This course introduces students to myths and related story types which began as oral literatures and assumed a new literary life after they were written down (fairy tales, legends, animal fables). Sources will be in English but will come from a wide range of cultures and traditions including Mesopotamia, the Levant, Greece, India, Western Africa, Scandinavia, and the Americas. Close study of particular myths and literatures will help us to ask and investigate fundamental questions. What is myth? What are fairy tales? What distinguishes elite and popular forms of legendary literature? What is the significance of the oral tradition? What is the cultural importance of writing? Is myth and lore ongoing now? Where? How? Why? Longer texts may include Gilgamesh, the Metamorphoses, the Popol Vuh, and the Mahabharata. 

Location

Morey Room 504 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

"Maximum "English" introduces you to the full range of English here at UR. Is it literature you want today, or creative writing? film? theater? journalism? debate?  So you'll learn the fundamentals of reading and viewing from the department's own creative writers, its literary and film critics and historians, and its theater directors. You'll enlarge the experience of reading literature and criticism by listening to writers read their own original work and then discussing it with them. You'll experience plays not only as written scripts but as living theatrical events by attending performances and talking to actors, directors, and designers about what they do to bring a play to the stage. You'll encounter works in different media, from the live human voice to printed books, from the stage to film and multimedia digital texts. Maximum English is particularly suitable for first-year students, though all others are welcome.  

Location

Bausch & Lomb Room 269 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course introduces students to Rochester, NY, through the eyes of the humanities. We discuss the city’s museum exhibits and public murals, parks and cemeteries, memorial monuments and statues, photographs and speeches, drama and prose fiction, and protests and social movements from the 19th through the 21st centuries as depicted film and print. The protest and social movement unit of the course considers, in addition to contemporary protests and social movements, anti-slavery and women's rights movements in the 19th C, and protests for racial justice and the organization of FIGHT in the 1960s. We become familiar with models in the humanities for reading, viewing, and analyzing these objects, spaces, and events, and we practice our interpretative skills in class discussion and in journals. Students also learn about digital resources for presenting their work (Omeka, StoryMaps) and, if they find these resources useful, have the option of incorporating them into their writing assignments. 

Please note: This course includes a handful of field trips on- and off- campus. All field trips, including transportation, occur during our regular scheduled class sessions; field trips will not conflict with other courses, labs, jobs, or extracurricular activities. 

Satisfies the “additional survey or approach course” in the British and American Literature track of the English major. Satisfies a requirement in the following Humanities/English cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.  This course is appropriate for all students.  No requirements or prerequisites.

Location

Morey Room 501 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This course will introduce students to the history, theory, and practice of the art of persuasive writing and speech. We will cover the development of rhetorical traditions across human history and many human cultures, with a focus on how to make use of these perspectives in our own time - a time in which the terms and conditions of public discourse have changed frequently, rapidly, and abruptly. We will investigate the philosophical questions surrounding the study of rhetoric - mainly: what is the purpose of studying rhetoric - as Aristotle put it, "the available means of persuasion" - and what is its value to society? We will also study rhetorical structure and technique by examining some of the most historically prominent oral and written argumentative texts, from great speeches to bold written polemics, to poetic and literary interventions. We'll extend that study into examination of more recent changes in media - as in radio, television, cinema, and more recently, digital media - and how they have challenged and changed the rhetorical landscape to create new opportunities for individual and collective expression. Students will be expected to complete written and spoken assignments throughout the semester.

Location

Lechase Room 104 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course addresses the Big Questions: Love, Death, War, Sex, Law, and more besides. We’ll come to our readings through myth and history, art and philosophy, and a series of broad conceptual frameworks. Above all, however, this is a course in literary appreciation and influence: we will read extensively in Homer and Virgil, in dialogues by Plato, in a broad selection of Greek tragedy (and one comedy!), in a generous selection from Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Our aim will be to encounter these as challenging, imaginative, absorbing, and enduring attempts to confront, articulate, and share the possibilities of life. We will try to do justice to these texts in their own distinctive terms, but we will strive as well to see why readers before us have prized them so highly for thousands of years, and how we are to make sense of them in the 21st century. The readings are astonishingly rich and rewarding, and we will do our best to live up to them within the limits of a semester's work. First years welcome! 

