141 - 150 of 387 results for: ENGLISH

Intensive reading of Milton's epic Paradise Lost together with selections from Milton's other poetry and from his prose.

This course will explore contexts of race, religion, sexuality and gender in multiple Shakespeare plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, Titus Andronicus, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest), with critical readings on topics including feminist and queer theory, transvestite theater, historically blackface performance, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, forced conversion, competing empires, colonialism and postcolonialism, and racial profiling (among others).

What do we mean when we call something Shakespearean? It is not uncommon to see the adjective tied to political scandals, prestige television (e.g. Succession), or inventive lyricists. But then again, for the Romantics, Shakespeare also represented the artist who disappeared behind his works?the chameleon poet whose characters become free artists unto themselves. In this course, we will read a selection of poems and plays to explore what, if anything, is Shakespearean about Shakespeare. Is there a tragic vision that is particularly Shakespearean? How has same-sex desire, ubiquitous in the poems and plays, been erased from the mainstream conception of the Shakespearean? Is there a particularly Shakespearean understanding of gender? Is there a Shakespearean politics? A Shakespearean philosophy? While we pursue this essence of Shakespeare, we will also be thinking about what it means for Shakespeare to have become an "essential" author in the canon of English literature. This course should appeal to Shakespearean devotees and skeptics alike, as well as neutral parties, since, as we might conclude, there is nothing more Shakespearean than ambivalence.

This seminar considers representations of somatic, ethnic, and religious difference as depicted in the uniquely influential works of William Shakespeare. In a period witnessing the beginning of Atlantic slavery and the plantation system in Ireland and the Americas, how did race and place register in the literary worlds of Shakespeare's poems and plays? This course utilizes the construction in Shakespeare's London commercial theater of distant locales and peoples to investigate histories of race, racism, and notions of essential difference that both rhyme and clash with those in our own globalized present. How did expanding trade routes, contact with indigenous peoples, and early capitalism's drive toward growth influence England's understanding of itself and differently racialized populations? We will address these and other concerns with attention to The Tempest, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, and a selection of sonnets.

How does fiction make us better at reading minds? Why do some TV shows get us to believe two contradictory things at once? And can cognitive biases be a writer's best friend? We'll think about these and other questions in the light of contemporary neuroscience and experimental psychology, with the help of Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), season 1 of Westworld (Lisa Joy / Jonathan Nolan), and short readings from writers like Louise Glück, Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. We'll also ask what we see when we read; whether the language we speak affects the way we think; and why different people react differently to the same book. Plus: is free will a fiction, or were you just forced to say that?

FOR UNDERGRADUATES ONLY (grad students enroll in 318 in the winter) Most of the time, writing a pitch for a popular outlet just means writing an email. So why be intimidated? This course will outline the procedure for pitching essays and articles to popular media: how to convince an editor, agent, or anyone else that your idea is compelling, relevant, and deliverable. We'll take a holistic approach to self-presentation that includes presenting yourself with confidence, optimizing your social media and web platform, networking effectively, writing excellent queries and pitches, avoiding the slush pile, and perhaps most importantly, persevering through the inevitable self-doubt and rejection.We will focus on distinguishing the language, topics and hooks of popular media writing from those of academic writing, learn how to target and query editors on shortform pieces (personal essays, news stories, etc.), and explore how humanists can effectively self-advocate and get paid for their work.

This is a comparative medieval literature course that surveys Anglo-Norman and English romance, English and Norse heroic epic, and Norse and Celtic mythology. What significance and meaning did medieval writers from different times and places see in magic and monsters; what superstitions and beliefs converged in their efforts to represent things from the other side, and what compelled them to do so? We will address such questions by reading the literature against the social, cultural, and religious contexts that shaped medieval life and artistic production. Finally we will turn to some modern works inspired by these medieval texts, reflecting on how literary medievalism has cultivated the tropes of medieval fantasy to produce works which mediate between an imagined history, sublime fabrication, and contemporary concerns.

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.

How does a groundbreaking first wave feminist theorist and novelistic innovator speak intergenerationally? Everything about #MeToo can be found in Virginia Woolf's works, from gender oppression, to the politics of women's entry into the public sphere, to the struggle of women to be heard and believed. We begin with A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), tying them to media coverage of #MeToo, then turn to the identity politics of her fiction and to broader histories of feminism and feminist theory.