ENGLISH 1:
CSN Undergraduate Colloquium (DLCL 1)
This colloquium is intended for undergraduates who are interested in the history and theory of the novel, and who would like to attend the Center for the Study of the Novel's (CSN) annual conference. Before the conference, students will meet with CSN's graduate student staff, to read and discuss a small number of key texts by participating scholars, whose presentations students will then attend. After the conference, the colloquium will meet again, to discuss both the readings and conference papers, and explore their broader implications for the study of the novel. Attendance at both meetings of the colloquium, and at least one panel at the conference, is required for course credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 5 units total)
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 5 units total)
ENGLISH 9CA:
American Road Trip
From Whitman to Kerouac, Alec Soth to Georgia O¿Keeffe, the lure of travel has inspired many American artists to pack up their bags and hit the open road. In this Creative Expressions course we will be exploring the art and literature of the great American road trip, including prose, poetry, films, and photography. We will be reading and writing in a variety of genres, workshopping our own stories, and considering the ways in which our personal journeys have come to inform and define our lives. The course includes a number of campus-wide field trips, and an end-of-quarter road trip down the California coast.nNOTE: Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
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. For undergrads only. nNOTE: Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 9CF:
Poetry Into Film
This course focuses on the intersection between film and poetry. Students will complete three short films based on both published and student-authored poems. From concept to final cut, students will script, storyboard, soundtrack, and visually design each production before filming, editing, and screening their films for class. As such, the course will serve as an introduction to both poetry and digital filmmaking.nNOTE: Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 9CP:
Poetry Off the Page
With recent blockbuster films like Patterson and major prizes being awarded to artists like Bob Dylan and Kendrick Lamar, the borders of what constitutes traditional literature are shifting. In this Creative Writing course we will be looking at literature `off the page,¿ in songwriting, spoken word, multi-media, and visual art. We will be workshopping our own creative projects and exploring the boundaries of contemporary literature. Artists we¿ll be looking at include Iron and Wine, Lil Wayne, Allen Ginsberg, Beyonce, David Lynch, Patti Smith, Mark Strand, Anne Carson, Danez Smith, Bon Iver, and Lou Reed.nNOTE: Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, 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. For undergrads only. May repeat for credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 3 units total)
ENGLISH 9CV:
Creative Expression in Writing
Online workshop whose primary focus is to give 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. For undergrads only.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 9CW:
Writing and World Literature
This course is an introduction to reading and writing short fiction and poetry. For inspiration and imitation, students will read models drawn from a diverse body of global literature. In a supportive, discussion-based environment, students will develop 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.nNOTE: Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 9R:
Humanities Research Intensive (HISTORY 9R)
Everyone knows that scientists do research, but how do you do research in the humanities? This five-day course, taught over spring break, will introduce you to the excitement of humanities research, while preparing you to develop an independent summer project or to work as a research assistant for a Stanford professor. Through hands-on experience with archival materials in Special Collections, you will learn how to formulate a solid research question; how to gather the evidence that will help you to answer that question; how to write up research results; how to critique the research of your fellow students; how to deliver your results in a public setting; and how to write an effective grant proposal. Students who complete this course become Humanities Research Intensive Fellows and receive post-program mentorship during spring quarter, ongoing opportunities to engage with faculty and advanced undergraduates, a small stipend for research materials, and eligibility to apply for additional funding to support follow-up research. Freshmen and sophomores only. All majors and undeclared students welcome. No prior research experience necessary. Enrollment limited: apply by 11/12/18 at undergrad.stanford.edu/hri.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
ENGLISH 10A:
Introduction to English I: Mapping Monsters in British Literature, 650-1650
Werewolves, dragons, cannibals, witches, sea monsters, faeries, moral monstrosity, madness, the uncanny and the grotesque the monstrous is frightening, fury-filled, unknowable, and seductive. Monsters inhabit the literary imagination and the historic landscape. Monsters live on the margins of society; they are culturally and ideologically fraught; they exhibit sexual, racial, religious, and physical difference. In this course, we shall examine the depiction and meaning of the monster in literature, manuscript images, and maps from England and Wales from about 650CE to 1650CE.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 10C:
Introduction to English I: Tradition and Individuality, Medieval to Early Modern
This course offers a comprehensive introduction to English literature from its beginning in the medieval period to the early seventeenth century. We will study individual literary voices and styles in the context of a growing national tradition. We will discuss major authors (such as Chaucer, More, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, Jonson, Donne) and analyze representative literary works in a variety of genres, from the Old English elegy and Middle English lyrics to the Elizabethan sonnet, Renaissance comedy, and the allegorical epic. While the course equips students with specific analytical and interpretative tools necessary for a historical understanding of literature, it is equally committed to revealing the aesthetic interest that medieval and early modern literature still holds for the modern reader.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 11A:
Introduction to English II: From Milton to the Romantics
