Undergraduate Program
Course Offerings 2009-2010
Course offerings are subject to change.
Official Yale College course information is found at the Yale Online Course Information Website.
Fall 2009| Spring 2010
Course Offerings Fall 2009
Introductory Courses
*ENGL 114a, Writing Seminars I - Suzanne Young and staff
Individual sections of this course, which treat the wide array of topics indicated below, prepare students to write well-reasoned analyses and arguments, particularly those required in their subsequent college courses. Both instruction and practice stress the importance of reading, research, and revision as the bases of effective writing. Using examples of modern nonfiction prose from a variety of academic disciplines, these writing seminars encourage students to engage in ongoing debates about significant issues in contemporary life.
Sec. 01 Visual Deceptions from the Brain to the Internet
Janice Carlisle MW 2:.30-3:45
What do we see when we see? Should we distrust what we think we see? These simple questions have fascinated philosophers since the time of Plato and have baffled scientists since sight became the subject of sustained experimental inquiry in the late nineteenth century. This writing seminar examines different forms of visual deception from three separate disciplinary perspectives: cognitive science, media studies, and art history. Topics for major writing assignments include the largely mysterious mental processes that respond to visual stimuli and, in conjunction with a session at the Yale Center for British Art, the power of the physical context of an art object to determine its meanings. Students choose their own subjects for their research papers on specific visual images currently available on the Internet.
Sec. 02 The Mind and the World
Suzanne Young MW 11:35-12:50
To what extent can we know the world directly? In this course, questions about knowledge will lead us to questions about the nature of consciousness itself. We will consider different ways of knowing, beginning with John Berger’s examination of the frameworks we use to decode the world. Next, we will consider how the virtual world of The Matrix opens new doors of perception. In the third unit, we will explore the phenomenon of consciousness by contrasting machine intelligence and animal minds. In the final essay, we will meditate on the quirks of consciousness—phantom limbs, out of body experiences, fabricated memories—that make the study of mind so fascinating. The papers we write—a close reading, a text in context, a research essay, and a meditative essay—will spring from our discussion and readings on these questions.
Sec. 03 Ways of Seeing History and Art
Deborah Tenney TTh 11:35-12:50
Anchored by two important books, Ways of Seeing, an unconventional art book by John Berger and Maus 2, a cartoonist’s vision of the Holocaust by Art Spiegleman, this course will consider various definitions, theories and visual representations of history and equip you with the tools to engage in spirited responses to these readings, which will also include essays by Frederick Jackson Turner, Patricia Limerick, Jane Tompkins, Susan Bordo, and Susan Griffin. In addition to honing your critical reading and interpretive skills, this course will help you gain proficiency in argumentative writing and visual literacy as your research project will take as its starting point a painting from the Yale University Art Gallery. This course is predicated on the maxim that “writing is rewriting,” and opportunities to workshop and revise your essays are built into the course syllabus.
Sec. 04 Ways of Seeing History and Art
Deborah Tenney TTh 1:00-2:15
(see sec. 03 for description )
Sec. 05 Religion in a Secular Age
Jerry Weng TTh 2:30-3:45
When Nietzsche famously proclaimed in the nineteenth century that “God is dead,” he dramatized a historical predicament in which religion is no longer relevant to the human condition. Yet despite the fact that we live in a world dominated by secular institutions and values, religion is still very much with us, giving rise to political and philosophical conflicts that challenge the underpinnings of modern secular society. In this section of English 114, we will explore – through careful analysis and reasoned argument – some of the difficult and controversial questions that attend the persistence of religion today. To what extent should the freedom of religious expression be tolerated in public spaces? How has creationism, under its various guises, influenced the way we think about science and public education? Where should the limits of religious practice be drawn beyond the private sphere? Through a variety of writing tasks, we will practice constructing rigorous arguments while exercising special care in handling potentially sensitive issues.
Sec. 06 Food Policy
Barbara Stuart TTh 2:30-3:45
This course will focus on food policy in the United States. Readings from Daniel Imhoff’s Food Fight, essays by Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, and others will inform our discussion of the ins and outs of the Farm Bill, legislation that may have an enormous impact on what we find on our plates. In addition the class will view films like King Corn to take a behind-the-scenes look at industrialized corn and beef. After learning about the ins and outs of the Farm Bill, students will consider whether voting with your fork should be the grass roots approach to failed or nonexistent policy.
Members of the class will Twitter and contribute to our food blog about policy issues and recent food-focused documentaries. There will also be opportunities to take field trips to find out about food and food policy happenings in the community and on campus.
Sec. 07 College: The Best Years of Your Life?
Allyson McCabe MW 9:00-10:15
Current acceptance rates at Ivy League schools hover at approximately ten percent. Beyond merit, what are the elements that make a candidate competitive for admission to a highly selective university like Yale? How does campus life in the Ivy League imagined by outsiders differ from the day-to-day lives of real students and faculty? Does learning for learning’s sake prevail in our hallowed halls or is college just a social networking opportunity or stepping stone to a career? What will colleges like Yale be like twenty or thirty years down the road?
In this section of English 114 students will engage in issues and debates that are at the heart of American higher education. In the first section of the course students will learn about the admissions process at elite universities by tracing its history and considering arguments about who gets in and why. The second part of the course builds on this foundation by focusing on related issues: how college life in the Ivy League is depicted and lived; the mission and purpose of top-flight universities; and the pressures faced by students, faculty, and institutions as they strive to meet new challenges and demands. Students will engage in a combination of independent and collaborative projects. In addition to honing students’ critical reading and interpretive skills, this course facilitates advanced proficiency in descriptive and analytic writing; including effective thesis identification, text summarization, rhetorical analysis, source integration, comparisons, and critical responses.
Students will also improve their research skills through an introduction to resources at Yale (e.g., the library, film studies center, and the Internet) and by working on our course projects. Because this course is skills-based as well as content-driven, individual consultations and writing workshops are an essential part of the class. Each student will self-critique drafts of his/her written work and will receive feedback from the instructor. Because the course emphasizes the importance of writing as a process, revision (in the sense of “looking again” rather than merely spot proofing) is built into the syllabus. In fact, students will revise all of their essays before they are graded and their major research project will be conducted incrementally with ample opportunity for independent revision before it is submitted for a final grade.
Sec. 08 College: The Best Years of Your Life?
Allyson McCabe MW 11:35-12:50
(see section 07 for description)
Sec. 09 Thinking about Masculinity and Femininity
Alfred Guy MW 11:35-12:50
What counts as right and proper for men and women has varied enormously across human cultures. These questions have been especially charged in the past 100 years, as politics, culture, and science offered competing visions of gender and human identity. In this section of English 114, we explore how masculinity & femininity are shaped and what effect they have on people’s lives. Subjects of analysis include major theories, Hollywood movies, and real-world groups that promise the right answer. Please note: Reading, writing, and talking about these topics will raise issues that some people consider sensitive.
Sec. 10 Identity in a Shrinking World
Paula Resch MW 2:30-3:45
How do we construct our identity in a world in which we bump into each other more--both physically and virtually—every day? To answer this question, we will begin with readings that look carefully at the struggle for personal sovereignty that any individual has to undertake regardless of the group into which he or she was born. Next, we’ll turn to works about identity-shaping experiences of ethnic groups in the university and the larger American society. Then we’ll look beyond the US at the Holocaust and the Palestinians, and we’ll end with The Class, a movie about diversity in a French school, and Amy Chua’s provocative work on minorities who are oppressors rather than the ones oppressed and who thereby affect the identity of millions of individuals today.
Sec. 11 Seeing Through Other Eyes: Viewpoints in Historical Narrative and Art
Rosemary Jones TTh 1:00-2:15
How do we “see?” What shapes our definition of what is beautiful? Does beauty matter? How do we account for different points of view, not only in the art world but in the recounting of history? In this course we will read both written and visual texts that explore questions of beauty and truth and the relationship between what we see, or want to see, and who we are. We will consider the importance of multiple viewpoints in the recounting of history, and will reflect on how art has been used to ‘paint’ history. As well as a major research project, you will visit the British Art Center and uncover some of the techniques conservators use to reveal ‘the truth’ of a painting. Readings will include John Berger, Edward Hallett Carr, Patricia Limerick and Elaine Scarry.
Sec. 12 Freedom and Culture
Patrick Redding MW 2:30-3:45
“My country ‘tis of thee, / Sweet land of liberty”: the United States is often described as a land of freedom. But freedom to do what, with whom, when, and how? This course begins with some influential theories of freedom by Ralph Waldo Emerson, J.S. Mill, and Isaiah Berlin, and then tests these theories against contemporary problems like pornography and genetic engineering. Next we will explore the relation between freedom and property, moving from John Locke to government regulation of the Internet to copyright law to collective forms of property such as Wikipedia and file-sharing networks. Lastly, students will reflect on the meaning and limits of freedom of expression by studying a controversial work of art. The papers we write—a close reading, a text in context, a research essay, and a cultural critique—will build on our discussion and readings about freedom.
Sec. 13 Spill Your Guts: Confession, Coercion, and the Individual in America
Christopher Grobe MW 11:35-12:50
Confession pervades contemporary culture: celebrities write tell-all memoirs and regular Joes and Janes spill their guts on talk shows, blogs, and reality TV programs. Meanwhile, politicians weigh torture against the fruits of confession, while police and the courts rely on confession as “the queen of proofs.” If all this is "confession" then what, exactly, is confession? When, and how, does the truth of a confession matter? To whom does a confession belong? What kinds of private identity and public selfhood does confession assume—or create? In this course, we will explore such questions from legal, psychological, historical, and cultural angles while learning how best to write about these issues ourselves.
Sec. 14 Generosity
Kimberly Shirkhani MW 9:00-10:15
Does generosity equate to altruism—the unselfish promotion of the welfare of others—or can an act be generous and selfish at the same time? Can an orientation towards social justice—a willingness to be taxed or to pay reparations—be considered generous? Does generosity entail condescension, foster dependency, incite rivalry among givers?
And what’s love got to do with it? In this course, we'll consider all of these questions, investigating the role generosity plays in relationships between intimates and within communities local, national, and global. Our texts will focus on philosophical as well as social and political issues, such as welfare, taxation, charity, trade policy, foreign aid. And our reading and discussion will issue in a series of papers that will exercise your persuasive as well as your reasoning skills.
Sec. 15 Freedom and Culture
Patrick Redding MW 1:00-2:15
(see sec. 12 for description )
Sec. 16 Animal Mineral Plant
Emily Setina TTh 11:35-12:50
What we say about the world outside us says very much about us. This seminar explores ways of looking at, classifying, and relating to the non-human world in essays ranging from Emerson’s “Nature” to recent science writing. A variety of questions will animate our pursuit: Where does the boundary between the human and non-human lie? What legacy does the cultural history of natural history have for 21st century understandings of nature and natural science? Why do we look at animals? What do our ways of describing them reveal about how we see ourselves? Frequent writing assignments will challenge you to attend closely to others’ claims and argument styles and to write clear, persuasive prose as you develop strong arguments of your own.
Sec. 17 Copies, Clones, and Artificial Worlds
Raymond Malewitz TTh 11:35-12:50
Technological achievements of the last 150 years have transformed the means by which Western society represents and reproduces the world. Photographic technologies of the nineteenth century have engendered new ways of experiencing, preserving, and remembering the events that compose our lives. Recent advancements in biotechnology including in vitro fertilization and genetic cloning have inscribed the desire for designed duplication onto human bodies. Finally, the rise of information technologies has enabled the creation of virtual environments that both reflect and challenge our understanding of the physical and social rules that govern the world around us. In this writing seminar, we will explore Western society's simultaneous desire for and fear of these three forms of artificial reproduction. Our thinking will be prompted by a set of (sometimes surprisingly) interconnected essays on artificial reproduction by writers such as Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag, Michael Heim, and Stephen Jay Gould. We will integrate these essays into an ongoing conversation and will derive from them a series of papers that will exercise our rhetorical as well as our reasoning skills.
Sec. 18 Copies, Clones, and Artificial Worlds
Raymond Malewitz TTh 2:30-3:45
(see sec. 17 for description )
Sec. 19 The Politics of Capitalism
Michael Komorowski MW 1:00-2:15
Economists, historians, and political scientists have argued for at least the last 250 years that free markets go hand in hand with free societies. In a series of readings, we will examine the effects of markets on civic life in liberal democracies and will test that thesis. To what extent do we owe features of liberal democracy such as free elections or civil liberties to the existence of free markets? To what extent are these features independent of economic forces? What role does globalization play? How will the current financial crisis reshape the way we think about the links between economic and political freedoms? Taking both a broad theoretical look at the relationship between capitalism and free societies and several glances at specific case studies, this writing seminar will challenge students to evaluate the effectiveness of the arguments they encounter and offer them the opportunity to fashion and strengthen their own arguments in a series of analytical essays.
Sec. 20 Minds, Groups, and the School
James Macdonald TTh 1:00-2:15
What do people need to know? How can they learn it? In this section, our goal will be to explore big questions about education's purpose, nature and scope by considering readings from philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and journalists. We will begin with an investigation of Plato's Republic, exploring whether education means teaching good values or teaching the truth -- and whether those two are at all the same thing. We will then explore the ways minds and societies work, engaging the nature vs. nurture debate by examining the psychological theories of group socialization and multiple intelligences. Alongside these abstract ideas, we will read practical-minded critiques of modern school systems by sociologists and economists, who ask how -- and even whether -- we can improve our educational practices for all students. Finally, we will read several recent accounts of actual classroom practice, culminating in a final reflective essay which asks students to reconsider a familiar question: what in the world was my teacher thinking?
Sec. 21 Forms of Vision
Jean Otsuki MW 1:00-2:15
Most people assume that seeing provides direct access to the world around us.
Yet what we see is never unmediated: it is instead shaped by our beliefs and values, or the ideology implicit in visual practices and cultural forms. In this seminar, we will explore the construction of vision, scrutinizing how and why we see the way that we do. We begin by reading John Berger, who shifts our attention away from images to the process of seeing. Next, we use Michel Foucault to discuss the concept of surveillance. For the research paper, we explore how museums, rather than serving as neutral receptacles of art and artifacts, construct national histories and represent women and non-western cultures. We conclude by considering how advertisements represent gender roles.
