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English (ENGL)

Chair: Professor Michael J. Kowalewski

Professor Emeriti: Keith Harrison, James McDonnell,

Professors: Nancy J. Cho, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Michael J. Kowalewski, Elizabeth McKinsey, Kofi Owusu, Timothy J. Raylor, Gregory Blake Smith, Constance H. Walker

Associate Professors: Adriana Estill, Gregory G. Hewett, George G. Shuffelton

Assistant Professors: Peter Balaam, Arnab Chakladar, Pierre Hecker, Jessica L. Leiman

Senior Lecturers: Elizabeth Ciner, Carol A. Rutz

Visiting Instructors: Dennis Cass, Doug McGill, Mary Schier

General Information

Courses numbered from 100 to 290 (introductory courses) are designed for non-majors and prospective majors alike. With the exception of English 200, Methods of Interpretation, they have no prerequisites. Literature courses numbered 300 and above (upper-level courses) normally require as a prerequisite ONE course numbered 110-299 or the written permission of the instructor. Prerequisites for upper-level courses in writing (English 370, 371 and 375) are as noted below. Courses that fulfill the "advanced seminar requirement" have as a prerequisite English 200 and the completion of at least two 300-level courses. First year students normally do not enroll in courses numbered 300 or above.

Students wishing to prepare for public school teaching should consult with the chair of the department and the Department of Educational Studies as soon as possible.

Students considering graduate study in English should be aware that most graduate schools require one or two ancient or modern languages.

Requirements for a Major

A. Sixty-six credits in English (not including English 100, 109, 290) distributed as follows:

1. English 110, 111 and 112, preferably taken in this sequence before entering upper-level courses.

2. English 200, for which any two of the following-English 110, 111, 112-are prerequisites, preferably taken in the sophomore year. Not open to first-year students.

3. At least 36 credits in courses numbered 300-395 taken at Carleton, including six credits in each of the following four groups. One course (6 credits) may be at the 200 level (excluding English 200).

Group I: Medieval and Renaissance Literature

244, Shakespeare I, 300, Chaucer I: The Canterbury Tales; 301, The Courtly Chaucer; 309, Renaissance Selves; 310, Shakespeare II; 381, Staging the Early Modern City, 1400-1650

Group II: Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature

313, The Faerie Queene; 314, Paradise Lost; 318, Gothic Spirit; 319, The Rise of the Novel; 322, The Art of Jane Austen; 329, Inventing "America": The Literature of the Colonial U.S.; 395, Seductive Fictions

Group III: Nineteenth Century British and American Literature

American Studies 230, The American Sublime; English 239, American Best Sellers; 240, Transatlantic Romanticism; 323, English Romantic Poets; 327, Victorian Novel; 328, Victorian Poetry; 331, American Transcendentalism; 336, Romance to Novel: Poe, Hawthorne, James; 337, Art and Argument in U.S. Literary Realism

Group IV: Modernist and Contemporary Literature

American Studies 240, The Midwest and the American Imagination; English 227, Borderlands: Places and People; 234, Literature of the American South; 235, Asian American Literature; 236, American Nature Writing; 243, Text and Film; 250, Modern Indian Fiction; 251, Modern Indian Fiction II; 252, Caribbean Fiction; 330, Literature of the American West; 332, Studies in American Literature: Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald; 334, Postmodern American Fiction; 335, Postcolonial Literature; 339, Contemporary American Playwrights of Color; 395, Toni Morrison; 395, Dissenting Americans; Theater 242, Twentieth Century American Drama; 252/352, African-American Theater History

4. An advanced seminar (English 362 or 395) to be taken during the senior year or the second or third term of the junior year, after having completed English 200 and at least two 300-level courses.

5. An integrative exercise. A senior may choose:

a. Colloquium Option: A group option in which participants discuss, analyze and write about a thematically coherent list of literary works.

b. Research Essay Option: An extended essay on a topic of the student's own devising

c. Creative Option: Creation of a work of literary art. 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. (For the class of 2010, only one creative writing class will be required.)

d. Project Option: Creation of an individual or group multidisciplinary project.

6. Six credits in literature other than English, read either in translation or, preferably, in the original language.

Double-majors considering completing the integrative exercise during the junior year will need written approval from the departmental chair.

Workshops in Writing

The Department of English offers workshop courses in the writing of fiction, poetry, memoir, and the essay for those students who wish to gain experience in writing. Students are encouraged to submit their work to college publications such as The Lens, manuscript, the Clap, and Carleton Progressive.