Major moments in English literary history, from John Milton's Paradise Lost to John Keats's Hyperion. The trajectory involves a variety of literary forms, including Augustan satire, the illuminated poetry of William Blake's handcrafted books, the historical novel invented by Sir Walter Scott, the society novel of Jane Austen, and William Wordsworth's epic of psychological and artistic development. Literary texts will be studied in the context of important cultural influences, among them civil war, religious dissent, revolution, commercialization, colonialism, and industrialization.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 11B:
Introduction to English II: American Literature and Culture to 1855 (AMSTUD 150)
(Formerly English 23/123). 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: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 11Q:
Art in the Metropolis (ARTSINST 11Q, TAPS 11Q)
This seminar is offered in conjunction with the annual "Arts Immersion" trip to New York that takes place over the spring break and is organized by the Stanford Arts Institute (SAI). Participation in the trip is a requirement for taking part in the seminar (and vice versa). The trip is designed to provide a group of students with the opportunity to immerse themselves in the cultural life of New York City guided by faculty and the SAI programming director. Students will experience a broad range and variety of art forms (visual arts, theater, opera, dance, etc.) and will meet with prominent arts administrators and practitioners, some of whom are Stanford alumni. For further details and updates about the trip, see http://arts.stanford.edu.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 12A:
Introduction to English III: Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, AMSTUD 12A)
(Formerly English 43/143). In his bold study, What Was African American Literature?, Kenneth Warren defines African American literature as a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century response to the nation's Jim Crow segregated order. But in the aftermath of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, can critics still speak, coherently, of "African American literature"? And how does this political conception of African American literary production compare with accounts grounded in black language and culture? Taking up Warren's intervention, this course will explore African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals and slave narratives to texts composed at the height of desegregation and decolonization struggles at mid-century and beyond.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 12AX:
Locating the Self: The Poetics and Politics of Identity
What is identity? How do poets conceive of, articulate, and depict in their work the various identities they inhabit vis-à-vis class, race, nationhood, religion, gender and sexuality? This poetry workshop invites students to locate themselves within the sociopolitical framework of our day¿as artists, writers, and citizens¿and to consider the role that our personal and collective identities play in the creative work we generate. Course assignments will include close reading of poetry by a diverse range of poets and guided writing assignments.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
ENGLISH 12C:
Introduction to English III: Modern Literature
Survey of the major trends in literary history from 1850 to the present.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 13Q:
Imaginative Realms
This class looks at the tradition of the imagined universe in fiction and poetry. Special topics include magical realism, artificial intelligence, and dystopias. 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. For undergrads only.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 15Q:
Family Trees: The Intergenerational Novel
The vast majority of novels feature a central protagonist, or a cast of characters whose interactions play out over weeks or months. But some stories overflow our life spans, and cannot be truthfully told without the novelist reaching far back in time. In this Sophomore Seminar, we will consider three novels that seek to tell larger, more ambitious stories that span decades and continents. In the process, we will discuss how novelists build believable worlds, craft memorable characters, keep us engaged as readers, and manage such ambitious projects.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 16Q:
Family Stories
This creative writing workshop will explore the idea of family. We'll begin with our questions: How do we conceptualize the word family? How do family histories, stories, mythologies, and languages shape our narratives? What does family have to do with the construction of a self? How can we investigate the self and all of its many contexts in writing? We'll consider how we might work from our questions in order to craft work that is meaningful and revealing. Students will have the opportunity to write in both poetry and prose, as well as to develop their own creative cross-genre projects. Along the way, we'll discuss elements of craft essential to strong writing: how to turn the self into a speaker; how create the world of a piece through image, detail, and metaphor; how to craft beautiful sentences and lines; how to find a form; and many other topics.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 16SC:
Learning Theater: From Audience to Critic at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, an anonymous member of the audience waiting to be entertained, charmed, and challenged? But how many of us know enough about the details of the plays, their interpretation, their production, and acting itself, to allow us to appreciate fully the theatrical experience? In this seminar, we will spend 13 days in Ashland, Oregon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where we will attend these plays: Shakespeare's Macbeth, As You Like It, All's Well that Ends Well, and the bilingual adaptation by Lydia Garcia and Bill Rauch of La Comedia of Errors; the world premiere of Octavio Solis' Mother Road, based on characters from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath; the West Coast premiere of Christina Anderson's How to Catch Creation; Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus' Alice in Wonderland; the world premiere of The 1491's Between Two Knees; Paula Vogel's Indecent; Lauren Yee's Cambodian Rock Band, with music by Dengue Fever; and Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan's Hairspray, based on John Waters' 1988 film. (To read more about these productions, go to www.osfashland.org. We will also spend time backstage, meeting with actors, designers, and artistic and administrative directors of OSF. Students will read the plays before the seminar begins. In Ashland, they will produce staged readings and design a final paper based on one of the productions. These reviews will be delivered to the group and turned in on Thursday, September 19.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
ENGLISH 17Q:
Political Poetry
This workshop is devoted to reading and creating politically engaged poetry. Students will look closely at the intersection between activism, identity, and form, focusing on 20th and 21st century poets responding to their sociohistorical moment.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 20Q:
Making of the Modern Woman: Robots, Aliens, & the Feminine in Science Fiction (FEMGEN 20Q)
What does the genre of science fiction have to say about gender identity? How are women in science fiction represented by themselves and by others? Who are women? What is gender and how is it constructed and performed? What is the relationship between man and machine? Between woman and machine? How is gender represented through narratives of literal alien otherness? What does it mean to be a woman online or in gamer culture? Material will include feminist analysis of gender in popular science fiction literature and visual media from 19th through 21st centuries. Texts range from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Alex Garland¿s Ex Machina.nnThis course will be reading and writing intensive but should also offer opportunities for spirited discussion. We will be engaging with sensitive subjects such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Assignments include weekly short essays, discussion leadership, individual presentations, and a final research paper.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 41N:
Family Drama: American Plays about Families (AMSTUD 41N, TAPS 40N)
Focus on great dramas about family life (Albee, Kushner, Shephard, Vogel, Kron, Nottage, Parks). Communication in writing and speaking about conflict central to learning in this class.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 43A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (AMSTUD 143M, 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 48N:
The American Songbook and Love Poetry (AMSTUD 48N)
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 50:
HUMANITIES HOUSE WORKSHOP
For student-run workshops and research seminars in Ng House / Humanities House. Open to both residents and non-residents. May be repeated for credit. This course code covers several discrete workshops each quarter; sign up for a particular workshop via the Google Form at https://goo.gl/forms/TRU0AogJP3IHyUmr2.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
for credit
(up to 99 units total)
ENGLISH 50A:
Character Development: Writing a Script, Creating Engaging Characters
Seminar with Writer in Residence John Markus (BA English '78); meets for seven sessions over three weeks in February. Students will work one on one and in small groups with this professional writer and Stanford alum. John has written everything from stand-up to critically-acclaimed network and cable television shows to independent films to, most recently, theatrical plays. This seminar is designed for students who would like to produce a piece of work in three weeks and/or to pursue a writing profession.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
ENGLISH 50B:
A Humanist's Guide to Art, Community, Design, and the Earth
This short, intensive seminar features Humanities Scholar & Artist in Residence Clare Whistler (visiting from England April 15-30) will meet for dialogue, workshop, creation, and improvisation. This workshop will help students to think through methods of humanistic inquiry as ways of integrating meaning and purpose into their lives; it will focus on projects, research, collaborations, walking explorations, and relationships. This course will be of interest to students who would like to maintain humanistic values, make a decent living, find good mentors and collaborators, and create communities that are attentive to their constructed and natural environments. This year's course will center on personal assignments and will focus in particular on the theme of gardens.nnThe course will meet M/W 5-7 PM with optional Friday studio time. The first meeting is Monday, April 15.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 5 units total)
ENGLISH 60N:
Living on the Edge: Language and Landscape of the Western Fringes
What does it feel like to live on the edge, facing an expanse between you and the next place? Who has lived on the Western fringes of Britain and America? Who has named, formed, and been inspired by that land? Whose voices are silenced in the (re)making of a place? Shaping the landscape through the words we use or the features we build is as old as recorded time and, in this seminar, we'll investigate how the land is imagined, defined, settled, and delimited throughout history, with particular reference to western Britain and California. We'll focus on specific elements in the landscape Water, Hill, Tree, Stone, and Border looking at a sequence of locations through historical, archaeological, placename, literary, and artistic analyses. Students will produce place-name studies; the depictions of landscape through creative work (poetry, prose, non-fiction, song, or picture) on three fieldtrips; and close readings of literary descriptions of landscape. Among the authors study will be John Muir, John Steinbeck, Edward Thomas, Linda Noel, Dylan Thomas, and Gwyneth Lewis.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 68N:
Mark Twain and American Culture (AMSTUD 68N)
Preference to freshmen. Mark Twain defined the rhythms of our prose and the contours of our moral map. He recognized our extravagant promise and stunning failures, our comic foibles and tragic flaws. He is viewed as the most American of American authors--and as one of the most universal. How does his work illuminate his society's (and our society's) responses to such issues as race, gender, technology, heredity vs. environment, religion, education, art, imperialism, animal welfare, and what it means to be "American"?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 71:
Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ETHICSOC 36X, FRENCH 36, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, SLAVIC 36)
Ideas matter. Concepts such as race, progress, and equality have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like gender identity, universal basic income, and historical memory play an important role in contemporary debates in the United States. All of these ideas are contested, and they have a real power to change lives, for better and for worse. In this one-unit class we will examine these dangerous ideas. Each week, a faculty member from a different department in the humanities and arts will explore a concept that has shaped human experience across time and space. Some weeks will have short reading assignments, but you are not required to purchase any materials.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
ENGLISH 72N:
Serial Storytelling
"TV's Lost Weekends," a recent headline says, referring to the modern habit of binge-watching television shows. Such news stories debate the right way to watch TV. They also echo longstanding arguments about how to read books. This course juxtaposes contemporary television with classic serial novels in order to explore different ways of experiencing longform narratives. How do we read or watch when we're forced to wait before the next episode---or, conversely, given the opportunity to binge?
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: 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 80N:
Modern "Meanings of Life": Aestheticism, Perfectionism, Ecstasy
This course asks about the "meaning of life" in our time, the 21st century, and over the past 200 years. It proposes that some classic reasons for living, and modes of giving value to life, ethics, religion, family are no longer particularly active; while new, poorly articulated and ill-acknowledged systems of life-evaluation rule our senses of meaning. In particular, the course will discover, try to systematize, and then test a few of these covert modern life philosophies: aestheticism; perfectionism; ecstasy. Representatives of more classic systems of meaning Christian experience, and Aristotelian ethics will offer comparative cases. Students will be challenged to articulate and evaluate their own reasons for living and anticipated meanings of life, and to become skillful interpreters of both art and ideas in texts, learning methods from literature, philosophy, and history. They should also develop richer and more precise understandings of those contested terms, modern and modernity. Readings may include Wordsworth, Thoreau, Flaubert, Aristotle, Thomas à Kempis, Theresa of Avila, Whitman, Dickinson, Sontag, plus contemporary sources.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ENGLISH 81:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
What, if anything, does reading literature do for our lives? What can literature offer that other forms of writing cannot? Can fictions teach us anything? Can they make people more moral? Why do we take pleasure in tragic stories? This course introduces students to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. It addresses key questions about the value of literature, philosophical puzzles about the nature of fiction and literary language, and ways that philosophy and literature interact. Readings span literature, film, and philosophical theories of art. Authors may include Sophocles, Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Proust, Woolf, Walton, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Students master close reading techniques and philosophical analysis, and write papers combining the two. This is the required gateway course for the Philosophy and Literature major tracks. Majors should register in their home department.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 82N:
Thinking about Photographs
The course will begin with a short history of photography since the 19th century; followed by both a hands-on exploration of different types of photographs (possibly using the Cantor Collection) and then a more theoretical discussion of some of the acknowledged classics of photographic writing (Susan Sontag's On Photography, Roland Barthes' Camera lucida, Linfield's The Cruel Radiance.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: 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).nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
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);
Drangle, C. (PI);
Labowskie, M. (PI);
Porter, E. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Smith, A. (PI);
Tanaka, S. (PI);
Tomar, R. (PI);
Trahan, J. (PI)
ENGLISH 90M:
Queer Stories (FEMGEN 90M)
Like other 90 and 91-level courses, 90M will explore basic elements of fiction and nonfiction writing. Students will read a wide variety of stories and essays in order to develop a language for working through the themes, forms, and concerns of the queer prose canon. Students will complete and workshop a piece of writing that in some way draws upon the aesthetics or sensibilities of the work we have read, culled from exercises completed throughout the quarter. This final piece may be a short story, a personal essay, a chapter from a novel or memoir, or a piece that, in the spirit of queerness, blurs or interrogates standard demarcations of genre. The course is open to any and all students, regardless of how they define their gender or sexuality.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 90Q:
Sports Writing
Study and practice of the unique narratives, tropes, images and arguments that creative writers develop when they write about popular sport. From regional fandom to individualist adventuring, boxing and baseball to mascot dancing and table tennis, exceptional creative writers mine from a diversity of leisure activity a rich vein of ¿sports writing¿ in the creative nonfiction genre. In doing so, they demonstrate the creative and formal adaptability required to write with excellence about any subject matter, and under the circumstances of any subjectivity. Discussion of the ways in which writers have framed, and even critiqued, our interest in athletic events, spectatorship, and athletic beauty. Writers include Joyce Carol Oates, Roland Barthes, David James Duncan, Arnold Rampersad, John Updike, Maxine Kumin, Susan Sterling, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Dervla Murphy, Haruki Murakami, Don DeLillo, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Annie Dillard, John McPhee, and Laura Hillenbrand. Close readings of essays on form and sport, as well as book excerpts. Students will engage in class discussions and write short weekly papers, leading to a more comprehensive project at the end of the quarter.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
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 90W:
Writing and War
This introductory, five-unit course is designed for all students interested in reading the literature of and studying the expression of military conflict. Bridging the experiences of Veteran and non-Veteran students will be a central aim of the course and will be reflected in enrollment, reading materials, visiting guests and final narrative project.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 91:
Creative Nonfiction
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. May be repeated for credit. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
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);
Brewer, W. (PI);
Carlson-Wee, K. (PI);
Clark, H. (PI);
Drangle, C. (PI);
Evans, J. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Porter, E. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Ross, M. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Sharif, S. (PI);
Trahan, J. (PI)
ENGLISH 91A:
Asian American Autobiography/W (AMSTUD 91A, ASNAMST 91A, CSRE 91D)
This is a dual purpose class: a writing workshop in which you will generate autobiographical vignettes/essays as well as a reading seminar featuring prose from a wide range of contemporary Asian-American writers. Some of the many questions we will consider are: What exactly is Asian-American memoir? Are there salient subjects and tropes that define the literature? And in what ways do our writerly interactions both resistant and assimilative with a predominantly non-Asian context in turn recreate that context? We'll be working/experimenting with various modes of telling, including personal essay, the epistolary form, verse, and even fictional scenarios. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 91DC:
Writing the Memoir
Open to DCI Fellows and Partners only. In this course, we will practice the art and craft of writing memoir: works of prose inspired by the memory of personal events and history. In our practice, we will look at different strategies for writing with meaning and insight about the events in our lives. We will read a variety of models by published authors who have made sense of the personal alongside the profound: the sad, joyful, simple and complicated stuff of living and being alive. Our learning will be discussion-driven. You should expect to do daily writing in the class, and to write and read widely between our class meetings. We will read, discuss, and imitate excerpts of memoirs by such authors as Augustine, Andrew Solomon, Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O¿Brien, Joan Didion, and Eavan Boland, among many others. At least half of our class time will be devoted to the discussion of participants' work. The course will address issues ranging from how we select and write about events from our personal lives, to the ethical obligations of memoirists, to the ways we can explore new understanding about the past, as well as our own courage and reluctance to share personal writing. Writers at all levels of experience and comfort with creative writing are very welcome.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 91NW:
Nature Writing
In this course we will be reading some of the most beautiful, magical, vital, dangerous andrevolutionary essays and stories and poems ever written, and, in our own writing about nature, will be joining that lineage that includes writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, John Muir, Wendell Berry, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, and many others. Expect to spend lots of time immersed in nature, literally and literarily. Required materials include: pen, notebook, magnifying glass, binoculars, and a good pair of shoes.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 91V:
Creative Nonfiction
Online workshop course. 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: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 91VO:
Voices of the Land
Amazing things can happen when a writer decides to push back from their desk and go out into the world in search of stories to tell. The lives of the subjects, as well as the life of the writer, can be changed forever. In this class, we will read and discuss three classic works of documentary journalism, and students will come up with a documentary project of their own. In the process, we will practice skills such as interviewing subjects, notetaking, photography, story structure, and other techniques of documentary journalism.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
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.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 92AP:
Arab and Arab-American Poetry (CSRE 92D)
In this introductory course, students will write and read widely, exploring various aspects of poetic craft, including imagery, metaphor, line, stanza, music, rhythm, diction, and tone. The course will focus primarily on the rich and varied tradition of Arab and Arab-American poets, with a special emphasis on contemporary poets exploring the intersections of cultural identity, nationhood, race, gender, and sexuality. The first half of the course will consist of close reading a selection of poems, while the second half of the course will consist of workshopping student writing. Through peer critique, students respond closely to the work of fellow writers in a supportive workshop. Writers at all levels of experience and comfort with poetry are welcome.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 93Q:
The American Road Trip
From Whitman to Kerouac, Alec Soth to Georgia O'Keeffe, the lure of travel has inspired many American artists to pack up their bags and hit the open road. In this course we will be exploring the art and literature of the great American road trip. We will be reading and writing in a variety of genres, workshopping our own personal projects, and considering a wide breadth of narrative approaches. Assignments will range from reading Cormac McCarthy's novel, 'The Road,' to listening to Bob Dylan's album, 'Highway 61 Revisited.' We will be looking at films like 'Badlands' and 'Thelma and Louise,' acquainting ourselves with contemporary photographers, going on a number of campus-wide field trips, and finishing the quarter with an actual road trip down the California coast. Anyone with a sense of adventure is welcome!