Location

Lechase Room 161 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

This course immerses students in the most challenging, influential, and engaging writings from the earlier periods of English literature. Our aim will be to enjoy and understand these writings in themselves, and then to see their relation to each other and to their larger historical context. Students should leave the course with some real affection for particular writings, and some assured sense of the contours and highlights of cultural history. Our emphasis will be on the careful appreciation of language and texture in representative texts and authors (including Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Pope and their contemporaries). Class will proceed by lecture and discussion.

Location

Morey Room 502 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

As an introduction to the art of film, this course will present the concepts of film form, film aesthetics, and film style, while remaining attentive to the various ways in which cinema also involves an interaction with audiences and larger social structures.

Location

Morey Room 321 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This is an introductory workshop designed for students interested in exploring the art of fiction writing. Students will write original short pieces, and work-in-progress will be discussed in class. We’ll read a wide variety of modern and contemporary authors as we explore elements of the genre. No background in creative writing is necessary.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room 226 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This class is a writing workshop, where students share their own fiction and participate in group critique. We will read and discuss stories from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries by writers of many backgrounds and dispositions, including James Joyce, Isak Dinesen, Edward P. Jones, Ha Jin, Joy Williams, W. G. Sebald, Gabriel García Márquez, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Chinua Achebe, and Franz Kafka. Students will have the chance to experiment with different styles and structures as they learn about literary invention. We'll consider techniques for shaping fictional characters, the management of point of view, the possibilities of narrative design, the role of setting and description, and the process of revision.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 404 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This class is a writing workshop, where students share their own fiction and participate in group critique. We will read and discuss stories from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries by writers of many backgrounds and dispositions, including James Joyce, Isak Dinesen, Edward P. Jones, Ha Jin, Joy Williams, W. G. Sebald, Gabriel García Márquez, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Chinua Achebe, and Franz Kafka. Students will have the chance to experiment with different styles and structures as they learn about literary invention. We'll consider techniques for shaping fictional characters, the management of point of view, the possibilities of narrative design, the role of setting and description, and the process of revision.

Location

Meliora Room 224 (R 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

An introductory course in the art of writing poetry. In addition to reading and writing poems, students will learn about various essential elements of craft such as image, metaphor, line, syntax, rhyme, and meter. The course will be conducted in a workshop format.

Location

Dewey Room 4162 (M 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

Not unlike the essay or laboratory experiment, a play is a tool that allows the curious mind to develop, test, and rethink ideas, and to grapple with significant issues (both public and private) in live, three-dimensional space. Playwriting introduces the beginning writer interested in exploring the discipline of live performance (and the seasoned writer wishing to develop his/her craft) to the exciting world of writing for the stage. Each semester, students in this course get the chance to study with a different, award-winning guest playwright. In so doing, they get to experience instruction and guidance under the tutelage of some of the most exciting voices working professionally in the American theatre.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (M 12:30PM - 3:15PM)

This course introduces students to the mechanics, materials, and aesthetics of lighting for the theatre.  Students gain a thorough understanding of lighting equipment, procedures, safety, and how these fascinating elements contribute to creating theatrical storytelling.  Students work actively with these technologies on productions, getting valuable practical experience. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 112 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

Want to get your feet wet or hands dirty doing some exciting behind-the-scenes work on Theatre Program productions? A perfect hands-on way to explore the excitement, camaraderie, creativity, and skills needed for backstage work—in lighting, sound, costumes, scenery, or stage management—is to get involved in ENGL 126 Production Experience, a 1-credit, half semester course where you get to work on actual theatre productions in the brand-new Sloan Performing Arts Center through lab participation, joining run crews, or other practical ways. You’ll learn valuable skills while contributing to the excellence in production that the International Theatre Program is known for. You’ll play a real role in making theatre happen! No prior experience needed." 

A laboratory course on the fundamentals of gathering, assessing, and writing news. The course emphasizes accuracy and  presentation, and explores a variety of story structures, from hard news to features and columns. This course will be taught by David Andreatta. If you have any questions please contact him at dandreat@ur.rochester.edu

Location

Dewey Room 2110D (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Basic public speaking is the focus. Emphasis is placed on researching speeches, using appropriate language and delivery, and listening critically to oral presentations. ENG 134 contains two quizzes, a final exam, and four speeches to be given by the student. The speeches include a tribute, persuasive, explanatory, and problem-solving address. Material also features video and inaugural addresses of past U.S. presidents. The course utilizes instructor Curt Smith’s experience as a former White House presidential speechwriter and as a Smithsonian Institution series host. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