Writers on the Carleton faculty include poet Gregory Hewett and novelist Gregory Blake Smith. In addition to those courses offered by regular faculty members, the department brings visiting writers to campus to read and to conduct workshops in their specialties. Visitors in recent years have included playwright Tony Kushner, memoirists Richard Rodriquez and Patricia Hampl, poets Robert Creeley, Carolyn Forche, Sharon Olds, and Andrew Hudgins, nature writers Dan O'Brien and David Rains Wallace, and fiction-writers Jane Hamilton, Ann Beattie, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Marilynne Robinson.

The Writing Requirement

Part I of the College's Writing Requirement may be fulfilled by taking an English course designated as a Writing Rich (WR) course. Typically, these courses are at the 100-level (e.g., English 100, 109, 110, 111, 112, etc.)

English Courses

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, SummerStaff

ENGL 100. "His dark materials": Milton, Shelley and 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., S/CR/NC, AL, FallC. 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., S/CR/NC, AL, FallJ. Leiman

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., S/CR/NC, AL, FallA. Chakladar

ENGL 100. Puritans in Love Disparaged at home as Protestants of "the hotter sort," the New England Calvinists had hearts less controlled than we may expect. With emphasis on the skills of writing effective analytical essays, this course will trace how conflicts between "high" and "lower" forms of love, high ideals and grinding realities, shaped Puritan poetry and narratives of settlement, captivity, witchcraft, and racial conflict. Readings will be drawn from Bradstreet, Taylor, Mather, Rowlandson, Hawthorne, and Dickinson. S/CR/NC, AL, Fall

ENGL 100. Reading, Interpreting and Writing We will read, interpret, and write about short stories, poems, and plays from The Norton Introduction to Literature. We will, for example, read short stories by Atwood, Baldwin, Bambara, Chekhov, Gordimer, Garcia Marquez, Hawthorne, Joyce, and Poe; poems by Brooks, Barrett Browning, Coleridge, Dickinson, Lorde, Pound, and Rich; and plays by Sophocles, Wilde, Tennessee Williams, and August Wilson. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, FallK. Owusu

ENGL 109. Writing Seminar Focusing on rhetorical choices and writing strategies, we will seek to read critically and write persuasively about contemporary issues of "globalization." We will use recent journalism and scholarly articles, as well as our own experiences, as a springboard for discussion of issues of distinctive cultures, consumerism, national sovereignty, sustainability and ethics in the face of increasing economic interdependence and instant communication in our "globalized" world. Students will write and revise several major essays and give a final class presentation. 6 cr., ND, FallE. McKinsey

ENGL 109. Writing Seminar Writing makes thinking visible. In this course, we will use individual research projects as well as readings to develop skills in reflection, reporting, oral presentation, and persuasion. Close collaboration with librarians will help students establish a research environment for this course and, one hopes, for future courses as well. Students should expect to write often, participate in peer review, and become critical readers of their own work. 6 cr., ND, Fall,WinterC. Rutz

ENGL 109. Writing Seminar This course will help students develop and refine skills in argumentation, rhetoric and writing through reading, writing practice, peer critique and personal consultation with the instructor. Class readings will be varied and will include both fiction and nonfiction. 6 cr., ND, FallM. Schier

ENGL 109. Writing Seminar Devoted exclusively to the study and practice of clear and persuasive prose, this course is designed to introduce students to the fundamental organizational and argumentative skills they need to write effectively at Carleton. Specifically, the course aims to teach students to read critically and analyze thoroughly the evidence and arguments with which they engage; to consider audience, purpose, and context in the construction of a rhetorical strategy; to state an arguable thesis and develop it into a persuasive argument with coherence, logic, and evidence; and to develop effective writing habits. 6 cr., ND, FallT. Raylor, P. Balaam

ENGL 109. Writing Seminar

Exploring the theme of "Writing Place," this course introduces students to the fundamental organizational and argumentative skills they need to write effectively at Carleton. We will read and discuss essays about place, and engage the theme of place through a variety of writing assignments. The course aims to teach students to read critically and carefully; to consider audience, purpose, and context in the construction of a rhetorical strategy; to state an arguable thesis and develop it into a persuasive argument; and to develop effective writing habits. Drafting, revising, and peer writing workshops will be emphasized. 6 cr., ND, FallN. Cho

ENGL 110. English Literature, I Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton and lyric poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Required of English majors. 6 cr., AL, Fall,WinterStaff

ENGL 111. English Literature, II Neoclassic, Romantic, and Victorian literature. Required of English majors. 6 cr., AL, Fall,Winter,SpringStaff

ENGL 112. Introduction to American Literature American literature to 1914 with an emphasis on the periods of Romanticism and Realism. 6 cr., AL, Fall,Winter,SpringStaff

