Graduate Program

Fall Term Schedule for Graduate Courses

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Fall 2023

Number	Title	Instructor	Time
ENGL 400-1 History of the English Language Steven Rozenski TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
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. Location Bausch & Lomb Room 270 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)
ENGL 405-2 Dante's Divine Comedy 1 Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
The first of a sequence of two, the course approaches 'The Divine Comedy' both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of 'Inferno,' and the first half of 'Purgatorio,' students learn how to approach Dantes poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dantes concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the 'Comedy' and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. Dante I can be taken independently from Dante II. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster. Location Gavett Hall Room 310 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 406-2 The Monstrous Feminine in the Middle Ages Sarah Higley TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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. Location Meliora Room 205 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)
ENGL 413-1 Revenge Tragedies in the English Renaissance Rosemary Kegl MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM
This course considers the popular tradition of revenge tragedy in the English Renaissance, including the plays’ characteristic violent, macabre, and bloody spectacles. Why did English Renaissance audiences find so fascinating and compelling revenge tragedy’s many excesses (emotional, linguistic, narrative, theatrical)? How is the quality of tragedy altered when it is modified with “revenge”? Which Renaissance performance traditions would have enhanced the audience’s experience of revenge tragedy? Did audiences expect revenge tragedy to differ depending on the kind of theater that they attended or the particular company involved in the staging? We will consider plays written by Chettle, Ford, Kyd, Marston, Middleton, Tourneur, Shakespeare, and Webster and, when possible, view video of recent staged productions. Satisfies the pre-1800 literature, the dramatic literature, the literature, and the 200-level literature requirements for various English major and minor tracks. Satisfies a requirement in the following Humanities/English cluster: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater. This course is appropriate for all students, from those in their first semester at the university to senior English majors. No restrictions or prerequisites. Location Lechase Room 141 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
ENGL 422-1 Nineteenth-Century British Novel Supritha Rajan TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM
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). Location Hylan Building Room 305 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
ENGL 430-1 African American Autobiography Jeffrey Tucker MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM
Autobiography is the foundation of the tradition of African American literature. It is also a genre that performs the construction of identity and represents the role of narrative in that process. Therefore, autobiography is not only “writing about a life by oneself,” but also the life of the self in the form of writing. This course surveys the tradition of autobiographical writings by African Americans, from slave narratives to recent bestsellers, in order to promote an understanding of autobiography as a narrative form shaped by its historical context as well as the imagination, memory, aesthetic choices, and political purposes of the author. In addition, the course provides students with insights into African American culture and history. Readings include texts by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, Barack Obama, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, and more. Requirements include two formal writing assignments, bi-weekly reading responses, and participation in class discussion. Location Meliora Room 224 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
ENGL 436A-1 Postmodernism: Fiction, Philosophy, Media Robert Doran W 4:50PM - 7:30PM
This class examines the multifaceted concept of “postmodernism,” a term that came to define an amalgam of various literary approaches (metafictional, parodic, self-referential), philosophical perspectives (anti-metanarrative, ironic, perspectivist), and cultural developments (consumer society, mass media, dominance of the image) of the mid to late twentieth century. We will study the origins of postmodernist discourse in Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, whose trenchant critiques of modernity set the stage for much of 20th-century thought; the postmodernist fiction of Jorge Luis Borges (short stories), Don DeLillo (White Noise), Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), Paul Auster (City of Glass), and Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler); the philosophical texts of Gianni Vattimo, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty; the cultural criticism of Fredric Jameson, Umberto Eco, and Jean Baudrillard. Conducted in English. Location Morey Room 502 (W 4:50PM - 7:30PM)
ENGL 440-1 Language in Science and Religion David Bleich TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM
This course addresses questions such as these: Do species have “origins”? Does the universe have a beginning? What is meant by “creation”? Are “fundamental” particles related to religious fundamentalism? Is cognitive science connected to the “tree of knowledge”? Are “knowledge” and “truth” key terms in both science and religion? Are there “higher” and “lower” organisms? Do mothers have “instincts”? Are people smarter than other animals? Have “instincts” and “intelligence” been identified by science? Does a sperm “penetrate” or “fertilize” an egg? Do either God or Nature have “laws”? Is “the invisible hand” a religious idea? Is “the great chain of being” a religious idea, and did Darwin overtake it? Do people need to be “saved”? Is “evil” a “problem”? How do people describe the practices of circumcision and communion? Readings are taken from the bible, history of science, feminist critiques of religion and science, and literature. Emphasis is on common language usages and their political valences. Location Lechase Room 141 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
