ENGLISH 1:
History and Theory of Novel Group (DLCL 1)
This reading group, organized by the Undergraduate Initiative of the Center for the Study of the Novel (CSN), is intended for undergraduates interested in the study of the novel. The group will meet four times in the Spring Quarter, to discuss works by major theorists of the novel, including Lukàcs, Watt, Bakhtin, Barthes, Foucault, Moretti, Sedgwick, and others. Discussions will be led by CSN's graduate coordinators, Elena Dancu (DLCL) and Mark Taylor (English). All readings will be available on CourseWork.
Terms: 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 9CT:
Special Topics in Creative Expression
Focus on a particular topic or process of creative expression. 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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| 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 17SI:
Muggles, Mermaids, and Metaphors: Race in Harry Potter
How do divisions between wizards and Muggles or purebloods and Muggle-borns reflect race in our own society? How are books, films, and fan creations coloured by characters, and consumers, experiences of race? And how can understanding literature be relevant to social change? This course is designed to introduce students with no prior background in CSRE to race-critical approaches to literature and pop culture. Some familiarity with the Harry Potter series is preferred.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-2
ENGLISH 18SI:
From Canon to 'Fanon': Fan Fiction and the Democratization of Literature
Fan fiction has been called one of the great unsung popular literary movements of the past fifty years. Long in existence but increasingly mainstream, the genre has emerged onto the 21st-century literary landscape as a cultural force to be reckoned with. This course will treat fan fiction as a legitimate genre of literature worthy of academic attention and analysis. We will examine both text and context, considering tropes and style of 'fanfic' as well as cultural impact and influence. Key themes of the course include intertextuality, reader-response criticism, new literacies, and fanfic as a medium for narrative expansion and transgression.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-2
ENGLISH 1D:
Dickens Book Club
Through the academic year, we will read one Dickens novel, one number a week for 19 weeks, as the Victorians would have done as they read the serialized novel over the course of 19 months. The group gets together once a week for an hour and a half to discuss each number, to look carefully at the pattern that the author is weaving, to guess, as the Victorians would have done, what might be coming next, and to investigate the Victorian world Dickens presents. We look carefully at themes, characters, metaphorical patterns, and scenes that form Dickens' literary world, and spend increasing time evaluating the critique that Dickens levels at Victorian life. The weekly gatherings are casual; the discussion is lively and pointed.
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 5 units total)
ENGLISH 21:
Introduction to American Literature (AMSTUD 121, ENGLISH 121)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 121.) An exploration of the diverse political, racial, social, and aesthetic questions which inform works of American literature from the early national period to the late twentieth century.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
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 43:
Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, AMSTUD 143, ENGLISH 143)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143.) African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals, trickster tales, and slave narratives to recent developments such as black feminist theory, postmodern fiction, and hip hop lyricism. We will engage some of the defining debates and phenomena within African American cultural history, including the status of realist aesthetics in black writing; the contested role of literature in black political struggle; the question of diaspora; the problem of intra-racial racism; and the emergence of black internationalism. Attuned to the invariably hybrid nature of this tradition, we will also devote attention to the discourse of the Enlightenment, modernist aesthetics, and the role of Marxism in black political and literary history.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 43A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (ENGLISH 143A, NATIVEAM 143A)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143A.) Readings from American Indian literatures, old and new. Stories, songs, and rituals from the 19th century, including the Navajo Night Chant. Tricksters and trickster stories; war, healing, and hunting songs; Aztec songs from the 16th century. Readings from modern poets and novelists including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko, and the classic autobiography, "Black Elk Speaks."
