ENGLISH 1:
History and Theory of Novel Group (DLCL 1)
For undergraduates in English, the DLCL, and East Asian literatures interested in the novel and the events sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Novel (CSN) and to prepare them to attend CSN events with some understanding of the material presented. Each CSN event¿the New Book Events, the Ian Watt Lecture on the History and/or Theory of the Novel, and the Center's annual conference¿will either be preceded or followed by a colloquium, led by a member of the graduate student staff. In these colloquia, students will engage with the material under discussion, usually written by the speaker(s) on whose work the events are based. Participation at 75% of events and colloquia is mandatory for course credit. Precirculated readings will be made available for all colloquia preceding an event, and often for those held after the event, to enable students to develop a familiarity with issues pertaining to the theoretical and historical study of the novel.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 5 units total)
ENGLISH 9CE:
Creative Expression in Writing
Primary focus on giving students a skill set to tap into their own creativity. Opportunities for students to explore their creative strengths, develop a vocabulary with which to discuss their own creativity, and experiment with the craft and adventure of their own writing. Students will come out of the course strengthened in their ability to identify and pursue their own creative interests.nn
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 10AX:
Fiction Writing
"Of the many definitions of a story, the simplest may be this: it is a piece of writing that makes the reader want to find out what happens next. Good writers, it is often said, have the ability to make you keep on reading them whether you want to or not¿the milk boils over, the subway stop is missed." - Bill Buford, former fiction editor of The New YorkernThis course will introduce students to an assortment of short stories by past and contemporary masters, from Ernest Hemingway to ZZ Packer. We will explore the basic elements of fiction writing, including story structure, point of view, dialogue, and exposition, always keeping in mind the overarching goal of trying to get the reader to turn the page in anticipation. Some summer reading and participation in an online blog will prepare us for discussions we'll have together when the class begins. The course will indeed be "intensive," as we will write a complete draft of a short story in the first week and then distribute these stories for feedback sessions in the second week. Along the way, we'll write additional short exercises to stimulate our imaginations and to practice elements of craft. Field trips will include visits to some of the vibrant literary hotspots in San Francisco as well as a conversation with Stephen Elliott, editor of The Rumpus and a writer and member of the Writer's Grotto collective.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 15SC:
The New Millennium Mix: Crossings of Race & Culture
Recently, The New York Times and the National Geographic have hailed the "new face of America" as young, global, and hybrid. The NY Times gave this demographic a name: Generation E.A. (Ethnically Ambiguous). Our course examines the political and aesthetic implications of Generation E.A., and the hot new vogue for all things mixed. Galvanized by the 2000 census with its "mark one or more" (MOOM) racial option, dozens of organizations, websites, affinity and advocacy groups, modeling and casting agencies, television pilots, magazines, and journals--all focused on multi-racial/multi-cultural experiences--have emerged in the last few years. We will analyze representations of mixed race and multiculturalism in law, literature, history, art, performance, film, comedy, and popular culture. These cultural and legal events are changing the way we talk and think about race. nImportantly, our seminar also broadens this discussion beyond race, exploring how crossings of the color-line so often intersect with other aspects of experience related to gender, religion, culture, or class.nField trips, films, communal lunches, and interactive assignments help us explore the current controversies over mixed-race identification and, more generally, the expressive and political possibilities for representing complex identities. Requirements include three two- to three-page analytical writing assignments, a presentation that can include an optional artistic or media component, and a final group-designed project. nIf you are a citizen of the 21st century, this class is for and about you. Sophomore College Course: Application required, due noon, April 7, 2015. Apply at http://soco.stanford.edu.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
ENGLISH 23:
American Literature and Culture to 1855 (AMSTUD 150, ENGLISH 123)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for ENGLISH 123 or AMSTUD 150). A survey of early American writings, including sermons, poetry, captivity and slave narratives, essays, autobiography, and fiction, from the colonial era to the eve of the Civil War.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 42D:
Talking Back: Intertextuality in Contemporary Fiction (ENGLISH 142D)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 142D.) Why do so many contemporary writers create fictions that contend with the past by rewriting, revising, or otherwise 'talking back' to their literary forebears? Is everything intertextual or are post-WW II experiments in intertextuality characteristic of historical, cultural, and geopolitical changes particular to the twentieth century? How does intertextuality inform narrative voice, constructions of authorship, character portrayal, political and aesthetic interpretation, and contemporary claims to - or critiques of - fame and canonization? Students will be encouraged to make comparative connections with the contemporary media scene, while comparing EM Forster and Zadie Smith; Virginia Woolf and Michael Cunningham; George Orwell and Margaret Atwood; Charotte Bronte and Jean Rhys; Oscar Wilde and Tom Stoppard.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 44B:
Contemporary British Fiction (ENGLISH 144B)
(English majors and others taking 5 units should register for 144B). How do contemporary British novelists represent the dramatic changes in culture, class, landscape, economy, gender, race, and national identity that followed the allied victory in the Second World War (1939-1945) when Britain is said to have `won the war but lost the empire'? Focusing on writers born in the aftermath of the war, and the successive generation, this course asks what political, cultural, and literary concerns shape historical consciousness in novels by Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson, Hanif Kureishi, Julian Barnes Flaubert's, and Ali Smith.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 47N:
Sports and Culture
Stanford has the most successful student-athlete program in the country (maybe ever) and athletics are an enormously important aspect of Stanford¿s student culture. This course looks in depth at sports in American culture. Through film, essays, fiction, poetry and other media, we will explore an array of topics including representations of the athlete, violence, beauty, the mass media, ethics, college sports, race and gender.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 51N:
The Sisters: Poetry & Painting (ARTHIST 160N)
Poetry and painting have often been called the "sister arts". Why? Sometimes a poem or a painting stands out to us, asking that we stay with it, that we remember it, although we cannot exactly say why. Poems have a way of making pictures in the mind, and paintings turn "rhymes" amid the people, places, and things they portray. Each is a concentrated world, inviting an exhilarating closeness of response: why does this line come first? Why does the artist include that detail? Who knows but that as we write and talk about these poems and pictures we will be doing what John Keats said a painter does: that is, arriving at a "trembling delicate and snail-horn perception of Beauty." Each week explore the kinship between a different pair of painter and poet and also focuses on a particular problem or method of interpretation. Some of the artist/poet combinations we will consider: Shakespeare and Caravaggio; Jorie Graham and (the photographer) Henri Cartier-Bresson; Alexander Pope and Thomas Gainsborough; William Wordsworth and Caspar David Friedrich; Christina Rossetti and Mary Cassatt; Walt Whitman and Thomas Eakins; Thomas Hardy and Edward Hopper.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 64N:
Growing Up in America (PSYCH 29N)