Sec. 22 Photography, Public and Private
Margaret Spillane TTh 11:35-12:50
This course will investigate the documents we all make with our cameras. Among the questions we’ll be asking: Is a photo portrait more truthful than a painted portrait? To what degree is our enjoyment of certain music affected by photographic images of the musicians themselves? Can photographers of war zones, natural disasters and crime scenes help the victims of those events through the pictures they take, or do they only create more suffering? Students will look at thousands of photographs, and will make weekly contributions to a photography blog. They will write two short papers, one longer research paper on the work of a particular photographer, plus one personal meditation on a favorite photograph. Each student will also have an opportunity to design a short Power Point show of photographs relating to the issues under discussion.
*ENGL115a, Writing about Literature I -Aaron Ritzenberg and staff
Exploration of major themes in selected works of literature. Individual sections focus on topics such as war, justice, childhood, and the natural world. Emphasis on the development of writing skills and the analysis of fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction prose.
Sec. 01 Mortality and Immortality
Aaron Ritzenberg TTh 11:35-12:50
This course will be interested in literature that ponders the mystery of mortality and confronts the certainty of death. We will examine texts that portray the human struggle against earthly limits, that show both the temptation and dread of immortality. We will contemplate the various ways that writers attempt to reconcile bodies that are vulnerable with imaginations that seem infinitely expansive. Students will work on how to construct arguments about literature and how to write lucid, compelling prose. Texts will likely include Shakespeare’s Hamlet, poems by Donne, Hopkins, Keats, Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Don DeLillo’s White Noise, essays by Bacon, Freud, Barthes, Gould, and at least two films.
Sec. 02 What’s the Use of Literature?
Lee Patterson MW 11:35-12:50
According to the poet W. H. Auden, “poetry makes nothing happen.” Does literature ever make anything happen? Occasionally it does. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) galvanized anti-slavery sentiment and hastened the coming of the Civil War; The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1906), about the Chicago meat-packing industry, led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration. But these are exceptions: very few works of literature have much historical impact. Well, do they make us better people, teaching us moral lessons that can guide our lives? If this were true, then presumably people who read the most (English professors?) would be the wisest and most moral, but there is no reason to think this is true. Or is literature simply something we read so we can say we have read it? (Would your prospective employer think you were well-educated if you had never read a Shakespeare play?) Or perhaps literature is a form of play, a make-believe world, a “let’s pretend” (a fiction) that allows us to try on different ways of living. As Atticus Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), “You never really understand a person . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Maybe literature is a form of writing that allows us into another person’s skin. In this course we will read a wide variety of books – including both poetry and so-called non-fiction – in the hope that each of us can find an answer to the difficult question, “What’s the use of literature?”
The assigned reading is: Julian Barnes, The History of the World in 102 Chapters, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary; Sophocles, Oedipus; Shakespeare, Hamlet; Frederick Douglass, A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; and selected poems.
Sec. 03 Wars I Have Read
Sam See TTh 1:00-2:15
In this course, students will analyze literary works from a variety of genres and historical periods; learn terminology essential for speaking and writing knowledgeably about that material; and hone the skills necessary for composing analytical essays, the core of which is cogent argumentation. To guide our reading, we will focus on the topic “Wars I Have Read,” which derives from the title of Gertrude Stein’s 1945 text Wars I Have Seen, in which Stein documents her experience in World War Two (among other wars). We will consider primarily how British and American writers react to the two world wars that indelibly shaped the 20th century and to the current “War on Terror” that continues to shape the 21st century. Prompted by Stein’s emphasis on eyewitness in her book’s title, we will examine how texts grapple with the aesthetic and ethical problems of representing war from various perspectives and how, formally, the texts often depict that struggle in the relationship between text and image. Throughout this exploration, we will contemplate not only how war shapes literary production but how literature might shape war, or at least the belief systems that undergird martial conflict. Texts include Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, short poems about WWI by a range of British writers, Eliot’s The Waste Land, David Jones’ In Parenthesis, Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, Art Spiegelman’s Maus novels, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Don DeLillo’s Falling Man, essays about The Waste Land and 9/11, and one film.
Sec. 04 Bohemians and Exiles
Emily Setina TTh 2:30-3:45
This seminar considers what it means to write from outside or at the margins of society and why art so often occupies or finds appealing an outsider position. We read texts by authors who wrote from the fringe and works that thematize this position. Throughout the course, we consider different ways of being outside a culture or society in relation to different ways (whether self-willed or externally imposed) of getting there. As we pursue outsider artists through texts by Euripedes, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Baudelaire, Joyce, Stein, Bishop, and Hemon, we will work on our own craft: sharpening skills of interpretation, reasoning, and writing to translate complex ideas about texts into clear and compelling arguments.
Sec. 05 Literature, Justice, and the Law
Samuel Alexander MW 11:35-12:50
Literature and the law both use language to resolve the conflicting claims of individuals, groups, and ideas into coherent narratives that respond to their audiences’ desire for justice. This seminar will consider both the ways in which legal concepts shape literary works and the degree to which those works offer their own distinctive forms of (“poetic”) justice. Over the course of the semester, students will work on constructing arguments about literature in clear, effective prose. Texts for the course will include Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice; poetry by Auden, Seamus Heaney, and others; fiction by Melville, Kafka, Richard Wright and J.M. Coetzee; selected readings in legal philosophy; and two films.
Sec. 06 Unsolved Mysteries
Sarah Novacich TTh 1:00-2:15
This class will examine the detective case that refuses to be solved, the puzzle that defies reason, and the knot that won’t quite come undone. It will consider mysteries ranging from murder, missing persons, and criminal history, to the poem that wraps its secrets in a cloak of language. We will think about the ways in which a detective – a shrewd interpreter, a reader – might respond to a true mystery, a larger or more intricate enigma, one not solved with a snap of the fingers. And attempting a critical distance from our own task at hand, we will ponder what we, as readers, as literary critics, and as similarly shrewd interpreters are looking for from texts if not a solution. (What might the detective or writer offer in lieu of answers…?)
The assignments are arranged to help you transition into writers of complex and nuanced literary analysis; they also will offer plenty of smoking guns and secret codes along the way. A number of written assignments, both formal and informal, will be spread out across the semester. Students will participate in class discussions, draft-writing, peer-review, and the revision process in order to produce polished essays and craft new approaches to the various puzzles presented by the works (novels, poetry, plays, films) that we cover.
*ENGL 116a, Writing Seminars II – Andrew Ehrgood and staff
Refinement of the tools of rhetorical analysis and argument through study of writing related to specific fields of endeavor or inquiry. Typical topics of individual sections are the environment, the arts, the law, documentary film, politics, and medicine. Varied writing assignments, with frequent review and revision, culminate with the development of a longer research essay.
Sec. 01 Thinking and Writing about the Law
Andrew Ehrgood MW 1:00-2:15
Law has an intellectual structure of its own, and the lawyers and judges who make law and interpret it have peculiar ways of imagining and talking about the world, habits of thought and expression that can mystify the nonlawyer. In this course, you will begin to learn to read and speak and write the lawyer’s language: you will learn to reason and argue in distinctively lawyerly ways about the sorts of problems that lawyers are paid to attend to. And as you acquire and become adept at this odd language, you will also evaluate it, assessing its appeal and usefulness to you as a thinker, writer, and citizen.
Sec. 02 Writing Social History
Charles Euchner MW 2:30-3:45
The relatively new field of social history has breathed life into the historian’s discipline. Social history provides fine-grain accounts of the people, practices, and events that often get lost in the mainstream study of history. Social history explores the grassroots level of humanity’s evolution—the anonymous souls and shadow communities where ordinary life takes place—and weaves compelling narratives that lay bare the deepest passions of human life.
“Writing Social History” teaches the skills to research and write a serious piece of social history. In addition to reading two exemplary pieces of social history—Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Kai Erikson’s Everything In Its Path—students will produce a 3,000- to 4,000-word work on a topic of their choosing. Students will pick a specific incident in history—on any topic, including family life, work, church or community life, crime and punishment, sports and games, education, and relations between the sexes, among others. To avoid being overwhelmed by a large term paper, students will produce a series of short pieces; at the end of the semester, they will blend and edit these pieces into a single piece for this dynamic genre of literature.
*ENGL 120a, Reading and Writing the Modern Essay- Fred Strebeigh and staff
Close study of selected works of nonfiction prepares students to become critical readers and to apply professionals' strategies to their own writing. Readings from such authors as Joan Didion, Malcolm Gladwell, Maxine Hong Kingston, N. Scott Momaday, George Orwell, Brent Staples, Jonathan Swift, Henry David Thoreau, Tom Wolfe, and Alice Walker. Written assignments, involving frequent revisions, include autobiography, portraiture, nature writing, cultural critique, and formal argument. (English 120a and 120b are the same course in different terms.) For updated syllabi, visit the Online Course Information. See also the English 120 web page, https://webspace.yale.edu/engl120a/ .
Sec. 01 MW 11:35-12:50 F. Strebeigh
Sec. 02 MW 11:35-12:50 M. Stepto
Sec. 03 WF 1:00-2:15 M. Homans
Sec. 04 MW 11:35-12:50 K. Shirkhani
Sec. 05 MW 9:00-10:15 M. Vernon
Sec. 06 TTh 11:35-12:50 C. Zarin
Sec. 07 MW 2:30-3:45 M. Oppenheimer
Sec. 08 TTh 11:35-12:50 B. Stuart
Sec. 09 TTh 1:00-2:15 M. Bronstein
Sec. 10 TTh 11:35-12:50 R. Deming
Sec. 11 TTh 2:30-3:45 R. Deming
Sec. 12 MW 1:00-2:15 N. Suhr-Sytsma
Sec. 13 TTh 1:00-2:15 C. Shufro
Sec. 14 MW 1:00-2:15 E. Peterson
*ENGL 125a, Major English Poets- Susan Chambers and staff
A study of the diversity and the continuity of the English literary tradition through close study of the work of its major poets. Emphasis on developing skills of interpretation and critical writing. In the Fall term, Chaucer, Spenser, and a Renaissance lyric poet. In the Spring term, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, and a modern poet.
Sec. 01 TTh 11:35-12:50 C. Miller
Sec. 02 TTh 11:35-12:50 L. Manley
Sec. 03 TTh 1:00-2:15 C. Nicholson
Sec. 04 TTh 2:30-3:45 C. Nicholson
Sec. 05 TTh 2:30-3:45 S. Chambers
Sec. 06 MW 11:35-12:50 I. Cornelius
Sec. 07 MW 2:30-3:45 I. Cornelius
Sec. 08 TTh 2:30-3:45 T. Lawler
*ENGL 127a, Introduction to the Study of American Literature –Paul Grimstad and staff
Major works of the American literary tradition in a variety of poetic and narrative forms and in diverse historical contexts. Emphasis on analytical reading and critical writing. Authors may include Melville, Poe, Hawthorne, Bryant, Whitman, Dickinson, Thoreau, Emerson, Douglass, Stowe, Twain, Wharton, Cather, H. Crane, Stevens, Stein, L. Hughes, Paredes, Ellison, O'Connor, Ginsberg, Lowell, O'Hara, M. Robinson, C. McCarthy, Morrison, E. P. Jones, J. Díaz.
Sec. 01 TTh 1:00-2:15 P. Grimstad
Sec. 02 CXLD
Sec. 03 TTh 9:00-10:15 A. Ritzenberg
Sec. 04 TTh 1:00-2:15 J. Berger
Sec. 05 MW 1:00-2:15 J. Williams
Sec. 06 MW 2:30-3:45 J. Williams
Sec. 07 TTh 2:30-3:45 S. See
*ENGL 129a, The European Literary Tradition – Joseph Roach and staff
In the Fall term, Homer (the Iliad) and study of representative dramatists including Aeschyllus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; Shakespeare, Racine, Moliere, and Goethe; and a selection of modern and contemporary dramatists. In the Spring term, the epic and novel traditions: Homer (the Odyssey), Vergil, Dante, Cervantes, Joyce, and one other novelist.
Sec. 01 TTh 9:00-10:15 T. Robinson
Sec. 02 MW 9:00-10:15 J. Neuman
Sec. 03 MW 2:30-3:45 J. Roach
Sec. 04 TTh 11:35-12:50 B. Walsh
Sec. 05 TTh 1:00-2:15 J. Muse
Sec. 06 TTh 11:35-12:50 D. Ferhatovic
Sec. 07 MW 2:30-3:45 J. Zweck
Lecture Courses
ENGL 201a, Shakespeare: Histories & Tragedies
David Scott Kastan TTh 1:30-2:20 1 HTBA Pre 1800 LIBR
Shakespeare on the stage and page. The histories and tragedies as public theater and as studies in politics and psychology.
ENGL 241a, Lincoln at 200
David Bromwich and Steven Smith TTh 1:30- 2:20 1 HTBA
This course explores the life, work, and thought of Abraham Lincoln. The aim is to view Lincoln not solely as a great national leader, but also as an active participant in the extended national debate on the nature of liberty and the purpose of the United States. Attention will be given to Lincoln's interpretation of the Constitution by way of the Declaration of Independence; his dialogue with Whig politicians and abolitionists of the day; and his reasoned arguments for the necessity of bringing slavery to an end.
Principal readings will be drawn from the two volume Library of America Edition of Lincoln's speeches and writings; secondary readings include Calhoun, Emerson, Thoreau, Garrison, Melville, Douglass. Also assigned will be Lord Charnwood's "Life of Lincoln" and James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom."
ENGL 310a, Modern Poetry
Susan Chambers TTh 10:30-11:20 1 HTBA AMER
Major twentieth-century poets, including Yeats, Frost, Pound, Eliot, Moore, Stevens, and Auden.
Junior Seminars
*ENGL 155a/LING 183a, Readings in Old Norse Poetry and Prose: Chronicles of the Vikings
Roberta Frank MW 2:30-3:45 Pre 1800
An introduction to the language and literature of earliest Norway and Iceland. Texts (to be read in the original ) include runic inscriptions left behind by the Vikings, verse of their official skalds, the sometimes irreverent mythological poetry of Edda, and the sagas telling of the Norse discovery of America.
