on the literary imagination. Looking intensively at some of the best-loved novels of all time, we will explore the roots and reaches of the Brontë myth. We will also consider the Brontës’ legacy in in some of the many adaptations (and continuations) of their work in print and on the screen. And we will look at our seemingly insatiable appetite for new tellings of the Brontës’ life stories. The course, then, will consider not the only the Brontës’ literary productions, but also our culture’s production and reproduction of “the Brontës” over the years.

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Recently, women have collectively mobilized to announce and describe their anger to the public. We ask how to locate anger in social relations as well as in individuals. We try to distinguish between the behaviors emerging from men’s and women’s anger. We read Mercy and other works by Andrea Dworkin, graphic stories by Phoebe Gloeckner and Isabel Greenberg, the off-genre What Purpose Did I Serve in Your Life by Marie Calloway, The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, Vox by Christina Dalcher, autobiographical/documentary films by Michelle Citron, Su Friedrich, and Cheryl Dunye, the TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale, and political writings such as Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister, Eloquent Rage: a Black Feminist Discovers her Superpower by Brittney Cooper, and Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly. Weekly essays, final essay, no exams.

BUILDING: HYLAN | ROOM: 306

This 4-credit intersession course will be conducted in London, UK, from December 26, 2018–January 6, 2019. Attending two plays per day with a seminar discussion each morning, students in this course are exposed to a full range of theatre experiences, from intimate theatre-in-the-round to monumental productions at the National Theatre, and from West End spectaculars to cutting-edge works mounted in post-industrial spaces. See the link on the English Department homepage to find the course's website, which describes the program in greater detail and contains syllabi from the past 25+ years. Need-based financial aid is available. The fee total is $2850

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PREREQUISITES: Instructor's permission is required. The fee for the course is $2550.

Intro to history, technology, cultural significance of motion pictures of the "pre-sound" era, screenings of 35mm prints accompanied by live music in the Dryden Theatre. Special attention to major pioneers, Dickson, Porter, Lumière, Méliès, and Griffith, including a variety of internationally produced films selected from the world-famous archival film collection of the George Eastman House. Same as FMS 247

BUILDING: GEM | ROOM: CURT

A focused study of Godzilla on film, beginning with the 1954 film that inspired and helped define the Japanese kaiju eiga genre. The larger context of the course is a critical investigation of genre film, specifically the science-fiction/horror/creature-feature film, and a careful consideration of the “culture of war” (World War II through 21st century). We begin with a sampling of seminal non-Japanese titles that provided the foundation for the Godzilla film paradigm, then focus on a close textual study of select “Godzilla films” that help us understand the historical and social contexts for Godzilla’s erratic trajectory since 1954. Recent DVD releases with both dubbed and original Japanese language versions enable us to dissect the culturally generated permutations of kaiju eiga.

BUILDING: LATT | ROOM: 431

This course examines the philosophical, aesthetic, and social issues that are central to classical film theory. It traces the historical development of film theory from 1900 to the 1950s. We will begin with on thinkers in the period of early cinema, including Germaine Dulac, Jean and Marie Epstein, and then we will examine the development of film theory in the work of later theorists, such as Jean Mitry, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, Andre Bazin and Christian Metz. Weekly screenings of historically contemporary films will allow us to examine the ongoing dialogue between the evolving medium and the developing theoretical discussion.

BUILDING: MOREY | ROOM: 504

PREREQUISITES: FMS 132 - Intro to Art of Film OR FMS 131 - Intro to Media Studies

An intensive study of the films of Akira Kurosawa, Japan's most enduring and recognized film auteur. From the 1940s to his death in 1998, Kurosawa’s fifty-year career allows us to consider major cultural, political, and social issues and events that left an imprint on the theory and production of Japanese cinema; we will also consider how classical “Japanese cinema” has been conceptualized through his work. We address the work of individuals (e.g., screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, composer Fumio Hayasaka) who contributed to Kurosawa’s oeuvre but are recognized a notable creative figures in their own right. Finally, we discuss how Kurosawa’s technique and signature style has influenced the work of other directors. Screenings include Kurosawa's well-known period films as well as less familiar contemporary dramas. Previous course work in Japanese and/or film studies is useful but not required.

BUILDING: DEWEY | ROOM: 4162

Restricted to Selznick Students

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Restricted to Selznick Students

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Restricted to Selznick Students

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This workshop is for advanced fiction writers who have completed ENG 121 or have permission from the instructor. The course emphasizes the development of each student's individual style and imagination, as well as the practical and technical concerns of a fiction writer's craft. Readings will be drawn from a wide variety of modern and contemporary writers. Students will be expected to write three original short stories as well as to revise extensively in order to explore the full range of the story's potential. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

BUILDING: RRLIB | ROOM: PLUTZ

Poems, as William Carlos Williams once said, are machines made out of words, and in this advanced poetry workshop we will work on making the most gorgeous, gripping, and efficient machines possible. To that end, we will read both one another's poems and poems by established authors, in either case paying attention to the ways in which the authors harness aspects of their medium, the English language: syntax, diction, rhythm. The poems we write may take any shape, any form, but we will work towards understanding why a particular poem must take the shape it has; we will pay attention not so much to what the poems say as to how they say it. Requirements: weekly writing and reading assignments, revisions of assignments, devoted participation in class discussions, a final project.

