Academic Catalog 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Listing
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Courses listed below are grouped together alphabetically by subject prefix. To search for a specific course, please follow the instructions in the course filter box below and click on “Filter.”
Departments and interdisciplinary programs are described in detail on the Majors, Minors, and Other Programs page within this catalog. Please refer to the detailed sections on each area of study for more information. Requirements to fulfill a major or minor appear within each program or area of study.
All students must also complete the courses in the Common Curriculum (General Education), including Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) requirements and other requirements that pertain to the undergraduate degree. Courses are numbered as follows.
000-049 - Non-credit courses.
050-099 - Common Curriculum (General Education) courses and others that do NOT count toward the major.
100-199 - Introductory-level courses which count for the major.
200-299 - Sophomore/junior-level courses that often may be easily taken by non-majors. (Some departments may use 200-249 and 250-259 to delineate between sophomore and junior level offerings.)
300-399 - Upper-level courses intended primarily for majors - these are courses representing the depth component of the major.
400-499 - All advanced courses for seniors, including those used to fulfill WS (Senior Writing Experience requirement), small seminars, research, thesis, and independent studies.
Wherever possible, the departments have indicated the instructor and the term during which a course is given. Some courses are offered only occasionally and are so indicated. The College retains the right not to offer a course, especially if enrollment is insufficient.
A few courses are not valued at full course credit, and some carry double credit.
A full course unit may be equated to five quarter-credit hours, or three and one-third semester credit hours.
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EGL 098 - Tragedy Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) Tragedy is an ancient Greek dramatic art that in its first forms and their later permutations has profoundly shaped the thinking of the western world. Tragedy meditates on the power of the gods, justice and injustice, order and chaos, fate and freedom, and the whole spectrum of human existence.
The first great tragic playwright, Aeschylus, affirms the painful, yet hopeful notion that wisdom comes through suffering; but less than two generations later the plays of Euripides offer much more pain than hope, and the wisdom gained from the tragedies of Elizabethan and Jacobean England (e.g., Shakespeare) tends to be extremely bitter. Tragedy in the 19th and 20th century gets bleaker still, as writers lose faith in both the existence of traditional heroes and any sort of cosmic justice–the very possibility of reconciling oneself with the world as it is. But, despite this dark vision, modern as well as ancient tragedy can also generate a powerful kind of pleasure in audiences and readers-just one of the many paradoxes built into the genre. This course will attempt to make sense of it all. CC: HUL Note:
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EGL 099 - (271) The Bible: An Introduction Course Units: 1
(Same as CLS-099) (Not Offered this Academic Year) This course is a basic survey of the most historically and culturally important book in the world. Actually, the Bible is not a single book, but a complex anthology of many different genres, including history, legend, myth, law, poetry, prophecy, philosophy, and an astonishing variety of religious texts, from passionate prayers to bitter complaints against God, composed over the course of something like a thousand years. In addition to reading the most essential parts of the Old and New Testaments, we will also examine some of the countless ways that the Bible has left an imprint on modern western and American life. No previous acquaintance with the Bible is required. CC: HUL
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EGL 100 - Introduction to the Study of Literature: Poetry Course Units: 1
(Fall, Winter, Spring; Staff) Students will explore the art of poetry by examining a selection of poems from at least three cultures and by considering how poetry conveys its complex meanings through voice, image, rhythm, formal and experimental structures. Particular attention will be given to developing reading and writing skills. CC: HUL, WAC Note: Introductory courses are open to all students.
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EGL 101 - Introduction to the Study of Literature: Fiction Course Units: 1
(Fall, Winter, Spring; Staff) Students will explore fictional works from at least three cultures. Emphasis will be placed on exploring the art of narrative-on considering the ways stories get told and the reasons for telling them. Attention may be paid to such concerns as narrative point of view, storytelling strategies and character development, the relationship between oral and written narrative traditions, and narrative theory. Particular attention will be given to developing reading and writing skills. CC: HUL, WAC Note: Introductory courses are open to all students.
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EGL 102 - Introduction to the Study of Literature: Drama Course Units: 1
(Fall, Winter, Spring; Staff) In this course, we will ask how different representations of disguise help to articulate the themes with which drama is so concerned. Not only do plays acted on the stage abound in examples of characters who switch places or are mistaken for each other, they also provide a forum for individual characters to question their relationship with the people and culture that surround them. Even as plays stage the most private of feelings in a public setting, they also suggest that human interactions frequently involve playing a role. Throughout our examination of mix-ups, imposters, and identity crises in plays that range from ancient times to the present day, we will pay attention to both the literary and theatrical conventions of drama and the changing social place of the theater. The syllabus will include works by authors such as Euripides, Christopher Marlowe, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Yasmina Reza, and David Ives. One of the most important aspects of the course will be the development of your ability to express your insights about the plays we read in your own written work. There will be frequent informal written assignments designed to help you build up to the longer papers. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 200 - Shakespeare to 1600 Course Units: 1
(Fall; Wareh) (Offered at least once per year) We’ll explore in this course some of the most entertaining, moving, and provocative theater the world has ever known. Focusing mainly on Shakespeare’s comedies and histories, we’ll discover characters who offer us complicated and engaging perspectives on topics such as love, magic, revenge, family relationships, “outsiders,” and political power. We will work together to appreciate both the nuances of Shakespeare’s poetry and the excitement of his works in performance (whether on stage or screen). Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 201 - Shakespeare after 1600 Course Units: 1
(Winter; Wareh; Spring: Jenkins) We will look at Shakespeare’s great tragedies and romances with particular attention to the dramatic practices of his time. In this we will be helped by performances and workshops conducted on campus by the American Shakespeare Center, so be prepared to chew (or at least nibble on) the scenery as well as paying close textual attention to the artistry of the plays. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 202 - Amazons, Saints and Scholars: Women’s Writing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Course Units: 1
