Duquesne University



ENGLISH DEPARTMENTUNDERGRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONSFall and Summer 2014Table of Contents:Introductory Genre Courses2English 300W4Literature Survey Courses5300-level Literature Courses6Writing Courses7400-level Literature Courses9Summer Courses11Students enrolling at Duquesne in Fall 2013 must complete the new 36 credit English major. Students who declared an English major prior to Fall 2013 may choose to fulfill either the old or the new English major (discuss the choice with your faculty mentor).English majors must meet with faculty mentors. Mentors have all forms necessary for resigration and they will be submitted electronically to your advisor and email-copied to you.All majors are required to complete ENGL 300W and three survey courses. All English majors must complete ENGL 300W before then can take any 400-level English class.Some 400-level courses satisfy more than one requirement, but students in the old major must choose to meet each requirement with a different course, with the exception of the Diversity and Literature requirement.In addition to the concentration requirements, English Education students must also complete requirements in World Literature and History and Structure of English Language.For more information, see Dr. Kathy Glass, Undergraduate Director of English (x1424; glassk@duq.edu).INTRODUCTORY GENRE COURSESENGL 101-01 (CRN 14584)MWF 12:00 – 12:50pm Multi-Genre Creative WritingAva CipriThere are many different ways to write creatively—stories, poems, even essays—but the skills needed to write well in any of these forms share more in common than most people assume. This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of creative writing forms— poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction—by examining various craft elements (character, voice, point of view, setting, etc.) and trying to understand how the lessons learned about these in one genre can be helpful when trying to write in another. Students will be required to read texts by published authors to discuss how and why they work; students will also write, read aloud, and workshop their own work in a supportive and constructively critical environment. Each student will work toward putting together a polished portfolio consisting of examples of each genre and attend readings. This course is a Creative Arts Theme Area course for the University Core Curriculum.ENGL 101-02 (CRN 17941)TTH 10:50 – 12:05pmMulti-Genre Creative WritingStaffThere are many different ways to write creatively—stories, poems, even essays—but the skills needed to write well in any of these forms share more in common than most people assume. This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of creative writing forms— poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction—by examining various craft elements (character, voice, point of view, setting, etc.) and trying to understand how the lessons learned about these in one genre can be helpful when trying to write in another. Students will be required to read texts by published authors to discuss how and why they work; students will also write, read aloud, and workshop their own work in a supportive and constructively critical environment. Each student will work toward putting together a polished portfolio consisting of examples of each genre and attend readings. This course is a Creative Arts Theme Area course for the University Core Curriculum.ENGL 201-01 (CRN 10526)MWF 10:00 – 10:50amIntroduction to FictionStaffIn this course we will read short stories and novels by women and men from diverse backgrounds. We will explore the short story and novel genres by examining the elements of fiction in each, reading commentaries on the art of writing fiction, viewing film adaptations of the stories and novels, considering the viewpoints of literary critics on the stories and novels, and writing critically about the fiction.ENGL 201-02 (CRN 19026)TTH 1:40 – 2:55pmIntroduction to FictionMatt DurkinIn this course we will read short stories and novels from a range of different literary genres, geographic locales, and historical temporalities. We will address questions of literary composition, the art of storytelling in relation to literary genre, how cinematic adaptation adjusts and rewrites narrative, the viewpoints of literary critics on the stories and novels, and writing critically about fiction.ENGL 203-01 (CRN 16921)TTH 12:15 – 1:30pmIntroduction to DramaJohn LaneThe student will learn how to read and analyze a play. The course will introduce the student to a variety of genres and styles from the classics to the modern concentrating on different types and styles of comedy. Plays will include Lysistrata, The Haunted House, Tartuffe, Waiting for Godot, The Taming of the Shrew, and others. The course is a requirement of Theater Arts majors and minors.ENGL 204-01 (CRN 10530)MWF 12:00 – 12:50pmLiterature and Popular MusicTom KinnahanIn this course students will examine how a variety of writers and filmmakers have represented and responded to American popular music from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with slave songs and their adaptation by America’s first hit songwriter, Pittsburgh’s own Stephen Foster, students will examine the aesthetic and social dimensions of popular music, trace its power to both shape and reflect social vision, and survey the uses to which it has been put in literature and film.ENGL 205-61 (CRN 