ENGL 443-1 The Brontes Bette London MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM
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 century. 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. Location Lattimore Room 413 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)
ENGL 445-1 The Outsider in Literature Jeffrey Tucker MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM
This course uses literature to analyze social behavior, specifically processes of inclusion and exclusion. How communities are constructed, around what signs and sets of practices, and the role that exclusion plays in defining a community are topics we will explore. What does it mean to belong? To be excluded? And just how stable are these categories? Literature from a variety of traditions, historical periods, and genres will provide examples, case histories, and a vocabulary with which such social phenomena can be discussed. Texts include Beowulf, John Gardner’s Grendel, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, Amin Maalouf’s In the Name of Identity, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Peter Shaffer’s Equus, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and more. Course requirements include two essays, bi-weekly response papers, and class participation. Location Hylan Building Room 203 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)
ENGL 452-1 Theater in England Katherine Mannheimer –
This 4-credit intersession course will be conducted in London, UK, from December 26, 2022–January 7, 2023. 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
ENGL 455-1 Film History: Early Cinema James Rosenow TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM
This course surveys the history of cinema from its emergence in the mid-1890s to the transition to sound in the late 1920s. We will examine the cinema as a set of aesthetic, social, technological, national, cultural and industrial practices as they were exercised and developed during this 30-year span. We will explore the diverse forms cinema took and functions it performed during this period by looking closely at a range of films and writings about films and film culture. We will also examine contexts within which these films were produced and experienced as well as theorizations of cinema that emerged concurrently with them. The course thus introduces students to the study of film history as well as a key national and international trends in making and thinking about cinema as it rose to prominence as a vital component of the art and culture of the twentieth century. Previous coursework in film is recommended, though not required; please contact the professor if this will be your first experience studying film in an academic setting. Location Hylan Building Room 102 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)
ENGL 457-1 Film History: 1959-1989 Sharon Willis MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
This course will explore developments in world cinema—industrial, social, and political—from 1959 to 1989. It will explore film aesthetics, technologies, and circulation questions, considering questions like the following: What’s new about the French New Wave? What do we mean by Third Cinema? How do different national cinemas influence each other? In what ways have various national cinemas responded critically to Hollywood’s commercial dominance and to its conventions? How do popular and “art” cinemas speak to each other. How does cinema respond to the pressures and provocations of other media at the inception of the digital age? Weekly screenings and film journals required. FMS 132, “Introduction to the Art of Film,” is typically a prerequisite. Location Morey Room 504 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 469-1 Museum Practice Jeffrey Stoiber –
3/4 Per CS no meeting pattern needed and should be 4 credits ca Restricted to Selznick Students
ENGL 470-1 Curatorial Theory & Practice Jeffrey Stoiber –
Restricted to Selznick Students
ENGL 471-1 Film Conservation&Restoratn Jeffrey Stoiber –
Restricted to Selznick Students
ENGL 475-1 Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction Tutorial Joanna Scott M 2:00PM - 4:40PM
The Advanced Creative Writing Tutorial 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. The Advanced Tutorial gives undergraduates the chance to work on their literary and creative interests to further the development of their original writing. Group meetings will be supplemented by faculty-directed, student-centered tutorial meetings. Students will design individualized creative projects specific to their interests. Location Dewey Room 4162 (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 475-2 Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction Stephen Schottenfeld W 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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. Location Morey Room 501 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 487-4 Studies in Translation Stella Wang W 2:00PM - 4:40PM
This course will introduce students to the theoretical backgrounds, practical challenges, and creative activity of literary translation. We will consider varied 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 to investigate the strategies and choices translators make and the implication of those choices for our developing sense of what kinds of texts translations are. Finally, students will undertake a translation project of their own. By the end of this class each student should have a working knowledge of both the theory and the craft of literary translation. Location Hylan Building Room 303 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 491-4 Master's Reading Course Ezra Tawil –
Credit to be arranged.
ENGL 500-1 Graduate Colloquium Ezra Tawil –
Introduction to Graduate Studies in English is a semester-long introduction to doctoral study in English.
