Carleton College

ENGL 099. Summer Writing Program Emphasizing a writing process approach, the Summer Writing Program helps high school seniors learn to compose academic papers that are similar to those they will write in college. Students read both contemporary and traditional literature from classic texts by writers such as Plato and Shakespeare to a variety of modern short stories, essays, and poems by authors such as August Wilson, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Adrienne Rich. This literature then becomes the focus of their papers. Students write every day, and although occasional creative writing exercises are included, the main emphasis of the course will be on expository prose. Cannot be used for the Writing Requirement. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, ND; NE, Summer—Staff

ENGL 100. Literary Revision: Authority, Art, and Rebellion The poet Adrienne Rich describes revision as "the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction." This course examines how literature confronts and reinvents the traditions it inherits. Through a diverse selection of fiction, poetry, and drama, we will examine how writers rework literary conventions, "rewrite" previous literary works, and critique societal myths. From Charles Chesnutt to Charles Johnson, from Henrik Ibsen to Rebecca Gilman, from Charlotte Bronte to Jean Rhys, from Maupassant and Chekhov to contemporary reinventions, we will explore literary revision from different perspectives and periods. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—N. Cho

ENGL 100. Narrative Necessity We are always telling stories about ourselves, about others, and about our world. How do narratives work over time, across cultures, and even within academic disciplines? What are the rules of narrative forms, and how are they bent or broken by individual tellers for particular audiences? How does narrative shape the differences between history and fiction, truth and imagination, or public writing and private experience? We will study examples of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and film to explore the power and process of narrative. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 100. "His Dark Materials": Milton, Shelley, Pullman We will read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials as responses to and radical revisions of Milton's Paradise Lost. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—C. Walker

ENGL 100. Imagining a Self This course examines how first-person narrators present, define, defend, and construct the self. We will read an assortment of autobiographical and fictional works, focusing on the critical issues that the first-person speaker "I" raises. In particular, we will consider the risks and rewards of narrative self-exposure, the relationship between autobiography and the novel, and the apparent intimacy between first-person narrators and their readers. Authors will include James Boswell, Charlotte Bronte, Harriet Jacobs, Sylvia Plath, and Dave Eggers. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—J. Leiman

ENGL 100. Writing About America and Globalization Focusing on rhetorical choices and writing strategies, we will seek to read critically, formulate questions, and write persuasively about contemporary issues of globalization. Varied readings, journalistic, scholarly, and literary, as well as our own experiences, will provide a springboard for discussion of the impact of globalization on particular cultures (in the U.S. and other countries), economic justice, national sovereignty, sustainability, and human rights in the face of increasing economic interdependence and instant communication in our "globalized" world. Students will refine persuasive skills through research, writing and revising several major essays, peer review, and a final oral presentation. 6 cr., AI, WR1, QRE, Fall—E. McKinsey

ENGL 100. Novel, Nation, Self With an emphasis on critical reading and writing in an academic context, this course will examine how contemporary writers from a range of global locations approach the question of the writing of the self and of the nation. Reading novels from both familiar and unfamiliar cultural contexts we will examine closely our practices of reading, and the cultural expectations and assumptions that underlie them. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—A. Chakladar

ENGL 100. Persuade Me: Argument as a Liberal Art This Argument and Inquiry Seminar is designed to help first-year students make a transition to academic work at Carleton. It offers training in the principles and practice of writing effective expository and persuasive essays. Our method will be the ancient and contemporary arts of "rhetoric," but we will explore and deploy these arts, taking the political, social, and economic uncertainties and debates of our times as our primary text. The single goal of the course is to develop in students the skills in inquiry and argument they will need in order to write effectively at the college level and beyond. 6 cr., AI, WR1, Fall—P. Balaam

ENGL 109. Introduction to Rhetoric English 109 is the single Carleton course devoted exclusively to the study and practice of expository prose. It is designed to provide students with the organizational and argumentative skills they will need in order to write effectively at the college level and beyond. All sections of the course feature diverse readings, weekly writing exercises and essays, and individual tutorials. 6 cr., ND, WR; NE, WR2, Winter,Spring—N. Cho, G Shuffelton

ENGL 113. American Voices This course provides a foundation for further study in poetry and the American tradition. We will examine the work of four pairs of American poets and explore the ways in which they helped define a national literature. Beginning with the startling Puritan verse of Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, we move to the iconoclastic Romantic-Transcendentalist poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, followed by the Modernist experiments of T.S. Eliot and H.D., and finally the Beat poetry of Allen Ginsberg and Confessional poetry of Sylvia Plath. Works include: Song of Myself, The Waste Land, Howl and Daddy. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—G. Hewett