*ENGL 248a, Nature Writing in the English-Speaking World
Linda Peterson MW 1:00-2:15 Pre 1900
Natural history and environmental writing in the English-speaking world, from the late 18th century to the present. Readings include such classics as Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne, Thoreau’s Walden, and Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, as well as recent work by writers from Canada, the United States, India, Australia, and South Africa.
*ENGL 250a, Romantic Poetry
Leslie Brisman MW 11:35-12:50 Meets RP LIBR
An introduction to one of the most exhilarating periods of English poetry and its major authors: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. In 2009, extended attention to what is arguably the period’s greatest long poem, Wordsworth’s The Prelude.
*ENGL 256a/LIT 458a, Class, Desire and the Novel
Barry McCrea M 9:25-11:15
An investigation of plots of social and erotic progress from the 17th century to the present day (mostly late 19th and 20th century), covering topics central to the novel such as: social ambition or decline; the marriage plot and its alternatives; the narrative role of family or social outsiders; sexuality and narrative form. We will look at films and plays as well as novels.
Possible texts might include Lazarillo de Tormes: Anonymous; The Sorrows of Young Werther: Goethe; Oliver Twist: Dickens; Lost Illusions: Balzac; The Importance of Being Earnest: Wilde; The Guermantes Way: Proust; Young Torless: Musil; Zeno's Conscience: Svevo; The Line of Beauty: Hollinghurst; Brokeback Mountain: Proulx.
*ENGL 297a, Literature on Migration in Asian America Lit
Jing Tsu T 3:30-5:20 AMER
Comparative studies of East Asian and Asian American literatures in migration and diaspora. Focus on issues of native speakers, translation, mother tongues, ethnicity and race, national languages, and colonialism. All readings are in English.
This course aims to introduce students to different methods of approach to literatures produced outside the usual national framework. It seeks to cross the linguistic and cultural boundaries that have traditionally separated the study of Asian American literature from that of literature written in East Asia by focusing on their shared questions of national language, dominant vs. minority tongues, and migration vs. national traditions. Topics to be covered include the notion of nativity (either as a linguistic or cultural home), writing (theories of writing vs. the social history of national writing), race (nationalistic vs. interracial literature), colonialism (postcolonialism and neocolonialism), and migration (exodus vs. exile). Principal readings include works of fiction, literary and cultural theories, and historical documents. This course offers a broad interdisciplinary focus in order to explore alternative literary histories that challenge individual traditions and national canons.
*ENGL 306a, Modern African-American Poets
Robert Stepto W 1:30-3:20 AMER
The African American practice of poetry between 100 and 1960, especially of sonnets, ballads, sermonic, and blues poems. Poets studied include Paul laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, and Robert Hayden.
*ENGL 321a, Visual Culture in Literature, Drama and Film
Edward Barnaby Th 1:30-3:20
A discussion of texts that address the transformation of visual culture and the act of seeing in modern industrial society. The dynamics such texts reveal in relationships between individuals and mass culture, authenticity and commodity, theory and ideology. Questions of imperialism, rationalism, industrialism, voyeurism, tourism, and realism as inscribed in landscape, architecture, painting, photography, theater, and cinema.
Certain texts from 19th and 20th century literature and contemporary drama and film have treated thematically elements of visual culture (such as architecture, landscape, painting, photography, cinema , museums, exhibitions) and the act of seeing. Such texts often reference visual culture to identify symptoms of capitalist social transformation (e.g., imperialism, tourism, voyeurism, realism, industrialism, rationalism).
This seminar will consider how these texts bring visual culture into literary focus and, in doing so, what dynamics they reveal in relationships between individuals and society. Is there a distinct visuality associated with modern industrial society? What experiences of alienation associated with the industrial age does each text articulate, and how are such experiences rooted in visual encounters? How do these texts contribute to an understanding of the distinction between art and theory (as malleable spaces of creation and play) versus commodity and ideology (as fixed values within an alienating rationalist system)? What do they tell us about the processes by which art is reduced to commodity and theory is reduced to ideology? Do their depictions of the frustrated pursuit of authenticity within mass culture reinforce the passive acceptance of consumerism or suggest the possibility of transcending it? Each session will involve the discussion of literary and dramatic texts in conjunction with contemporary films and selections from cultural criticism.
*ENGL 325a, Modern Apocalyptic Narratives
James Berger T 9:25-11:15
This course will study the persistent, seemingly compulsive impulse in western culture to imagine the end of the world and what might come after. We will examine the varying social and psychological factors that motivate apocalyptic representations and will determine the differences and the constant features in apocalyptic representations from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary science fiction films and some instances of post-structuralist theory. In particular, we will examine how apocalyptic texts reveal attitudes toward history, politics, sexuality, social class, and toward the process of representation itself. More generally, we will consider the strange mixture of fear and desire so characteristic of apocalyptic representations, taking seriously Nathanael West’s question in Day of the Locust, were all prophets of doom such happy men?
The course will begin by examining the religious, social, and historical attitudes conveyed in Biblical apocalyptic texts. We will then discuss Norman Cohn’s thesis on the political transformation of these attitudes in medieval and early modern Europe.
Having established that apocalyptic thought does not occur in a social vacuum and often seeks to intervene in its contemporary political life, the students will encounter a series of texts illustrating apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic representation in a variety of forms. The course will examine apocalyptic representation as it is inflected by English romanticism, fin de siecle notions of progress and degeneration, early twentieth-century modernism and imperialism, responses to the Holocaust and Hiroshima, anxiety regarding changes in gender relations, the continuing and revived strength of fundamentalist Christian belief, poststructuralist critiques of historical continuity and the possibility of representation, and, finally, by the attempts to articulate responses to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Texts will include Mary Shelley, The Last Man; H.G. Wells, The Time Machine; W.C. Williams, Spring and All; Nathanael West, Day of the Locust, Samuel Beckett, Endgame, Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker, LaHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind, Angela Carter, The Passion of the New Eve; Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations; Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"; Derrida, "Of An Apocalyptic Tone in Modern Philosophy"; Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers; and Ian McEwan, Saturday.
In a course covering apocalyptic representation of the past sixty years, it is crucial to include cinema, since film is the technology that most commonly and vividly has portrayed apocalyptic catastrophe over that period. Indeed, the experience of seeing a film in a theater 'a shared experience of ecstasy and solitude' is a model for the reception of all apocalyptic representation. Films will include Omega Man, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Until the End of the World, The Rapture, and 12 Monkeys.
The course will demonstrate both the extra ordinary durability and the flexibility of apocalyptic thought and representation. The apocalyptic impulse is often a response to some historical catastrophe and it functions as an interpretation of temporality and history. Through the term, we will read selections of important theorizations of modern apocalypticism--Frank Kermode's The Sense of An Ending, Richard Dellamora's Apocalyptic Overtures, James Berger's, After the End, Teresa Heffernan's Post-Apocalyptic Culture'in order continually to pose the questions that, finally, must remain questions: why imagine the end of things, and how do we interpret the fragments and ruins that remain after the end?
*ENGL 354a, Language, Disability, Fiction
James Berger Th 3:30-5:20
This course will study portrayals of cognitive and linguistic impairment in modern fiction, proposing the question: what does it mean, in a verbal medium, to construct characters with limited capacities for language? We will examine how these characters serve as figures of otherness, transcendence, physicality, or abjection, but study how this more abstract alternity always stands in relation to contemporaneous discourses of science, sociology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. The course will also take up questions posed by disability studies regarding the ethics of speaking about or for subjects at the margins of discourse.
The course will be organized in four sections, with a prologue. The first section will explore impaired figures in literary modernism; the second will read such figures as revivals of wild children in post-1960s postmodernism; the third section will study some recent fictions, responses to contemporary neuroscience; and the fourth will read the impaired figure in relation to political subalternity, exploring the ethical question of speaking for those deprived of voice in political terms.
The course’s prologue will be Melville’s Billy Budd, a text that illustrates the processes of psychological projection and cultural overdetermination that combine to construct the impaired figure at the borders of language. We will then read two or three modernist texts (Conrad, the Secret Agent; Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Barnes, Nightwood) which, in their formal and tonal experimentation, place the impaired figure in an ambivalent relation to the dominant discourses of modernity, in particular those of cultural and biological degeneration and shifting scientific understandings of mental retardation. The course then will study some fictions from the 1960s-1970s, that use impaired figures to revive the 18th-century wild child trope. Kozinski’s Being There, DeLillo’s White Noise, and Auster’s City of Glass all employ cognitively impaired characters to play out heavily ironized fantasies of innocence as a function of estrangement from language. Next, we will study how recent fictions by Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections), Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn), and Richard Powers (The Echo Makers) have responded to the revolutionary advances in neuroscience of the past twenty years. This body of knowledge and methodology have profound implications for the forms of knowledge that literary fiction claims to provide regarding subjectivity, social relations, and language, and we will read how these novels attempt to assess contemporary neuroscience and reimagine a place for narrative. Finally, in a reading of J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K., the class will discuss the use of the impaired figures as a political trope and, more generally, the ethics of speaking for those deprived of voice.
In each section, students will also be assigned contextual readings in scientific and cultural history (e.g. contemporaneous medical and sociological understandings of mental retardation, accounts of 18th-century wild children, introductions to basic concepts of neuroscience and their role in contemporary thought).
*ENGL 366a, American Experimental Theater
Marc Robinson T 1:30-3:20 AMER
This upper-level course traces the development of the American experimental theater from 1945-2000. This period witnessed a radical questioning of theatrical assumptions and principles, resulting in new definitions of narrative, character, psychology, and emotion (when such features of drama weren’t rejected altogether). Much of this work reevaluated the relationship of theater to the other arts and to public life. The theater of the 1960s the Living Theater, the Open Theater, the Performance Group, Bread and Puppet Theater aimed to renew our faith in a politically engaged theater. Other artists (Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman, Elizabeth LeCompte) borrowed methods and models from the worlds of dance, music, visual art, and cinema. As boundaries blurred between disciplines, theater emerged more formally sophisticated than it had been in earlier periods.
Since much of this theater is non-literary, or transforms texts under the pressure of performance, the syllabus includes weekly video screenings. These are accompanied by readings by and about the artists.
*ENGL 374a, Renaissance Lyric
Lawrence Manley MW 2:30-3:45 Pre 1800
A survey of English lyric poetry from the early sixteenth through the mid-seventeenth century, focusing on poetic forms and traditions and the place of poetry in the social, political, and religious life of the time. Authors include Wyatt, Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Aemylia Lanyer, Lady Mary Wroth, Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Herrick, Milton, Lovelace, and Marvell.
*ENGL 385a, Feminist Fictions
Margaret Homans TTh 1:00-2:15
An historical survey of works of fiction that have shaped feminist and queer
thought from the late eighteenth century to the present. Authors include
Wollstonecraft, C. Bronte, Gilman, Chopin, Woolf, Lessing, Wittig, Walker,
Morrison, Churchill, and Winterson.
*ENGL 387a, Science (and) Fiction
Paul Grimstad TTh 11:35-12:50
What is the relation between literature and science? Can works of fiction be called "thought experiments"? How are the philosophical, ethical and political questions posed in literary works different from, or similar to, those arising in the sciences? The course will explore such questions through a focus on science-fiction as a genre, broadly construed. In addition to reflection on what is meant by the term "genre," we will also consider how science and the scientist are represented in works of fiction. Readings and screenings by Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.G. Wells, Charles Darwin, Octavia Butler, Alan Turing, Sigmund Freud, Aldous Huxley, Stanley Kubrick, Ursula Le Guin, Richard Powers, Philip K. Dick, David Cronenberg.
*ENGL 395a, Bible as Literature
Leslie Brisman MW 2:30-3:45 Pre 1800 LIBR (with permission)
Study of the Bible as a plurality of voices each of which is defined, as are voices in other literary traditions, by its own balance between the conflicting claims of individuality and tradition. This course may be of interest to students simply seeking a better acquaintance with a collection of works so often alluded to but so little read, to students who have studied (not concurrently studying) Old and New Testament in Religious Studies and who would like to do more detailed, intertextual work, and to students with a theoretical interest in either the problematics of canon formation or the conflicting claims of historical and purely literary criticism.
Although we read a good selection of works from the Bible in the New Jerusalem translation, and in one other translation which could be the King James, this is not a course in the language of the King James Bible as such, and is therefore not ordinarily to be considered a course in partial fulfillment of the pre-1800 requirement in English literature. But by choosing the King James as the second translation, and by signing up in advance and successfully completing a series of supplementary assignments in the King James Bible, a student may obtain pre-1800 credit.
For a course about the multivocality of the Bible, it is crucial that we respect the multivocality of the seminar. To this end, the class is restricted to 36 students, and if there are 30 or more enrolled, we will usually break into two groups of no more than 18 each on Wednesdays. This is the meaning of W 2:30 and 4:00. But because we will not break up into two groups every week without fail, it will not be possible for a student simultaneously to enroll in another course that meets Wednesdays 1:00-2:50 or 1:30-3:20.
Three essays and a final examination.
Senior Seminars
*ENGL 401a, Coetzee
Justin Neuman M 1:30-3:20
A study of the major novels and other writings of Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee from 1974-2007 exploring issues of animal and human rights, Apartheid, race, gender, colonialism/ post-colonialism, sex, pain, religion, and globalization.
As one of the preeminent voices in contemporary literature, J.M. Coetzee’s oeuvre includes, (at the time of this writing) twelve novels, three autobiographical works, numerous volumes of essays, several translations, public performances, and a PhD dissertation on Samuel Beckett. Refusing the boundaries of nations, genres, histories, and genders, Coetzee’s work has engaged hot-button issues since his first novel, Dusklands, in which a Modernist novella of the Vietnam War is sutured to the tale of a 19th century colonialist, Jacobus Coetzee. Following Coetzee’s work across time we will engage his presiding concerns: the colonial legacy and apartheid (Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians, Life and Times of Michael K); religions, rights, and genders (Age of Iron, Elizabeth Costello," Disgrace); literary inheritance and genre (The Master of Petersburg, Diary of a Bad Year). How does the arid prose style of Coetzee’s narratives alter readerly engagement with themes like torture, ethics, or human and animal rights? How has reception history and Coetzee’s own meta-critical commentary influenced the distribution, effects, and status of his project? How does Coetzee engage with, reconfigure, and bend the genres and themes with which he works? The course will shuttle between close readings of individual novelistic and prose works and large-scale analysis of his oeuvre conceived as a sustained project.
