Interim, 2009

General Education 111 or its equivalent is a prerequisite for all courses in the English department except some Level I Interim courses. While a few courses have additional prerequisities, most Level I and Level II courses are open to all -- majors and non-majors alike -- after General Education 111. Level III courses (numbered 300 or higher) are primarily for English majors and ordinarily build upon prior work. All Level III courses require as a prerequisite English 185 and at least one Level II course in an area of relevant background as confirmed by the instructor or the department.

GLE Courses:
English 270: Literature Eastern Caribbean (Off Campus)

English 108: The Hero and the Trickster in Post-Colonial Literature
English 124: Introduction to Drama
English 230: Literary Eras: 20th Century British Novels
English 270: Literature Eastern Caribbean (Off Campus)
English 281: Studies in Poetry: Cutting the Eye: Surrealist Poetry and Poetics
English 284: Performing Arts in New York (Off Campus)
English 286: Southern Women Writers
English 290: Authors in English: Literatures of Social Protest
English 340: Advanced Studies in American Literary Eras: Declarations of Independence in 19th Century American Lit

English 108: The Hero and the Trickster in Post-Colonial Literature (Joseph Mbele)
xxxxx Students examine various heroic and trickster figures as manifested in post-colonial literature from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, both oral and written, and seek to understand what basic human needs and realities these figures express and fulfill.
(MCS-G, ALS-L) Top of page

English 124: Introduction to Drama (Karen Marsalek)
xxxxxThis course introduces students to literary analysis through dramatic texts and performance. Activities may include trips to see local productions, student in-class performances, staged readings, and viewing filmed productions. Plays are drawn from varied genres, two or more historical periods, and both tranditional and experimental approaches.

English 230 - Literary Eras: 20th Century British Novels(Jonathan Hill)
xxxxxPrerequisite: FYW or equivalent Top of page

English 270: Literature Eastern Caribbean (off campus) (Karen Cherewatuk)
xxxxx Over the past fifty years there has been a rich flowering of literature in English outside the mainstream Anglo-American tradition. One area in which this has been particularly striking is the West Indies. The goal of this course is to study on site a selection of this liteature. The course will focus on poets and prose fiction writers from mainly, though not exclusively, the English-speaking islands of Barbados, Trinidad, and Saint Lucia, and will include such figures as Edward Brathwaite, Jamaica Kincaid, George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul (2001 Nobel Prize winner), Olive Senior, and Derek Walcott (1992 Nobel Prize winner). In studying the literature on the islands from which it has originated, we shall have the chance to experience and absorb the cultures that have produced such creativity, and in so doing get behind the over-simple, commerical tourist conception of the Caribbean. (GLE, ALS-L, WRI)
Prerequisite: English 185 plus one additional course of relevant background. Top of page

English 281: Studies in Poetry: Cutting the Eye: Surrealist Poetry and Poetics
(Jennifer Kwon Dobbs)
In one of the most provocative images in cinematic history, André Breton slices an actor's eye in Luis Buñel and Salvador Dali's classic film, Un Chien Andalou, to argue against an aesthetic motivated by logic and sight. Influenced by Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, Breton and his international collaborators developed a revolutionary and interdisciplinary movement that continues to this day to resonate with poets for whom imitating real life does not suffice.

Our course will explore the surrealist impulse in poetry by reading selections from André Breton, Suzanne Césaire, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, The Surrealist Book of Games, and a sampling of contemporary poetry. In addition, for context we will read excerpts from Sigmund Freud, screen Buñel and Dali's film, and review a cross-section of major Surrealist art by Joan Miró and Man Ray, among others. (ALS-L) Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent Top of page

English 284: Performing Arts in New York (off campus) (Joan Hepburn)
xxxxx This course intensely examines aspects of theater production in New York City. Students will meet artists, directors, producers, critics, and other scholars skilled in the areas of performance and important to the critical reception of poetry and drama. Students will tour relevant sites, developing skills at analyzing and evaluating artistic excellence. Three aspects of theater will be considered: written drama, play production, and review writing. Discussions will center around such literary aspects of the drama as genre, character, dialogue, plot, theme, theory. Assignments will include writing reviews and journal entries. Playwright and poet P. J. Gibson will take some responsibility for the practical elements of theater, focusing on the roles of directors, producers, actors, and designers in fleshing out a playwright's script. Lectures will draw on more than 12 playwrights and an impressive array of directors, producers, actors, and critics. When possible, students will also read plays by playwrights appearing in class. (ALS-L, MCS-D) Top of page

English 286: Southern Women Writers (Mary Titus)
xxxxxIn this class we will explore a rich variety of literature by women from the American South who write with a strong regional identity. Of central concern will be ways in which these women engage with cultural attitudes about gender, sexuality, race and class in the context of the twentieth century south. Possible writers include Harriet Jacobs, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Lee Smith, and Dorothy Allison. (ALS-L) Top of page

English 290: Authors in English: Literatures of Social Protest (Mark Allister)
xxxxx In this course, we will consider the works of four 20th century writers - John Steinbeck, Ralph Ellison, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen - who are united in their attempts to create an art of social protest. With Steinbeck's Okies of the Great Depression and Ellison's African-Americans of the Great Migration, with Dylan's topical songs about the peace movement and civil rights and Springsteen's meditations on the working class and Latinos in the American Southwest, we will examine these intersections of art and politics, class and race in their dynamic historical frameworks. (ALS-L)x Top of pagexx
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent

English 340: Advanced Studies in American Literary Eras: Declarations of Independence in 19th Century American Lit (Carol Holly)
xxxxx This course will focus on nineteenth-century American writings that, in the decades before the Civil War, concern themselves with the issues of freedom, self-determination, and self-reliance. Writing during the period we often call the "American Renaissance," some of these authors embraced the idea of literary independence for American writers, spiritual liberation from the religious institutions of the past, and the opportunity for unlimited develoment of the self. Others were concerned with the possibilities of freedom from slavery, from marriage, or from economic oppression. But all of these writers can be seen as entering into a conversation or debate with one another about the possibilities--or lack thereof--of attaining personal freedom and reforming American life. Among the texts we will consider: Emerson's essays; Thoreau's Walden, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life, Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Fuller's "The Great Lawsuit," Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno," and Whitman's poetry.
Prerequisite: English 185 plus one additional course of relevant background. Top of page