ENGL 114. Introduction to Medieval Narrative This class will focus on three of the most popular and closely connected modes of narrative enjoyed by medieval audiences: the epic, the romance, and the saint's life. Readings, drawn primarily from the English and French traditions, will include Beowulf, The Song of Roland, the Arthurian romances of Chretien de Troyes, and legends of St. Alexis and St. Margaret. We will consider how each narrative mode influenced the other, as we encounter warriors and lovers who suffer like saints, and saints who triumph like warriors and lovers. Readings will be in translation or highly accessible modernizations. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter—G. Shuffelton

ENGL 115. The Art of Storytelling Jorge Luis Borges is quoted as saying that "unlike the novel, a short story may be, for all purposes, essential." This course focuses attention primarily on the short story as an enduring form. We will read a selection of short stories drawn from different literary periods and from various parts of the world. Stories to be read include those by Poe, Gilman, Chekhov, Joyce, Borges, John Cheever, Alice Munro, Toni Bambara, Grace Paley, Margaret Atwood, Lorrie Moore, Edwidge Danticat, Salman Rushdie, and Sherman Alexie. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—K. Owusu

ENGL 116. Introduction to English Drama This class introduces the varied forms of English drama over the last six hundred years. We will move chronologically, from the religious street theater of the medieval city and the rapid development of professional theater in Renaissance England, all the way up to the work of twentieth-century playwrights. We will consider changes to the staging and audiences of drama, and ask ourselves what sorts of cultural work drama can perform. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 117. African American Literature This course pays particular attention to the tradition of African American literary expression and the individual talent that brings depth and diversity to that tradition. The course's broader aims will be complemented by an introduction to the concept of genre and by the cultivation of the relevant skills of literary analysis. Authors to be read include Baraka, Ed Bullins, Countee Cullen, Douglass, Ellison, Nikki Giovanni, Hughes, Weldon Johnson, Larsen, and Wheatley. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, IDS, Spring—K. Owusu

ENGL 118. Introduction to Poetry We will look at the whole kingdom of poetry, exploring how poets use form, tone, sound, imagery, rhythm, and subject matter to create what Wallace Stevens called the "supreme fiction." Examples will be drawn from around the world, from Sappho to spoken word. Participation in discussion is mandatory; essay assignments will ask you to provide close readings of particular works; a couple of assignments will focus on the writing of poems so as to give you a full understanding of this ancient and living art. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter,Spring—A. Estill, T. Raylor

ENGL 119. Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Literature We will begin by examining the forefathers and mothers of Latino/a literature: the nineteenth century texts of exile, struggles for Latin American independence, and southwestern resistance and accommodation. The early twentieth century offers new genres: immigrant novels and popular poetry that reveal the nascent Latino identities rooted in (or formed in opposition to) U.S. ethics and ideals. Finally we will read a sampling of the many excellent contemporary authors who are transforming the face of American literature. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IDS, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 120. Introduction to Literarary Modernism "On or about December 1910 human character changed," Virginia Woolf once observed, and indeed, something did happen at the beginning of the twentieth century that changed the course of literature forever. We will look at the great poets and novelists of modernism--Yeats, Joyce, Eliot, Faulkner among many others--and try to come to terms with the literary movement that helped shape the consciousness of the twentieth century. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 121. Introduction to Narrative How do we tell stories, and why? What are the different elements of narrative (words, images, even sounds), and how do they work across disciplines and forms, both fictional and non-fictional? This course will study the form and function--and the power and persuasion--of narrative, examining examples of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, illustrated books, poetry, television, and cinema. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 129. Introduction to British Comedy "And those things do best please me / That befall prepost'rously." A survey of comic plays, novels, short stories, films and television from Shakespeare, Austen, Lewis Carroll, Gilbert and Sullivan, Oscar Wilde, through P.G. Wodehouse and beyond. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Winter—C. Walker

ENGL 134. Introduction to Children's Literature A literary investigation of the genre, with attention to its roots, aesthetic intricacies, and social and psychological functions. Topics will include the genre's origins in the power struggles and wish fulfillment of oral tradition stories, the rise of the Enlightenment "fairytale," the romantic invention of childhood, and the nineteenth and twentieth-century emergence of works written and published for a child audience. Readings from the Grimms, Straparola, Basile, Perrault, d’Aulnoy, Bettelheim, Wordsworth, Burnett, Kipling, Jarrell, E. B. White, and Sendak. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 135. Imperial Adventures Indiana Jones has a pedigree. In this class we will encounter some of his ancestors in stories, novels and comic books from the early decades of the twentieth century. The wilds of Afghanistan, the African forest, a prehistoric world in Patagonia, the opium dens of mysterious exotic London--these will be but some of our stops as we examine the structure and ideology and lasting legacy of the imperial adventure tale. Authors we will read include Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, IS, Spring—A. Chakladar