Lechase Room 141 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

The purpose of this course is to give students an appreciation for and knowledge of critical thinking and reasoned decision-making through argumentation. Students will research both sides of a topic, write argument briefs, and participate in formal and informal debates. Students will also be exposed to the major paradigms used in judging debates. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

Lechase Room 104 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Do you want to be on stage and screen, but wonder if you have the skills to land a gig? Auditioning for Live Theatre and Film will introduce students to the practice of auditioning for acting work. Throughout the semester students will learn to prepare monologues, analyze, and perform sides from theatre and film scripts and how to put together resumes, headshot and submissions for work. Each student will finish the class with two contrasting monologues, a headshot and resume and knowing how to slate and represent themselves in the room. The class will include a sample audition with professional directors and Q & A to help you learn how to put your best foot forward when you enter the audition room.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (R 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course introduces the basic aesthetic and technical elements of video production. Emphasis is on the creative use and understanding of the video medium while learning to use the video camera, video editing processes and the fundamental procedures of planning video projects. Strategies for the use of video as an art-making tool will be explored. Works by artists and directors critically exploring media of film and video will be viewed and discussed. Video techniques will be studied through screenings, group discussions, readings, practice sessions and presentations of original video projects made during the course. Sophomores and Juniors with officially declared FMS and SA majors are given priority registration; followed by sophomores and juniors with officially declared FMS and SA minors. Studio arts supplies fee: $75. To be added to the rolling waiting list contact Jason Middleton.

Location

Sage Arts Center Room 101 (MW 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

This course enables students to move progressively toward a stronger understanding of long form improvisation acting theory and skills related to listening, supporting others, heightening, and taking risks. By the end of this course, students will be able to work within a cast to create full-length, fully improvised plays that incorporate spontaneous monologues and scenes with recurring characters and themes. Particular focus will be paid to a format known as “The Harold,” which is widely considered the cornerstone of modern improv comedy. 

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (R 3:25PM - 6:05PM)

The creation of a contemporary theatrical production uses skills and talents across a wide range of disciplines: from carpentry to rigging, from painting to computer drafting, from electrical to audiovisual engineering for the stage. This introductory course will explore the theories, methods, and safe practice of set construction (including using power tools), rigging, stage lighting, drafting, sound, and scene painting. Students will work on actual productions staged by the Theatre Program during required labs that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Sloan Performing Arts Center Room B023 (MW 9:00AM - 10:15AM)

Ever wonder and admire how sound designers create awesome aural environments in live performance? This course investigates the tools, tricks, skills, and equipment of realizing sound design for the theater. You’ll learn how Sound Designers shape sound and music, and collaborate with other artists to achieve a specific creative vision. You’ll see and experience how sound systems are put together, getting hands-on time with different equipment and learning just what each piece does. We will build on the fundamentals of sound systems that can start as small as your computer and go as large as filling a 1,000 seat theater or larger. As you learn these trades and skills, you’ll then apply them in the Theatre Program's productions, working with peers and industry professionals to put on a full scale production. Whatever your experience level, you are welcome here. All you need is a passion for hearing the world around you, and the desire to bring your own creative world to life on whatever stage you find. There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 112 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course serves as an introduction to, and exploration of the acting process for the stage, developing the fundamental skills students need to approach a text from a performers standpoint and to create character. The course takes as its basic premise that the actors instrument is the selfwith all of the physical, psychological, intellectual, social, moral and spiritual implications of that term. Students will be encouraged in both the expression and the expansion of the self and of the imagination. The class will also help the student develop an overall appreciation for the role of the theatre in todays society. Fall class: in conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (W 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

This course serves as an introduction to, and exploration of the acting process for the stage, developing the fundamental skills students need to approach a text from a performers standpoint and to create character. The course takes as its basic premise that the actors instrument is the selfwith all of the physical, psychological, intellectual, social, moral and spiritual implications of that term. Students will be encouraged in both the expression and the expansion of the self and of the imagination. The class will also help the student develop an overall appreciation for the role of the theatre in todays society. Fall class: in conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (W 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Ninety three percent of communication is nonverbal. In today's ever increasingly technological world soft skills? are more valuable than ever. It is not just important what we say, but how we say it. In Movement for Stage using Alexander Technique, Bartenieff Fundamental, View Points, Laban and many other exercises and explorations students will gain an awareness of their own habits and physical tensions, learn alignment and relaxation techniques, let go of inhibitions and then learn to make physical choices to create diverse and inventive characters. Students will learn to read the body language of others and tools to use in their own lives to physically adjust and respond and relate to new situations in new ways.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (F 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