(Spring; Doyle) (Offered twice every four years) This course explores the medieval and early modern female writers of England and France. We will ask: how did women respond in writing to the male-defined literary traditions and conventions of these eras? The course also provides an introduction to some of the major questions and works of feminist literary criticism, including: Why should we read the works of women? What aesthetic standards should we apply when discussing their works? Is there a difference between “masculine” and “feminine” writing? We will focus on six female writers: Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Carey, Isabella Whitney, Amelia Lanyer, and Mary Sidney. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 203 - The Age of Heroes: The Anglo-Saxon Era Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) In 410 the Romans abandoned Britain, withdrawing to the continent just as pagan Germanic invaders began to challenge the island’s native Picts and Celts. In 1066 the Duke of Normandy crossed the Channel and kicked a Danish king off the throne of a fully Christianized England. In between these two events lies the matter of this course: the literature of the Anglo- Saxon era, which, despite (or perhaps because of) successive waves of foreign invasion and political disunity, developed arguably the most distinctive and sophisticated culture in all of early medieval Europe. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 204 - Plague, Revolt, Religion, and Nation: The Fourteenth Century Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) This course explores English literature as it reflects, shapes, and critiques society from the onset of the Hundred Years’ War to the overthrow of Richard II (1337- 1400), a turbulent period that includes the Peasants’ Revolt, the Black Plague, the rise of English as the language of literature and government, and the proto-Protestant movement known as Lollardy. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 205 - The Road to Canterbury Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) Comedy, chivalric adventure, magic, miracles, saints’ lives, sermons – Chaucer’s best-known work, The Canterbury Tales, runs the gamut from sublime love poetry to slapstick fart jokes. We will study a generous selection of the major Tales, exploring Chaucer’s literary sources, his style, his perspective on his own contemporary culture, and his ideas about the purpose of storytelling. Along the way, we will learn to read some Middle English and grapple with some of the questions Chaucer raises: Who defines the term “great literature,” anyway? What does it mean when an author writes in someone else’s voice? How do a storyteller’s social class and choice of genre determine the story’s impact? Should literature challenge political and cultural norms? What are the uses of irony? How should texts treat women? What role does an audience have in defining the meaning of a story? Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 206 - Renaissance Literature Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) Attention to selected literary texts from ancient Greece and Rome, consideration of their “rebirth” and influence on aesthetic and intellectual work produced in western Europe from the 14th century to the 17th , and consequent close attention to the achievements of one or more major literary figures of the English Renaissance. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 208 - Renaissance Drama Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) How various Renaissance playwrights represented those on the margins of the dominant culture, particularly the malcontent or madman (Marlowe’s Jew of Malta; Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy; Marston’s The Malcontent), women (Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl, Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, Ford’s ‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore), the criminal (the anonymous Arden of Faversham), and sometimes the intersection of all three (Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair). Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 209 - British Literature: The 1590s Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) Early modern London was a place in which everyone-from the queen to courtiers to poets- could see herself or himself as an “actor on the stage.” It was a culture in which role-playing was a necessary and dangerous art, one that led to both paranoia and creativity. In this course we’ll explore a wide variety of Renaissance poses and impersonations: portraits and speeches of Queen Elizabeth (as well as recent film treatments of her); sophisticated and scandalous love poetry; the advice given to young ladies and courtiers on how to protect themselves from vicious gossip and dazzle their onlookers; and audacious works of theater. Course authors include Sidney, Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, Castiglione, and Queen Elizabeth. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 210 - British Literature: Seventeenth-Century Literature Course Units: 1
(Winter; Jenkins) (Offered twice every four years) This course will look at seventeenth-century literature and culture through the idea of revenge, which became a dominant form in an age of turmoil, injury, and change. We will begin with the early revenge plays of Shakespeare, Tourneur, Marston, Ford, and Webster, proceed through the cosmic revenge of Satan in Paradise Lost, and end with the ironic revenge exacted on moral goodness by the Restoration poets, playwrights, and philosophers. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 211 - Milton Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) The two sides of Milton - the high humanist poet, author of the greatest epic in English and one of the greatest religious poems in any language, and the Puritan revolutionary, defender of regicide and champion of the English commonwealth. The goal of the course will be to see if the two sides can be held separate, or if they must be seen as complementary. We will read Paradise Lost at the rate of one book per week, always trying to relate the two sides of the poet. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 212 - The Restoration Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) This course will closely examine the culture that produced both the first official poet laureate of England, John Dryden, and the most notoriously libertine poet in English, the Earl of Rochester. Also appearing will be the first English woman to make a living from literature, Aphra Behn; the wittiest playwrights in English dramatic history (Wycherley, Etherege, Congreve); John Milton; some very early English novels; and some pretty good philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and maybe even Sir Isaac Newton. All that and the Great Fire of London, outbreaks of the plague, several wars, and major revolutions in politics and science. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 213 - American Literature in Historical Context: Beginnings to 1800 Course Units: 1
(Spring; Murphy) (Offered twice every four years) This course focuses on beginnings of American literature and culture, with an emphasis on writings prior to 1700. Selections will vary but may include early exploration literature; early Spanish, French and British texts; Native American traditions; Puritan and Pilgrim poetry and essays; writings on witchcraft; the Great Awakening; the rise of science, discovery and invention; the Declaration and the Constitution; and the early sentimental novel. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 216 - Eighteenth-Century British Literature Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) A survey of some crucial-and hotly contested-ideas that emerge in the work of six major 18th-century writers: Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, David Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Mary Wollstonecraft. These will include the definition of human nature, the western world’s view of itself, the “noble savage” and colonialism, the classical tradition vs. “modern” Europe, deism, attacks on Christianity, the empirical challenge to the old order, the legacy of the French Revolution, and feminism. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 217 - Enlightenment and Romanticism Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) Consideration of the relationships between two major currents in modern European thought and culture: Enlightenment and Romanticism. Authors will range from Descartes to Nietzsche and may include Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, and Kant. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 218 - European Novel in Translation Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) A survey of six great works, three from the 19th and three from the 20th century: Stendhal, The Red and the Black; Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary; Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons; Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way; Franz Kafka, The Trial, and I. J. Singer, The Brothers Ashkenazi. Despite their many differences in setting and style, these novels share a number of themes: the alienated individual, the legacy of the French Revolution, social conflicts, the “values vacuum,” the meaning of art, and so on. We’ll explore all these as we make our way through the gripping, often astonishing world of modern Continental fiction. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 219 - Rise of the Novel Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) Development of the novel form in its social, cultural, and literary contexts, focusing primarily on the 18th century. We will consider adventure/picaresque, domestic/epistolary and questions of genre, gender, and history. Authors include Chariton, Cervantes, Defoe, Barker, Behn, Richardson, and Burney. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 220 - The Romantic Revolution Course Units: 1