14585)T 5:00 – 9:00pmIntroduction to FilmJudy SuhThis course will introduce you to the vocabulary and techniques of filmmaking, from cinematography to editing to sound to acting in order to enrich your appreciation and understanding of film. Units will include cinematography; writing; mise-en-scene; genres; sound; and actors. We will also study important movements in film history and theory as the semester proceeds. The course will require regular participation, readings from one or two textbooks and essays on reserve, and occasional additional viewings at the library. Exams and writing assignments will enable you to develop skills in film analysis, review writing, and academic essay reading and writing. Sessions will be devoted to viewings, lecture, and discussion. Assignments include: essays, midterm exam, final exam, regular participation, quizzes.ENGL 230-01 (CRN 19025)MW 3:00 – 4:15pmReligion and Literature in AfricaEmad MirmotahariThis course explores the role of Christianity and Islam in sub-Saharan Africa in colonial and postcolonial contexts. We will engage the following questions: are Christianity and Islam African religions? How did Europeans use Christianity as a tool of colonial domination? How did those Africans who adopted Christianity use it against colonialism? How was Islam used by colonial powers? How was it used against them? What is the nature of the relationship between Christianity, Islam, and indigenous African religions? What role has religion played in the development of national consciousness in sub-Saharan Africa in the twentieth century? How does fiction imagine, stage, and shape the place of religion in sub-Saharan Africa? Fulfills Global and Diversity requirements. Cross-listed with WDLI 237.ENGLISH 300WRequired of all English majors and minors and a prerequisite to all 400-level courses.ENGL 300W-01 (CRN 10539)MWF 11:00 – 11:50amCritical Issues in Literary StudiesGreg BarnhiselThis course is intended to provide students with the skills necessary for English majors:??critical reading of literary texts, critical reading of scholarly sources, understanding of different approaches to the analysis of literary texts, and basic research skills. Each unit will be divided into three sections: 1) discussion of the text itself, 2) discussion of and research into the text’s historical or biographical context, and 3) discussion of and research into the critical commentary about the text. In addition, some class time and short assignments will focus on learning how to use the resources available to students of literature such as print and electronic data bases and bibliographies. Students will produce two précis, two short papers and one final project, which they will present to the class. The texts for this class will be Dickinson's poetry; Faulkner's?Absalom, Absalom!;?poems by Frost, Stevens, Moore, Millay, and Williams; selected postwar short stories including James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," Bobbie Ann Mason's "Shiloh," and Lorrie Moore's "People Like That are the Only People Here," and George Saunders' "Sea Oak"; and?Junot Diaz's?The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This course is a requirement for ALL English majors.ENGL 300W-02 (CRN 10540)TTH 9:25 – 10:40amCritical Issues in Literary StudiesFaith BarrettThis course will offer students an introduction to the practice of literary criticism, combining close analysis of primary texts with analysis and discussion of scholarly essays representing a range of critical perspectives. In addition to reading both primary and secondary texts, students will also propose, draft, and revise their own critical essays, developing skills which will prove essential in upper-division English classes. The course will introduce students to the methods of scholarly research, including current critical and theoretical approaches in literary studies. This course is a requirement for ALL English majors.LITERATURE SURVEYSThe following courses fulfill English major survey requirements.ENGL 317W-01 (CRN 18814)MW 3:00 – 4:15 pm Survey of British Literature IAnthony AdamsThis course will introduce students to medieval and early modern British literature, ranging from Old English poetry and Arthurian romance to the drama, verse, and prose of the seventeenth century, as well as a glance at Irish, Welsh, and Icelandic literature. Topics will include warfare, love, chivalry, myth, melancholy, and the occult.?ENGL 318W-01 (CRN 18815)TTH 9:25 – 10:40amSurvey of British Literature IIJo SullivanThis course will survey British literature in the major genres (poetry, essay, novel, and drama) from the late eighteenth century to the present. In closely reading individual works, we will study important practices and revisions of literary tradition and form. We will also keep one eye toward writers' common practices to group them into the following literary "movements": Romantic, Victorian, modernist, and postmodern. Studying the works in the context of these movements will allow us to perceive the writers' broader literary representations of the ever-shifting British national imagination, especially with regard to the historical and cultural themes of class, race, and gender. The broadest goal of the course, however, is to listen to the writers' conversations—and disagreements—across and within movements. The course will enable you to employ literary terms associated with modern British literature, analyze literature in its historical context, form theories about the study of literature in national and international frameworks, and analyze texts closely. Frequent writing workshops will also develop your practice of essay writing.?Requirements include regular class participation, quizzes, exams, and essays of various lengths.??ENGL 319W-01 (CRN 18816)TTH 1:40 – 2:55pmSurvey of American Literature IByron WilliamsThis course offers an introduction to American literature from the early colonial period through the Civil War. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which authors not only reflected various notions of American identity but also shaped national identity by fostering cultural independence from Europe and emphasizing the distinctiveness of America’s history, native peoples, and landscapes. The course will also examine how?issues of gender, race, and class influenced the dynamic literary expressions of a diverse and expanding nation. Readings will include works by Mary Rowlandson, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson, among others. Regular writing assignments will encourage students to think critically and make connections across numerous genres, literary movements, and historical periods.ENGL 320W-01 (CRN 18817)TTH 9:25 – 10:40amSurvey of American Literature IIKathy GlassThis course will introduce students to a range of literary works produced by American authors from 1865 to the present. Particularly interested in the development of literary movements, and questions of national identity and social justice, the course will consider how a representative group of texts intervened in important literary, social, and political concerns unique to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our reading list will include canonical and non-canonical works by such authors as Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, W.E.B. Du Bois, Kate Chopin, Arthur Miller, and others. Writing assignments will provide students with an opportunity to develop their critical thinking and writing skills. In addition to discussing assigned texts, we will also watch films and do group-based work.ENGL 322W-01 (CRN 18931)MWF 10:00 – 10:50amGlobal Literature SurveyEmad MirmotahariThe question “Is world literature an inventory, a survey of foreign/non-domestic literatures?” will be answered in the negative in this course. Instead, we will explore world literature as a set of active critical practices that call attention to the frameworks and categories of reading. Selected texts will invite the reader to engage the various definitions, conceptions, and uses of the very idea of “world.” Selected texts include Moacyr Scliar’s Centaur in the Garden (Brazil), Mohammad Naseehu Ali’s Prophet of Zongo Street (Ghana), Lafcadio Hearn’s Chita (USA), Marjan Satrapi’s Persepolis (Iran), Caryl Phillips’ Crossing the River (England), and Guillermo Verdecchia’s Fronteras Americanas (Argentina). Cross-listed with WDLI 324W.300-LEVEL LITERATURE COURSESENGL 306W-01 (CRN 17930)TTH 3:05 – 4:20pmQueer DramaJohn LaneThis course will combine textual analysis of plays with a consideration of queer performance practice and production. We will study what makes a work queer, the audience that the work is aimed at, and the success of queer works from small target audiences to widespread, global recognition. We will look at historical queer authors and how their “straight” works can contain hidden gay messages. We will analyze how the play’s structure and form help to deliver its content and how specific productions facilitate the play’s success. We will also look at gender/sexuality/race and other complex identity categories and address whether we can assume that the identity of the playwright is a sufficient (or even partial) lens through which to ask questions. We’ll consider our own biases to help us better pose questions about how identity frames the creation and reception of a performance/play text.We will study why it is useful to look at theatre and performance through the lens of sexual identity and how the commercial theatre has embraced gay and lesbian work and the class will read a select history of LGBTQ theatre from the early 20th century through today. We will look at how these works affect modern critical issues (gays in the military, gay marriage, debates over adoption for gay families, and citizenship for queer internationals) in a heteronormative culture.ENGL 308-91(CRN 10548)TBA Pittsburgh FilmmakersKathy GlassCourse descriptions are available at . Brochures will be available on the shelf outside the English Department (637 College Hall). ENGL 310W-01 (CRN 18933)M 5:00 – 9:00pmScience Fiction FilmAnthony AdamsThis course will introduce students to the central myth of the modern age: science fiction and fantasy. We will examine a very wide range of sf films, television, and other media (comics, anime, fanfic), in an effort to understand what sf is, what it has been, what it is trying to comprehend, and what it is struggling toward. We will attempt to grasp the entirety of the 20th and 21st centuries, and will combine analysis of sf film and television with cultural studies and new media studies. Topics for the course will include pre-WWII sf film, Atomica, the Cold War and the Space Race, aliens and robots, 70s, 80s, and 90s sf, post-9/11 sf, special effects, sound, Japanese sf, blockbusters and the marketing of sf, fandom, sf in video games, and found footage. The course presupposes no previous background in film studies, but