Preference to freshmen. To what extent is it possible to describe an "American" experience? How are different people included in or excluded from the imagined community that is America? How do a person's race, class, gender and sexuality affect his or her experience of belonging to this country? These are just some of the questions we will consider as we familiarize ourselves with the great diversity of childhood and young adult experiences of people who have grown up in America. We will read and discuss narratives written by men and women, by urban, suburban, and rural Americans, and by Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Latina/os, and European Americans.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 65N:
Contemporary Women Fiction Writers
Preference to freshmen. Novels and story collections addressing childhood, coming of age, and maturity; love, sexuality, orientation; the experience of violence and the politics, domestic and global, of women¿s lives. Texts include Gordimer, Eisenberg, Latiolais, Munro, O'Brien, and others.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 68N:
Mark Twain and American Culture (AMSTUD 68N)
Preference to freshmen. Mark Twain has been called our Rabelais, our Cervantes, our Homer, our Tolstoy, our Shakespeare. Ernest Hemingway maintained that all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. President Franklin D.nRoosevelt got the phrase New Deal from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Class discussions will focus on how Twain's work illuminates and complicates his society's responses to such issues as race, technology, heredity versus environment, religion, education, and what it means to be American.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 81:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSGEN 81, COMPLIT 181, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track: majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Issues may include authorship, selfhood, truth and fiction, the importance of literary form to philosophical works, and the ethical significance of literary works. Texts include philosophical analyses of literature, works of imaginative literature, and works of both philosophical and literary significance. Authors may include Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Borges, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas, Pavel, and Pippin. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 88N:
Graphic Novels Asian American Style (ASNAMST 88N)
Though genre fiction has occasionally been castigated as a lowbrow form only pandering to the uneducated masses, this course reveals how Asian American writers transform the genre to speak to issues of racial difference and social inequality.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 90:
Fiction Writing
The elements of fiction writing: narration, description, and dialogue. Students write complete stories and participate in story workshops. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: PWR 1 (waived in summer quarter).
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
Instructors: ;
Antopol, M. (PI);
Clark, H. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Kealey, T. (PI);
Kletter, D. (PI);
Marra, A. (PI);
McIlvain, R. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Soileau, S. (PI);
Tanaka, S. (PI);
Dooling, K. (GP)
ENGLISH 91:
Creative Nonfiction
(Formerly 94A.) Historical and contemporary as a broad genre including travel and nature writing, memoir, biography, journalism, and the personal essay. Students use creative means to express factual content.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors: ;
Antopol, M. (PI);
Carlson-Wee, K. (PI);
Clark, H. (PI);
Ekiss, K. (PI);
Evans, J. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Hummel, M. (PI);
Kletter, D. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Wrenn, G. (PI)
ENGLISH 92:
Reading and Writing Poetry
Prerequisite: PWR 1. Issues of poetic craft. How elements of form, music, structure, and content work together to create meaning and experience in a poem. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 94:
Creative Writing Across Genres
For minors in creative writing. The forms and conventions of the contemporary short story and poem. How form, technique, and content combine to make stories and poems organic. Prerequisite: 90, 91, or 92.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 100A:
Literary History I
First in a three quarter sequence. Team-taught, and ranging in subject matter across almost a millennium from the age of parchment to the age of Facebook, this required sequence of classes is the department's account of the major historical arc traced so far by literature in English. It maps changes and innovations as well as continuities, ideas, and aesthetic forms, providing a grid of knowledge and contexts for other, more specialized classes.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 100B:
Literary History II
Second in a three quarter sequence. Team-taught, and ranging in subject matter across almost a millennium from the age of parchment to the age of Facebook, this required sequence of classes is the department's account of the major historical arc traced so far by literature in English. It maps changes and innovations as well as continuities, ideas as well as aesthetic forms, providing a grid of knowledge and contexts for other, more specialized classes.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 100C:
Literary History III
Third in a three quarter sequence. Team-taught, and ranging in subject matter across almost a millennium from the age of parchment to the age of Facebook, this required sequence of classes is the department's account of the major historical arc traced so far by literature in English. It maps changes and innovations as well as continuities, ideas as well as aesthetic forms, providing a grid of knowledge and contexts for other, more specialized classes.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 102A:
The Material Book
When was the form of the book invented? Why has it proven the most significant and long-lived of all text technologies? This course will (literally) deconstruct the material book and examine its inventiveness; its metaphorical capaciousness; its role as icon, fetish, container, weapon and monument of collective memory. We shall focus on pairs of medieval manuscripts and contemporary artists' books to investigate the book's meaning, learning also how to produce simple handmade books in a series of creative workshops.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 103H:
The Active Life or the Contemplative Life?
Which is more valuable: knowledge or action? Which is the greater accomplishment: wisdom or material success? What kind of life is best to lead, an active life or a life of spiritual or intellectual contemplation? Are the two necessarily at odds, or can we achieve a balance between them?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
ENGLISH 105A:
Queer Reading and Queer Writing in Early Modern England (FEMGEN 115)
Considers the possibility of identifying queer reading and writing practices in early modern England as well the theoretical and historical obstacles such a project necessarily encounters. Focus on the role which Renaissance discourses of desire continue to play in our negotiations of homo/erotic subjectivity, identity politics, and sexual and gender difference. Study of Renaissance queerness in relation to the classical tradition on the one hand and the contemporary discourses of religion, law, and politics on the other. Readings include plays, poems, and prose narratives as well as letters, pamphlets, and ephemeral literature. Both major and minor authors will be represented.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 115A:
Shakespeare and Modern Critical Developments
Approaches include gender studies and feminism, race studies, Shakespeare's geographies in relation to the field of cultural geography, and the importance of religion in the period.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 115B:
Late Shakespeare: Genre, Style, Authorship
Shakespearean scholarship regularly observes a marked shift of interest in Shakespeare's late plays. Can we speak of "late Shakespeare," and how might that be useful in our understanding of plays such as The WInter's Tale or The Tempest? Can Coriolanus be considered a "late" play, and what do we make of Shakespeare's collaboration with John Fletcher on Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and possibly Cardenio? Our study of Shakespeare"s late plays will be guided by considerations of changing tastes, theatrical conditions, and authorial sensibility.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 118:
Literature and the Brain (FRENCH 118, FRENCH 318, PSYCH 118F)
Recent developments in and neuroscience and experimental psychology have transformed the way we think about the operations of the brain. What can we learn from this about the nature and function of literary texts? Can innovative ways of speaking affect ways of thinking? Do creative metaphors draw on embodied cognition? Can fictions strengthen our "theory of mind" capabilities? What role does mental imagery play in the appreciation of descriptions? Does (weak) modularity help explain the mechanism and purpose of self-reflexivity? Can the distinctions among types of memory shed light on what narrative works have to offer?
