University Bulletin 2002-03

Department of
English and American Literature

Courses of Study:
Minor
Major (B.A.)
Master of Arts
Doctor of Philosophy

Department website: http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/english/

Objectives

Undergraduate Major

The English major is designed to train students in the analysis of literary texts and to introduce them to the various literary and cultural traditions that influence creative work in the English language.

Graduate Program in English and American Literature

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.

How to Become an Undergraduate Major

There are no prerequisites for declaring the English major, and students may declare the major at any time. Prospective majors are encouraged to take two or three courses in the department in their first and second years. ENG 11a (Introduction to Literary Method) focuses on the basic skills needed for studying literature and is required for the major. Courses with numbers below 100 are especially suitable for beginning students.

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. All applicants are required to submit scores on the Graduate Record Examination Verbal Aptitude test. The GRE Advanced Test in Literature is also required for Ph.D. applicants and recommended for joint M.A. applicants. 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.

Faculty

Michael Gilmore, Chair
Puritanism. Literature of the American Revolution. American Renaissance. Film studies.

John Brereton (Director of University Writing)
Composition and rhetoric. History of rhetoric. Pedagogy. Literary nonfiction. Eighteenth century English literature.

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.

Rafael Campo
Fannie Hurst Poet.

Patricia Chu
Modernism. American literature. Asian-American literature.

William Flesch
Poetry. Renaissance. Theory.

Caren Irr
Twentieth-century American literature. Theory. Cultural studies.

Thomas King, Graduate Advising Head
Performance studies. Gender studies. Gay studies. 17th- and 18th-century drama.

Susan Lanser
18th- and 19th-century British and French studies. Women writers. The novel. Women's studies and lesbian/gay studies. Comparative literature.

Jill McCorkle
Fannie Hurst Writer.

Paul Morrison
Modernism. Literary criticism and theory.

Jayne Anne Phillips
Fiction, Writer-in-Residence.

John Plotz
Victorian literature. The novel. Politics and aesthetics.

Laura Quinney
Romanticism. Literature and philosophy. Eighteenth-century literature.

Miles Rind
Aesthetics. History of philosophy. Kant.

Mark Sanders, Undergraduate Advising Head
Twentieth-century Anglophone literature. Postcolonial theory.

Faith Smith
African and Afro-American literature. Caribbean literature.

Ramie Targoff
Renaissance literature. Shakespeare. Religion and literature.

Michaele Whelan
Contemporary Anglophone literature. American literature. Theory.

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 literature

8 - Miscellaneous literary subjects

9 - Writing courses

Requirements for the Undergraduate Major

Main Track

Nine semester courses are required, including the following:

A. A semester course in literary method, ENG 11a.

B. Three semester courses dealing primarily with literature in English written before 1850. All courses ending in 2,3, or 4 fulfill this requirement, as well as certain courses ending in 5 or 6. For specific information about whether a particular course fulfills the pre-1850 requirement please consult the instructor or the undergraduate advising head. A listing is provided below and is also available from the main office in the department.

Pre-1850 courses: ENG 3a, 4a, 23a, 25a, 33a, 43a, 44a, 53a, 63a, 103a, 104a, 114b, 115b, 116b, 122a, 124a, 125, 132b, 133a, 134a, 135b, 142b, 143a, 144b, 152b, 164b, 173a, 174b

The following courses usually fulfill the pre-1850 requirement, however, students must check with the instructor and the undergraduate advising head for final approval: ENG 105a, 105b

C. One semester course in world literature (exclusive of the United States and England) from the list given below. For the purposes of this requirement, world literature includes literature written in English in places outside the United States and England (e.g., Irish, Canadian, Australian, Indian, African, or Caribbean literature). Courses in foundational texts (HUM 10a or ENG 10a), or certain cross-listed courses also fulfill this requirement. Other courses may also be suitable; students with questions should consult the undergraduate advising head.

World literature courses: AAAS 133b, COML 102a, 147b, 165a, ENG 10a, 17b, 77b, 111b, 127a, 147b, 197b, HUM 10a

D. Four elective semester courses, which may include any course offered, or cross-listed, in the department, with the following exceptions: no more than one creative writing workshop may be counted as an elective; USEM, COMP, and UWS courses do not count toward the major requirements in English and American literature. Cross-listed courses are considered to be outside the department and are subject to the restriction in (F) below.

