81 - 90 of 246 results for: Literary history

We have a textual history of London that dates from at least the 1st century BCE, and archaeological evidence of settlement that is even older. For millennia, the city of London has been both a place of textual production and itself the focus of authors' writings. The metropolis has been at the forefront of innovation in the human record (the first printing press in Britain was established in London; the first acoustic telephone, the first computer program, and the first wind-up radio were invented there); it is a space where new languages, new technologies of information, and new stories of the human experience have evolved. This course explores the genesis and long history of the city of London through text, image, and sound. We'll investigate inscribed wooden tablets that predate the Roman invasion of Britain; the manuscripts, printed texts, and performances of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; the emergence of musical innovators, like the Beatles and David Bowie; and the awareness of the city's history in contemporary authors' works, like Zadie Smith's The Wife of Willesden. Through these and other primary sources, students will explore the great city of London and its contribution to global text technologies, designing their own text technological study. We'll focus on literary and historical archives, art, sound and image recordings, and the idea of the `city as author', and, circumstances permitting, we'll visit the Huntington Library in Pasadena, as well as working in Stanford University Libraries and the Hoover Archives.

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.

In 1954, French-American historian and educator Jacques Barzun observed that "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." In this creative writing course, we'll examine the role of baseball (whether minuscule or major) in our lives and American culture and history at large by engaging with notable baseball films (The Natural, Field of Dreams, The Sandlot, and Moneyball), baseball literature, and critical essays. Why have scholars suggested "that baseball may be perceived as a sort of mirror in which values, power, politics, fashion, class, economics, and race be viewed in microcosm," as Ronald Briley writes in "Baseball and American Cultural Values"? How has baseball become intertwined with American identity? What is it about the sport that immediately evokes nostalgia on a national level? What do baseball legends have in common with canonical literary heroes? Through our process of discovery, we'll "pitch" baseball as an objective correlative and use it to power our own fiction. In this workshop designed for both rookie and pro writers, the goals and objectives are: to become acquainted with a brief overview of baseball's history and rules in the nineteenth century and beyond; to learn and experiment with the craft elements of fiction: character, POV, plot, and place; to improve upon incorporating research, analysis, and American popular culture into creative work; to deliver and receive collegial feedback about creative work within a supportive community; to hit a baseball (seriously!) and attend a San Francisco Giants game. Baseball, like creative writing, is an art form that takes practice, and every baseball player is part of a team. In the same way, no writer becomes great alone.

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.

This course explores the early poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer and asks what his works, although written over 400 years ago, can teach us about the craft of literature and the nature of fiction. Our primary focus will be on Troilus and Criseyde: a tragic love story set against the backdrop of the Trojan War, which raises crucial questions about gender and sexuality, the ethics of authorship, and the relationship between history and literature. Through the close reading of Chaucer's writings in the original Middle English, as well as some of their sources and later adaptations by Shakespeare and others, we will discover the poet's radical innovations in literary form, as well as examine his foundational role in English literary history. No prior knowledge of Middle English is required.

Over the last several decades, there has been an astounding proliferation of trans literature, while debates over trans people's rights to exist have taken centerstage in the U.S. political landscape. Literature plays a foundational role in the formations of trans identities and histories, and trans identities and histories invite us to consider the conventions of literary storytelling anew. The time has come to ask: what kinds of trans stories can we tell, and how? In this introductory undergraduate seminar, we will read trans texts from different genres, including novels, short stories, case studies, poetry, graphic novels as well as film and music to think about trans experiences, embodiments, transitions, and histories. We will read trans literature from various places and times in order to ask how gender, sexuality, race, desire, place, and history shape and are shaped by works of trans literature in a global context. No prior knowledge of trans studies is required for participation in this course.

In this class, students learn to read prose and poetry written in the earliest recorded form of English, which we call Old English (~450-1100) in its original language. Genres on the syllabus include riddles, history, magical spells, chronicles, and travel stories. To prepare for class, students will make translations. We'll check these as a group as we discuss the text's literary qualities and cultural/historical contexts - and how these are intertwined with the details of the Old English language.

This course will bring together the disciplines of history and literary studies by looking closely at the work of one major twentieth-century author: the British writer and political polemicist George Orwell. In 1946, Orwell writes, "What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art." In these years, Orwell writes about-- and often participates in or witnesses first-hand--a series of major events and crises. These include British imperialism in Burma, urban poverty in Europe, class inequality in England, the conflict between Socialism and Fascism in Spain, and the rise of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. In engaging all of these events, Orwell experiments with different literary forms, moving between fiction and non-fiction, novel and autobiography, essay and memoir, manifesto and fable, literature and journalism. Few writers demand such sustained and equal attention to text and context: in this course we will move back-and-forth between Orwell's varied writing and the urgent social and political contexts it addresses.

What is "close reading"? This course is a survey and discussion of close reading and its formative role in twentieth century literary criticism and studies. Technique, explication, interpretation, method, practice, judgement: we will discuss various understandings of close reading's tasks, its history, and its implications for how and why we read literature. Readings include foundational texts (I. A. Richards, William Empson, Cleanth Brooks; Jane Gallop, Jonathan Culler, Eve Sedgwick, etc.) and contemporary debates (John Guillory, Jonathan Kramnick, N. Katherine Hayles, etc.).