(Spring; Burkett) The Romantic period was one of Britain’s most “revolutionary” eras in a number of important ways. For England, the age was marked by dramatic social, political, literary, and scientific upheaval and change. In this course we will investigate the various causes that were envisioned, promoted, and enacted during this era and trace their often wide-ranging and revolutionary effects. Readings will likely include selections from the following authors: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 221 - Romanticism and Media Studies Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) In this course we will examine the ways in which Romantic-era stories become taken up and transformed by media technologies such as photography, hypertext projects, film, and even the World Wide Web. In doing so, we will study Romantic-era imaginative literature (e.g., its fascination with imagination, vision, projection, transcendence, etc.) in the context of developments in a number of disciplines and media forms including photography, film, hypertext, recorded sound, virtual reality, and computer technologies. Romantic authors will likely include: W. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, M. Shelley, P. B. Shelley, Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron, W. Blake, and J. Keats. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 224 - 19th-Century Novel Course Units: 1
(Winter; Lewin) (Offered once every four years) The golden age of the novel examined in its historical, intellectual, and literary contexts. Topics will include satire and the novel, realism vs. gothicism, fiction and the visual arts (especially book illustration), the impact of Darwin, fiction and the role of women, the city vs. the country, the individual vs. society, the novel and commerce, fiction and imperialism. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 225 - The Brontë Sisters Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) This course will examine five first-person narratives by Charlotte Bronte and her sisters Emily and Anne. Readings will include The Professor, Jane Eyre, Villette, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Elizabeth Gaskell’s 19th-century biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë. We will consider biographical, interpersonal, and inter-textual relations alongside questions of gender, class, religious vocation, communal authorship, pseudonymous publication and the cult of genius. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 226 - Victorian Detective Fiction Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) In 2016 there are two groups of Jews of roughly equal numbers that make up the majority of Jews in the world: seven or so million Jews in Israel and the United States, respectively. The contemporary literature of these two communities will be the focus of this course. We will investigate fiction that is making its way out of Israel in translation - what subjects are appearing in translation, written by whom, with what political motivations? Similarly, what are the concerns of American Jews writing today’s fiction? How might they complement or diverge from writing in Israel? Finally, one burgeoning trend in Israel and America is to render one’s concerns in both word and image, through Jewish graphic novels. Therefore, a portion of what we read by both Americans and Israelis will be in graphic novel form. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 227 - Governess Tales Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) Social upheaval and unrest in the early decades of Victoria’s reign (1830s and 1840s) gave way to greater national confidence and stability in the 1850s and 1860s. We will consider England’s internal concerns of class mobility, industrialization, professions for women, and working class conditions, as well as international questions of empire and nationalism. Our special focus will be “Governess Tales,” specifically three published virtually simultaneously in 1847-8: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, W. M. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, and Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey. Precursors (Emma) and parodies (Behind a Mask, Turn of the Screw) may round out the syllabus. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 228 - Novels of Education Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) The growth of a young person’s mind provided the subject for many great works of nineteenth century fiction. In this course we will examine how and why the novel of education (otherwise known as the Bildungsroman) evolved in British and Irish fiction over the course of the Victorian period. Why did they begin to appear when they did, and what cultural issues were the writers and their audiences interested in thinking through? How were novels of female education different from those of young men? What contradictions did they lay bare about the structure of British society? We will see that this dynamic literary form allowed the novelist to articulate new social roles and forms of identity in a changing, though highly rule-bound, society. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 230 - Desire, Incest, Cross-dressing, and Homo-erotica: Identity Politics In the Early American Sentimental Novel Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) In her seminal study, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America, Cathy N. Davidson states that “literature is not simply words upon a page but a complex social, political, and material process of cultural production” (viii). Thus, the eighteenth century sentimental novel serves to highlight a moment in history lodged among judgments, anxieties and controversies about the direction the newly formed American Republic would take at the end of the Revolution. Embedded within these narratives are questions about both men’s and women’s power and authority in the public and private spheres, the negation of the female self, the social function of romance and courtship, and the nature of women as moral, social, and biologic commodities. This course seeks to explore disjunctions between the sentimental structure of the early American novel and its contradictory attitudes toward liberty and self-expression. Questions that will guide our discussion include: How and why does the seduction plot of earlier novels reinforce American values and ideals distinct from European standards of morality? In what ways does the cult of “true womanhood” prominent during the first few decades of the nineteenth century suppress the plea for women’s equality? How are these texts concerned with defining the new nation, its citizens, and boundaries? In what ways do these texts consolidate nationhood through the formation of a national literature and the narrative construction of a national history, culture, and consciousness? Do these novels construct, conserve, or subvert American cultural institutions? Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 231 - Nineteenth-Century American Literature Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) This course focuses on the self-conscious development of literary tradition in 19th century America– its meaning, its implications, its failures– and its aesthetic and moral possibilities. Writers under consideration may include Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, Douglass, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and Twain, and topics will include individualism, transcendentalism, abolition, the coming of war, the aftermath of war, growth, expansion, and power. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 232 - The American Renaissance Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) This course will examine major works written during the American Romantic period, as well as some written in the post- Romantic period up to the death of Walt Whitman in 1892. We will begin by discussing some of Emerson’s essays and continue with works by authors who reacted, both positively and negatively, to Emerson. Other works will be selected from the following list: at least two of Poe’s short stories, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, excerpts from Thoreau’s Walden, Douglass’s Narrative, excerpts from Melville’s Moby-Dick, poems by Walt Whitman, excerpts from Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott’s satire “Transcendental Wild Oats,” and poetry by Emily Dickinson. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 233 - African-American Literature: Beginnings to 1900: Vision and Re-Vision Course Units: 1