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 Chrétien 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, Winter

ENGL 117. African American Literature This course provides an overview of African American literature. We will pay particular attention to the tradition of African American literary expression and the individual talent that brings depth and diversity to that tradition. Authors to be read include Baldwin, Baraka, Brooks, Ed Bullins, Douglass, Du Bois, Dunbar, Nikki Giovanni, Hayden, Hughes, Weldon Johnson, Locke, McKay, Morrison, Toomer, Wheatley, and Wilson. 6 cr., AL, WinterK. 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, WinterA. Estill

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, RAD, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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, SpringG. Smith

ENGL 129. Introduction to British Comedy “And those things do best please me / That befall preposterously.” 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, WinterC. Walker

ENGL 144. Shakespeare I Cross-listed with ENGL 244. 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 and write analytically about literature. Note: English majors or potential English majors should register for ENGL 244. 6 cr., AL, FallP. Hecker

ENGL 200. Methods of Interpretation This course is required of students majoring in English. It will deal with practical and theoretical issues in literary analysis and contemporary criticism. Prerequisites: English 110 and 111. Not open to first year students. 6 cr., AL, Winter,SpringA. Estill, S. Jaret McKinstry

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, Winter,SpringM. Kowalewski, T. Raylor

ENGL 227. Borderlands: Places and People The borderlands provide a powerful metaphoric vehicle for discussing contemporary cultural expression. We will engage this metaphor through a broad chronological and generic range of American literary and visual texts. Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera 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. We will then address additional narratives that defy racial, gender, sexual, ethnic, cultural, or religious classification. Finally, we will consider the ways in which individual hybrid, mestizo, or border identities are related to particular understandings of the nature of place and community. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 234. Literature of the American South We will focus on masterpieces of the "Southern Renaissance" of the early and mid-twentieth century, and place them into 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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, RAD, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, FallM. Kowalewski

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. Group III. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 240. Transatlantic Romanticism 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. Group III. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, SpringK. Owusu

ENGL 244. Shakespeare I Cross-listed with ENGL 144. 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 and write analytically about literature. Note: English majors or potential English majors should register for ENGL 244. Group I. 6 cr., AL, FallP. Hecker

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, RAD, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 251. Modern Indian Fiction II: 1980-Present This course will focus on Indian fiction by writers who come to prominence after 1980. The period is inaugurated by the monumental publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in 1981, and part of the course objectives will be to track the explosion of Indian writing in English in the decades that follow. The course will also examine Indian fiction in translation from other languages in the same period and consider the question of the ways in which these traditions intersect, and whether it is possible to speak of Indian Literature as a singular category. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, RAD, SpringA. Chakladar

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, RAD, WinterA. Chakladar

ENGL 259. Advanced Essay Writing Designed for students who are relatively comfortable with their papers but who would like to attempt more challenging approaches, this course will concentrate on alternative essay-forms and encompass a wide variety of possibilities--from the 'false thesis' to dialogues and 'prismatic' composition. We will explore ways of holding a reader's attention, the rhythm and music of effective expository prose and writing for a general audience. Alert listening will be emphasized, as well as constructive criticism by the class-members of each other's drafts. The basis for assessment will be an 8-10 page paper on a topic of the student's choice. 3 cr., AL, FallK. Harrison

ENGL 260. Introduction to Creative Writing This course offers blocks of intensive training in poetry, prose fiction, and what has recently been termed "creative non-fiction." The primary objective is to come to an understanding of the varying and at times overlapping capabilities of these three genres and to produce works in each. Discussion of each participant's writing is the central mode of instruction. This will be supplemented by examples from published writers and some theoretical essays on the creative process. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, Winter,SpringG. Hewett

ENGL 270. The Crafts of Writing: The Short Story An introduction to the writing of the short story. Each student will write and have discussed in class three stories (from 1,500 to 4,000 words in length) and give constructive suggestions about the stories written by other members of the class. Students are expected to write brief critiques of each story written by their classmates. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, Fall,WinterG. Smith

ENGL 271. The Crafts of Writing: Poetry This course concerns itself with the development of poetic vision as much as craft. Through intensive writing and revision of poetry, supplemented by reading and discussion of contemporary poetry and poetics, each member of the group will form a body of work and a statement that stakes a poetic claim. The objective is to begin to discover how each of us fits or does not fit into the modern poetical tradition and the diverse contemporary poetry scene, so as to free us from solipsism and vague notions of the powers of poetry. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, WinterG. 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, FallD. McGill

