Catalog
English
Professors Dhingra, Dillon, Malcolmson, and Nayder; Associate Professors Federico and Freedman (chair); Assistant Professors Osucha and Pickens; Senior Lecturer Farnsworth; Lecturers Anthony and Strong
Through a wide range of courses, students develop the ability to read closely and to engage in skilled textual analysis. They gain a sense of diverse literary histories and an understanding of literary genres. Deepening their engagement with literature, they formulate and test questions about texts and compare them critically. Students learn to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of critical sources, methods, and interpretations and to negotiate among them. Discussions and course work require students to develop their own ideas about texts and to present those ideas in an articulate, responsive, and insightful manner, in both speech and writing. The English major prepares students for careers such as teaching, publishing, and writing, for graduate study in literature, and for graduate programs leading to the study or practice of medicine or law.
Departmental offerings are intended to be taken in sequence. Courses at the 100 level are open to all students. Courses at the 200 level are more difficult in both the amount of material covered and the level of inquiry; they also address questions of theory and methodology in more self-conscious ways. Most 200-level courses have prerequisites. Seminars at the 300 level are generally for juniors and seniors who have completed several English courses (the latter requirement may be waived at the discretion of the instructor for certain interdisciplinary majors). More information on the English department is available on the website (bates.edu/english).
Major Requirements
Majors must complete eleven courses of which a minimum of seven must be taken from Bates faculty in the English department. Students may receive no more than two credits for junior-semester-abroad courses, and, normally, no more than two credits for junior-year-abroad courses. Under special circumstances, and upon written petition to the English department, junior-year-abroad students may receive credit for three courses. One course credit is granted for Advanced Placement scores of four or five, but these credits count only toward overall graduation requirements, not toward the eleven-course major requirement. For the classes of 2014, 2015 and 2016, no English Short Term courses can be counted toward the major. Beginning with the Class of 2017 one Short Term course in methods is required (see note below).The eleven courses required for the major must include one or two courses at the 100 level and nine or ten courses at the 200 level or above. Upper-level courses must include: a) three courses on literature before 1800; b) one course emphasizing critical thinking; c) two junior-senior seminars; and d) a senior thesis (ENG 457), which may be undertaken independently or as part of a junior-senior seminar (457 with a thesis written through 395A, for example). Although writing a thesis through a seminar may fulfill both a seminar requirement and the thesis requirement, it counts as a single course credit.
FYS 291, 323, 333, 334, 335, 341, 359, and 379 may count toward the major as the equivalent of 100-level courses.
Students may count one course in creative writing toward the major.
Students may count any two literature courses outside the department toward the English major, including foreign-literature courses (with a primary focus on literature rather than on language instruction), or literature courses offered by the Department of Theater and Dance (with a primary emphasis on literature not production). Foreign-literature courses include those focusing on Greek and Latin literature; the English department strongly recommends that majors take a course in Homer, Virgil, Ovid, or classical mythology. These courses are listed under the Program in Classical and Medieval Studies.
Note: The English major requirements are currently under revision. As part of that review, the department has determined that, beginning with the Class of 2017, all English majors are required to take a Short Term course on methods during the sophomore year.
Creative Writing
English majors may elect a program in creative writing. This program is intended to complement and enhance the English major and to add structure and a sense of purpose to those students already committed to creative writing. Students who wish to write a creative thesis must undertake this program.Requirements for the focus on creative writing include:
1) Two introductory courses in the writing of prose (291), poetry (292), or drama (THEA 240).
2) One advanced course in the writing of prose or poetry (391 or 392).
3) Three related courses in the English department or in the literature of a foreign language.
4) A one- or two-semester thesis (nonhonors) in which the student writes and revises a portfolio of creative work.
Students who elect the creative writing concentration must fulfill all English major requirements but may count toward them one creative writing course as well as the related literature courses and thesis.
Honors
With departmental approval, students may write a two-semester honors thesis in the senior year. Majors who wish to present themselves as potential honors candidates are encouraged to register for at least one junior-senior seminar in their junior year. Majors who elect to participate in a junior-year-abroad program and who also want to present themselves as honors candidates must submit evidence of broadly comparable course work or independent study pursued elsewhere; such persons are encouraged to consult with the department before their departure or early in their year abroad. At the end of their junior year, prospective honors candidates must submit a two-page proposal and a one-page bibliography; those wishing to write a two-semester creative thesis must submit a one-page description of a project and a substantial writing sample. Both are due at the department chair's office on the first Friday of the Short Term.Graduate Study
Students planning to do graduate work should seek advice early concerning their undergraduate program, the range of graduate school experience, and vocational options. Graduate programs frequently require reading proficiency in up to two foreign languages, so it is strongly recommended that prospective graduate students achieve at least a two-year proficiency in a classical (Latin, Greek) or modern language.Pass/Fail Grading Option
Pass/fail grading may not be elected for courses counting toward the major. CoursesCM/EN 103. Introduction to Classical and Medieval Studies.
This course introduces students to major topics, methods, and modes of inquiry in classical and medieval studies. By examining the transmission and reception of selected textual and material cultures of antiquity in the Middle Ages, students develop an understanding of the critical approaches that define the field. Specific topics and texts vary, but include such themes as "Images of the City" (Troy, Rome, Jerusalem, London) and "Lovers and Warriors" (Achilles, Caesar, Christ, Edward III), and are drawn from a mixed sampling of ancient poetry in translation (Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan) and medieval texts either in translation (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio) or in manageable Middle English (Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate). Historical and archaeological evidence is studied in conjunction with literary works to emphasize current research methods in an interdisciplinary context, with ample opportunity for questioning the categories of periodicity and genre that give rise to the definitions of "classical" and "medieval" studies. Enrollment limited to 40. [W1] Normally offered every year. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN 111. TheLord of the Rings in Context.
This course examines J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy in a variety of contexts, including its sources, inspirations, uses, and audiences. Particular attention is paid to Tolkien's creative process and academic background, along with a focus on how Tolkien's books and Peter Jackson's films reinforce each other as modern cultural phenomena. Enrollment limited to 50. [W1] S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 112. U.S. Film in the 1970s.
Inspired by the French New Wave and emboldened by the Vietnam war, Hollywood produced many personal and thought-provoking films in the 1970s, films whose art often belies their corporate origin. Students view films by "New Hollywood" directors such as Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Brian De Palma, and Francis Ford Coppola, in addition to early releases by independent filmmakers like David Lynch and Charles Burnett. The course also examines the heyday of Blaxploitation, the rise of the heroic vigilante, and the representation of violence in war, horror, and crime films. Students view and discuss two to three films each week and are required to have access to a Netflix account for online streaming. Enrollment limited to 50. S. Dillon.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 113. Theory of Narrative.