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 94Q:
The Future is Feminine (FEMGEN 94Q)
Gender is one of the great social issues of our time. What does it mean to be female or feminine? How has femininity been defined, performed, punished, or celebrated? Writers are some of our most serious and eloquent investigators of these questions, and in this class we'll read many of our greatest writers on the subject of femininity, as embodied by both men and women, children and adults, protagonists and antagonists. From Virginia Woolf to Ernest Hemingway, from Beloved to Gone Girl (and even "RuPaul's Drag Race"), we'll ask how the feminine is rendered and contested. We'll do so in order to develop a history and a vocabulary of femininity so that we may, in this important time, write our own way in to the conversation. This is first and foremost a creative writing class, and our goals will be to consider in our own work the importance of the feminine across the entire spectrum of gender, sex, and identity. We will also study how we write about femininity, using other writers as models and inspiration. As we engage with these other writers, we will think broadly and bravely, and explore the expressive opportunities inherent in writing. We will explore our own creative practices through readings, prompted exercises, improv, games, collaboration, workshop, and revision, all with an eye toward writing the feminine future.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 104:
The Art of the Book: Renaissance to Modernism
W.B. Yeats once sought inspiration in "the foul rag and bone shop of the heart," a place where litter and scraps were recycled into the paper that held his poems. In this course, we will reconsider the literary text as a physical object, tracing how writers integrate its physical characteristics into their poetry and prose during eras of increasing mechanization. How do these texts ask us to ¿read¿ the printed page? When and why do we ignore it? How does literature engage our senses and call attention to itself? This course will include meetings in Stanford Special collections to examine original editions of our texts. Readings include works by William Shakespeare, Daniel Defoe, Laurence Sterne, William Blake, William Morris, W.B. Yeats, and Gertrude Stein.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 106:
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence in Fiction (AMSTUD 106A)
From self-driving cars to bots that alter democratic elections, artificial intelligence is growing increasingly powerful and prevalent in our everyday lives. Literature has long been speculating about the techno-utopia¿and catastrophe¿that A.I. could usher in. Indeed, literature itself presents us with a kind of A.I. in the many characters that speak and think in its pages. But how do we classify an intelligence as ¿artificial¿ or not? Is there a clear boundary that demarcates bodies from machines? What, if anything, separates the ¿genre¿ of technology from that of literature? What classifies literature as ¿science fiction,¿ ¿scientific,¿ ¿futuristic,¿ ¿psychological,¿ or ¿dystopian¿? And can technology or literature ever overcome the ultimate division between all intelligences¿the problem of other minds? This course consists in curated multi-genre combinations of literature, philosophy, film, and television that explore what makes someone¿or something¿a person in our world today. Special events will include celebrating the current bicentennial of Mary Shelley¿s Frankenstein (1818) in Stanford Special Collections; a possible visit to Stanford¿s A.I. Laboratory; and chatting with the ELIZA chatbot.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 108:
Disability Literature (HUMBIO 177)
This course explores literary and filmic narratives about disability in the Global South. Authors including Edwidge Danticat, Bapsi Sidhwa, and Ricardo Padilla highlight the unique aesthetic potential of what Michael Davidson calls the defamiliar body and Ato Quayson describes as aesthetic nervousness. While engaging universal issues of disability stigma, they also emphasize the specific geopolitics of disability how people in the Global South face greater rates of impairment based on unequal exposure to embodied risk. The course particularly welcomes students with interests in fields of medicine, policy, or public health.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 110:
The Indian Novel
When we imagine the exemplary global or postcolonial novel, we're likely to think of novels from India. But the current dominance of Indian Anglophone fiction was hardly the tryst with destiny it seems in retrospect. This course offers a perspective on the emergence of the Anglophone novel in India through a conversation with its linguistic and generic others works in the competing modes of short stories, poetry, and film. The course may include writings by Mulk Raj Anand, G.V. Desani, Anita Desai, and Arundhati Roy, as well as selections from the volume A History of the Indian Novel in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 114:
Thinking with Poems
William Carlos Williams wrote that ¿a poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words. This class will consider lyric poems as machines for thinking, taking up the question of poetry's relationship to abstract, propositional thought. We will ask what kinds of thoughts poems as opposed to other genres of written discourse allow us to think, and explore how poems embody thought through careful attention to the mechanics of lyric form. The class will be organized into five units devoted to themes that our poems will address: love, nature, things, society, and death. While discussion of these themes will range broadly with the aim of maximizing their relevance to each participant in the class, our analysis will be tied closely to the individual poems in front of us. We will read a diverse set of poets writing in English stretching from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, including poems by Thomas Wyatt, William Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Phillis Wheatley, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Claudia Rankine, and Jorie Graham, among others. This class should be of interest to all students and writers of poetry, as well as of special interest to those in the ¿literature and philosophy¿ track within the major.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 115:
Mapping the Grand Tour: Digital Methods for Historical Data (CLASSICS 115, HISTORY 238C, ITALIAN 115)
Classical Italy attracted thousands of travelers throughout the 1700s. Referring to their journey as the "Grand Tour," travelers pursued intellectual passions, promoted careers, and satisfied wanderlust, all while collecting antiquities to fill museums and estates back home. What can digital approaches tell us about who traveled, where and why? We will read travel accounts; experiment with parsing; and visualize historical data. Final projects to form credited contributions to the Grand Tour Project, a cutting-edge digital platform. No prior experience necessary.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 115C:
Hamlet and the Critics (ENGLISH 215C, TAPS 151C, TAPS 251C)
Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamlet as 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: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 115D:
Shakespeare, Language, Contexts
This course will consider a range of Shakespeare plays (and the language of the plays) in relation to different contemporary and post-contemporary contexts, including transvestite theater, gender, sexuality, history, geopolitics, travel, and performance.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 116:
Global English
Anglophone fiction confronts readers with a paradox: It uses English to describe situations where little English is spoken, and where other languages make their presence known in the form of borrowed words, translated phrases, and unfamiliar syntax. Combining global superstars like Salman Rushdie with lesser-known authors like Phaswane Mpe and Mayra Santos-Febres, the class looks at the globalization of English in three very different contexts: India, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 120C:
California: A Sense of Place
Description: "A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest," writes Joan Didion, "remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image." From the Gold Rush to Hollywood to Silicon Valley, Yosemite to the Salton Sea, encounter a series of writers and artists whose work is set in California, or participates in its imagining, and throughout consider how culture and a sense of place are closely related. How does a novel, photograph, or film conjure community or landscape? When we think of California, whose stories are included, and whose are left out? Possible texts: works by Mary Austin, Mike Davis, Rebecca Solnit, John Steinbeck, and Nathanael West; the films Sunset Boulevard,Clueless,and There Will Be Blood; and the art of Carlton Watkins, Dorothea Lange, Richard Misrach, Martín Ramírez, Wayne Thiebaud, and Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Visit New Almaden, a quicksilver mine in the 19thcentury, later Superfund Site, now a museum and popular trail.For the final paper, students research a place in California of their choice, or a Mission mural walk, or the Oakland Museum of California.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 121C:
Superheroes, Supercops: American Police Power
Description: America has an obsession with superheroes and a problem with police--the last decade has been dominated by both blockbuster superhero films and negotiations over police power. This course will take an intersectional, interdisciplinary, and critical look at models of police power as they appear in superhero/supercop texts, including film, thinkpieces, novels for young readers, and comics, as well as a look at the historic foundations of American policing and contemporary police theory. What do superheroes teach us about police? And what do police teach us about superheroes? How can we read cultural production around this topic in a useful way? What constitutes propaganda, and what constitutes useful debate?
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 122:
Medieval Manuscripts, Digital Methodologies (DLCL 122)
Medieval Studies is entering a phase of digital abundance. In the last seven years, more medieval material has been put online than has ever been available for study at any point in the past. How can we engage with the growing mass of digitized material available to us? How does this sudden access impact the work we do, the types of questions we ask, the connections we make, and the audiences we write for?nnIn this course, we will examine and evaluate digital medieval resources and software that has been created for interacting with those resources. Students will have the opportunity to design and create an innovative project based on medieval primary sources held at Stanford, applying current digital methods in the analysis and presentation of those resources.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 122C:
Medieval Fantasy Literature
Description: Trolls, ogres, elves, dwarves, dragons, draugar, wizards, witches, and fairies¿these creatures and characters, so familiar to modern readers, moviegoers, and gamers, have an ancient pedigree stretching back into the darkness of prehistoric Europe, and have enthralled human imagination for just as long. This course visits their first emergence into written literary record during the medieval period, from the earliest Dark Age mythological folklore of Britain and Scandinavia to the courtly and whimsical romance of the high and late middle ages. 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; our goal is to discover how these authors used the fantastic to moralize and theologize, to confront and explain alterity, and to thrill their readers. Finally we will turn to the modern era with J. R. R. Tolkien¿s The Fellowship of the Ring and Kazuo Ishiguro¿s The Buried Giant, reflecting on how professional and popular literary medievalism has cultivated the tropes of medieval fantasy to produce works which mediate between an imagined history, sublime fabrication, and contemporary concerns.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: 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
ENGLISH 125:
Virginia Woolf in the Age of #MeToo (FEMGEN 125V)
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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 126B:
The Nineteenth Century Novel