ENGL 280. Crafts of Writing: Creative Non-fiction Do you like it when true things happen? Would you like to take those true things and make them sound truer than true? Would you like to use words while doing that? In this course, students will write a rant, a reported essay, and also explore a creative non-fiction form of their choosing. Class time will be spent on live writing assignments, giving and receiving feedback, learning basic research techniques, and having discussions about things that seem trivial right up until the moment that their ultimate significance is revealed. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, SpringD. Cass

ENGL 291. Ireland Program: Representing Ireland Students will design an independent project using research, writing, and images to supplement the courses and display their knowledge of Irish literature and culture. 4 cr., S/CR/NC, ND, SummerS. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 291. London Program: Independent Project

In consultation with the director, students will design an independent research project that will be conducted on-site in London. Nearly any aspect of London life, past or present, may make a suitable subject of study. Students will meet in workshop groups and present their projects at the end of term or after our return to Carleton. 4 cr., S/CR/NC, ND, SpringG. Shuffelton

ENGL 300. 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 Chaucer's legendary status as the "Father" of English literature. Group I. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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." Group I. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group I. 6 cr., AL, SpringT. Raylor

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: English 144 or 244. Group I. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 313. Major Works of the English Renaissance: The Faerie Queene A study of Spenser's romance epic. Group II. 3 cr., AL, FallT. Raylor

ENGL 314. Major Works of the English Renaissance: Paradise Lost An examination of Milton's masterwork. Group II. 3 cr., AL, FallT. Raylor

ENGL 318. 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, as we address its preoccupation with terror, sex, madness, and the supernatural. We will locate this genre within its historical and literary context, considering its excesses in light of the political and cultural anxieties of the age, and exploring the relationship between Gothicism, sensibility, and Romanticism. Reading will include novels, verse, and drama by Walpole, Radcliffe, Austen, Lewis, Byron, and Mary Shelley. Group II. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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 will include Behn, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne and Radcliffe. Group II. 6 cr., AL, WinterJ. Leiman

ENGL 322. 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. Group II. 6 cr., AL, SpringC. Walker

ENGL 323. English Romantic Poets "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. Group III. 6 cr., AL, FallC. Walker

ENGL 327. Victorian Novel We will study selected British novels of the 19th 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. Group III. 6 cr., AL, WinterS. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 328. Victorian Poetry A study of Victorian poetry with particular emphasis on Pre-Raphaelite poetry and paintings. Group III. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 330. Literature of 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, Castillo, and Cormac McCarthy have dealt with the geographical diversity and multiethnic history of the West. Films will include The Searchers, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Unforgiven, and Lone Star. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 331. American Transcendentalism The roots and aims, friends and some enemies, of this nineteenth century reform movement, with particular attention to its literary aspects and its legacy in U.S. cultural history. Major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller as well as of lesser figures. We will weigh the movement's contributions to religious and social reform and examine its politics, especially its relation to slavery and abolitionism, feminism, and the environment. Group III. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, SpringM. Kowalewski

ENGL 334. Studies in American Literature: The Postmodern American Novel We will get lost in the funhouse of postmodern fiction, in whose mirrored rooms we will encounter Maxwell’s Demon, a depressed Krazy Kat, and the icy imagination of the King of Zembla. (Time will be budgeted for side-excursions into pastiche, dreck, and indeterminacy.) Authors read will include Nabokov, Pynchon, Bartheleme, and Delillo. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, RAD, FallA. Chakladar

ENGL 336. Romance to Novel: Poe, Hawthorne, James Major works of these crucial U.S. writers in cultural contexts between 1830 and 1900. What did the nineteenth-century U.S. have to offer the ambitious, socially observant writer of fiction? What did U.S. audiences expect in a book? Attention to the gothic, Romanticism, psychological realism, and the emergence of the "international theme." Several tales and some literary theory from each, with longer works including Pym, Blithedale Romance, House of Seven Gables, and Portrait of a Lady. Group III. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

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. Group III. 6 cr., AL, SpringP. Balaam