The novelist E. M. Forster distinguished between "the king died and then the queen died," which is a story, and "the king died, and then the queen died of grief," which is a plot. How does the causal meaning of "then" explain narrative? Narratology provides a theory of reading that crosses literary criticism, neuroscience, and philosophy of law. This course, in examining causality, agency, event, and temporality, pursues recent questions that ask what role narratives play in understanding self, consciousness, and cognition and emotion. Special attention is given to three case studies: the short stories of D. H. Lawrence, the narrative and lyric poems of Philip Larkin, and the "The Decalogues" of Krzysztof Kieslowski. Enrollment limited to 50. S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 114. Introduction to African American Literature I: 1600–1910.
This introductory course traces the development of a distinct African American literary tradition from the Atlantic Slave Trade to 1910. Students examine music, oratory, letters, poems, essays, slave narratives, autobiographies, fiction, and plays by Americans of African descent. The essential questions that shape this course include: What is the role of African American literature in the cultural identity and collective struggle of black people, and what should that role be? What themes, tropes, and forms connect these texts, authors, and movements into a coherent living tradition? Enrollment limited to 50. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 115. Introduction to African American Literature II: 1910–Present.
This introductory course traces the development of a distinct African American literary tradition from 1910 to the present. Students examine music, oratory, letters, poems, essays, slave narratives, autobiographies, fiction, and plays by Americans of African descent. The essential questions that shape this course include: What is the role of African American literature in the cultural identity and collective struggle of black people, and what should that role be? What themes, tropes, and forms connect these texts, authors, and movements into a coherent living tradition? This course is a continuation of African American Literature I, which considers literary production before 1910. Recommended background: AA/EN 114. Enrollment limited to 50. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 117. Art of the Novella.
The novella was once described by Stephen King as an "anarchy-ridden literary banana republic." This course examines the long-beleaguered novella, a story that murkily exists between 10,000 and 50,000 words. Despite being overshadowed by its overly heralded compatriots, the short story and the novel, the novella has been, and continues to be, explored by writers across cultures. This course broadly explores the aims and unique aesthetic seduction of works of this strange length; readings may include novellas by Voltaire, Stevenson, Melville, Mann, Joyce, Conrad, Woolf, Hemingway, Wright, Tolstoy, Jewett, Zola, Cervantes, Cortázar, McCullers, Kafka, Wells, and Kosinski. Enrollment limited to 50. One-time offering. J. Anthony.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121. Colloquia in Literature.
Colloquia introduce students to the study of literature from a variety of perspectives, with a focus on such objects as author, genre, and literary period. These courses not only delve into their particular subject matter, they also allow a preliminary discussion of critical vocabulary and methods that will carry over into more advanced courses. Discussion and frequent writing assignments characterize each section. Prospective majors are urged to take at least one colloquium. Enrollment limited to 25 per section.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN 121A. Monsters, Magicians, and Medievalism.
Medieval literature is famous for its monsters and magicians: from the dragon of Beowulf to the fairies of romance and the Merlin of the Arthur story, supernatural beings play a significant role in the plot and purpose of narratives from the Middle Ages. Likewise, in modern stories about the Middle Ages (especially Tolkien's), magicians and monsters figure prominently. This course explores the multiple meanings and effects related to this population of supernatural beings; students consider how and why such creatures appear in the texts and how they help to define the genre of medievalism. They read a number of medieval texts (in modern English translation) and a sampling of modern texts about the Middle Ages. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. [W1] S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121C. Frost, Stevens, Williams.
Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams constitute a solid American modernist grain in twentieth-century poetry. Thorough reading of their work lets us question their surprising affinities and differences: What did each poet take to be the place and function of poetry? Does the regional/parochial flavor in Frost's work enhance or limit its impact? To what extent are we justified in deeming Stevens a philosophical poet? Does Williams's materialist aesthetic limit the range of his work, or deepen its impact? What vision of life in America does each seem to offer? Students may consider the work of tutelary ancestors, competitors, and critics, but the focus is on comprehensive reading, writing, and discussion of these poets' poems, early and late. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. R. Farnsworth.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
CM/EN 121D. The Many Lives of King Arthur.
King Arthur is called the "once and future king," but this malleable, mythic figure in some sense always lives in the present time. Approaching Arthur as an idea as much as a man, students analyze the ways in which the Arthur story has been adapted for different literary, social, and political purposes according to the needs and desires of its changing audience. They explore the features of the Arthurian legend which make it universally compelling, including feudal loyalty and kinship, women and marriage, questing and adventure, magic and monsters, violence and warfare, and consider the fierce debate over Arthur's historical and mythical origins. Enrollment limited to 25. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EN/WS 121G. Asian American Women Writers.
This course examines from a sociohistorical perspective fictional, autobiographical, and critical writings by Asian American women including Meena Alexander, Sui Sin Far, Gish Jen, Maxine Hong Kingston, Tahira Naqvi, Cathy Song, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Hisaye Yamamoto. Students explore their concerns with personal and cultural identity, as both Asian and American, as females, as minorities, and often as postcolonial subjects. The course highlights the varied immigration and social histories of women from different Asian countries, often homogenized as "Oriental" in mainstream American cultural representations. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121H. The Brontës.
Reading a selection of fiction and poetry by the three Brontë sisters, as well as critical essays about them, students consider questions of authorial intention, and discuss the relation between literature and history in the Victorian period. Particular attention is paid to the Brontës' representations of gender and class, and to the interrelations between these social categories. Not open to students who have received credit for FYS 306. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. L. Nayder.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 121I. Poetry in the Twenty-First Century.
A critical study of the variegated terrain of American poetry in the twenty-first century. Readings include mainstream and experimental poetic works, critical works, and commentary. Students use music, film, and visual art to reflect on unique themes and novel directions for poetry in this century. Written work includes short response papers and a longer essay. Students also produce a small sample of poems in order to better grasp questions concerning the craft of poetry. Enrollment limited to 25. R. Strong.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121K. Frankenstein's Creatures.
Focusing on the monstrous figures of nineteenth-century fiction, this course explores their cultural meaning for Victorians as well as ourselves, examining their ongoing fascination and purpose—their relation to changing conceptions of the marginal and "other" and to social norms and their violation. Students consider the tie between the monstrous or "unnatural" and the threat of class revolt, sexual "deviance," and imperial rise and fall. Readings include Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and The War of the Worlds, as well as contemporary revisions of these works in novels and films. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Nayder.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 121L. Modern Short Stories.
