College of Arts & Sciences
English
College Writing ProgramConcentration in English (1501)
Minor Concentration in English (1501)
COURSES
Creative Writing
Language and Liguistics
Literature
Chair William Carroll
Associate Chair John Matthews
Director of Undergraduate Studies Charles Rzepka
Emma Ann MacLachlan Metcalf Professor of Humanities Rosanna Warren
Professors Breiner, Brown, Burnett, Carroll, Costello, Epstein, Green, Ha Jin, Levine, Matthews, Mizruchi, Pinsky, Redford, Riquelme, Rzepka, Siemon, Wagenknecht, Walcott, Winn
Associate Professors Bizup, Fogel, Jarrett, Korobkin, Krishnan, Martin, Monk, Patterson, Prince
Assistant Professors Appleford, Chodat, Henchman, Howell, Lee, Murphy, Ostas, Preston, Smith, Zlateva
Instructor Van Anglen
Senior Lecturer Otten
The Department of English offers courses in (1) linguistics, (2) creative writing, and (3) the full range of English and American literature in all genres from the medieval to the contemporary period. Courses in each category are available at the introductory, intermediate, advanced, and graduate levels. They include both lecture-discussion courses and small seminars. The concentration in English consists of a core sequence, which provides students with the tools of criticism and a survey of British literature, followed by an elected program of advanced courses that may reflect and integrate the individual interests of each student.
College Writing Program
Please see College Writing Program Courses under College of Arts & Sciences on this site for program listing and course descriptions.
Concentration in English (1501)
The total concentration requirement is eleven semester courses. A grade not lower than C is required in all courses toward the concentration. Students must complete CAS EN 220, CAS HU 221, CAS EN 322, and CAS EN 323 (usually taken consecutively). With the aid of their advisors, they should design a coherent concentration of at least seven additional English courses at the advanced level (numbered 300 or above), including one from each of the following groups:
Group 1. American Literature before 1900: CAS EN 471, 479, 533, 534, 545, 571, 587, or courses specified as equivalent in any year.
Group 2. Concepts and Methods of Literary Study: Any literature course listed from CAS EN 404, EN 406 through EN 490, or from EN 493 through EN 498.
Note: Students may not satisfy the requirement for both groups with a single, overlapping course.
Upon approval of their advisor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies, students may elect to substitute one upper-level literature course from Romance Studies, Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, Classical Studies, or the Editorial Institute, for one of their seven upper-division course requirements outside of the two categories specified above.
Languages Majors planning on graduate study in English should continue work in foreign languages beyond the level required by the College. French, German, and Latin are the languages most commonly required for the PhD degree in English.
Minor Concentration in English (1501)
The department offers a minor concentration program of six courses in English language and literature. These six courses include (1) CAS EN 220; (2) the sequence CAS EN 322, 323; and (3) three elective courses numbered CAS EN 300 or higher. Note: For English minor concentrators, CAS HU 221 is not a prerequisite for CAS EN 322. Courses must be completed with a grade of C or higher for credit. A student desiring a minor concentration program in English must consult the department to determine which faculty member will serve as his or her advisor.
Courses
Courses marked with a (†) satisfy divisional studies requirements.
Listings are divided into creative writing, language and linguistics, and literature.