ENGL 160. Introduction to Creative Writing This course offers training in the writing and revision of poetry and prose fiction, supplemented by examples from published writers and some essays on the creative process. Discussion of each participant's writing is the central mode of instruction. 6 cr., AL, WR; ARP, WR2, Fall,Winter,Spring—S. Jaret McKinstry, G. Hewett

ENGL 201. Chaucer I: The Canterbury Tales A study of The Canterbury Tales in Middle English (no previous knowledge assumed), concentrating on the pilgrims as narrating subjects, and on Chaucer's legendary status as the "Father" of English literature. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 210. From Chaucer to Milton: Early English Literature An introduction to some of the major genres, texts, and authors of medieval and Renaissance England. Readings will include selected works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, as well as lyric poetry from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Prerequisite: None. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—George Shuffelton

ENGL 211. Neoclassic, Romantic, and Victorian Literature Readings in eighteenth and nineteenth-century British literature. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter—J. Leiman

ENGL 212. Nineteenth-Century American Literature A survey of the major forms and voices of nineteenth-century American literature during the Romantic and Realist periods, with attention to the historical and intellectual contexts of that work. Topics covered will include the literary writings of Transcendentalism, abolition, and the rise of literary "realism" after the Civil War as an artistic response to urbanization and industrialism. Writers to be read include Irving, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, Twain, James, and Wharton. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Fall—E. McKinsey

ENGL 213. Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe lived fast, died young, and left behind a beautiful body of work. The course will explore the major plays and poems, as well as the life, of this transgressive Elizabethan writer. 3 cr., AL, WR; LA, Winter—P. Hecker

ENGL 214. Revenge Tragedy Madness, murder, conspiracy, poison, incest, rape, ghosts, and lots of blood: the fashion for revenge tragedy in Elizabethan and Jacobean England led to the creation of some of the most brilliant, violent, funny, and deeply strange plays in the history of the language. Authors may include Cary, Chapman, Ford, Marston, Middleton, Kyd, Tourneur, and Webster. 3 cr., AL, WR; LA, Winter—P. Hecker

ENGL 215. Modern American Literature A survey of some of the central movements and texts in American literature, from World War I to the present. Topics covered will include modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat generation and postmodernism. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 216. Milton Radical, heretic, and revolutionary, John Milton wrote the most influential, and perhaps the greatest, poem in the English language. We will read the major poems (Lycidas, the sonnets, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes), a selection of the prose, and will attend to Milton’s historical context, to the critical arguments over his work, and to his impact on literature and the other arts. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Fall—T. Raylor

ENGL 217. A Novel Education Samuel Johnson declared novels to be "written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life." This course will explore what kinds of education the novel offered its readers during a time when fiction was considered a source of valuable lessons and a vehicle for corruption. We will read a selection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels, considering how they engage with contemporary educational theories, notions of male and female conduct, and concerns about the didactic and imaginative possibilities of fiction. Authors include Richardson, Lennox, Austen, Edgeworth, and Dickens. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Fall—J. Leiman

ENGL 218. The Gothic Spirit The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw the rise of the Gothic, a genre populated by brooding hero-villains, vulnerable virgins, mad monks, ghosts, and monsters. In this course, we will examine the conventions and concerns of the Gothic, addressing its preoccupation with terror, sex, and the supernatural. As we situate this genre within its literary and historical context, we will consider its relationship to realism and Romanticism, and we will explore how it reflects the political and cultural anxieties of the age. Authors include Walpole, Radcliffe, Lewis, Austen, M. Shelley, and E. Bronte. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—J. Leiman

ENGL 219. The City in American Literature This course explores the role of the city in twentieth century American literature. The city as both material reality and metaphor has fueled the imagination of diverse poets, playwrights, and novelists. We will first study the realistic tradition of urban fiction at the turn of the twentieth century; then we will turn our attention to modern and contemporary re-inventions of the city. Selected films, photographs, and historical sources will supplement our readings of the literature. Authors will likely include Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, Karen Tei Yamashita, Junot Diaz, and Anna Deavere Smith. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 220. Arts of Oral Presentation Instruction and practice in being a speaker and an audience in formal and informal settings. 3 cr., S/CR/NC, ND; NE, Fall,Winter,Spring—M. Kowalewski, T. Raylor