students will be expected to learn the basics of the language of film, including mise-en-scène, editing, production, genre, and sound. In addition to weekly film viewings, students are expected to view additional film and video footage, read historical and cultural materials, and reflect upon them all.? Note: This course is entirely different from, and thus complementary with, ENGL 211: ‘Science Fiction’. Also note: this is a Writing Intensive course.WRITING COURSESENGL 302W-01 (CRN 10544)TTH 9:25 – 10:40amENGL 302W-02 (CRN 10545)TTH 10:50 – 12:05pmENGL 302W-03 (CRN 14871)TTH 1:40 – 2:55pmENGL 302W-04 (CRN 17531)TTH 3:05 – 4:20pmScience WritingKristin KlucevsekIn this course, students write a scientific review that is suitable for publication in an academic journal. Students will learn how to find, read, analyze, paraphrase, and cite information from primary research articles for this review article. Students will also gain valuable experience in editing the science writing of their peers. Several of these exercises mirror the process of writing and publishing journal articles in the sciences. A secondary goal of this course is to survey a range of other forms of scientific communication, including grant proposals and news articles. Although being a science major is not a requirement for this course, this course has been designed for science undergraduate students in their sophomore and junior year. To be successful, you must be willing to work through primary resources and data. Fulfills a Writing Concentration requirement.ENGL 330W-01 (CRN 18818)MW 3:00 – 4:15pmFiction Workshop IJohn FriedThis course is a workshop for students interested in fiction writing. In order to develop their creative writing potential, students in this course must be committed to careful reading, extensive writing, active participation in class, and regular attendance. The course aims to develop the students’ reading as well as writing skills, for in reading well one learns much about writing. Through reading the writing of their classmates carefully and responding to them thoughtfully, students will contribute significantly to their classmates’ improvement while also learning something about the craft of good writing.ENGL 330W-02 (CRN 18819)TTH 1:40 – 2:55pmFiction Workshop IMagali MichaelThis course is designed as a workshop in which students will work to develop their imaginative writing and critical skills. Students taking this course must be committed to extensive writing, careful reading, active participation in class, and extremely regular attendance. Much of the class time will be spent discussing one another’s writing; as a workshop focused on writing as a process, substantial writing, revision, and group critique will be expected.?In addition, students will be reading and discussing published fiction, since in learning to read well one learns much about writing.ENGL 331W-03 (CRN 18820)TTH 12:15 – 1:30pmPoetry Workshop IFaith BarrettENGL 400W-01 (CRN 15988)TTH 12:15 – 1:30pmPoetry Workshop IIFaith BarrettENGL 404W-01 (CRN 15989)TTH 12:15 – 1:30pmPoetry Workshop IIIFaith BarrettENGL 464W-02 (CRN 15990)TTH 12:15 – 1:30pmPoetry Workshop IVFaith BarrettThis course will provide you with the opportunity to develop your skills and experience in writing poetry. Through a series of structured assignments, both individual and collaborative, you’ll experiment with a variety of poetic forms and writing methods. As a class, we’ll aim to develop a shared vocabulary for discussing the architecture, language, and voice of the poems you are writing. Students will be required to write new work for the class each week and will also be required to take part in writing collaborative class poems. Between class sessions, you’ll read and respond to one another’s poems, as well as reading work by published poets. Group discussion of poems written by members of the class will enable writers at all levels of experience to improve their work and recognize the strengths of their approaches; these discussions will also help you develop your ability to respond in specific and helpful terms to other writers. Assignments for the class will include weekly individually-authored poems, as well as two final projects: the first, a collection of published work that you admire and the second, a collection of your own poems. 400-LEVEL LITERATURE COURSESENGL 300W Critical Issues in Literary Studies is the prerequisite for all 400-level literature courses.ENGL 406W-01 (CRN 17931)MWF 11:00 – 11:50pmMedieval RomanceSarah Breckenridge WrightEngland faced intense multiculturalism after the Norman Conquest: Saxon and Celtic traditions jostled with Norman and French literary models, ultimately instigating an English literary renaissance that was defined in large part by romance. In the beginning, these romances attempted to satisfy the common desire for a readable national past, an authorizing foundation myth, and a satisfying fantasy of gender relations. By the fifteenth century, romance acquired new significance in promising to preserve old values of high chivalry and orthodox piety against the dangers of theological and political innovation. This class will examine both traditions, while also considering critical issues such as class irritation, the medieval desire for origins, and the limits of the romance genre (which intersected with history, epic, saints’ lives, and folktale). We will also consider medieval chivalry and courtly love in literature and thought. Selections