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 123:
American Literature and Culture to 1855 (AMSTUD 150, ENGLISH 23)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for ENGLISH 123 or AMSTUD 150). A survey of early American writings, including sermons, poetry, captivity and slave narratives, essays, autobiography, and fiction, from the colonial era to the eve of the Civil War.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 123F:
The Elusive Mr. Poe: An Introduction to the Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Mystic? Pragmatic capitalist? Mysterious eccentric? Poe is one of America¿s most widely-read authors, often characterized as bizarre and emotionally-fractured. Are these accurate or interpretations after the fact? If we look at nineteenth-century America, Poe figures as an author highly attuned to the sensibilities of his time, especially concerning appeal to a wide audience and their everyday interests. To truly enjoy Poe, we need to understand the way he sees himself as creator and the atmosphere of his times. In this class, we will explore his work within its historical context and set out to better locate the "real" Mr. Poe.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 124:
The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ARTHIST 152, HISTORY 151, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 132G:
Love in Nineteenth Century Fiction and Poetry
introduction to literature of the 19th century with emphasis on the portrayals of love that pervade it. How 19th century poets and novelists imagined love and how it was shaped for them by genre, geography and gender. Does love redeem? What are the barriers to love? Readings include fiction by Bronte, Dickens, Eliot, Wilde, James and Hardy, and poetry by Keats, Browning, Rosetti, Tennyson, and others.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 136:
Romantic Poetry and Poetics
Major Romantic writers including William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Focus on form in the lyrical ballad, ode, epic romance, and closet drama.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 139B:
American Women Writers, 1850-1920 (AMSTUD 139B)
The ways in which female writers negotiated a series of literary, social, and intellectual movements, from abolitionism and sentimentalism in the nineteenth century to Progressivism and avant-garde modernism in the twentieth. Authors include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Rebecca Harding Davis, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 141B:
World Literature in English
One of the most significant cultural consequences of British colonialism has been the emergence of global varieties of English. This is a diverse and diffuse body of literature, including work from spaces with vastly different histories ¿ the colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia, the settler colonies of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and the even more unclassifiable contexts of Ireland and South Africa, just to mention some of its major sites. In this course we shall try to sample a small selection of the richness and the complexity of English as a language of world literature outside its canonical location of England and the US
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 142C:
The Hollywood Novelists
Why is it that watching a movie rarely raises questions about the poor soul who has written it? Looking to the few screenwriters who have managed to transcend the murky oblivion of their profession, we will ask: how did they do it? What does their success teach us about style? What does their prominence as writers allow them to do, and what are the limitations that their stylistic idiosyncrasies impose on them? Through short responses, creative writing assignments and a research paper into the work of one cinematic "author" students will explore these questions in detail.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 142D:
Talking Back: Intertextuality in Contemporary Fiction (ENGLISH 42D)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 142D.) Why do so many contemporary writers create fictions that contend with the past by rewriting, revising, or otherwise 'talking back' to their literary forebears? Is everything intertextual or are post-WW II experiments in intertextuality characteristic of historical, cultural, and geopolitical changes particular to the twentieth century? How does intertextuality inform narrative voice, constructions of authorship, character portrayal, political and aesthetic interpretation, and contemporary claims to - or critiques of - fame and canonization? Students will be encouraged to make comparative connections with the contemporary media scene, while comparing EM Forster and Zadie Smith; Virginia Woolf and Michael Cunningham; George Orwell and Margaret Atwood; Charotte Bronte and Jean Rhys; Oscar Wilde and Tom Stoppard.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 144B:
Contemporary British Fiction (ENGLISH 44B)
(English majors and others taking 5 units should register for 144B). How do contemporary British novelists represent the dramatic changes in culture, class, landscape, economy, gender, race, and national identity that followed the allied victory in the Second World War (1939-1945) when Britain is said to have `won the war but lost the empire'? Focusing on writers born in the aftermath of the war, and the successive generation, this course asks what political, cultural, and literary concerns shape historical consciousness in novels by Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson, Hanif Kureishi, Julian Barnes Flaubert's, and Ali Smith.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 144F:
Female Modernists: Women Writers in Paris Between the Wars
The course will focus on expatriate women writers - American and British - who lived and wrote in Paris between the wars. Among them: Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, H.D., Djuna Barnes, Margaret Anderson, Janet Flanner, Natalie Barney, Kay Boyle, Mina Loy, Romaine Brooks, Mary Butts, Radclyffe Hall, Colette, and Jean Rhys. A central theme will be Paris as a lure and inspiration for bohemian female modernists, and the various alternative and emancipatory literary communities they created.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 145D:
Jewish American Literature (JEWISHST 155D, REES 145D)
Fiction of Jewish-American writers across the 20th and into the 21st centuries, both immigrants and subsequent generations of native-born Jews, to show how the topic of assimilation is thematized in the literature and to evaluate the distinctiveness of Jewish-American literature as a minority literature.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 145G:
American Fiction since 1945
A survey of the American novel and short story since WWII focusing on themes of mass media and mass marketing, technology and information, poverty and prosperity, race and ethnicity. Included are works by Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sandra Cisneros and others.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 146:
Development of the Short Story: Continuity and Innovation
Exploration of the short story form's ongoing evolution as diverse writers address love, death, desire. Maupassant, D.H. Lawrence, Woolf, Flannery O'Connor, Hurston, and others. Required for Creative Writing emphasis. All majors welcome.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 148:
Family Drama: American Plays about Families (TAPS 248)
Plays written by 20th century writers that concentrate on the family as the primary source of dramatic conflict and comedy. Writers include Williams, O'Neill, Wilder, Albee, Vogel, Parks, Lindsay-Abaire, and Hwang.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 150D:
Women Poets (FEMGEN 150D)
The development of women's poetry from the 17th to the 20th century. How these poets challenge and enhance the canon, amending and expanding ideas of tone, voice and craft, while revising societal expectations of the poet's identity. Poets include Katharine Philips, Letitia Barbauld, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Mew, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 151F:
Angelheaded Hipsters: Beat Writers of San Francisco and New York