CAS EN 202 Introduction to Creative Writing
Limited enrollment. An introduction to writing in various genres: poetry, fiction, plays. Students’ work discussed in class. Designed mainly for those with little or no experience in creative writing. Does not give concentration credit. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 304 Writing of Poetry
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom five to ten poems must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. The writing of poems discussed in a workshop setting. For the more advanced student. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment. Dietz. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 305 Writing of Fiction
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom two or three short stories must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. The writing of short stories and perhaps longer fiction discussed in a workshop setting. For the more advanced student. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment. Epstein. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 306 Writing of Plays
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom a short play or a scene from a play must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. The writing of plays discussed in a workshop setting. For the more advanced student. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment. Hunter. 4 cr, 1st sem. Goldstein. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 405 Advanced Writing of Fiction
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom two or three short stories must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. The writing of short stories and perhaps longer fiction. Manuscripts read and discussed in class. Individual conferences. Limited enrollment. Staff. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 503, 504 Fiction Workshop
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom two or three stories or a portion of a novel must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. A workshop in the writing of fiction. Manuscripts read and discussed in class. Individual conferences. Enrollment limited chiefly to graduate students. Goodman. 4 cr, 1st sem. Ha Jin. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 505, 506 Poetry Workshop
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom a selection of poems must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. A workshop in the writing of poetry. Manuscripts read and discussed in class. Individual conferences. Enrollment limited chiefly to graduate students. Pinsky. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 507 Seminar: Creative Writing, Fiction
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom two or three stories or chapters from a novel must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. A workshop in the writing of fiction. Manuscripts read and discussed in class. Individual conferences. Enrollment limited chiefly to graduate students. Epstein. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 508 Seminar: Creative Writing, Poetry
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom a selection of poems must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. Individual conferences. Enrollment limited chiefly to graduate students. Warren. 4 cr, 1st sem. Glück. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 509, 510 Exercises in Dramaturgy
Prereq: consent of instructor, to whom a short play or scene from a play must be submitted during the period just before classes begin. A seminar in the writing of original plays, emphasizing a dramaturgical approach to structure, language, and theme. Exercises in imitation of the masters of modern drama to be assigned, beginning with Ibsen (fall semester) and ending with Mamet. Schotter. 4 cr, 1st sem. Snodgrass. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 513 Modern English Grammar
A systematic analysis of English, applied to the reading of literature and the writing of essays. Staff. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 515 History of the English Language I
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 516 History of the English Language II
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 518 Linguistic Problems in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language
Prereq: consent of instructor. Application of linguistic concepts to the teaching of English as a foreign language. Includes description of contemporary English grammatical structures that pose problems for learners and teachers. Saitz. 4 cr, 1st sem. Zlateva. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
For information on offerings in linguistics in other departments and schools, see Linguistics. Intensive courses in English for international students are offered at the Center for English Language & Orientation Programs, 890 Commonwealth Avenue.
CAS EN 120 Freshman Seminar in Literature
Limited enrollment. Variable topics. Through discussions and frequent writing assignments, students develop skills in the close reading of literary texts and learn to express their interpretive ideas in correct and persuasive prose. Satisfies CAS WR 100 requirement. 4 cr, either sem.
†CAS EN 121 Readings in World Literature
Representative fiction, poetry, and drama by selected major figures in world literature. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. 4 cr, either sem. (HU)
†CAS EN 125 Readings in Modern Literature
Representative fiction, poetry, and drama from modern Continental, British, and American writers. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. 4 cr, either sem. (HU)
†CAS EN 127 Readings in American Literature
Selected American writers from the Colonial period to the present. Prose and poetry representative of the American tradition. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. 4 cr, either sem. (HU)
†CAS EN 141 Literary Types: Fiction
Critical reading of representative novels and short stories, primarily English and American, from the eighteenth century to the present. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. 4 cr, either sem. (HU)
†CAS EN 142 Literary Types: Poetry
Critical reading of representative English and American poems. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. 4 cr, either sem. (HU)
†CAS EN 143 Literary Types: Drama
Critical reading of representative plays from the ancient Greeks to the present. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. 4 cr, either sem. (HU)
†CAS EN 163, 164 Readings in Shakespeare
Representative tragedies, comedies, and histories. Primarily for students not concentrating in English. CAS EN 163 not prerequisite for EN 164. Levine. 4 cr, 1st sem. (HU)
CAS EN 175 Literature and the Art of the Film
Survey and analysis of cinema as an expressive medium from the silent period to the present. Films are screened weekly and discussed in conjunction with works of literature. Students must register for screening, discussion, and lecture. Monk. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 220 Seminar in Literature
Fundamentals of literary analysis, interpretation, and research. Intensive study of selected literary texts centered on a particular topic. Attention to different critical approaches. Frequent papers. Limited class size. Required of concentrators in English. Satisfies WR 150 requirement. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS HU 221 Major Authors I
Introduction to the major works of ancient and medieval literatures that influenced later Continental, English, and American literature: the Bible, Homeric epic, Greek tragedy, Vergil’s Aeneid, and Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Required of concentrators in English. 4 cr, either sem.