from women writers, the Arthurian legends, and the Auchinlek Manuscript (among others) will be read in Middle English, but no prior knowledge of it will be assumed. Old Major: Fulfills the 400-level British literature requirement. New Major: Fulfills the pre-1700 Historical requirement; the British Cultural requirement, and the Poetry Genre requirement.ENGL 415W-01 (CRN 18826)TTH 12:15 – 1:30pmJane Austen & Fan FictionSue HowardJane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice (1813), has more fans today than ever before. We can see this in the many sequels, continuations, and rewritings that are in print, or that occur within online Jane Austen fan fiction communities. Many of these responses to Austen’s novel are in novel form and include fantasies (like Steve Hockensmith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies series) and mysteries (such as P. D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley), as well as below-stairs stories (Jo Baker’s Longbourn) and contemporary romances (Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones series). Online writings tend to be shorter: chapters, letters, diary entries, etc. In this new fiction, Austen’s plot and characters are either followed closely or only loosely, and often in order to play out various imagined scenarios, “what-ifs” that Austen’s novel may not even have suggested. This course explores the cult of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by examining Austen’s novel and some of the fiction written by its fans in order to consider how Austen’s novel is used by fans and why it has inspired such an enthusiastic following. Students will do several presentations and write three papers, one on Pride and Prejudice, one on a published sequel or continuation, and one a participation in one of the established online Austen fan fiction communities. Old Major: Fulfills the 400-level Literature and Diversity requirement. New Major: Fulfills the Prose Genre requirement.ENGL 426W-01 (CRN 18828)MW 3:00 – 4:15pm19th Century American LiteratureTom KinnahanThe course will offer a survey of major American novels and short stories from the nineteenth century, with particular attention to the romantic and realist movements. Featured authors will likely include James Fennimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and Charles W. Chesnutt. Old Major: Fulfills the 400-level American literature requirement. New major: Fulfills the 1700-1900 Historical requirement; the American Cultural requirement, and the Prose Genre requirement.ENGL 433-62 (19188)M 6:00-8:40pmHistory and Structure of the English LanguageSarah Breckenridge WrightHow does “The horse raced past the barn fell” function as a grammatically-correct sentence? Where do the nine pronunciations of the combination ‘ough’ come from? Why do we spell the word receipt with a ‘p’? This course provides an accessible overview of the English language from its earliest beginnings as an inflected Germanic language to the present day, in an attempt to answer questions like these. By reading selections from texts including Beowulf, Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, and Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, we will examine ways in which culture, political power, and geography profoundly affect spelling, grammar, and pronunciation. We will also consider English’s aggressive word-borrowing from other languages, longstanding debates over what constitutes ‘standard’ English, the impact of ‘official’ language guides (such as grammars and dictionaries), and the influence of recent technologies on the way we communicate. Old and new major: Fulfills the Linguistics/Grammar requirement for English Education students.ENGL 434W (CRN 18829)TTH 1:40 – 2:55pmLiterary TheoryFaith BarrettIn this class, we’ll consider some of the key theoretical movements of the twentieth century: structuralism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, Marxism, critical race theory, postcolonial theory, gender studies, and queer theory. Any one of these theoretical schools could comprise an entire course; this particular class, however, will offer you an overview of these critical developments. As we work our way through these theoretical movements, we’ll want to consider points of overlap and disjunction between and among these theorists, tracing lines of influence, response, and rebellion. A crucial component of any critical theory method is the process of calling into question fundamental frameworks. Our own task as readers then will be to consider the ways that these thinkers unsettle narratives of foundational unity and continuity.The phrase “literary theory” might seem to suggest literary criticism, a primary activity of literary scholars. In this context, however, the term “literary theory” extends beyond the parameters of literary analysis to suggest a process of thinking about thinking. In some ways the phrase “literary theory” is interchangeable with the phrase “philosophy of literature,” provided that we think of “philosophy” as a field that draws our attention to “representation” and if we think of “literature” as including a broad range of cultural practices, extending well beyond the kinds of texts we might designate as “novels,” “poems,” or “stories.” Our readings will thus lead us to interrogate disciplinary boundaries, including the boundaries of literary studies. Old major: Fulfills the 400-level Literature and Diversity requirement. ENGL 