E. No course with a final grade below C- can count toward fulfilling the major requirements in English and American literature.

F. A maximum of three courses taught by persons other than members of the faculty of the English and American literature department may be counted towards the major. This restriction includes courses taken while studying abroad, cross-listed courses, and transfer credits.

G. Honors Track: Graduation with honors in English requires the satisfactory completion of 10th course in the department--normally the Senior Honors Essay (one semester--99a or 99b). In rare cases, students may elect instead to complete the Senior Honors Thesis (two semesters--99d). To write an Honors Essay or Thesis, students should have a GPA of 3.50 or higher in courses counting towards the major and must make arrangements to be advised by a faculty member in the department who has agreed to direct the essay or thesis. The undergraduate advising head can assist students in finding appropriate directors. Departmental honors are awarded on the basis of excellence in all courses taken in the department, including the senior essay or thesis. Students in the Creative Writing Track who complete ENG 96d will be considered to have completed a Senior Honors Thesis.

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 before the student's senior year.

D. One semester course in each of three different periods, chosen from the main track list above.

E. ENG 96d (Senior Creative Writing 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.

Requirements for the Undergraduate Minor

Majors in the Department of English and American Literature are not eligible to enroll in minors offered by the department, with one exception: majors in the main track may enroll in the minor in creative writing.

Minor in Creative 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 10b or ENG 80a.

Minor in American Literature

Five courses are required, including the following:

A. ENG 6a (American Literature from 1832 to 1900).

B. ENG 7a (American Literature from 1900 to 2000).

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.

Minor in English Literature

Five courses are required, including the following:

A. Four courses in English literature. Two of these courses may be in the Anglophone literature of a place that has an Anglophone literary tradition because it was once a British colony, for example, Ireland, India, or South Africa. Anglophone literature courses include: AAAS 133b (The Literature of the Caribbean), ENG 17b (African Novel), ENG 127b (Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts), and ENG 177b (Literature of Global English). This list is not exhaustive; students should check with the department office for lists of currently offered and appropriate courses.

B. One course in British history, politics, philosophy, art, or music, as approved by the advisor to minors. Or one course in the history or culture of a place that was once a British colony, or a course in post-colonial theory. Such courses include: AAAS 85a (Survey of Southern African History), FA 43a (The Art of Medieval England), HIST 113a (English Medieval History), HIST 141b (Studies in British History: 1830 to the Present), and PHIL 174a (Hume). This list is not exhaustive; students should check with the department office for lists of currently offered and appropriate courses. Alternatively, one comparative literature course, in which British literature constitutes at least one-third of the reading.

C. Creative writing courses do not count toward the English literature minor. No advance placement courses may be counted toward the minor.

D. No course with a final grade below C- can count toward the requirements for the minor in English literature.

Special Notes Relating to Undergraduates

This department participates in the European cultural studies major and, in general, its courses are open to ECS majors.

Transfer credit toward the major: Application for the use of transfer credit (awarded by the Office of the University Registrar) toward the major 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 major 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.

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); this seminar includes attention to research methods. 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. Any course taught at the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at Radcliffe College by a faculty member in the department, and approved by the department, shall be deemed the equivalent of a 200-level course within the English department for the purposes of meeting departmental requirements. First-year students may apply to the director of graduate studies for permission to take courses in other departments at Brandeis, courses offered at other universities through various consortium arrangements, and courses offered by the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at Radcliffe College but not taught by department faculty members. First-year students may participate in monthly workshops on teaching and research methods offered by the director of graduate studies and department faculty. At the annual First Year Symposium, held in the spring, first-year students present a paper to an audience of graduate students and faculty. The department meets at the end of every academic year to discuss the progress of its graduate students, particularly first- and second-year students.

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.

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, 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. First-year students must present a paper at the First Year Symposium in the spring term.

H. 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. Each paper will be evaluated by a reader for whom the paper was not originally written. The paper must satisfy the reader's standards for excellence in M.A. degree level work. For further information, contact the women's studies advisor in the English department.

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 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 200a 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 are normally taken in the Brandeis English department. Additional courses may be taken in other departments at Brandeis, through the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at Radcliffe College, and through consortium arrangements with Boston College, Boston University, and Tufts University.