Note: Prerequisite for literature courses numbered 300 or higher: at least two literature courses numbered below 300, or junior or senior standing.
CAS EN 322 Survey of British Literature I
Prereq: CAS EN 220, CAS HU 221. Literature from the beginnings to the Restoration. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 323 Survey of British Literature II
Prereq: CAS EN 322. Literature from the Restoration to the end of the nineteenth century. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 326 Voices of Women Performing Women: Drama, Dance, Film, and Feminism
History of women as performers and representations of women on stages from antiquity to the present. Also offered as CAS WS 305 B1. Preston. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 355 Modern Drama I
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 356 Modern Drama II
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 363 Shakespeare I
Six or seven plays chosen from the following: Richard II, Henry IV, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Winter’s Tale. Some attention to the sonnets. Murphy, Siemon. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 364 Shakespeare II
Six or seven plays chosen from the following: Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and The Tempest. Carroll, Siemon. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 370 Introduction to African American Women Writers
Surveys the writings of African American women writers from slavery to the present and explores the African American female literary tradition in the context of black history and culture. Also offered as CAS AA 304. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 371 African American and Asian American Women Writers
Prereq: sophomore standing. Cross-cultural comparison of African American and Asian American women writers. Explores and evaluates the cultural impact of their work, and looks at how these two groups bound together by “otherness” pursue the theme of conflicting cultures. Also offered as CAS AA 504. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 373 Detective Fiction
The origins and development of the detective and crime genres in England and America. Rzepka. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 377 Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
Prereq: consent of instructor. A study of the major writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Explores how they proclaimed a renewal of racial consciousness and cultural pride, and how they challenged racial and cultural barriers in American society. Also offered as CAS AA 507. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 380 Twentieth-Century African American Novel
Topic for Spring 2010: Twentieth-Century African American Novel. Major works from the Harlem Renaissance, Realism, Modernism, the Black Arts Movement, and the contemporary period. Authors include Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, John Wideman, and Toni Morrison. Also offered as CAS AA 502 A1. 4 cr, Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 401, 402 Senior Independent Work
Prereq: approval of Honors Committee. 4 cr each, 1st & 2nd sem.
CAS EN 404 Literary Criticism I
Survey of major philosophical discussions of literature from ancient Greece to the late nineteenth century. Figures include Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche. Themes include art’s relation to truth, ethics, and politics; interpretation; aesthetic judgment; the sublime. Patterson. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 406 Literary Criticism II
Survey of literary critical perspectives and trends in humanistic theory relevant to literary interpretation from the middle of the twentieth century onward, including formalism, structuralism, post-structuralism, gender studies, new historicism, and post-colonial studies. Frequent writing assignments of varying length. Riquelme. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 466 Critical Studies in Literature and Society
Two topics are offered for Fall 2009. Students may take one or both for credit. Section B1: Family Trouble: Contesting Kinship in Theory and Literature. Exploration of theories of family, gender, and sexuality from ancient Greece to current gay marriage debates, concluding with the analysis of recent experiments in family narrative, including novels, graphic novels and film. Section C1: (Post?) Feminisms, Secularism, and the Sacred. How does feminist thought and art engage secularity, religion, and faith? Current debates on religious fundamentalism, transnationalism, imperialism, and movements for gender justice around the globe. Readings include feminist theories and creative engagements with the Bible, Koran, other sacred texts. Murphy, Preston. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 482 Critical Studies in Modern Literature
Topic for Spring 2010: The Sixties in Fiction and Theory. Examination of some of the most influential literary and theoretical texts of the 1960s. Topics include interpretation, language, metafiction, postmodernism, and multiculturalism. Authors include Pynchon, Barth, Morrison, Bellow, Sontag, Derrida, and Foucault. Chodat. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 486 Critical Studies in Anglophone Literature
Topic for Fall 2009: Introduction to the Postcolonial Novel. A survey of novels written in Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia in the twentieth century. Writers likely to be read include Rushdie, Kincaid, Naipaul, Rhys, Achebe, Farah, Toer, Coetzee. Krishnan. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 491, 492 Independent Study
Prereq: consent of instructor, department, and CAS Room 105. Senior concentrators only. Application forms available in CAS Room 105. Variable cr, 1st & 2nd sem.