A study of the short story and novella as characteristic twentieth-century genres, with a brief introduction to works in the nineteenth century. The course focuses on both "classic" and contemporary texts by writers selected from among Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, W. Somerset Maugham, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Jhumpa Lahiri, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag, Susan Minot, and David Leavitt. Students experiment with writing a short story. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121R. Addictions, Obsessions, Manias.
This course traces the development of pathologized identities in nineteenth-century literature and culture. Topics include alcoholism, cigarette smoking, coffee drinking, narcotic use, fetishism, kleptomania, erotomania, collecting, shopping, and gambling. Authors may include Balzac, Baudelaire, Conan Doyle, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Freud, Huysmans, London, Mann, Norris, Tolstoy, Wilde, and Zola. Enrollment limited to 25. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121S. The Child in English Literature.
This course explores representations of children and childhood in English literature from the medieval period to the present day. From the dead, missing, and violated children of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, to the images of innocent childhood encoded in Romantic poetry, to the abused and eroticized children of Gothic fairy tales and modern fiction, students interrogate how childhood is represented within given historical periods and how the figure of the child relates to larger questions of innocence, experience, nostalgia, and futurity. Authors may include William Shakespeare, John Webster, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. Enrollment limited to 25. Offered with varying frequency. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121U. The Tudor Myth on Stage and in the Movies.
William Shakespeare promoted the "Tudor Myth" in Richard III and questioned it in Richard II. Recent films and several television series are developing a new Tudor myth, since Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are remarkably popular at the box office. Why this recent obsession with the Tudors? This course explores the original myth through Shakespeare's plays, other works of the time, and modern historical accounts. Students consider the power of the myth for our culture in television and movie versions. Enrollment limited to 25. C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN 121V. Romance and Nation.
This course examines romance in the context of the formation of a national identity in late medieval England. Romance was the pulp fiction of the Middle Ages, a highly adaptable literary genre capable of offering a legible national past to a wide-ranging audience. Romances often provide a satisfying fantasy of national unity, but also reveal the contradictions of national identity in a time of multiculturalism and instability. Students investigate the capacities and limits of romance as a genre within which to imagine a nation. Texts include Guy of Warwick, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, and Malory's Morte Darthur. Enrollment limited to 25. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 121W. Image and Sound: Reading and Writing Poems.
This course introduces students to lyric poetry written in the last two centuries, and in varied cultural settings, from the "canonical" English and American classics to the contemporary, multicultural, and transnational. Poets studied may include Meena Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, John Keats, Audre Lorde, Cathy Song, Rabindranath Tagore, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth, and W. B. Yeats. The focus is on "close reading" with some attention to the poets' varied historical and sociocultural contexts. Students attend live poetry readings and write their own poems. Not open to students who have received credit for FYS 323. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 130. Writers of Maine.
H. L. Menken (1880-1956) once wrote, "Maine is dead, intellectually, as Abyssinia. Nothing is ever heard from it." Mencken's quote marginalizes Maine as a quiet, separate, anti-intellectual state, yet again and again, over the past two centuries, Maine writers have debunked this idea. This course introduces students to the characteristics of Maine's literary heritage, examining the ways in which certain literatures have shaped our understanding of the state's history and culture. What is a "Mainer," and what is a Maine writer? Students engage in close readings of works by Jewett, Longfellow, Moore, Roberts, Millay, Robinson, Chute, Strout, and others. Enrollment limited to 25. One-time offering. J. Anthony.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 142. Early American Literature.
A survey of significant works and voices from the diverse traditions that contributed to the creation of a U.S. national literature, including the oral storytelling traditions of the indigenous peoples of North America. The course of reading extends from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European accounts of "New World" exploration through the turn of the nineteenth century and the emergence of a distinctive tradition of the American novel and its genres. Authors include Bradford, Morton, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Tyler, Franklin, Jefferson, Wheatley, Equianah, de Crèvecoeur, Occum, Brockden Brown, Foster, and Rowson. Enrollment limited to 25. E. Osucha.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 143. Nineteenth-Century American Literature.
A critical study of American literary history from the early national period through the Gilded Age. Students examine a wide range of texts, giving attention to the historical phenomena and events that shaped them and to the aesthetic and political traditions that dominated literary production in that century. Authors may include Melville, Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson, Fuller, Dickinson, Douglass, Howells, Davis, Fuller, Cooper, Child, Gilman, Jacobs, Jewett, Chesnutt, and Chopin. Enrollment limited to 25. E. Osucha.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 152. American Writers since 1900.
A study of ten to twelve American texts selected from the works of such writers as Dickinson, Twain, Gilman, Chesnutt, James, Adams, Dreiser, Hughes, Frost, Stein, Hemingway, Larsen, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Pound, Eliot, Crane, Cullen, Wright, Stevens, Williams, Baldwin, Plath, Albee, Brooks, Walker, Ellison, Pynchon, and Morrison. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. Normally offered every year. S. Dillon, E. Osucha.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
CM/EN 206. Chaucer.
Reading and interpretation of Chaucer's major works, including The Canterbury Tales. All works are read in Middle English. Not open to students who have received credit for ENG 206. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. [W2] Normally offered every year. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 209. Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Culture.
This course seeks to engage students in reading a culture very different from, and yet significantly linked to, our own. Attention is given to issues of religion, gender, sovereignty, and the invention of a national culture in English literature from the late fourteenth century through the reign of Elizabeth I. Readings may include selections from Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pearl poet, Margery Kempe, Thomas Malory, John Skelton, and Edmund Spenser; lyrics by Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, and Queen Elizabeth I; and plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 211. English Literary Renaissance (1509–1603).
A study of the Elizabethan Age through developments in literature, particularly the sonnet (William Shakespeare, Louise Labé, Philip Sidney, Mary Wroth) and Spenser's romance epic Faerie Queene. Attention is given to developments in religion, politics, and society. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 213. Shakespeare I.
A study of the major plays, with some emphasis on the biography of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan milieu. ENG 213 is offered in the fall. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Not open to students who have received credit for ENG 215. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. Normally offered every year. C. Malcolmson, S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 214. Shakespeare II.
A study of the major plays, with some emphasis on the biography of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan milieu. ENG 214 is offered in the winter. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. Normally offered every year. S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 220. Dickens Revised.
Focusing on several works that span Dickens's career, students place Dickens in his Victorian context and consider how and why his fiction has been adapted and reworked in the twentieth century. Students discuss film and musical adaptations as well as fictional reworkings, and examine changes in Dickens's reputation and the evolving cultural meaning of his stories. Novels, films, and musicals include Oliver!, Jack Maggs, The D. Case, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood: The Solve-It-Yourself Broadway Musical. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Nayder.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 222. Seventeenth-Century Literature.
A study of significant writers of the seventeenth century. Writers may include William Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, John Milton, and Aphra Behn. Attention is given to the intellectual, political, and scientific revolutions of the age. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 223. Survey of Literature of the Caribbean.