(Fall; Lynes) (Offered twice every four years) This introductory survey course will trace African American movement towards literary and aesthetic mastery beginning with what Henry Louis Gates calls “oral writing.” Readings begin with the first known written poems and progress from slave narratives and autobiography to essays and fiction. Authors include Phillis Wheately, Harriet Jacobs, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Solomon Northup, Charles Chesnutt, W.E.B. Du Bois, among others. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: LCC, HUL
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EGL 236 - American Realism and Naturalism Course Units: 1
(Winter; Murphy) (Offered once every four years) Realism and naturalism were aesthetic movements that emerged in American fiction between approximately 1865 and 1925. This course examines these two literary movements to show how writers of this era explored the trauma created by war (the Civil War and WWI), the moral consequences of freedom and sexual awareness, rapid urbanization and the Great Northern migration, inconsistencies between wealth and poverty, and innovative discoveries in science and technology. The purpose of this course, then, is to investigate how the authors of this period practiced their art both collectively and individually and the ways in which American social life informed the ideologies of realism and naturalism. Possible writers we will study include William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Kate Chopin, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 237 - African-American Literature: 1900-Present Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) Introductory survey of African-American literature from the 1920s to the present. The involvement of African-American writers in various artistic, social, and political schools of American thought and activism. Readings include novels, short fiction, poetry, short criticism, theory, and drama by writers such as George Schuyler, Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison, Randall Kenan, Sonaz Sanchez, Yusef Komunyakaa, among others. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, LCC
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EGL 239 - American Literature and Culture: 1900-1960 Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) This course will survey American poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and perhaps one play of the pre-Modernist and Modernist periods, putting the works into a cultural and historical context. The course will show how urbanism, psychology, science, secularism, “The Great War” and World War II, consumerism and feminism influenced literature of the period. Writers might include Henry Adams, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, W.C. Williams, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and/or Adrienne Rich. Poetry of the period will be generously represented on the syllabus. At least one recent film adaptation of a work from the period will be discussed. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 240 - American Literature and Culture: 1960-Present Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) This course will survey American poetry, fiction, nonfiction (including essays and New Journalism), at least one film (probably The Graduate), and perhaps one play of the Postmodern era. Emphasis will be placed on social movements that redefined the American cultural landscape, including Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Women’s Rights. The traumatic impact of historical events- such as assassinations in the sixties, the War in Vietnam, and 9/11-will also be discussed. Nonfiction writers will include Betty Friedan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, and possibly Ryan Smithson. Poets might include Robert Lowell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Billy Collins, Simon Ortiz, Rita Dove, Li-Young Lee and others. Fiction writers might include Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, Tim O’Brien, Sherman Alexie, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Alfredo Véa. Music, television shows and technology of the period will also be discussed. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 241 - From the Greatest Generation to the Generation Gap: American Fiction, 1900-1960 Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) This course will examine major developments in the American novel and short story from the turn of the century to 1960, focusing primarily on the Modernist period. The course will treat such issues as the relationships of science, technology, and religion to the literary imagination, as well as the impact of the World Wars, psychology, urbanism, feminism, consumerism, and racism on literature of the period. Authors might include Chopin, Henry James, Anderson, Wharton, Cather, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Wright, Salinger, and others. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 246 - Modern Poetry Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) Selected poetry from the high modern period (from the turn of the twentieth century to circa 1945) in relation to changing views of the poet’s role in culture and the poet’s contradictory posture as prophet, exile, romantic, outcast. Authors will include W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, W. H. Auden, others. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 247 - Studies in Modern Poets: Bishop and Gunn Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) Elizabeth Bishop and Thom Gunn. This class will focus on the work of two major twentieth century poets, Elizabeth Bishop and Thom Gunn, both of whom combine intelligence, empathy, and technical skill with the exploration of a wide range of experiences, ranging from travel to sexuality to loss. In doing so, they provide the reader with a great deal of pleasure and also raise serious, often challenging questions about the nature of the self. Along with poems and prose by Bishop and Gunn, we will read Irish novelist Colm Toibin’s book on the two poets.ell. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 248 - Introduction to Black Poetry Course Units: 1
(Winter; Lynes) (Offered twice every four years) We will explore the development of African-American poetic voices in North America. We will look at poems and poets as they constitute a hybrid and composite tradition. We will read poetry in anthologies; we will also read several full books by individual authors, and will listen to performance poetry on CD and DVD. A partial list of poets we will read includes Wheatley, Harper, Dunbar, Hughes, McKay, Helene Johnson, Brooks, Baraka, Clifton, Sanchez, Cortez, Morris, Mullen, Brathwaite, Komunyakaa, Francis, Dungy, among others. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, LCC
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EGL 249 - American Poetry Since 1960 Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) A course in the development of American poetry from the confessional breakthrough of the Vietnam era to more contemporary experiments with language ,narrative, and the nature of the poet’s authority. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 250 - The Beats and Contemporary Culture Course Units: 1
(Winter; Smith) (Offered once every four years) An examination of the writers of the Beat Generation (including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Edward Sanders) and of their lasting influence on American popular culture. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 253 - Narratives of Haunting in US Ethnic Literature Course Units: 1