Reading of central writers of the Beat movement (Ginsberg, Kerouac, di Prima, Snyder, Whalen) as well as some related writers (Creeley, Gunn, Levertov). Issues explored include NY and SF, Buddhism and leftist politics, poetry and jazz. Some exposure to reading poems to jazz accompaniment. Examination of some of the writers and performers growing out of the Beats: Bob Dylan, rock music, especially from San Francisco, and jazz.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 151H:
Wastelands
Beginning with a sustained examination of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," this class will explore the trope of ecological and/or spiritual devastation as it enters into other modernist (Hemingway, Cather, Faulkner, O'Neill) and postmodernist (Ballard, Atwood, McCarthy) projects, tracing this theme to its culmination in the contemporary zombie apocalypse.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 152E:
African American Literature (AFRICAAM 152E, AMSTUD 152E)
What is African American literature? This course is both an introduction to some of the great works of black literary expression and an examination of this category. We will examine the formal and rhetorical strategies that figure most prominently in this literary tradition and investigate the historical circumstances (including slavery, Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and Jim Crow) that have shaped¿and been shaped by¿this body of literature. Topics to be addressed include canon formation, negotiations between fiction and history, sectional tensions (between North and South), gender politics, and folk culture.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 157:
American Literary Journalism
Literary journalism merges the factual reporting of traditional journalism with the narrative techniques of fiction. This course will follow the development of this influential genre of writing in the U.S. from the 1890s to the present, with special attention to the particularly American emergence of this form in the non-fiction writing published in the New Yorker during the 1930s and 40s and the New Journalism of the 1960s and 70s. Engaging with the form¿s most prominent writers, themes, and techniques, we will investigate questions of objectivity and subjectivity, tensions between fact and fiction, and the genre¿s position as a particularly American cultural form.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 160:
Poetry and Poetics
Introduction to the reading of poetry, with emphasis on how the sense of poems is shaped through diction, imagery, and technical elements of verse.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 161:
Narrative and Narrative Theory
An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? Focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 161A:
Narrative & Narrative Theory: Power, Difference, and The Construction of Fictional Worlds
An introduction to narrative and narrative theory challenging students through the larger thematic of power and subjection, whether routed through class and gender dynamics as portrayed in the work of Jane Austen and Virgina Woolf, or the elements of race and oppression as depicted in the representational terrains offered by Fae Myenne Ng and Adrian Tomine.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 162A:
Critical Methods: Readings in Feminist and Queer Criticism
Kinships and friendships, publics and counterpublics, scenes and networks; feminist, gay/lesbian and queer theorists have long been preoccupied with the forms of social association. Some of these forms are relatively codified or institutionalized, while others are not. The text will help us think about how specific forms of association depend on but also potentially destabilize existing concepts of gender and sex; abouthow social forms are shot through with political as well as erotic desire; how they contribute to the making of specific subjects and narratives; how they make certain modes of collective life possible while also impeding others. We will do this not just by reading key essays in feminist and queer theory but literary works by Tennessee Williams, Henry James, Juliana Spahr, and Octavia Butler.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 163C:
Early Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright
Examination of Shakespeare's early career in the literary and cultural context of the early 1590s. How did Shakespeare become a successful writer? Why did he write an erotic narrative poem like "Venus and Adonis"? Are his "Sonnets" part of a literary vogue or a reaction against it? Where did he learn to write his early comedies? What was the impact of his early history plays? What¿s special about his early tragedies? While undertaking detailed analyses of individual texts, we will consider these texts in relation to some larger formal and historical forces, such as: the classical tradition; vernacular literary production; literary form, genre, and style; print culture and literary authorship; theater culture, collaboration, and performance.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 164:
Senior Seminar
Small-class format focused on the close reading of literary texts and analysis of literary criticism. This class answers the questions: How do literary critics do what they do? What styles and gambits make criticism vibrant and powerful? Goal is to examine how one goes about writing a lucid, intelligent, and convincing piece of literary criticism based on original research.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 167:
Contemporary Science Fictions and Technofutures
How do visions of the future shape the way we think about the present, and even the past? How does science fiction interrogate technological and scientific innovations as a versatile pop culture medium? We will consider the techniques the genre uses to creatively respond to ecological crisis, biologically engineered organisms, artificial intelligence, and information technology. Where does science fiction draw the line between humans and machines, technology and nature, and fact and fiction? This course will trace the genre¿s evolution, from its origins in Mary Shelley¿s Frankenstein, to more recent examples in contemporary literature, film, television and digital media.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 168:
Imagining the Oceans (COMPLIT 168, COMPLIT 368, ENGLISH 368, FRENCH 168, FRENCH 368)
How has Western culture constructed the world's oceans since the beginning of global ocean exploration? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by marine science, technology, exploration, commerce and leisure? Readings might include voyage accounts by Cook and Darwin, sailors' narratives by Equiano and Dana, poetry by Coleridge, Bishop and Walcott, novels by Melville, Verne, Conrad and Woolf. Visual culture might include paintings by Turner and Redon, and films by Jean Painlevé, Kathryn Bigelow, Jerry Bruckheimer and James Cameron. Critical texts will be drawn from interdisciplinary theorists of modernity and mobility, such as Schmitt, Wallerstein, Corbin, Latour, Deleuze + Guattari, and Cresswell.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 169B:
Asian American Fiction (AMSTUD 169B)
Why are stories told in particular voices and from particular perspectives? This course explores such a question from the vantage point of Asian American fiction, where we will investigate dynamic and equivocal narrative voices, including "we" narration, "you" narration, multi-person narratives, and unreliable storytellers. We will further engage how these storytelling constructs affect and help to augment our understandings of racial formation. Selections may include: Julie Otsuka's "The Budda in the Attic," Ed Park's "Personal Days," among others.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 171H:
History of the English Language (LINGUIST 163)
This course traces the history of the English language from its roots through its earliest written records into the present. It will trace the fundamental changes that English has undergone in terms of morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics, and vocabulary. It will also explore some of the social, cultural, and historical forces that affect language. The course emphasizes the pre-modern history of English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 172D:
Introduction to Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (ANTHRO 33, CSRE 196C, SOC 146, TAPS 165)