This course examines the literatures of the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Some texts are drawn from Anglophone authors such as Lamming, Anthony, Walcott, Brodber, Danticat, Lovelace, Brathwaite, and Denis Williams; others, from Francophone and Hispanophone writers, including Guillen, Carpentier, Condé, Chamoiseau, Depestre, Ferré, and Morejón. The course places each work in its historical, political, and anthropological contexts. Students are introduced to a number of critical theories and methodologies with which to analyze the works, including poststructuralist, Marxist, Pan-African, postcolonial, and feminist. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. S. Houchins.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 226. Milton's Paradise Lost.
Milton's Christian epic, Paradise Lost (1668), which retells the story of man's fall from Paradise, is one of the most influential and interesting works in English literature. Students read this poem twice: once before midterm, with attention to internal form and structure, and then again afterwards, focusing on significant problems from the history of Milton criticism and on the remarkable influence of Milton's poem in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level course in English. Enrollment limited to 25. S. Dillon.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 227. Surreal Fictions.
The word "surrealism" often evokes Dali's melting clocks or perhaps Magritte's headless man, images culled from, or speaking to, a dream. This course examines the history and aesthetic of the surreal in various fictions. Surreal stories and novels do not defy realism, rather they employ the rules of realism as a means to go beyond, into the dream. What are the unlikely effects of surreal fictions? How do surreal fictions manage the essential components of storytelling, such as character, allusion, metaphor, and verisimilitude? What sorts of truths can be unearthed through stories that challenge or defy reason? Authors may include Breton, Barthelme, Carroll, Ellison, Budnitz, Millhauser, Morrison, Antrim, Murakami, Calvino, and Crevel. Prerequisites(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. One-time offering. J. Anthony.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 229. Constructing Sexuality in the Enlightenment.
This course examines eighteenth-century literature in relation to recent histories of sexuality, based largely on the work of Michel Foucault. It considers whether modern sexual identities emerged during the long eighteenth century (1660-1789) and whether literature played an active role in shaping such categories. Authors may include Behn, Charke, Cleland, Congreve, Defoe, Etherege, Fielding, Haywood, Rochester, Pope, Swift, and Wycherley, along with nonliterary works from the period. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level course in English. Enrollment limited to 25. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 231. Women Writers of the 1950s.
This course examines the fiction, poetry, and drama of female writers writing and/or publishing in the 1950s, including O'Connor, Welty, Plath, Moore, Bishop, Jackson, McCullers, Hansberry, Brooks, and Porter. Prereuisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. One-time offering. J. Anthony.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 232. Eighteenth-Century Literature.
A study of Restoration and eighteenth-century British authors, including Dryden, Congreve, Swift, Pope, Fielding, and Johnson. Attention is given to parallel developments in Continental literature and to continuity with Renaissance humanism. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 236. Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot.
Each of these major nineteenth-century novelists published their novels under a man's name. Charlotte Brontë called herself "Currer Bell," while "George Eliot" was the pen name for Mary Anne Evans. In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf wrote that "it was the relic of the sense of chastity that dictated anonymity to women even so late as the nineteenth century." How do these women writers work through the gendered conventions of narrative and society? How do female characters in these works make a name for themselves? Students read five novels, including Brontë's Jane Eyre and Eliot's Middlemarch. Prererequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 30. One-time offering. S. Dillon.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 238. Jane Austen: Then and Now.
Students read Austen's six major works, investigate their relation to nineteenth-century history and culture, and consider the Austen revival in film adaptations and fictional continuations of her novels. The course highlights the various and conflicting ways in which critics represent Austen, and the cultural needs her stories now seem to fulfill. Readings include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Nayder.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 241. Fiction in the United States.
Critical readings of a diverse selection of novels and shorter fictions, ranging from works by earlier writers such as Hawthorne, Howells, James, Wharton, Jewett, and Chesnutt, to more recent writing from James Baldwin, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Donald Barthelme, Sherman Alexie, and David Foster Wallace, among others. In addition to major directions in the history of American fiction, more recent developments concerning postmodernism, multi-ethnic literature, and emergent forms—graphic novels and electronic texts—are considered. Class discussions and writing assignments also address critical terms and methods. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. [W2] E. Osucha.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 242. American Realisms: Narrative, Aesthetics, and Cultural Politics at Centuries' Ends.
This course examines the aspiration to "realism" that is the predominant aesthetic and political impulse in American fiction at the end of the nineteenth century, as it resurfaces in the literature and art of the decades surrounding this last century's turn. Central among the course's critical concerns is the question of how these realist texts "map" American identities at moments of political crisis and national social transformation. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. E. Osucha.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 243. Romantic Literature (1790–1840).
The theoretical foundations of English and European Romanticism, including its philosophical, critical, and social backgrounds. The course concentrates on Rousseau, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Attention is also given to Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Swedenborg, and other prose figures and critics of the period. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25 per section. R. Farnsworth, S. Dillon, S. Freedman.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 245. Sexuality in Victorian Literature.
One dictionary definition of Victorian is prudish, and the Victorian period has often been associated with sexual repression. Yet Michel Foucault argued that the Victorians were far from silent on the topic of sexuality; in his view, the Victorians talked about sex all the time. Surveying authors such as Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Lewis Carroll, Walter Pater, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde, this course looks at the ways that Victorian literature talks openly or obliquely about homosexual and heterosexual desire, the erotic child, and sexual morality. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 30. S. Dillon.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
AC/EN 247. Contemporary Arab American Literature.
This course studies Arab American literature from 1990 until the present. Students examine novels, short fiction, memoirs, or poetry in an effort to understand the major concerns of contemporary Arab American authors. Students are expected to engage theoretical material and literary criticism to supplement their understanding of the literature. In addition to a discussion of formal literary concerns, this course is animated by the way authors spotlight gender, sexual orientation, politics, and history. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level course in English. Enrollment limited to 25. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 253. The African American Novel.
An examination of the African American novel from its beginnings in the mid-1800s to the present. Issues addressed include a consideration of folk influences on the genre, its roots in the slave narrative tradition, its relation to Euro-American texts and culture, and the "difference" that gender as well as race makes in determining narrative form. Readings include narratives selected from among the works of such writers as Douglass, Jacobs, Wilson, Delany, Hopkins, Harper, Chesnutt, Johnson, Toomer, Larsen, Hurston, Wright, Petry, Ellison, Baldwin, Walker, Morrison, Marshall, and Reed. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 254. Modern British Literature since 1900.
