Special Topics Junior Colloquia Senior Seminars
Course Group I
1. Literary History I: Literature up to the mid-Seventeenth Century
This course will provide an overview of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Middle Ages and into the seventeenth century. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
10. Anglo-Saxon and Scandanavian Epic and Saga
An introduction both to Old English literature and to Old Norse sagas. In the first half of the course we concentrate on reading, translating and setting into cultural context selected Anglo-Saxon poems, most notably 'The Wanderer,' 'The Dream of the Rood,' and 'Beowulf.' In the second half of the course we read a variety of Icelandic sagas, including 'Egil's Saga,' 'The Saga of the People of Laxardal,' and two shorter sagas recounting contacts with North America. In addition to papers and reports, each student will write a mini-version of a Norse saga. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
11. Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
An introduction to Chaucer, concentrating on ten of the Canterbury Tales, and studying him as a social critic and literary artist. Special attention will be paid to Chaucer's language, the sounds of Middle English, and the implications of verse written for the ear. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
12. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Other Poems
A study of Chaucer's major works other than the Canterbury Tales, focusing on some of the early dream visions (Book of the Duchess, House of Fame) and Troilus and Criseyde, which many consider to be the greatest love epic in the English language. Some attention will be given to the French and Italian context of these works (in translation). No familiarity with Middle English is required. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
13. Medieval English Literature
An introduction to the literature of the "Middle English" period (ca. 1100- ca. 1500), concentrating on the emergence of English as a literary language in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries and on some of the great masterworks of the late fourteenth century. Readings will include early texts on King Arthur, the Lais of Marie de France, the satirical poem The Owl and the Nightingale, the romance Sir Orfeo, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Book of Margery Kempe, and The York Cycle. Most readings in modern English translation, with some explorations into the original language. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
14. Renaissance Poetry
English lyric and narrative poetry from the early sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. Poets will include Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell, among others. The course will attend to prosody, the evolution of verse forms, European and classical influence, and modes of circulation. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
15. Shakespeare
A study of about ten plays spanning Shakespeare's career, including comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances. Attention will be paid to Shakespeare's language; to his dramatic practices and theatrical milieu; and to the social, political, and philosophical issues raised by the action of the plays. Video will supplement the reading. Exercises in close reading and interpretative papers. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
16. Renaissance Drama
A study of commercial theater in London from about 1570 until the closing of the theaters in 1642. Anonymous and collaborative plays will be read as well as those by such playwrights as Kyd, Marlowe, Dekker, Jonson, Webster, and Ford. The course will focus on the economic, social, political, intellectual, and theatrical conditions in which the plays were originally produced, on their continuing performance, and on their status as literary texts. Research into the performance history of a play or participation in a scene production is required. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
17. John Milton
A study of most of Milton's poetry and of important selections from his prose against the background of political and religious crises in seventeenth-century England. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
18. English Literature 1660-1714, including Drama
A study of English literary culture in the reigns of the later Stuart monarchs. Poetry by Dryden, Marvell, Rochester, Butler, Oldham and Pope; biographical writing by Aubrey, Halifax, Lucy Hutchinson, and Margaret Cavendish; the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn; spiritual autobiography and religious fiction by Bunyan; prose satires and analytical prose of Swift and Halifax. There will be two areas of special attention: the theater and the literary response to public events. We will read three plays by such authors as Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Lee, Behn, Shadwell, Otway and Farquahar, and study the writing in response to such events as the Great Plague and Fire of 1666, the Popish Plot, and the Exclusion Crisis. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group I.
19. Early American Literature: Conquest, Captivity, Cannibalism
Conquest, captivity, cannibalism--inescapable themes in the emerging literature of British North America. This course surveys the multicultural beginnings of that literature through a variety of genres (orature, letters, diaries, poetry, plays, narratives, the “first”novel, and contemporary films) and cultures: Native America, Spanish and Latin America, French, and English. We will use primary sources in Rauner Library, culminating in an assignment that helps us recover the “real” 18th century Dartmouth. Dist: LIT. WCult: W. Course Group I.
51. Special Topics in Course Group I: Medieval and Renaissance Literature
These courses are offered periodically with varying content: one or more individual writers, a genre, or an approach to the literature of this historical period not otherwise provided in the English curriculum. Requirements will include papers and, at the discretion of the instructor, examinations. Enrollment is limited to 30. Dist: LIT.