Second- and third-year students may participate in monthly workshops on teaching and research methods offered by the director of graduate studies and department faculty. The Graduate Committee offers annual workshops for third-year students on such topics as publication, the field exam, and the dissertation prospectus. The job placement officer offers an annual workshop for doctoral candidates and recent graduates on the job search and provides ongoing mentoring for job seekers. Advanced graduate students have opportunities to present their work to other scholars in their field by participating in an ongoing Graduate Feminist Colloquium and in various national and international conferences, for which some travel funds are available. Each year graduate students plan a lecture series in which they and faculty members come together to share their work.

Teaching Requirement

Training in teaching is provided through workshops offered in the first year. Second, third, and fourth year students are normally given a variety of supervised teaching assignments, including University Writing Seminars, University Seminars in Humanistic Inquiries, and/or in English department courses.

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.

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.

Dissertation and Defense

Each student submits to the dissertation director and second reader a brief (four- to seven-page) dissertation proposal describing the topic, the questions to be explored, the method of research, and reasons for believing the dissertation will be an original contribution to knowledge. The student's director and/or second reader may also require a bibliography.

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.

Completion of Degree

Students entering the Ph.D. program with a B.A. must earn the degree within eight years. Students entering the Ph.D. program with an M.A. must earn the degree within seven years. A student requesting an extension must demonstrate significant progress toward completing the dissertation by submitting a prospectus (or equivalent, including a chapter outline) and at least one chapter to the student's advisor. If the student's advisor agrees to support the requested extension, the advisor will refer the case to the Graduate Committee for approval.

Special Notes Relating to the Graduate Program

Students should also consult the General Degree Requirements and Academic Regulations found in an earlier section of this Bulletin.

Courses of Instruction

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

COMP 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 first-year writing requirement for selected students identified by the director of University writing. Several sections will be offered in the fall semester.
Staff

UWS ##a and ##b University Writing Seminar
Enrollment limited to 17.
A course in college writing, with stress on writing sound argumentative essays that demonstrate mechanical and stylistic expertise. This course satisfies Option II of the first-year writing requirement. Offered every semester.
Staff

HUM 10a The Western Canon
This course may not be taken for credit by students who have taken ENG 10a.
[ hum ]
Foundational texts of the Western canon: Bible, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Thematic emphases and supplementary texts vary from year to year.
Mr. Muellner

ENG 4a The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century
[ hum ]
1660-1800: The age of reason and contradiction, enlightenment, and xenophobia. Surveys literary, critical, philosophical, political, and life writing, investigating the emergence of a literary public sphere, a national canon, and the first professional women writers. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. King

ENG 5a Nineteenth-Century Survey
[ hum ]
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. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2000.
Staff

ENG 6a American Literature from 1832 to 1900
[ wi 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, Kate Chopin, and Melville. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Burt or Mr. Gilmore

ENG 7a American Literature from 1900 to 2000
[ hum ]
Focus on literature and cultural and historical politics of major authors. Prose and poetry. May include Eliot, Frost, Williams, Moore, Himes, Cather, and Faulkner as well as contemporary authors. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Burt, Ms. Chu, or Ms. Irr

ENG 8a Twenty-First Century American Literature
[ hum ]
An introductory survey of trends in recent American literature. Focus on prose. Readings vary yearly but always include winners of major literary prizes such as the Pulitzer, National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Pushcart Prize, O. Henry Award, or the Nobel Prize. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Irr

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. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Staff

ENG 10a Canonical Precursors: Genesis, Homer, Sappho, Ovid, Virgil
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken HUM 10a in previous years.
Helps prepare majors for study of most premodern and even modern literature in English through readings of major texts central to a literary education for writers in English from the Middle Ages through Modernism. Genesis, Iliad, Odyssey, Sappho's lyrics, Aeneid, Metamorphoses. Usually offered every year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Campbell or Mr. Flesch

ENG 10b Poetry: A Basic Course
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 12.
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 fourth year. Last offered in the fall of 1999.
Staff

ENG 11a Introduction to Literary Method
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15 per section in the fall and 18 per section in the spring.
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. Multiple sections. Usually offered every semester. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Staff