CAS EN 494 Critical Studies in Literature and the Arts
Two topics are offered 2009/2010. Students may take one or both for credit. Topic for Fall 2009: Poetry and Visual Arts. Shared movements, theories and techniques; international modernism and the New York avant-garde; collaborations and exchanges; poems and poets on painting; word/image rivalries and distinctions; Williams, Moore, Stevens, Steins, O’Hara, Ashbery, Graham, others; lots of slides. Topic for Spring 2010: Music and Poetry. An historical survey of the relations between the two arts from the Greeks to the present. Discussions of poetry in many languages; emphasis on English. Chant, song, madrigal, opera, and other forms. Ability to read music is required. Costello, Winn. 4 cr, 1st & 2nd sem.
CAS EN 495 Critical Studies in Literary Topics
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 496 Critical Studies in Literary Topics
Two topics are offered Spring 2010. Students may take one or both for credit. Section A1: The Question of the Real in Fiction and Film. Explores questions of the “real”—or probable, natural, and familiar—and the “strange”—or unreal, fantastic, and uncanny—in fiction by Chekhov, Poe, Tolstoy, and Kafka and films by German Expressionist and Italian Neorealist directors. Section B1: Animals and Literature since 1800. How can we cast ourselves into the inner lives of alien creatures, from amoebas to elephants? Considers animals in literature and film, and tracks theoretical shifts in the category of animal. Authors include Byron, Hardy, Darwin, Woolf, and Kafka. Brown, Henchman. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 521, 522 Literature of the Middle Ages
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 523 Literature of the Renaissance I
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 524 Literature of the Renaissance II
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 525 Literature of the Seventeenth Century I
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 526 Literature of the Seventeenth Century II
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 527 Literature of the Eighteenth Century
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 529, 530 The Romantic Age
Studies in British literature from 1789 to 1832. Romanticism considered in light of social, aesthetic, historical, and philosophical issues. Authors may include Blake, Burke, Wollstonecraft, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Godwin, Byron, Cobbett, Scott, Clare, Mary and Percy Shelley, Keats, De Quincey, and Hazlitt. TBA. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 531, 532 Victorian Literature
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 533 American Literature: Beginnings to 1855
American literature from the beginning to the brink of the Civil War. Puritan origins, print culture, American poetic taste, entertainment, and the debate over slavery. Works by Bradstreet, Jefferson, Franklin, Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, Stowe, Jacobs, and Melville. Howell. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 534 American Literature: 1855 to 1918
American literature from the Civil War to WWI. Realism and naturalism; race, class, and urbanization; marriage and the new woman. Alger, Twain, James, Harper, Howells, Crane, Norris, Dreiser, Wharton, Dickinson, Frost. Jarrett. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 535 Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry
Close reading of balladic, lyric, and longer poems by Hardy, Yeats, Lawrence, Auden, Rosenberg, Mew, Loy, MacDiarmid, Gurney, Douglas, Larkin, Hill, Harrison, Prynne, others. Poets’ essays and opposed schools and approaches. Reference to other arts, and times of political tragedy. Fogel. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 536 Twentieth-Century American Poetry
Study of five or six poets from the following: Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Williams, Moore, Frost, Lowell, Bishop, Berryman, Ammons, Ashbery, Plath, Ginsberg, Merrill. Costello. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 542 The Rise of the Novel