(Spring; Tuon) (Offered twice every four years) This course examines the theme of haunting in contemporary US ethnic literature. With this theme in mind, we will investigate the following questions throughout the trimester: Why is haunting such a prevalent theme in ethnic writing? What do we mean when we say that a text is haunted? What are the causes of haunting? What is possession? What are some ways to dispossess or exorcise ghosts? What are the functions of ghosts? Is there such a thing as a good haunting? What are their messages to us? How do we listen to ghosts? Authors include Lan Cao, Nora Okja Keller, Maxine Hong Kingston, Cynthia Ozick, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, LCC
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EGL 254 - Discourses on the Viet Nam War Course Units: 1
(Fall; Tuon) (Offered three years out of four) This class will examine various perspectives on “The Vietnam War,” or, as the people of Viet Nam call it, “The American War.” In our archeological exploration into the nature of knowledge about this period in Viet Nam/U.S. history, we will not privilege one perspective over another. Rather, we will examine the diverse political, ideological, and moral positions from which various groups, such as the U.S. government, U.S. soldiers, U.S. citizens, the North Vietnamese people, and the South Vietnamese people, perceive this historic conflict. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 255 - Asian American Literature and Film Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered three years out of four) If you are interested in the diverse history of Asian immigration in the U.S., take this course. Together as a class, we will examine major historical moments in Asian America: the first wave of Asian immigration in the mid-nineteenth century, the anti-Asian laws of the late nineteenth century, the Japanese internment during the Second World War, the emergence of Asian American studies during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Southeast Asian refugees after the Viet Nam/American War, and the contemporary turns to the transnational and the pan ethnic. To cover these historical moments, we will read the following texts: Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, Eat a Bowl of Tea, Farwell to Manzanar, When Broken Glass Floats, Jazz at Manzanar, American Born Chinese, and American Son. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, LCC
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EGL 258 - Changing Ireland Course Units: 1
(Spring; Bracken) (Offered twice every four years) This course will be looking at the changing nature of Irish society since the economic boom of Celtic Tiger Ireland in the 1990’s. EU membership, US investment and the effects of global internationalism have brought about radical culture transformations in the country which in turn are altering conventional meanings of Irishness and Irish identity. We will be looking at representations of this changing Ireland in literature and film, paying attention to issues such as new technologies, post-feminism, sexualities, race and ethnicity. Texts will include Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, Anne Enright’s novel The Wig My Father Wore, and the poetry of Leanne O’Sullivan. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, LCC
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EGL 259 - Irish Literature and Film Course Units: 1
(Winter; Bracken) (Offered twice every four years) The aim of this course is to introduce you to the field of Irish Studies, examining how issues relating to language, identity and nationhood are intimately connected in Irish literature and film. In this course we will be studying Irish literary texts from the beginning of the 19th century to the late 20th century, examined alongside a selection of contemporary films. This course will ask you to consider the ways in which cultural concerns of the Irish past continue to haunt the landscape of the present day, paying attention to issues of gender, class, race and sexuality. Texts will include Lady Morgan’s Wild Irish Girl, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, LCC
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EGL 260 - James Joyce Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered three years out of four) This course will focus entirely on Irish writer James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses, published in 1922. This is a complex, challenging and experimental novel (900 pages), which uses stream of consciousness as its primary literary mode. Set on just one day, June 16th 1904, it tells the story of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom as we learn of their pasts, presents and hopes for the future. Joyce’s novel is a meditation on the lives of these characters, and the modern colonial Dublin they inhabit, however it is also a self-reflective piece of literature which foregrounds issues relating to language, style, and storytelling. In the course, we will successively read all of the chapters of Ulysses, analyzing it through a variety of critical paradigms, including post-colonialism, modernism, and feminism. We will also watch a number of films relating to Joyce and his work, such as Nora, Bloom, and Ulysses, and at the end of the course we will consider the commodification of Joyce as the ‘Great Irish Writer’ through the yearly Bloomsday celebrations of June 16th in Dublin. Students are encouraged to read Joyce’s Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before the class begins. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 264 - Women Writers, 18th to 20th Century Course Units: 1
(Spring; Lewin) (Offered once every four years) Traces the tradition of women’s literary writing by “thinking back through our mothers.” Authors may include Behn, Burney, Austen, Radcliffe, Shelley, Bronte, Rossetti, Eliot, and Woolf. We may consider European contemporaries (LaRoche, Sand) and transatlantic connections (Fuller, Alcott). Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 265 - Jewish Women Writers Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) A study of Jewish women’s writing. We will be particularly concerned with how the question of religion complicates female representations of gender, nationality, class, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. Texts range from the first autobiography by a Jewish woman (17th-century Glikl of Hameln) to novels and short stories of the 21st century in English and translation. Each instance of the class has been taught differently in consultation with class members’ interests. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 266 - Black Women Writers Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) This course provides an introduction to the major themes and concerns of twentieth- and twenty-first century African American women writers. We begin in the 18th century and move quickly to the 20th and 21st. We will examine the ways in which black womanhood is characterized through intersecting categories of race, gender, class, sexuality, and empire. We will explore how selected authors wrestle with stereotypical images of African American women, examine the connections between black womanhood, community, and empire, and discuss the benefits and limitations of the concept of “black women’s writing.” Possible writers include Frances Harper, Maria Stewart, Anne Spencer, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Gloria Naylor, Octavia Butler, and others. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: LCC, HUL
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EGL 268 - Gender and Genre Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) How do conventions of gender difference inflect the way stories are told and interpreted? We will explore a variety of historical contexts as well as the concepts of “gender” and “genre” while investigating basic narrational elements such as the contract between narrator and addressee, framing devices, closure and delay and how these elements contribute to a construction of gender categories. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 270 - Humanities: The Origins Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) Readings of selected masterworks from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin literature. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 272 - Epic Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) In this course students will be introduced to epic poetry, long narrative poems on a serious subject. We will study both traditional oral epic poetry and literary epic poems and read most of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey as well as Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Beowulf, and The Song of Roland. The course will emphasize close reading as the basis for getting to know these works and becoming familiar with the language, epithets, similes, and other stylistic conventions that characterize epic. Students will be expected to develop critical skills in several short and longer papers and learn how to write about epic poetry in a clear and articulate way. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 273 - Satire Course Units: 1