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
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 48N:
The American Songbook and Love Poetry
A study of performances (Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra etc) of songs by classic American composers (Porter, Rogers and Hart, Cohen).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 51N:
The Sisters: Poetry & Painting
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.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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 79N:
The Renaissance: Culture as Conflict
Focus is on the Renaissance not as a cultural rebirth but as a scene of cultural conflict. Course materials are selected from Renaissance art, history, philosophy, politics, religion, and travel writing; authors include More, Luther, Erasmus, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Montaigne, Shakespeare. Among the conflicts we will explore are: old (world)/new (world), wealth/poverty, individual/collectivity, manuscript/print, religion/secularism, Catholicism/Protestantism, monarchism/republicanism, femininity/masculinity, heterosexuality/homosexuality.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 81:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, 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 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);
Hummel, M. (PI);
Keller, A. (PI);
Kletter, D. (PI);
Kline, P. (PI);
Marra, A. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Smith, A. (PI);
Tshele, N. (PI)
ENGLISH 90V:
Fiction Writing
Online workshop course that explores the ways in which writers of fiction have used language to examine the world, to create compelling characters, and to move readers. We will begin by studying a selection of stories that demonstrate the many techniques writers use to create fictional worlds; we'll use these stories as models for writing exercises and short assignments, leading to a full story draft. We will study figurative language, character and setting development, and dramatic structure, among other elements of story craft. Then, each student will submit a full draft and receive feedback from the instructor and his/her classmates. This course is taught entirely online, but retains the feel of a traditional classroom. Optional synchronous elements such as discussion and virtual office hours provide the student direct interaction with both the instructor and his/her classmates. Feedback on written work ¿ both offered to and given by the student ¿ is essential to the course and creates class rapport.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
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);
Ekiss, K. (PI);
Evans, J. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Grey, K. (PI);
Hummel, M. (PI);
Kletter, D. (PI);
Marra, A. (PI);
Perham, B. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Sharif, S. (PI);
Tshele, 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, Sum
| 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: 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 102:
Chaucer
An introduction to Chaucer's writings, including The Canterbury Tales, The Book of the Duchess, and The Parliament of Fowls. Readings in Middle English. No prior knowledge of Middle English or medieval literature is expected.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 106E:
Dante and Aristotle (PHIL 193D)
Focuses on Dante and Aristotle's writings about the cosmos, love, and the good. Readings will include Dante's Commedia, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and De caelo, Aquinas's Summa theologiae, and Richard of St. Victor's Benjamin Minor. All readings will be in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ENGLISH 111B:
Medieval Romance
Romance emerges as a distinct genre in the Middle Ages, defined not just by love stories but by quests and battles and otherworldly creatures. Study of its origins and development, focusing on Middle English texts. About half of the class will be devoted to Chaucer, including some of the "Canterbury Tales" and "Troilus and Criseyde". Readings include some Arthurian literature: "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", as well as popular romances such as "Sir Orfeo" and "Floris and Blancheflour". No knowledge of Middle English or medieval literature is expected.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 113L:
Latin 500-1600 CE (CLASSICS 6L, PHIL 113L, PHIL 213L, RELIGST 173X)
The aim of the course is to familiarize students with medieval Latin and neo-Latin through a reading of various short texts drawn from philosophical, religious, political, historical, and literary works. Students will devote most of their efforts to preparing translations for class. We shall also discuss some peculiarities of post-classical Latin grammar. Prerequisite: CLASSLAT 1, 2 & 3, or equivalent.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
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 115C:
Hamlet and the Critics (TAPS 151C)
Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamletas a site of rich critical controversy from the eighteenth century to the present. Aim is to read, discuss, and evaluate different approaches to the play, from biographical, theatrical, and psychological to formalist, materialist, feminist, new historicist, and, most recently, quantitative. The ambition is to see whether there can be great literature without (a) great (deal of) criticism. The challenge is to understand the theory of literature through the study of its criticism.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 118:
Literature and the Brain (ENGLISH 218, 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 121:
Introduction to American Literature (AMSTUD 121, ENGLISH 21)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 121.) An exploration of the diverse political, racial, social, and aesthetic questions which inform works of American literature from the early national period to the late twentieth century.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
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 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: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ;
Cain, B. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Freyberg, D. (PI);
Kennedy, D. (PI);
Nemerov, A. (PI);
Franco, A. (GP);
Ho, C. (GP);
McVarish, M. (GP);
Peterson, A. (GP);
Rempel, A. (GP)
ENGLISH 125B:
Make It New: Literature of the Jazz Age
Introduction to modernism through a survey of its major writers and the world in which they wrote. We will look at poets like T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein who changed the language, prose-writers like James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway who changed the story, painters like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse who changed the view, and populists like Louis Armstrong and Charlie Chaplin who changed the scene. Along the way we will think about the basic questions of modernism: Who was involved? How did they interact? And perhaps most importantly, what features make their work modernist? With brief but lively introductions to this world, students will gain entry into academic habits of mind through authors and artists they already love.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 126D:
Victorian Sex (FEMGEN 126D)
How can we make sense of a culture of extraordinary sexual repression that nevertheless seemed fully preoccupied with sex? Examination of the depictions of sex in Victorian literary and cultural texts. Authors include: Collins, Braddon, the Brownings, Swinburne, Stoker and Wilde.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 129:
The Grotesque: Studies in the Bizarre and Unnatural
Investigation of the history of the grotesque in literature, art and film from the eighteenth century until today. What kinds of messages or ideas can be better conveyed by the grotesque than by the beautiful? What techniques and tactics have been developed by authors seeking to shock or surprise us? And why are we, as an audience, attracted to representations of objects or events which seem designed to repel us? Together, we will study renditions of the Grotesque in literature (Grimms¿ Fairy Tales, Poe¿s short stories, and Hoffman¿s The Sandman), film (Murnau¿s Nosferatu) and theoretical writing (Freud and Nietzsche).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 143:
Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, AMSTUD 143, ENGLISH 43)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143.) African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals, trickster tales, and slave narratives to recent developments such as black feminist theory, postmodern fiction, and hip hop lyricism. We will engage some of the defining debates and phenomena within African American cultural history, including the status of realist aesthetics in black writing; the contested role of literature in black political struggle; the question of diaspora; the problem of intra-racial racism; and the emergence of black internationalism. Attuned to the invariably hybrid nature of this tradition, we will also devote attention to the discourse of the Enlightenment, modernist aesthetics, and the role of Marxism in black political and literary history.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 143A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (ENGLISH 43A, NATIVEAM 143A)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143A.) Readings from American Indian literatures, old and new. Stories, songs, and rituals from the 19th century, including the Navajo Night Chant. Tricksters and trickster stories; war, healing, and hunting songs; Aztec songs from the 16th century. Readings from modern poets and novelists including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko, and the classic autobiography, "Black Elk Speaks."
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 144A:
Writing and Fighting: Literature of the First World War One Hundred Years On
2014 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Great War, the 'war to end all wars' and the war that infamously was meant to be over in four months and dragged on for four blood-soaked years. This course will introduce students to the wide literary production, especially the poetic and novelistic output, borne by the experience of war to demonstrate the intimate relationship between political, cultural and aesthetic crises of the 1914-1918 period. Wide access to newly available online text and film archives will be central to our examinations.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
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 146C:
Hemingway, Hurston, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald (AMSTUD 146C)
While Hemingway and Fitzgerald were flirting with the expatriate avant-garde in Europe, Hurston and Faulkner were performing anthropological field-work in the local cultures of the American South. Focus on the tremendous diversity of concerns and styles of four writers who marked America's coming-of-age as a literary nation with their multifarious experiments in representing the regional and the global, the racial and the cosmopolitan, the macho and the feminist, the decadent and the impoverished.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 150:
Poetry and the Internet
How has contemporary poetry been transformed by the Internet and other new media. How have poets responded to the new media forms, from Facebook to Twitter, that now absorb the attention of so many people? How have poets utilized the torrents of information accessible to them with a few keystrokes? Focus will mostly be on poetry written after 2000; secondary readings will draw from literary criticism, media theory, and sociology.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
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 152C:
The JFK Era and American Literature (AMSTUD 152C)
Few U.S. presidents have exerted so great a fascination on the national and global post-World War II imagination as John F. Kennedy. As the 2013's semi-centennial anniversary of Kennedy's assassination attests, the production of films, television and multimedia programs, biographies, conspiracy theories, academic studies, and literary texts about the iconic JFK and his fabled, thousand-day presidency continues unabated. In this course, we will explore the attention Kennedy has drawn from writers and filmmakers like Norman Mailer, Lorraine Hansberry, Don DeLillo, Oliver Stone, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Stephen King.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 152G:
Harlem Renaissance (AFRICAAM 152G, AMSTUD 152G)
Examination of the explosion of African American artistic expression during 1920s and 30s New York known as the Harlem Renaissance. Amiri Baraka once referred to the Renaissance as a kind of "vicious Modernism", as a "BangClash", that impacted and was impacted by political, cultural and aesthetic changes not only in the U.S. but Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Focus on the literature, graphic arts, and the music of the era in this global context.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 152K:
Mixed-Race Politics and Culture (AFRICAAM 226, AMSTUD 152K, CSRE 152K)
Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? This course approaches issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st-century U.S. Issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation, and racial prejudice in American society. Topics include the political and social formation of race; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the "one-drop rule" and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of census categories and the rise of the multiracial movement.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 153A:
James Joyce
A close reading of Joyce's works, including Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. We will also read Stephen Hero, the abandoned draft of A Portrait, Giacomo Joyce, several of Joyce's speeches, letters and poems, and the play Exiles. We'll devote some attention to his biographies, and also watch clippings from the two film versions of Ulysses: Joseph Strick's Ulysses:(1967) and Sean Walsh's Bloom (2004). We will read some of the classics of Joyce criticism (Wilson, Levin, Lukacs), as well as later, more contemporary approaches (Jameson, Moretti, Duffy, Gibson, Wicke, Latham, Rubenstein, Walkowitz).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 154J:
Prep Schools, Frat Houses, and Hogwarts: The Campus in 20th & 21st Century Literature
This course examines the representation of campus life across a variety of media and genres: from Willa Cather¿s The Professor¿s House (1925) to Todd Phillips¿s Old School (2003) to Vampire Weekend¿s ¿Campus¿ (2008) and beyond. By studying the evolution of the campus over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we will explore how artists dealt with the school as an increasingly unavoidable part of modern experience. Why do artists rebel so vehemently against the school system? Why do schools like teaching novels that are all about how terrible schools are? What can and can¿t we learn in class?