ENGL 222. The Art of Jane Austen All of Jane Austen's fiction will be read; the works she did not complete or choose to publish during her lifetime will be studied in an attempt to understand the art of her mature comic masterpieces, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter—C. Walker

ENGL 223. American Transcendentalism "The question of the times," Emerson writes, "resolve[s] itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live?" An outgrowth of liberal religious culture in and around Boston in the decades before the Civil War, the U.S. Transcendentalist movement remains one of most debated but influential intellectual movements in American cultural history. This course will offer in-depth exposure to the experiments in thought, writing, and conduct for which the movement is known, and to its still unsettled legacy on such topics as Revolution, slavery, religion, nature, and friendship. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Winter—P. Balaam

ENGL 227. Borderlands: Places and People The borderlands provide a powerful metaphoric vehicle for American cultural expression. We will engage this metaphor through a broad chronological and generic range of literary and visual texts. Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands and John Sayles's Lone Star will initiate our discussion through their reflections on the U.S.-Mexico border and its production of border identities. Modernism provides us entry into early twentieth century concerns around mulatto bodies and community construction. Subsequent texts allow us to trace the development of fears and utopian imaginings around a variety of hybrid identities through the twentieth and into twenty-first century science fiction. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; HI, WR2, IDS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 234. Literature of the American South Masterpieces of the "Southern Renaissance" of the early and mid-twentieth century, in the context of American regionalism and particularly the culture of the South, the legacy of slavery and race relations, social and gender roles, and the modernist movement in literature. Authors will include Allen Tate, Jean Toomer, William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, William Percy, and others. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IDS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 235. Asian American Literature This course is an introduction to major works and authors of fiction, drama, and poetry from about 1900 to the present. We will trace the development of Asian American literary traditions while exploring the rich diversity of recent voices in the field. Authors to be read include Carlos Bulosan, Sui Sin Far, Philip Kan Gotanda, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jhumpa Lahiri, Milton Murayama, Chang-rae Lee, Li-young Lee, and John Okada. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IDS, Fall—N. Cho

ENGL 236. American Nature Writing A study of the environmental imagination in American literature. We will explore the relationship between literature and the natural sciences and examine questions of style, narrative, and representation in the light of larger social, ethical, and political concerns about the environment. Authors read will include Thoreau, Muir, Jeffers, Abbey, and Leopold. Students will write a creative Natural History essay as part of the course requirements. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 238. African Literature in English This is a course on texts drawn from English-speaking Africa since the 1950's. Authors to be read include Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ayi Kwei Armah, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Benjamin Kwakye, and Wole Soyinka. 6 cr., AL, RAD; LA, IS, Winter—K. Owusu

ENGL 239. American Best-Sellers A book's popularity is itself a kind of criticism, complex evidence that the best-seller in question expressed the hopes and fears of people who found them nowhere else so forcibly put. In this course--a literary, historical, and cultural exploration of best-selling nineteenth century American fiction--we will seek to understand not only which books became popular, but why they did, how their formal qualities and particular engagements moved contemporary readers to buy and read them so avidly. Page-turners, barn-burners, and tear-jerkers, nine of them, by Rowson, Cooper, Stowe, Alger, Burroughs, Zane Grey, Wharton. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 240. The Romantic World Heroes and demons, revolutionaries and explorers, the Sublime and the Abyss, and of course Nature, will be among the subjects of this interdisciplinary, multi-genre course on the international cultural, intellectual, and political movement that became known as Romanticism, a movement whose reverberations continue to be felt strongly today. Among the works and authors to be studied: Frankenstein and The Last of the Mohicans; Wordsworth and Whitman; The Sorrows of Young Werther and Confessions of an English Opium Eater; Poe and Coleridge; the Brothers Grimm and Hawthorne; Beethoven and Chopin; the Hudson River School and Turner; Goya and Verdi; Rousseau and Thoreau. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 243. Text and Film Each text selected for this course will be paired with its filmic adaptation for a series of discussions focused on narrative structures, points of view, frames of reference, and textual (in)fidelity. We will read the following texts and watch their film versions: Wright's Native Son, Malcolm X and Haley's The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, Walker's The Color Purple, McMillan's Waiting to Exhale, and Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress. 6 cr., AL; LA, IDS, Fall—K. Owusu

