Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky

Introduction to Literature and Language

ENGL 103

Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors will assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of the department chair. Offered annually in multiple sections.

Introduction to Literature and Language

ENGL 104

Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors will assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of department chair. Offered annually in multiple sections.

Introduction to Literary Theory

ENGL 212

What gives a literary text its meaning? Does a text simply contain meaning, or is that meaning shaped by social contexts, history, even the act of reading itself? Literary theory attempts to answer these questions by examining the ways in which we interpret the texts we read. This course will introduce students to some of the most important movements in literary theory over the last century with a particular focus on structuralism and poststructuralism, Marxism, feminism, deconstruction and postcolonialism. In addition, we will read short stories and two or three novels to develop our skills at reading and writing with theory. This course meets the approaches to literary study requirement. Autobiographical writing allows us to study the complicated cultural and personal dynamics of self-making, as individual authors define (and show themselves to have been defined by) their sociohistorical circumstances. How do writers confront or capitalize on such intersections of the personal and the historical? How and why do autobiographers translate life experiences into writing? How do they grapple with elements of experience that are difficult to represent in language? Is truth necessary to — or even possible in —- autobiographical writing? How have writers' gendered, sexualized, classed, raced or geographically located identities shaped the possibilities and purposes of autobiographical narrative? And where is the line between autobiography and biography? In this survey of classic and experimental autobiographical texts, as well as of major developments in autobiographical theory, we will consider broad questions of identity, time and memory, and narrative through close attention to specific works' subjects, structures and histories. Authors may include Augustine, Thomas De Quincey, Harriet Jacobs, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Malcolm X, Maxine Hong Kingston and Art Spiegelman, among others. Students will write two essays and several reading response papers and will lead one class discussion. This counts toward the approaches to literary study or the post-1900 requirement. Open only to first-year and sophomore students. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104.

Texting: Reading like an English Major

ENGL 213

From basic techniques of critical analysis to far-reaching questions about language, literature, culture and aesthetics, this course will introduce students to many of the fundamental issues, methods and skills of the English major. Topics will range from the pragmatic (e.g., how do you scan a poem? what is free indirect discourse? how do you use the MLA bibliography, OED, JSTOR?) to the theoretical (how does a genre evolve in response to different historical conditions? what is the nature of canons and canonicity? why are questions of race, class, gender and sexuality so important to literary and cultural analysis?). Students will be given many hands-on opportunities to practice new skills and analytic techniques and to explore a range of critical and theoretical paradigms, approaches which should serve them well throughout their careers as English majors. Our discussions will focus on representative texts taken from three genres: drama (Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), the novel (Shelley's "Frankenstein", Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway"), and lyric poetry (a variety of poems representing four centuries and several traditions). This counts toward the approaches to literary study requirement. Open only to first-year and sophomore students and is strongly recommended for anyone contemplating an English major. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104.

Studies in Shakespeare

ENGL 220

An introduction to the major plays, this course emphasizes questions of language and modes of reading as the entryway into key themes and topics (e.g., gender, identity, kin/g/ship, desire) within the Shakespearean corpus. An initial in-depth study of a single play will enable us to acquire a base knowledge of rhetorical strategies, considerations of performance and thematic development that we will subsequently apply to our readings of other plays. Assignments reinforce reading and writing strategies. This counts toward the pre-1700 requirement. Open only to first-year and sophomore students who have taken ENGL 103 or 104. Offered annually.

ST:Txtng:Reading Like EnglMajr

ENGL 291

Shakespeare

ENGL 320

Who and what is "Shakespeare"? The wealth of Shakespeare's legacy allows us to offer many versions of this course, all of which will focus on Shakespeare on the page and on the stage. Sometimes this course may examine the role of the cultural "other." Looking at figures like the witch, the native/foreigner, or the cross-dressed woman in such plays as "Macbeth", "Othello"and "The Merchant of Venice", we will explore the way Shakespeare's theater shaped — and was shaped by -- the cultural expectations of the English Renaissance. At other times the course may query the concept of Renaissance self-fashioning in the sonnets and in plays such as "Twelfth Night", "Hamlet", and "Antony and Cleopatra". We may also explore what Shakespeare read as he composed plays such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "King Lear", and "The Tempest" — and how writers since Shakespeare have responded to and re-visioned his work in the form of lyric poems, new plays, novels and films. Now and then, the course may focus on "the history plays," or the relationship of comedy and tragedy to the romances. No matter which version of Shakespeare is offered, a close reading of several of Shakespeare's plays will always shape and center this course. This counts towards the pre-1700 requirement. Prerequisite: junior or senior standing or ENGL 210– 291 or permission of instructor. Offered annually.

17th-century Poetry

ENGL 336

This course will examine the poetry of England's most radical age, a period of revolution, religious dissent and the birth of modern science, of apocalyptic visions and utopian dreams. We will consider how these changing ideas about politics, religion, science and sex shaped the poems of John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, Ben Jonson, George Herbert, Katherine Philips, John Milton, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell and others. This counts toward the pre-1700 requirement. Prerequisite: junior or senior standing or ENGL 210– 291 or permission of instructor.

Science Writing

ENGL 404

In recent years, there has been a renaissance of science writing for the common reader that combines literary and scientific merit: from Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" to Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat", from Dava Sobel's "Longitude" to Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," a series of books that explore scientific questions in a style that transcends the conventions of academic science writing or popular history have brought important questions from physics, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and mathematics to wider public attention. Short form science journalism has become one of the most important areas of literary nonfiction, recognized both by annual awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and two different series of Best of American Science Writing anthologies. This interdisciplinary science writing course will combine literary analysis of exemplary essays on scientific topics with a writing workshop that requires students to do close observation of scientific processes, conduct independent research and interviews, interpret data, and present scientific information in highly readable form. Weekly readings will be selected from prize-winning science essays and the Best of American Science and Nature Writing series. We may also read one book-length work of science writing. Weekly writing assignments will include journals, observational accounts of science experiments, exercises in interpreting scientific data, interviews, narratives and a substantial research essay. This counts toward the approaches to literary study or post-1900 requirement. No prerequisite.

Senior Seminar in Literature

ENGL 410

Offered in several sections, this seminar will require students to undertake a research paper of their own design, within the context of a course that ranges across genres, literary periods and national borders. Students will study literary works within a variety of critical, historical, cultural and theoretical contexts. All sections of the course will seek to extend the range of interpretive strategies students can use to undertake a major literary research project. Each student will complete a research paper of 15 to 17 pages. Senior English majors pursuing an emphasis in creative writing are required to take instead ENGL 405. Students pursuing honors will take ENGL 497 rather than ENGL 410. Prerequisite: senior standing and English major or permission of instructor.

Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and Film Noir

ENGL 419

From "The Maltese Falcon" to "Pulp Fiction", the hard-boiled crime novel and film noir have explored the dark side of the American Dream. This course will examine the cultural history of "noir" style and its influence on the literature and film of postwar America. Readings will begin with classic texts by authors such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Jim Thompson, then examine the influence of noir style on such "literary" texts as Faulkner's "Sanctuary," Wright's "Native Son," Warren's "All the King's Men," Capote's "In Cold Blood" and DeLillo's "Libra." By doing so, the course will explore such issues as the relationship between popular and high culture, the politics of literary and cinematic style, the role of the femme fatale in recent gender theory, and the cultural history of the anti-hero as both a commercial product in American popular culture and an expression of literary dissent. The course includes a mandatory film series, tracking the development of film noir as a cinematic style, as well as extensive readings in literary and film theory. This counts toward the approaches to literary study requirement. Permission of instructor required.

ST: Science Writing

ENGL 491

Individual Study

ENGL 493

Individual study in English is a privilege reserved for senior majors who want to pursue a course of reading or complete a writing project on a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum. Because individual study is one option in a rich and varied English curriculum, it is intended to supplement, not take the place of, coursework, and it cannot normally be used to fulfill requirements for the major. An IS will earn the student 0.5 units of credit, although in special cases it may be designed to earn 0.25 units. To qualify to enroll in an individual study, a student must identify a member of the English department willing to direct the project. In consultation with that faculty member, the student must write a 1–2 page proposal for the IS that the department chair must approve before the IS can go forward. The chair’s approval is required to ensure that no single faculty member becomes overburdened by directing too many IS courses. In the proposal, the student should provide a preliminary bibliography (and/or set of specific problems, goals and tasks) for the course, outline a specific schedule of reading and/or writing assignments, and describe in some detail the methods of assessment (e.g., a short story to be submitted for evaluation biweekly; a thirty-page research paper submitted at course’s end, with rough drafts due at given intervals). Students should also briefly describe any prior coursework that particularly qualifies them for their proposed individual studies. The department expects IS students to meet regularly with their instructors for at least one hour per week, or the equivalent, at the discretion of the instructor. The amount of work submitted for a grade in an IS should approximate at least that required, on average, in 400-level English courses. In the case of group individual studies, a single proposal may be submitted, assuming that all group members will follow the same protocols. Because students must enroll for individual studies by the seventh class day of each semester, they should begin discussion of their proposed individual study well in advance, preferably the semester before, so that there is time to devise the proposal and seek departmental approval before the registrar’s deadline.

Senior Honors

ENGL 498

See description for ENGL 497. Undertaken in the spring semester; students register with the Senior Honors form.