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 157E:
Murder: A Course on Narrative Representation
While murder often kicks off light, popular fictions like Sherlock or Poirot, it is also often central to more philosophical representations of the darkest, most antisocial extremes of the human psyche. In this course, we consider this intriguing range of murder¿s narrative function and meaning. We study how representational strategies and genre conventions inform audience expectations and responses; analyze how plot and style interact; and discuss the slippery lines between nonfiction, true crime, and fiction. By the end of the course, students should have a working understanding of key concepts from narratology, genre studies, and reader response criticism.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 157G:
Gaming and Literature: Exploring Connections between Interactive Media and Literary Analysis
Whether struggling as dragon born or raiding ancient tombs, character and story in video games are crucial to an immersive experience. Whether by design or imagination, we vest ourselves in the challenges and puzzles in stories of alien attack, myth and magic, and constructed worlds. Literature and gaming are converging, transforming pixels into rich environments where gamers spend months or years. This course connects characteristics of games and select literary works, guiding analyses of story-driven, active game systems. Students explore story development and critical processes for the synthesis of various game types, and explore social issues connecting games and society.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
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, Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 162W:
Writing Intensive Seminar in English (WISE)
Small literature-based, writing-intensive seminars taught by advanced graduate students in the English Ph.D. program. The goal will be to produce a high-quality final research paper. Courses will be oriented around a single text or a small group of texts in conversation with a larger spectrum of scholarship and knowledge in literary criticism and theory, film, painting, or material culture. The small format will allow undergraduates to receive detailed commentary and one-on-one feedback on their writing.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 163D:
Shakespeare: The Ethical Challenge (TAPS 163D)
Was the eighteenth century right in proclaiming Shakespeare to be the greatest moral philosopher? What are the ethical challenges Shakespeare's major plays still pose for us? Can we divorce ethical decisions from the contingencies of experience? We will ask a series of normative ethical questions (to do with pleasure, power, old age, self-sacrifice, and truth telling) and attempt to answer them in relation to the dramatic situation of Shakespeare's characters on the one hand and our own cultural situation on the other. The ethical challenge of Shakespearean drama will be set against selected readings in ethical theory.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
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
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 164C:
Senior Capstone Seminar
Do you want to reflect critically on your time in the English Major? Do you want to design your own Senior Seminar project? This course is writing intensive, and involves the proposal, cultivation, and production of a 15-page student-designed research paper that consolidates the arc of a compelling literary critical interest. Substitutes for the Senior Seminar. Open to all English seniors who wish to write a long critical essay (we cannot at this time accept creative writing capstones).