In todays theatre, the director is generally considered to be the key creative figure in how a theatre production is conceived, explored and presented. But the directors task is a difficult one, encompassing rigorous intellectual, theatrical and artistic knowledge and skills. This introductory directing techniques class for aspiring directors will explore the nature of the theatrical event, investigate conceptualization, visualization, text analysis, action and design as they pertain to the director's craft. In conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (F 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

In todays theatre, the director is generally considered to be the key creative figure in how a theatre production is conceived, explored and presented. But the directors task is a difficult one, encompassing rigorous intellectual, theatrical and artistic knowledge and skills. This introductory directing techniques class for aspiring directors will explore the nature of the theatrical event, investigate conceptualization, visualization, text analysis, action and design as they pertain to the director's craft. In conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (W 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Theatre and Cultural Context (previously Intro to Theatre) is an introductory class allowing students to comprehensively and actively understand the entire theatrical production process from the page to the stage, while simultaneously exploring the cultural (and other contexts) in which artists, playwrights, directors and designers create the magic of theatre. Students discover theatre in an immersive way, studying and gaining insight into the actual texts of works being produced by the UR International Theatre Program.  In conjunction with professional artists who direct and design our productions, students explore the creative and artistic process and gain first-hand, practical knowledge working in one of many labs associated with the production (scenery, lighting, costume, sound, etc.). A unique course melding the theoretical and practical, with a deep dive into the (largely, though not exclusively) Western cultural literacy all rolled into one.  There is a required lab component that will be scheduled with the instructor.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

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)

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)

This seminar will explore some of the most enthralling twentieth-century historical novels set in the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance worlds, alongside source materials from each period. We will investigate how authors construct texts blending historical facts and fictional narrative, while comparing the modern novels to texts written during Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Authors studied will include Marguerite Yourcenar (the first woman elected to the Académie française) (Memoirs of Hadrian), John Williams (Augustus), Gore Vidal (Julian the Apostate), Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose), Robert Glück’s controversial Margery Kempe, Iain Pears (The Dream of Scipio), Poul Anderson (The High Crusade), Anthony Burgess (A Dead Man in Deptford), Isabel Allende (Inés of My Soul), and Anna Banti (Artemisia). Optional viewing evenings will be arranged for The Name of the Rose (1986) and the 2020 Chilean mini-series Inés of My Soul; we will take a class trip to the Memorial Art Gallery to enrich our understanding of the visual world of the distant past.

Location

Meliora Room 206 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

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)

This course will explore the Shakespeare’s diverse theatrical worlds, their dramatic inventiveness, their fierce sense of play, their psychological complexiy, their often wild flights of language, their fascination with magic and madness, with hidden things, and with the processes of time.  We’ll look at how Shakespeare’s plays dramatize the shifting dynamics of love and hatred, politics and war, of commerce, justice, and crime. We’ll also be thinking about how the plays probe Shakespeare’s own theatrical practice, his fascination with disguise and performance, his ambivalence about the powers of both actors and audiences. Readings will include plays from early to late in Shakespeare’s career, comedies, history plays, tragedies, and “romances.” This course fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the English major. Applicable English clusters: Great Books, Great Authors; Plays, Playwrights, and Theater.  Freshman not admitted without permission of the instructor.  

Location

Hylan Building Room 305 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

In this course we will slowly, closely, intensely, and meditatively study novels by Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, Linda Hogan, and Leslie Marmon Silko. And we will also learn how to narrate and write our own environmental stories.
 

INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION REQUIRED. NOT OPEN TO SENIORS.

Location

Lechase Room 124 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

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)

In this course, we will investigate how virtual and augmented reality technologies shape us as writers, arguers, and citizens. Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies, collectively known as extended reality (XR), build on existing digital networking models and are also immersive. Research is ongoing about how networked digital spaces, such as social media, foster or destroy community, create or alleviate loneliness, and contribute to new knowledge or greater confusion. Understanding the impact of these technologies on our communications grows even more important as the possibility of the metaverse, a space where we would lead digital-first lives in XR, advances. We will read research from across disciplines, including philosophy, legal studies, data science, and engineering. Our investigation won't be limited to scholarship - venture capitalists have written some of the most recent and influential books about the metaverse, the term was coined in Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, and no metaverse course would be complete without a viewing of The Matrix. As we explore the impact of XR, we will also investigate how the proliferation of digital spaces increases our reliance on digital communications tools and engagement with artificial intelligence (Al). Students will create short written projects throughout the semester that experiment with writing in extended reality and with Al tools. The semester will culminate in a final project centered around student interests in XR and communication.