61. Junior Colloquia in Course Group I
Limited to 20 students, these courses will vary in content. They are intended to introduce students to advanced research and prepare them for their senior seminars and honors theses. Coursework and instruction will build toward a substantial paper of 12-15 pages, of sustained inquiry and with a research component. Prerequisites: two completed major courses, or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT.
71. Senior Seminars in Course Group I
Senior Seminars, limited to 12 seniors and juniors, will vary in content. They will focus students on concentrated discussions and on a final research project of 20-25 pages. Prerequisites: four completed major courses or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT.
Course Group II
2. Literary History II: Literature from the Mid-Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Century
This course will provide an overview of British and American literature during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
20. Age of Satire
Visit the great age of British Satire. In a time when literacy was rapidly expanding, party politics was emerging and women’s rights were being advocated in print for the first time, satire ruled the literary scene. This course will explore the plays, poems, and novels of satirists from the libertine Earl of Rochester to the great satirist, Alexander Pope, not omitting the works of Aphra Behn, the first woman dramatist, and Mary Astell’s sardonic comments on the role of women in marriage. May include: the comedies of Wycherey and Congreve, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and the novels of Daniel Defoe. There will be an opportunity to study the techniques of satire and its role in social and personal criticism. Dist: LIT; WCult. W. Course Group II.
21. Reason and Revolution
Was there a British Enlightenment? In the age of the American and French Revolutions Britain seemed to hold steady. But in the literature of the period there are many social and literary struggles which took their tolls in the madness and suicide of writers such as Smart and Chatterton, the difficulties of attaining creative freedom, and the emergence of new literary forms such as the Gothic. This course will trace the fortunes of writers such as Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke as they grapple with the anxieties of their time. We will also consider how women thinkers and novelists such as Charlotte Lennox and Mary Wollstonecraft forged new roles for themselves and we may include studies of the novel of political paranoia as exemplified by Caleb Williams, and by Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
22. The Rise of the Novel
A study of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English novel, from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen. The course will look at the major sub-genres of the period, including criminal biography, scandalous memoirs, epistolary fiction and the Gothic novel. It will also explore the relationship between narrative fiction and the changing cultural landscape of a period defined by commercial uncertainty, imperial expansion, and the threat of revolution. Finally, and most importantly, the course will ask why the novel became so central to modern conceptions of subjectivity, sexuality, social cohesion and transgression. Readings may include work by Daniel Defoe, John Cleland, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Charlotte Dacre, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen. Dist: LIT, WCult. Course Group II.
23. Romantic Literature: Writing and English Society, 1780-1832
This course offers a critical introduction to the literature produced in Britain at the time of the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars.There will be a strong emphasis throughout the course on the specific ways in which historical forces and social changes shape and are at times shaped by the formal features of literary texts. The question of whether romantic writing represents an active engagement with or an escapist idealization of the important historical developments in this period will be a continuous focus. Readings include works by Blake, Wordsworth, Helen Maria Williams, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Robert Southey, Coleridge, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Keats, and Clare. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
24. Victorian Literature and Culture, 1837-1859
This course examines early Victorian poetry, prose and fiction in the context of cultural practices and social institutions of the time. We will locate cultural concerns among, for example, those of capitalism, political reform, scientific knowledge, nation and empire. And we will consider revisions of space, time, gender, sexuality, class, and public and private life that characterized formations of British identity during this period. Texts may include work by Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Bronte, John Ruskin, Charles Darwin. We will also read selections from recent criticism of Victorian culture. Dist: LIT. WCult: W. Course Group II.