An introduction to the birth of modern British literature and its roots, with attention to its social and cultural history, its philosophical and cultural foundations, and some emphasis on its relationship to the previous century. Texts are selected from the works of writers such as Forster, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, Mansfield, Eliot, Yeats, Orwell, Rushdie, and Lessing. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Dhingra.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
AA/EN 255. Black Poetry.
How does the African American poetic tradition specifically contribute to the literary canon of African American literature and larger conceptions of American and global literature? This course is both an introduction to black poetics and a deep exploration. The course considers so-called basic questions (e.g., What are black poetics?) and more sophisticated questions (e.g., How do black poetics transform the literary and cultural landscape?) Students read a variety of authors who maneuver between intra- and inter-racial politics, including such canonical authors as Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni, and less well-known authors such as Jayne Cortez and LL Cool J. Prerequisite(s): One 100-level English course. Course cross-listed as AA/EN 255 beginning Winter 2014. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 255. African American Poetics.
How does the African American poetic tradition specifically contribute to the literary canon of African American literature and larger conceptions of American and global literature? This course is both an introduction to black poetics and a deep exploration. The course considers so-called basic questions (e.g., What are black poetics?) and more sophisticated questions (e.g., How do black poetics transform the literary and cultural landscape?) Students read a variety of authors who maneuver between intra- and inter-racial politics, including such canonical authors as Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni, and less well-known authors such as Jayne Cortez and LL Cool J. Prerequisite(s): One 100-level English course. Course cross-listed as AA/EN 255 beginning Winter 2014. Normally offered every year. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN 257. Literature of Dissent, 1350–1420.
This course examines literary texts engaged with the dramatic social and political upheavals which transformed late medieval England. Authors such as Chaucer, Langland, and Gower witnessed the ravages of the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the tyranny and deposition of Richard II, and religious repression. Students explore how these writers and others walked the fine line between offering topical commentary and avoiding radicalism in the context of plague, rebellion, war, usurpation, treason, heresy, and outlawry. They consider what forms that literary protest took and ask whether literature itself became a symbol of dissent. Finally, students investigate the implications of "the literature of dissent" as a category for the Middle Ages and for our own time. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 259. Contemporary African American Literature.
This course introduces students to contemporary African American literature. They explore literature written after 1975, considering a range of patterns and literary techniques as well as consistent themes and motifs. Students read a mix of canonical and less well-known authors. This course requires a nuanced, complicated discussion about what encompasses the contemporary African American literary tradition. Prerequisites(s): one 100-level English course. Recommended background: course work in American cultural studies, African American studies, or English. Not open to students who have received credit for INDS s37. Enrollment limited to 25. Normally offered every year. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 260. Passages to and from India.
This course introduces fiction, poetry, and films by writers who are of South Asian descent, Indian American immigrants, or who have considered the Indian subcontinent their home. Topics include British influence on South Asia, the Partition of India, national and diasporic identity formation, women's social roles, the impact of Western education and the English language, and the emergence of a new generation of postcolonial and immigrant literary artists. Writers are selected from among Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Satyajit Ray, Rabindranath Tagore, Jhumpa Lahiri, U. R. Anantha Murthy, and E. M. Forster. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 264. Modern Irish Poetry.
A study of the development and transformation of Anglo-Irish poetry in the twentieth century, especially as it responds to the political, social, and gender forces at work in Ireland's recent history. Beginning with brief but concentrated study of key poems by W. B. Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, and Louis MacNeice, the course then examines work by inheritors of these major figures' legacies, including Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, Nuala ni Dhomnhaill, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, and Medbh McGuckian. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Not open to students who have received credit for ENG 110. Enrollment limited to 25. [W2] R. Farnsworth.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
AA/EN 265. The Writings of Toni Morrison.
This course surveys the writing of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Texts are selected from her novels, essays, children's literature, and drama and also include criticism written about her work by other scholars. Prerequisite(s): AAS 100 and one 100-level English course. S. Houchins.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 267. Narrating Slavery.
This course examines selected autobiographical writings of ex-slaves; biographical accounts of the lives of former slaves written by abolitionists, relatives, or friends; the oral histories of ex-slaves collected in the early to mid-twentieth century; and the fiction, poems, and dramas about slaves and slavery (neo-slave narratives) of the last hundred years. Students consider these works as interventions in the discourses of freedom—religious, political, legal, and psychological—and as examples of a genre foundational to many literary works by descendants of Africans in diaspora. The course surveys early works written by slaves themselves, such as broadsides and books by Jupiter Hammond, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs; dictated biographies such as those by Nat Turner and Sor Teresa Chicaba; and fictional works inspired by the narratives, such as works by Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones, Charles Johnson, and Sherley Ann Williams. Recommended background: an introduction to African American literature or American literature. Prerequisite: AAS 100. Enrollment limited to 30. S. Houchins.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 268. Survey of Literatures of Africa.
This course explores folklore, myths, and literary texts of the African continent. These include works written by Anglophone authors such as Achebe, Soyinka, Ngugi, Vera, Njau, Nwapa, and Head; those drawn from oral traditions of indigenous languages transcribed into English, such as The Mwindo Epic and The Sundiata; and those written by Lusophone and Francophone authors including Bâ, Senghor, Liking, Neto, Mahfouz, and Kafunkeno. The course contextualizes each work historically, politically, and anthropologically. Students are introduced to a number of critical theories and methodologies with which to analyze the works, such as poststructural, Marxist, Pan-African, postcolonial, and feminist. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. S. Houchins.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 291. Fiction Writing.
A course for students who wish to have practice and guidance in the writing of prose. The course may alternate between fiction and nonfiction. Admission by writing sample. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 292. Poetry Writing.
A course for students who wish to have practice and guidance in the writing of poetry. Admission by writing sample. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. Normally offered every year. S. Dillon.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 295. Critical Theory.
Major literary critics are read, and major literary works are studied in the light of these critics. Critical approaches discussed may include neoclassical, Romantic, psychoanalytical, formalist, generic, archetypal, structuralist, and deconstructionist. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. Normally offered every year. S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EN/WS 297. Feminisms.
This course develops students' ability to analyze gender in relation to other issues, including race, class, and sexuality. Students explore the multiple theories of how these issues intersect in literature, including black feminism, socialist feminism, queer theory, deconstruction, and psychoanalytic theory. Some attention is paid to media feminism, both the brand of feminism popular in current movies and television shows, and media reactions to feminism. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 25. C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
INDS 325. Black Feminist Literary Theory and Practice.