ENGL 504-1 Forest and City: Enclosing “Nature” in Medieval Literature. Sarah Higley M 2:00PM - 4:40PM
“Where man is not,” wrote William Blake, “nature is barren.” How did the classical trope of Natura, the goddess who hammered out the categories all things fit in, become our vague notion of “nature,” especially our sentiments about forests? The word “forest” was a technical term in early France having to do with boundaries. It derived (uncertainly) from L. foris, “external,” “outside,” providing Norman kings and nobles written legal right, called the Royal Forest Law, to keep land they claimed for their hunting pleasures outside the reach of Common Law. In our myths, the city keeps the wilderness out, and humans within. Crossing that boundary had complex consequences as venturers met with either natural or unnatural denizens. The classical and medieval treatment of “nature” and “wilderness” versus “city” and “artifice” will be our ecocritical theme, as will the notions of “human exceptionalism” versus the non-human world that still persist today. As civilization encroaches, we enclose and protect wilderness in “nature”—a remnant of the Forest Laws. This course addresses myths of the wilderness in the Middle Ages, uses of the forest, and the fragile sanctuary of the city: we will see the forest as a retreat for outlaws, hermits, mad men, wild men, giants, fairies, and the good and bad uses of forestry, but also the categories that Natura puts there, or that develop unnaturally. Selections from Old English Literature, Alain de Lille’s Complaint of Nature, Romance of the Rose; Gervase of Tilbury, Walter Map, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald of Wales, Sir Orfeo, Gawain and the Green Knight, Gowther, Degare, Melusine, Libeaus Desconus, etc. with critical material by Robert Pogue Harrison, Gillian Rudd, Heide Estes and others. Location Morey Room 403 (M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 538-1 19th Century American Literature in a Global Age: Practice and Theory John Michael T 11:05AM - 1:45PM
Recent critical work has called into question the saliency of national traditions and the efficacy of conventional periodization in literary studies. This shift in critical focus from the nation to the globe has implications for the field of American literature and the rationale for literary studies more generally. In this seminar we will consider reevaluations of the always evolving canon of nineteenth-century American literature in light of our increased awareness of globalization’s long history. Does rereading writers once considered “pure products of America,” like Cooper, Child, Emerson, Melville, Poe, Whitman, Hawthorne, Douglass, Delaney, Thoreau, Stowe, Dickinson, Twain, James and others, in contexts that traverse the once heavily policed borders of the U. S. A., change the meaning and implications of their work? What is the purpose of studying any national literature when the concept of the nation itself seems increasingly questionable? We will read representative works by selected canonical “American” authors as well as recent critical reevaluations of the field by Robert Levine, Wai Chee Dimock, Lisa Lowe, Edward Said, Paul Gilroy, Paul Giles, John Guillory and others. Location Morey Room 403 (T 11:05AM - 1:45PM)
ENGL 540-1 Modernisms, Old and New Bette London T 2:00PM - 4:40PM
“Make it New” has generally been accepted as a mantra for literary modernism. But with many of its classics now more than 100 years old, their novelty invites reinvestigation. In recent years, moreover, modernist studies, as a critical field, has itself undergone a significant remaking. With the emergence of “the new modernist studies,” critical attention has shifted to a recognition of multiple and diverse modernisms that stretch the geographic, temporal, and material limits of what once passed for an established canon and that open the field to practitioners not previously recognized as modernists. This turn has brought a profusion of new questions and methodologies and new texts and contexts to consider. This seminar will explore a number of recent challenges to the traditional mapping of the modernist field and to the critical rubrics it has promulgated; we will do so through a reading of some of the key critical interventions in the field that have been published in the last couple of decades, but also through a rereading of iconic texts of British modernism. We will also look at how postmodern and contemporary artists have recast and transformed some of these modernist icons, sometimes by literally taking them apart and re-piecing them together. Location Morey Room 403 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 555-1 Theorizing Horror Jason Middleton W 2:00PM - 4:40PM
The horror film has consistently put on spectacular, fantastic display a range of historically and culturally specific fears and anxieties. The genre has been especially generative for theorists seeking to understand the somatic and affective capacities of the cinematic medium, and scholars have explored the complex and contradictory politics of the genre’s visceral effects. This seminar does not present a cultural history of the horror film or trace the evolution of the genre. Rather, we will examine theories of horror as they have developed in relation to other approaches in film/media studies and critical theory, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, queer theory, disability studies, and affect theory. Location Morey Room 403 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
ENGL 571-1 Writing Pedagogy Matt Bayne MWF 11:30AM - 2:30PM
Restriction: Instructor's permission required Location Rush Rhees Library Room G121B (MWF 11:30AM - 2:30PM)
ENGL 580-1 Pedagogical Training Ezra Tawil –
No description
ENGL 595-1 PhD Research Ezra Tawil –
Credit to be arrangedThe following courses may be taken for four hours of graduate credit.