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 168:
Imagining the Oceans (COMPLIT 168, FRENCH 168)
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? Authors read might include Cook, Equiano, and Steinbeck; Defoe, Verne, Stevenson, Conrad, Woolf and Hemingway; Coleridge, Baudelaire, Moore, Bishop and Walcott. Films by Painlevé and Bigelow. Seminar co-ordinated with a spring 2015 Cantor Arts Center public exhibition. Visits to Cantor; other possible field trips include Hopkins Marine Station and SF Maritime Historical Park.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 172D:
Introduction to Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE 196C, PSYCH 155, 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. Includes an optional Haas Center for Public Service certified Community Engaged Learning section.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors: ;
Markus, H. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Akcinar, E. (TA);
Carey, R. (GP);
Cortes Barragan, R. (TA);
Gardiner, M. (TA);
Handron, C. (TA);
Horowitz, A. (TA);
Jimenez Ruvalcaba, L. (TA);
Murray, D. (TA)
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 175C:
Literature and Culture of the American Landscape
This course examines a wide range of American literary engagements with nature: as a determinant of national character and destiny; as a source of spiritual, sexual, and moral revitalization; as a battleground for the survival of races and ethnicities; as a molding mechanism of citizenship and gender; as the basis of a national art and culture; and as a resource for exploitation or preservation.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 182J:
"When We Dead Awaken": Breakthroughs in Conceptions of the Gendered Self in Literature and the Arts (FEMGEN 112, FEMGEN 212)
Remarkable breakthroughs In conceptions of the gendered self are everywhere evident in literature and the arts, beginning primarily with the Early Modern world and continuing into today. Many of these works inhere in innovations in literary and artistic forms in order to capture and even evoke the strong cognitive, or psychological, dimension of such ¿awakenings.¿ The reader, or viewer, is often challenged to adapt her or his mind to new forms of thought, such as John Donne¿s seventeenth century creation of the Dramatic Monologue, a form popular with modern writers, which requires the reader¿s cognitive ¿presence¿ in order to fill out the dramatic scene. In so doing, the reader often supplies the presence of the female voice and thereby enters into her self-consciousness and inner thoughts. Adrienne Rich, for example, specifically ¿rewrites¿ one of Donne¿s major poems from the female perspective. This can be, in Rich¿s words, an ¿awakening¿ for the active reader, as he or she assumes that often-unspoken female perspective. The course will also explore male conceptions of the self and how such conceptions are often grounded in cultural attitudes imposed on male subjects, which can contribute to gender-bias toward women, a subject often neglected in exploring gendered attitudes, but which is now gaining more study, for example, in Shakespeare¿s ¿Othello.¿ Readings from recent developments in the neurosciences and cognitive studies will be included in our study of artistic forms and how such forms can activate particular mindsets. Writers and artists will include Shakespeare, Michelangelo, John Donne, Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, June Wayne, and Edward Albee¿s 1960¿s play, ¿Who¿s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?¿
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
ENGLISH 183F:
Introduction to Critical Theory
An introduction to critical theory, beginning with some of the defining moments of its history in the 20th century, to current developments in the field in the context of the contemporary global skepticism of humanistic critique, both in its institutional capacity and within the larger public sphere. Texts by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Helene Cixous, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Edward Said, David Lodge and others.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 184:
The Novel, the Global South (COMPLIT 123)
Literary inventiveness and social significance of novelistic forms from the Great Depression 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 184C:
Data and Knowledge in the Humanities
How different disciplines understand and use data, and how skills such as interpretation and critical thought work with data to create knowledge. How the introduction of mathematics reshaped disciplines like cosmology and sociology in the past and how, in the present, the humanities are facing the same challenges with the emergence of fields such as spatial history and the digital humanities. In addition to readings and class discussion, this course will also feature guest lectures from scholars from different disciplines, including the natural and social sciences, who will discuss how their fields create knowledge from data.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
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 189A:
Dead White Men on Trial: Feminism and the Novel
The determination of gender is a form of reading: reading bodies, reading gestures, reading histories. In the spirit of that feminist insight, this course will offer an introduction to feminism through fiction and criticism that thematizes reading in its diverse forms. Students will explore the relationship between interpretation and experience, identity and performance, from both the social feminist angle and the literary-critical angle. We will acquaint ourselves with foundational feminist novels, from Jane Eyre to To the Lighthouse to Their Eyes Were Watching God, and pair them with critical theory that addresses feminism in conversation with race, class, ability, and sexual orientation. Students will be encouraged to consider contemporary applications of the historical thought, and will have the option of writing a final paper that analyzes a contemporary text of their choice. The class will also require short writing assignments that will develop students¿ facility with argumentation and academic essay forms.