25. Victorian Literature and Culture, 1860-1901
This course examines later nineteenth-century British poetry, prose and fiction in the context of cultural practices and social institutions of the time. We will locate cultural concerns among, for example, those of capitalism, political reform, scientific knowledge, nation and empire. And we will consider revisions of space, time, gender, sexuality, class, and public and private life that characterized formations of British identity during this period. Texts may include work by George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, Algernon Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling. We will also read selections from recent criticism of Victorian culture. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
26. The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
A study of the nineteenth-century novel focusing on the Victorian novel’s representation of public and private categories of experience. Readings may include Austen’s Mansfield Park, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, Dickens’s Bleak House, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
27. American Poetry
A survey of American poetry from the colonial period to the early decades of the twentieth century. Readings will include works by Bradstreet, Taylor, Wheatley, Emerson, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville and Dunbar. We will also study Native American poetry and schools like the Fireside Poets, 19th-century women poets, and precursors of early Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. We will look at lyric, meditative, religious, comic and political poetry, the long poem and the epic. Some themes we will trace include the transatlantic character of American poetry, its “newness,” its engagement with religion and self-definition, with nature, and with gender and race. Emphasizing close readings as well as historical and cultural contexts, this course examines the complexities of an American poetic vision and serves as an introduction to reading poetry and to American literature. This course will contain a Community Based Learning (CBL) component in collaboration with the Ledyard Charter School in Lebanon, NH. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
28. American Prose
Readings of nonfiction narratives by such American writers as Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
29. American Fiction to 1900
A survey of the first century of U.S. fiction, this course focuses on historical contexts as well as social and material conditions of the production of narrative as cultural myth. The course is designed to provide an overview of the literary history of the United States novel from the National Period to the threshold of the Modern (1845-1900). To do justice to the range of works under discussion, the lectures will call attention to the heterogeneous cultural contexts out of which these works have emerged as well as the formal and structural components of the different works under discussion. In keeping with this intention, the lecturers include the so-called classic texts in American literature, The Last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, but also the newly canonized Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Life in the Iron Mills, Hope Leslie in the hope that the configuration of these works will result in an understanding of the remarkable complexity of United States literary culture. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group II.
30. Early Black American Literature
A study of the foundations of Black American literature and thought, from the colonial period through the era of Booker T. Washington. The course will concentrate on the way in which developing Afro-American literature met the challenges posed successively by slavery, abolition, emancipation, and the struggle to determine directions for the twentieth century. Selections will include: Wheatley, Life and Works; Brown, Clotel; Douglass, Narrative; Washington, Up from Slavery; DuBois, Souls of Black Folk; Dunbar, Sport of the Gods; Chestnut, House Behind the Cedars; Harriet Wilson, Our Nig; Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man; and poems by F. W. Harper, Paul L. Dunbar and Ann Spencer. Dist: LIT. WCult: W. Course Group II.
52. Special Topics in Course Group II: Literature of the late Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Century
These courses are offered periodically with varying content: one or more individual writers, a genre, or an approach to the literature of this historical period not otherwise provided in the English curriculum. Requirements will include papers and, at the discretion of the instructor, examinations. Enrollment is limited to 30. Dist: LIT; WCult: Varies.
62. Junior Colloquia in Course Group II
Limited to 20 students, these courses will vary in content. They are intended to introduce students to advanced research and prepare them for their senior seminars and honors theses. Coursework and instruction will build toward a substantial paper of 12-15 pages, of sustained inquiry and with a research component. Prerequisites: two completed major courses, or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT: WCult: Varies.
72. Senior Seminars in Course Group II
Senior Seminars, limited to 12 seniors and juniors, will vary in content. They will focus students on concentrated discussions and on a final research project of 20-25 pages. Prerequisites: four completed major courses or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT. WCult: Varies.
Course Group III
3. Literary History III: Literature in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
This course will provide an overview of literature in the Anglophone world from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
31. Asian American Literature and Culture
This course examines narratives of migration to, from, and between the Americas by groups from East, South, and Southeast Asia. We will analyze novels, short fiction, poetry, and films by twentieth-century artists (Joy Kogawa, Theresa Cha, Shani Mootoo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Bienvenido Santos, Wayne Wang) against the historical backdrop of imperialism in Asia and the Americas; periods of exclusion and internment; and social movements that coalesce around intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI. Course Group III.
32. Native American Literature
Published Native American writing has always incorporated a cross-cultural perspective that mediates among traditions. The novels, short stories, and essays that constitute the Native American contribution to the American literary tradition reveal the literary potential of diverse aesthetic traditions. This course will study representative authors with particular emphasis on contemporary writers. Open to all classes. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. Course Group III.