*ENGL 416a, Contemporary British Fiction
Caryl Phillips M 3:30-5:20
This course will look at the literature that has been written in response to a changing post WWII Britain, and it will examine how the notion of who 'belongs' and who is an 'outsider' has informed this new literature.
*ENGL 435a, Henry James
Ruth Yeazell Th 1:30-3:20 Pre 1900
A study of major novels by Henry James, from Roderick Hudson through The Golden Bowl. Particular attention to the international theme and to the ways in which James's later novels revisit and transform the matter of his earlier ones.
*ENGL 444a, Historical Novel
Christopher Miller TTh 2:30-3:45
Cultural origins and development of the historical novel in Britain and America, from its journalistic roots in the historical reportage of Defoe up to recent fiction addressing the aftermath of 9/11. Authors include Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Primo Levi, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, and Claire Messud. Supplementary readings in criticism and theory of the novel.
*ENGL 445a, Ralph Ellison in Context
Robert Stepto M 1:30-3:20 AMER
The complete works of Ralph Ellison and the related works (in various forms) of some of his contemporaries, including Wright, Baldwin, Bearden, and Louis Armstrong.
Writing Courses
Turn your statement, writing sample, and application in to Ruben Roman in LC 107 no later than noon on Friday September 4th.
Those accepted students will be notified via e mail the following Monday, Sept. 7th
*ENGL 140a, Introduction to Fiction Writing
Leslie Woodard M 3:30-5:20
An intensive introduction to the craft of fiction, designed for aspiring creative writers. Focus on the fundamentals of narrative technique and peer review. In the fall term, open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors; in the spring term, open to all students. Prerequisite: a previous course in English or in another literature.
*ENGL 141a, Introduction to Verse
Louise Glück T 1:30-3:20 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
A seminar workshop for freshmen and sophomores who are beginning to write poetry. Students should submit three sample poems and a short paragraph about a literary work of art that has particularly impressed them. Or, if they have never written poetry, applicants should submit a longer paragraph on a literary work, together with a statement of why they wish to take the course.
*ENGL 452a, Intermediate Fiction Writing
Emily Barton M 1:30-3:20 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
Emphasis on the writing of short fiction. Criticism of student work; rhetorical and technical exercises in narrative form, genre, and style; readings in classical and contemporary fiction. Classes conducted workshop-style with frequent conferences.
*ENGL 453a, Playwriting
Donald Margulies T 2:30-5:00
A seminar and workshop in writing for the stage. Readings emphasize contemporary plays; some theory. Writing assignments include weekly exercises and the execution of a one-act play.
*ENGL 454a, Non-Fiction Writing: Voice and Structure
Fred Strebeigh Th 1:30-4:00 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
This course concentrates on voice, structure, and style in the shaping of non-fiction reportage. Workshops and discussions explore techniques by which writers try to mold intractable fact into enduring literature. Readings include reportage, short and long, by writers such as Didion, Ephron, Hersey, McPhee, Matthiessen, Thoreau, Twain, Wolfe, and Woolf. Students in the course will complete at least three polished pieces (preceded by three or four drafts) that add up to a substantial collection of work. Most drafting will require research, including interviewing. Typical pieces might have word lengths of 1,000, 3,000, and 4,000 words. Some students will probably write at greater total length; few will write at shorter length. For more information, please see: https://webspace.yale.edu/ENGL454a
*ENGL 460a, Advanced Verse Writing
Louise Glück M 3:30-5:20 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
A seminar workshop for students with previous experience in workshop writing classes.
*ENGL 463a, Writing Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Related Genres
John Crowley W 1:30-3:20 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
The course is a seminar/workshop in writing, in which students will explore the non-mimetic genres in their own writing, receive comments from the instructor and fellow students. Complete stories or parts of longer works may be submitted, as well as "essays", i.e. incomplete work in genre forms.
Instructor will devote part of each class to a consideration of the genres in question: what do they have in common, and in what ways do they differ? (How, for instance, does technology-and-future-based science fiction go together with magic-and-timelessness-based fantasy? We seem to think they do go together, but why?) The common term that Northrop Frye uses - "romance" - will be explicated throughout the semester, and we will apply his typologies and taxonomies to our readings in student work as well as published work. The goal is to inspire not only work in but also thought about a kind of writing that is at once free from the constraints of mimesis and at the same time constrained by its own history- by the great tales from Gilgamesh to Alice in Wonderland, by the practices of current commercial publishing, and maybe by the human story-telling drive as well.
*ENGL 465a, Advanced Fiction Writing
Caryl Phillips T 2:30-4:20 Not CR/D/F
A workshop in the craft of writing fiction. Required weekly writing, editing each others work, reading and dissecting (as writers, not theorists) some published writers. One finished short story will be required.
*ENGL467a, Journalism
Steven Brill M 9:25-11:15
DESCRIPTION: This seminar – the core course for Yale Journalism Scholars – will be a workshop for those interested in understanding the changing role of journalism in the new century, in coming to grips with the challenges and opportunities related to the business model of journalism in the digital age, and in learning the practice of journalism. Grades will be based on participation and written work, with an emphasis on the final project. I will try to meet with each student individually during the term as often as necessary in order to provide useful feedback, help with the final project, and (if requested) career guidance. Successful completion of this course and other aspects of the Yale Journalism Scholars program will qualify students to be designated Yale Journalism Scholars. For more information on the Yale Journalism Scholars and the Yale Journalism Initiative, see http://www.yale.edu/writing/journalism.
INSTRUCTOR: Steven Brill, a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, worked as a writer for New York Magazine, Esquire, and Harpers while in Law School. In 1978 he was the author of a best-selling book on the Teamsters Union. A year later, he launched The American Lawyer Magazine (for which he wrote a regular column and feature articles) and later expanded it into ten legal publications across the country. In 1991 Brill launched Court TV and, in 1998, Brill’s Content Magazine. In late 2001 Brill wrote a series of columns in Newsweek about America’s response to September 11, as well as After: The Rebuilding and Defending of America in the September 12 Era, which was published in 2003 by Simon & Schuster. He is now the Co-Founder of Journalism Online, LLC, a company formed to enable newspapers, magazines, and online publishers to earn revenue from the journalism they publish online.
MEETINGS: Mondays, 9:25- 11:15 a.m. in LC 103
READINGS: The syllabus provides an outline of what we will cover in the course. The course packet is available at TYCO, and all books are available at the Yale bookstore, except for After, which will be distributed at no charge at our first meeting.
ASSIGNMENTS:
- Biographical profile, 7-10 pages, of the person sitting next to you in this seminar
- Critiquing and editing of several published articles from time to time.
- Following a blog that publishes original content and critiquing it.
- Creating, with two partners, a business proposal for a new newspaper, magazine, book, or online venture.
- Final Assignment: 17-25-page publishable magazine feature story.
ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS: The seminar is open to all sophomores, juniors, and seniors. However, because of the other requirements of the Yale Journalism Initiative (of which this seminar is a core requirement), juniors should be sure to take the course this year (now or in the Spring when Jill Abramson will be teaching it), because other aspects of the Initiative (particularly the summer internship ingredient) will in the future mean that seniors will have a more difficult time participating. In general, we are looking for a range of students – some with demonstrated commitment to and experience in journalism, others without that background but who can write well, want to learn, and perhaps have something else to offer in class discussions (such as an intense interest in politics, the arts, law, or economics), which they might want to apply to journalism. Each student must submit the following application package to sb@brillbusiness.com by 11:59 PM on September 9, 2009.
- A one-page written statement explaining your interest in the class and in the Yale Journalism Scholars program.
- One writing sample – either an article that you have published in an on- or off- campus publication or something that you submitted for a class
- Your full name, Yale class year, any previous writing courses that you have taken, a brief description of your extra-curricular activities and a description of your journalism experience.
Outline of Reading and Assignments
September 7, 2009
Introduction: In-class discussion of what the seminar will attempt to do and what is expected of participants.
APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION TO CLASS WILL THEN BE DUE SEPTEMBER 9, 2009 BY 11:59 PM
Admission decisions will be distributed by email by September 11, 2009 at the latest. All books are available at Barnes and Noble. The course packet is available at Tyco. Please complete the reading for September 14, 2009 before the class.
*ENGL 469a, Advanced Non-Fiction Writing
Anne Fadiman Th 2:30–5:00
The purpose of this course is to examine and attempt good nonfiction writing through the microcosm of setting. How do we see America (whether urban or rural, east or west, rich or poor) as home? We will attempt to dismantle some of the traditional barriers between academic reading and pleasure reading as we discuss works by Ted Conover, Joan Didion, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, John McPhee, Gay Talese, and others. Students will write four pieces (two first-person, two reportorial), the last of which is a substantial profile reported in New Haven, outside the Yale campus. They will also critique each other's work both orally and via e-mail. Each student will have at least four conferences with me to discuss his or her work.
Special Projects
*ENGL 470a, Tutorial in Writing
DUS
A writing tutorial in fiction, poetry, or playwriting for students who have already taken writing courses at the intermediate and advanced levels. Conducted with a faculty member after approval by the director of undergraduate studies. To apply, a student must submit a prospectus and application (available on the department website) signed by the faculty advisor to the office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the end of the designated sign-up period for projects for fall 2009 (April 17th, 2009).
Prerequisite: two courses in writing.
*ENGL 471a, Special Projects for Juniors and Seniors
DUS
Special projects may be set up by the student in an area of his or her own particular interest with the help of a faculty advisor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Such projects are intended to enable the student to cover material not otherwise offered by the department. They may be used for research or for directed reading, but in either case it is expected that the student will meet regularly with the faculty advisor and write a term paper or its equivalent. To apply for admission, a student must submit a prospectus and application (available on the department website) signed by the faculty advisor to the office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the end of the designated sign-up period for seminars for fall 2007 (April 17th, 2009). The prospectus should briefly outline the topic of study and the rationale for approaching that topic in this format. The prospectus should also include a schedule of meetings, readings, and writing assignments.
*ENGL 489a, The Writing Concentration Senior Project
DUS
A term-long project in writing, under tutorial supervision, aimed at producing a single longer work (or collection of related shorter works). A prospectus signed by the student's adviser must be submitted to the office of the director of undergraduate studies by April 17th, 2009. The completed project will be due on the Friday before the last week of classes in the fall term by noon.
*ENGL 490a, Senior Essay.
DUS
A prospectus and application signed by the student’s advisor must be submitted to the office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies by (April 17th, 2009) of the term before the project is to be done. A faculty committee will evaluate and approve all such projects. Please see detailed information on writing the senior essay, available on the department website. The senior essay itself is due according to the following schedule:
- End of the fourth week of classes: five to ten pages of writing and/or an annotated bibliography (September 25, 2009)
- End of the ninth week of classes: a rough draft of the complete essay (October 23, 2009)
- Friday of the last week of classes: the completed essay (two copies) (December 4, 2009) by noon.
Courses in Other Departments that Count Toward the English Major
*HUMS 215a, Art of Reading a Poem.
Harold Bloom
See description under Humanities.
*HUMS 228a, Shakespeare and the Canon: Histories, Comedies and Poems.
Harold Bloom Pre 1800
See description under Humanities.
*TPRP 290a, Teaching of English
Marilyn Szweed
Courses for Spring 2010
Course Offerings Spring 2010 are subject to change
Official Yale College course information is found at the Yale Online Course Information Website.
Fall 2009| Spring 2010
Introductory Courses
*ENGL 114b, Writing Seminars I - Suzanne Young and staff
Individual sections of this course, which treat the wide array of topics indicated below, prepare students to write well-reasoned analyses and arguments, particularly those required in their subsequent college courses. Both instruction and practice stress the importance of reading, research, and revision as the bases of effective writing. Using examples of modern nonfiction prose from a variety of academic disciplines, these writing seminars encourage students to engage in ongoing debates about significant issues in contemporary life.
Sec. 01 Thinking Globally
Karin Gosselink TTh 9:00-10:15
What does it mean to be a citizen of the world? How can individuals and
communities make a difference in the current context of globalization? This
writing seminar explores the flexible practices of critical reading, writing,
and argument that thinking globally demands. Course readings include essays
on cosmopolitanism and globalization from philosophy, economics, political
science, and anthropology. Drawing on these diverse ideas and approaches,
students will develop rigorous arguments about the uses and limits of global
citizenship, globalization’s impact on specific communities, and the
possibilities for shaping globalization’s future.
Sec. 02 Thinking Globally
Karin Gosselink TTh 1:00-2:15
What does it mean to be a citizen of the world? How can individuals and
communities make a difference in the current context of globalization? This
writing seminar explores the flexible practices of critical reading, writing,
and argument that thinking globally demands. Course readings include essays
on cosmopolitanism and globalization from philosophy, economics, political
science, and anthropology. Drawing on these diverse ideas and approaches,
students will develop rigorous arguments about the uses and limits of global
citizenship, globalization’s impact on specific communities, and the
possibilities for shaping globalization’s future.
Sec. 03 CXLD
Sec. 04 College: The Best Years of Your Life?
Allyson McCabe TTh 11:35-12:50
Current acceptance rates at Ivy League schools hover at approximately ten percent. Beyond merit, what are the elements that make a candidate competitive for admission to a highly selective university like Yale? How does campus life in the Ivy League imagined by outsiders differ from the day-to-day lives of real students and faculty? Does learning for learning’s sake prevail in our hallowed halls or is college just a social networking opportunity or stepping stone to a career? What will colleges like Yale be like twenty or thirty years down the road?
In this section of English 114 students will engage in issues and debates that are at the heart of American higher education. In the first section of the course students will learn about the admissions process at elite universities by tracing its history and considering arguments about who gets in and why. The second part of the course builds on this foundation by focusing on related issues: how college life in the Ivy League is depicted and lived; the mission and purpose of top-flight universities; and the pressures faced by students, faculty, and institutions as they strive to meet new challenges and demands. Students will engage in a combination of independent and collaborative projects. In addition to honing students’ critical reading and interpretive skills, this course facilitates advanced proficiency in descriptive and analytic writing; including effective thesis identification, text summarization, rhetorical analysis, source integration, comparisons, and critical responses.
Students will also improve their research skills through an introduction to resources at Yale (e.g., the library, film studies center, and the Internet) and by working on our course projects. Because this course is skills-based as well as content-driven, individual consultations and writing workshops are an essential part of the class. Each student will self-critique drafts of his/her written work and will receive feedback from the instructor. Because the course emphasizes the importance of writing as a process, revision (in the sense of “looking again” rather than merely spot proofing) is built into the syllabus. In fact, students will revise all of their essays before they are graded and their major research project will be conducted incrementally with ample opportunity for independent revision before it is submitted for a final grade.
Sec. 05 Habits
Ian Cornelius MW 1:00-2:15
What are habits, and what is the relation between our habits and our selves? Are we our habits, or do we merely have habits? What are we doing when we practice at something, when we try to kick a habit, or adopt one? In this writing seminar, questions about habitual practice and daily life lead us to explore relations between consciousness, desire, and material environment. We will first consider ways of defining “habit” as an object of study, beginning with William James' wide-ranging essay on our topic. Next, we will consider how the anthropological gaze of The Perfect Human (1967, remake 2003) reveals some of the peculiar difficulties that we face when we think about human beings.
In the third unit, we will explore the scope and depth of habit by taking up the age-old question: is there such a thing as universal human nature independent of our experiences, environment, and socialization? Finally, we will examine what it means to feel “at home” in a particular situation, by reflecting on how a habit links us to a specific material object or a unique milieu. Readings and discussion will be oriented towards four major writing assignments: a close analysis of an argument, a motivated description, a research essay, and a meditative essay.
Sec. 06 Identity in a Shrinking World
Paula Resch MW 2:30-3:45
How do we construct our identity in a world in which we bump into each other more--both physically and virtually—every day? To answer this question, we will begin with readings that look carefully at the struggle for personal sovereignty that any individual has to undertake regardless of the group into which he or she was born. Next, we’ll turn to works about identity-shaping experiences of ethnic groups in the university and the larger American society. Then we’ll look beyond the US at the Holocaust and the Palestinians, and we’ll end with The Class, a movie about diversity in a French school, and Amy Chua’s provocative work on minorities who are oppressors rather than the ones oppressed and who thereby affect the identity of millions of individuals today.
Sec. 07 Religion in a Secular Age
Jerry Weng TTh 2:30-3:45
When Nietzsche famously proclaimed in the nineteenth century that “God is dead,” he dramatized a historical predicament in which religion is no longer relevant to the human condition. Yet despite the fact that we live in a world dominated by secular institutions and values, religion is still very much with us, giving rise to political and philosophical conflicts that challenge the underpinnings of modern secular society. In this section of English 114, we will explore – through careful analysis and reasoned argument – some of the difficult and controversial questions that attend the persistence of religion today. To what extent should the freedom of religious expression be tolerated in public spaces? How has creationism, under its various guises, influenced the way we think about science and public education? Where should the limits of religious practice be drawn beyond the private sphere? Through a variety of writing tasks, we will practice constructing rigorous arguments while exercising special care in handling potentially sensitive issues.
Sec. 08 College: The Mind and the World
Suzanne Young MW 11:35-12:50
To what extent can we know the world directly? In this course, questions about knowledge will lead us to questions about the nature of consciousness itself. We will consider different ways of knowing, beginning with John Berger’s examination of the frameworks we use to decode the world. Next, we will consider how the virtual world of The Matrix opens new doors of perception. In the third unit, we will explore the phenomenon of consciousness by contrasting machine intelligence and animal minds. In the final essay, we will meditate on the quirks of consciousness—phantom limbs, out of body experiences, fabricated memories—that make the study of mind so fascinating. The papers we write—a close reading, a text in context, a research essay, and a meditative essay—will spring from our discussion and readings on these questions.
*ENGL115b, Writing about Literature I- Aaron Ritzenberg and staff
Exploration of major themes in selected works of literature. Individual sections focus on topics such as war, justice, childhood, and the natural world. Emphasis on the development of writing skills and the analysis of fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction prose.
Sec. 01 Short Attention Span Fictions: From Short Story to YouTube
John Muse TTh 2:30-3:45
What makes something feel short? How short is short anyway? Measured by the sheer volume of short fictional material circulating in a culture, there may never have been an age of shorts to rival the turn of the twenty-first century. From music videos to sitcoms, commercials to online video clips, text message novels to twitter plays, the objects competing for our increasingly divided attention have more reason than ever to be brief. Where did all of these shorts come from, how do they work, and how are they changing the ways we read and the ways we write? This course will survey a range of influential fictional literature—episodic and serial novels, short stories, lyric poems, one-act plays, short films, and digital media—in order to ask how recent historical and technological changes have influenced the shape of literature, and how form and length in turn affect our practices of reception. By encouraging slow reading (and careful writing) about fast texts, this course aims to cultivate deliberative, critical approaches to a culture of skimming.
Sec. 02 Monsters and Monstrosity.
Jordan Zweck TTh 11:35-12:50
From the Latin “monstrare,” the monster is that which shows and that which warns. But what does the monster show? On the one hand, the monster reveals what a culture thinks is evil, but on the other hand, monsters hold a strange fascination for us. In this course, we will be exploring what it is that we have feared, and why it is that we so enjoy, even desire, to confront evil. Some of our monsters will be defeated, but others will seem to triumph, and it will be important to think about what it means when the hero loses, or what it means to live in a society that has no heroes. During the semester, we will encounter serial killers, beasts, shapeshifters, and necrophiliacs. Texts will include Beowulf; Lolita; the graphic novel Epileptic; poems by Frank Bidart, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, and Thom Gunn; and two films.
*ENGL 116b, Writing Seminars II - Andrew Ehrgood and staff
Refinement of the tools of rhetorical analysis and argument through study of writing related to specific fields of endeavor or inquiry. Typical topics of individual sections are the environment, the arts, the law, documentary film, politics, and medicine. Varied writing assignments, with frequent review and revision, culminate with the development of a longer research essay.
Sec. 01 Nature Writing
John Loge MW 1:00-2:15
In this course students read a selection of American nature writers and, informed by the readings in the genre, write their own examples of nature writing.
The course explores how nature writing is influenced by and responds to cultural assumptions and conventions, uses narrative and other literary techniques, and treats shared themes and motifs. The focus will be on how nature writers "write" nature and, thus, write themselves and the human relationship to nature. The readings are in chronological order from Gilbert White and Thoreau to contemporary nature writers, including poets and current selections from magazines.
Writing assignments include short papers that interpret assigned readings and longer essays that are students’ own attempts at nature writing that can take their place within the genre. Also, students keep a journal and write evaluations of other students’ writing. Optional local nature walks in warm weather on Saturdays or Sundays are also offered.
Sec. 02 Writing About Food
Barbara Stuart TTh 2:30-3:45
In this course we will read essays by the luminaries of the food world; students will explore food from many angles, writing about the economic, political, cultural, emotional, and nutritional aspects that go into what we eat. The units in this course will explore the tension between the elite and the democratic, the professional and the amateur, the foreign and the home-grown, the expensive and the affordable. We will view popular food films and discuss how these films reflect our attitudes toward what we eat. Assignments will focus on what might be called the “sub-genres” of the food essay: the factors that shape family meals, journalistic essays based upon certain recipes for beloved foods, cookbooks, the food memoir, and reviews. The class will visit, review, and rate street food in New Haven, posting a comprehensive guide to local street food online. We will also take fieldtrips in small groups to visit farmers, bread and cheese makers, and at the end of the term, the class will prepare a meal using ingredients purchased from the very places we have visited. Finally, students will maintain a food blog as a forum for our joint food discoveries.
Sec. 03 The Art of the Review: Writing about the Performing Arts
Margaret Spillane TTh 11:35-12:50
This course is for students who have strong opinions about one or more of the performing arts and who would like to learn how to launch those opinions into print—in newspapers, magazines and the blogosphere. Taught by a longtime theater reviewer for The Nation and other publications, this class will encourage participants to write like journalists—vividly, concisely, and on deadline.
Students will run a class blog on the performing arts, and will attend screenings and live professional performances of plays, music concerts and dance events.
Sec. 04 Evolutionary Writing
Raymond Malewitz MW 1:00-2:15
In this course, students will learn to write and to evaluate essays within the fields of scientific history and scientific ethics. Our work will be grounded in a number of current and historical conversations regarding evolutionary biology. Since Darwin, Western intellectuals frequently have cast biological evolution as a narrative of progress culminating in man. We will explore the social, cultural, and political effects of this narrative through a variety of primary source documents. In the first unit, we will examine the complicated relationships established among natural selection, Social Darwinism, and imperialism. In the second unit, we will explore the relationship between these early theories and more recent biological controversies surrounding reproductive cloning, eugenics, and nature-based intelligence. Finally, in the third unit, we will examine how recent advancements in biotechnology have caused some critics to discuss the prospect of post-human species.
*ENGL 117b, Literature Seminars II - Aaron Ritzenberg and staff
Sec 01 Memory, History, and Literature
Aaron Ritzenberg WF 11:35-12:50
This seminar will focus on the complex relationship between memory, historical events, and writing. What happens when writers translate real events into stories? Can narratives accurately represent history and reality? What role do narratives play in shaping collective memory? Students will work on how to construct arguments about literature, how to write lucid prose, and how to use critical and theoretical sources. Texts will likely include works by Thomas Jefferson, Chinua Achebe, Stephen Crane, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, and Hayden White, and at least two films.
Sec 02 Literature and the Technologies of Modernity
John Williams TTh 1:00-2:15
This course explores the intersecting topics of literature and technology from roughly the Second Industrial Revolution to the present. Our classroom discussions will focus on the representation of technology in literary texts, the impact of modern technologies on works of literature, and the question of whether or not literature (and the various mechanisms of information storage and print capitalism that accompany it) can itself be considered "technological." We will also explore literary efforts to propose alternatives to the oppressive culture of technocratic capitalism. We will ask: what does "literature" offer in the way of a therapeutic release from technocratic life? How have literary authors presented "other" traditions (whether racial, ethnic, or gendered) as organic alternatives to technology? How has Anglo American literature also contributed to Western assumptions about the supposed connection between technological superiority, human progress, and white supremacy? Texts will be accompanied by vigorous classroom discussion, occasional in-class quizzes, papers, and a final exam.
Sec 03 Rebels With and Without Causes
Andrew Karas MW 1:00-2:15
Milton’s Satan is so compelling a character that William Blake accused Milton of being “of the devil’s party without knowing it.” Indeed, most readers of Paradise Lost find it difficult not to feel stirred by Satan’s speeches extolling freedom and self-determination, even as they know that Satan is the ultimate anti-hero, sinning against God and falling from grace. This seminar examines rebellious characters in the literature and film of several centuries to ask why these controversial characters continue to appeal to us. What is it that we admire about them—we, who are not nearly so rebellious? The course focuses in particular on teenage rebels from Prince Hal to Huck Finn to Holden Caulfield, and on feminist rebels from the Victorian era to the present.
*ENGL 120b, Reading and Writing the Modern Essay- Fred Strebeigh and staff
Close study of selected works of nonfiction prepares students to become critical readers and to apply professionals' strategies to their own writing. Readings from such authors as Joan Didion, Malcolm Gladwell, Maxine Hong Kingston, N. Scott Momaday, George Orwell, Brent Staples, Jonathan Swift, Henry David Thoreau, Tom Wolfe, and Alice Walker. Written assignments, involving frequent revisions, include autobiography, portraiture, nature writing, cultural critique, and formal argument. (English 120a and120b are the same course in different terms.) For updated syllabi, visit the Online Course Information. See also the English 120 web page, https://webspace.yale.edu/engl120b/.
Sec. 01 TTh 11:35-12:50 Barbara Stuart
Sec. 02 MW 1:00-2:15 Rosemary Jones
Sec. 03 TTh 9:00-10:15 Allyson McCabe
Sec. 04 WF 11:35-12:50 Andrew Ehrgood
Sec. 05 TTh 1:00-2:15 Richard Deming
Sec. 06 MW 2:30-3:45 Ray Malewitz
Sec. 07 MW 11:35-12:50 Kim Shirkhani
Sec. 08 TTh 2:30-3:45 Erin Peterson
Sec. 09 WF 9:00-10:15 Aaron Ritzenberg
Sec. 10 TTh 11:35-12:50 Alfred Guy
*ENGL 126b, Major English Poets- Christopher Miller and staff
(Formerly 125b)
A study of the diversity and the continuity of the English literary tradition through close study of the work of its major poets. Emphasis on developing skills of interpretation and critical writing. In the Fall term, Chaucer, Spenser, and a Renaissance lyric poet. In the Spring term, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, and a modern poet.
Sec. 01 MW 2:30-3:45 Leslie Brisman
Sec. 02 TTh 2:30-3:45 Catherine Nicholson
Sec. 03 TTh 1:00-2:15 Brian Walsh
Sec. 04 MW 1.00-2.15 David Bromwich
Sec. 05 TTh 11:35-12:50 Christopher Miller
Sec. 06 TTh 2:30-3:45 Annabel Patterson
Sec. 07 TTh 1:00-2:15 David Quint
*ENGL 127b, Introduction to the Study of American Literature –Aaron Ritzenberg and staff
An exploration of American literature from the seventeenth century to the present. Ranging across historical periods and literary genres (from works of early discovery and slave narratives to contemporary poetry and the modern novel), examination of the ways in which authors contribute to a national literary tradition by reworking ideas of literature and nationhood. Authors in the fall include Hawthorne, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Equiano, Franklin, Stowe, Emerson, Melville, Whitman, Poe, Baldwin, and Reed; authors in the Spring include Twain, Hemingway, Dickinson, Williams, Frost, Faulkner, Morrison, Americo Paredes, Simon Ortiz, August Wilson, Suzan Lori Parks, and Chang-rae Lee.
Sec. 01 MW 11:35-12:50 Jessica Pressman
Sec. 02 TTh 1:00-2:15 Paul Grimstad
Sec. 03 TTh 11:35-12:50 Richard Deming
Sec. 04 TTh 9:00-10:15 Jill Campbell
Sec. 05 MW 2:30-3:45 Caleb Smith
*ENGL 130b, The European Literary Tradition -Stefanie Markovits and staff
(Formerly 129b)
In the Fall term, Homer (the Iliad) and study of representative dramatists including Aeschyllus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; Shakespeare, Racine, Moliere, and Goethe; and a selection of modern and contemporary dramatists. In the Spring term, the epic and novel traditions: Homer (the Odyssey), Vergil, Dante, Cervantes, Joyce, and one other novelist.
