2017-2018 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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EN 298 - Internships Academic experience taking place in the field with an opportunity to earn credit.
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EN 299 - Directed Study Students construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
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ENG 105 - News Writing Covers the basics of news writing, from reporting an event to writing an obituary. Students learn how to collect information, conduct interviews and organize writing into crisp news copy. Class work includes weekly deadline writing assignments. Homework: weekly writing exercises based on textbook examples and field assignments, as well as readings from texts and daily newspapers.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 106 - Creative Writing: Fiction For students who are inspired to write short or long stories. Equal emphasis on writing well and creating boldly, with focus on giving and receiving criticism in the workshop format. Students will be encouraged to “find their voices” by experimenting with style, genre and structure. For undergraduate Creative Writing minors, this course counts as one of the introductory courses.
Prerequisites: VE Placement
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 111 - Creative Writing: Nonfiction True stories, well told. Creative nonfiction is like jazz-a mix of flavors, ideas, techniques. Some are new; others as old as writing itself. We are story, essay, journal article, research paper, reported journalism, memoir, even poem; personal or not, or all of the above. In this course, we will read examples and tell our own stories as well as other people’s. We’ll operate in part as a studio devoted to writing; we’ll discuss what we read and explore craft and technique. We will workshop our own work. Students submit a final publication-ready portfolio. For Creative Writing minors, this course counts as one of the introductory courses.
Prerequisites: VE Placement
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: N/A
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 113 - Literature of Baseball ENG 113 Literature of Baseball/First-Year Seminar
Baseball has often been cited as “America’s game,” in the sense that it is thoroughly interwoven into the history of American culture. Many writers, particularly in the 20th century, have seen in the game fertile ground for describing their interpretations of the American experience. It is a game which offers tremendous variety within rigidly set boundaries. In short, baseball is a metaphor to which Americans return repeatedly to express their sense of identity. It is this general theme that this course will explore: why is baseball so attractive to American writers of all types, and how do they use the game and its players as the basis for suggesting who we are? Fulfills the Verbal Expression (VE) requirement. Offered periodically.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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ENG 115 - Speculative Fiction Speculative fiction (more popularly known as science fiction) entertains the “what if” and presents alternative conceptions of history, society, and identity. Committed to exploring the possibilities and limitations of the alternative and the different, these works interrogate established boundaries of identities and provide critical perspectives on prevailing beliefs and ideologies. The course moves chronologically through works that fall loosely under the speculative fiction subgenres of fantasy/horror, alternative histories, future dystopias, and political allegories. We will also devote some attention to formal analysis, specifically the ways in which speculative fiction narratives experiment with and break from traditional literary conventions to offer new ways of perceiving, constructing, and deconstructing our social realities. Authors include Mary Shelley, H. P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Ted Chiang. Fulfills the Verbal Expressions requirement. You must be placed at the Verbal Expression level to be admitted into this seminar.
Prerequisites: VE Placement Required
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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ENG 116 - The Secret Lives of Books
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, not to mention judging by its ink and paper, by its typeface and layout, even by damage or by marks left by earlier readers. Books tell stories with the words printed inside them, of course, but they also tell stories just by being physical objects. In this course, students will learn to become book sleuths. Readings and seminar discussions on the history and theory of the book will be enhanced by a series of hands-on workshops at Special Collections as well as off-campus field trips. While the full scope of the class extends from the earliest periods of the written word through current-day digital advances, emphasis will be given to specific historical periods (the development of moveable type, the proliferation of print in the early hand-press period, mechanization during the Industrial Revolution, changing paradigms of electronic textuality today) in order to understand the interplay of technology, culture, and society over time.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every 3 years or so.
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ENG 120 - Introduction to Shakespeare The purpose of this course is to (re-)introduce you to the rich, complex, and potentially radical politics of Shakespearean expression. To that end, we will thoroughly examine seven of Shakespeare’s plays (along with a range of film interpretations) and attend specifically to how they explore the many ethically resonant issues-injustice, political corruption, gender, sexuality, class, race, etc.-that continue to challenge our world. By engaging in this process, it is my hope that we will begin or continue our development as sophisticated interpreters of the past and the present and, in turn, ethically oriented shapers of the future. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Period (D-1) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: TBA
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ENG 122 - Terror of the Gothic In this course, we will explore our delight in terror through the world of nineteenth-century Gothic fiction, novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a world of pain and destruction, fear and anxiety. In tracing the recurrent themes of sin, family dynamics, politics, and nature within Gothic fiction, we will examine both the relationship of this fiction to the dominant culture of the nineteenth century, as well as to social and political revolution. Following current literary scholarship, we will pose questions about representations of violence; the significance of fantasy and fear; and the role of gender, race, class and sexuality in this body of work. Throughout the course, we will examine the legacy of this fiction in our modern cultural obsession with horror through film. This course satisfies the Verbal Expression (VE) requirement. First-Year Intensive.