ENGL 339. Contemporary American Playwrights of Color This course will examine a diverse selection of plays from the 1970s to the present with an attempt to understand how different theatrical venues frame our understanding of ethnic identity. Playwrights and performers to be studied include Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe, Luis Valdez, David Henry Hwang, August Wilson, Philip Gotanda, Wakako Yamauchi, Maria Irene Fornes, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Ann Deavere Smith. There will be occasional video screenings and we will attend live theatrical performances when possible. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, RAD, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 349. Ireland Program: Ireland in Place The course explores Irish culture, history, politics, and art through a study of modern and contemporary Irish literature. In Mayo, the group will read classic Irish poetry and short stories, including works by W.B. Yeats and Seamus O'Kelly; in Dublin, students will read Joyce, as well as works by Dubliners Frank O'Connor, Eavan Boland, Patrick Kavanah, and others; in Belfast, students will read contemporary Belfast writers including Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Glenn Patterson, Seamus Deane, and Brian Friel. The group will meet with writers in Belfast and Dublin, as well as attend plays, readings, and lectures. 6 cr., AL, SummerS. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 362. Narrative Theory "Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?" asks Hayden White (historiographer). To try to answer that question, we will read contemporary narrative theory and analyze various literary texts and films. This course fulfills the advanced seminar requirement. Prerequisite: English 200. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 365. British Comedy A study of the elements of comedy--plot, character, dialogue, wit and humor--in British comic plays, poems, novels and films. Authors will include Shakespeare, Congreve, Austen, Wilde and Stoppard. 6 cr., AL, Not offered in 2009-2010.

ENGL 370. Advanced Crafts of Writing: The Short Story An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students are expected to write brief critiques of each story written by their classmates. Students must submit a story to the English Department Office prior to registration. Final enrollment is based on the quality of the submitted work. May be repeated for credit. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, SpringG. Smith

ENGL 371. Advanced Crafts of Writing: Poetry For students with some experience in writing poetry. We will take a workshop approach that develops the individual poet's craft and vision. Readings and exercises will be used to explore the poet's individual range and expand ideas about what poetic language can do. The goal of this course is for each poet to create a sequence of eight poems unified by technique, subject matter, form, or sensibility as well as eight experimental poems. A group public reading will be scheduled. Students must submit three poems to the English Department Office prior to registration. Final enrollment is based on the quality of the submitted work. 6 cr., S/CR/NC, AL, SpringG. Hewett

ENGL 380. London Program: London Theater Students will attend productions of classical and contemporary plays in London and 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. Guest speakers will include actors, critics, and directors. Students will keep a theater journal and develop entries into full reviews of plays. 6 cr., AL, SpringG. Shuffelton

ENGL 381. London Program: Staging the Early Modern City, 1400-1650 Modern city life is often imagined as a kind of theater, with citizens highly conscious of seeing and being seen, and a freedom that allows newcomers to cast off old identities. This course will trace the roots of these ideas in the literature of late medieval and early modern England, considering examples of the city used as a theater and representations of the city in theater. Readings will include selections from the cycle plays put on by medieval craft guilds, the civic pageants celebrating royal triumphs, and the vibrant drama of Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Group I. 6 cr., AL, SpringG. Shuffelton

ENGL 384. Ireland Program: James Joyce's Ulysses and Dubliners 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? Students will study Ulysses with Professor Declan Kiberd, an internationally renowned expert on Joyce and Irish literature, editor of the Penguin edition of Ulysses, and author of two major critical studies: Inventing Ireland and Irish Classics. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, SummerS. Jaret McKinstry

ENGL 395. Seductive Fictions Stories of virtue in distress and innocence ruined preoccupied English novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This course will focus on the English seduction novel, considering the following questions: What was the allure of the seduction plot? What does it reveal about sexual relations, femininity and masculinity, power, and class during this period? How does the seduction plot address and provoke concerns about novel-reading itself during a time when the novel was considered both an instrument of education and an agent of moral corruption? Authors may include: Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Choderlos de Laclos, Thomas Hardy, and Bram Stoker. 6 cr., AL, SpringJ. Leiman

ENGL 395. Toni Morrison: Nobel Laureate We will read Morrison's nonfiction collection, Playing in the Dark, and her fiction (The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, and Love) and discuss the impact of this writer and critic on African American and American literature and letters. Group IV. 6 cr., AL, FallK. Owusu

ENGL 395. Dissenting Americans: Literature, Authority, and Social Change This course examines the rich tradition of cultural critique that has helped to define American literature. What does it mean to write as a "dissenting American"? How are political debates shaped by genre and the writer's craft? Different historical moments will inform our readings of paired authors: Henry David Thoreau, Rebecca Harding Davis, Stephen Crane, Charles Chesnutt, John Okada, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Alice Childress, Audre Lord, Chay Yew, and Anna Deavere Smith. Students are expected to be careful readers of criticism as well as literature, and will do a major research paper. 6 cr., AL, WinterN. Cho

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. For the class of 2010, only one creative writing class will be required. 6 cr., S/NC, ND, Fall,Winter,SpringStaff


Other Courses Pertinent to English

AMST 230 The American Sublime: Landscape, Character and National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America

AMST 240 The Midwest and the American Imagination

THEA 242 Twentieth Century American Drama