Location

Dewey Room 4162 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

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

Lechase Room 104 (TR 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)

A study and exploration of the major movements of twentieth-century drama—naturalism, expressionism, surrealism, epic theater, absurdism. Possible author list: Anton Chekhov, Eugene O'Neill, Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, Sophie Treadwell, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, David Henry Hwang, Caryl Churchill, Sam Shepard, Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, Lynn Nottage.  

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Since the turn of this century, there’s been an outpouring of film and television adaptations written and directed by black artists. Among the most recent is Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2022 Hulu miniseries of Octavia Butler’s 1979 speculative fiction novel Kindred. As well as Barry Jenkins’s Academy Award-winning film Moonlight (2016), adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s unpublished semiautobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. And outside the US there’s plenty more, like Wanuri Kahiu’s groundbreaking Rafiki (2018), which the filmmaker based on Monica Arac de Nyeko’s short story “Jambula Tree,” shifting the setting from Uganda to Kenya. In this course we’ll move through a series of pairings, studying the adapted film or series alongside the work that inspired it. What gets lost, what remains, and what’s created anew when a work of literature moves to the screen? We’ll study fiction, film, and television from around the world, looking at how black artists from North America, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean reimagine the work of others. Our readings and screenings will lead us to an array of topics, such as slavery, transnational migration, colorism, time travel, and perhaps most persistently, the space of black queer desire and belonging.

Location

Lechase Room 143 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

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)

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)

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)

This course entails a close reading of the novel in English translation, coupled with a focus on the ways in which both the novel and/or protagonist have been adapted, adopted, interpreted or incorporated by various cittical and popular traditions both inside and outside of Spain from the time of its original publication in 1605 through the 21st century. We will examine several filmic adaptations, illustrations and paintings as well, with an eye toward critically examining the problematic employment of Don Quixote as an icon of Pan-Hispanic culture. However, we will continually return to the novel as our anchor throughout the course, while assessing the constantly changing ways in which contemporary readers and scholars approach the text. Course is taught in English. *Students taking the course for Spanish credit will do the bulk of the work in Spanish

Location

Meliora Room 224 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

A survey of the writer's Russian and American works and his contribution to world literature. Reading his most renowned novels, we will acquire an understanding of Nabokov's style, philosophy and ethical principles. Our discussions will address his ideas of life and death, space and time, regularity and chance, as well as such issues as otherness, individual freedom, and independent thinking. We will also analyze Nabokov's artistic discourse as we attempt to assess his legacy: was he a trickster as some critics describe him, or a deep thinker and brilliant stylist, as others argue? As an American college professor, whose lectures have been published, how did the author himself think literature should be taught? Readings include King, Queen, Knave, The Defense, Camera Obscura, Invitation to a Beheading, The Gift, Lolita, Pnin and Speak Memory. In English.

Location

Lattimore Room 401 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Poetry is by nature a form of “memorable speech,” but there are many poets who make memory itself their object of poetic work, the focus of their invention. In this class, we’ll be looking at poems that explore memory’s urgency and uncertainty, its power to both preserve and distort the past, its power to be both sustenance and poison. We’ll be thinking about how poems keep memory—personal and collective—alive, and also put it to the test.  We’ll be looking at poems that remember the dead, as in the ancient genre of elegy, as well as poems that probe our earliest, sometimes lost or elusive recollections of childhood, childhood’s play and innocence and pain.  We’ll be asking about how poetic memory can collude with fantasy and dream, or join the work of remembering to forgetting, oblivion, and silence.  Readings will include poems by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, W. S. Merwin, and Natasha Trethewey. This course fulfills the post-1800 requirement for the English major. Applicable English clusters: Poetry and Poetics.  Freshmen not admitted without permission of the instructor.  