Prerequisites: VE Placement Required
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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ENG 131 - Border Crossings: Narratives of Travel, Exile, and Immigration The course examines contemporary narratives of travel, exile, and immigration from around the world. Close readings of texts will ground our interrogation of borderlands, diaspora, exile, code-switching, identity, race, class and gender.The course will be run as a seminar with student presentations, group work, and research projects as key components. Fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Placement Required
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Occasionally
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ENG 133 - Women Writers I Examines how women writers before 1900 address, confront, avoid, subvert and question traditional notions of gender, culture, domesticity, history, ethnicity and sexuality. Close attention is paid to textual reading, the historical and intellectual context of works, and different critical approaches to women’s writing. Authors include Behn, Burney, Austen, Sedgwick, Chopin, Gilman, Foster and Wilson. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (A) requirement. Meets the Verbal Expression requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year, alternating with ENG 134
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ENG 134 - Survey of Women Writers II Examines developments in British and American prose fiction by women in the 20th century. Authors include Cather, Woolf, Lessing, Rhys, Silko, Morrison, Winterson, Cisneros and Kincaid. Close attention is paid to textual reading and defining, revising and challenging traditional definitions and expectations of women’s writing on various levels: thematic, linguistic and formal. The course also addresses current critical approaches to women’s writing. For undergraduate English majors and minors this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (B) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year, alternating with ENG 133
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ENG 135 - The Short Story This course involves intensive reading of stories that exemplify a variety of fictional methods and affords the student some knowledge of the history of this literary type. Attention will be paid to the international scope of the short story, particularly in the 20th century. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Genre (B-2) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 140 - Major British Writers I As the title suggests, the purpose of this course is pretty straightforward: introduce you to a selection of major British, specifically English, writers from the Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century. While a traditional enough requirement for any English Major at any college or university, Clark University, with its radical motto (“Challenge Convention. Change Our World”) boldly implemented in its LEEP (“Liberal Education and Effective Practice”) initiative, is committed to inspiring and preparing you to affect ethical change in our world. In that spirit, we will not just learn how to read medieval and early modern literary texts through historical and aesthetical lenses; we will also attend to how those texts confront a range of ethically resonant issues-war and peace, interpersonal violence, gender, sexuality, class, race, etc.-in a way that helps us see and use those texts as testing grounds for our own ethically responsive, effective practices. For undergraduate English majors, this course partially satisfies EITHER the Historical Sequence (A; pre-1850 portion) OR Period (C-1; at the 100-level) but does not double count.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
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ENG 141 - Major British Writers II The sequence ENG 140 - ENG 141 takes an historical approach to British literature from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. This course focuses on British literature from the eighteenth to the late nineteenth century through authors such as Jonathan Swift, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Oscar Wilde and Joseph Conrad. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (B) requirement. Meets the Verbal Expression (VE) requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year.
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ENG 145 - Fabulae: The Genre of Romance This course examines the tradition of the romance genre, from classical antiquity to the present. Texts read range from early Greek “novels” and Medieval metrical romances, through the Gothic tale and Romantic poetry to contemporary forms such as science fiction, fantasy and horror. Along the way, students will be able to see how the general conservative elements of a given literary form are transmuted to accommodate a number of specific contexts. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Genre (B-2) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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ENG 148 - Memoirs from the Borderlands The course focuses on the genre of memoir as a vehicle for public offering of personal stories. By examining different types of memoir dealing with stories of multicultural or marginalized identities, emphasis is given to how memories are shaped into narratives about life in social and cultural borderlands. Lecture/discussion. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Genre (B-2) requirement. Listed with Race and Ethnic Relations (RER).
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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ENG 150 - Introduction to Medieval Literature Introduces western European medieval literature, touching on classical roots and contemporary counterparts in the process. Topics covered may include literary forms (epic, romance), social concerns (religion, the role of women, politics) and myth. Works read and discussed are selected from Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Celtic and Middle English authors, and range from Beowulf and Marie de France’s Lais to the Gawain-poet and Dante. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-1) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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ENG 164 - The Gothic The Gothic, one of the most popular genres in nineteenth-century Britain, explores the dominant culture through its dark underside. In detailing both individual and national transgressions, this literature responds to significant cultural movements of the time, such as the advent of psychology and the explosion of revolutionary politics. This course traces Gothic literature from its origins in representations of fear and pain to its culmination in portrayals of alienation and monstrosity. To fully understand the genre, we will read a wide range of authors including Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as critical literature on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theories of psychology and politics. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Genre (B-2) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year.
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ENG 165 - American Ethnic Writers This course surveys literature written by African American, Asian American, Native American, and Latinx American writers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will read from a range of genres, including novels, short stories, poetry, memoir, and graphic storytelling. In the course, we will discuss works that speak to confronting and navigating the following themes: war, racism, migration, alienation, sexuality, community, and resistance. This course partially fulfills the Historical Sequence requirement (B-2) for the English major.
Prerequisites: VE Prerequisite
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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ENG 169 - Seeing New Englandly Studies the development of American literature, how it separated itself from European traditions by localizing its context within its own demographic. Authors read my include Emerson, Poe, Dickinson, Frost, Howthornes, Whitman, and Thoreau.
Prerequisites: VE Placement Required
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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ENG 180 - Major American Writers I The sequence ENG 180-ENG 181 takes an historical approach to American literature from Puritanism to the present. This course concentrates on early American literature, circa 1620-1860, by authors such as Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Edwards, Franklin, Emerson, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, and others. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (A) requirement. Meets the Verbal Expression requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
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ENG 181 - Major American Writers II The sequence ENG -ENG 181 takes an historical approach to American literature from Puritanism to the present. This course traces the evolution of American literature and its major aesthetic movements from circa 1860 to the present. Writers and poets include Melville, Twain, Crane, Wharton, James, Williams, Eliot, Hughes, Cather, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Pynchon, and Morrison. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (B) requirement. Meets the Verbal Expression (VE) requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
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ENG 182 - African American Literature I Addresses major periods and principal authors of the African American canon. Readings may cover a historical span that could range from the 18th century to the present or could represent focused concern with select authors and/or a given literary movement. Students are expected to gain a historically as well as a culturally contextual appreciation of the literature produced by writers of African descent in the Americas. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (A) requirement. Meets the Historical Perspective.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 183 - African American Literature II Explores the aesthetic modes configuring the evolution of African American literature in the 20th and 21st centuries, especially the novel. Focus is on the experimental and innovative sensibilities regulating the evolving canon of postmodern writing produced by Americans of African descent. Authors studied may include David Anthony Durham, Percival Everett, Minister Faust, Edward P. Jones, Gayl Jones, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, John Ridley, Fran Ross, Carl Hancock Rux, Olympia Vernon, Colson Whitehead and Kevin Young. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course partially satisfies the Historical Sequences (A) requirement. Meets the Verbal Expression requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 199 - The Text, the World, and the Critic: Narrative and Form ‘The Text, the World, and the Critic’ is a core course for the English major. Participants in the course will develop strategies for close reading and analysis of a range of literary genres, including poetry, drama, and prose narratives such as novels and short stories. We will also be attentive to connections between literature and narratives of history, geography, and the social world. As we explore methods for reading literary texts, we will not lose sight of the role of pleasure in engaging with narrative forms. What compels us to read? What draws us to particular texts? How does literature as a social institution enable us to better understand the connections between our imaginations and the world around us? How does literature help to shape and define the worlds in which we live? In developing the tools necessary to become sophisticated and thoughtful literary critics, the course will also show that the powerful techniques employed in reading literature can also be applied to `extraliterary’ textual forms, such as popular culture, political speech, and the discourses that shape everyday life. Readings may include a play by Shakespeare, poetry by Keats, Wordsworth, Adrienne Rich, and Derek Walcott, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, and novels by Zadie Smith, Teju Cole, Colson Whitehead, Ian McEwan, and Arundhati Roy. This course is strongly recommended for students who have recently declared a major in English, or who are planning to declare an English major in their sophomore year. In 2017-18, the course will be required for all English majors and fulfills the A requirement.