ENGL 244. Shakespeare I A chronological survey of the whole of Shakespeare’s career, covering all genres and periods, this course explores the nature of Shakespeare’s genius and the scope of his art. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between literature and stagecraft ("page to stage"). By tackling the complexities of prosody, of textual transmission, and of Shakespeare’s highly figurative and metaphorical language, the course will help you further develop your abilities to think critically about literature. 6 cr., AL; LA, Fall—P. Hecker

ENGL 245. Bollywood Nation This course will serve as an introduction to Bollywood or popular Hindi cinema from India. We will trace the history of this cinema and analyze its formal components. We will watch and discuss some of the most celebrated and popular films of the last 60 years with particular emphasis on urban thrillers and social dramas. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Spring—A. Chakladar

ENGL 247. The American West Wallace Stegner once described the West as "the geography of hope" in the American imagination. Despite various dystopian urban pressures, the region still conjures up images of wide vistas and sunburned optimism. We will explore this paradox by examining both popular mythic conceptions of the West (primarily in film) and more searching literary treatments of the same area. We will explore how writers such as Twain, Cather, Stegner and Cormac McCarthy have dealt with the geographical diversity and multi-ethnic history of the West. Weekly film showings will include The Searchers, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Unforgiven, and Lone Star. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 248. Visions of California An interdisciplinary exploration of the ways in which California has been imagined in literature, art, film and popular culture from pre-contact to the present. We will explore the state both as a place (or rather, a mosaic of places) and as a continuing metaphor--whether of promise or disintegration--for the rest of the country. Authors read will include Muir, Steinbeck, Chandler, West, and Didion. Weekly film showings will include Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown and Bladerunner. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, IDS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 250. Modern Indian Fiction In this course we will follow the various paths that the novel in India has taken since the early twentieth century. Reading both works composed in English and some in translation we will probe in particular the ways in which questions of language and national/cultural identity are constructed and critiqued in the Indian novel. We will read some of the most celebrated Indian writers of the last 100 years as well as some who are not as well-known as they should be. The course will also introduce you to some fundamental concepts in postcolonial studies. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IS, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 251. Contemporary Indian Fiction Contemporary Indian writers, based either in India or abroad, have become significant figures in the global literary landscape. This can be traced to the publication of Salman Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children in 1981. We will begin with that novel and read some of the other notable works of fiction of the following decades. The class will provide both a thorough grounding in the contemporary Indian literary scene as well as an introduction to some concepts in post-colonial studies. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IS, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 252. Caribbean Fiction This course will examine Anglophone fiction in the Caribbean from the late colonial period through our contemporary moment. We will examine major developments in form and language as well as the writing of identity, personal and (trans)national. We will read works by canonical writers such as V.S Naipaul, George Lamming and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as by lesser known contemporary writers. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IS, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 258. Contemporary American Playwrights of Color This course examines a diverse selection of plays from the 1960s to the present, exploring how different theatrical contexts, from Broadway to regional theater to Off-Off Broadway, frame the staging of ethnic identity. Playwrights and performers to be studied include Amiri Baraka, Alice Childress, Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe, Luis Valdez, David Henry Hwang, August Wilson, Philip Gotanda, Maria Irene Fornes, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Anna Deavere Smith. There will be occasional out-of-class film screenings, and attendance at live theater performances when possible. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IS, Spring—N. Cho

ENGL 270. Short Story Workshop An introduction to the writing of the short story (prior familiarity with the genre of the short story is expected of class members). Each student will write and have discussed in class three stories (from 1,500 to 6,000 words in length) and give constructive suggestions, including written critiques, for revising the stories written by other members of the class. Attention will be paid to all the elements of fiction: characterization, point of view, conflict, setting, dialogue, etc. Prerequisite: One prior 6-credit English course. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, WR; ARP, WR2, Fall,Winter—G. Smith

ENGL 271. Poetry Workshop This course offers newer poets ways of developing poetic craft and vision. Through intensive writing and revision of poetry, supplemented by reading and discussion of poetry, each member of the group will create a portfolio of poems. Prerequisite: one prior 6-credit English course. 6 cr., AL, WR; ARP, WR2, Winter—G. Hewett

ENGL 272. Truth vs. Power: A Journey in Journalism Journalism is in turmoil today. Bold experimentation is needed to meet such dramatic new challenges to journalism as the Internet, the decline of newspapers, multilingual readerships, and global crises requiring activism more than "objectivity." The class will move between a theoretical focus--exploring journalism's basic theories and often-contradictory methods, purposes and aims--and a practical focus inviting students to strive towards their highest journalistic ideals. Students will be challenged to blend journalism's indispensable norms of factual accuracy, fairness and quality writing with new technologies such as blogging, podcasting, videocasting, social networking and RSS feeds. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 275. Rhetoric and Self-presentation Given that 75% of Carleton graduates enroll in graduate or professional school within five years of graduation, today’s undergraduates can expect to be required to present themselves, their personal histories, their ideas, and their career goals in writing for various prestigious audiences. In this course, we will examine the rhetoric of self-presentation in contexts such as personal statements, fellowship applications, and research proposals. Students should expect frequent peer workshops and extensive revision toward polished, formally written products. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher. 6 cr., ND, WR; NE, WR2, QRE, Fall—C. Rutz

ENGL 279. London Program: Urban Field Studies: London as Text A combination of background readings and guided site visits will give students tools for seeing the city itself as a multilayered text, a human work under constant processes of growth, decay, and revision. Starting from the city’s pre-urban geology and the still visible structures of its Roman past, we will recreate a sense of the Regency-era city of our Romanticism studies and explore the urban reforms currently under way in preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games. Students will pursue a visual understanding of London in groups and on their own, becoming expert on some aspect of London’s reconstructable urban text. 4 cr., S/CR/NC, AL; HI, Spring—P. Balaam

ENGL 280. Creative Non-Fiction Workshop This course explores the translation from event to effective writing through a variety of creative non-fiction forms, including memoir, journalism, and personal essay. Discussion of each participant's writing is the central mode of instruction, supplemented by examples from published writers, current magazines and newspapers, and essays on the creative process. Each student will create a portfolio of their work. Prerequisite: One prior 6-credit English course. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, WR; ARP, WR2, Spring—D. Cass

ENGL 281. London Program: Seeing Romantically: London's Age of Wonder Early nineteenth-century London (1785-1830) was a place of extraordinary intellectual, social, and political volatility and vitality. With the city itself as our classroom, we will explore the revolutions in thought and feeling that made the Romantic era an epistemological "age of wonder." The poetry and prose of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, De Quincey and Mary Shelley, contextualized in light of Romantic era expressions of architecture, painting and science, will help us to recreate a sense of what it meant to see the world romantically. 6 cr., AL; LA, Spring—P. Balaam

ENGL 282. London Program: London Theater We will attend productions of classical and contemporary plays in London and perhaps Stratford-on-Avon (about two per week) and do related reading. Class discussions will focus on dramatic genres and themes, production and direction decisions, acting styles, and design. Possible guest speakers may include actors, critics, and directors. Students will keep a theater journal and develop several entries into full reviews of plays. 6 cr., AL; LA, Spring—P. Balaam

ENGL 283. Ireland Program: Modern Irish Literature We will explore Irish culture, history, politics, and art through a study of modern and contemporary Irish literature. Authors read will include the poets William Butler Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh and Seamus Heaney; fiction writers James Joyce, Frank O’Connor and Glenn Patterson; and the dramatist Brian Friel. We will meet with writers in Belfast and Dublin, as well as attend plays, readings, and lectures. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Summer—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 284. Ireland Program: James Joyce's Ulysses James Joyce wanted "to write a novel about Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth, it could be reconstructed out of my book." Did he succeed? We will study Ulysses in Dublin with Professor O'Callaghan, an expert on Joyce, modernism and Irish literature. The class will include field trips to sites associated with Joyce and his novel. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Summer—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 285. The Arts of Power: Poetry, Painting, and Propaganda at the English Court (1509-1685) This seminar--team-taught by members of the Art History and English Departments--will examine the visual and literary arts at the Tudor and Stuart courts in England. Topics will include Henry VIII and the northern Renaissance; the cult of Elizabeth I; patronage and diplomacy (Rubens), portraiture (Van Dyck), and multimedia entertainments (the masques of Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson) under James I and Charles I. Questions raised will include the extent to which the arts of propaganda can question or critique power, and the extent to which the visual and verbal arts were conceived as rivals or allies. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 290. Ireland Program: Irish Field Studies 6 cr., S/CR/NC, ND; NE, Summer—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 295. Critical Methods Required of students majoring in English, this course explores practical and theoretical issues in literary analysis and contemporary criticism. Not open to first year students. Prerequisite: Prior completion of one Foundations course and another 6-credit English course. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter,Spring—N. Cho, G. Shuffelton

ENGL 301. The Courtly Chaucer None of the 493 documents in the Chaucer Life Records mention his poetry; most describe his activities as a courtier and royal administrator. This course seeks to reconcile this courtly Chaucer with his writing prior to the Canterbury Tales. As we read his early dream visions, we will immerse ourselves in the courtly cultures Chaucer learned by reading French and Italian works in translation, and by examining the art and manners of the English court. The final weeks will be spent reading his finished masterpiece, Troilus and Criseyde, sometimes called "the first novel in English." 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 309. Renaissance Selves What is a "self?" And where do our ideas of it come from? Some scholars have argued that modern notions of individuality, subjectivity, interiority, and of performative "self-fashioning" emerged during the Renaissance; others respond that this is not history, but myth. We’ll join the debate by reading the major scholarly contributions (including work by Burkhardt and Greenblatt); by studying (in translation) the texts around which the argument revolves-Castiglione’s Courtier, Machiavelli’s Prince, Montaigne’s Essays; and by examining exemplars of the literary genres most directly associated with the expression of selfhood: autobiography (Anne Clifford), essay (Bacon), and lyric poem (Sidney, Shakespeare). Prerequisite: one course numbered 110-175 or written permission of the instructor. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 310. Shakespeare II Continuing the work begun in Shakespeare I, this course delves deeper into the Shakespeare canon. More difficult and obscure plays are studied alongside some of the more famous ones. While focusing principally on the plays themselves as works of art, the course also explores their social, intellectual, and theatrical contexts, as well as the variety of critical response they have engendered. Prerequisite: One Foundations course and Shakespeare I. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—P. Hecker

ENGL 313. Major Works of the English Renaissance: The Faerie Queene A study of Spenser's romance epic. 3 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 314. Major Works of the English Renaissance: Paradise Lost An examination of Milton's masterwork. 3 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 319. The Rise of the Novel A study of the origin and development of the English novel throughout the long eighteenth century. We will situate the early novel within its historical and cultural context, paying particular attention to its concern with courtship and marriage, writing and reading, the real and the fantastic. We will also consider eighteenth-century debates about the social function of novels and the dangers of reading fiction. Authors include Behn, Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Walpole, and Austen. Prerequisite: One Foundations course and one other 6-credit English course. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter—J. Leiman

ENGL 323. English Romantic Poetry "It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words"--­P. B. Shelley. Readings in Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and their contemporaries. Prerequisite: One Foundations course and one other 6-credit course in English. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Fall—C. Walker

ENGL 327. Victorian Novel We will study selected British novels of the nineteenth century (Eliot’s Middlemarch, Dickens’ Bleak House, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Du Maurier’s Trilby, C. Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and E. Bronte’s Wuthering Heights) as literary texts and cultural objects, examining the prose and also the bindings, pages, and illustrations of Victorian and contemporary editions. Using Victorian serial publications as models, and in collaboration with studio art and art history students, students will design and create short illustrated serial editions of chapters that will be exhibited in spring term. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Spring—S. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 328. Victorian Poetry Victorian poets are prolific, challenging, inventive, and deeply engaged with the intersection of words and visual images in poetry, painting, and photography. We will read works by Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold, Dante Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Gerard Manley Hopkins, and others. We will examine Pre-Raphaelite painting and poetry, and collaborate with Linda Rossi's photography students to create Victorian photographs that depict Victorian poets and poems, which will be exhibited at the end of the term. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Winter—Susan Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 329. The Literature of the Colonial U.S. A transcultural study of the literature produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth century expansion of European powers into North America, with emphasis on narratives of contact, the New England settlements, and literary responses to the Revolution and founding of the U.S. Group II. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 332. Studies in American Literature: Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald An intensive study of the novels and short fiction of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The course will focus on the ethos of experimentation and the "homemade" quality of these innovative stylists who shaped the course of American modernism. Works read will be primarily from the twenties and thirties and will include The Sound and the Fury, In Our Time, Light in August, The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and Go Down, Moses. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter—M. Kowalewski