How different disciplines approach topics and issues central to the study of ethnic and race relations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Lectures by senior faculty affiliated with CSRE. Discussions led by CSRE teaching fellows.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 172E:
The Literature of the Americas (AMSTUD 142, COMPLIT 142, CSRE 142)
A wide-ranging overview of the literatures of the Americas inncomparative perspective, emphasizing continuities and crises that are common to North American, Central American, and South American literatures as well as the distinctive national and cultural elements of a diverse array of primary works. Topics include the definitions of such concepts as empire and colonialism, the encounters between worldviews of European and indigenous peoples, the emergence of creole and racially mixed populations, slavery, the New World voice, myths of America as paradise or utopia, the coming of modernism, twentieth-century avant-gardes, and distinctive modern episodes--the Harlem Renaissance, the Beats, magic realism, Noigandres--in unaccustomed conversation with each other.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 172F:
Growing Up Different: Coming-of-Age Stories in a Diversifying America
Young people searching for identity are iconic in American literature. But when America is transforming radically, what happens to the genre of finding one¿s place there? What if there is no place for you? This seminar examines the diversity of American coming-of-age stories from 1960 to today, a period when issues of personal identity, socialization, and national identity collide with Civil Rights struggles, identity movements, and upheavals in immigration. As America grapples with differences of race, class, sexuality, and nativity, these stories register the trials and hopes. Authors include Junot Díaz, Toni Morrison, Harper Lee, Monique Truong, and Noviolet Bulawayo.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 173H:
Passions, Emotions, Moods
An examination of theories as well as representations and enactments of three genres of feeling¿passions, emotions, and moods¿in western literature, philosophy, and social theory. Reading across five centuries and also across diverse literary genres, we will track changes and continuities in the cultural understanding of one particular cluster of feelings¿envy, jealousy, and competitiveness¿which has played an especially central role in the social life of subjects organized by the institution of the family and also by the economic system of capitalism.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 184:
The Novel, The World (COMPLIT 123)
Literary inventiveness and social significance of novelistic forms from the Hellenistic age to the present.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 184B:
Text and Context in Humanities: Oedipus and His Vicissitudes
Tales of Modernity from Sophocles, Freud, Chekhov, Babel, and Woolf. Introduction to cross-disciplinary approach in humanities through foundational texts in the modern tradition. The main focus is on Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo (1913), alongside his ancillary writings. Contemporary social thought and historical scholarship provide the context (Georg Simmel, Norbert Elias, Karl Schorske, John Murray Cuddihy) while works of imaginative literature (Sophocles, Anton Chekhov, Isaac Babel, and Virginia Woolf) illuminate the significance of the Oedipus myth for understanding the inter-generational conflict in antiquity and modernity.
Last offered: Winter 2010
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 184E:
Introduction to Critical Text Mining
The application of computational and quantitative methods to the study of literature is a rapidly growing and sometimes controversial new field. This course will introduce students to the methods and theory of these techniques as we combine hands on experience in the Literary Lab with discussions of the ways in which these techniques reshape our understanding of literature. Together, we will learn how to ¿read¿ large collections of literary texts using a variety of methods that draw upon literary studies, computer science and the social sciences, including authorship attribution, topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and named entity extraction.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-AQR
ENGLISH 184H:
Text Technologies: A History (STS 200D)
Beginning with cave painting, carving, cuneiform, hieroglyph, and other early textual innovations, survey of the history of writing, image, sound, and byte, all text technologies employed to create, communicate and commemorate. Focus on the recording of language, remembrance and ideas explicating significant themes seen throughout history; these include censorship, propaganda, authenticity, apocalypticism, technophobia, reader response, democratization and authority. The production, transmission and reception of tablet technology, the scroll, the manuscript codex and handmade book, the machine-made book, newspapers and ephemera; and investigate the emergence of the phonograph and photograph, film, radio, television and digital multimedia.The impact of these various text technologies on their users, and try to draw out similarities and differences in our cultural and intellectual responses to evolving technologies. STS majors must have senior status to enroll in this senior capstone course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 186:
Tales of Three Cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles (AMSTUD 186)
How urban form and experience shape literary texts and how literary texts participate in the creation of place, through the literature of three American cities as they ascended to cultural and iconographical prominence: New York in the early to mid 19th century; Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and Los Angeles in the mid to late 20th century.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 186F:
Heroic Traitors: The Whistleblower in American Literature and Culture
Edward Snowden¿s leak of classified government documents has provoked mixed reactions: is Snowden hero or traitor, patriot or coward? It has also foregrounded the notion of whistleblowing, and drawn our attention to America¿s longstanding cultural interest in the character of the whistleblower across contemporary literature, film, and television. We will compare cultural representations of whistleblowing to recent historical examples of it. What does the difference between ¿fictional¿ and ¿real¿ whistleblowers say about how we feel about whistleblowers? Why do they repeatedly crop up in American culture? What makes whistleblowers such memorable characters, yet such contentious real people?
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 190:
Intermediate Fiction Writing
May be taken twice for credit. Lottery. Priority to last quarter/year in school, majors in English with Creative Writing emphasis, and Creative Writing minors. Prerequisite: 90 or 91.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190F:
Fiction into Film
Workshop. For screenwriting students. Story craft, structure, and dialogue. Assignments include short scene creation, character development, and a long story. How fictional works are adapted to screenplays, and how each form uses elements of conflict, time, summary, and scene. Priority to seniors and Film Studies majors. Prerequisite: 90.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 190G:
The Graphic Novel
Interdisciplinary. Evolution, subject matter, form, conventions, possibilities, and future of the graphic novel genre. Guest lectures. Collaborative creation of a graphic novel by a team of writers, illustrators, and designers. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190H:
The Graphic Novel
Continuation of English 190G. Interdisciplinary. Evolution, subject matter, form, conventions, possibilities, and future of the graphic novel genre. Guest lectures. Collaborative creation of a graphic novel by a team of writers, illustrators, and designers. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190T:
Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing
Focus on a particular topic or process. Work includes aspects of reading short stories and novels, writing at least 30-50 pages of fiction, and responding to peers' work in workshop. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 91 or 90.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190V:
Reading for Writers
Taught by the Stein Visiting Fiction Writer. Prerequisite: 90.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 191:
Intermediate Creative Nonfiction
Continuation of 91. Workshop. The application of advanced storytelling techniques to fact-based personal narratives, emphasizing organic writing, discovering audience, and publication. Guest lecturers, collaborative writing, and publication of the final project in print, audio, or web formats. Prerequisite: 91 or 90.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 191T:
Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction
Workshop. Continuation of 91. Focus is on forms of the essay. Works from across time and nationality for their craft and technique; experimentation with writing exercises. Students read and respond to each other's longer nonfiction projects. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 91 or 90.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 192:
Intermediate Poetry Writing
May be taken twice. Lottery. Priority to last quarter/year in school, majors in English with Creative Writing emphasis, and Creative Writing minors. Prerequisite: 92.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 192V:
The Occasions of Poetry
Taught by the Mohr Visiting Poet. Prerequisite: 92.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 194:
Individual Research
See section above on Undergraduate Programs, Opportunities for Advanced Work, Individual Research.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 195B:
How to Write a Great Essay: A Writing Bootcamp for Undergraduates
Practical workshop for undergraduates on how to improve essay-writing skills. Just like any other complex and demanding human activity --scuba diving, working out a mathematical proof, learning to pole vault, cooking the perfect soufflé, arguing a court case--the ability to write clear and compelling prose requires practice, alertness, psychological intensity, and a certain amount of imaginative and emotional daring. Focus will be on the finer points of vocabulary, grammar, mechanics, logic, timing, intellectual precision; how to connect with (and delight) an audience; how to magnify a theme; how to deflect counter-arguments; how to develop your own sophisticated authorial 'style'; how to write sentences (and papers!) your reader will care about and admire and maybe even remember.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 195W:
Writing Center Peer Tutor Seminar (PWR 195, PWR 295)
For students selected to serve as peer writing tutors in the Stanford Writing Center and/or at other campus sites. Readings on and reflection about writing processes, the dynamics of writing and tutoring situations, tutoring techniques, learning styles, diversity, and ethics. Observation of tutoring sessions, written responses to readings, and other written work.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
ENGLISH 196A:
Honors Seminar: Critical Approaches to Literature
Overview of literary-critical methodologies, with a practical emphasis shaped by participants' current honors projects. Restricted to students in the English Honors Program. Offered in conjunction with ENGLISH 196B. Honors Writing Workshop.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 196B:
Honors Essay Workshop
Required of English honors students.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2
ENGLISH 197:
Seniors Honors Essay
In two quarters.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 198:
Individual Work
Undergraduates who wish to study a subject or area not covered by regular courses may, with consent, enroll for individual work under the supervision of a member of the department. 198 may not be used to fulfill departmental area or elective requirements without consent. Group seminars are not appropriate for 198.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Antopol, M. (PI);
Boland, E. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Clark, H. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Evans, J. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Hutchins, S. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Karnes, M. (PI);
Kealey, T. (PI);
Kletter, D. (PI);
Kline, P. (PI);
Lunsford, A. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Michas-Martin, S. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Perham, B. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Quade, K. (PI);
Rovee, C. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Shloss, C. (PI);
Soileau, S. (PI);
Staveley, A. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Tanaka, S. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Wolff, T. (PI);
Wrenn, G. (PI)
ENGLISH 198L:
Individual Work: Levinthal Tutorial
Undergraduate writers work individually with visiting Stegner Fellows in poetry, fiction, and if available, nonfiction. Students design their own curriculum; Stegner Fellows act as writing mentors and advisers. Prerequisites: 90, 91, or 92; submitted manuscript.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 199:
Senior Independent Essay
Open, with department approval, to seniors majoring in non-Honors English who wish to work throughout the year on a 10,000 word critical or scholarly essay. Applicants submit a sample of their expository prose, proposed topic, and bibliography to the Director of Undergraduate Studies before preregistration in May of the junior year. Each student accepted is responsible for finding a department faculty adviser. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 209:
Paleography of Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts (CLASSGEN 311, DLCL 209, HISTORY 309G, RELIGST 204)
Introductory course in the history of writing and of the book, from the late antique period until the advent of printing. Opportunity to learn to read and interpret medieval manuscripts through hands-on examination of original materials in Special Collections of Stanford Libraries as well as through digital images. Offers critical training in the reading of manuscripts for students from departments as diverse as Classics, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, English, and the Division of Languages Cultures and Literatures.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 253:
Meaning and Mining: Method and Interpretation in the Digital Humanities
Explore how to use the methodologies of the Digital Humanities to augment critical literary studies. Drawing upon digital texts from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we will combine digital and critical methodologies to explore a project whose specifics will be determined by the interests of the participants. Together, we will learn how to apply digital methods to questions of literary significance and run a wide range of analyses including exploratory clustering, word frequency analysis, classification, stylometry and topic modeling. We will also examine how to interpret the results for both statistical and literary significance.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 270A:
Text in Context: Beowulf from Then `til Now
"Beowulf" is the first great English epic--a tale of heroes, monsters, and the futility of conflict. It influenced the "Lord of the Rings", but was described as a 'featureless heap of gangrened elephant's sputum' by novelist Kingsley Amis. It exists in one early eleventh-century manuscript plus countless editions, translations, films, comic books and, now, a fully digitized e-manuscript. We shall experience manifold instances of "Beowulf" and ask what, then, is the 'text' of "Beowulf"? What constitutes the 'real' poem? Can we reclaim an 'original' work of art and should that even be part of the scholarly endeavor?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 290G:
Fiction Workshop for Graduate Students
Fiction Workshop for Graduate Students. No prerequisites or previous workshop experience required. For graduate students from all fields, this workshop encourages exploration of diverse experiences through fiction.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
ENGLISH 292:
Advanced Poetry Writing
Focus is on generation and discussion of student poems, and seeking published models for the work.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 293:
Literary Translation (DLCL 293)