ENG 16a Nineteenth-Century African-American Literature: Texts and Contexts
[ hum ]
Examines 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. Considers 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 every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2000.
Ms. Smith

ENG 17a The Alternative Press in the United States: 1910-2000
[ hum ]
A critical history of journalism in the United States. Topics to be covered include the muckrakers, partisan reportage of Spain, propaganda in World War II, the black press, censorship of the counter-culture, industrialization, and the Internet. Daily reading of major newspapers required. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2000.
Ms. Irr

ENG 17b African Novel
[ nw hum ]
Examines the African novel in English, along with works in translation. Attention to language address, and narrative form, in, among others: Achebe, Ousmane, Thiong'o, Farah, Head, Hove, Gordimer, and Coetzee. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in spring 2001.
Mr. Sanders

ENG 18a Transatlantic Flights of Imagination: A Comparative Study of British and American Women's Fiction
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15.
British and American women wrote with an awareness of each other and with an awareness of their literary inheritances. The course identifies themes that can be defined as British or American and will also relate these themes to each other, acknowledging the sustained movements of transatlantic dialogue they represent. Special one-time offering. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Lang

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. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Broumas or Ms. Campbell

ENG 23a Domains of Seventeenth-Century Performance
[ hum ]
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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. King

ENG 25a Romanticism I: Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
[ hum ]
Examines 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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Burt or Ms. Quinney

ENG 26a Detection and Analysis: Deciphering Theories of "Madness"
[ hum ]
Enrollment limited to 15.
The expert reader is a detective, a gatherer of clues and intimations. The field of detection will range from poems to short stories, from novels to drama and span five centuries. First-person narrators, poetic speakers, and soliloquizers characterized as marginal, "Other", distressed, disturbed, meandering and even "mad" will unite our reading and critical thinking. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Whelan

ENG 33a Shakespeare
[ 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. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Flesch or Ms. Targoff

ENG 43a Major English Authors, Chaucer to Milton
[ hum ]
A survey of major English authors from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, including Chaucer, Wyatt, Spencer, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Milton. No prior experience in medieval of Renaissance literature is required. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Targoff

ENG 44a Rights: Theory and Rhetoric
[ hum ]
Classic enlightenment texts about political, intellectual, economic, gender, and human rights: Milton, Locke, Adam Smith, the Bill of Rights, Paine, and Wollstonecraft. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Staff

ENG 46a Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers
[ hum ]
How did American women writers engage with the social, political, and economic changes of the 19th century? Focuses on gendered rhetorics of industrialization, imperialism, immigration, and abolition, as well as concepts of national identity. Examines how these writers related themselves to literary movements of the period. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Ms. Chu

ENG 47a Asian-American Literature
[ hum ]
Examines literature in English by North American writers of Asian descent from the 19th century to the present. Focuses on issues of literary collectivity based on national origin and race, and how gender, sexuality, and class have affected critical approaches to this literature. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
Ms. Chu

ENG 47b Modern English Fiction
[ hum ]
A survey of English fiction written during the first half of the 20th century, including works by Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Katherine Mansfield, and Virginia Woolf. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Staff

ENG 60b Writing about the Environment
[ hum ]
A course on writing persuasively about humans' 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 United States since Thoreau, including Berry, Carson, Dillard, and Lopez. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Staff

ENG 63a Renaissance Poetry
[ hum ]
Examines lyric and narrative poetry by Wyatt, Surrey, Marlowe, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, and Herbert. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Targoff

ENG 64b Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama and Performance
(formerly ENG 164b)
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 164b in previous years.
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 every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. King

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 fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1999.
Staff

ENG 77b Literature of Global English
(formerly ENG 177b)
[ nw hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 177b in previous years.
Survey of world Anglophone literatures, as well as in translation, with attention to literary responses of writers to aspects of English as a global language with a colonial history. Focus on Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Caribbean, North America. Writers may include: Rushdie, Devi, Coetzee, Kincaid, Atwood, Anzaldua. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Sanders

ENG 96d Senior Creative Writing Thesis
Signature of the instructor and the director of creative writing required.
Required for English majors on the creative writing track. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG 97a Senior Essay
Signature of the instructor required.
For seniors interested in writing an essay outside of the honors track. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG 97d Senior Thesis
Signature of the instructor required.
For seniors interested in writing a thesis outside of the honors track. Usually offered every year.
Staff