This seminar examines literary theories that address the representation and construction of race, gender, and sexuality, particularly, but not exclusively, theories formulated and articulated by Afra-diasporic women such as Spillers, Ogunyemi, Henderson, Valerie Smith, McDowell, Busia, Lubiano, and Davies. Students not only analyze theoretical essays but also use the theories as lenses through which to explore literary productions of women writers of Africa and the African diaspora in Europe and in the Americas, including Philip, Dangarembga, Morrison, Herron, Gayl Jones, Head, Condé, Brodber, Brand, Merle Collins, and Harriet Wilson. Cross-listed in African American studies, English, and women and gender studies. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. S. Houchins.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 360. Independent Study.
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Normally offered every semester. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 365. Special Topics.
Offered occasionally by a faculty member in subjects of special interest. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 391. Advanced Prose Writing.
Prerequisite(s): English 291. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission is required. Normally offered every year. J. Anthony.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 392. Advanced Poetry Writing.
Prerequisite(s): English 292. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission is required. Normally offered every year. R. Farnsworth.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395. Junior-Senior Seminars.
Seminars provide an opportunity for concentrated work in a restricted subject area. Two such seminars are required for the English major. Students are encouraged to see the seminar as preparation for independent work on a senior thesis. They may also choose to use the seminar itself as a means of fulfilling the senior thesis requirement. Sections are limited to 15. Instructor permission is required.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395A. Godard and European Film.
Jean-Luc Godard is perhaps the most important filmmaker of the second half of the twentieth century. His films are essays in what images can do; they analyze narrative, structure, and sound. This course considers the major films of his career, from romantic early works like Breathless (1959), to politically severe films like Weekend (1967), to the philosophical meditation of In Praise of Love (2001). Each week course participants study one film by directors such as Antonioni, Bergman, Dreyer, Fellini, Marker, Pasolini, Tarkovsky, and Truffaut. Taken together, Godard and these European directors show why twentieth-century film is truly "the seventh art." Prerequisite(s): one English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Dillon.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
AC/EN 395B. Privacy, Intimacy, and Identity.
This seminar explores American concepts of "self" in historical and cultural context, focusing on distinct yet overlapping discourses of privacy, intimacy, and identity, as these are shaped by evolving understandings of race, sexuality, gender, class, and nation. Beginning with a critical investigation of how the nation's Puritan settlers articulated, practiced, and regulated "the self" and concluding with a consideration of how self and identity are presented in mediated environments such as Facebook and MySpace, students consider scholarship in American literary and cultural history, critical theory, and primary literary and legal texts. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course or one American cultural studies course. Recommended background: WGST 100. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] E. Osucha.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AC/EN 395C. Frontier and Border in U.S. Literature.
The American "frontier" has long been a controlling idea in the production of U.S. national identity: less physical reality than ideological framework, what historian Frederick Jackson Turner called "the meeting point between savagery and civilization." Drawing on theoretical and historical writings, studied alongside twentieth-century U.S. literary texts, this course examines the history and legacy of this concept, and the new interpretive and cultural paradigms of "the border" that have supplanted Turner's "frontier thesis." Studying the border as "contact zone," students read widely in Chicana/o and Native American literatures, studying connections and commonalities in what are often treated as distinct traditions, toward a more nuanced understanding of the diverse territories — real and imagined — engaged by critical discourses of the border. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course or one American cultural studies course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] E. Osucha.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395D. Victorian Crime Fiction.
The seminar examines the detective fiction written by British Victorians, the historical context in which this literature was produced, and its ideological implications. Students consider the connection between gender and criminality, and the relation of detection to class unrest and empire building. Readings include works by Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Grant Allen. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] L. Nayder.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
CM/EN 395E. Medieval Romance.
Romance was the most popular literary genre of the later Middle Ages. Originating in France in the twelfth century, this highly adaptable form quickly became an international phenomenon, with numerous examples found across Europe and the British Isles. Many romances tell tales of amorous exploits, exotic travels, and quests for knowledge; the celebration of chivalric ideals is a central theme. But many of these tales seem to question and sometimes undermine the very ideals they otherwise espouse: courtly love mingles with sexual adventurism, for instance, and loyalty to one's lord often results in alienation or death. Students read a selection of romances from France and Britain (all texts are in modern English translation or manageable Middle English) with an eye toward how they variously articulate and deconstruct the notion of chivalry. Prerequisite(s): one English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395F. Five American Women Poets.
Concentrated study of five major American poets, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich, whose various poetic achievements illuminate particular dilemmas facing female poets—issues of subject matter, visibility, literary tradition, and ideology. Corollary readings may be drawn from the work of both peers and inheritors, such as Marianne Moore, H. D., Edna St. Vincent Millay, Denise Levertov, Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, and Marie Howe. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] R. Farnsworth.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
ENG 395G. Arthurian Romance in Modern Literature and Culture.
King Arthur, the "once and future king," makes his promised return in modern literature and culture. This course analyzes the remaking of medieval Arthurian romance and the role it played in the construction of masculinity, the justification of empire, and the glorification of war in modern Britain. Readings include the poetry of Tennyson, William Morris, David Jones, and T. S. Eliot; children¿s literature; and the artistic productions of Beardsley, Burne-Jones, and Rossetti. Along with these nineteenth- and twentieth-century works, students examine the fifteenth-century romance which inspired them, Malory¿s Morte Darthur. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN 395H. Medieval Chivalry.
This course examines the many vocabularies of chivalry that arose during the Western High Middle Ages (1100-1500), a period of profound cultural change. In response to shifts in marriage and property customs, the papal schism, the Black Death, social rebellions, and civil wars, texts produced in the age of chivalry feature pointed representations of aristocrats and peasants, courtly ladies and prostitutes, crusaders and heathens, not to mention tournaments, treason, weaponry, and outlawry. These timely and sensitive topics appear in such varied genres as romances, court poetry, courtesy literature, letters, legal documents, city charters, and conduct books. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395I. Literary Imagination and Neuroscience.
This course investigates two separate disciplines, inquiring how they speak and think about literary imagination, and asks students to consider what interdisciplinary overlap might exist between the two. The course frames imagination and the Lockean language about mind that accompanies it in the writings of Addison, Burke, Johnson, and Young. It then queries whether romantic writing (Schlegel, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats) advances radically different ideas than these earlier efforts. Finally it jumps to our contemporary moment and ponders how terms of explanation may once again have changed. The course asks whether or not the neurobiological picture of imagination — the cross-neural nature of cerebral processes, cognitive historicism, and imaging techniques–is at a great distance from what the eighteenth century once thought. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395J. The Lyric Answer.
This seminar focuses on lyric poems that respond to other poems, to works of visual art, or to public occasions. We tend to think of the lyric poem as essentially private and inward, as a speech act or composition peculiarly personal and dreamily symbolic, or arising just from the catalyzing frictions of language itself. In this course, students consider a wide array of poems responsive to specific (that is, objectively verifiable) events, objects, and places in order to observe and relate their various formal, figurative, and expressive behaviors. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] R. Farnsworth.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395K. The Arctic Sublime.