Location

Bausch & Lomb Room 315 (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)

The first half of this course reviews the modern history of literary response from I. A. Richards’ Practical Criticism in 1929, Louise Rosenblatt’s Literature as Exploration in 1937, to now-in-use response collection—subjective or affective criticism from the 1970’s to the present. Response techniques are considered applicable to any art form and are given as a way of understanding the relation of literature and art to the society that reads the texts. The second part of the course uses the response process to think about what each writer has to say as the starting point for any writing. “Having something to say” means thinking about disclosing personal reading and social experience, announcing membership in various social groups, and the genre of writing appropriate for the occasion. The latter part of the course is similar to a writing workshop in which students’ writing is discussed. Enrolled students are invited to suggest readings (including film, drama, and other arts). This course focuses on showing how to make what you have to say matter to others.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

The epic romance was long considered the most prestigious, entertaining, and sublime mode of storytelling: a bridge between heaven and earth, a means of collective self-definition, a playground for the authorial and philological imaginations. Today, aside from rare exceptions, the epic romances of the past have largely been siloed away in academic niches. At the same time and to an almost unbelievable extent, epic romance has shaped our current media --  from so-called genre fictions (young adult romance, fantasy, science-fiction), to comic books, blockbuster movies (Lord of the Rings), television series (Game of Thrones), and video games. Keeping this enigma in mind, the purpose of this course is threefold. First, we will read, appreciate, examine, and collate some of the some of the most rewarding, influential, and massive fictional worlds ever concocted, beginning with Homer’s Odyssey and winding through subsequent epic entertainments (Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Spenser's The Faerie Queene) and satires thereof (Austen's Northanger Abbey) on the way to current-day literary worlds (Jemisin's The Fifth Season) and video games (The Legend of Zelda). Second, we will think about what this genre has done for enthusiasts both in the past and today. What makes this genre what it is? Why and how does it endure—and how and why not? Finally, we will consider ways that this genre connects to histories of race, class, gender, and technology, and hence has both reflected and shaped reactionary, progressive, introspective, allegorical, spiritual, apocalyptic, realistic, and escapist tendencies of past and present alike.

Location

Hylan Building Room 105 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course explores the remarkably elastic—and durable—genre of the road movie.  Across a range of periods in film history, and through a framework of transnational exchange and circulation, we will examine the ways this adaptable genre focuses questions of national and regional identity, racial, ethnic, gender class differences.  We will pay special attention to the road movie’s existential and phenomenological preoccupations.

Location

Morey Room 504 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

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 

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)

Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini made some of the most challenging and controversial films in the history of cinema. He created scandal with his radical critique of Italy’s modernization and rising consumer culture in the 1960s. This course gives students a solid understanding of his major films by examining how each work addresses Italy’s transformation from a premodern, agrarian and artisanal civilization, to a modern, capitalist one. Films include: Accattone, Mamma Roma, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Theorem, The Decameron and Salò. To provide students with foundations in Pasolini’s thought and film analysis, discussions will focus on both thematic and formal issues, such as Marxism, the sacred, sexuality, violence and pastiche. Assignments include: historical, biographical and critical readings, film screenings, short papers and a final essay. Readings will be in English and films will be shown with English subtitles

Location

Meliora Room 209 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

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)

This course offers 1) a comprehensive grass roots? study of anime as film form and cultural phenomenon; and 2) a more specific and guided investigation of the work of Hayao Miyazaki and the world view and visual sensibilities of his creation, Studio Ghibli. We begin by investigating where anime comes from: historical precedence, significant sources, defining influences and routes of cultural exchange. We then focus on Miyazakis work and the Ghibli corpus in order to examine the specifics of animated cinematic construction that distinguish his work (e.g., iconography, visual landscape, character design, narrative tropes, music); methods of adaptation, influence, and genre variation; reception and fan culture; and animes potential for providing unique perspectives on race, gender, landscape, identity, and Japan's historical and mythological past. No prerequisites, no audits.

Location

Meliora Room 218 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

In this course, we will explore both the role of television in politics and the various modes through which television represents political life, focusing primarily on the United States. Developing a conceptual toolkit to analyze the politics of television, we will explore how the audiovisual form of television matters politically by posing the following questions: How do broadcast and cable news shape political discourse? What alternatives—e.g., community, activist, public, and documentary television—have developed to exploit and/or challenge the dominance of broadcast and cable networks in the representation of political life? What is the role of storytelling in the politics of television, from fictional series such as The West Wing, Homeland, News of a Kidnapping, and Parks and Recreation to the use of narrative in Congressional and Senate hearings about, for example, major public events and nominations to the Supreme Court? 

Location

Lechase Room 163 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course runs in combination with an internship at Open Letter Books and focuses on explaining the basics of the business of literary publishing: editing, marketing, promoting, fundraising, ebooks, the future of bookselling, etc. Literature in translation is emphasized in this class, and all the topics covered tie in with the various projects interns work on for Open Letter Books.