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 Honors Essay
Signature of the instructor and the undergraduate advising head required.
For seniors interested in qualifying for departmental honors when combined with a 10th course for the major. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG 99b The Senior Honors Essay
Signature of the instructor and the undergraduate advising head required.
For seniors interested in qualifying for departmental honors when combined with a 10th course for the major. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG 99d The Senior Honors Thesis
Signature of the instructor and the undergraduate advising head required.
For seniors interested in qualifying for departmental honors with a thesis. Usually offered every year.
Staff

(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. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
Mr. Morrison

ENG 101b Cyber-Theory
[ hum ]
How has the Internet changed the practice of writing? How can writing map cyberspace? What happens to the personnel of writing (author, reader, publisher) in context of cybernetics? Immerses students in critical and utopian theories of cyber textuality. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Irr

ENG 103a John Donne and the Metaphysical Poets
[ hum ]
Examines the poetry of Donne and his contemporaries, including George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell. These "metaphysical poets" will be read alongside critical accounts by Samuel Johnson, T.S. Eliot, and others. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Targoff

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? Considers 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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Morrison

ENG 106b American Utopias
[ wi hum ]
Introduction to utopian fiction of 19th-century America. Readings include classic sources and utopian novels by major authors (Melville, Hawthorne, Twain). Some consideration will also be given to actually existing successful utopian communities. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Irr

ENG 107b Literature and Healing
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required. Students wishing to enroll should submit a statement of intent on why they would like to enroll to the English department office, Rabb 144, before the first meeting of class.
Examines the various intersections between literature (especially poetry) and healing: In what ways may the disquieted physical body be fully represented in language? How might creative self-expression abet the healing process, by way of such rich tensions as between authorship/authority, identity/immunity, and confession/confinement? Works by Broumas, Dory, Hacker, Holub, O. Fisher, Gurin, Kincaid, Kumin, Lorde, L. Perillo, Plath, Sexton, A. Shapiro, W.C. Williams, and others. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Campo

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.
A workshop for poets willing to explore and develop their craft through intense reading in current poetry, stylistic explorations of content, and imaginative stretching of forms. Usually offered every year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Broumas

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. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. McCorkle

ENG 111b Post-Colonial Theory
[ hum ]
Seminar in postcolonial theory with relevant background texts, with an emphasis on the specificity of its theoretical claims. Readings from Spivak, Said, Bhabha, Appiah, Mudimbe, Marx, Lenin, Freud, Derrida, Césaire, and Fanon, among others. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Mr. Sanders

ENG 114b Gender and the Rise of the Novel in England and France
[ hum ]
Explores the emergence of the novel as a modern genre in the 18th century, asking why the novel arises first in England and France, and what the new genre's preoccupations with women and gender can teach us about European society, culture, and literature. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Lanser

ENG 115b Fictions of Liberty: England in a Revolutionary Age
[ hum ]
Explores the intersections of English literature and European revolution in tumultuous period from 1789 to 1848. Reading fiction, autobiography, poetry, and philosophy, we consider textual practices that tested the political, religious, ethnic, sexual, social and economic limits of English liberties. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Lanser

ENG 117a Directed Studies in Current Literature
[ hum ]
Writing sample and signature of the instructor required.
Examines prose and poetry that enlarge our perception of the possible, in literature and the imagination. Looks at sentence patterns as choreographers, write under their influence, and generate a hands-on understanding of literary invention and the exciting generosities of form. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2000.
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. Examines--as writers--what it means to construct the story of one's life, and the ways in which lies, metaphor, and imagination transform memory to reveal and conceal the self. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
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. May be repeated for credit.
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 other's work weekly, and discuss readings based on examples of various techniques. Usually offered every year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. McCorkle or Ms. Phillips

ENG 119b 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. May be repeated for credit.
For those who wish to improve as poets while broadening their knowledge of poetry. Half the semester will be devoted to prosody, with formal exercises as preparation for later "free-assignments." Student's poems will be discussed in a "workshop" format with emphasis on revision. Remaining time will cover assigned readings and issues of craft. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
Mr. Campo

ENG 121b Contemporary Literary Theory
[ 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 every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2000.
Staff