443W-01 (CRN 18830)TTH 10:50 – 12:05pm20th and 21st Century Irish LiteratureMichael BegnalOne typical way of viewing Irish literature is through the lens of “the nation,” and in this course that lens will provide a useful starting point. How did writers in the early part of the 20th century, such as modernists W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Flann O’Brien, construct and/or react to versions of Irishness and the Irish nation? Is it possible to trace a line in poetic Irish cultural nationalism from Yeats to Patrick Kavanagh to Seamus Heaney? Where does a postmodern figure like Samuel Beckett fit in? What about women writers, such as Edna O’Brien, Eavan Boland, or Catherine Walsh? Further, this course will take up writers who have responded to the only recently ended “Troubles” in the North of Ireland and explore how violence and military occupation have shaped conceptions (in literature) of the two Irish states. As the South emerges from a recent cycle of economic boom and bust, does the framework of the nation even still hold for Irish writers in the 21st century? Exploring these and other questions, this course will place canonical works in conversation with the non-canonical. Additionally, we will consider literature in the Irish (Gaelic) language, which we will approach through translation. Students in the course will read across the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama and will engage with critical secondary sources. Old major: Fulfills the 400-level British literature requirement and the Literature and Diversity requirement. New major: Fulfills the post-1900 Historical requirment and the British Cultural requirement. ENGL 468W-01 (CRN 18831)MWF 12:00 – 12:50pmThe Postcolonial EpicEmad MirmotahariSalman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Ben Okri’s Famished Road are three of the most influential novels written in the twentieth century, and certainly the three most influential long novels in those conditions/spaces that are called the “third world,” the “periphery,” the “postcolony”, etc. This course will take a sustained and in-depth approach to the three novels, the literary traditions that inform them, as well as the wider critical and intellectual conversations that have grown around them.?Old major: Fulfills the World Literature requirement for English Education students and the 400-level Literature and Diversity requirement. New major: Fulfills the post-1900 Historical requirement; the Non-British/American or writers from minority/marginalized communities requirement and the Prose Genre requirement. Fulfills the World Literature requirement for English Education students.Summer CoursesENGL 203-01 (CRN 32434)MTWTHF 1:00 – 3:55pmIntroduction to DramaMay 12th – May 31st John LaneThe student will learn how to read and analyze a play. The course will introduce the student to a variety of genres and styles from the classics to the modern concentrating on different types and styles of comedy. Plays will include Lysistrata, The Haunted House, Tartuffe, Waiting for Godot, The Taming of the Shrew, and others. The course is a requirement for Theater Arts majors and minors.ENGL 217W-01 (CRN 32127)MWF 9:00 – 12:25pmSurvey of British Literature IMay 12th – June 7thStuart KurlandFocused on the theme of Love and Death in British literature from the late middle ages through the eighteenth century, this four-week survey examines selected classic works; conventions of literary forms like epic, narrative poetry, the sonnet, and drama; and historical, cultural, and literary contexts that may be helpful for appreciating these works. Class sessions will be organized around discussion. Course requirements will include regular attendance, active and helpful participation in class discussion, one or more group projects or presentations, and several brief analytical essays. Fulfills the English major survey requirement in British literature and the School of Education requirement in earlier British literature.ENGL 406W-61 (CRN 32729)MW 5:00-8:30pmOld English Literature and Poetics of NostalgiaMay 12th – June 21st Anthony AdamsIs it possible to long for an era we have never experienced? Can modern readers ‘get’ an archaic masterpiece such as Beowulf? Can the Old English Seafarer, beloved by Pound, Tolkien, and Edwin Morgan, be successfully connected to the Mississippi blues? This course will attempt to answer these questions, as well as serve as an introduction to early medieval literature and culture, particularly Old English heroic literature; but we will also examine issues of reception, cultural history, and the use to which such literary and cultural artifacts have been put by contemporary poets and writers. The course will engage with memory studies, invented traditions, nostalgia, haunting, and translation theory. Texts will include Old English prose and poetry, John Gardner’s Grendel, Basil Bunting’s Briggflatts, Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns, Seamus Heaney’s North, William Morris, Edwin Morgan, W. H. Auden, and Thom Gunn, and may include some medieval Irish, Welsh, and Icelandic texts. We will also consider cinematic and graphic adaptations and interpretations of ‘Dark Age’ culture. Old major: Fulfills the 400-level British literature requirement. New major: Fulfills the British Cultural requirement and the pre-1700 Historical requirement. No knowledge of Old English required. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download