Sec. 01 MW 9:00-10:15 Justin Neuman
Sec. 02 MW 11:35-12:50 Justin Neuman
Sec. 03 TTh 1:00-2:15 Ala Alryyes
Sec. 04 TTh 11:35-12:50 Brian Walsh
Sec. 05 MW 2:30-3:45 Sam See
Sec. 06 TTh 2:30-3:45 Denis Ferhatovic
Lecture Courses
ENGL 170b, Chaucer
Alistair Minnis MW 10:30-11:20, 1HTBA Pre 1800
A careful reading of the entire work, considering the interrelationships among the tales and the significance of The Canterbury Tales as a complete, if unfinished, work. Other issues include Chaucer’s interest in psychology and his lack of interest in moral judgments, the social and political contexts of his writing, the reasons for his status as “the father of English poetry,” and the modernity of the Middle Ages.
ENGL 200b, Shakespeare: Comedies & Romances
Lawrence Manley TTh 11:35-12:25 1HTBA Pre 1800
A study of love, sex, gender, society, and theater practice in Shakespeare's comic genres, from the early farces and romantic comedies to the problem plays and late romances.
ENGL 220b, Milton
John Rogers MW11:35-12:25 1HTBA Pre 1800
A study of Milton's poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry.
ENGL 265b, The Victorian Novel
Ruth Yeazell MW 11:35-12:25 1HTBA Pre 1900
A selection of nineteenth –century novels, with attention to cultural contexts. Authors chosen from the Brontës, Gaskell, Dickens, Collins, Eliot, Trollope, and Hardy.
ENGL 280b, American Literature to 1865
Michael Warner TTh 9:25-10:15 1 HTBA Pre 1900 AMER
This course is a broad survey of American literature up to the Civil War, offering an introductory account of each of the main literary movements of the period, including: the culture of settler colonialism, Puritanism and evangelical religion, the rise of the public sphere, the Enlightenment, nationalism and the Revolution, the emergence of black public intellectuals, the rise of the American novel and the invention of the short story, the development of mass culture and popular theater in the antebellum period, social reform literature, Transcendentalism, and the rise of the slave narrative and other forms of African-American literature. The bulk of our time will be spent with the antebellum period, a time of extraordinary creative production amid national crisis. The course centers on readings by such authors as Franklin, Wheatley, Irving, Bryant, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne, Stowe, Douglass, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson.
ENGL 301b, Modern British Novel
Pericles Lewis TTh 11:35-12:50 1 HTBA
A survey of British fiction from 1890 to 1939. Experimentalist techniques including impressionism, perspectivalism, stream of conciousness, and unreliable narration;
questions of imperialism, exile, mass culture, bureaucracy, and war. Authors include James, Conrad, Ford, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, and Forster and others.
Sophomore Seminar
*ENGL 133b, Dickens, High and Low
Janice Carlise TTh 2:30-3:45
Charles Dickens’s novels are now considered among the finest examples of Victorian narrative art, but they also routinely show up in contemporary popular culture, in such references as the name of the Disney Dickens Christmas Carolers. This course looks at a number of Dickens’s works – principally, Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and Great Expectations – from so-called high and low perspectives, examining both their status as literary art and their role as sources for forms of popular entertainment, including comic books and movies.
Junior Seminars
*ENGL 155b, Introduction to Old English
Roberta Frank MW 2:30-3:45 Pre 1800
An introduction to the literature and culture of earliest England. A selection of prose and verse, including riddles, heroic poetry, meditations on loss, a dream vision, and excerpts from Beowulf, are read in the original old English.
*ENGL 158b, Readings in Middle English: Language and Symbolic Power
Ian Cornelius TTh 2:30-3:45
Readings in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century literature, religious writing, and accounts of current events. Issues of language choice, translation, authority, and literary culture. Focus on the poetry of Langland, Chaucer, and Hoccleve, devotional writing of their contemporaries, and early translations of the Bible. The emergence of English as a dominant world language.
*ENGL 207b, Early Modern Drama
Catherine Nicholson TTh 1:00-2:15
Early Modern Theaters of Strangeness: English Drama, 1587-1630
This seminar explores the extraordinary and often outlandish productions of the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English stage, focusing on performances of difference and foreignness. It’s no accident that Shakespeare’s theater was called the Globe: early modern playwrights brought a vast imaginary world to life in their plays, ranging from the exotic East and the sophisticated Mediterranean to ancient Britain’s own barbarous shores. But the farfetched characters who populate this world – Scythians both fierce and tender, Jews both villainous and principled, noble and ignoble Moors, decadent and virtuous Romans, and Turks of all stripes – also express the most intimate concerns of their English authors and audiences, embodying the enthusiasm and anxieties attendant on Englishness in an age of global and literary transformation. Readings include plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Daborne, and Heywood and selections from contemporary travel narratives, rhetorical treatises, religious polemics, and other relevant materials.
*ENGL 235b, 18th Century Fiction and Poetry
Christopher Miller TTh 2:30-3:45
A study of eighteenth-century prose fiction with attention to cultural contexts. Focus on works by Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, and Austen, with representative selections from philosophy and literary criticism (Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Addison, Johnson, Burke, Reynolds).
*ENGL 252b, Romantic Literature and Painting: Wordsworth, Constable, Byron, Turner
Paul Fry W 1:30-3:20
Covering many issues both in literature and painting that anticipate and that eddy outward from these four figures, the seminar will have as its focus an in-depth
consideration of Wordsworth and Constable in relation to each other and Byron and Turner in relation to each other.
*ENGL 279b, Hawthorne
Kevin Hicks Th 9:25-11:15 Pre 1900 AMER
A comprehensive study of Hawthorne's major novels and other writings, with additional readings in nineteenth-century culture and politics and in criticism. Focus on Hawthorne's responses and contributions to literary and social movements of his day and on the contemporary and recent reception of his work.
English 279 offers students the opportunity to read all four of Hawthorne's novels, a selection of his short stories, and to be introduced to significant critical treatments of his body of work.
We will discuss Hawthorne's life and work in the context of Puritan history and antebellum literary culture, and also examine his central themes: alienation, guilt, pride, and the role of allegory.
Our principal readings are the four novels: The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun. We'll aso read the following short stories: "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," "The Artist of the Beautiful," "The Birth-mark," "Rappacini's Daughter," and "Roger Malvin's Burial".
Major assignments will include: two essays of 5-7 pages, and one essay of 10-12 pages.
*ENGL 295b, Autobiography in America and African American Lit II
Robert Stepto TTh 11:35-12:50
An examination of modern and contemporary African American literature, concentrating on short story, novel, poetry and drama. Topics include modern and contemporary narrative and poetic strategies, major literary themes (including migration and urbanization, racial oppression, and gender and class representation), the literary "renaissances" of the twentieth century, and canon formation and genre practices. Authors include Johnson, Toomer, Hughes, Hurston, Brooks, Hayden, Petry, Morrison, Ellison, Whitehead, Parks, and Wilson.
*ENGL 299b, Asia in U.S. Lit and Film
John Williams TTh 2:30-3:45 Screenings Tuesdays at 7 p.m
An introductory course on American images of Asia and Asian America in twentieth-century literature and cinema.
This course offers a survey of literary and cinematic representations of Asia and Asian America by a number of highly influential Euro- and Asian-American authors and filmmakers in the twentieth century. Unlike more traditional survey of American orientalism that deal exclusively with white American images of the East, this course examines the notion that Asian Americans contributed in significant ways to the representation of Asia and Asian America in the American imagination, often appropriating and re-purposing stereotypical images to secure a more positive space in the American cultural landscape. Our readings and discussions will consider the extent to which the "Asia" that emerges in twentieth-century American literary and visual culture was a product of not only powerful (and often powerfully racist) Euro-American visions of Asian "others," but also dialogic re-imaginations of Asia created by Asian-Americans themselves. Questions that the course will address include: In what sense is "Asia" an aesthetic category in American literary and visual culture? What role does genre play in the circulation and recirculation of American images of Asia during the twentieth century? How do the political and economic demands of artistic production (for both literature and film) influence the type and heterogeneity of American images of Asia?
*ENGL 305b, Austen & Brontë in the World
Katie Trumpener MW 1:00-2:15 Not CR/D/F
Charlotte Brontë expressed her dislike of Jane Austen. Yet subsequent women writing in English have seen themselves working in a women’s tradition defined jointly by Austen and Brontë. Starting with key early and late novels by both (Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; Persuasion; Jane Eyre, Vilette), the course explores the ways British, American, and anglophone novels attempt to rewrite, revise and reconcile them. Particular attention to issues of narrative voice, readerly identification and the social meaning of reading, and the novel’s function as a record of social norms and as an agent of political and historical change. New Woman novels by Edith Wharton, Mary and Jane Linklater, and F.M. Mayor; postwar feminist novels by Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Drabble, Cynthia Ozick; postcolonial novels by Jean Rhys and Shyam Selvadurai.
Secondary reading by Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, Edward Said, Claudia Johnson, D.A. Miller.
Introduction. Charlotte Bronte's comments on Austen; excerpt from Rachel Ferguson, The Brontës went to Woolworths (1931)
Into the (Glittering) World: Courtship, Service, Governance
1. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (England, 1813)
2. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (England, 1814), plus short readings by Edmund Wilson, D.A. Miller
3. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (England, 1847)
4. Elizabeth Taylor, Palladian (England, 1946)
5. Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep (USA 2002)
6. Shyam Selvadurai, Cinnamon Gardens (Sri Lanka/ Canada, 1998), with Edward Said, "Jane Austen and Empire," Culture and Imperialism, pp. 95-116. A Room of One’s Own: Renunciation, Solitude, Autonomy
7. Jane Austen, Persuasion (posthumous, England,1818); short readings by Claudia Johnson and from Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
8. Charlotte Brontë, Villette (England, 1853)
9. Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (USA, 1905) and Terence Davies' 1998 film version
10. F.M. Mayor, The Rector’s Daughter (England, 1924)
11. Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall (England, 1969)
12. Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca
*ENGL 329b, Picture Book to Graphic Novel
Katie Trumpener MW 2:30-3:45
The first half of this course surveys the history of the picture book, from the early modern period to the late 20th century, considering the Anglo-American tradition within a broader European context; the second half considers its relationship first to the comic strip and comic book, then to the contemporary graphic novel, which repeatedly adapt picture book formats and techniques in their attempt to meditate on childhood, family history, historical experience. Organized historically, thematically and generically, the course focuses throughout on the complex relationship between image and narrative, format and address.
*ENGL 336b, The Opera Libretto
J.D. McClatchy T 1:30-3:20
A selective survey of the genre from its seventeenth-century Italian origins to the present day. Though we will cover the libretto’s history, from opera seria to opera comique to verismo, and study the creation and production of original libretti, the seminar will concentrate on literary adaptations, from Mozart and Beaumarchais to Britten and Thomas Mann. All material will be read in English, and a musical background is not required. Musical and video illustrations will be used to study libretti in proper dramatic contexts. We will begin with the great classical master Metastasio, and study reforms and innovations through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The operas of Mozart and Verdi—that is to say, the libretti of Da Ponte and Boito--will dominate the first half of the course; transformations of work by Shakespeare, Schiller and Hugo will be studied in detail. The second half of the course will begin with German opera after Wagner, and study Hofmannsthal and Brecht, but operas written directly in English will dominate the latter part of the course. Original libretti by W. S. Gilbert, Gertrude Stein, and W. H. Auden will be featured, as well as adaptations of work by writers from Herman Melville to Tennessee Williams. The final two weeks of the course will turn to contemporary operas.
*ENGL 341b, American Literature and the World
Wai Chee Dimock TTh 11:35-12:50
American literature as a gateway to the rest of the world. We will be reading key texts from the nineteenth-century century to the twenty-first, under these broad headings: wars and revolutions; mobile labor, global markets; religious cross-currents; and the endangered planet. Authors include: Olaudah Equiano, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, John Hersey, Chang-Rae Lee, Tim O’Brien, Monique Truong, Dave Eggers, Cormac McCarthy, and Junot Diaz.
*ENGL 342b, Mythology and Community in 20th-Century Queer Literature
Sam See MW 1:00-2:15
Explores how twentieth-century British and American writers use mythology and mythopoeia (myth-making) to develop queer literary and historical communities. Readings include classical, Biblical, and contemporary mythic texts as background for readings in modernist and postmodernist literature. Authors include James Joyce, Hilda Doolittle, Jeanette Winterson, and Tony Kushner.
As a genre of literature, mythology is conventionally understood to comprise the foundational stories of particular communities. Does this generic definition include the possibility that myth can be queer? How do the anti-normative impulses of queerness comport with and/or challenge the normative qualities of mythopoeia (myth-making)? What formal and thematic properties of myth might appeal to queer writers? And what might such writers' interest in myth tell us about the relationship among sexuality, literature, and community in the twentieth century? With these questions in mind, in this class, we will explore how twentieth-century British and American writers use mythology and mythopoeia to develop sexually ethnic literary and historical communities. We will attend to classical, Biblical, and contemporary mythic texts as background for understanding how the historically unprecedented rise in queer enclaves around the globe in the last century coincides with queer writers' use of mythology to construct those communities. The first half of the class will focus on literary modernists' experimental use of what T. S. Eliot calls 'the mythical method,' while the second half will examine postmodern writers' more politicized attempts to use myth to rewrite contemporary histories of gender, race, and sexuality. Texts range in genre and include poetry, drama, narrative prose fiction, and sexology.
*ENGL 348b, Arabic Novel in Translation
Ala Aryyes T 3:30-5:20
Description coming soon
*ENGL 358b, Literature for Young People
Michele Stepto M 1:30-3:20 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
An eclectic approach to stories and storytelling for and by children. Texts include Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and works by Laurent de Brunhoff, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, L. Frank Baum, Ursula LeGuin, Edward Eager, Roald Dahl, and Lemony Snicket, as well as stories written by children themselves.
* ENGL 359b, Feminist Perspective on Lit
Jill Campbell TTh 2:30-3:45 LIBR
This course considers the varying and sometimes contradictory methodologies that comprise the field of feminist literary criticism. Through readings primarily in criticism and theory in conjunction with selected recent literary works, we will investigate the sexual politics of literature and of criticism and literary history even as we ask in what ways literary texts might serve "as symbolic resolutions of real political and social contradictions" (F. Jameson). A variety of feminisms and feminist debates (e.g. over identity politics; essentialism vs. constructionism; the relations among gender, sexuality, race, and class) and a variety of literary theories (e.g. formalism, deconstruction, reader response criticism, new historicism) have worked together, often conflictually, to produce an extensive array of feminist positions on and approaches to reading. We will study a range of approaches to topics that include: canons, traditions, and cultural authority; "popular" culture (fairy tales, science fiction, romances); women's writing and social movements; feminist identity politics, postmodernism, and the "death of the author;" language and the construction of sexuality, race, and gender; feminist and queer aesthetics and language; voice, silence, and the politics of representation. We will practice uncovering the assumptions behind and blind spots in the critical works we read and try to evaluate the consequences of those assumptions and blind spots both for reading and for the formation of feminist and queer politics.
*ENGL 369b, Adoption Narratives
Margaret Homans WF 1:00-2:15 Not CR/D/F
A survey of nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. and British representations of adoption in fiction, memoir, poetry, drama, film, and social science writing, with special attention to the implications for adoption narratives of recent theories of race, gender, identity, and trauma.
Adoption and fiction have a special relationship: while biological families count as real, families formed by adoption are often seen as fictive, simulacra of the real thing. In the post-Enlightenment west, identity has been understood to be conferred by “blood” and genealogy; race, ethnicity, religion, and even nationality have often been taken for essential, inborn qualities. As it becomes easier to see that oppositions such as those between real and fictive or between innate and socially constructed are false, it becomes easier to take a critical look at these founding assumptions about human identity. Adoption takes a central place in some founding western myths (Oedipus, Moses) and in much British and U.S. fiction prior to the twentieth century. In most of these stories identity is established by the revelation and recovery of biological origins, but other narratives treat adoption and the adoptive family as capable of conferring human identity without recourse to biological origins (George Eliot’s Silas Marner is an example of the latter, her Daniel Deronda a complex example of the former). This course will ask, what is the significance, and what are the consequences, of such stories? Adoption stories are often full of ambivalence and can lead to complicated narrative lines, as a search for identity in origins becomes deflected and sometimes indefinitely postponed. Deracination can be wounding and it can be liberating; so can the discovery that “blood” and heritage are not the only legitimate bases for identity and that all families are social constructions (Sara Ruddick writes, “all mothers are ‘adoptive’”). From some points of view, relinquishment and adoption are traumatic sources of grief and melancholic narrative (in practice, for example, adoption can blur into kidnapping); from others, adoption is a resource for critiquing enlightenment notions of identity, even a positive model for new forms of identity, of kinship, of cross-cultural connection, and of transnational movement. How do a range of twentieth-century adoption narratives shed light on these alternatives and complicate the picture produced by histories and social science accounts of adoption in practice?
In this course, we will read enough history and social science literature about twentieth-century U.S. adoption (especially cross-class, transethnic, and transracial adoption) in its changing historical contexts (early twentieth-century reform movements, the post-war return to domesticity, cultural nationalisms, identity politics, and multiculturalism more recently) to be able to place a series of fictional narratives in ongoing debates not only about adoption but also about citizenship, culture, ethnicity, and race. We will also read recent anthropological and psychological accounts of kinship and theories of culture, of identity, and of trauma in order to see how adoption narratives can shed light on current debates about these issues. Our aims will be to explore representations of adoption as a theme; to study the implications of adoption as theme for narrative forms; and to understand the meaning of adoption narratives for the larger questions mentioned above. Specific topics include: the legacies of racism and nativism for adoption; genetic essentialism and the relation between biology and identity; transracial and international adoption; gay adoption and alternative families; trauma, melancholia, and learned grief.Readings will be drawn from the following: Fiction and drama: Charles Chestnutt, Lucy Montgomery, James Whitcomb Riley, Brecht, Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, Sherman Alexie, Anne Michaels, Jeanette Winterson, Gish Gen, Rolin Jones, Memoirs: Betty Jean Lifton, Emily Prager, Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda. Films: Finding Isaiah, Secrets and Lies. Theory, history, and criticism about adoption (selections): Marianne Novy, Claudia Nelson, Linda Gordon, Barbara Melosh, Judith Modell, Sandra Patton, Elizabeth Bertholet.
*ENGL 383b, Commonwealth of Drama
Murray Biggs MW 4:00-5:15
A study of about twenty plays in English from or about former British
colonies, both before and after independence, including Ireland,
Canada, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, the West Indies, and
the Indian subcontinent. Plays are selected with a view to both their
quality as dramatic pieces and their representativeness of their
country of origin at a particular time. Attention is paid to themes
and trends uniting the work of writers from across the (post)imperial
map, as well as to the historical, political, cultural, and aesthetic
circumstances informing each work individually. Some plays will be
addressed by visitors expert in the regional context.
*ENGL 388b, Poetics of Performance
Joe Roach MW 2:30-3:45
The oral interpretation of poetry is both the object and method of this course, which will explore the expressive principles of social communication and cultural practice as implemented by performance.
Senior Seminars
*ENGL 405b, Autobiography in African-American Lit
Robert Stepto M 1:30-3:20
A study of nineteenth- and twentieth-century autobiographical writings including those by Jefferson, Whitman, Douglass, Henry Adams, Chesnutt, William Carlos Williams, Hong Kingston, and Hellman. Topics include autobiographical forms (diaries, letters, narratives) and the bond between region and autobiographical practice.
*ENGL 412b, Victorian Poetry
Leslie Brisman MW 11:35-12:50 Pre 1900
The major Victorian poets, Tennyson and Browning, in the context of the Romanticism they inherit and transform. Some attention to Barrett Browning, Swinburne, the Rossettis, Morris, plus a selection of the minor poets (such as Arnold, Hopkins, Houseman, Meynell) in accordance with the interests and taste of the members of the seminar.
*ENGL 413b, Four American Writers Since 1950
Amy Hungerford T 9:25-11:15
Students will study four major fiction writers working in the period since 1950. This year’s authors will be James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Edward P. Jones, and Dave Eggers. We will read several works by each writer (novels, short stories, and essays), as well as criticism and historical materials. Assignments throughout the term prepare for the senior research paper. Workshops toward the end of term give senior essay writers feedback on their drafts. If space is available, juniors may enroll, writing two shorter papers and serving as readers for senior essay drafts. Juniors may find this helpful in preparing for their own senior work.
This course is both an introduction to some major American writers in the post-45 period, and a seminar in advanced critical practice. Offered as a senior seminar, the course's focus on just four writers allows students to read a number of works by each writer and thereby to analyze that writer's literary project as it unfolds over time. Students will research, and give presentations on, the major criticism for each writer, and will explore the writer's other statements in interviews and nonfiction essays. Class discussions (as well as individual meetings with students) on research techniques, the history of critical movements, and integrating criticism into an original argument will prepare students to use the readings they generate in seminar discussions as the basis for a final critical paper on a novel (or novels) by one of the four writers. Assignments along the way will include an annotated bibliography, oral presentations, close reading exercises, paper outlines, and paper drafts. In the last three weeks of term the class will break up into smaller workshop groups as students prepare their essays. Students must commit to Friday time blocks during those weeks in advance, as attendance at these smaller workshops is required.
*ENGL 424b, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf
Margaret Homans T 1:30-3:20
This course will provide in-depth study of two novelists who were central to shaping the quite different literary aesthetics of the periods in which they wrote, and yet who share many common concerns and form together a distinct literary lineage. Eliot is foremost among the literary "mothers" through whom Woolf "think[s] back." Woolf grew up in a quintessentially Victorian elite household, and throughout her career she looked back to ponder both the beauty and the violence of that social formation. Eliot, quintessentially Victorian herself, nonetheless lived at the margins of respectable society throughout her writing career and practiced an intellectual skepticism more characteristic of the decades after the death of Victoria. Eliot’s representations of psychological depth and her measured critiques of gender and class hierarchy look forward to Woolf’s modernist investigations of consciousness and her explicitly political critiques, even as Eliot’s magisterial, morally certain Victorian narrators contrast sharply with Woolf’s questioning and variable narrative forms and the responsibility she hands over to the reader. We will be interested in discovering lines of connection between the two authors as well as in using their differences as a starting point for studying literary change. Although the course has no formal prerequisites, students will be expected to have some background in nineteenth-century and modernist British literature.
Because it is a senior seminar in which the major written work is a twenty-five page research essay, students will be expected to select and read some primary texts that will not appear on the syllabus, and to do considerable reading in historical, contextual, and critical materials, both as a group and (in pursuit of their individual research projects) on their own. During the first ten weeks of the course we will divide our time between the two writers; the last three weeks will be devoted to independent work, with class meetings used for discussion of common challenges in research and critical writing and for oral presentations of students’ work-in-progress.
The first reading assignment will be Woolf’s last novel, Between the Acts, which looks back from the vantage point of a June day in 1939 at the sweep of British history and establishes Woolf’s ambivalence towards the Victorians and their imperial practices both at home and abroad. Restarting with Eliot, we will next read Eliot's The Mill on the Floss together with some essays that outline the realist aesthetic that was her starting point as a novelist. Then we will read Daniel Deronda, Eliot's last and longest novel, which explores what can retrospectively be seen as something like a modernist and anti-realist aesthetic, while it also decenters the protagonist and questions the sentimentalization of Englishness upon which Eliot's earlier novels depend. Eliot's changing treatment of her heroines will lead us to Woolf’s The Voyage Out, her first novel and one with obvious debts to Eliot's conception and critique of the female bildungsroman as well as to Eliot’s way of representing inner life. The Voyage Out – beginning with a quasi-imperial voyage - also responds to and develops Eliot’s ambivalence towards Victorian imperial ambitions, as sketched in the voyage to found Zion with which Deronda ends. Although all of Woolf's writing looks back at the Victorian heritage within which she was educated, the works selected for shared reading make available particularly vividly her struggles to come to terms with Victorian literary, social, and moral values: not only Between the Acts and The Voyage Out but also To the Lighthouse (with its focus on the beloved Victorian matriarch whose death – mourned yet necessary - enables the modern lives of the next generation), The Years (Woolf’s multi-generational family saga that traces the contemporary consequences of its Victorian origins), and selected stories, essays, and other writings. These works all reconsider the formal and thematic legacy of the Victorian novel, at once honoring and dismantling it. Readings in historical materials - such as accounts of changing laws about women's property and citizenship, and writings on zionism, fascism, pacificism and other movements - will contextualize our discussions of the novelists’ representations of gender, the family, work, empire, and war.
Work for the course will consist of approximately 400 pages of reading per week, including works selected individually, plus the long research essay due at the end of the term. An intermediate series of deadlines - for a prospectus, bibliography, and first draft - will help students pace their work across the term. Students may write on either author or on a topic linking the two novelists; in either case the essay must place a novel or novels in cultural, historical, or critical context.
*ENGL 431b, Dickens and the Visual Arts
Janice Carlisle TTh 11:35-12:50
An examination of Dickens’s fiction—including selections from his earliest works (Sketches by Boz, Pickwick Papers, and Oliver Twist), several of the Christmas tales, Bleak House, and his last, unfinished novel,The Mystery of Edwin Drood—in relation to visual texts by artists such as Cruikshank, Leech, Millais, Frith, Madox Brown, Fildes, and Doré.
*ENGL 436b,
Elizabeth Alexander
*ENGL 437b, William Faulkner
Caleb Smith MW 11:35-12:50
Intensive study of the major fiction of William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury; As I Lay Dying; A Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; and other novels and short stories. Careful exploration of the form and style of the fiction, and of the problems of history, memory, race, sexuality, and power. Connects Faulkner to various traditions by way of literary, historical, and critical sources. Other authors may include Poe, Hawthorne, Douglass, Anderson, Baldwin, Welty, and Morrison.
*ENGL 439b, Contemporary American Drama
Marc Robinson Th 1:30-3:20 Not/CR/D/F
A study of selected plays by Maria Irene Fornes, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, John Guare, Wallace Shaw, and others.
*ENGL 449b, Medieval Manuscripts to New Media: Studies in the History of the Book
Jessica Brantley/ Jessica Pressman W 2:30-4:20
This course examines the history of the book as a reading technology that shapes literary study. Focusing on issues raised at the intersection of medieval manuscript culture and contemporary digital culture, we will use the idea of the book pre-print and post-print to question the assumptions of print culture. We will ask what we mean when we speak of “an author,” “reading,” and “the book.” The seminar will strive to defamiliarize the activities of reading and writing, as well as the book as an object, in order to promote the historicization and analysis of literary study and criticism.
Writing Courses
**IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT**
Beginning Monday Nov. 30th,2009
We will no longer accept paper applications for advanced writing courses. Using the V2 server, students will apply for the individual courses following the instructions below. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions about this procedure at ruben.roman@yale.edu.
To submit your documents (application and writing sample) you will need to 'join' the course site on Classes*v2 and upload the documents to your Drop Box.
Here's how to 'join' a site:
- Log in with your NetID at http://classesv2.yale.edu.
- Under "My Workspace" click "Membership" and then "Joinable Sites."
- In the search box on the right side of the screen, type the number of the course, for example, ENGL 999 and then click “Search.” You will see the ENGL 999 site and under it the word “Join” that you should now click.
- You’ll see a message that you are now a participant in the site and underneath it you may see a disconcerting message that there are no joinable sites matching your search for ENGL 999.
- Do not panic. This means you are, in fact, a member of the ENGL 999 site.
- Click the Tab for "ENGL 999" either on the top of the screen or under the "My Active Sites" tab.
- Instructions for uploading your documents are on that site. You will have to fill out, save, and upload the general application cover sheet along with your writing sample. The application cover sheet is available under the “Resources” section of each class site.