(Spring; Sargent) (Offered intermittently) Satire is a paradoxical art, a form of social chemotherapy: it mocks and scorns in order to correct and improve. And since humanity provides a constant supply of follies and pretensions, it is an enduring and universal art as well. This course will study satire through time and various cultures, from Aristophanes and Horace to Swift and Pope and up through Slaughterhouse Five and The Simpsons. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 275 - Autobiography Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) “Who am I and how did I get this way?” This course is a study in the development of autobiography as literary genre from St. Augustine’s Confessions to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. We will focus on autobiography as a space for exploring, expressing, and constructing the self as well as an inquiry into the developing relationship between mind and world. We will also examine the various motives behind writing one’s life-story from the existential and religious to the political and historical. Related issues to be discussed include the role of imagination, memory, and language in narrating the self, and the particular impact of minority, marginalized, and forbidden voices. We will also talk about the recent scandals involving fabricated autobiographies. Does an autobiography have to be true? Readings may include Montaigne’s Essays, Rousseau’s Confessions, Woolf ‘s A Sketch of the Past, Styron’s Darkness Visible, Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Spiegelman’s Maus, and Satrapi’s Persepolis. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 276 - Literature of the Manor House Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered three years out of four) In this course we will investigate the rich and complex history of the genre of English manor house fiction. Focusing on texts ranging from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and E. M. Forster’s Howards End to Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, and Ian McEwan’s Atonement, we will explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, and especially class in both course readings and class discussions. Furthermore, we’ll examine a number of filmic representations of British country house life, including Robert Altman’s Gosford Park and Julian Fellowes’s Downton Abbey. In addition to crafting course papers, students will have the option to research, create, and showcase their own multi-media projects exploring virtual manor homes via a range of freely downloadable programs and platforms. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 277 - Philosophical Fiction Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) This course will deal with works of fiction in which philosophy or philosophical concepts play a significant role. A key issue is the relationship between ideas and (literary) form. Authors will come from a wide range of traditions and may include Descartes, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Nietzsche, Camus, Dostoevsky, Borges, Calvino, Lem, and Le Guin. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 278 - Science Fiction Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered once every four years) A survey of science fiction, focusing primarily on novels written after World War II. Topics covered may include: visions of dystopia, alternate histories, models of gender, fears of technology, and new views of race and sexuality. Likely authors include Asimov, Clarke, Lem, Dick, Herbert, LeGuin, Delany, Butler, and Gibson. Film may also be a significant component of the course. Possible directors include Kubrick, Spielberg, Cronenberg, Gilliam, and Scott. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 279 - Literature and Science Course Units: 1
(Winter; Kuhn) (Offered three years out of four) An interdisciplinary examination of the interactions between literature and science. Topics will vary from year to year and may include science writing, the representation of science and scientists in literature, literature inspired by science, literature and science as competing ways of knowing the world, the figurative dimension of scientific writing, and speculative fiction. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 280 - Nature and Environmental Writing Course Units: 1
(Spring; Lynes) (Offered intermittently) This course will focus on the traditions of nature and environmental writing in the American context, with an emphasis on the social and cultural dynamics of the environment and environmental action. Among other questions, we will ask ourselves: How do class, gender, and race enter into the nexus of social interactions that shape our environment? What is the place of literature in community, literacy, and environmental activism? What are the connections between the ways we speak and write about the environment and our actions toward the environment? How does the wilderness concept affect the ways citizens have access to public spaces? We will consider the concept of “nature” as we move through the course, culminating (if you like) with some nature writing of your own.
Attendance for community conversation is required, as are the completion of short papers, reading-aloud performances, quizzes. Engaged interaction with the poetry and with others in the class will be expected and appreciated. Selections from Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing Before Walden; Thoreau, Henry David: selections from Walden and Other Writings; Carson, Rachel: Silent Spring; selections from Colors of Nature; Leopold, Aldo: selections from Sand County Almanac; Savoy, Lauret: Trace: Memory, History, and the American Landscape; Schauffler, F. Marina: Turning to Earth: Stories of Ecological Conversion; Kingsolver, Barbara: Small Wonder, essays. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 281 - Environmental Psychology and Place Attachment in the American Literary Landscape Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) New Course. Environmental research psychologist Maria Vittoria Giuliani emphasizes that human-to-place attachments “not only permeate our daily life but very often appear also in the representations, idealizations and expressions of life and affect represented [in] literature.” Indeed, many literary works emphasize humanity’s basic attachment needs and the importance person-to-place bonds have in the development of the human psyche. American fiction writers frequently employ descriptions of American landscapes as inspiration for character and plot development, and American nature writers often emphasize the way in which wilderness environments may influence one’s mental and physical health and emotional well-being. In fact, recent studies in the field of cognitive neuroscience provide empirical evidence to substantiate the theory that exposure to a natural environment may actually generate structural changes in the brain by increasing oxygenation and blood flow that occur in response to neural activity. Hence, this course will employ contemporary studies in place attachment, environmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience to examine the way in which various literary works illustrate the important role environment plays in aiding or obstructing one’s ability to think, reason, remember, problem-solve, process information, use language, or be creative. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 286 - Transnational Literature, Film, and Theory Course Units: 1
