2019-2020 Academic Catalog

Nov 21, 2024

2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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.

SPRING 2020 Special Topic: Staging Race in the Early Modern Playhouse

The playhouses of Elizabethan and Jacobean England were vibrant spaces of entertainment, education, catharsis, and controversy, where the onstage action often reflected concerns and issues of the day. This seminar will explore depictions of racialized “otherness” in a variety of plays from this period, using close reading of the texts along with scholarship addressing early modern theatrical conventions, social conditions, the political landscape, and prevailing (frequently polemical) attitudes towards race. By examining dramatic portrayals of Africans, Muslims, Jews, and other groups constructed as “other” for 16th and 17th century English audiences, we will confront and explore questions of race and representation that remain vexed in our own historical moment.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically