English and American Literature
S = Objectives
Undergraduate Concentration
The English concentration is
designed to train students in the formal analysis of literary
texts and to introduce them to their literary and cultural heritage.
Graduate Program in English
The graduate program in English and American literature is designed to offer training in the interpretation and evaluation of literary texts in their historical and cultural contexts.
S = How to Become an Undergraduate Concentrator
Prospective concentrators should take one of the following: HUM 10a, HIP 20a, or HIP 20b (see ìAî under the ìMain Trackî description below), as well as English 11a, Introduction to Literary Method, as early as possible in their career; the latter course focuses on the basic skills required by the major. Concentrators must also take five different period courses (each period is designated by a different number) from a list of six. In addition, concentrators must take a one semester course devoted primarily to literary criticism or literary theory and a one-semester elective, which may be any course (except writing courses) offered by either the English or comparative literature departments.
G = How to Be Admitted to the Graduate Program
Candidates for admission should have a bachelor's degree, preferably with a major in English and American literature, and a reading knowledge of French, Italian, Spanish, German, Greek, or Latin. They are required to submit a sample of their critical writing not to exceed 35 pages; the 35-page maximum may consist of a single critical essay or two shorter essays of approximately equal length. Students are also required to submit scores on the verbal aptitude portion of the Graduate Record Examination and on the GRE advanced test in literature. The general requirements for admission to the Graduate School, as specified in an earlier section of this Bulletin, apply to candidates for admission to this area of study.
S = Faculty
Susan Staves, Chair
Restoration and 18th century.
Olga Broumas (Director of Creative Writing)
Poetry.
John Burt
American literature. Romanticism.
Composition. Philosophy of education. Literature of the American
South. Poetry.
Mary Campbell
Medieval literature. Poetry.
Renaissance literature.
Wai Chee Dimock
19th-century American literature.
William Flesch, Undergraduate Advising Head
Poetry. Renaissance. Theory.
Michael Gilmore
Puritanism. Literature of the
American Revolution. American Renaissance.
Eugene Goodheart
19th- and 20th-century literature
and thought. Literary theory.
Thomas King
Performance studies. Gender
studies. Gay studies. 17th- and 18th-century drama.
Karen Klein
Interdisciplinary humanities.
Women's studies. Medieval literature.
Alan Levitan
Shakespeare. Renaissance poetry
and drama. Music and poetry. Classical and contemporary Japanese
drama, poetry, and fiction.
Victor Luftig (Director of University Writing)
Modern literature. Victorian
and 20th-century literature.
Stephen McCauley
Fannie Hurst novelist.
Paul Morrison, Graduate Advising Head
Modernism. Literary criticism
and theory.
Jennifer Otsuki
19th-century British literature.
Literary theory.
Jayne Anne Phillips
Fiction, Writer-in-Residence
Laura Quinney
Romanticism. Literature and
philosophy. 18th-century literature.
Faith Smith
African and Afro-American literature.
Caribbean literature.
Jay Wright
Fannie Hurst poet.
S = Course Numbers
Except for courses in the 90-99 range, English department courses are numbered systematically. The final digit for any course number identifies the subject, as follows:
0 - Courses in a literary genre
1 - Courses in literary theory and literary criticism
2 - Medieval British literature (roughly before 1500)
3 - Renaissance British literature (circa 1500-1660)
4 - Restoration/18th-century British literature
5 - 19th-century British literature
6 - 19th-century American literature
7 - 20th-century British or American literature
8 - Miscellaneous literary subjects
9 - Writing courses
S = Requirements for the Undergraduate Concentration
T = Main Track
Nine semester courses are required,
including the following:
A.
A semester course in major foundational texts of the Western literary
tradition (HUM 10a), or a semester course in major foundational
texts of world literatures (HIP 20a or HIP 20b), to be taken as
early as possible, either before or during the studentís
first years as an English concentrator.
B.
A semester course in literary method, ENG 11a, which should be
taken during the student's first year as an English major.
C.
One semester course in each of five different periods, chosen
from courses with final digits numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 (described
above) or from cross-listed courses in the corresponding categories.
D.
A one-semester elective, which may be any course (except writing
courses) offered by either the English or comparative literature
departments.
E.
One semester course directed primarily to literary criticism or
literary theory.
F.
No course with a final grade below C- can count toward fulfilling
the concentration requirements in English and American literature.
G.
Honors Track: The department shall determine which students
are eligible to enter the Honors Track. In order to receive honors
a student must satisfactorily complete an Honors Thesis during
the senior year.
T = Creative Writing Track
Students interested in the
Writing Track should consult the pamphlet, The Creative Writing
Track in the Department of English, obtainable from the main
office of the department. The requirements of the Writing Track
are, in brief, as follows:
A.
A semester course in literary method, ENG 11a, which should be
taken during the student's first year as an English major.
B.
Two semester courses in directed writing (poetry, prose, or both):
e.g., ENG 19a, ENG 109a, ENG 109b, ENG 119a, ENG 119b. At least
one course in directed writing must be completed before the end
of the sophomore year. All required courses in directed writing
must be concluded before the beginning of the senior year. Only
one course in directed writing can be taken in any semester.
C.
One semester course in the student's preferred genre, to be agreed
upon with the director of the Writing Track (e.g., ENG 10b or
ENG 180a). This course must be completed prior to the student's
senior year.
D.
One semester course in each of three different periods, chosen
from the Main Track list above.
E.
ENG 99d (The Senior Thesis). The student will produce, under the
direction of his or her advisor, a body of writing (usually a
book of poems or a collection of stories) of appropriate scope
(two semesters).
F.
An elective course normally in a studio or performing art, to
be agreed upon with the director of the Writing Track.
G.
The Writing Track also requires an essay on a tutorial bibliography.
This will be done at the end of the student's senior year.
H. Admission to the Writing Track is by application only. Admission will be decided by the faculty of the Writing Track on completion by the student of at least one course in directed writing, normally at the end of the sophomore year.
S = Requirements for the Undergraduate Minor
Concentrators in the Department
of English and American Literature are not eligible to enroll
in minors offered by the department.
T = Minor in Writing
Four semester courses are required,
including the following:
A.
Three writing workshops, chosen from the following: ENG 9a, 19a,
109a, 109b, 119a, and 119b.
B.
An academic course to be chosen by the student to match a literary
genre practiced in one of the chosen workshops, e.g., ENG 11a.
T = Minor in American Literature
Five courses are required,
including the following:
A.
ENG 6a.
B.
ENG 7a.
C.
Two advanced courses (on the 100-level) in American literature.
D.
One course in American history or philosophy as approved by the
advisor to minors.
E.
No course with a final grade below C- can count toward fulfilling
the requirements for the minor in American Literature.
S = Special Notes Relating to Undergraduates
This department participates
in the European Cultural Studies concentration and, in general,
its courses are open to ECS concentrators.
Transfer credit toward concentration:
Application for the use of transfer credit (awarded by the Office
of the University Registrar) toward concentration requirements
must be accompanied by a Requirement Substitution Form provided
by the English office. The student may be asked to provide a syllabus,
a transcript of grades, and in some cases examples of written
work for which credit is being sought. The number of concentration
requirements that can be satisfied with transfer credit is at
the discretion of the undergraduate advising committee.
More detailed descriptions of the courses offered each semester will be available in the English department office.
G = Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
Program of Study
First-year students are expected
to take six courses in the English department. Each student will
take ENG 200a (Methods of Literary Study); each student will complete
a series of workshops in the teaching of writing. Other courses
may be selected from departmental offerings at the 100 and 200
level, although at least two of these electives must be 200-level
seminars. First-year students must present a paper at the First
Year Symposium in the spring term.
Residence Requirement
The minimum residence requirement
is one year, though students with inadequate preparation may require
more.
Language Requirement
A reading knowledge of a major foreign language (normally modern European, classical Greek, or Latin) must be demonstrated by passing a written translation examination. The completion of the language requirement at another university does not exempt the student from the Brandeis requirement.
G = Requirements for the Joint Degree of Master of Arts in English and American Literature and Women's Studies
A.
ENG 200a (Methods of Literary Study).
B.
WMNS 205a, or a foundational course alternative.
C.
Five additional courses in the English department selected from
100-level courses and graduate seminars (200-level courses). At
least two of these courses must be at the 200 level. One of these
five courses must be listed as an elective with the Women's Studies
Program.
D.
One cross-listed women's studies course in a department other
than the English department.
E.
Attendance at the year-long, noncredit, eight-part Women's Studies
Colloquium Series.
F.
Language requirement: A reading knowledge of a major foreign language
(normally modern European, classical Greek, or Latin) must be
demonstrated by passing a written translation examination. The
completion of the language requirement at another university does
not exempt the student from the Brandeis requirement.
G. Thesis requirement: This project must be 25 to 35 pages long. Papers written for course work, papers presented at conferences, and papers written specifically for the M.A. degree are all acceptable. The paper must engage a feminist perspective or deal with literary subjects appropriate to women's studies. The paper must satisfy the reader's standards for excellence in M.A. degree level work. Each paper will be evaluated by a reader for whom the paper was not originally written. For further information, contact the women's studies advisor in the English department.
G = Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Program of Study
Second-year students continue to take courses, usually two each term. Students have an obligation to review their preparation in the field with their advisors and to ensure that they are acquiring both a comprehensive knowledge of the various historical periods and genres of English and American literature and a deeper knowledge of the particular period or field they propose to offer as a specialty. With the exception of ENG 200 and the teaching workshops, no specific courses are required of all Brandeis Ph.D. candidates; each student's program will be designed in light of the strengths and weaknesses of his or her previous preparation and in accord with his or her own interests.
A student who comes to Brandeis
with a B.A. degree is required to take 12 courses for the Ph.D.
degree. A student with an M.A. degree in English is required to
take eight additional courses, six of which must be taken in the
Brandeis English department. Additional courses may be taken in
other departments at Brandeis or at other universities through
various consortium arrangements.
Residence Requirement
The minimum residence requirement
is two years beyond the master's degree or three years beyond
the bachelor's degree.
Language Requirement
In addition to the first language
requirement, the student must (1) demonstrate a reading knowledge
of a second major foreign language; or (2) demonstrate an advanced
competence in the first foreign language and a knowledge of its
literature; or (3) take a graduate course, ordinarily a seminar,
in a field closely related to research on the dissertation. Approval
of the graduate committee must be sought before such a course
is taken; the student must demonstrate the relevance of the proposed
course to the dissertation.
Training in Teaching
Training in teaching is provided
through workshops offered in the first year. Second, third, and
fourth year students are given a variety of teaching assignments,
including University Writing Seminar courses associated with the
University Seminar in Humanistic Inquiries program and assistantships
in English department courses. Additional opportunities are available
in the University Writing Center, in the program for teaching
English as a Second Language, in other departments, and in competitively
awarded Prize Instructorships in the University.
Dissertation and Defense
Each student will submit a
dissertation in a form approved by his/her dissertation director
and by a committee appointed by the director of graduate studies.
The student will defend the dissertation at a Final Oral Examination.
Dissertation Field Examination
All candidates for the Ph.D. will be asked to pass an oral examination in the historical period or genre in which the candidate expects to write a dissertation. This examination should be taken in the third year.
G = Special Notes Relating to the Doctoral Program
Students should also consult the General Degree Requirements and Academic Regulations found in an earlier section of this Bulletin.
S = Courses of Instruction
S = (1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students
BCOM 1a Composition
Prerequisite: Placement by the director of University writing. Enrollment limited to 10 per section. Successful completion of this course does NOT satisfy the first-year writing requirement.
A course in the fundamentals of writing, required as a prerequisite to the University Writing Seminar for selected students identified by the director of University writing. Several sections will be offered in the fall semester.
Staff
L =
FWS 1a Foundational Writing Seminar
Prerequisite: Placement by the director of University writing. Enrollment limited to 15. Enrollment restricted to students who already have satisfied the USEM requirement.
A full-credit course for students beyond the freshman year who have yet to meet the graduation requirement otherwise met by completing the University Writing Seminar (see below). As in the University Writing Seminar, the stress is on argumentative and stylistic strategies. Usually offered every year.
Staff
L =
WL 1a University Writing Seminar
Enrollment limited to 20. May yield half-course credit toward rate of work and graduation. Two semester hour credits.
A preparatory course in college writing, with stress on writing sound argumentative essays that demonstrate mechanical and stylistic expertise. This course satisfies the first-year writing requirement. University Writing Seminars are offered in conjunction with University Seminars in Humanistic Inquiries and are limited to first-year students. Each student is automatically enrolled in the University Writing Seminar connected to the particular University Seminar in which he or she enrolls. Offered every semester.
Staff
HUM 10a The Western Canon: Epic Fathers, Epic Sons
[ hum ]
Aeneas, father of the Roman State and the protagonist of Virgilís Aeneid, flees a burning Troy carrying Anchises, his father. Anchises, however, dies before reaching Italy. The rescue of the father suggests continuity between the old world of Troy and the new world of Rome, and hence between the Iliad (Troy) and the Aeneid (Rome). The death of the father in exile, however, suggests discontinuity, and hence a break between the Homeric poem and Virgilís epic. Epics frequently thematize the relation of father to son, son to father; we shall take this theme and see it as emblematic of the relation of epic to epic. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Morrison
L =
ENG 3a The Renaissance
[ cl30 hum ]
We will study lyric, narrative, and dramatic poetry and some prose. The purpose is to acquaint students with the intellectual and stylistic transformations that mark the English Renaissance as the most varied and seminal period of "awakenings" and "reawakenings" in English literary history. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Levitan
ENG 4a The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century: From Satire to Sentiment
[ hum ]
Verse and prose by major authors including Dryden, Swift, Pope, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Sterne. What motivates the rejection of satire and the turn to feeling and sentiment? How different are the relations of male and female writers to satire and sentiment? Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Staves
ENG 5a Nineteenth-Century Survey
[ hum ]
This survey course offers general coverage of the major literary genres in the 19th-century. The course studies the cultural context forged by the interaction of fiction, prose, and poetry. Some of the topics covered include domesticity and the position of women, industrialization and reform politics, imperialism, and science. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1995.
Staff
ENG 6a American Literature from 1832 to 1900
[ hum ]
The transformation of our literary culture: the literary marketplace, domestic fiction, transcendentalism, and the problem of race. Cooper, Poe, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Fanny Fern, Harriet Wilson, Chopin, and Melville. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Gilmore
ENG 7a American Literature from 1900 to 1965
[ hum ]
Realism and beyond. Eliot, Frost, Dreiser, Fitzgerald, Hurston, Faulkner, and others. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Burt
ENG 9a Advanced Writing Seminar
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required.
A workshop in nonfiction designed mainly for juniors and seniors who want to develop skills in the critical or personal essay, in memoir, autobiography, or scholarly writing. Readings include short works of nonfiction by a wide variety of writers. Usually offered every year.
Staff
ENG 10b Poetry: A Basic Course
(Formerly ENG 100b)
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 100b in previous years.
Designed as a "first" course for all persons interested in the subject. It is intended to be basic without being elementary. The subject matter will consist of poems of short and middle length in English from the earliest period to the present. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Staff
ENG 11a Introduction to Literary Method
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15 per section.
The course's purpose is to train students in the critical reading of literary texts. There will be frequent assignments of writing that involve literary analysis. Usually offered every semester. Multiple sections.
Staff
ENG 16a Nineteenth-Century African-American Literature: Texts and Contexts
(Formerly ENG 116a)
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 116a in previous years.
We will examine some of the major 19th-century texts of African-American literature and why they are at the center of often heated debates about the canon today. We will consider why the issues raised by these texts--gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, the limits of democracy, and the relationship of African-Americans to the United States and other national spaces-
-resonate so profoundly in literary and cultural studies, and in national life. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Smith
ENG 19a Introduction to Creative Writing
[ hum ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Signature of the instructor required.
A workshop for beginning writers. Practice and discussion of short literary and oral forms: lyric, poetry, the short story, tales, curses, spells. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Campbell
ENG 23a Domains of Seventeenth-Century Performance
(Formerly ENG 24a)
[ cl33 cl42 hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 24a in previous years.
Seventeenth-century London performance investigated through the domains of its production--the court, the city, and the emerging "town," center of a new leisure class. Drama, masques, and music drama studied as modes of representation negotiating class mobility, changing concepts of state authority and personal identity, and shifts in gender and sexual relations. Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. King
ENG 30a "Tales of the Dark Side": The Gothic Tradition in English and American Literature
[ hum ]
Examines the Gothic novel from the 18th to the 20th centuries, looking at Gothic writers as rebels against the realistic novelists, incorporating some of their techniques, radically modifying others, and creating a tradition. Usually offered every summer.
Staff
ENG 33a Shakespeare
[ cl30 hum ]
A survey of Shakespeare as a dramatist. From nine to 12 plays will be read, representing all periods of Shakespeare's dramatic career. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Flesch
ENG 36a The American Novel, 1791-1852
[ hum ]
Focuses on permutations of sentimental, Gothic, and historical fiction in the United States in the early national period. Authors will include Rowson, Brockden Brown, Sedgwick, Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, and Stowe. Will only be offered in the spring of 1998.
Mr. Dyer
ENG 58b AIDS, Activism, and Representation
[ cl46 cl47 hum ]
Signature of the instructor required.
Selected topics in the cultural construction and representation of AIDS. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1995.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 60b Writing About the Environment
[ cl16 wi hum ]
Prerequisite: Completion of the FWS/WL requirement. Signature of the instructor required.
A course on writing persuasively about humansí interactions with, and responsibilities for, the world around us. Practice in several forms of non-fiction prose; readings from various cultures and periods, mainly from the U.S. since Thoreau, including Berry, Carson, Dillard, and Lopez. Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. Luftig
ENG 63a Renaissance Poetry
(Formerly ENG 163a)
[ cl30 hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 163a in previous years.
We will read lyric and narrative poetry by Wyatt, Surrey, Marlowe, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, and Herbert. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Levitan
ENG 67b Modern Poetry
[ cl26 hum ]
A course on the major poets of the 20th century. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 70a World Fiction/World Science Fiction
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 20.
Juxtaposes 20th-century ìmainstreamî world fiction and world science fiction to see how technology intersects with identity, nation, race, and gender. Will technology be used for oppressive or liberatory purposes? Includes work from Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, and Japan.
Ms. Tabron
ENG 75b The Victorian Novel
[ hum ]
The rhetorical strategies, themes, and objectives of Victorian realism. Texts may include Eliot's Middlemarch, Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Brontë's Villette, Gaskell's Mary Barton, Dickens's Bleak House, and Trollope's The Prime Minister. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 80a Readings in the Short Novel
[ hum ]
A study of major short works of modern fiction with a view toward understanding the modern element in those works. Readings will include James, Conrad, Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway, Mann, Kafka, Gide, and Camus. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Goodheart
ENG 98a Independent Study
Signature of the instructor required.
Usually offered every year.
Staff
ENG 98b Independent Study
Signature of the instructor required.
Usually offered every year.
Staff
ENG 99a The Senior Essay
Signature of the instructor required.
Open to all students with the approval of an instructor.
Usually offered every year.
Staff
ENG 99b The Senior Essay
Signature of the instructor required.
Usually offered every year.
Staff
ENG 99d The Senior Thesis
Signature of the instructor required.
Usually offered every year.
Staff
G = (100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students
ENG 101a Studies in Popular Culture
[ hum ]
A critical analysis of contemporary culture, including television, film, video, advertising, and popular literature. Combines applied criticism and theoretical readings.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 105a Women of Letters: The Nineteenth-Century
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 11a, or the equivalent.
Using a variety of genres (prose, novel, poetry), the course explores how women writers of the 19th century negotiated the split between public (commercial, political) and private (domestic) concerns in their writing. How did these women writers understand the intersections between sexual, racial, class, and national forms of identity? Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the fall of 1997.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 105b Nineteenth-Century Novel
[ hum ]
A study of the changing relations between self and society in the 19th-century novel in a world in which society has achieved an unprecedented, almost god-like, authority-creating values, shaping behavior, passing judgement. What are the possibilities of personal freedom and self-expression? We consider the ways in which Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, and Thomas Hardy represent marriage, passion, work, and the moral life. Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. Goodheart
ENG 107a Poetry of the Americas
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15.
A seminar devoted to rigorous and full analyses of selected poetry, in English, by recent and contemporary American writers. Writers will include Sandra McPherson, Pattiann Rogers, Robert Earl Hayden, Derek Wolcott, Robert Bringhurst, and Don Domanski. Students will make written and oral presentations.
Mr. Wright
ENG 107b The Serious Business of Comedy
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15.
Satire, farce, comic monologue, and more in 20th-century American novels and short stories. What makes a work of fiction funny? How do Nabokov, Roth, Edith Wharton, Randall Jarrell, and others employ the language of comedy to express the social, sexual, and political anxieties and absurdities of their times? Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. McCauley
ENG 109a Directed Writing: Poetry
[ hum ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Signature of the instructor required. Students wishing to enroll should submit a writing sample consisting of three poems to the English department office, Rabb 144, before the first meeting of class.
Usually offered every year.
Mr. Wright
ENG 109b Directed Writing: Short Fiction
[ hum ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Signature of the instructor required. Students will be selected after the submission of sample writing, preferably three pages of fiction. The deadline for submission of application manuscripts to the English department office, Rabb 144, is the day before the first meeting of class.
A workshop for motivated students with a serious interest in pursuing writing. Student stories will be copied and distributed before each class meeting. Students' stories, as well as exemplary published short stories, will provide the occasion for textual criticism in class. Usually offered every year.
Mr. McCauley
ENG 116b Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Afro-American Literature
[ hum ]
Addresses the history of Afro-American literature from its mid-18th-century beginnings through the post-Civil War Reconstruction of the late 19th century. We will examine transcriptions of oral folk productions, slave narratives, autobiography, essays, poetry, and prose fiction. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Smith
ENG 117a Directed Studies in Current Literature
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required.
We will read books that alter one's perception towards generosity, gratitude, and perception. By looking at their grammar and syntax and writing exercises in the path of their influence, we will generate writing that amplifies our understanding of the possibilities of literary expression. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Ms. Broumas
ENG 117b The Autobiographical Imagination
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 11a. Signature of the instructor required.
This combination literature/creative writing course will combine the study of contemporary autobiographical prose and poetry with a series of writing exercises based on these texts. We'll examine--as writers--what it means to construct the story of one's life, and the ways in which lies, metaphor, and imagination transform the stuff to memory to reveal and conceal the self. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Broumas
ENG 119a Directed Writing: Fiction
[ hum ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Signature of the instructor required. Those wishing to enroll should submit a sample of their fiction writing to the English department office, Rabb 144, before the first meeting of class.
An advanced fiction workshop for students primarily interested in the short story. Students are expected to compose and revise three stories, complete typed critiques of each otherís work weekly, and discuss readings based on examples of various techniques. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Phillips
ENG 119b Directed Writing: Poetry
[ hum ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Signature of the instructor required. Admission by consent of the instructor on the basis of a short manuscript of poems submitted to the English department office, Rabb 144, before the first meeting of class.
A workshop for poets, using traditional workshop formats as well as body work to ground the imagination in breath and felt experience. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Broumas
ENG 121b Contemporary Literary Theory
[ cl21 hum ]
Recommended preparation: A course in the history of criticism.
A broad consideration of recent issues and trends in literary theory, primarily formalist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, poststructuralist, feminist, and Marxist. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 122a The Medieval World
[ cl39 hum ]
A survey of early English literature. The first half will be Old English in translation: charms, riddles, elegiac poetry, the epic poem Beowulf. The second half will consist of some literature in translation: lyrics, Gawain, The Wakefield Master, and selected Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Klein
ENG 124a Reason and Ridicule: The Literature of Britain in the Enlightenment
[ cl9 hum ]
Writers' concern with "criticism" broadly understood, including literary criticism in Johnson and Sheridan, skeptical historiography in Gibbon and Hume, and political criticism in Paine and Wollstonecraft. Debates on the effectiveness and propriety of wit in reasoned argument and political debate. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1993.
Ms. Staves
ENG 125a Romanticism I: Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
[ cl43 hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 135b in previous years.
We will read the major poetry and some prose by the first generation of English Romantic poets who may be said to have defined Romanticism and set the tone for the last two centuries of English literature. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Burt
ENG 125b Romanticism II: Byron, Shelley, and Keats
[ cl43 hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 135b in previous years. ENG 125a (Romanticism I) is not a prerequisite for this course.
The "younger generation" of Romantic poets. Byron, Shelley, and Keats both continue and react against poetic, political, and philosophical preoccupations and positions of their immediate elders. We will read their major works, as well as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Usually offered in odd years.
Staff
ENG 126a American Realism and Naturalism, 1865-1900
[ cl44 hum ]
The course's concern will be how some of the central American Realists and Naturalists set about representing and analyzing American social and political life. Topics include the changing status of individuals, classes, and genders, among others. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1997.
Ms. Dimock
ENG 126b American Romanticism
[ cl43 hum ]
Essays, poems, and fiction by Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Fuller, Poe, and Hawthorne. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1994.
Mr. Burt
ENG 127a Joyce and Lawrence
[ hum ]
A study of the major works of the two great antithetic novelists of the Modern period. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Goodheart
ENG 127b Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15.
As colony, homeland, Paradise, Babylon, the Caribbean has been at the center of theorizations of identity, imperialism, nation, and diaspora. We examine the impact of migration on the imagination of writers from and on the region. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Smith
ENG 129a Writing Workshop
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required. Students must submit a three-to five-page writing sample to the English department office, Rabb 144, before the first meeting of class.
A workshop for writers. Usually offered in even years.
Staff
ENG 132b Chaucer I
[ cl39 hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 10b or ENG 11a.
In addition to reading Chaucer's major work, The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English, we will pay special attention to situating The Tales in relation to linguistic, literary, and social developments of the later Middle Ages. No previous knowledge of Middle English required. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Campbell
ENG 133a Advanced Shakespeare
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 33a or ENG 33b.
An intensive analysis of a single play or a small number of Shakespeare's plays. Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. Levitan
ENG 134a The Woman of Letters, 1600-1800
[ cl7 cl15 hum ]
Women writers from Behn to Austen; novels, plays, pamphlets, diaries, and letters. The culture's attitudes to women writers; women's attitudes to literary achievement and fame, women's resistance to stereotypes, and women's complicity in the promulgation of images of the "good woman." Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Ms. Staves
ENG 135b Romanticism
[ hum ]
Major texts by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Byron, among others. Our purpose is to define the common ground of the Romantics' poetic, political, and philosophic goals and to determine the singularity of each writer's achievement. Usually offered in even years.
Staff
ENG 137b Studies in Modernism
[ hum ]
An attempt to explore the concept of "modernism" through an intensive reading of seminal poems, novels, and plays. Focuses on the formal innovations of modernism and their relation to various ideological and political issues. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 140a Satire and its Uses, Juvenal to Ishmael Reed
[ hum ]
Examines the forms and methods of satirical fiction and poetry, with emphasis on writers from classical Rome, Britain, and the United States. One aim of the course is to see how well the concept of ìsatireî applies to texts from disparate cultures and periods. Will only be offered in the spring of 1998.
Mr. Dyer
ENG 142b Introduction to Old Norse
[ hum ]
Designed to introduce students to the linguistic structure of Old Norse, to develop reading proficiency in Old Norse, and to introduce students to some of the classic texts of the Old Norse sagas, especially those with parallels to Beowulf. Usually offered in odd years. Will be offered in the spring of 1998.
Ms. Maling
ENG 143a Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama
[ hum ]
A study of the revenge tradition in the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The problem of blood-revenge will be looked at as a historical phenomenon in Renaissance society and as a social threat transformed into art in such dramatists as Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, Marston, Tourneur, Chapman, and Webster. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Levitan
ENG 144b The Body as Text: Castiglione to Locke
(Formerly ENG 141b)
[ cl4 cl35 cl42 wi hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 141b in previous years.
How are our bodies the material for our presentations of self and our interactions with others? We will read contemporary theories and histories of the body against literary, philosophical, political, and performance texts of the 16th- through the 18th-centuries. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Mr. King
ENG 145a British Colonialism
[ cl3 cl27 hum ]
The course will examine the specular relationship between the British colonies and the colonizing society, and how the attempt to see and represent the colonial Other is deflected into modes of self-definition. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1997.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 145b The Image of Crime: Realism and Victorian Detective Fiction
[ cl6 hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 11a.
This course will examine the relationship between the dominant tradition of realism and detective or mystery fiction, focusing on how the image of crime differs from one genre to the other. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 147b Modern Irish Literature
[ hum ]
This course examines a publicly prominent literature and its testing and validation of the identities of various constituencies: Irish, Irish-American, Irish-Jewish, Irish-Unionist, and so on. Writers considered include Joyce, Yeats, Synge, and Beckett. Other prominent figures as well as a wide range of contemporary authors are also taken up. Usually offered in even years. Last offered in the spring of 1995.
Mr. Luftig
ENG 151a Lesbian and Gay Studies: Desire, Identity, and Representation
[ cl46 hum ]
Historical, literary, and theoretical perspectives on the construction and performance of homosexual identities. How has the sin that cannot be named been overdetermined as the margin against which heterosexuality defines itself? How has that margin provided a space for radical praxis? Usually offered in even years. Last offered in the fall of 1994.
Mr. King
ENG 152b Arthurian Literature
[ cl39 cl48 hum ]
Prerequiste: ENG 11a.
A survey of (mostly) medieval treatments of the legendary material associated with King Arthur and his court, in several genres: bardic poetry, history, romance, prose narrative. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Campbell
ENG 157a The Postmodern Generation: Contemporary Poetry
[ hum ]
An introduction to recent poetry in English, dealing with a wide range of poets, as well as striking and significant departures from the poetry of the past. We will look, where possible, at individual volumes by representative authors. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Staff
ENG 157b American Women Poets
[ cl15 cl36 hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 10b or ENG 11a. Enrollment limited to 20.
In this course we will imagine meanings for terms like "American" and "women" in relation to poetry. After introductory study of Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Emily Dickinson, readings of (and about) women whose work was circulated widely, especially among other women poets, will be selected from mainly 20th-century writers. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Campbell
ENG 164b Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama and Performance
[ cl2 hum ]
Investigates the exchange between performance texts and contemporaneous discussions of class, nationality, and political party. Emphasizes the emergence of modern gender and sexual roles and the impact of the first professional women actors. Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. King
ENG 165b Victorian Poetry and its Readers
[ hum ]
Studies how poetry was written and read during the last time poetry held a prominent role in England's public life. The course centers on Tennyson's career as Poet Laureate, but also gives full attention to Robert Browning's work. The course also surveys the work of E. B. Browning, the Pre-Raphaelites, and others, and concludes with the poetry of Hardy and of the early Yeats. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Mr. Luftig
ENG 166a A Selection of Major American Poets
[ hum ]
We will study selected poetry of major American poets including Dickinson, Whitman, Eliot, Frost, Stevens, Bishop, and others. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1993.
Mr. Burt
ENG 166b Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville
[ hum ]
Poetry of Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, and Melville, with representative poems of Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow, Poe, Sigourney, and Tuckerman. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Mr. Burt
ENG 167b Narratives of Slavery and Freedom in the African-American Tradition
[ hum ]
This course explores the slave narrative genre, with close attention to 19th- and 20th-century texts by Frederic Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Ralph Ellison, Sherley Ann Williams, and others. Close attention is paid to the politics of authorship and endorsement, as well as to the controversy over William Styron's 1967 Confessions of Nat Turner. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Smith
ENG 171a History of Literary Criticism
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 71a in previous years.
Explores major documents in the history of criticism from Plato to the present. Texts will be read as representative moments in the history of criticism and as documents of self-sufficient literary and intellectual interest. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1995.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 173a Spenser and Milton
[ cl30 hum ]
A course on poetic authority: the poetry of authority and the authority of poetry. Spenser and Milton will be treated individually, but the era they bound will be examined in terms of the tensions within and between their works. Usually offered in even years. Last offered in the spring of 1997.
Mr. Flesch
ENG 174b Eighteenth-Century Novel
[ hum ]
The early development of the novel in England, with particular attention to contemporary theories of the novel and the relationship between the literary history of genre and the social history of class. Authors include Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Burney. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Staves
ENG 176b Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe
[ hum ]
Readings will include Moby Dick, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Scarlet Letter, and The Marble Faun, as well as short novels by all three authors. Usually offered every fourth year. Will be offered in the spring of 1998.
Ms. Dimock
ENG 177a American Gothic and American Romance
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 176a in previous years.
Examines Gothic fiction as a method of exploring the capacities of the imagination, disclosing its power, and meeting its threat. Beginning with the 19th-century founders of the genre in America, the second half of the course deals with some 20th-century masters. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Burt
ENG 177b Fiction of the Twentieth-Century American South
[ hum ]
Fiction of the 20th-century American South: Faulkner, Warren, Porter, Welty, and others. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1994.
Mr. Burt
ENG 180a The Modern American Short Story
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required.
Close study of American short fiction masterworks. We read as writers write, discussing solutions to narrative obstacles, examining the consequences of alternate points of view. We study words and syntax to understand and articulate how technical decisions have moral and emotional weight. Usually offered in even years.
Staff
ENG 181a Making Sex, Performing Gender
[ cl12 cl42 cl46 hum ]
Gender and sexuality studied as sets of performed traits and cues for interactions among social actors. Theorists suggest that gender and sexual identities are neither biologically innate nor psychologically essential, but are repeatedly produced in everyday social practices. Readings will argue that differently organized gender and sexual practices are possible for men and women. Discussion and three short papers. Usually offered in odd years. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Mr. King
ENG 187b Twentieth-Century Literature: American Passages
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 11a, or the equivalent. Signature of the instructor required.
Focuses on literary explorations of American childhood and identity. Race, gender, and the search for meaning and connection through language in a multicultural society are represented through a range of contemporary American voices.
Ms. Phillips
ENG 197b The Political Novel in the Twentieth Century
[ cl12 cl20 cl29 wi hum ]
Defining politics as strategies of power, we will look at these strategies in sexual, racial, economic, and ideological terms as they are represented in primarily British and American novels of the 20th century. We will focus on literary responses to various political and economic systems and on the literary depictions of the body in public and institutional spaces. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Klein
G = (200 and above) Primarily for Graduate Students
Seminars
ENG 200a Methods of Literary Study
Required of all first-year graduate students.
Usually offered every year.
Mr. Flesch
ENG 215a Totalization and the Other: Images of Race and Gender in Victorian Fiction
Examines typical rhetorical strategies employed by Victorian writers to achieve an inclusive, totalizing social vision, and how these strategies are problematized by the period's equally relentless need to represent images of the colonial and gendered Other. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 221a Selected Topics in Literary Theory
This seminar considers a broad range of recent issues and trends in literary theory. Attention is given to structuralist, post-structuralist, psychoanalytic, Marxist, and feminist theories. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1994.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 223a Early Modern Literatures of Information and Empire
(Formerly ENG 242a)
Reading in (primarily) English genres of the period of discovery and colonial exploration (up to 1727): "births" of Utopia, anthropology, science fiction, and the novel; relations of science to prose fiction and sensational genres. Collaterally an overview of the methods and assumptions of intellectual history in its "new historicist" and "cultural materialist" avatars. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Campbell
ENG 225a British Imperialism
The course will examine the specular relationship between the British colonies and the colonizing society, and the rhetorical overlap between "literary" and "historical" representations of the colonies. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1994.
Ms. Otsuki
ENG 226a Gender and the Public Sphere
Explores the concepts of "separate spheres," sexual division of labor, and the spatial entitlements in the 19th century, with a focus on texts by Hawthorne, James, Stowe, and Melville and with supplementary readings in Jürgen Habermas, Eve Sedgwick, and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1996.
Ms. Dimock
ENG 227a Studies in Modernism
An exploration of the concept of the modern through an intensive reading of The Waste Land, Ulysses, Between the Acts, and Endgame. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1993.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 227b Critics of Culture: Past and Present
The cultural criticism of the past 200 years may be read as a history of the quarrel between literature and the modern world. We will read, among others, Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold, Marx, Eliot, Orwell, Trilling, Williams, Eagleton, Jameson, and Said. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Goodheart
ENG 230a Canons and Aesthetic Ideology
The debates, theoretical and practical, historical and contemporary, on canonicity and taste. How and what is the canon? What is a canon? Is the canon oppressive? Would every canon be? Are there any criteria for literary evaluation? Readings include Dryden, Burke, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Woolf, Smith, Harpham, Sedgwick, Guillory, Nussbaum, Bourdieu, Gates, Froula, Ronald Dworkin, Fish, both Blooms, Rorty, and William James. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1993.
Staff
ENG 230b Feminist Theory
This course, primarily devoted to literary theory, will also pay some attention to feminist scholarship in related disciplines, including history, anthropology, and legal studies. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Dimock
ENG 231a Seminar in Performance Studies: Performing the Early Modern Self
In this seminar we read contemporary performance theory against everyday and formal performances of the Restoration and the 18th century in England. We will investigate agents' negotiations of social and personal space in plays, diaries, novels, and treatises. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1995.
Mr. King
ENG 232b Chaucer
A survey of the historically pivotal literary career of Chaucer, with emphasis on The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's works as social analysis and critique, from the point of view of a bourgeois outsider in an aristocratic milieu; Chaucer's medieval genres and their transformation into vehicles of early modern sensibility; medieval relations of secular literature to its audience(s); orality, literacy, and the book. Usually offered in odd years.
Ms. Campbell
ENG 234a Feminist Criticism and Women's Writing, 1660-1800
Recent feminist criticism of texts written by women between 1660 and 1800. The emphasis will not be on feminist theory, but rather on issues in the criticism and interpretation of literary texts and on feminist issues in literary theory. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Staves
ENG 235a Topics in Romanticism
This seminar looks in depth at issues surrounding English Romanticism. Works considered include the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Percy Shelley, and Keats, and the prose of De Quincey, Hazlitt, Lamb, Mary Shelley, and Brontë. The works are examined from theoretical, historical, political, and formal perspectives. Usually offered in even years.
Staff
ENG 236a American Poetry of the Nineteenth Century
A graduate seminar on American poetry of the 19th century, including Dickinson, Whitman, Emerson, Melville, Tuckerman, the "Fireside poets" (Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Bryant), the "Nightingales" (Sigourney and Oakes-Smith), religious and patriotic lyrics, and much more. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1995.
Mr. Burt
ENG 236b Special Topics in Postcolonial Literature and Theory
Using rotating topics ("Black British," "Anglophone Caribbean," "Intellectuals and the British Empire"), this course is designed to introduce students to some of the major issues and thinkers in this field. Usually offered every fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Ms. Smith
ENG 240a Sex and Culture
Studies in the cultural construction and representation of the self and its sexuality; we focus primarily on the various technologies of self-knowledge and self-fashioning (literary and otherwise) in the modern West. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1996.
Mr. Morrison
ENG 240b The Ethics of Representation in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Fiction
Examining exemplary works of 19th- and 20th-century fiction, we study the ways in which narrative construction (plotting, rhetoric, narrative voice, ideological motivation) represent personal and social reality. We raise questions about the relationship between the real and the ethical, between what is and what ought to be, and how our own ethical concerns complicate our understanding of the novels we read. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Mr. Goodheart
ENG 243a Renaissance Intertextualities
Once recovered, to what degree are the paradigmatic texts of classical antiquity--or even the later models of Petrarch and the "Pléiade"--rather re-covered by Renaissance English poets? How and why do texts influence texts? Translation, imitation, and variation will be the subjects of inquiry. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Mr. Levitan
ENG 243b Sonnets, Lyrics, and Short Narratives: Tudor and Elizabethan
Studies the short poem between 1520 and 1600, in the native and continental traditions. The major figures to be read include John Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. Among the motifs to be examined are Renaissance musical realization of lyric texts (Dowland, Campion, and the madrigalists), variations on classical sources, and stylistic innovations. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1993.
Mr. Levitan
ENG 250a Representations of Eighteenth-Century Marriage: Literary Texts, Historical Documents
Explores a variety of 18th-century representations of marriage, each of which has been thought to make some claim to being a "realistic" representation. Sources include legal documents, medical treatises, paintings, periodical accounts, conduct books, drama, and novels. We concern ourselves with the apparent social function of each text and with the ideology of marriage it promotes. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Staves
ENG 250b Historical and Theoretical Introduction to Modern English Versification
The history of English versification from Wyatt on is the history of the theory of versification. This course studies both, asking what rhyme and meter are, and what their connection to poetic meaning is. We consider the answers given by poets from Wyatt through Ashbery and Merrill and theorists from Spenser and Milton through Freud, Empson, and Easthope. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Flesch
ENG 256a Interdisciplinary Approaches to American Literature
A comprehensive survey of American literature, with particular emphasis on its interactions with a range of disciplines: history, law, linguistics, philosophy, and science. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Dimock
ENG 264a Pope, Montagu, and Fielding
A study of three major 18th-century comic writers with an emphasis on exploring some common ground among them, including their complex uses of irony and sentiment, and considering their generic experiments. Among the issues to be considered are the writers' highly self-conscious relation to new developments in the early modern book trade. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1994.
Ms. Staves
ENG 266a Literature, Culture, and Society: American Novels from the Revolution to the Twentieth Century
This course will explore the relation between selected American novels and the social order out of which they emerged. We will pose the following questions: Is literature a criticism of society, or an affirmation of prevalent values? Do novels challenge or reinforce popular sentiment? Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. Gilmore
ENG 280a Making it Real: The Tactics of Discourse
Critical investigation of representational practices as modes of agency, problematizing identity and difference, and negotiating hegemony and marginality. Interdisciplinary focus including performance and cultural studies; the practice and theory of literary, visual, and performing arts; and historiography. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Mr. King
ENG 299b Pedagogy
Modern theories of pedagogy and composition with practical experience. Students are apprenticed to current instructors. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Luftig
ENG 352a and b Directed Research
Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested. Permission of the director of graduate studies required.
Staff
ENG 402d Dissertation Research
Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested.
Staff
S = Cross-Listed Courses
Courses in Literary Genre
HIP 10b
Lyric Poetry and Drawing
NEJS 172a
Women in American Jewish Literature
L =
Courses in Literary Theory
and Literary Criticism
COML 198a
Feminist Theory in Literary
and Cultural Studies
L =
Renaissance British Literature
(circa 1500-1660)
COML 103b
Madness and Folly in Renaissance
Literature
L =
Restoration/18th-Century
British Literature
COML 105b
Sex and Sensibility in Pre-Revolutionary
European Novels
L =
19th-Century British Literature
COML 185a
Dickens and Dostoevsky
L =
20th-Century British or
American Literature
AAAS 79b
Afro-American Literature of
the Twentieth Century
NEJS 173b
American Jewish Writers in
the Twentieth Century
NEJS 176a
Seminar in American Jewish
Fiction: Literary Readings: Roth and Ozick
L =
Miscellaneous Literary Subjects
LING 8b
The Grammar of English