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: Aut, Win, 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 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, Win, 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 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.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
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);
Carlson-Wee, K. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Clark, H. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Evans, J. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Hutchins, S. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Karnes, M. (PI);
Kealey, T. (PI);
Kletter, D. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Perham, B. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Quade, K. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (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 198A:
CS+English ePortfolio
Students will begin planning and assembling materials for the joint major capstone project (to be completed in the senior year). Designed to be taken in the junior year for three quarters. During the first and second quarters, students should enroll in one unit. In the first two quarters, students will survey the field of digital humanities and start compiling an ePortfolio that showcases their favorite work in literature and programming, reflections on the two fields, and begin to develop plans for the capstone project. For the third quarter, students should enroll in three units. The central goal for the third quarter is completion of an adviser-approved proposal for the capstone project (to be completed in the senior year). In this course students will refine your proof-of-concept from the previous quarter and deliver the ePortfolio.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 5 units total)
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 201:
The Bible and Literature
Differences in translations of the Bible into English. Recognizing and interpreting biblical allusion in texts from the medieval to modern periods. Readings from the Bible and from British, Canadian, American, and African American, and African literature in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 202:
History of the Book
Taught in the Department of Special Collections, the course examines the book as both a developing concept and as a material object, from scroll to codex, from manuscript to print, from cold type to electronic medium. Basic bibliographical and paleographical techniques will be taught, and readings in history and theory will be discussed. Attention will focus particularly on the use of books, and hence on the history of reading practices, including marginalia and other marks of ownership. Students will be expected to develop their own projects from among the riches of Stanford¿s rare book collection. The final project may be a collaborative one, with contributions by the class as a whole. This has typically been the preparation of an edition of a manuscript or piece of ephemera in Stanford¿s collection.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 218:
Literature and the Brain (ENGLISH 118, 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
ENGLISH 234G:
Narrating the British Empire (HISTORY 234G, HISTORY 334G)
This course will explore the historical and cultural reality of the British Empire in a global and comparative context, through works of fiction and non-fiction, history, memoir and a range of cultural chronicles. What relationship did British colonialism have with modernity and the European Enlightenment, and with neoliberalism and globalization that followed decolonization? Texts: CLR James's Beyond a Boundary,, Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place, Nirad Chaudhuri's The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country, Witi Ihimaera's Dear Miss Mansfield.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
ENGLISH 239B:
Literature and Social Online Learning (COMPLIT 239B, CS 27)
Study, develop, and test new digital methods, games, apps, interactive social media uses to innovate how the humanities can engage and educate students and the public today. Exploring well-known literary texts, digital storytelling forms and literary communities online, students work individually and in interdisciplinary teams to develop innovative projects aimed at bringing literature to life. Tasks include literary role-plays on Twitter; researching existing digital pedagogy and literary projects, games, and apps; reading and coding challenges; collaborative social events mediated by new technology. Minimal prerequisites which vary for students in CS and the humanities; please check with instructors.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 250:
Poetry, Transhistorically
The course considers representative works by ten poets from the Renaissance to the present. Each set of poems is framed by a problem in poetics such as artifice and sound, the making of voice, the meaning of lyric, and the nature of historicist and biographical interpretation. Shakespeare, Gray, Wordsworth, Whitman, E.B. Browning, Yeats, H.D., Olson, Wolcott, and Hejinian; and readings in recent poetic theory.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 290:
Advanced Fiction Writing
Workshop critique of original short stories or novel. Prerequisites: manuscript, consent of instructor, and 190-level fiction workshop.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 5
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 300A:
Advanced Paleography (CLASSICS 216, HISTORY 315, RELIGST 329X)
This course will train students in the transcription and editing of original Medieval and Early Modern textual materials from c. 1000 to 1600, written principally in Latin and English (but other European languages are possible, too). Students will hone their archival skills, learning how to describe, read and present a range of manuscripts and single-leaf documents, before turning their hand to critical interpretation and editing. Students, who must already have experience of working with early archival materials, will focus on the full publication of one individual fragment or document as formal assessment.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 303:
Experiment and the Novel (COMPLIT 353A)
A double exploration of experiment in the novel from 1719 into the 19th century. Taking off from Zola's "The Experimental Novel," consideration of the novel's aspect as scientific instrument. Taking the idea of experimental fiction in the usual sense of departures from standard practice, consideration of works that seem to break away from techniques of "realism" devised prior to 1750, with "Robinson Crusoe" as the representative of that mode.. Texts by: Defoe, Sterne, Walpole, Godwin, Lewis, Goethe, and Shelley..