ENG 122a The Medieval World
[ 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 selected Canterbury Tales in Middle English and some literature in translation: lyric poetry, the Gawain Romance, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur. Usually offered every year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Staff

ENG 124a Reason and Ridicule: The Literature of Britain in the Enlightenment
[ 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 2000.
Staff

ENG 125b Romanticism II: Byron, Shelley, and Keats
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ENG 135b in previous years. ENG 25a (Romanticism I) is not a prerequisite for this course.
The "younger generation" of Romantic poets. Byron, Shelley, and Keats continue and react against poetic, political, and philosophical preoccupations and positions of their immediate elders. Examines their major works, as well as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Burt or Mr. Flesch or Ms. Quinney

ENG 126a American Realism and Naturalism, 1865-1900
[ 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 fall of 2001.
Mr. Burt or Ms. Chu

ENG 127a Novel in India
[ hum ]
Survey of novel and short story of the Indian subcontinent, their formal experiments in context of nationalism and post-colonial history. Authors may include Tagore, Anand, Manto, Desani, Narayan, Desai, Devi, Rushdie, Roy, Mistry, and Chaudhuri. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Sanders

ENG 127b Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts
[ hum ]
Beginning with the region's representation as a tabula rasa, we examine the textual and visual constructions of the Caribbean as colony, homeland, backyard, paradise, and Babylon, and how the region's migrations have prompted ideas about evolution, hedonism, imperialism, nationalism, and diaspora. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Broumas

ENG 129b Understanding the Screenplay: A Workshop
[ hum ]
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. 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.
Examines the screenplay as a unique literary genre, and investigates the differences between writing stories in prose and writing for the screen. The course is divided into three equal parts: reading theory; reading published screenplays; editing a published story into screenplay format. Usually offered every fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1999.
Staff

ENG 131b Feminist Theory
[ hum ]
Introduces students to critical feminist thought by focusing closely each year on a different specific "problem," for example: 19th- and 20th-century modernity as manifested in the development of globalizing capitalism, the racialized democratic citizen and wage work; our understanding of cultural production; debates about the nature, applications, and constitution of feminist theory. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Chu

ENG 132b Chaucer I
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 10a or ENG 11a.
In addition to reading Chaucer's major work, The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English, pays 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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Campbell

ENG 133a Advanced Shakespeare
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required.
An intensive analysis of a single play or a small number of Shakespeare's plays. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Mr. Flesch

ENG 134a The Woman of Letters, 1600-1800
[ 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 fourth year. Last offered in the fall of 1999.
Staff

ENG 137a Primal Pictures
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required. Students wishing to enroll should submit a writing sample consisting of fiction, a film or book review, or critical writing on contemporary fiction.
Novels to be read feature finely-etched portrayals of change within the primal family structure, specifically death or loss of a parent and resulting transformation in the family gestalt. Films of four of the novels read will be screened. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Phillips

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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Chu or Mr. Morrison

ENG 140a Satire and its Uses
[ hum ]
Examines the forms and methods of satirical fiction and poetry, with emphasis on writers from classical Greece and Rome, Britain, and the United States.
Staff

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 every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2000.
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 fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1999.
Staff

ENG 144b The Body as Text: Castiglione to Locke
[ hum ]
A library intensive course.
How are our bodies the material for our presentations of self and our interactions with others? Examines 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 spring of 2002.
Mr. King

ENG 147a Film Noir
[ hum ]
A study of classics of the genre (The Killers, The Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil) as well as more recent variations (Chinatown, Bladerunner), Readings include source fiction (Hemingway, Hammett) and essays in criticism and theory. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Flesch or Ms. Quinney

ENG 147b South African Literature and Apartheid
[ hum ]
Survey of South African literature, its engagement with apartheid and its aftermath: fiction, drama, poetry. Authors may include Paton, Gordimer, Fugard, Head, Serote, Matshoba, Coetzee, and Krog. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Sanders

ENG 151a Lesbian and Gay Studies: Desire, Identity, and Representation
[ hum ]
Recommended preparation: WMNS 5a, WMNS 105a, ENG 131b or another foundation course in feminist/gender theory.
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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. King

ENG 151b Theater/Theory: Investigating Performance
[ hum ]
Recommended preparation: A course in dramatic literature and familiarity with theatrical production.
The theater, etymologically, is a place for viewing. Theory, etymologically, begins with a spectator and a viewing. Reading theories of theater and performance against paradigmatic dramatic texts and documents of social performance, speculation and spectatorship are reviewed. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. King