Now the focus of grave concerns over climate change, the Arctic generated a different set of anxieties in the nineteenth century. Perceived as strange and terrifying, and deadly to those who tried to chart and conquer it, the region was a source of the sublime; its inhuman greatness both inspired and appalled. Drawing on various genres, students examine the "Arctic sublime," considering its artistic and ideological purposes for Romantics and Victorians. Works include Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as well as works of visual art and selections from nineteenth-century theorists of the sublime. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] L. Nayder.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EN/WS 395L. Feminist Literary Criticisms.
This seminar examines feminist literary theories and the implications and consequences of theoretical choices. It raises interrelated questions about forms of representation, the social construction of critical categories, cross-cultural differences among writers and readers, and the critical reception of women writers. Students explore the use of literary theory through work with diverse texts. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] Normally offered every year. L. Dhingra, C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395O. Poetry and Place.
Premised on William Carlos Williams's definition of culture as the relation of a place to the lives lived within it, this course begins with a brief exploration of Western conceptions of the pastoral, then focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century visions of nature's relation to the poetic imagination, where nature is understood to include ideas of wilderness, cultivated landscape, and even urban space. Psychological, political, philosophical, and prophetic preoccupations come to startling focus in poetries specifically responsive to the earth and locale. From several traditions a number of poets is considered from among Virgil, Horace, Marvell, Bashô, Wordsworth, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Hardy, Frost, E. Thomas, W. C. Williams, Jeffers, Kavanagh, Bishop, Snyder, Heaney, Momaday, Ammons, Berry, Walcott, Oliver, and Haines. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] R. Farnsworth.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395P. Worldly Women as Artists: Transnational Women Writers.
In her 1927 novel To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf resisted the prevailing sentiment that "women can't paint, women can't write." What qualities allow a contemporary woman writer to be considered an artist? How does transnational women's art reflect the creators' specific cultural or gendered experiences? This seminar studies such questions by examining the fiction, poetry, memoirs, and literary criticism by transnational women writing who consciously focus on writing about art and about themselves as creators and artists. Authors may include Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Meena Alexander, Shani Mootoo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Trinh T. Minh-ha. Prerequisite(s): two 100-level English courses. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395Q. Orientalism.
The course explores the ideological function of representations of the "East" in the Western tradition and in contemporary literature and film. Students consider Edward Said's influential formulation in light of feminist and other critiques and examine the claim that certain modes of Western feminism are Orientalist. Topics include Orientalism after 9/11, its operation and analysis in film, and works by contemporary Arab British and Arab American writers. Prerequisite(s): one English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EN/WS 395S. Asian American Women Writers, Filmmakers, and Critics.
This seminar studies from a literary and a sociohistorical perspective the fiction, memoirs, and critical theories of Asian American women such as Meena Alexander, Ginu Kamani, Maxine Hong Kingston, Lisa Lowe, Bapsi Sidhwa, Cathy Song, Shani Mootoo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Joy Kogawa, and Hisaye Yamamoto. It explores their constructions of personal and national identity, as hybridized Asians and Americans, and as postcolonial diasporics making textual representations of real and "imaginary" homelands. Films by Trinh Minh-ha, Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair, Jayasri Hart, and Renee Tajima are also analyzed through critical lenses. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
AA/EN 395T. African American Literary Issues and Criticism.
This seminar takes as its premise that black literature engages with and reflects parts of the world in which it is produced. In this course, students sort through the various conversations authors and critics have with each other. They read canonical authors and less well-known figures in an effort to tease out the nuance present in this body of work. Each text is paired with another in a form of dialogue. These exchanges are not set, so it is up to students to understand how the texts speak to each other. Literary criticism requires us to think through privilege, citizenship, capitalism, intraracial dynamics, gender and sexual dynamics, and political movements. The course theme may vary from year to year (e.g., disability, literature of the left, black queer studies). Course crosslisted beginning Winter 2014. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395T. African American Literary Issues and Criticism .
This seminar takes as its premise that black literature engages with and reflects parts of the world in which it is produced. In this course, students sort through the various conversations authors and critics have with each other. They read canonical authors and less well-known figures in an effort to tease out the nuance present in this body of work. Each text is paired with another in a form of dialogue. These exchanges are not set, so it is up to students to understand how the texts speak to each other. Literary criticism requires us to think through privilege, citizenship, capitalism, intraracial dynamics, gender and sexual dynamics, and political movements. The course theme may vary from year to year (e.g., disability, literature of the left, black queer studies). Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395U. Postmodern Novel.
The seminar examines diverse efforts to define "postmodernism." Students read novels by Joyce, Pynchon, Wallace, Eco, and Rushdie. Contemporary reviews, secondary criticism, narrative theory, issues of socially constructed reality, and some problems in the philosophy of language mark out its concerns. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395V. John Donne and T. S. Eliot in Our Time.
Critics and literary historians credit T. S. Eliot in the mid-1920s with reviving poetic and intellectual interest in metaphysical poetry, particularly in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poetry of John Donne, the so-called Monarch of Wit. This course investigates why Eliot identifies Donne, like Baudelaire and himself, as a poet of intellectual disorder and emotional chaos; it queries why Eliot labels Donne, whom he views as "imprisoned in the embrace of his own feelings," a modernist. Students read Donne's lyrics, elegies, long poems, homilies, and letters within the context of Eliot's The Waste Land, essays on metaphysical poetry, and lectures and writings from 1925 to 1931. Recommended background: ENG 213, 214, 222, or 254. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EN/WS 395W. Pre-1800 Women Writers.
The seminar considers the conditions that obstructed and supported writing by British women from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Topics include changing accounts of gender difference, the possibility of a self-conscious female tradition, elite versus non-elite genres, the influence of overseas exploration and colonial slavery, autobiographical accounts about slavery, and the new role of the professional woman writer. Not open to students who have received credit for ENG 395W. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395X. "Pretty and Apt": Philosophical Method and the Study of Literature.
Ancient Greek philosophers, in their efforts to explain their world, drew readily from literature. The same has not been the case for the most influential philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. Literary commentary appears stinted in Wittgenstein's writings, hardly flourishes in Davidson, Putnam, Goodman, and Rorty. When we investigate European voices such as Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida, do we come away thinking differently about the fit between philosophy and literature? How does philosophical method apply to literature? Do varying accounts of metaphor, reference, or truth concern literary explanation? Concepts, such as Gricean maxims, Davidsonian intention, Cavellian presence, and Derridean markers form a ground to judge their aptness in reading literature. We, then, seek answers to Moth's query in Love's Labors Lost, "I pretty, and my saying apt? Or I apt, and my saying pretty?" Recommended background: PHIL 234 and 241 and ENG 295. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 395Y. Medieval London.
