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Undergraduate Courses

Click on the course title to view its course description.  Please note that all courses are subject to change without notice.  For the most up-to-date and current day and time information, please refer to the University Time Schedules.  Graduate course information is also available on this Web site.

SUMMER 2003 COURSES

17300		Shakespearean Tragedy
20500		The British Novel in the Romantic Period
26200		American Fiction in the Nineteenth Century
28801		Modern American Poetry: An Introduction

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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

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17300. Shakespearean Tragedy

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

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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

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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

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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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