Special Topic for Spring 2017: Narrative, Form, and Politics: This course will explore various forms, genres, structures, and strategies of narrative, primarily in novels, but also extending to poetry, plays, graphic novels, and films. Issues we will consider include point-of-view, chronology, plot, autobiography, irony, nested stories, narrative and history, and narrative and memory. We will be curious throughout as to the capacity of literature to envision new modes of being in the world and to shape the world the world around us.
Prerequisites: No coursework, but a decision to delcare a major in English.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every spring semester.
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ENG 201 - Peer Learning Assistant Peer Learning Assistants (PLAs) are undergraduate students who are selected by a faculty member to facilitate teaching and learning activities. These activities may include: providing feedback on drafts of writing assignments, leading small group discussions, working with individual students who are having difficulty, and facilitating group project work (in or out of class & online).
Registration is by instructor permission only
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall/Spring
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ENG 203 - Creative Writing Genre Study: Hybrid Selves - Using Hybrid Forms to Explore Race, Gender, and Sexuality In this class we will examine and produce works of literary art that challenge our definition of genre. Whatever you want to call them-and we will, of course, wade into the mires of nomenclature-slipstream or hybrid literary art forms such as flash fiction, prose poems, lyric essays, hyperfictions, etc. have become increasingly visible in contemporary literature. Writers such as Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, Layli Long Soldier and others are using these forms to explore questions of race, gender, sexuality and all the other ways we exist, and are defined, as people in the world. Our goal will be to approach these texts as scholars and artists for the purposes of understanding how challenging traditional formal expectations allows us new ways to discover, celebrate, express, explode, chart (and many other verbs!!) personal, communal, and national identities in our work.
So, simply, what are hybrid forms? To start, and we can reconsider this as we explore, a hybrid work is a literary object that merges elements of different traditional forms-as in the prose-poem or the lyric essay or the academic memoir. And, of course, even weirder mashups are possible: collage texts, graphic novels, hyperfictions, and bafflers such as Anne Carson’s “fictional essays in poetry.” As Clarkies know, labels can pretty flimsy definitions and obviously designating such pieces ‘hybrid’ implies reductive/conventional definitions of genre. In this class we will investigate what conspicuous awareness or transgression of these formal boundaries exposes and allows.
For undergraduate Creative Writing minors, this course fulfills the advanced requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 204 - Writing for Modern Media For students who want to learn how to write articles they might actually sell, as well as delve into the world of modern media, including ‘zines, social media, blogs, and other essential tools and avenues for today’s writers. We will emphasize such vital skills as: analyzing the markets, coming up with fresh ideas, slanting to the audience, researching and interviewing, creating killer leads, composing query and cover letters, writing to length, meeting deadlines, professional social media skills and, especially, writing well.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 206 - Writing the Novel I For students who are trying to write book-length fiction, or who want to discover if they have the temperament and talent for it. Our aims within our workshop format are to get you writing, to keep you going, and to help you improve. All successful novels contain common, essential elements, which we will isolate. In addition to the usual suspects - character, theme, setting, plot-we will also examine elements such as suspense, story question, voice, point of view, scene, sequel, genre and others. We will also talk a bit about avenues to publication; types of publication (paper, Web, eBook, audio); acquiring an agent; and marketing your work. Students will complete a polished draft of the first 10,000 words of their novel. For Creative Writing Minors, this course counts as one of the advanced courses.
Prerequisites: ENG 101, 106, 107, 111, or permission of the Instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 207 - Creative Writing: Advanced Fiction This advanced creative writing workshop in fiction offers students who are serious about writing fiction a supportive seminar setting to present their work for discussion and suggestions, to learn how to critique the writings of others, and to participate in discussions about the art and craft of writing fiction, including the use of characterization, setting, plot, conflict, and dialogue. For undergraduate Creative Writing minors, this course counts as one of the advanced courses.
Prerequisites: ENG 101, 106, 107, 111, or permission of the Instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 209 - Writing the Novel II For students who want or are in the midst of writing a novel. Much like Writing the Novel I, our workshop format will explore such elements of long fiction as scene, character, plot, setting, subplot, etc. We’ll address writing styles and techniques, giving and receiving criticism, revising, and genre. Students will complete a polished draft of the first 10,000 words of their novel or, having taken Writing the Novel, 10,000 polished words of their and the professor’s choice. Writing the Novel I is not a prerequisite for the course, but for those students continuing from WTNI, we will work on fine tuning such elements as secondary characters, humor, mid-novel blahs, stretching the writing muscles, and getting published. For undergraduate Creative Writing minors, this course fulfills the advanced requirement.
