Summer 2003 Course Descriptions
(click for course descriptions)
13000/33000 Academic and Professional
Writing
17300 Shakespearean Tragedy
20500 The British Novel in the Romantic Period
26200 American Fiction in the Nineteenth Century
28801 Modern American Poetry: An Introduction
For a description of the numbering guidelines for the following courses, consult the section on reading the catalog on page 15.
13000/33000. Academic
and Professional Writing
Academics and professionals need advanced writing skills if they
are to communicate effectively and efficiently. In this intensive, pragmatic
course, students master the writing skills they need by first studying
and then applying fundamental structures of effective writing. In each
class session, students first meet in a small-group seminar to discuss
each other's papers and then attend a lecture on a new principle. Discussion,
editing, critiques, and rewrites ensure that all students sharpen their
ability to write with clarity and power.
Materials fee: $25. Enrollment is limited to 28.
This is an English Elective
Session I (6 Weeks, 6/23-8/1)
TTh 9:30am-11:50pm
Kathryn Cochran, Associate Director, University Writing Programs
Tracy Weiner, Associate Director, University Writing Program
This course meets the English Department's pre-1700, Drama, and British Literature requirements. Close reading, intensive study, and exploration through discussion of Hamlet, King Lear, and a third major tragedy to be chosen in consultation with the students. Exploration of Shakespeare's particular understanding of tragedy, and to some extent of the tragic sense of life and art from the Greeks to the Moderns.
This course counts as BFH- pre-1700, Drama, and British
Session I (3 Weeks, 6/23-7/11)
TWTh 1:00-4:20pm
James Redfield, Edward Olson Distinguished Professor, Department of Classical
Languages and Literatures, Committees on the Ancient Mediterranean World
and Social Thought, and the College
20500. The
British Novel in the Romantic Period
This will be a reading-intensive course examining the British novel in the period 1790-1820. We will ask what makes a novel a novel in this period, what kind of work the novel does, and what the relationship is between various subgenres of the novel (the moral tale, the philosophical novel, the gothic). We will also think about the relationship between the novel and a variety of significant political and cultural strains of the period, including sentimentality; interest in education, child- rearing and citizenship; and radical and reformist visions for society after the French Revolution. Authors to be read will include Jane Austen, Walter Scott, William Godwin and Mary Shelley. Two short papers and frequent informal response assignments will be required.
This course counts as C, E, H- 1700-1900, Fiction and British
Session I (6 Weeks, 6/23-8/1)
TBD
Hilary Strang, Lecturer, Department of English Language and Literature
26200. American
Fiction in the Nineteenth Century
This course has three aims. The first is to acquaint students with
the development of American fiction from the production of our nation's
first masterpiece, Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" in 1818 to the
rise of Modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century. Our developmental
study will involve "canon reform," because we will analyze not
only recognized masterpieces (by Irving, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain,
Crane, James) but also neglected works of comparable excellence (by Spofford,
Gilman, Bierce). Our second aim is methodological. Rather than following
recent trends which generate an opposition between textual and contextual
approaches, we practice close reading and then move out to involve diverse
methodologies, theories, and disciplines. Special emphasis will be given
to questions of gender and psychology. Finally, we will work hard on student
writing. How to craft effective sentences, paragraphs, and large-scale
arguments will discussed in class and attended to carefully in the professor's
response to student papers.
This course counts as C, E,G-Post 1700, Fiction and American
Session I (3 Weeks, 6/23-7/11)
TBD
William Veeder, Professor, Department of English Language and Literature,
Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, and the College
28801. Modern
American Poetry: An Introduction
This course will familiarize students with the work of four important
North American modernist poets: William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein,
Carl Sandburg, and Langston Hughes. Our focus will be on learning how
to understand and enjoy modern free verse and experimental poetry. Considerable
attention will be given to the poetics of voice. We will listen to recorded
performances of poetry and investigate the ways in which poets create
particular voices on the page. We will also discuss how issues of race,
gender, class, and regionalism have influenced the major themes, forms,
and critical perspectives that define modern poetry in the United States.
This course counts as D, G- Poetry and American
Session I (4 Weeks, 6/23-7/18)
TTh 1:00-4:00pm
Matthias Regan, Lecturer, Department of English Language and Literature
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