Location

Meliora Room 219 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Advanced Acting aims to provide students who have substantial or significant performance experience an opportunity to explore, in depth, advanced acting techniques, while further developing interpretive and imaginative skills. The class aims to build creativity and the ability to inhabit a broad diversity of characters and performance styles.

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)

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)

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)

United States law says “Consent and agency over one’s body is a given in the work space.”  How, then, can the performance workspace acknowledge and honor our boundaries, while nurturing us to risk, grow, and create our truest, bravest work?   How can we as artists learn strategies to poetize the uncomfortable while honoring our boundaries?  In this course, we study the history and evolution of consent in performance, allowing students to learn about personal agency, self-advocacy, and how to foster and navigate healthy collaboration across disciplines. The class will give young artists the space to discover and articulate their boundaries through a variety of group exercises and opportunities for self-reflection.  Lectures will cover intimacy direction and rehearsal tools, discussions and guest lecturers on gender and feminist theory in relation to performance art, theatre, film and dance.  This course is a must for artistic collaborators from directors & choreographers, to actors, musicians, technicians, and performance artists! United States law says “Consent and agency over one’s body is a given in the work space.”  How, then, can the performance workspace acknowledge and honor our boundaries, while nurturing us to risk, grow, and create our truest, bravest work?   How can we as artists learn strategies to poetize the uncomfortable while honoring our boundaries?  In this course, we study the history and evolution of consent in performance, allowing students to learn about personal agency, self-advocacy, and how to foster and navigate healthy collaboration across disciplines. The class will give young artists the space to discover and articulate their boundaries through a variety of group exercises and opportunities for self-reflection.  Lectures will cover intimacy direction and rehearsal tools, discussions and guest lecturers on gender and feminist theory in relation to performance art, theatre, film and dance.  This course is a must for artistic collaborators from directors & choreographers, to actors, musicians, technicians, and performance artists!

Location

Todd Union Room 107 (R 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

What makes David Sedaris funny? How about the likes of Tina Fey, Mark Twain, Chris Rock, Jonathan Swift, Mindy Kaling, Lord Byron, Nora Ephron, Key & Peele, and The Onion? In this course we’ll seek inspiration from some of the funniest people alive (and dead) while writing our own humor pieces. Students will have a chance to explore a variety of genres, from essays to memoirs to song parodies and sketches—and to share work by their own favorite humorists with the class. 

Location

(W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Prepares sophomores, juniors, and seniors enrolled in five-year programs, from the humanities, sciences, and the social sciences for work as writing fellows. Course design facilitates the development of a strong, intuitive writer and speaker in order to become a successful reader, listener and responder in peer-tutoring situations. Ample writing and rewriting experiences, practice in informal and formal speaking, and the critical reading of published essays and student work enhance students' ability to become conscious, flexible communicators. Before tutoring on their own, students observe writing fellows and writing center consultants conduct tutoring sessions. On completion of the course with a B or better, fellows should be prepared to accept their own hours as peer tutors.

YOU MUST REGISTER FOR A RECITATION WHEN REGISTERING FOR THE MAIN SECTION

Prerequisites: Interested students must apply. Minimum GPA of 3.0.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room G121A (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Prepares sophomores, juniors, and seniors enrolled in five-year programs, from the humanities, sciences, and the social sciences for work as writing fellows. Course design facilitates the development of a strong, intuitive writer and speaker in order to become a successful reader, listener and responder in peer-tutoring situations. Ample writing and rewriting experiences, practice in informal and formal speaking, and the critical reading of published essays and student work enhance students' ability to become conscious, flexible communicators. Before tutoring on their own, students observe writing fellows and writing center consultants conduct tutoring sessions. On completion of the course with a B or better, fellows should be prepared to accept their own hours as peer tutors.

YOU MUST REGISTER FOR A RECITATION WHEN REGISTERING FOR THE MAIN SECTION

Prerequisites: Interested students must apply. Minimum GPA of 3.0.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room G121A (F 12:00PM - 12:50PM)

Presidential Rhetoric, taught by former presidential speechwriter Curt Smith, helps students critically examine the public rhetoric and themes of the modern American presidency. ENG 286 devotes special attention to the office’s symbolic nature, focusing on how well twentieth-century presidents communicate via a variety of forms, including the press conference, political speech, inaugural address, and prime-time TV speech. Smith will draw on his experiences at the White House and at ESPN TV to link the world’s most powerful office and today’s dominant medium. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication [H1ENG016]

Location

Lechase Room 161 (TR 3:25PM - 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)

For actors, assistant directors and select student staff working on a current main stage production.