ENG 152b Arthurian Literature
[ hum ]
Prerequiste: ENG 10a or HUM 10a or 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 every second year. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
Ms. Campbell

ENG 155a Provincialism and Imperialism, 1870-1930
[ hum ]
Explores ideas about the local, regional, national, international and cosmopolitan in Empire-era "Greater Britain." What role does literature play in the global movement of British and "colonized" culture? Includes Emily Eden, R.D. Blackmore, Hardy, Flora Steel, Conrad, Woolf, Waugh, and E.M. Forster. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Plotz

ENG 156b The James Family
[ hum ]
Focuses on William, Henry, and Alice James, and on the different ways they approach the representation of human interaction, thought, perception, and suffering in their novels, philosophical essays, and diary. Pays particular attention to their intellectual and aesthetic contexts. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Flesch or Ms. Quinney

ENG 157a 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. Looks, where possible, at individual volumes by representative authors. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Quinney

ENG 157b American Women Poets
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 10a or HUM 10a or ENG 11a. Enrollment limited to 20.
Students 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 every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Campbell

ENG 161a Introduction to Cultural Studies
[ hum ]
Introduces theories of culture--what it is, who has it, where it is located, when it changes, and why it endures. Emphasis on analyzing assumptions and consequences of theories, with short papers applying major concepts and a scavenger hunt. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in fall of 2000.
Ms. Irr

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 fourth year. Last offered in the fall of 1999.
Staff

ENG 166b Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: ENG 10a or HUM 10a.
Poetry of Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, and Melville, with representative poems of Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow, Poe, Sigourney, and Tuckerman. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Burt

ENG 167a Women Writers and the Avant-Garde
[ hum ]
Close reading of American women writers who work in an experimental vein: Stein, Barnes, Nin, Bowles, diPrima, Acker, Anderson, Hejinian, and others. Situates writers in relation to movements such as cubism, surrealism, existentialism, performance art, and language poetry. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Ms. Irr

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 second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Mr. Morrison or Ms. Quinney or Mr. Rind

ENG 173a Spenser and Milton
[ 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 every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
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 second year. Last offered in the spring of 2001.
Ms. Lanser

ENG 180a The Modern American Short Story
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructor required.
Close study of American short fiction masterworks. Students read as writers write, discussing solutions to narrative obstacles, examining the consequences of alternate points of view. Studies words and syntax to understand and articulate how technical decisions have moral and emotional weight. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the summer of 2001.
Staff

ENG 187a American Fiction since 1945
[ hum ]
Readings of contemporary post-realist and post-modernist fiction. Authors and themes vary but always include major figures such as Nabokov, Pynchon, DeLillo. Usually offered every second year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Ms. Irr

ENG 197b Testimony, Law, Literature
[ hum ]
A study of the cross-disciplinary linkages between literature and law, through works of testimonial writing such as slave narratives, Testimonio, and holocaust narrative, as well as testimony from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Mr. Sanders

(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. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Irr

ENG 202a Thomas Malory: Fiction before Novels
Reading of the complete Works of Malory, also known as the Morte D'Arthur, as the postponed climax of high and late medieval romance and the early triumph of a nascent English fiction in the modern vernacular. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Ms. Campbell

ENG 203a Religion and Literature in Renaissance England
Explores the relationship between religion and literature from the English Reformation through the Civil War. Readings include poetry by Wyatt, Donne, Herbert, Milton, and Marvell; plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare; and religious tracts by St. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Hooker. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Targoff

ENG 204a American Romanticism in Poetry and Fiction
Romanticism as a philosophical movement, a poetic movement, and fictional style. Essays and poetry of Emerson and Thoreau's Walden. Major poetry of Whitman and Dickinson (and some Melville). The Scarlet Letter, selected stories of Poe, Moby Dick. Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Alcott's Transcendental Wild Oats. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Burt

ENG 206b Surface and Depth: Explorations in American Legibility
Examines the American commitment to external and internal legibility or accessibility. Readings span the nation's history from the Federalist Papers to Ellison's Invisible Man. Topics include the Americanization of cinema and psychoanalysis in the 20th century. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2000.
Mr. Gilmore