(Fall; Troxell) While modern colonialism dating back to the 18th century brought the entire globe into contact, the nation-state remained the relevant unit of culture. Unprecedented levels of migration and technological development in the past century, however, have made it impossible to ignore the fact that we are now living in a thoroughly transnational world-a new world order whose contours we yet barely grasp. How do social identity formations shift when nation-state boundaries are challenged? What sorts of new ethical dilemmas and self-other relations are engendered? Is anti-colonialism, staged as it was in the theater of national liberation, de-fanged or enabled by transnationalism? What new aesthetic forms and modes are generated by transnationalism; and how do cosmopolitans, exiles, diasporics, hybrids, and long-distance nationalists affect the field of culture? These are among the questions we will examine over the course of the term through the complementary lenses of film, literature, and theory. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 287 - Gender and Sexuality in Film Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) This course examines the intersecting roles played by gender and sexuality in our media, with particular emphasis placed on film and video. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate the ways in which various media texts transmit and construct gender and sexuality and how viewers interpret and integrate these representations into their daily lives. As we analyze films by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Julie Dash, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Jonathan Caouette we will explore the ways in which conceptions of gender and sexuality are facilitated and constrained by legal, medical, and ethical discourses that emerge from specific historical and geographic contexts. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 288 - Film as Fictive Art: World Cinema - History and Analysis Course Units: 1
(Winter; Troxell) (Offered most years) The designation “world cinema” has customarily denoted cultures of filmmaking existing outside the Hollywood monolith and has generally focused on traditions of national cinema. Today more than ever, however, the film industry is enmeshed in systems of TV and cable networks, digital technologies, and capital flows, which exceed national boundaries. Over the course of the term, we will investigate the heuristic, political, and affective force of the concept of “national cinema,” while at the same time, analyzing the complex formations of identity, citizenship, and ethics, portrayed on screen and constructed through transnational networks of production, exhibition, and distribution. We will play close attention to methods, terminology, and tools needed for the critical analysis of film and will link the analysis of such formal features as editing, mise-en-scene, and sound design to specific historical and cultural distinctions and changes, ranging from the coming of synchronized speech to the digital convergences that shape screen studies today. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 289 - Studies in a Major Film Director Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) This course provides a close viewing of a variety of films from across a single director’s career, paying particular attention to continuities of theme, style, and structure. Each incarnation of the course will feature a different director. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 290 - Studies in Film Genre/Style: Documentary Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) Documentary films and reality television shows have become more prevalent than ever. Documentary images pervade intimate spheres of our lives through cell phones, youtube, and a variety of other screen interfaces, engendering powerful affective forces driving everything from humanitarian aid to global political agendas. Why this increased interest in the documentary form? Traditionally, the documentary has tended to emerge during crisis situations, often reflecting and commenting on past and present social and political unrest. Over the course of the term we will examine documentarians’ search for appropriate forms to provoke discussion of social content. We will investigate the myth of documentary authenticity as well as controversial epistemological and ethical claims bound up with the genre. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 293 - Workshop in Poetry Course Units: 1
(Fall; Smith) This is a course for students with a serious interest in writing poetry. Classes will be divided between discussions of literary technique, workshop critiques of student writing, and consideration of the work of several contemporary poets. Students will prepare a final portfolio of ten to fifteen pages. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 294 - Workshop in Fiction Course Units: 1
(Winter; Tuon) (Offered every year) A first course in the writing of fiction, intended for students with good writing skills. Some class time will be devoted to the discussion of published fiction and to lectures/instruction about constructing the “well-made” short story. However, most of the course will be devoted to workshop critiques of students’ stories. Students will be asked to write at least five short stories outside of class, as well as several in-class exercises; to write one or more essays on published works of fiction and on their own writing experiences; and to provide both written and oral critiques of classmates’ work. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 295 - Workshop in Non-Fiction Prose Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered twice every four years) A first course in the writing of nonfiction prose, emphasizing critiques of student work and workshop-like critiques of such nonfiction stylists as Didion, Dillard, Emerson, D’Agata, Sebald, Montaigne. We will focus on point of view, pacing, tone, and other such prose techniques. Students will write and revise several short pieces, only one of which may be autobiographical. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 295H - English Honors Independent Project 1 Course Units: 0
(Staff) Note: Requires faculty approval - credit earned upon completion of EGL-296H
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EGL 296 - Power of Words Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) (Offered intermittently) Employers everywhere want to hire the best writers and communicators. Let’s get ready! The Power of Words is for all students – in any major – who are serious about writing well and presenting ideas effectively. From e-mails to cover letters, from short talks to PowerPoint’s, this course is about communication for the real world. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL
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EGL 296H - English Honors Independent Project 2 Course Units: 1
(Staff) Prerequisite(s): EGL-295H
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EGL 297 - Literary Research Practicum 1 Course Units: 0
(Not Offered this Academic Year) The English research practicum is designed to allow students to engage in advanced literary research during their undergraduate careers. Students will work on the research project of a faculty member, under that faculty member’s direction. This course requires advance permission of the instructor, who sets the course requirements. To receive Pass/Fail credit equivalent to one course, the student must earn passing grades for three terms of the practicum experience. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test.
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EGL 298 - Literary Research Practicum 2 Course Units: 0
(Not Offered this Academic Year) The English research practicum is designed to allow students to engage in advanced literary research during their undergraduate careers. Students will work on the research project of a faculty member, under that faculty member’s direction. This course requires advance permission of the instructor, who sets the course requirements. To receive Pass/Fail credit equivalent to one course, the student must earn passing grades for three terms of the practicum experience. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test.
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EGL 299 - Literary Research Practicum 3 Course Units: 0
(Not Offered this Academic Year) The English research practicum is designed to allow students to engage in advanced literary research during their undergraduate careers. Students will work on the research project of a faculty member, under that faculty member’s direction. This course requires advance permission of the instructor, who sets the course requirements. To receive Pass/Fail credit equivalent to one course, the student must earn passing grades for three terms of the practicum experience. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test.