BUILDING: RRLIB | ROOM: PLUTZ

PREREQUISITES: Permission of instructor is required. Students are to submit 3-5 typed poems, preferably before the first class.

In this course students will investigate the following questions: What is argument? What is evidence? To answer these questions, students will also think deeply about how context does or does not shape our understanding of these concepts. For instance, what do arguments in STEM fields have in common with those in the humanities? Do different fields such as philosophy, psychology, and biology share evidence and argumentative strategies? Is the meaning of evidence static across these fields? We will begin by investigating different models of argument from philosophy and argumentation theory, and then students will use these broad models to investigate and analyze argument in academic contexts of their choice. We will also explore how these theoretical accounts of argument apply to popular contexts such as advertising, public deliberation, and journalism. Students will explore these issues through reflective writing, several short papers and a research project of their own design.

BUILDING: HYLAN | ROOM: 203

This course will introduce students to the theoretical backgrounds, practical challenges,and creative activity of literary translation. We will survey appropriate theories of language and communication including semiotics, post-structuralism, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and cognitive linguistics. We will consider varied and conflicting descriptions by translators of what it is they believe they are doing and what they hope to accomplish by doing it; and we will study specific translations into English from a variety of sources in order to investigate the strategies and choices translators make and the implication of those choices for our developing sense of what kinds of texts translations actually are. Finally, students will, in consultation with the instructor or with another qualified faculty member, undertake exercises in translation of their own. By the end of this class each student should have a working knowledge of both the critical backgrounds and the artistic potentials of translation.

BUILDING: RRLIB | ROOM: PLUTZ

Credit to be arranged.

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Introduction to Graduate Studies in English is a semester-long introduction to doctoral study in English.

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The literary Fairy Tale, an amorphous and changing genre that emerges from different oral sources, attracts increasing scholarly attention. This course examines the figure of the Fairy itself and its indeterminate world as a site of liminality, category crisis, poetic inspiration and allegory. We will examine its social, political, and moral commentary across medieval, renaissance, and nineteenth-century European literature. How the Fairy signals both instability and literary self-fashioning: in the grafting of histories and genealogies with fairy ancestors (Melusine, Historia Regum Brittoniae, The Faerie Queene); in the troubling overlap between civilization and nature (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Undine); or as a site of loss, childhood, poetry, & the rise of “theosophy” in the 19th C. (Keats, Yeats, Tennyson, Hewitt, Barrie, Conan Doyle) Throughout time, readers have been fascinated by a “hidden people”not entirely foreign, evil, or human who abduct them, deceive them, seduce them, and make them poets

BUILDING: MOREY | ROOM: 403

See department website for description

BUILDING: MOREY | ROOM: 403

At the center of this seminar will be a long, detailed reading of James Joyce's Ulysses, the most difficult and beautiful work of what we've come to call literary modernism. Leading up to our experience of Ulysses, we will read Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (to introduce ourselves to the world of Joyce) and a selection of Yeats's poems (to introduce us to the world of Anglo-Irish culture); following our experience of Ulysses, we will read two works marked deeply by Joyce's influence: Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Eliot's The Waste Land.

BUILDING: MOREY | ROOM: 403

In this course we will consider the theoretical underpinnings and the history—philosophical and institutional—of critical studies in the humanities. Topics and readings will focus on the relationship of philosophy to criticism, of truth to art, of criticism to aesthetics and politics, of data to belief, and of the human to the natural sciences. Readings may include selections from Heidegger, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Derrida, Sedgwick, Butler, Spivak, Felski, Hayles, Moretti and others.

BUILDING: MOREY | ROOM: 403

The concept that ties these terms together is that each is part of a whole, relates in a subordinate way to a greater reality, contributes to or intervenes in the construction of meaning, or in some way comments on what we assume to be the essential of the artwork. Yet until recently they have been largely overlooked in favor of considering the totality of the artwork as a unified whole. Looking again at the overlooked, the little considered, the minuscule, the trivial, the unobserved, the disregarded, pays great dividends in understanding what we mean by ‘totality,’ enhancing our ability to interpret the work as an amalgam of parts. The seminar will address artworks from across the visual and textual spectrum, including painting, architecture, prose, poetry, photography, film and sound. The course will be of particular interest to students of art history, visual studies, literature and philosophy.

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TEACHING EXPERIENCE BEYOND 2ND YEAR PEDAGOGY TRAINING

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Credit to be arranged The following courses may be taken for four hours of graduate credit.

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