The development of prose fiction in England through the eighteenth century. Major themes and genres in works by Behn, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollet, Lennox, Austen, and Sterne. Prince. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 543 The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
The development of the novel form in its social-historical context. Authors may include Austen, Thackeray, the Brontës, Dickens, George Eliot, Hardy, and others. Brown. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 544 The Modern British Novel
Conrad, Woolf, Lawrence, Ford, Forster, Beckett, and other novelists of the period 1895–1956. Fogel. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 545 The Nineteenth-Century American Novel
From beginnings through the nineteenth century. Works by Brown, Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, James, Howells, and others. Van Anglen. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 546 The Modern American Novel
From 1900 to 1950. Works by Dreiser, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and others. Mizruchi. 4 cr, 1st sem. Matthews, Van Anglen. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 547 Contemporary American Fiction
Syllabus varies from semester to semester but this course may be taken only once for credit. Topic for Spring 2010: Examination of a range of American fiction (stories, novellas, novels) written since WW II. Authors include Bellow, Roth, Ozick, Pynchon, DeLillo, Morrison. Topics include modern disenchantment, faith and science, “world-making,” and the fate of character. Chodat, Mizruchi. 4 cr, either sem.
CAS EN 551 English Drama to 1590
Mystery, Morality, Interludes, and the first rollicking public-stage plays. Piety, blasphemy, scatological humor, horrific violence, trans-gendering, black magic, bad verse, and politically incorrect fun, from Anonymous to early Shakespeare, including the bad-boy playwrights of London’s first mass-entertainment industry. Appleford. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 552 English Drama from 1590 to 1642
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 553 Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama
English drama from the Restoration (1660) to the Licensing Act (1737). Operas, rhymed plays, sex comedies, tragicomedies, ballad operas. Works by Dryden, Behn, Wycherley, Etherege, Otway, Shadwell, Southerne, Lee, Congreve, Farquhar, Addison, Gay, Fielding. Winn. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 561 Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
Studied as literary exploration of old hierarchies and new economies. Chaucer’s poetic sense of personal engagements, social disruptions, and spiritual challenges. Levine. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 565 Spenser
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 566 Milton
Careful exploration of Milton’s powerful poetry (including Paradise Lost) and stunning prose in the revolutionary political and social context of the seventeenth century. Issues include “regicide,” gender, colonialism, religion, political slavery, and the public sphere. Murphy. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 568 Studies in British Literature
Two topics are offered 2009/2010. Students may take one or both for credit. Topic for Fall 2009: Middlemarch in Context. A close reading of George Eliot’s masterpiece in the context of Victorian political, religious, philosophical, and artistic controversy. Topic for Spring 2010: Modern British and Irish Poetry. An exploration of major poets of the long twentieth century, from Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats through the War Poets, Eliot, Loy, Auden, and Lawrence to Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and Paul Muldoon. Brown, Riquelme. 4 cr, 1st & 2nd sem.