33. Modern Black American Literature
A study of African American literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, this course will focus on emerging and diverging traditions of writing by African Americans. We shall also investigate the changing forms and contexts of ‘racial representation’ in the United States. Works may include those by Hurston, Hughes, Wright, Ellison, Morrison, Schuyler, West, Murray, Gates, Parks. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
34. American Drama
A study of major American playwrights of the 19th and 20th centuries including S. Glaspell, O’Neill, Hellman, Wilder, Hansberry, Guare, Williams, Wilson, Mamet, Miller, Albee, Shepard, Wasserstein. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
35. American Fiction: 1900 to World War II
A study of major American fiction in the first half of the twentieth century. Works by Dreiser, Stein, Fitzgerald, Cather, Larsen and Faulkner, and a changing list of others. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
36. Contemporary American Fiction
Contemporary American fiction introduces the reader to the unexpected. Instead of conventionally structured stories, stereotypical heroes, traditional value systems, and familiar uses of language, the reader finds new and diverse narrative forms. Such writers as Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Silko, Norman Mailer, Don DeLillo, and Ralph Ellison, among others, have produced a body of important, innovative fiction expressive of a modern American literary sensibility. The course requires intensive class reading of this fiction and varied critical writing on postmodernism. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
37. Contemporary American Poetry
This course explores the most exciting developments in American poetry from 1960 until the present. We will consider a wide array of poetic movements—the Beats, the New York School, the Confessionals, the San Francisco Renaissance, the Black Mountain group, the New Formalists, and the Language poets—in order to understand the aesthetic tendencies that inform American poetries being written today. In particular, we will examine key individual poets through close readings of their most exemplary work. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
38. American and British Poetry: 1900 to 1960
A survey of modern American and British poetry since the First World War, with particular emphasis on the aesthetics, philosophy and politics of modernism. The course covers such canonical and non-canonical poets as Yeats, Pound, HD, Lawrence, Eliot, Stevens, Frost, Williams, Crane, Moore, Millay, Auden, the Harlem Renaissance. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
39. Modern British Drama
Major British plays since the 1890s. The course begins with the comedy of manners as represented by Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. It then considers innovations in and rebellions against standard theatrical fare: the socialist crusading of Bernard Shaw; the angry young men (John Osborne) and workingclass women (Shelagh Delaney) of the 1950s; the minimalists (Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter) and the university wits (Tom Stoppard); the dark comedians of the modern family (Alan Ayckbourn) and the politically inflected playwrights of the age of Prime Minister Thatcher (Caryl Churchill, Timberlake Wertenbaker, David Hare). The course deals both with the evolution of dramatic forms and the unusually close way in which modern British theatre has served as a mirror for British life from the heyday of the Empire to the present. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
40. British Fiction: 1900 to World War II
A study of major authors, texts, and literary movements, with an emphasis on literary modernism and its cultural contexts. The course includes works by Conrad, Forster, Joyce, Woolf, West, Lawrence, Rhys, and Beckett, as well as critical essays. We will explore this literature in the context of the art, dance, and film of the period. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
41. British Fiction: World War II to the Present
A study of the multiple currents within British fiction in a period characterized by major literary, cultural, and social transitions in Britain, including the emergence of a “post” (-war, -empire, -modern) sensibility. Writers may include Amis, Sillitoe, Greene, Golding, Burgess, Lessing, Wilson, Carter, Swift, Atkinson, MacLaverty, Ishiguro, Barker, Barnes, McKewan, Smith. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group III.
42. Introduction to Postcolonial Literature
An introduction to the themes and foundational texts of postcolonial literature in English. We will read and discuss novels by writers from former British colonies in Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, and the postcolonial diaspora, with attention to the particularities of their diverse cultures and colonial histories. Our study of the literary texts will incorporate critical and theoretical essays, oral presentations, and brief background lectures. Authors may include Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, V.S. Naipaul, Merle Hodge, Anita Desai, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Paule Marshall, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Salman Rushdie, Earl Lovelace, Arundhati Roy. Serves as prerequisite for FSP in Trinidad. Dist: LIT or INT; WCult: NW. Course Group III.
43. Introduction to New Media
This course introduces the basic ideas, questions, and objects of new media studies, offering accounts of the history, philosophy, and aesthetics of new media, the operation of digital technologies, and the cultural repercussions of new media. A primary emphasis on academic texts will be supplemented by fiction, films, music, journalism, computer games, and digital artworks. Class proceeds by group discussion, debate, student presentations, and peer critique. Typical readings include Alan Turing, Friedrich Kittler, Ray Kurzweil, and Henry Jenkins, plus films such as Blade Runner and eXistenZ. Dist: ART. Course Group III.