Medieval London was dangerous and thrilling: amid its markets, brothels, and taverns, citizens and foreigners plied their trades while Parliament convened treason trials and authorized public executions, the king held court attended by the royal family and assorted minions, and the monks at Westminster Abbey took notes on daily life in the city. This course looks at medieval London through the texts composed by its contemporary writers and residents, including Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Lydgate, and Hoccleve (in Middle English). Students also examine legal records, chronicles, and parliamentary proceedings (in translation). No previous experience with Middle English is necessary. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] Normally offered every year. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EN/WS 395Z. Arab American Feminisms.
This course develops students' ability to look at the intersection of gender, ethnicity, politics, and sexuality. Students read theoretical and literary material as a catalyst for discussions of fiction, focusing on the way Arab American feminists articulate their unique theoretical concerns. Students read such scholars as Mohja Kahf, Rabab Abdulhadi, Nadine Naber, and Randa Jarrar. Students consider the critical triumphs and limitations of creative and theoretical work in discussing these subjects. Recommended background: previous course work in American cultural studies or women and gender studies. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. [W2] T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 457. Senior Thesis.
Students register for ENG 457 in the fall semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both ENG 457 and 458. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG 458. Senior Thesis.
Students register for ENG 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both ENG 457 and 458. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s13. Politics and the Theater.
This course investigates drama as a political forum. Some attention is given to Western historical uses such as Greek tragedy and Shakespeare's history plays, but the course focuses primarily on contemporary works. Visiting artists speak about their plays and performances. Students analyze texts, but also respond to current political issues by writing and staging their own scenes. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 20. C. Malcolmson.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN s14. Medieval Re-enactment: The Battle of Maldon.
This course offers the opportunity to explore the Middle Ages through creative re-enactment. An introduction to Anglo-Saxon literature is followed by a close reading of "The Battle of Maldon," a short poem commemorating the 991 battle between native Britons and an invading Viking army. Drawing on historical evidence, students create replica weapons and garb appropriate to both armies. The course concludes with a live re-enactment of the battle. Enrollment limited to 30. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s18. For the Love of Dogs.
This course focuses on literary and nonliterary texts on the relationship, bonds, and boundaries between humans and dogs. Although the primary focus is on fiction, poetry, and film, readings may be drawn from multiple disciplines and perspectives—including biology, psychology, philosophy, religion, and environmental studies—that consider the evolution of humans and other animals, the rights of nonhuman animals; interspecies communication; human-animal bonds; animal-human healing partnerships and pet-assisted therapy; and cross-cultural differences and similarities in individual and societal treatment of dogs. Students are required to undertake service-learning at local veterinary hospitals, animal shelters, therapy-dog settings, or boarding kennels. Enrollment limited to 15. (Community-Engaged Learning.) L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s21. Hip Hop, Jazz, and Blues: Musical Influence on Poetry and Prose.
As distinctly American art forms, jazz and the blues have served as source books for the rhythms, themes, and narratives of American poetry and fiction. In this course, students trace the way jazz and the blues, as well as their descendant, hip hop, have shaped American expression at the intersection of politics, art, spirituality, and violence. Students not only examine the influences of these musical forms on literature but also produce their own poetry, creative prose, and music. Enrollment limited to 15. [W1] R. Strong.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s22. The Art of the Film.
A study of one or two major directors of film such as Chaplin, Griffith, Renoir, Ford, or Bergman, or a study of a major genre of the film. Students view and discuss relevant films. Enrollment limited to 30. S. Freedman.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s26. Naming Jhumpa Lahiri: Canons and Controversies.
Jhumpa Lahiri is the first Indian immigrant to win the Pulitzer Prize and become an overnight bestselling author worldwide. Her meteoric success has incited controversies regarding her naming: Is she a Bengali, Indian, Asian American, American, postcolonial, or a global writer? Is she just a writer? Does what we name her actually matter? Through an intensive study of Lahiri's texts, Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, and Unaccustomed Earth, students address these questions and consider why what we call authors or literary texts may matter and to whom. They also discuss how cultural politics influence the literary interpretation and consumption of texts and the formation of literary canons. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30. L. Dhingra.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s30. Fictions of Affliction: Literature, Film, and Disability.
This course introduces students to the burgeoning field of disability studies, approaching the subject by means of literature and film, and through service-learning placements with and for the disabled in the Lewiston community. Students read such novels, stories, and plays as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Wilkie Collins's Hide and Seek and Poor Miss Finch, Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Man with the Twisted Lip," William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and Samuel Beckett's Endgame as well as works of disability theory. They watch and discuss a variety of films, including Children of a Lesser God and Memento. In addition to time spent in the classroom, students work with such organizations as the Social Learning Center and Westside Neuro-Rehabilitation Center for four to eight hours per week. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level English course. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. (Community-Engaged Learning.) L. Nayder.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
CM/EN s33. Screening the Middle Ages.
This course examines cinematic representations of the Middle Ages, focusing especially on the cultural energies that produce certain visions of the past. The films offer an opportunity to reflect on how our various modern designs on (and desires for) the medieval illuminate the present as much as they animate the past. Students read selections from medieval history and poetry (in translation or manageable Middle English) in conjunction with daily viewings and written assignments; secondary readings are drawn from modern and postmodern film criticism and theory. Enrollment limited to 30. S. Federico.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
INDS s37. Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative Imagination: A Study of Octavia Butler.
Of the 1969 moonwalk, George Clinton said that once man defied gravity, all bets were off. The music mogul later went on to defy gravity by "funk-ifying" the world. Yet Clinton's ideas are not without precedent in African American culture. In this course, students examine the aesthetic that came to be known as Afrofuturism as an outlet for African American literary and artistic expression. Students focus on the work of Octavia Butler and her volcanic influence, fame, and talent. Since her work dovetails with Clinton's anti-gravity stance and forms a locus for black speculative fiction in particular and speculative fiction in general, they study a selection of her novels, short fiction, and own words as well as secondary critical and theoretical material. Cross-listed in African American studies, American cultural studies, and English. Prerequisite(s): one course in African American studies, American cultural studies, or English. Recommended background: course work in the natural sciences. Not open to students who have received credit for AA/EN 259. Enrollment limited to 30. T. Pickens.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s43. Shakespeare in the Theater.
A study of Shakespeare's plays in performance, intended to acquaint the student with problems that are created by actual stage production in the interpretation of the plays. Students see Shakespearean productions in various locations, including London and Stratford-on-Avon, England. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
ENG s50. Independent Study.
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term. Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations