ENROLL

Eddie E O'Byrn

This course examines the work of a major theorist in the Black intellectual tradition within the last seventy years. Students are invited to take a dedicated dive into primary scholarship by focusing on a figure such as bell hooks, Derrick Bell, Angela Davis, Charles Mills, Saidiya Hartman, Frank Wilderson, Maya Angelou, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and/or Cornel West. Students should expect an opportunity to examine primary scholarship and build analytical skills to trace themes and methods. This year's focus will be on ethical, social, and political theory of bell hooks (1952 - 2021).

Jessica Leiman

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, transgression, sex, otherness, 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 its age. Authors include Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Emily Bronte.

Susan Jaret McKinstry

Puzzled about nineteenth century novels, Henry James asks, 'But what do such large loose baggy monsters with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?'' (“Preface,” The Tragic Muse). What, indeed? Practicing close reading, surface reading, and distant reading, we will examine the prose, design, and illustrations of Victorian editions, and ask how big data might help us define and interpret the nineteenth century novel. Authors might include George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, E.M. Forster, Lewis Carroll.

Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course or instructor consent

Juliane Schicker

In this course, we will explore literature and art of German-speaking countries around the topics of gender and sex(uality). We will focus on the years between 1880 and 1920, but also venture into more recent times. What was the image of men and women at the time and how did these images change or remain the same? How did science factor into these images? What was/is considered “normal” when it comes to sex(uality) and gender, and what German-speaking voices have been pushing against those norms? How did these voices use literature and art to reflect or criticize such norms? Texts and class discussions will be in English. 

In Translation

Zenzele Isoke

This is an interdisciplinary course that explores how pleasure, intimacy, and violence are shaped by historic and ongoing processes of inequality in the United States. We will explore how our understandings of sexuality are influenced by discourses and practices of race and race-making in the U.S. by focusing on the relationship between micro-level (interpersonal) and macro-level (societal) violence. The topics of rape, family violence, and intimate partner violence will be examined from a structural vantage point, emphasizing the mutually constituting roles of gender, race, class, and nationality. The concepts of “pleasure” and “enjoyment” are foregrounded throughout the course.

Annette Igra

Brian F Harrison

The advancement of LGBTQ rights in the United States has experienced unprecedented success over the last twenty years, shifting public attitudes and legal protections for LGBTQ Americans. This course provides a discussion of LGBTQ history and in-depth analysis of how LGBTQ policy victories were achieved, including background on the strategies and tactics used to generate results. We will take a critical look at such milestones and examine what they mean for the entire LGBTQ population, including queer people of color, transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged.

Kristin Bloomer

Liz Raleigh

What makes a family? How has the conception of kinship and the 'normal' family changed over the generations? In this introductory class, we examine these questions, drawing on a variety of course materials ranging from classic works in sociology to contemporary blogs on family life. The class focuses on diversity in family life, paying particular attention to the intersection between the family, race and ethnicity, and social class. We'll examine these issues at the micro and macro level, incorporating texts that focus on individuals' stories as well as demographics of the family.

Constanza Ocampo-Raeder

Prerequisite: The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above