53. Topics in Course Group III: Literature of the Nineteenth Century through the Present
These courses are offered periodically with varying content: one or more individual writers, a genre, or an approach to the literature of this historical period not otherwise provided in the English curriculum. Requirements will include papers and, at the discretion of the instructor, examinations. Enrollment is limited to 30. Dist: LIT. WCult: Varies.
63. Junior Colloquia in Course Group III
Limited to 20 students, these courses will vary in content. They are intended to introduce students to advanced research and prepare them for their senior seminars and honors theses. Coursework and instruction will build toward a substantial paper of 12-15 pages, of sustained inquiry and with a research component. Prerequisites: two completed major courses, or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT. WCult: Varies.
73. Senior Seminars in Course Group III
Senior Seminars, limited to 12 seniors and juniors, will vary in content. They will focus students on concentrated discussions and on a final research project of 20-25 pages. Prerequisites: four completed major courses or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT. WCult: Varies
Course Group IV
45. Introduction to Literary Theory
The course will introduce students to some of the leading texts, concepts, and practices of what has come to be known as theoretical criticism. Topics to be considered may include some of the following: structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminism, new historicism, post-colonialism, post-modernism, queer theory, and cultural studies. Attention will also be given to historical and institutional contexts of this criticism. Intended to provide a basic, historically informed, knowledge of theoretical terms and practices, this course should enable students to read contemporary criticism with understanding and attempt theoretically informed criticism themselves. Dist: LIT. Course Group IV.
46. Old and New Media
A survey of the historical, formal, and theoretical issues that arise from the materiality and technology of communication, representation, and textuality. The course will address topics in and between different media, which may include oral, scribal, print, and digital media. Readings and materials will be drawn from appropriate theorists, historians, and practitioners, and students may be asked not only to analyze old and new media, but also create with them. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Course Group IV.
47. History of the English Language
The development of English as a spoken and written language as a member of the Indo-European language-family, from Old English (Beowulf), Middle English (Chaucer), and Early Modern English (Shakespeare), to contemporary American English. Emphasis will be given to the linguistic and cultural reasons for 'language change,' to the literary possibilities of the language, and to the political significance of class and race. Open to all classes. Dist: SOC. Course Group IV.
48. Critical Issues in Postcolonial Studies
Intended for students who have some familiarity with postcolonial literary texts, this course will combine the reading of postcolonial literature with the study and discussion of the major questions confronting the developing field of postcolonial studies. Issues may include: questions of language and definition; the culture and politics of nationalism and transnationalism, race and representation, ethnicity and identity; the local and the global; tradition and modernity; hybridity and authenticity; colonial history, decolonization and neocolonialism; the role and status of postcolonial studies in the academy. Authors may include: Achebe, Appiah, Bhabha, Chatterjee, Coetzee, Fanon, Gilroy, Gordimer, James, JanMohamed, Minh-ha, Mohanty, Ngugi, Radhakrishnan, Rushdie, Said, Spivak, Sunder Rajan. Prerequisite: English 58 or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT or INT; WCult: NW. Course Group IV.
54. Topics in Course Group IV: Criticism and Theory
Courses offered periodically and with varying content in the fields of literary criticism and literary theory not otherwise provided in the English curriculum. Requirements will include papers and, at the discretion of the instructor, examinations. Enrollment is limited to 30. Dist: Varies; WCult: Varies.
64. Junior Colloquia in Course Group IV
Limited to 20 students, these courses will vary in content. They are intended to introduce students to advanced research and prepare them for their senior seminars and honors theses. Coursework and instruction will build toward a substantial paper of 12-15 pages, of sustained inquiry and with a research component. Prerequisites: two completed major courses, or permission of the instructor. Dist: Varies; WCult: Varies.
74. Senior Seminars in Course Group IV
Senior Seminars, limited to 12 seniors and juniors, will vary in content. They will focus students on concentrated discussions and on a final research project of 20-25 pages. Prerequisites: four completed major courses or permission of the instructor. Dist: Varies; WCult: Varies.