An overview of translation theories and practices over time. The aesthetic, ethical, and political questions raised by the act and art of translation and how these pertain to the translator's tasks. Discussion of particular translation challenges and the decision processes taken to address these issues. Coursework includes assigned theoretical readings, comparative translations, and the undertaking of an individual translation project.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 300:
Medieval Methodologies (DLCL 300, MUSIC 300C)
An introduction to the essential tool-kit for medievalists, this course will give all medievalists a great head start in knowing how to access and interpret major works and topics in the field. Stanford's medieval faculty will explain the key sources and methods in the major disciplines from History to Religion, French to Arabic, English to Chinese, and Art History to German and Music. In so doing, students will be introduced to the breadth and interdisciplinary potential of Medieval Studies. A workshop devoted to Digital Technologies and Codicology/Palaeography will offer elementary training in these fundamental skills.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
ENGLISH 301D:
Medieval Visionaries
Study of medieval mystics and their efforts to communicate ineffable experience through such devices as ekphrasis, figuration, and apophasis. Readings will include the works of Pseudo-Dionysius, commentaries by Grosseteste and Aquinas, and mystical texts by Hildegard, Marguerite Porete, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and Julian of Norwich. All readings will be in Middle or Modern English. No prior knowledge of medieval literature or Middle English will be expected.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 303B:
Sexuality and Terror: The British Gothic Novel from Walpole to Mary Shelley
Examination of the phantasmagoric side of eighteenth-century sensibility--the literary representation of fantastic and marvelous events, violations of natural law, and landscapes of terror, pathology, sublimity and horror. Particular emphasis will fall on women and the Gothic: whether there is in fact an encoded `sexual plot' in classic Gothic fiction, and why the genre typically emphasizes scenarios of erotic vulnerability, abjection, violation, and perversion. Besides reading the acknowledged Gothic classics, we will also consider recent psychoanalytic and social and historical treatments of the genre.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 304A:
Romanticism and Antiquarianism
The forward thrust of modernity in Romantic-period Britain bred a fetishization of the past. Ballads on mermen translated from the Danish, the historical landscapes of Sir Walter Scott, epic inspired by the Elgin marbles, the minstrelsy of the Scottish border and ¿reliques¿ of early English poetry, irreverent treatises on old books, gastronomical writing on ancient food theory, and conversational essays on the genealogy of all things, were all aspects of the phenomenon of antiquarianism to be explored in this course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 305D:
Dickens and Eliot
Major novels by Charles Dickens and George Eliot, with a focus on our readerly, critical and aesthetic engagement with this basic category (¿major novel¿). Why such long narratives, such complicated plots, such multifarious character-systems? Why such strange mixtures of social purpose and aesthetic eccentricity? How do we experience and conceptualize the conspicuous scale, density, energy, and excess of such novels as Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend, Romola, Middlemarch? The focus of the seminar will be reading these challenging, demanding, seductive texts; on the peculiar reading experiences produced by the nineteenth-century novel; and the history of critical response to this experience.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 313A:
The Novel of Ideas
Is the "novel of ideas" rightly regarded as a free-standing genre with a distinctive trajectory of historical development or does the term more truthfully point to a nebulous or latent tendency in the novel in general? An investigation of this synthesis of criticism/theory and fiction with an eye to larger historical and theoretical questions surrounding the novel as form. Authors will likely include: Balzac, Stendhal, Melville, Mann, Sartre, Huxley, Bechdel, Powers.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 314:
Epic and Empire (COMPLIT 320A)
Focus is on Virgil's Aeneid and its influence, tracing the European epic tradition (Ariosto, Tasso, Camoes, Spenser, and Milton) to New World discovery and mercantile expansion in the early modern period.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 330:
Narrative Medicine
How does writing help healing? What is the connection between the 'feel of a sentence' and the 'feel of a body'? Why do we love Oliver Sacks' work and why are doctors asked to read novels?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 334A:
Concepts of Modernity I: Philosophical Foundations (MTL 334A)
In the late eighteenth century Immanuel Kant proclaimed his age to be "the genuine age of criticism." He went on to develop the critique of reason, which set the stage for many of the themes and problems that have preoccupied Western thinkers for the last two centuries. This fall quarter course is intended as an introduction to these themes and problems. We begin this course with an examination of Kant's philosophy before approaching a number of texts that extend and further interrogate the critique of reason. In addition to Kant, we will read texts by Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Lukács, and Heidegger.nThis course is the first of a two-course sequence. Priority to graduate students in MTL and English. The course will be capped at 12 students.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 334B:
Concepts of Modernity II: The Study of Culture in the Age of Globalization (COMPLIT 334B, MTL 334B)
A survey of 20th-century theory with focus on the concept of culture and methods of studying it from diverse disciplines including, anthropology, historical sociology, literary and cultural studies. Discussions will emphasize modernization, transmodernization and globalization processes in their relations to culture broadly understood, cultures in their regional, national and diasporic manifestations, and cultures as internally differentiated (high and low culture, subcultures, media cultures).
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 338:
The Gothic in Literature and Culture (COMPLIT 338, FRENCH 338)
This course examines the Gothic as a both a narrative subgenre and an aesthetic mode, since its 18th century invention. Starting with different narrative genres of Gothic expression such as the Gothic novel, the ghost tale, and the fantastic tale by writers such as Walpole, Radcliffe, Sade, Poe, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, the course goes on to ask how the Gothic sensibility permeates a wide range of 19th century cultural phenomena that explore the dark side of Enlightenment, from Romantic poetry and art to melodrama, feuilleton novels, popular spectacles like the wax museum and the morgue. If time permits, we will also ask how the Gothic is updated into our present in popular novels and cinema. Critical readings will examine both the psychology of the Gothic sensibility and its social context, and might be drawn from theorists such as Benjamin, Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Zizek.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 360B:
The Theory of the Novel (COMPLIT 360B)
Topics will include: theories of the novel's origin; novelistic subjectivity; voice and text; body and text; the problem of the quotidian; democracy, revolution and novelistic form; and the peculiar dynamic of the novelistic trinity (author, character, reader).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 361B:
East Goes West: Transnational Asia/Pacific Spatial Geographies
East goes west as a metaphor to invoke the conceptions of fantasy and desire that play out in transnational scope. What attracts diasporic Asian/American subjects to the locations that they travel to, whether it be an identified homeland with which a character attaches a strong affinity, or to a new country where the promise of economic possibilities await?