ENGL 895-1 Cont of Master's Enrollment – –
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ENGL 897-1 Masters Dissertation William Miller –
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ENGL 995-1 Cont of Doctoral Enrollment – –
No description
ENGL 997-1 Doctoral Dissertation Katherine Mannheimer –
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ENGL 997-2 Doctoral Dissertation Kenneth Gross –
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ENGL 997-3 Doctoral Dissertation Thomas Hahn –
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ENGL 997-4 Doctoral Dissertation Supritha Rajan –
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ENGL 999-01 Doctoral Dissertation Katherine Mannheimer –
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ENGL 999-02 Doctoral Dissertation John Michael –
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ENGL 999-03 Doctoral Dissertation David Bleich –
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ENGL 999-04 Doctoral Dissertation Ezra Tawil –
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ENGL 999-05 Doctoral Dissertation Thomas Hahn –
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ENGL 999-06 Doctoral Dissertation Jeffrey Tucker –
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ENGL 999-07 Doctoral Dissertation Gregory Heyworth –
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ENGL 999-08 Doctoral Dissertation Morris Eaves –
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ENGL 999-09 Doctoral Dissertation Kenneth Gross –
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ENGL 999-10 Doctoral Dissertation Rosemary Kegl –
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ENGL 999-11 Doctoral Dissertation William Miller –
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ENGL 999-12 Doctoral Dissertation Sarah Higley –
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ENGL 999-13 Doctoral Dissertation Supritha Rajan –
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ENGL 999-14 Doctoral Dissertation Bette London –
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ENGL 999-15 Doctoral Dissertation Jason Middleton –
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ENGL 999-16 Doctoral Dissertation Joel Burges –
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ENGL 999-17 Doctoral Dissertation James Longenbach –
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ENGL 999-18 Doctoral Dissertation Kenneth Gross –
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Number	Title	Instructor	Time
Monday
ENGL 475-1 Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction Tutorial Joanna Scott
The Advanced Creative Writing Tutorial 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. The Advanced Tutorial gives undergraduates the chance to work on their literary and creative interests to further the development of their original writing. Group meetings will be supplemented by faculty-directed, student-centered tutorial meetings. Students will design individualized creative projects specific to their interests.
ENGL 504-1 Forest and City: Enclosing “Nature” in Medieval Literature. Sarah Higley
“Where man is not,” wrote William Blake, “nature is barren.” How did the classical trope of Natura, the goddess who hammered out the categories all things fit in, become our vague notion of “nature,” especially our sentiments about forests? The word “forest” was a technical term in early France having to do with boundaries. It derived (uncertainly) from L. foris, “external,” “outside,” providing Norman kings and nobles written legal right, called the Royal Forest Law, to keep land they claimed for their hunting pleasures outside the reach of Common Law. In our myths, the city keeps the wilderness out, and humans within. Crossing that boundary had complex consequences as venturers met with either natural or unnatural denizens. The classical and medieval treatment of “nature” and “wilderness” versus “city” and “artifice” will be our ecocritical theme, as will the notions of “human exceptionalism” versus the non-human world that still persist today. As civilization encroaches, we enclose and protect wilderness in “nature”—a remnant of the Forest Laws. This course addresses myths of the wilderness in the Middle Ages, uses of the forest, and the fragile sanctuary of the city: we will see the forest as a retreat for outlaws, hermits, mad men, wild men, giants, fairies, and the good and bad uses of forestry, but also the categories that Natura puts there, or that develop unnaturally. Selections from Old English Literature, Alain de Lille’s Complaint of Nature, Romance of the Rose; Gervase of Tilbury, Walter Map, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald of Wales, Sir Orfeo, Gawain and the Green Knight, Gowther, Degare, Melusine, Libeaus Desconus, etc. with critical material by Robert Pogue Harrison, Gillian Rudd, Heide Estes and others.
Monday and Wednesday
ENGL 445-1 The Outsider in Literature Jeffrey Tucker
This course uses literature to analyze social behavior, specifically processes of inclusion and exclusion. How communities are constructed, around what signs and sets of practices, and the role that exclusion plays in defining a community are topics we will explore. What does it mean to belong? To be excluded? And just how stable are these categories? Literature from a variety of traditions, historical periods, and genres will provide examples, case histories, and a vocabulary with which such social phenomena can be discussed. Texts include Beowulf, John Gardner’s Grendel, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, Amin Maalouf’s In the Name of Identity, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Peter Shaffer’s Equus, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and more. Course requirements include two essays, bi-weekly response papers, and class participation.