Courses without Course Group Designation
5. Reading with Attitude: Introduction to Literary Methods
This course introduces students to various methods for reading literature critically, including close reading, literary theory, practical criticism, and creative writing. By providing an overviewof literary interpretation and analysis, this course enables students to look beyond the obvious, to challenge cliched or surface formulatioins, to-in short-read with attitude. Dist: LIT; WCult: W
55. Special Topics without Course Group Designation
These courses are offered periodically with varying content: one or more individual writers, a genre, a period, an approach to literature not otherwise provided in the English curriculum. Requirements will include papers and, at the discretion of the instructor, examinations. Enrollment is limited to 30. Dist: LIT; WCult: Varies.
65. Junior Colloquia without Course Group Designation
Limited to 20 students, these courses will vary in content. They are intended to introduce students to advanced research and prepare them for their senior seminars and honors theses. Coursework and instruction will build toward a substantial paper of 12-15 pages, of sustained inquiry and with a research component. Prerequisites: two completed major courses, or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT; WCult: Varies.
75. Senior Seminars without Course Group Designation
Senior Seminars, limited to 12 seniors and juniors, will vary in content. They will focus students on concentrated discussions and on a final research project of 20-25 pages. Prerequisites: four completed major courses or permission of the instructor. Dist: LIT; WCult: Varies.
Creative Writing Courses
80. Writing and Reading Fiction
A beginning workshop and reading course in fiction. Open to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and first-year students who have completed Writing 5 (or its equivalents WRIT 2-3 or HUM 1). Seminar-sized classes meet for discussion and include individual conferences. Topics and emphases may vary from term to term. English 80 is the prerequisite to English 83, Intermediate Workshop in Fiction. Dist: ART.
81. Writing and Reading Creative Nonfiction
A beginning workshop and reading course in creative nonfiction— a hybrid genre of journalism, memoir, and fictional and poetic techniques, also known as the art of fact. Open to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and first-year students who have completed Writing 5 (or its equivalents WRIT 2-3 or HUM 1). Seminar-sized classes meet for discussion and include individual conferences. Topics and emphases may vary from term to term. English 81 is the prerequisite to English 84, Intermediate Workshop in Creative Nonfiction. Dist: ART.
82. Writing and Reading Poetry
A beginning workshop and reading course in poetry. Open to sophomores, juniors, seniors, and first-year students who have completed Writing 5 (or its equivalents WRIT 2-3 or HUM 1). Seminar-sized classes meet for discussion, and include individual conferences. Topics and emphases may vary from term to term. English 82 is the prerequisite to English 85, Intermediate Workshop in Poetry. Dist: ART.
83. Intermediate Workshop in Fiction
Continued work in the writing of fiction. The class proceeds by means of group workshops, individual conferences with the instructor, and reading across the genre. The process of revision is emphasized. Topics and emphases may vary from term to term. Prerequisite: English 80 and permission of the instructor. Students must submit an application form (available in the English department office and on the department website) and a 5-8 page sample of their writing by the LAST DAY OF CLASSES of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll. These materials should be submitted electronically to the instructor. Dist: ART.
84. Intermediate Creative Nonfiction
Continued work in the writing of creative nonfiction, including literary journalism, investigative memoir, the lyric essay, and documentary. The class proceeds by means of group workshops, individual conferences with the instructor, and reading across the genre. The processes of research and revision are emphasized. Topics and emphases may vary from term to term. Prerequisite: English 81 and permission of the instructor. Students must submit an application form (available in the English department office and on the department website) and a 5-8 page sample of their writing by the LAST DAY OF CLASSES of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll. These materials should be submitted electronically to the instructor. Dist: ART.
85. Intermediate Workshop in Poetry
Continued work in the writing of poetry, focusing on the development of craft, image and voice. The class proceeds by means of group workshops on student writing, individual conferences with the instructor and reading across the genre. The process of revision is emphasized. Topics and emphases may vary from term to term. Prerequisite: English 82 and permission of the instructor. Students must submit an application form (available in the English department office and on the department website) and a 5-8 page sample of their writing by the LAST DAY OF CLASSES of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll. These materials should be submitted electronically to the instructor. Dist: ART.
86. Senior Workshop in Creative Writing
An advanced workshop for seniors who wish to undertake a manuscript of fiction, creative nonfiction or poetry. Students must submit an 8-12 page writing sample to the instructor by the LAST DAY OF CLASSES of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll. Prerequisite: English 83, 84 or 85 depending on the genre of the workshop offered. Dist: ART.