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 303C:
The Networks of Enlightenment
In this course, we will use the emerging methods of social network analysis to investigate imaginative worlds of eighteenth-century literature and the role that social connections play in the Enlightenment. Together we will read and analyze Restoration comedies (The Man of Mode), eighteenth-century tragedies (Venice Preserved), Gothic novels (The Castle of Otranto) and early social novels (Evelina). We will identify and study the shapes of the relationships in these texts as we use networking tools, such as igraph and Gephi, to visualize the social world of the text. Previous technical experience is not required as this course also serves as a method-based introduction to network analysis in the humanities.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 305H:
Readings in Close Reading
The difference between reading and reading closely. Is close reading a specific method of literary criticism or theory, or does it describe a sensibility that can accompany any interpretation? Categories and frameworks for this ubiquitous, often undefined critical practice. Traditions of close reading: formalism, psychoanalysis, ideological critique, and hermeneutics. Focus is on Freud, Empson, Barthes, de Man and contemporary critics.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 308B:
Gilded Age American Literature
Introduction to the creative innovations and the political tensions that stemmed from the formation of a multicultural society during the age of industrialization. We will attempt to place literary works in their historical and cultural contexts, while also surveying recent critical and theoretical developments in areas such as Realism, Naturalism, Regionalism, Minority and Race Studies, and so on.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 310:
The Transatlantic Renaissance (COMPLIT 332)
The emergence of a transatlantic culture in the early modern period. How is the Renaissance of Europe and England fashioned in a conversation with the cultural forms and material realities of the colonial Americas? And how do colonial writings expand and complicate the available understanding of the Renaissance? Readings in Columbus, More, Hakluyt, Spenser, Shakespeare, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
Terms: Aut
| 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 314E:
English Drama Before Shakespeare (TAPS 341E)
English dramatic and theatrical culture from the mystery cycles of the late medieval period to the establishment of professional playhouses in late sixteenth-century London. Different dramatic genres (interludes, moralities, farces, tragedies, comedies, histories, pastoral plays), performance venues (streets, households, inns, schools, universities, court, playhouses), and dramatic traditions (classical, native, continental European) will be represented. Authors (of those who have names) range from Medwall, Skelton, Heywood, Preston, and Edwards to Lyly, Kyd, Greene, Peele, and Marlowe.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 327:
Genres of the Novel (COMPLIT 327, FRENCH 327)
Provides students with an overview of some major genres in the history of the modern novel, along with major theorists in the critical understanding of the form. Novels might include works by Cervantes, Defoe, Lafayette, Radcliffe, Goethe, Scott, Balzac, Melville, and Woolf. Theorists might include Lukacs, Bakhtin, Jameson, Gallagher, Barthes, Kristeva, and Bourdieu. *PLEASE NOTE: Course for graduate students only.*
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 332:
Ancients, Moderns, and Postmoderns
Literary critics and art historians depend on accounts of modernity, post-modernity, and antiquity that are normative even as they claim to be historicist. We will ask what needs these accounts have served historically, what their theoretical consequences are, and how we should write cultural criticism today. Readings will range from the renaissance to the present, with an emphasis on the historicist turn of the late eighteenth century. Authors may include Petrarch, Winckelmann, Schiller, the Schlegels, Hegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Lyotard, and Jameson.