ENGL 443-1 The Brontes Bette London
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 century. 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.
ENGL 413-1 Revenge Tragedies in the English Renaissance Rosemary Kegl
This course considers the popular tradition of revenge tragedy in the English Renaissance, including the plays’ characteristic violent, macabre, and bloody spectacles. Why did English Renaissance audiences find so fascinating and compelling revenge tragedy’s many excesses (emotional, linguistic, narrative, theatrical)? How is the quality of tragedy altered when it is modified with “revenge”? Which Renaissance performance traditions would have enhanced the audience’s experience of revenge tragedy? Did audiences expect revenge tragedy to differ depending on the kind of theater that they attended or the particular company involved in the staging? We will consider plays written by Chettle, Ford, Kyd, Marston, Middleton, Tourneur, Shakespeare, and Webster and, when possible, view video of recent staged productions. Satisfies the pre-1800 literature, the dramatic literature, the literature, and the 200-level literature requirements for various English major and minor tracks. Satisfies a requirement in the following Humanities/English cluster: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater. This course is appropriate for all students, from those in their first semester at the university to senior English majors. No restrictions or prerequisites.
ENGL 430-1 African American Autobiography Jeffrey Tucker
Autobiography is the foundation of the tradition of African American literature. It is also a genre that performs the construction of identity and represents the role of narrative in that process. Therefore, autobiography is not only “writing about a life by oneself,” but also the life of the self in the form of writing. This course surveys the tradition of autobiographical writings by African Americans, from slave narratives to recent bestsellers, in order to promote an understanding of autobiography as a narrative form shaped by its historical context as well as the imagination, memory, aesthetic choices, and political purposes of the author. In addition, the course provides students with insights into African American culture and history. Readings include texts by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, Barack Obama, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, and more. Requirements include two formal writing assignments, bi-weekly reading responses, and participation in class discussion.
ENGL 405-2 Dante's Divine Comedy 1 Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio
The first of a sequence of two, the course approaches 'The Divine Comedy' both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of 'Inferno,' and the first half of 'Purgatorio,' students learn how to approach Dantes poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dantes concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the 'Comedy' and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. Dante I can be taken independently from Dante II. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster.
ENGL 457-1 Film History: 1959-1989 Sharon Willis
This course will explore developments in world cinema—industrial, social, and political—from 1959 to 1989. It will explore film aesthetics, technologies, and circulation questions, considering questions like the following: What’s new about the French New Wave? What do we mean by Third Cinema? How do different national cinemas influence each other? In what ways have various national cinemas responded critically to Hollywood’s commercial dominance and to its conventions? How do popular and “art” cinemas speak to each other. How does cinema respond to the pressures and provocations of other media at the inception of the digital age? Weekly screenings and film journals required. FMS 132, “Introduction to the Art of Film,” is typically a prerequisite.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
ENGL 571-1 Writing Pedagogy Matt Bayne
Restriction: Instructor's permission required
Tuesday
ENGL 538-1 19th Century American Literature in a Global Age: Practice and Theory John Michael
Recent critical work has called into question the saliency of national traditions and the efficacy of conventional periodization in literary studies. This shift in critical focus from the nation to the globe has implications for the field of American literature and the rationale for literary studies more generally. In this seminar we will consider reevaluations of the always evolving canon of nineteenth-century American literature in light of our increased awareness of globalization’s long history. Does rereading writers once considered “pure products of America,” like Cooper, Child, Emerson, Melville, Poe, Whitman, Hawthorne, Douglass, Delaney, Thoreau, Stowe, Dickinson, Twain, James and others, in contexts that traverse the once heavily policed borders of the U. S. A., change the meaning and implications of their work? What is the purpose of studying any national literature when the concept of the nation itself seems increasingly questionable? We will read representative works by selected canonical “American” authors as well as recent critical reevaluations of the field by Robert Levine, Wai Chee Dimock, Lisa Lowe, Edward Said, Paul Gilroy, Paul Giles, John Guillory and others.