ENGL 335. Postcolonial Literature In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness Marlow notes, "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only." In this class we will explore both the ways in which this "idea" has been written about in European fictions about empire, and some responses to it from those on the receiving end. In particular, we will probe the ways in which the cultural identity of both the colonizer and the colonized are created, staged and written under colonialism and its aftermath. 6 cr., AL, RAD; LA, IS, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 337. Art and Argument in U.S. Literary Realism From the 1870s to World War I, the realists produced novels they hoped would be aesthetically superior to those of the past as well as deeply responsive to the rapid social and moral changes of the era. Readings will be drawn from the fiction and theory of Twain, Howells, James, Crane, Jewett, Gilman, Wharton, Dreiser, and Du Bois. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 340. The American Novel: Origins to 1860 A survey of the novel in U.S. cultural and literary history from Revolutionary Era origins to the Civil War. What did eighteenth-century Americans find expressed in the gothic, picaresque, and sentimental novels they read? What did the latitude of fiction allow nineteenth-century romancers and reform-novelists to say that could be nowhere else so powerfully put? Works by Foster, Brockden Brown, Tenney, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Fern, Melville. Prerequisite: One foundation course and one other 6-credit English course. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 350. The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts Authors from the colonies and ex-colonies of England have complicated understandings of the locations, forms and indeed the language of the contemporary English novel. This course will examine these questions and the theoretical and interpretive frames in which these writers have often been placed, and probe their place in the global marketplace (and awards stage). We will read writers such as Chinua Achebe, V.S Naipaul, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Salman Rushdie, Nuruddin Farah, Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith as well as some of the central works of postcolonial literary criticism. Prerequisite: One Foundations course and one other 6-credit English course. 6 cr., AL, WR, RAD; LA, WR2, IS, Fall—A. Chakladar

ENGL 362. Narrative Theory "Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?" asks Hayden White, metahistoriographer. To try to answer that question, we will read contemporary narrative theory by critics from several disciplines and apply their theories to literary texts, films, and cultural objects such as graphic novels, television shows, advertisements, and music videos. Prerequisite: One Foundations course and one other 6-credit English course. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Offered in alternate years. Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 370. Advanced Fiction Workshop An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students will write three to four short stories or novel chapters which will be read and critiqued by the class. Students wishing to register for the course must first submit a portfolio of creative writing (typically a short story) to the instructor during Registration (see the English Department's website for full instructions.) Final enrollment is based on the quality of the submitted work. Prerequisite: Written permission of instructor based upon portfolio submission. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, WR; ARP, WR2, Spring—G. Smith

ENGL 371. Advanced Poetry Workshop For students with some experience in writing poetry, this workshop further develops craft and vision. Readings and exercises will be used to expand the poet's individual range, and to explore the power of poetic language. Over the ten weeks, each poet will write and revise a significant portfolio. Students must submit three poems to the instructor prior to registration. Final enrollment is based on the quality of the submitted work. Prerequisite: Submit three poems to instructor. 6 cr., AL, WR; ARP, WR2, Not offered in 2011-2012.

ENGL 395. Latin@ Bodies on the (Poetry) Line This course considers how Latin@ literature responds to and engages in political and social movements beginning with Chicano movement poetry (1960s) and ending with the rise of the slam poetry movements (2010). How does poetry participate in community construction? What does it mean to build a populist aesthetics? In what ways does poetry’s formal strategies produce identities and provide space for activism? What is the role of the poet in the face of structural or institutional wrongs? What is the role of poetry in the internet age? Authors include: Pedro Pietri, Gloria Anzaldúa, Martín Espada. 6 cr., ND, WR; NE, WR2, IDS, Offered in alternate years. Spring—A. Estill

ENGL 395. Medieval Other Worlds When medieval writers imagined worlds beyond their own, what did they see? This course will examine depictions of the afterlife, the East, and other magical realms of the imagination. In reading romances, visions, ballads, and a masterpiece of pseudo-travel literature that influenced both Shakespeare and Columbus, we will visit the lands of the dead and the undead, and we will compare gruesome punishments and heavenly rewards. We will also encounter dog-headed men, Amazons, cannibals, armies devoured by hippopotami, and roasted geese that fly on to waiting dinner tables. Be prepared. Readings in Middle English and in modern translations. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Winter—G. Shuffelton

ENGL 395. Nabokov We will put on our explorer's gear, make sure our dues are paid up to the Society for the Propagation of the Irreal, and venture into the magical worlds of Vladimir Nabokov, the greatest novelist of the second half of the twentieth-century (the Chair will entertain objections only from Señor Garcia Marquez). We will lovingly pet the fauna of the Russian novels, inhale the exotic flora of the American novels, and fly from Terra to Antiterra where accommodations for fifteen intrepid souls have been booked at The Enchanted Hunters. 6 cr., AL, WR; LA, WR2, Fall—G. Smith

ENGL 400. Integrative Exercise Senior English majors may fulfill the integrative exercise by completing one of the four options: the Colloquium Option (a group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works); the Research Essay Option (an extended essay on a topic of the student’s own devising); the Creative Option (creation of a work of literary art); or the Project Option (creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project). The Research Essay Option is open to students who have completed a senior seminar in the major by the end of Fall term senior year. The Creative Option is open only to students who have completed at least two creative writing courses (one of which must be at the 300 level) by the end of Fall term senior year. 6 cr., S/NC, ND, Winter,Spring—Staff