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: Culture, Aesthetics, and Society in the Age of Globalization (COMPLIT 334B, MTL 334B)
Emphasis on world-system theory, theories of coloniality and power, and aesthetic modernity/postmodernity in their relation to culture broadly understood.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 362E:
Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Archive
Introduction to the theories, methods, and politics of the archive in literary studies, using "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and its extensive archives as the frame. Investigation of this novel's forms of circulation, contexts, visual and material culture, adaptations, and revisions will be supported and challenged both by readings in the theories and politics of the archive (including Derrida, Foucault, and Spivak) and the development of research skills in traditional and digital archives.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 362F:
Transnational American Studies
Exploration of the transnational turn in American Studies, focusing on how transnational perspectives enrich and complicate our understanding of American literature, history and the arts. Readings include recent work in transnational American Studies. Topics include experiments with ways of using digital technology to allow archival materials in different locations to be in conversation with each other.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 362G:
African American Modernism
A course exploring the aesthetic continuities and divergences, the artistic collaborations and political arguments, between Harlem Renaissance and Modernist writers across the color line in the first half of the twentieth century.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 363D:
Feminist Theory: Thinking Through/With/About the Gendered Body (FEMGEN 363D)
Organized around a series of case studies, this graduate feminist theory course will consider issues related to the complex relationship between sex, gender, sexuality, biological reproduction, violence, and social power. It is a core course for the PhD minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Enrollment is limited to PhD-level students.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 368A:
Imagining the Oceans (COMPLIT 368A, FRENCH 368A)
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? Primary authors read might include Cook, Banks, Equiano, Ricketts, and Steinbeck; Defoe, Cooper, Verne, Conrad, Woolf and Hemingway; Coleridge, Baudelaire, Moore, Bishop and Walcott. Critical readings include Schmitt, Rediker and Linebaugh, Baucom, Best, Corbin, Auden, Sontag and Heller-Roazen. Films by Sekula, Painlevé and Bigelow. Seminar coordinated with a 2015 Cantor Arts Center public exhibition. Visits to the Cantor; other possible field trips include Hopkins Marine Station and SF Maritime Historical Park. Open to graduate students only.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 373C:
Text of Shakespeare
The Shakespearean text from script and performance to quartos, folios, editions, and back to script and performance. What has constituted a "good" text of Shakespeare, and what is bad about "bad" quartos? The ethics and politics of editing; the relation of editorial practice to stage practice on the one hand, and to what we want Shakespeare to be on the other? Plays with multiple original texts will be studied: "Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear."
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 376C:
Tragic Form and Political Theory (COMPLIT 376C, PHIL 376C)
Tragic form and political theory have in common a profound interest in the conflictual foundation of human society. This course will explore how the two intellectual approaches define the actors of conflict, its causes, and its possible [or impossible] resolution.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 383A:
The Ballad Tradition (COMPLIT 227A, GERMAN 200)
This team-taught cross-disciplinary course traces the history and aesthetics of the ballad in German, English, and Scottish literature, from the 18th century to the early 20th century. No knowledge of German is required, but reading knowledge is a plus.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 384D:
The Palliser Novels
Readings include Anthony Trollope's six Palliser novels, Can You Forgive Her? (1864), Phineas Finn (1869), The Eustace Diamonds (1873), Phineas Redux (1874), The Prime Minister (1876) and The Duke's Children (1879). Topics include: writing in serial; writing across the novel form; Victorian realism; the family saga and multi-volume characterization.
Terms: Win
| 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);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Karnes, M. (PI);
Lupic, I. (PI);
Majumdar, S. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Moya, P. (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
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 Winter quarter .
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 396R:
Old and Modern(ist) Reading Group
This two-quarter-long reading group will alternate from week-to-week between Old English Biblical and Elegaic Poetry and David Jones¿s twentieth-century transnational Modernist masterpiece, "Anathemata" (which W. H. Auden called very probably the finest long poem written in English in this century). Students can choose to join biweekly for just Old English (in the original language) or just David Jones, or complete both sets of allied reading.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 2
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: ;
Algee-Hewitt, M. (PI);
Bender, J. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Cohen, M. (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);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 398L:
Literary Lab (COMPLIT 398L)
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);
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);
Ngai, S. (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
ENGLISH 153D:
Cybernetics; or Control and Communication in the Postwar Novel
The title of this course plays on Norbert Wiener's highly influential 1948 book, Cybernetics; or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Though hardly remembered today, the field that it inaugurated, cybernetics, enjoyed a non-specialist following that was nearly unprecedented in the history of science, influencing philosophy, social science, and literature and the arts in particular. This course will track the influence of key cybernetic concepts entropy, information, feedback, control upon four US novels published after 1960.
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 172C:
Easy Riders and Migrant Laborers: American Mobility in Literature and Film
The open road¿a quintessential American image. This seminar explores the stories of open space, social mobility, and renewed possibilities that pervade American literature, film, and culture. What accounts for the pull of the open road? What roles have these stories played in American identity? We¿ll pursue and complicate these ideas, examining how differences of class, race, gender, and national origin inflect them. The focus will be the twentieth century, a period that witnessed the rise of U.S. global power, mass immigration, and the freeway. Authors/directors include Jack Kerouac, Dennis Hopper, Tomás Rivera, Bharati Mukherjee, Ridley Scott, and Simon Ortiz.
| Units: 3-5
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.
| Units: 5