For actors, assistant directors and select student staff working on a current mainstage production. By audition/arrangement with instructor.

The stage manager is the critical organizational and management hub in the artistic process of theatrical production. Stage Managers are skilled project managers, and the skills learned in stage management are applicable to almost any management Stage Management (fall/spring) students will get an in-depth introduction to and immersion in stage managing a theatrical production. In addition, cover all areas of management skills, safety procedures, technical knowledge, and paperwork, students will be expected to serve as an assistant stage manager or production stage manager on one (or both) Theater Program productions in their registered semester.

Location

Todd Union Room 202F (F 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

A 1 credit pass/fail performance lab course for students accepted into ENG 292, 293, 294, 295 & 296 or for those involved as actors in mainstage Theatre Program productions.

A 1 credit pass/fail performance lab course for students accepted into ENG 292, 293, 294, 295, 296 & 297 or for those involved as actors in mainstage Theatre Program productions.

Go Local, Go Organic, Farm to Table. What do these trendy slogans really mean? This course takes a humanities approach to contemporary eating practices and consumer trends by tracing how industrial, political, and ecological processes, across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, construct how food appears on our plates–as well as how our understandings of food are constructed and channeled through neoliberal and biopolitical discourses. In order to understand the politics, economics, and history of contemporary food industry and culture, we will cover well-known but little-understood topics, such as biotech, chemical inputs, fast/processed food, GMOs, superbugs, as well as critical theories that illuminate the cultural frameworks that shape our perception, including modernity/modernization, neoliberal economics, narrative theory, post-humanism, microbiological science, celebrity and media culture, and critical race and class studies. Outside-the-classroom elements of this class include a fermentation workshop, a Rochester Food Tour, a behind-the-scenes UofR Dining Services Tour, and a trip to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen.

Not Open to Seniors.

Location

Lechase Room 160 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

In Special Projects: Theatre students work in a particular area or on a particular project of their choosing or devising. Developed with and overseen by a Theatre Program faculty member and functioning like an Independent Study, Special Projects: Theatre allows students the opportunity of specializing in or investigate theatre in a tailored, focused, and self-directed way.

For many, the mental image of American artistic production from the Depression Era is far more akin to the barren black & white Kansas homestead than the sparkling technicolor of Oz. This was hardly the case. In fact, the 1930s was a decade of diverse artistic experiments in the United States—a veritable laboratory for debating art’s forms and social aims that would come to redefine American culture itself. This course introduces a range of those experiments, focusing on the network between film and the other visual arts. Topics include federally sponsored New Deal programs, the social realisms of African-American and immigrant artists, the rise of photo-journalism and emergence of “documentary” across mediums, the aesthetic diplomacy of World’s Fairs and films such as Capra’s American Madness, Lang’s Fury, and Ford’s Grapes of Wrath. Throughout the course we will be asking in what ways did these experiments represent propositions about the direction and shape of modern art and culture in America

Location

Hylan Building Room 306 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

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)

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)

Blank Description

Advanced Stage Management Practicum is designed for, and available only to students fulfilling the roll of a Production Stage Manager on a mainstage Theatre Program production.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

What is literary criticism? What does it mean to “criticize” or “analyze” a literary text, an author’s oeuvre, a tradition? This course models a deliberately broad range of answers to that question by looking at a diverse group of critical works, focused on different periods and genres within literary history, and representing various approaches to literary analysis. By reading a different work of criticism each week, we will be able to assess their comparative strengths and weaknesses, their potential for insight or their particular blind spots. But we will also be able to think about criticism itself as a form of writing, and to experience its unique powers and pleasures. Along the way we will read some undisputed classics of criticism from the past fifty years or so and some important or striking recent works (including perhaps some “future classics”). The course is organized into four units, each targeting a large theme: first, the question of genre in literary study (beginning with Northrop Frye’s classic statement, followed by recent examples focused on narrative and poetry respectively); second, the place of history in literary study, and several examples of what “historicist criticism” might look like; third, the figure of the poet or novelist as critic, and a few examples of critical works by authors more famous for practicing “literature” than literary criticism; finally, a brief look at the recent turn towards quantitative methods in literary study and the concept of “distant reading.”

Location

Morey Room 403 (W 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

Blank Description