ENGL 540-1 Modernisms, Old and New Bette London
“Make it New” has generally been accepted as a mantra for literary modernism. But with many of its classics now more than 100 years old, their novelty invites reinvestigation. In recent years, moreover, modernist studies, as a critical field, has itself undergone a significant remaking. With the emergence of “the new modernist studies,” critical attention has shifted to a recognition of multiple and diverse modernisms that stretch the geographic, temporal, and material limits of what once passed for an established canon and that open the field to practitioners not previously recognized as modernists. This turn has brought a profusion of new questions and methodologies and new texts and contexts to consider. This seminar will explore a number of recent challenges to the traditional mapping of the modernist field and to the critical rubrics it has promulgated; we will do so through a reading of some of the key critical interventions in the field that have been published in the last couple of decades, but also through a rereading of iconic texts of British modernism. We will also look at how postmodern and contemporary artists have recast and transformed some of these modernist icons, sometimes by literally taking them apart and re-piecing them together.
Tuesday and Thursday
ENGL 400-1 History of the English Language Steven Rozenski
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.
ENGL 406-2 The Monstrous Feminine in the Middle Ages Sarah Higley
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.
ENGL 422-1 Nineteenth-Century British Novel Supritha Rajan
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).
ENGL 440-1 Language in Science and Religion David Bleich
This course addresses questions such as these: Do species have “origins”? Does the universe have a beginning? What is meant by “creation”? Are “fundamental” particles related to religious fundamentalism? Is cognitive science connected to the “tree of knowledge”? Are “knowledge” and “truth” key terms in both science and religion? Are there “higher” and “lower” organisms? Do mothers have “instincts”? Are people smarter than other animals? Have “instincts” and “intelligence” been identified by science? Does a sperm “penetrate” or “fertilize” an egg? Do either God or Nature have “laws”? Is “the invisible hand” a religious idea? Is “the great chain of being” a religious idea, and did Darwin overtake it? Do people need to be “saved”? Is “evil” a “problem”? How do people describe the practices of circumcision and communion? Readings are taken from the bible, history of science, feminist critiques of religion and science, and literature. Emphasis is on common language usages and their political valences.
ENGL 455-1 Film History: Early Cinema James Rosenow
This course surveys the history of cinema from its emergence in the mid-1890s to the transition to sound in the late 1920s. We will examine the cinema as a set of aesthetic, social, technological, national, cultural and industrial practices as they were exercised and developed during this 30-year span. We will explore the diverse forms cinema took and functions it performed during this period by looking closely at a range of films and writings about films and film culture. We will also examine contexts within which these films were produced and experienced as well as theorizations of cinema that emerged concurrently with them. The course thus introduces students to the study of film history as well as a key national and international trends in making and thinking about cinema as it rose to prominence as a vital component of the art and culture of the twentieth century. Previous coursework in film is recommended, though not required; please contact the professor if this will be your first experience studying film in an academic setting.
Wednesday
ENGL 475-2 Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction Stephen Schottenfeld
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.
ENGL 487-4 Studies in Translation Stella Wang
This course will introduce students to the theoretical backgrounds, practical challenges, and creative activity of literary translation. We will consider varied 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 to investigate the strategies and choices translators make and the implication of those choices for our developing sense of what kinds of texts translations are. Finally, students will undertake a translation project of their own. By the end of this class each student should have a working knowledge of both the theory and the craft of literary translation.
ENGL 555-1 Theorizing Horror Jason Middleton
The horror film has consistently put on spectacular, fantastic display a range of historically and culturally specific fears and anxieties. The genre has been especially generative for theorists seeking to understand the somatic and affective capacities of the cinematic medium, and scholars have explored the complex and contradictory politics of the genre’s visceral effects. This seminar does not present a cultural history of the horror film or trace the evolution of the genre. Rather, we will examine theories of horror as they have developed in relation to other approaches in film/media studies and critical theory, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, queer theory, disability studies, and affect theory.
ENGL 436A-1 Postmodernism: Fiction, Philosophy, Media Robert Doran
This class examines the multifaceted concept of “postmodernism,” a term that came to define an amalgam of various literary approaches (metafictional, parodic, self-referential), philosophical perspectives (anti-metanarrative, ironic, perspectivist), and cultural developments (consumer society, mass media, dominance of the image) of the mid to late twentieth century. We will study the origins of postmodernist discourse in Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, whose trenchant critiques of modernity set the stage for much of 20th-century thought; the postmodernist fiction of Jorge Luis Borges (short stories), Don DeLillo (White Noise), Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), Paul Auster (City of Glass), and Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler); the philosophical texts of Gianni Vattimo, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty; the cultural criticism of Fredric Jameson, Umberto Eco, and Jean Baudrillard. Conducted in English.
Thursday
Friday