CAS EN 571 Studies in American Literary Movements
Topic for Fall 2009: American Renaissance Poetry. Poetry by Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, Poe, Melville, and others from 1820 to 1875. Patterson. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 574 Studies in Literary Genres
Topic for Fall 2009: Eccentric Moderns. Examination of poets David Jones, Laura Riding, Hart Crane, Auden, Hill, and Anne Carson in the light of Modernism. Pluralist model of Modernisms emerges. Course combines practical criticism, literary and cultural history, integrating formal analysis and historical context. Warren. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 576 Studies in Literature and Gender
Topic for Spring 2010: Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers. Hawthorne’s “damned mob of scribbling women” in historical/cultural context. Gender, genre, authorship, sexuality, class, race, shifts in critical approaches. Foster, Stowe, Warner, Fern, Southworth, Davis, Jewett, Hopkins. Korobkin. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 578 Studies in British Writers
Topic for Spring 2010: Jane Austen in Context. Investigates the question of tradition and the individual talent in Austen’s fiction by reading what she read. Exploration of such writers as Johnson and Burney highlights the distinctive contours of both her masterpieces and her juvenilia. Redford. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 579 Studies in American Writers
Two topics are offered Fall 2009. Students may take one or both for credit. Section A1: Moore, Bishop, and Plath. Through analysis of these major 20th century women poets, a shift from modernism to postmodernism is explored. Topics include: literary friendship and influence; gender and sexuality; relations between the arts; theory and practice of lyric; poets’ prose. Section B1: Faulkner. Faulkner’s major novels and short stories, studied in the contexts of Southern literature and history, American and transatlantic modernism, and his global influence. Costello, Matthews. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 582 Studies in Modern Literature
Two topics are offered 2009/2010. Students may take one or both for credit. Topic for Fall 2009: Joyce and After. Readings in transatlantic modernism (Irish, British, American) from 1922 forward. Joyce’s Ulysses is central. Other readings from authors such as Elizabeth Bishop, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Virginia Woolf, and W.B. Yeats. Topic for Spring 2010: Fictions of the Fifties. Exploration of major fiction written between the end of WWII and the death of JFK. Topics include reactions to literary Modernism, the Cold War, Existentialism, the “lonely crowd.” Authors include Ellison, Bellow, O’Connor, Kerouac, Mailer, Baldwin. Riquelme, Chodat. 4 cr, 1st & 2nd sem.
CAS EN 584 Studies in Literature and Ethnicity
Topic for Fall 2009: Literature of the Migrant. Primary focus on the experiences of immigration and exile, with reading also of fiction on other kinds of human migrations. Works by Willa Cather, O.E. Rölvaag, Nabokov, V.S. Naipaul, Shusaku Endo, and contemporary authors. Ha Jin. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 586 Studies in Anglophone Literature
Two topics are offered Spring 2010. Students may take either or both for credit. Topic for Section A1: Caribbean Fiction. Modern Caribbean fiction written in English, with attention to cultural and political background. Authors such as Sam Selvon, V. S. Naipaul, Earl Lovelace, Robert Antoni (Trinidad); Wilson Harris, Pauline Melville (Guyana); Roger Mais, Olive Senior (Jamaica); Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua). Breiner. 4 cr, 2nd sem. Topic for Section B1: Postcolonial Theater. The emergence of a national theater movement as a feature of decolonization. “Writing back” to traditions in world-class Anglophone dramatists from Ireland (Gregory, Synge, Yeats), Trinidad (Walcott, Matura, Lovelace), Nigeria (Soyinka, Ladipo), and South Africa (Fugard and “township theater”). Also offered as CAS AA 537. Breiner. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS EN 587 Studies in African American Literature
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 590 Studies in Comparative Literature
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 594 Studies in Literature and the Arts
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS EN 595 Studies in Literary Topics
Topic for Fall 2009: American Dream. The powerful narratives that construct, and challenge, the myth that every American can achieve material success and self-realization unobstructed by class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Crevecoeur, Douglass, Alger, Crane, Norris, Cather, Fitzgerald. Korobkin. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS EN 596 Studies in Literary Topics
Topic for Fall 2009: The Cinema of David Lynch. Intensive study of Lynch’s films, informed by readings in literature and Freudian psychoanalysis. Topics include: the logic of dreams, forms of evil, the death drive, and small-town America. Weekly screenings. Monk. 4 cr, 1st sem.
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