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EGL 300 - Jr. Seminar: Poetry Workshop Course Units: 1
(Spring; Smith) A workshop course for students with some experience and a serious interest in the writing of poetry. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 301 - Jr. Seminar: Fiction Workshop Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) A workshop course for students with some experience and a serious interest in the writing of fiction. Most of the course will be devoted to workshop critiques of students’ stories. Students will be asked to write at least five short stories outside of class, as well as several in-class exercises; to write one or more essays on published works of fiction; and to provide both written and oral critiques of classmates’ work. Prerequisite(s): It is strongly recommended, although not required, that students have already taken EGL 294 CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 302 - Jr. Seminar: Literary Theory Course Units: 1
(Winter; Bracken) (Offered every year) Reading involves more than just the reader and the text; when we read, our cultural and personal experiences inform our reading. This course considers different critical approaches to literature-from the history of English as a discipline onward-in an attempt to help contextualize reading practices. We will read primary critical texts, primary literary texts, and examples of literary criticism. We will discuss various schools of literary criticism, including (but not limited to) Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Queer Theory, Disability Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and Critical Race Theory. By the end of the semester, students will be able to use appropriate terminology, produce critically informed readings, and speak authoritatively about different critical approaches to literature. CC: HUL, HUM, WAC
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EGL 304 - Jr. Seminar (Fall): Queer Theory Course Units: 1
(Fall; Mitchell) The word “queer” is a complicated term with a long, often fraught history. For the most part, it has been more recently adopted to invoke genders and sexualities that lie outside traditional, “normative” constellations, though critics of the term often focus on its problematic all-encompassing use as a synonym for gay and lesbian, its popular co-optability, and its potential prioritization of one facet of identity at the expense of others. This seminar will interrogate queer theory and queer studies as fields of interdisciplinarity. We will pay particular attention to questions of desire, identity, citizenship, bodies, pleasure, and the construction of gender and sex. We will also examine the relationships between queerness and race, class, material conditions, age, able-bodiedness, and community formation. Throughout our term, we will be reading theoretical and historical works by Michel Foucault, Eve Sedgwick, Michael Warner, Sarah Ahmed, Judith Butler, Jose Muñoz, Audre Lorde, Susan Stryker, Roderick Ferguson, Jack Halberstam; in addition, we’ll be looking at relevant literature, film, television, and popular culture. CC: HUL, WAC
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EGL 305 - Jr. Seminar (Winter): Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender Course Units: 1
(Winter; Doyle) There’s no doubt that medieval literature, generally, had what we’d now consider a skewed perspective on both masculinity and femininity. In the later Middle Ages, however, some French and Italian authors began to write explicitly about the construction of gender. Geoffrey Chaucer was the first major English author to join this literary conversation, and in this course we’ll examine his contributions to it. As we read some of his works, we’ll be primarily investigating four questions: How does Chaucer rewrite the popular stories of his day so as to reflect on and problematize literary constructions of gender? How do his choices as an author respond to medieval theories of gender? How did late medieval audiences respond to his obvious interest in the issues raised by constructions of masculinity and femininity? And how should we, as modern readers influenced by contemporary thinking about gender, respond to his work? CC: HUL
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EGL 400 - Sr. Seminar: Poetry Workshop Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) An advanced workshop course in the writing of poetry. CC: HUL, WS
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EGL 401 - Sr. Seminar: Fiction Workshop Course Units: 1
(Not Offered this Academic Year) An advanced workshop course in the writing of fiction. CC: HUL, WS
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EGL 402 - English Honors Thesis Seminar 1 Course Units: 0
(Fall; Lewin) A two-term course required for all English majors who are writing an honors senior thesis. The course is conducted mainly as a writing workshop to guide students through the process of writing a thesis. Workshops focus on developing the research and writing skills needed to complete a successful thesis. There will be weekly individual meetings with the instructor as well as weekly group meetings. The course instructor will direct your thesis. CC: HUL
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EGL 403 - English Honors Thesis Seminar 2 Course Units: 2
(Winter; Lewin) A two-term course required for all English majors who are writing an honors senior thesis. The course is conducted mainly as a writing workshop to guide students through the process of writing a thesis. Workshops focus on developing the research and writing skills needed to complete a successful thesis. There will be weekly individual meetings with the instructor as well as weekly group meetings. The course instructor will direct your thesis. CC: HUL, WS
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EGL 405 - Sr. Seminar (Winter): The Beatles Course Units: 1
(Winter; Jenkins) Before there was a youth market, there was a youth movement, and leading it was The Beatles. Almost indisputably the greatest rock band ever, they helped change not just Western music, but also Western culture. This seminar will look at the Beatles in the cultural context of the youth movement, without neglecting the music and lyrics that appealed even to those who rejected the changes they helped bring about. No in-depth musical knowledge will be necessary, but if you have a guitar and a voice, bring them along. CC: HUL, WS
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EGL 406 - Sr. Seminar (Spring): Gender, Culture, Cinema Course Units: 1
(Spring; Troxell) This course examines the intersecting roles of gender and sexuality in our media, with particular emphasis placed on film and video. Over the course of the term, we will investigate the ways in which various media texts transmit and construct notions of gender and sexuality and how viewers interpret and integrate these representations into their daily lives. As we analyze films by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Julie Dash, Jennie Livingston, and Jonathan Caouette, we will explore the ways in which conceptions of gender and sexuality are facilitated and constrained by legal, medical, and ethical discourses that emerge from specific historical and geographic contexts. In addition to analyzing classical narrative cinema, we will investigate counter-media practices that use form to resist approaches to gender and sexuality found in dominant media platforms and traditions. CC: HUL, WS
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EGL 490 - English Independent Studies 1 Course Units: 1
(Staff) Directed reading and research on arranged topics. By permission of department chair, after a petition submitted in the fifth week of the previous term.
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EGL 491 - English Independent Studies 2 Course Units: 1
(Staff) Directed reading and research on arranged topics. By permission of department chair, after a petition submitted in the fifth week of the previous term.
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EGL 496 - English Senior Thesis 1 Course Units: 0
(Staff) Two-term senior thesis. For use by ID English majors who do not meet the requirements for an English Honors thesis but who are required to complete a two-term interdepartmental thesis by their other ID department.
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EGL 497 - English Senior Thesis 2 Course Units: 2
(Staff) Two-term senior thesis. For use by ID English majors who do not meet the requirements for an English Honors thesis but who are required to complete a two-term interdepartmental thesis by their other ID department.
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