ENG 207a Topics in African Literature, Culture, and Society
Concentrating on Africa, and drawing relavant comparisons, this course prepares graduate students pursuing research in postcolonial literatures and theory. Possible topics: orature and literature; multilingualism and translation; colonialism and apartheid; Négritude and pan-Africanism, gender and human rights; truth and reconciliation. Usually offered every second year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
Mr. Sanders

ENG 207b Fiction of the American South
Examines fiction of the era of modernization and desegregation. Readings include novels by Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Ernest Gaines, Margaret Walker, Caroline Gordon, Ellen Glasgow, and William Faulkner. Usually offered every fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1999.
Mr. Burt

ENG 208a American Fins de Siecles
Centuries' ends have always been periods of intense cultural ferment, with great expectations often vying with apprehension and despair. Considers works produced in the United States in the 1790s, 1890s, and 1990s. Authors include Franklin, Crane, Jewett, Morrison, Updike. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Mr. Gilmore

ENG 213a Milton
[ hum ]
Milton's poetry and selected prose, with particular attention to Paradise Lost and its intellectual, historical, and literary contexts. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
Mr. Flesch

ENG 215a Victorian Novel
A survey of the 19th-century novel from Austen to Hardy. Investigates the invention and promulgation of literary affects as well as their social conditions and consequences. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2000.
Staff

ENG 217a American Literature after Television
Examines how and why the project of American literature changes after the advent of television. Readings include theoretical essays on technology and representation, and literary texts by Nabokov, Mailer, Didion, DeLillo, Bernstein, Reed, Pynchon, Silko, and Wallace. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2001.
Ms. Irr

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. Will be offered in the spring of 2003.
Mr. Morrison

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 every second year. Will be offered in the fall of 2002.
Ms. Chu

ENG 231a Seminar in Performance Studies: Performing the Early Modern Self
Examines contemporary performance theory against everyday and formal performances of the Restoration and the 18th century in England. Investigates agents' negotiations of social and personal space in plays, diaries, novels, and treatises. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2002.
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 every fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1999.
Ms. Campbell

ENG 233a Shakespeare Seminar
An intensive reading of Shakespeare's work from a theoretical and historical viewpoint. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 2000.
Mr. Flesch

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 every fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1999.
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 2001.
Mr. Burt

ENG 240a Sex and Culture
Studies in the cultural construction and representation of the self and its sexuality; focuses 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 spring of 2001.
Mr. Morrison

ENG 240b The Ethics of Representation in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Fiction
Examining exemplary works of 19th- and 20th-century fiction, the class studies the ways in which narrative construction (plotting, rhetoric, narrative voice, ideological motivation) represent personal and social reality. Raises 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 fall of 2000.
Staff

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

Courses by Brandeis Faculty at the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at Radcliffe College

Available through cross-registration.

Alternative Worlds: Utopia, Science, and Gender
Team-taught by a historian of science and a literary critic. Explores the intersections between two early modern developments: the new genre of utopia, and the new ideas about the goals and methods of natural inquiry identified with the "Scientific Revolution." Early modern (and some 20th-century American) authors will include Christine de Pizan, Raleigh, Bacon, Campanella, Catalina de Erauso, Cyrano de Bergerac, Margaret Cavendish, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Naomi Mitchison, and Octavia Butler. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the spring of 2000.
Ms. Campbell (Brandeis) and Ms. Park (Harvard University)

Cross-Listed Courses

Courses in Literary Genre

COML 180a
The Theater of the Absurd

NEJS 172a
Women in American Jewish Literature

Courses in Literary Theory and Literary Criticism

COML 198a
Feminist Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies

PHIL 12b
Philosophy and Literature

Medieval Literature

COML 102a
Love in the Middle Ages

20th-Century British or American Literature

AAAS 133b
The Literature of the Caribbean

COML 102a
Love in the Middle Ages

COML 120a
Art for the People

COML 147b
The City: Metropolitan Glory and Urban Alienation

COML 165a
Reading, Writing, and Teaching Across Cultures

NEJS 172a
Women in American Jewish Literature

RECS 154a
Nabokov

THA 150a
The American Drama Since 1945

Miscellaneous Literary Subjects

LING 8b
The Grammar of English