Undergraduate Program

Program of Study | Requirements | Admissions | Courses | Students | Special Programs | Departmental Forms

Special Programs for Undergraduates

London Program
Autumn. This program provides students in the College with an opportunity to study British literature and history in the cultural and political capital of England in the autumn quarter. In the ten-week program, students take four courses that are each compressed into approximately three weeks and taught in succession by Chicago faculty. The fourth course, which is on the history of London, is conducted at a less intensive pace. The program includes a number of field trips (e.g., Cornwall, Bath, Canterbury, and Cambridge). The London program is designed for third- and fourth-year students with a strong interest and some course work in British literature and history. While not limited to concentrators in English Language and Literature or History, such students will find the program to be especially attractive and useful. Applications are available online via a link to Chicago's study abroad home page (study-abroad.uchicago.edu) and are normally due in mid-winter quarter. For details on the 2002-2003 programs, see the following course descriptions: English 20104, 20105, and 20106

      Courses for Autumn, 2003:

  • LONDON AND THE BRITISH THEATRE (David Bevington)
    This course will take advantage of the unparalleled richness of the London and British stage to study a few plays in their cultural context. We will see at least two plays onstage in London and make those productions the basis of a detailed literary and theatrical reading of the plays as scripts for performance. We will take a field trip or trips to Stratford and Oxford if appropriate performances are available. The new Globe Theater on the south bank of the Thames is a likely target of opportunity. Plays may run the gamut from Shakespeare to Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard, depending on what is available in the theatres. Two short essays, second and third week, and we hope you will keep a journal.

  • POSTWAR THEATER IN BRITAIN AND THE U.S. (Deborah Nelson)
    With the constant exchange of actors, directors, and writers between the West End and Broadway, British and American theater can hardly be called separate entities in the year 2003. This course will look back at the crosscurrents in British and American theater from the end of World War II to the present moment. We will read (and with any luck see) plays by some of the following: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton, John Osborne, Tom Stoppard, Caryl Churchill, Hanif Kureishi, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Anna Deveare Smith, Susan Lori-Parks, and Tony Kushner.

    N.B. This course will be coordinated with Bevington's London and the British Theatre course, which will focus in class on pre-World War II and British and continental drama. Performances attended over the course of the six weeks of the two courses should allow students to see a good cross-section of interesting theater currently playing in London.

  • ELIZABETH'S LONDON (Janel Mueller)
    This course, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth I, will trace the dual trajectory of her queenship and authorship through readings of her own works (letters, public speeches, poems, and prayers) and readings in historical narratives, contemporary tracts, dramatic texts (plays, poetry), and poetry in which Elizabeth is either the main subject or the addressee. Authors other than the queen herself may include Foxe, Spenser, Sidney, Ralegh, Bacon, Shakespeare, as well as some lesser names (Richard Mulcaster, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, George Gascoigne, John Stubbs). Coordinated local excursions in greater London will take the group to the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Greenwich Palace, Hatfield House, National Portrait Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, and on a walk through central London that retraces Elizabeth's coronation procession from the City to Westminster Abbey and highlights the Inns of Court -- the base of operations for so many aspiring writer-courtiers of the Elizabethan era. Texts and course requirements subject to further specification.

Creative Writing Option.
English Concentrators may choose to produce a creative project to satisfy part of the requirement for honors. Prior to the winter quarter of their fourth year, students will be required to take at least two creative writing courses in the genre of their own creative project. The senior project may take the form of a piece of creative writing, a director's notebook or an actor's journal in connection with a dramatic production, or a mixed media work in which writing is the central element. Such a project is to be a fully finished piece of work, the best quality of which the student is capable. Students choosing this option should consult the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in English.