87. Special Topics in Creative Writing
These courses are offered periodically, concentrating on particular issues in one or more of the fields of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Courses may require creative and critical papers and include workshops. Enrollment is limited to 18. Dist: ART.
89. Creative Writing Project
A tutorial course to be designed by the student with the assistance of a faculty supervisor. This course is intended for the purpose of producing a manuscript of fiction, creative nonfiction or poetry. Prerequisite: normally reserved for seniors who have completed at least two workshops in the designated genre for this project. Dist: none
Foreign Study Courses
90. English Study Abroad I
Major credit for this course is awarded to students who satisfactorily complete a course of study elected as part of one of the Department’s two Foreign Study Programs (FSPs). On the Glasgow FSP, this will be a course of study in literature at the University of Glasgow. On the Dublin FSP, this will be a course of study in the English Department at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Of the three courses at TCD at least one must be in Irish literature. Students are also required to do an independent study project on some aspect of Irish literature or culture, culminating in a long essay; the grade for the independent study is factored into the grade for the Irish literature course. Dist: LIT.
91. English Study Abroad II
Major credit for this course is awarded to students who satisfactorily complete a course of study elected as part of one of the Department’s two Foreign Study Programs (FSPs). On the Glasgow FSP, this will be a course of study in literature at the University of Glasgow. On the Dublin FSP, this will be a course of study in the English Department at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Of the three courses at TCD at least one must be in Irish literature. Students are also required to do an independent study project on some aspect of Irish literature or culture, culminating in a long essay; the grade for the independent study is factored into the grade for the Irish literature course. Dist: LIT.
92. English Study Abroad III
One college credit (not major or minor credit) for this course is awarded to students who satisfactorily complete a course of study elected as part of one of the Department’s two Foreign Study Programs (FSPs). The purpose of English 92, when taken in Glasgow, is to enhance the experience of studying English and Scottish literature in a European, and more specifically British, context. The requirement may be fulfilled by taking a course, approved by the program director, in Scottish literature or culture, British cultural history, Celtic civilization, comparative literature, or the English language. Other courses relevant to the study of English literature (in art history, philosophy or media studies, for instance) may be taken subject to the approval of the English Department’s Committee on Departmental Curriculum. English 92 on the Glasgow FSP satisfies no distributive requirement. On the Dublin FSP, this will be a course of study in the English Department at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Of the three courses at TCD at least one must be in Irish literature. Students are also required to do an independent study project on some aspect of Irish literature or culture, culminating in a long essay; the grade for the independent study is factored into the grade for the Irish literature course. Glasgow Dist: Varies; Dublin Dist: LIT.
Independent Study and Honors
96. Reading Course
A tutorial course to be designed by the student with the assistance of a member of the English Department faculty willing to supervise it. This course is available, as an occasional privilege, to upperclassmen who have demonstrated their ability to do independent work. During the term prior to taking the course, applicants must consult the Department Vice Chair to make arrangements for approval of the project. Note: English 96 does not normally count toward the English major or minor, although in special circumstances the C.D.C. may approve occasional exceptions to that rule. Students seeking an exception are asked to petition the C.D.C. before taking English 96. English 96 may not be used the satisfy Course Group requirements.
98. Honors Course in English
Independent study under the direction of a faculty advisor. Honors majors will elect this course in each term in which they are pursuing Honors projects. For more information, see “English Honors Program” in the ORC and consult the “Guide to Honors” booklet available in the English Department.
English Courses That Do Not Carry Major Credit
6. Narrative Journalism: Literature and Practice
This course will explore the role of print journalism in shaping the modern American literary, cultural and political landscape--from Nellie Bly's late 19th century undercover exposure to Seymour Hersh's coverage of the Iraq War. Students will also participate in an intensive weekly workshop on reporting and writing, with a short unit on radio commentary. Dist: LIT; WCult: W.
7. First-Year Seminars
These are offered through the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric.
92. English Study Abroad III
One college credit (not major or minor credit) for this course is awarded to students who satisfactorily complete a course of study elected as part of one of the Department’s two Foreign Study Programs (FSPs).
96. Reading Course
Note: English 96 does not normally count toward the English major or minor, although in special circumstances the C.D.C. may approve occasional exceptions to that rule.