Prerequisites: ENG 101, 106, 107, 111, or permission of the Instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 211 - Creative Writing: Advanced Poetry ENG 211 Creative Writing: Advanced Poetry/Workshop: While a significant part of the class will be dedicated to exploring each student’s poetry through a constructive workshop approach, this course also requires in-depth critical feedback in every class and a series of annotations that address elements of craft. We will look closely at the work of established poets, especially contemporary poets, and trace lineages and influences from particular poets’ work back to their roots. In addition to assigned readings and exercises, a new poem a week is expected. As the semester progresses, students will experiment with revision and create a portfolio of poems representing their best work. This course requires completion of ENG 107 or permission of the instructor. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course satisfies the Genre (C-1) requirement. For undergraduate Creative Writing minors, this course fulfills the advanced requirement.
Prerequisites: ENG 107 or permission of the Instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 214 - Creative Writing Capstone: Multi-genre Advanced Workshop In this advanced creative writing course, students will spend the semester working on individual writing projects in their chosen genre (poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction, which includes memoir). Central to this class is the workshop, where students will present their ongoing writing for supportive feedback and discussion. Outside readings in literature and on craft will be assigned which correlate with student work. Recommended as the final course for students pursuing a minor in Creative Writing. Prerequisites include any introductory creative writing course and one other creative writing course, or permission of the instructor. For undergraduate Creative Writing minors, this course fulfills the Capstone requirement.
Prerequisites: One introductory course (ENG 101, 106, 107, or 111) and one advanced course (ENG 206, 207, 209, or 211) or permission of the Instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 215 - Language and Culture in the United States Using a cultural perspective on language, this course addresses varieties of language use and their consequences in the United States. Topics include - demographics and immigration in sociolinguistic perspective; the systematic nature of language; language and culture patterns of different groups (Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino/a Americans, Iranian Americans); bilingualism and multilingualism in the United States; and the policy implications of language diversity. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-3) requirement. Listed with RER and COMM.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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ENG 222 - Black Political Literary Movements of the 20th Century This course examines the politics and culture of major black literary and cultural movements of the 20th Century across the Diaspora, including (but not limited to) The Harlem Renaissance (or the New Negro Movement), Senghor and Cesaire’s Negritude Movement, Guillen’s Afrocriollo movement, and the Black Arts Movement. We will explore the legal, political, and cultural zeitgeist that gave way to these periods of highly politicized and radicalized literary and cultural production and the legacies of these movements for the contemporary era in the 21st century. For undergraduate English Majors and minors, this course satisfies the C-3 requirement.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: N/A
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 225 - American Print Culture 1700-1900 The years from 1700 to 1900 witnessed a transformation of print culture from the handpress period to an age of mechanical reproduction. The rapidly increasing availability of inexpensive print technologies had a tremendous impact on habits of publishing, of writing, and of reading itself. In this course, students will examine how the material contexts of print culture in early America affected and were affected by notions of authorship, readership, gender, genre, and popular and elite taste. Some sessions will be conducted at the American Antiquarian Society where students will be able to examine archival material in hands-on workshops. For the final research paper, students will be encouraged to use resources from the AAS, from Goddard Library Special Collections, and/or from the many new digital humanities archives now available online. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Period (C-2) requirement.
Special Topic for Spring 2017: Early African American Print Culture and the Challenges of the Archive: Students in this PoP (Problems of Practice) seminar will first draw upon important recent scholarship in order to gain familiarity with 18th- and 19th-century Black writers, publishers, and other agents of print culture, primarily in what would become the United States but also within the context of the Atlantic world. Simultaneously, we will interrogate the ways in which contested historical, biographical, and literary narratives are shaped, particularly in relation to the structure of archives themselves, which just as often conceal the stories and lives that they attempt to preserve as they reveal them. Multiple class session will be held at the American Antiquarian Society, where students will conduct original research with primary historical sources, such as early books, pamphlets, newspapers, ephemera, graphics, and manuscripts. Rather than completing a standard seminar paper based largely on secondary sources, students will develop a detailed research proposal for a major scholarly essay (with working thesis or questions, provisional findings, literature review, and suggestions for further archival investigation) or for a non-essay based project (such as an online exhibit or teaching resource, a finding aid for an underutilized portion of an archival collection, a transcription or edition of an unpublished or rare document, a contribution to an existing digital humanities initiative, etc.). Throughout, we will strive to articulate new questions in old archives. ENG 225 may be of particular interest to literature and history majors but is designed for students from any discipline who are interested in learning to work with archival material. This special topic fulfills both the C2 (1700-1900 seminar) requirement for the English major and the Advanced Research Course for the Africana Studies concentration.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most years
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ENG 227 - The Book in the Early Modern World The rise of the printed book in early modern Europe is associated with corresponding renewal and innovation in science, letters, and theology. As with so many widely accepted narratives, however, the story turns out to be messier, more complicated, and ultimately more interesting than broadly understood. In this seminar, hands-on laboratory assignments with rare material from the Jonas Clark collection at Goddard Library’s Archives and Special Collections supplement readings as students explore major topics in early modern book history-the emergence of the codex; moveable type and the persistence of manuscript; the technology of the early hand press; design issues from typography to bindings; communications circuits; histories of reading; bibliographic identity. Toward the end of the semester, the class holds a Rare Book Open House with exhibits and demonstrations of material from Archives and Special Collections. No previous knowledge is required or expected, but an interest in books as material and technological objects is strongly recommended. The course may be of particular interest to students in English; History; Cultural Studies and Communication; Media, Culture and the Arts; Comparative Literature; Ancient Civilization; Studio Art; and Art History. For English majors, this course may satisfy the D1 or E requirements but cannot double count. For English minors, this course satisfies the theory requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most years
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ENG 238 - Contemporary Latino/a Literature This course examines the contributions to American literature made by Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans and other Latino/Latina writers in the United States over the last thirty years. Through a variety of Latino/Latina writing, we will explore the ways in which these writers represent community, class, race, gender, culture, nation, and ethnicity in their works. We will also examine the ways in which Latinas(os) have manufactured identities within mainstream society, as well as the developement of cultural hybrids and other forms of cultural registers. Representative works of various genres will be read and analyzed within a cultural context; the testimonio, the auto ethnographic essay, the narrative (novel and short story), drama, poetry and film. Authors include Gloria Anzaldua, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Valdez, Cristina Garcia, Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz, Achy Obejas and Piri Thomas. For English majors, this course satisfies the D-3 requirement. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 243 - Literary Theory & Global Culture This seminar examines the myriad aesthetic choices available to fiction writers in the era commonly referred to as “globalization.” How do we imagine the relationship between literature and contemporary politics? In what ways do the increasingly permeable borders of the modern world reshape our understanding of literature? How does literature help us to understand the new idioms of selfhood that emerge in a global age? Is there a particular literary form that is best suited to represent - and critique - the era in which we live? This course will survey the vocabularies that humanities scholars have invoked to address the rapidly shifting institutions and cultural frameworks of global capitalism, including, for example, questions pertaining to literary aesthetics and form and debates regarding realism, modernism, and postmodernism. We will touch upon questions of relativism and discourses of human rights; ways of conceptualizing global belonging and global citizenship; and the aesthetics of realism and postmodernism as responses to world-historical events of the late twentieth century and beyond. Students can expect to encounter philosophically rich texts from key thinkers in postcolonial and cross-cultural studies. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the theory requirement.
Prerequisites: One upper-level course in the humanities. ENG 248 Contemporary Literary Theory recommended.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year.
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ENG 245 - Mythopoetics This course examines modes and qualities of literary expression where we will find that narratives and poetry convey different expectations, which are also embedded in a variety of worldviews. Frequently, however, authors will attempt to craft these expectations and worldviews to accommodate nontraditional visions. Toward this end, we will read works by authors who strive to come to grips with their own experiences of the world. For English majors and minors, this course satisfies the Theory and Language (D) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
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ENG 248 - Contemporary Literary Theory Investigates and develops several theoretical approaches to literature in the late-20th and 21st century, attempting to provide glimpses into the range of theoretical issues and concerns. We look particularly at identity formation in contemporary literary, political, economic, cultural and social arenas. May also look at a literary text in relation to theory. General areas of study are selected from among the following: textual criticism, new criticism, psychoanalysis/reader response, structuralism, poststructuralism, feminism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, gay and lesbian theory and Cultural Studies. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course satisfies the Theory or Criticism (D) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
Placement Guidelines N/A
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ENG 249 - Signs and Crossroads: Semiotic Theory and Practice Approaches semiotic theories comparatively from historical as well as theoretical points of view and practices them by drawing on literature, film, advertising, and/or drama. For undergraduate English majors and minors, this course satisfies the Theory or Criticism (D) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Periodically
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ENG 251 - Chaucer Guides the student through The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parlement of Fowls, some Canterbury Tales and/or Troilus and Criseyde. All texts are taught in Middle English. No prior knowledge of Middle English required. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-1)requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Periodically
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ENG 252 - Cultural Discourses of Advertising Focuses on the ways in which discourse elements in advertising draw upon, circulate, and create new cultural codes. Patterns and codes of “discourse imaging” that structure ads are explored in the context of verbal and visual properties, intertextualities, and ideology. Through the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis, emphasis is given to the relationship of advertising discourse to larger cultural discourses and their consequences. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Theory or Criticism (D) requirement.
Prerequisites: CSAC 101
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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ENG 255 - Studies in the Renaissance Intended to build on English 120 and/or 140, this course will draw on established and emerging theoretical insights to trace a specific thematic concern-such as, “New World” colonization or Renaissance anti-intellectualism-through a representative sampling of Renaissance texts from about 1500-1700. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Period (D-1) requirement. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: TBA
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ENG 260 - Making Gender through the Eighteenth-Century Novel With an understanding that gender roles became more clearly defined in the eighteenth century, this course traces the formation of masculinity and femininity through the discourses of sexuality, sensibility, and sociability in eighteenth-century British literature. Through contemporary theory on the construction of subjectivity, gender, and sexuality, we will explore popular eighteenth-century literary forms-the romance, domestic, memoir and pornographic-to uncover the ways in which these texts helped to shape perceptions of men and women socially and culturally. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Period (C-2) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year.
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ENG 261 - Gender and Genre in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel Using the nineteenth-century British novel–the predominant literary form in the mid-to-late nineteenth century–as a springboard, this course explores the intersection between gender and literary genres. Cultural expectations for male and female authors and the literary forms in which they wrote helped to define the literary history of nineteenth-century novels. This course will examine diverse generic models, from the domestic novel and the Bildungsroman to the Gothic and sensation novel, through authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Wilkie Collins. Through a focus on nineteenth-century print culture, we will review the critical positioning and reception of these authors as well as their work. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-2) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year.
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ENG 262 - Special Topics in 19th-Century British Literature Special Topics in 19th-Century British Literature. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (D-2) or the Theory (E) requirement. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course. This course can be repeated with a different topic.
ENG 262.01 WITH PROF. LOU BASTIEN
SPECIAL TOPIC FOR S’18: GREATER ROMANTIC LYRIC
This course examines the transformation of the lyric poem – particularly the ode – from simple observation or insight into an integration of the human consciousness with the natural world – one of the quintessential developments of the Romantic period. We closely read poems by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, from “Frost at Midnight” and “Tintern Abbey” to the “Ode to the West Wind” and “To Autumn”. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Poetry (C-1), or the Period (D-2) or the Theory (E) requirement. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course.
ENG 262.02 WITH PROF. LISA KASMER
SPECIAL TOPIC FOR S’18: QUEER VICTORIANS
The Victorian period was full of writers addressing what we now consider themes of “queer” sexuality and gender. Often, however, these themes have gone unrecognized. Victorian texts, which hold a multivalent emphasis on kinship, desire, matrimony, domesticity, and familial life, stand as a rich resource for analyses of same-sex desire, gendered and sexual subjectivities, and closeting and homophobia. Through texts by authors such as Oscar Wilde, Christina Rossetti, and Wilkie Collins we will look at depictions of nonnormative desires and identities and resistance to heteronormativity. To provide a theoretical context for this exploration, we will focus on queer theory, which examines the way power works to institutionalize and legitimate certain forms and expressions of sexuality and gender while stigmatizing others. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (D-2) or the Theory (E) requirement. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year.
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ENG 275 - Fictions of Empire: Studies in Global English Literature This seminar provides an introduction to contemporary global literature in English. The writers we will discuss come from very different backgrounds–from South Asia to Africa to the Caribbean–but they are all engaged with making sense of the legacy of colonialism and the emergence of something we might call global culture. These texts are exciting stylistically because of their inventive uses of language and narrative structure: their experiments with form capture the sense of new nations coming into being, new approaches to cultural tradition, and the new status of English as a global language. The stories they tell entertain while also providing original perspectives on histories of empire marked by political struggle, violent conflict, and global inequalities. Topics we will consider include: the idea of the “postcolonial”; the relationship between literature and political resistance; the transformation of metropolitan English writing and language; “subalternity” and problems of representation; writing from a position of displacement, exile, and diasporization; and the persistence of colonial narratives in contemporary forms of imperialism. The specific focus of this course will change from year to year, but authors to be discussed may include Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, J.M. Coetzee, Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Derek Walcott, and Zadie Smith. For English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-3) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: N/A
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ENG 276 - Ethnic America: Literature, Theory, Politics This seminar investigates the ways in which the “American” and the “ethnic” continue to be perceived as mutually exclusive identity categories in contemporary U.S. fiction. Despite the nation’s longstanding history as a nation of immigrants and its forecasted future as the most multiethnic and multilingual country in the world, the U.S. continues to resist the incorporation of its ethnic populations through overt and covert means of division, estrangement, and discrimination. Students will read a wide range of texts by “ethnic” and “nonethnic” writers and theorists to explore the ways in which the nation’s ethnic constituents are continually changing the definitions of its national identity, and to consider whether the American/ethnic dichotomy is real or imagined. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Period (C-3) requirement.
Prerequisites: VE Placement
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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ENG 279 - Fictions of Asian America With particular emphasis on the multiple meanings of “fiction,” this seminar examines the ways in which the Asian American identity is constructed, imagined and contested in American literature and popular culture. Analyses will focus primarily on how texts and films produced within the last decade maintain or challenge established boundaries of the Asian American identity. Specific issues to be investigated include the model minority discourse and the demands of assimilation and citizenship; ethnic authenticity and hybridity; gender roles and sexual anxieties; cultural memory and nostalgia; and the commodification of Asian cultures and identities. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-3) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
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ENG 285 - Topics in Seventeenth-Century Literature Explores topics in the literary history of the seventeenth century with emphasis in changing ideas in science, history, politics, culture, and science. Depending on the special topic, course may include canonical as well as non-canonical, English as well as New England writing, and texts in a diversity of genres and disciplines. Satisfies the Period (C-1) requirement.
Special Topic for Spring 2017: Poetry, Theory, and Practice: This seminar asks the question, “what do poems do in the early modern world?” Critical writing on the nature of poetry is scarce in this period. Accordingly, we will turn to the poems themselves in order to tease out what theoretical premises underlie typical poetical practices. While this seminar will focus primarily on 17th-century transatlantic Anglophone poetry (English and American), we will look to some important earlier classical and Renaissance examples for additional background and context. Students will read poetry in modern editions as well as in facsimiles of original 17th-c printings. Students will also use digital surrogates of manuscript sources to understand early modern poetry as a scribal as well as printed culture. For English majors, this special topic fulfills either the C1 (pre-1700 seminar) or the B1 (poetry genre) requirement but does not double count. May be repeatable for credit, depending on topic.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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ENG 290 - Capstone The capstone’s purpose is to deepen and broaden each senior major’s knowledge and interpretive skills. We will spend time on the aspects of literature that the department feels every major should know. Throughout the semester, each student will work on a paper of his or her choosing (e.g., a research paper for another seminar, a part of an honor’s thesis). For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Capstone (E) requirement. Seniors only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every fall
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ENG 293 - Special Topics in African American Literature Special Topics in African American Literature. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the Period (D-3) requirement. For English minors, this course counts as a 200-level English course. May be repeatable for credit.
SPECIAL TOPIC SPRING 2018 BLEEDING TRAUMAS: THE RUPTURE OF PRIVATE/PUBLIC SPACES OF SAFETY IN AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
What boundaries are used to define public and private spaces? How are notions of safety informed and undermined by these boundaries and ruptures of space(s)? In what ways does trauma contribute to these ruptures? African American literature has explored notions of the binary positions of private and public spaces since emancipatory narratives, and writers continue to address the varied methods of these traumatic ruptures across literary genres. In this course, we will examine and discuss how African American artists understand and approach the expansion and conflation of the private/public spaces and how these moments are informed by trauma.
SPECIAL TOPIC FALL 2017 “SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED:” MEDICINE AND ETHICS IN BLACK WOMEN’S LITERATURE
Utilizing the framework of the medical humanities, this seminar explores narratives of health, wellness, and ethics in works by black women writers. The medical humanities, or “narrative ethics” as it is more specifically termed, is concerned with the historical practices of traditional scientific medicine and medical research and the various ethical abuses that have occurred throughout history in the name of scientific advancement. Because medicine and its practitioners wield considerable influence in the wellness outcomes of so many, narrative ethics as a discourse seeks to “humanize” medicine through narrative. This course explores how black women, who have so often been instrumentalized in scientific medical research while receiving the least benefit, understand and approach the question of ethics and humane treatment in medicine. It is a discussion format class with minimal lecturing, so students are expected to have read all materials and be prepared to discuss and analyze the text as the bulk of their participatory experience in class.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered annually
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ENG 294 - History of the English Language Examines changes in English mainly during the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. In addition to learning phonological and grammatical characteristics of the language during each period, the student examines language as a mirror of culture. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-1) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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ENG 297 - Honors in English Senior Year Invited and interested students should identify an area of interest with an adviser and apply in writing to the department chair with a brief description of the project before the beginning of the senior year. Honors in English normally carries two credits. With the adviser’s approval, students should register as ENG297 Honors in English for one credit in each of the two semesters of their senior year. The adviser and the student will agree on the project’s stages. However, the department requires that a completed draft be turned in by the first day of the spring semester to the adviser. The final thesis is due three weeks before the last day of the spring semester classes. The department requires one copy of the final thesis. A second reader, chosen by the student and the adviser, participates in the final evaluation. Details are available in the handbook for English majors.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 298 - Internships Academic experience taking place in the field with an opportunity to earn credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered for variable credit every year
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ENG 299 - Directed Study When asking a faculty member to sponsor directed study courses (299), the student should: 1) demonstrate competence to deal with the materials as literature and 2) present a well thought-out proposal. The student must take the initiative in selecting readings or carrying out the special project. Offered for variable credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 300 - Pedagogy I A one-on-one with a departmental faculty member on pedagogy.
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ENG 301 - Pedagogy II An advanced one-on-one with a department faculty member enabling the graduate student to acquire expertise in teaching. TAs only.
Prerequisites: ENG 300
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ENG 302 - Pedagogy III For second-year graduate students who have been awarded a teaching assistantship. Advanced mentoring and classroom assignments as arranged with individual department members. Information available from the chair.
Prerequisites: ENG 300 and ENG 301 .
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ENG 303 - Pedagogy IV A continuation of ENG 302 . See its listing for a complete description.
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ENG 322 - Black Political Literary Movements of the 20th Century This course examines the politics and culture of major black literary and cultural movements of the 20th Century across the Diaspora, including (but not limited to) The Harlem Renaissance (or the New Negro Movement), Senghor and Cesaire’s Negritude Movement, Guillen’s Afrocriollo movement, and the Black Arts Movement. We will explore the legal, political, and cultural zeitgeist that gave way to these periods of highly politicized and radicalized literary and cultural production and the legacies of these movements for the contemporary era in the 21st century.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ENG 325 - American Print Culture, 1700-1900 The years from 1700 to 1900 witnessed a transformation of print culture from the handpress period to an age of mechanical reproduction. The rapidly increasing availability of inexpensive print technologies had a tremendous impact on habits of publishing, of writing, and of reading itself. In this course, students will examine how the material contexts of print culture in early America affected and were affected by notions of authorship, readership, gender, genre, and popular and elite taste. Some sessions will be conducted at the American Antiquarian Society where students will be able to examine archival material in hands-on workshops. For the final research paper, students will be encouraged to use resources from the AAS, from Goddard Library Special Collections, and/or from the many new digital humanities archives now available online.
Special Topic for Spring 2017: Early African American Print Culture and the Challenges of the Archive: Students in this PoP (Problems of Practice) seminar will first draw upon important recent scholarship in order to gain familiarity with 18th- and 19th-century Black writers, publishers, and other agents of print culture, primarily in what would become the United States but also within the context of the Atlantic world. Simultaneously, we will interrogate the ways in which contested historical, biographical, and literary narratives are shaped, particularly in relation to the structure of archives themselves, which just as often conceal the stories and lives that they attempt to preserve as they reveal them. Multiple class session will be held at the American Antiquarian Society, where students will conduct original research with primary historical sources, such as early books, pamphlets, newspapers, ephemera, graphics, and manuscripts. Rather than completing a standard seminar paper based largely on secondary sources, students will develop a detailed research proposal for a major scholarly essay (with working thesis or questions, provisional findings, literature review, and suggestions for further archival investigation) or for a non-essay based project (such as an online exhibit or teaching resource, a finding aid for an underutilized portion of an archival collection, a transcription or edition of an unpublished or rare document, a contribution to an existing digital humanities initiative, etc.). Throughout, we will strive to articulate new questions in old archives. ENG 225 may be of particular interest to literature and history majors but is designed for students from any discipline who are interested in learning to work with archival material. This special topic fulfills both the C2 (1700-1900 seminar) requirement for the English major and the Advanced Research Course for the Africana Studies concentration.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most years
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ENG 327 - The Book in the Early Modern World
The rise of the printed book in early modern Europe is associated with corresponding renewal and innovation in science, letters, and theology. As with so many widely accepted narratives, however, the story turns out to be messier, more complicated, and ultimately more interesting than broadly understood. In this seminar, hands-on laboratory assignments with rare material from the Jonas Clark collection at Goddard Library’s Archives and Special Collections supplement readings as students explore major topics in early modern book history-the emergence of the codex; moveable type and the persistence of manuscript; the technology of the early hand press; design issues from typography to bindings; communications circuits; histories of reading; bibliographic identity. Toward the end of the semester, the class holds a Rare Book Open House with exhibits and demonstrations of material from Archives and Special Collections. No previous knowledge is required or expected, but an interest in books as material and technological objects is strongly recommended. The course may be of particular interest to students in English; History; Cultural Studies and Communication; Media, Culture and the Arts; Comparative Literature; Ancient Civilization; Studio Art; and Art History.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most years
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ENG 338 - Contemporary Latino/a Literature This course examines the contributions to American literature made by Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans and other Latino/Latina writers in the United States over the last thirty years. Through a variety of Latino/Latina writing, we will explore the ways in which these writers represent community, class, race, gender, culture, nation, and ethnicity in their works. We will also examine the ways in which Latinas(os) have manufactured identities within mainstream society, as well as the development of cultural hybrids and other forms of cultural registers. Representative works of various genres will be read and analyzed within a cultural context; the testimonio, the auto ethnographic essay, the narrative (novel and short story), drama, poetry and film. Authors include Gloria Anzaldua, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Valdez, Cristina Garcia, Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz, Achy Obejas and Piri Thomas
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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ENG 343 - Literary Theory & Global Culture This seminar examines the myriad aesthetic choices available to fiction writers in the era commonly referred to as “globalization.” How do we imagine the relationship between literature and contemporary politics? In what ways do the increasingly permeable borders of the modern world reshape our understanding of literature? How does literature help us to understand the new idioms of selfhood that emerge in a global age? Is there a particular literary form that is best suited to represent - and critique - the era in which we live? This course will survey the vocabularies that humanities scholars have invoked to address the rapidly shifting institutions and cultural frameworks of global capitalism, including, for example, questions pertaining to literary aesthetics and form and debates regarding realism, modernism, and postmodernism. We will touch upon questions of relativism and discourses of human rights; ways of conceptualizing global belonging and global citizenship; and the aesthetics of realism and postmodernism as responses to world-historical events of the late twentieth century and beyond. Students can expect to encounter philosophically rich texts from key thinkers in postcolonial and cross-cultural studies. For undergraduate English majors this course satisfies the theory requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year.
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ENG 345 - Mythopoetics This course examines modes and qualities of literary expression where we will find that narratives and poetry convey different expectations, which are also embedded in a variety of worldviews. Frequently, however, authors will attempt to craft these expectations and worldviews to accommodate nontraditional visions. Toward this end, we will read works by authors who strive to come to grips with their own experiences of the world. Texts will include Eliot’s Four Quartets, Joyce’s Ulysses, Plath’s Ariel, and representative poems by Wallace Stevens.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year
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ENG 348 - Contemporary Literary Theory Investigates and develops several theoretical approaches to literature in the late-20th and 21st century, attempting to provide glimpses into the range of theoretical issues and concerns. We look particularly at identity formation in contemporary literary, political, economic, cultural and social arenas. May also look at a literary text in relation to theory. General areas of study are selected from among the following: textual criticism, new criticism, psychoanalysis/reader response, structuralism, poststructuralism, feminism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, gay and lesbian theory and Cultural Studies.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered annually
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ENG 349 - Signs and Crossroads: Semiotic Theory and Practice Approaches semiotic theories comparatively from historical as well as theoretical points of view and practices them by drawing on literature, film, advertising, and/or drama.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Periodically
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ENG 351 - Chaucer Guides the student through The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parlement of Fowls, some Canterbury Tales and/or Troilus and Criseyde. All texts are taught in Middle English. No prior knowledge of Middle English required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Periodically
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ENG 353 - Advanced Studies in Shakespeare This seminar examines a variety of Shakespeare plays and relevant contemporary works within the contexts of family relationships, domestic violence, and early modern ideas about the household as a microcosmic state.
Anticipated Terms Offered: TBA
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ENG 355 - Studies in the Renaissance This course will draw on established and emerging theoretical insights to trace a specific thematic concern-such as, “New World” colonization or Renaissance anti-intellectualism-through a representative sampling of Renaissance texts from about 1500-1700.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: TBA
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ENG 360 - Making Gender through the Eighteenth-Century Novel
With an understanding that gender roles became more clearly defined in the eighteenth century, this course traces the formation of masculinity and femininity through the discourses of sexuality, sensibility, and sociability in eighteenth-century British literature. Through contemporary theory on the construction of subjectivity, gender, and sexuality, we will explore popular eighteenth-century literary forms-the romance, domestic, memoir and pornographic-to uncover the ways in which these texts helped to shape perceptions of men and women socially and culturally. For undergraduate English majors, this course satisfies the Period (C-2) requirement.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every year.
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ENG 361 - Gender and Genre in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Using the nineteenth-century British novel–the predominant literary form in the mid-to-late nineteenth century–as a springboard, this course explores the intersection between gender and literary genres. Cultural expectations for male and female authors and the literary forms in which they wrote helped to define the literary history of nineteenth-century novels. This course will examine diverse generic models, from the domestic novel and the Bildungsroman to the Gothic and sensation novel, through authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Wilkie Collins. Through a focus on nineteenth-century print culture, we will review the critical positioning and reception of these authors as well as their work.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year.
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ENG 362 - Special Topics in 19th-Century British Literature Special Topics in 19th-Century British Literature. This course can be repeated with a different topic.
ENG 262.01 WITH PROF. LOU BASTIEN
SPECIAL TOPIC FOR S’18: GREATER ROMANTIC LYRIC
This course examines the transformation of the lyric poem – particularly the ode – from simple observation or insight into an integration of the human consciousness with the natural world – one of the quintessential developments of the Romantic period. We closely read poems by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats, from “Frost at Midnight” and “Tintern Abbey” to the “Ode to the West Wind” and “To Autumn”.
ENG 262.02 WITH PROF. LISA KASMER
SPECIAL TOPIC FOR S’18: QUEER VICTORIANS
The Victorian period was full of writers addressing what we now consider themes of “queer” sexuality and gender. Often, however, these themes have gone unrecognized. Victorian texts, which hold a multivalent emphasis on kinship, desire, matrimony, domesticity, and familial life, stand as a rich resource for analyses of same-sex desire, gendered and sexual subjectivities, and closeting and homophobia. Through texts by authors such as Oscar Wilde, Christina Rossetti, and Wilkie Collins we will look at depictions of nonnormative desires and identities and resistance to heteronormativity. To provide a theoretical context for this exploration, we will focus on queer theory, which examines the way power works to institutionalize and legitimate certain forms and expressions of sexuality and gender while stigmatizing others.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year.
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ENG 363 - Traumatic Tales: British Romantic Literature and Nationhood This course examines the formation of British national identity through its troubling origins in women’s lesser status, slavery, colonial rule and imperialism. Focusing on the slave narrative, confessional poetry and the political and domestic novel, this seminar will explore the ways in which Romantic writers attempted to articulate a national narrative through shaping a host of discourses surrounding class, home, and the nation-state. To better understand this concept of nationalism, we will also read psychoanalytical and critical social theory related to genocide, accidents and torture. Through the course, we will come to comprehend the ways in which the marginalized are displaced in the formation of a homogeneous national culture.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year.
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