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 365E:
The 1790s: The Aftershock of Revolution
The purpose of this course is to trace the articulation of a new symbolic order in political-theoretical and literary texts written in the Anglo-American 1790s. Course content will be framed by the creation of the Bill of Rights (ratified in 1791) and the evisceration of the First Amendment in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the first instance of what historian Richard J. Hofstader famously called "the paranoid style in American politics." We will explore the 1790s through 1) an examination of the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates concerning the pros and cons of establishing a national government rather than a confederation of states; 2) the range of American and British responses to the French Revolution; 3) the growth of democratic radicalism in Anglo-America; 4) the fear of radical-democratic infiltration of the United States from the European Continent, Ireland, and Haiti; and 5) the American literary expression of these questions written in the late 1790s, on the cusp of the post-revolutionary and "early national" eras. Our overall goal is to gain a historical understanding of the overlapping cultural contexts for American ¿republicanism,¿ ¿democracy,¿ and ¿liberalism,¿ and the evolution of their meanings. We will focus particularly on the co-production of democratic and novelistic subjectivity in relation to natural right theory, the evolution of "conscience," voice, the body, individuation, sovereignty, representation, equality, and freedom.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 365F:
American Renaissance Literature: The Invention of the American Author
Investigation of the problematic production of an American national literature in the antebellum period. Readings include generically diverse range of texts in which the particular requirements of an ¿American¿ authorship are specifically at issue. Focus upon various theories and problems of authorship as they appear explicitly or implicitly in the fiction, poetry, correspondence, and criticism of the period. These issues include the impact of the democratic-revolutionary legacy upon the development of American literary form; the rise of a literary cultural elite and its importance to the formation of an American public sphere; elite anxieties concerning the marginal status of United States literature in relation to European culture; the consequent marginalization of ¿Americanness¿ as that which resists cultural development; the literary appropriation of ¿commonness¿ as central to the representation of national character; theories of ¿the popular voice¿ and the textual emergence of voices resistant to such theories.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 368:
Imagining the Oceans (COMPLIT 168, COMPLIT 368, ENGLISH 168, FRENCH 168, FRENCH 368)
How has Western culture constructed the world's oceans since the beginning of global ocean exploration? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by marine science, technology, exploration, commerce and leisure? Readings might include voyage accounts by Cook and Darwin, sailors' narratives by Equiano and Dana, poetry by Coleridge, Bishop and Walcott, novels by Melville, Verne, Conrad and Woolf. Visual culture might include paintings by Turner and Redon, and films by Jean Painlevé, Kathryn Bigelow, Jerry Bruckheimer and James Cameron. Critical texts will be drawn from interdisciplinary theorists of modernity and mobility, such as Schmitt, Wallerstein, Corbin, Latour, Deleuze + Guattari, and Cresswell.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 375A:
Renaissance Literature and Politics after the New Historicism
A major critical and theoretical legacy, the New Historicism continues to inform, in both positive and negative ways, the recent scholarly work devoted to the relationship between literature and history in the early modern period. While focusing on issues of political meaning and political thought that both inform literary production and are partly shaped by it, the seminar will ask what it means to have a dominant critical paradigm for the understanding of fundamental relations between literary and non-literary (or at least less literary) discourses. Even though we will be studying major Renaissance authors such as Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, the theoretical and methodological issues the course is designed to raise transcend period boundaries. We will look at recent scholarly production in the field of early modern studies to see how scholars go about defining and positioning their critical agendas in their attempts to offer new or modified conceptions of the relationship between Renaissance literature, and literature more generally, and politics.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 376:
Milton in the Long Restoration
Study of the creation and reception of Milton's major works in the context of English literary and cultural history from 1649 to 1746. Thus not just Milton but Restoration and Augustan literature more generally is our focus. Authors include Milton, Dryden, Pope, and their contemporaries. This seminar will be conducted in conjunction with a two day conference (bringing in thirty major scholars from around the world) to be held at Stanford in April. Full participation in the conference is required and built into our schedule and assignments.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 390:
Graduate Fiction Workshop
For Stegner fellows in the writing program. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 392:
Graduate Poetry Workshop
For Stegner fellows in the writing program. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 394:
Independent Study
Preparation for first-year Ph.D. qualifying examination.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Karnes, M. (PI);
Majumdar, S. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Ngai, S. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Rasberry, V. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 395:
Ad Hoc Graduate Seminar
Three or more graduate students who wish in the following quarter to study a subject or an area not covered by regular courses and seminars may plan an informal seminar and approach a member of the department to supervise it.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 396:
Introduction to Graduate Study for Ph.D. Students
Required for first-year graduate students in English. The major historical, professional, and methodological approaches to the study of literature in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 396L:
Pedagogy Seminar I (COMPLIT 396L)
Required for first-year Ph.D students in English, Modern Thought and Literature, and Comparative Literature. Preparation for surviving as teaching assistants in undergraduate literature courses. Focus is on leading discussions and grading papers.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2
ENGLISH 396P:
Publication Workshop: The Article
A practical and theoretical study of the genre of the journal article, with critical reflection on its status as a gateway to academic professionalization and as a highly specialized form of public address. We will be reading articles published over the last decade across a diverse range of journals, focusing on issues surrounding methodology, style, tone, and audience. Participants will also work on developing an already polished piece of writing into the form of an article potentially publishable by a peer-reviewed publication. Admission by application in Fall quarter .
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 397A:
Pedagogy Seminar II
Apprenticeship for second-year graduate students in English, Modern Thought and Literature, and Comparative Literature who teach in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric. Each student is assigned as an apprentice to an experienced teacher and sits in on classes, conferences, and tutorials, with eventual responsibility for conducting a class, grading papers, and holding conferences. Meetings explore rhetoric, theories and philosophies of composition, and the teaching of writing. Each student designs a syllabus in preparation for teaching PWR 1.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1
ENGLISH 397X:
Teaching the Humanities: Lighting a Fire (EDUC 405X)
This course, designed for graduate students in the humanities and education, will explore approaches to teaching the humanities at both the secondary and collegiate levels. Our focus will be primarily on the teaching of text, and how the humanities can help students develop their ability to read critically. The course will explore the purposes and pedagogical approaches for teaching humanities. We will explore these topics through a variety of texts and perspectives. The course is also designed as an opportunity for doctoral students in the Humanities both to enrich their own teaching and to broaden their understanding of professional teaching opportunities (to include community college and secondary school teaching).
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
ENGLISH 398:
Research Course
A special subject of investigation under supervision of a member of the department. Thesis work is not registered under this number.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-18
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fernandez, I. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Heise, U. (PI);
Hoxby, B. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Karnes, M. (PI);
Lunsford, A. (PI);
Majumdar, S. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Ngai, S. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Rasberry, V. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Sohn, S. (PI);
Summit, J. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 398L:
Literary Lab
Gathering and analyzing data, constructing hypotheses and designing experiments to test them, writing programs [if needed], preparing visuals and texts for articles or conferences. Requires a year-long participation in the activities of the Lab.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 2-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 398R:
Revision and Development of a Paper
Students revise and develop a paper under the supervision of a faculty member with a view to possible publication.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Hoxby, B. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Karnes, M. (PI);
Lunsford, A. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Ngai, S. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Riggs, D. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Summit, J. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 398W:
Orals, Publication and Dissertation Workshop
For third- and fourth-year graduate students in English. Strategies for studying for and passing the oral examination, publishing articles, and for writing and researching dissertations and dissertation proposals. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 2
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 399:
Thesis
For M.A. students only. Regular meetings with thesis advisers required.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 802:
TGR Dissertation
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Lunsford, A. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Summit, J. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 122A:
Austen and Woolf
Reading of three novels by Jane Austen¿arguably the most influential and gifted of British female novelists-¿and three novels by Virginia Woolf, whose debt to Austen was immense. Topics include the relationship between women writers and the evolution of the English novel; the extraordinary predominance of the marriage plot in Austen¿s fiction (and the various transformations Woolf works on it); each novelist¿s relationship to the cultural and social milieu in which she wrote.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