********************************************************************
*ENGL 134b, Reading Fiction for Craft
Michael Cunningham Th 1:30-3:20
* No writing course application is needed for this course *
This is a course in the fundamentals of the craft of fiction writing, composed of roughly equal parts reading and writing. For each class meeting, we’ll read three stories or novel chapters that have been selected for their prominent use of such basics as voice, structure, tone, point of view, and character development, among others. Our reading will be wide and diverse, ranging from such stalwarts as Joyce and Woolf to contemporaries like Denis Johnson, George Saunders, and Lydia Davis. Although any good story or chapter involves any number of different elements, each class will emphasize one particular aspect of the writer’s craft and how the author in question has made it work – Joyce’s “The Dead,” for example, as an illustration of character development, as opposed to Denis Johnson’s “Work” for the use of a strong, eccentric, deeply personal voice.
During the week after each discussion, students will be asked to write passages of their own that employ, to the most powerful extent possible, the element of craft about which we’ve talked. Following the discussion on character development, for instance, students will write a character sketch, two to three pages long; after the discussion of voice they’ll write a piece of similar length in which they explore the power of a rich, cadenced, original voice. Students will arrive at class meetings with copies of their pieces to distribute to the other members. We’ll spend the first half of each meeting reading the pieces aloud, and talking about what works, what could be made stronger, and why. Then, during the second half of the session, we’ll move on to the reading, and our next aspect of craft.
At semester’s end, students will write a complete story, employing everything we’ve covered, with the understanding that some stories will hinge more on character, some more on voice, etc., but remembering, at the same time, that few if any of the basic elements can be ignored.
*ENGL 140b, Introductory Fiction Writing
John Crowley M 1:30-3:20
A course for aspiring creative writers among freshmen and sophomores which offers an intensive introduction to fiction craft. Focus is on the fundamentals of narrative technique and peer review. Prerequisites: a solid grasp of non-fiction prose writing. Application information and deadlines will be posted on the English Department website by mid-November.
*ENGL 450b, Daily Themes
Langdon Hammer T 2:30-4:20
Writing of prose at the intermediate level. Daily assignments of 300 words or so, a weekly lecture, and a weekly tutorial. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors are eligible. This course will be counted as a non-fiction course toward the work in the writing concentration.
Students taking this course attend a weekly lecture, complete five daily writing assignments, and meet weekly for a conference with a tutor.
Lectures: Lectures will begin promptly at 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon and run from 50 to 70 minutes. All lectures are required. At the end of each, there will be a reading of some exemplary themes and an explication of the coming week's assignment. Afterwards, students should check with their tutors for information relevant to the week's tutorials.
Topics: Although the lectures cover various types of writing, each will concern itself with prose writing as it attempts to use specific rhetorical techniques and achieve specific rhetorical ends. In most cases the lectures will include a close reading of several passages, which will be handed out before the lecture begins. Topics include: Point of View, Characters, Dialogue, Diction, Figurative Language, Catalogues & Analogues, Argument, Analytic Narrative, Parables and Fables, Journals, and Humor.
Writing Assignments: The assignments will reflect the topic of the week and concerns of the lecture; each requires a piece of prose of 250-300 words. Students should complete each part on a day-to-day basis and leave it in the drop-box outside LC 109. Typically, part 1 will be due by 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, part 2 by 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, part 3 by 3:30 Thursday afternoon, part 4 by 3:30 Friday afternoon, and part 5 before 10:00 a.m. on Monday morning. This procedure, or some version of it, will allow tutors to read the completed assignments by Monday noon.
Tutorials: Each student will work with a tutor and meet once a week for a 30-minute tutorial. At times, we will hold group tutorials instead of individual sessions.
Applications: The application, which involves writing a sample theme, is available through Classes V2 (see instructions above).
*ENGL 451b, The Writing of Verse
J.D. McClatchy M 1:30-3:20
A study of the writing of verse through a consideration of its use in a range of poems and through weekly assignments. This course is being offered at the intermediate level.
*ENGL 452b, Intermediate Fiction Writing
Michael Cunningham W 3:30-5:20 Not CR/D/F
Emphasis on the writing of short fiction. Criticism of student work; rhetorical and technical exercises in narrative form, genre, and style; readings in classical and contemporary fiction. Classes conducted workshop-style with frequent conferences.
Applicants must provide a cover letter along with the application and writing sample.
*ENGL 455b, Writing About Oneself
Anne Fadiman Th 2:30-5:00
In this seminar and workshop, students will explore a series of themes (including love, loss, family, and identity) both by writing about their own lives and by reading British and American memoirs, autobiographies, and personal essays.
First-person writing is a peculiar blend of candor, catharsis, narcissism, and indiscretion. The purpose of this class is to harness these elements with sufficient rigor and imagination that self-portraiture becomes interesting to others as well as to oneself. An older work, written between the late eighteenth and the mid-twentieth century, will be paired each week with a more recent one on the same theme—a coupling designed to erode some of the traditional academic boundaries between eras and between "ought" and "want" reading. (For instance, when we consider the theme of love, we will read excerpts from H. G. Wells's On Loves and the Lover-Shadow and Joyce Maynard's At Home in the World, and write personal essays on an aspect of love, not necessarily romantic.) Readings will include works by Thomas De Quincey, Joan Didion, Dave Eggers, Lucy Grealy, Mary McCarthy, James Thurber, and Virginia Woolf. Our connections to the readings will be reinforced by several author visits. By writing a thousand-word first-person essay every other week, students will face the same challenges the authors in our syllabus faced, mining their own lives in similar fashion and solving similar narrative problems, though coming up with very different solutions.
Students will critique each other's work in class and by e-mail. Each student will have at least five individual conferences with me, most of them an hour long, in which we'll go over your work line by line.
Students who wish to apply to "Writing about Oneself” should submit the standard Application for Writing Courses, including the titles and instructors of previous writing classes. (The deadline is in December; see the English department website.) Please don't submit more than two samples unless one is very short. If possible, your writing samples should belong to the same genre we'll be reading and writing ("non-non"—nonacademic nonfiction), though they need not be written in the first person. Essays, literary journalism, and short memoirs would all be appropriate. Choose pieces that give your literary style a thorough airing. Cogency will be valued; interminable tomes will cause me to droop.
Please include a short note that explains some things your samples won't tell me. For instance: Why do you want to take the class? What would you contribute to it? What writing experience and honors have you accumulated (though I'll still consider you if the answer is None and None)? What are you majoring in? (English majors will receive no special preference.) Is there anything else that might help me understand you as a writer?
I am not looking for a particular kind of writer. My ideal class is a mix of experienced journalists and creative writers (usually fiction writers or playwrights), with a couple of students who fit no category but just happen to write beautifully. Although most of its members will likely be juniors and seniors, anyone may apply. There are no prerequisites.
*ENGL 457b, Profiles and Portraits
Cynthia Zarin Th 1:30-3:20
Exemplary non-fiction portraits and profiles studied as a basis for student experimentation in composing literary portraits of others. Readings focus on nonfiction essays and articles, with occasional work in other genres such as poetry, the visual arts, and film.
*ENGL 459b, Genres in Magazine Writing
Jack Hitt M 9:25-11:15
Introduction to the various genres of magazine writing. The course will cover a variety of styles, ranging from the op-ed argument, the humor piece, the factual pyramid-style article, and the longer narrative report. The purpose of the class will be to use the different genres of writing currently found in contemporary magazine journalism to teach narrative writing and expose young writers to styles that stand in sharp contrast to the bloodless compositional forms (introduction, body, conclusion) typically taught in American high schools.
The main topic will be this: how to tell a story that keeps people reading not because they're paid to but because they want to.
Principal readers will be selected works by some traditional writers--Terry Southern's "Twirlin' at Old Miss", Gay Talese's "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," Norman Mailer's Superman Comes to the Supermarket," and Joan Didion's "Insider Baseball." and by some more contemporary writers--Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (from her book, "Random Family"), Susan Orlean (from her book, "Orchid Thief"), Ron Suskind (from "Hope in the Unseen"), Nicholas Dawidoff (essay on his father), Tony Horwitz (from "Confederates in the Attic"), Geraldine Brooks (essay on belly-dancing), Michael Pollan's (from "Second Nature").
*ENGL 462b, Writing for Television
Amy Bloom F 1:30-3:20
Emphasis on the reading and critiquing of great television scripts and adaptations(Paddy Chayefsky, Robert Altman, David Mamet, Agnes Nixon, Sarah Waters, As Time Goes By, Chris Rock) and on learning to write well, for television. Final project: a complete television script, one hour or two half-hours, with accompanying commentary. Workshop with conferences. Possible performance opportunities.
Applicants must provide a cover letter along with the application and writing sample.
*ENGL 464b, Advanced Prose Composition
David Bromwich T 1:30-3:20
Writing of short essays, and reading of the masters of the genre, with some separate attention to description, narrative, and argument.
*ENGL 465b, Advanced Fiction Writing
Amy Bloom F 9:25-11:15
A workshop in the craft of writing fiction. Required weekly writing, editing each others work, reading and dissecting (as writers, not theorists) some published writers. One finished short story will be required.
*ENGL 467b, Journalism
Jill Abramson M 9:25-11:15 Meets RP Not CR/D/F
An intense workshop for those interested in understanding the changing role of journalism in the new century and in learning the art of journalism either because they want to pursue careers as journalists or because they want a better sense of how journalism really works. Please note that for those contemplating careers in journalism English 467 is a core requirement for the Yale Journalism Scholars Program; see the website for the Yale College Writing Center for more information: www.yale.edu/writing.
Topics include:
- The definition of journalism and the role of journalism in a democracy and a free market;
- The differences among information, news, vicarious news, and entertainment; how different media work for different purposes and why they are rarely interchangeable;
- Journalism and war, from 9/11 to Iraq;
- Knowing a good story and making journalism tell a good story;
- The structure of newspaper articles, magazine features, and television reports; the structure of great non-fiction books;
- The art of an interview;
- Fairness and how to test for it; sourcing and the role of anonymous sources and biased sources;
- Why understanding one’s audience is the key to effective journalism.
Brief written work for most weekly sessions; a business proposal; a final project to report and write a feature magazine article.
Students who wish to apply for this course should submit (1) a brief statement of interest and what might be the benefit of taking the course; (2) a non-fiction writing sample; (3) a brief description of related experience, either in student journalism, course work, or other activities.
Coursework:
The course will include brief written work submitted for most sessions, typically consisting of either a short article or a part of an article (such as a lead), and/or a critique of well-known and not-so-well-known works of journalism. The first assignment will be for each member of the class to write a hard-hitting, provocative profile of another member of the class. Another major assignments will be to write a business proposal and a plan for a book, magazine, television program or web site that will be journalistically and economically successful. The final project will be to report and write a feature magazine article.
Students will be graded based on participation and written work – with an emphasis on the final project. I will try to meet with each student individually during the term as often as necessary in order to provide useful feedback. I am also available to students following the end of the term for career counseling.
Submission Procedure:
Students wishing to apply for this course should submit:
- A brief statement of why you would like to take it and how you think you might benefit from it.
- A non-fiction writing sample: an article you’ve had published, an essay for another class, or, if you want, something that you create for this application.
- A brief description of experience you’ve had –- either in student journalism, course work, or other activities – that you think will make you a good contributor to the class.
*ENGL 468b, Advanced Playwriting
Donald Margulies T 2:30-5:00
An intensive, term-long playwriting workshop for students who have already taken courses in intermediate playwriting or screenwriting.
Students are required to write and present material each week as they create new, full-length plays. Stress on learning how to identify strengths and weaknesses in one's own work through the efforts and insights of one's peers.
Discussions occasionally supplemented by readings of works by contemporary playwrights such as Churchill, Shepard and Vogel. Admission by application, with priority given to students in the Writing Concentration and Theatre Studies majors. A writing sample (no more than a ten-page fragment) and a brief letter of intent must be submitted by the designated date to the English department.
Special Projects
*ENGL 470b, Tutorial in Writing
DUS
A writing tutorial in fiction, poetry, or playwriting for students who have already taken writing courses at the intermediate and advanced levels. Conducted with a faculty member after approval by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. To apply, a student must submit a prospectus and application (available on the department website) signed by the faculty advisor to the office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the end of the designated sign-up period for projects for Spring 2010 (Dec. 4th, 2009).
Prerequisite: two courses in writing.
*ENGL 471b, Special Projects for Juniors and Seniors
DUS
Special projects may be set up by the student in an area of his or her own particular interest with the help of a faculty advisor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Such projects are intended to enable the student to cover material not otherwise offered by the department. They may be used for research or for directed reading, but in either case it is expected that the student will meet regularly with the faculty advisor and write a term paper or its equivalent. To apply for admission, a student must submit a prospectus and application (available on the department website) signed by the faculty advisor to the office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the end of the designated sign-up period for projects for spring 2010 (Dec 4th, 2009). The prospectus should briefly outline the topic of study and the rationale for approaching that topic in this format. The prospectus should also include a schedule of meetings, readings, and writing assignments.
*ENGL 489b, The Writing Concentration Senior Project
DUS
A term-long project in writing, under tutorial supervision, aimed at producing a single longer work (or collection of related shorter works). A prospectus signed by the student's adviser must be submitted to the office of the director of undergraduate studies by Dec 4th, 2009. The completed project will be due on the Friday before the last week of classes in the spring term by noon.
*ENGL 490b, Senior Essay
DUS
A prospectus and application signed by the student’s advisor must be submitted to the office of the Director of Undergraduate Studies by (Dec 4th, 2009) of the term before the project is to be done. A faculty committee will evaluate and approve all such projects. Please see detailed information on writing the senior essay, available on the department website. The senior essay itself is due according to the following schedule:
- End of the fourth week of classes: five to ten pages of writing and/or an annotated bibliography (Feb 5th, 2010)
- End of the ninth week of classes: a rough draft of the complete essay (March 26th, 2010)
- Friday of the last week of classes: the completed essay (two copies) (April 23, 2010) by noon
Courses in Other Departments that Count Toward the English Major
*HUMS 229b, Shakespeare and the Canon: Tragedies and Romances
Harold Bloom Pre 1800
See description under Humanities.
*HUMS 236b, Four 20th Century Poets: W.B.Yeats, Wallace Stevens, D.H.Lawrence, Hart Crane
Harold Bloom
See description under Humanities.