A set of major works of art produced at the peak of the novel's centrality as a cultural form: Austen's Emma, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Eliot's Middlemarch, Dickens's Great Expectations, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The paradoxes of work, consciousness and the organization of narrative experience, habit and attention. Urban experience, shifting forms of individualism, ways of knowing other persons. Binary and concentric structures, happiness and moral action, arrays of characters.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 131B:
American Travel Films, 1925-2013
For more than a century, cars and movies have occupied a romantic place in the American imagination, as vehicles that can take us someplace new and engines for our fantasies of mobility, freedom and personal expression. Perhaps this is one reason why the road movie is one of the most enduring subgenres of twentieth-century film. In this class, we'll watch and discuss ten celebrated American travel films, one for each decade starting from Buster Keaton's silent Go West (1925) and arriving at Alexander Payne's wry anti-road film Nebraska (2013). In between we'll travel by car, bus, motorcycle and even on foot across America and beyond, searching for answers to the motivating questions for this course: what is the attraction of the open road, and how is the romance of its call embraced and challenged by the multiple genres of these films, the concerns of the decades in which they were produced, and the limits they impose on the idea of unrestricted travel, individual growth and independence. A secondary goal of this class is to familiarize students with the language and concepts of film art and criticism. To that end, we'll pair our films with readings from Bordwell, Thompson and Smith's influential textbook Film Art: an Introduction. Students will therefore not only be immersed in the themes specific to this course, but will also learn how to analyze and speak about film as a medium.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 138:
Facts and Fictions: British Writing in the 1930s
In American politics where `alternative facts has entered the lexicon in a `post-truth attempt at media control, and in Britain where Brexit has reactivated a `little England model of insular nationalism, the concerns of British writers in the 1930s that `low dishonest decade as the poet W.H. Auden famously described it on nationalism, militarism, and the politics of language seem especially prescient now. Alert to nativism in a post-Depression era, and the losses of progressive ideals (unevenly) cultured during the 1920s, these writers explored the relationship and stakes between words and politics as they faced an increasingly fascistic continent. Writers include: George Orwell, Storm Jameson, Winifred Holtby, Vera Brittain, Naomi Michinson, Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and C.L.R. James.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 139B:
American Women Writers, 1850-1920 (AMSTUD 139B, FEMGEN 139B)
This course traces the ways in which female writers negotiated a series of literary, social, and intellectual movements, from abolitionism and sentimentalism in the nineteenth century to Progressivism and avant-garde modernism in the twentieth. Authors include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Rebecca Harding Davis, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 143A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (AMSTUD 143M, 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 146A:
Steinbeck (AMSTUD 146A)
Introduction to the work of an American writer, beloved by general readers, often reviled by critics, whose career spanned from the Great Depression through World War II to the social upheavals of the 1960s. Focus on the social and political contexts of Steinbeck's major works; his fascination with California and Mexico; his interdisciplinary interest in marine biology and in philosophy; his diverse experiments with literary form, including drama and film.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 146S:
Secret Lives of the Short Story
An exploration of the Short Story's evolution and variety of voices from its emergence in the 19th century to the present day. Weekly themes include the Detective Story, Immigration, Failure, Science Fiction, and Adolescence. We'll read a range of mostly American writers Edgar Allan Poe, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Grace Paley, Alice Sola Kim with an eye to uncovering the historical, cultural, and stylistic secrets of the Short Story, from both a literary criticism and a creative writing viewpoint.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
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 (AMSTUD 151F)
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 152G:
Harlem Renaissance
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: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 154E:
Twentieth-Century Irish Literature
Plays, poems, short stories, and novels. Writers include James Joyce, William Yeats, Mary Lavin, Kate O'Brien,William Trevor, Seamus Heaney, and Samuel Beckett. How the writer can sustain imaginative freedom and literary experiment in the face of a turbulent history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 154F:
Film & Philosophy (COMPLIT 154A, FRENCH 154, ITALIAN 154, PHIL 193C, PHIL 293C)
Issues of authenticity, morality, personal identity, and the value of truth explored through film; philosophical investigation of the filmic medium itself. Screenings to include Blade Runner (Scott), Do The Right Thing (Lee), The Seventh Seal (Bergman), Fight Club (Fincher), La Jetée (Marker), Memento (Nolan), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kaufman). Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 157H:
Creative Writing & Science: The Artful Interpreter (BIOHOPK 157H, BIOHOPK 257H)
What role does creativity play in the life of a scientist? How has science inspired great literature? How do you write accessibly and expressively about things like whales, DNA or cancer? This course begins with a field trip to Hopkins Marine Station, perched at the edge of the Pacific, where Stanford labs buzz with activity alongside barking seals and crashing waves. Here, in this spectacular setting, we learn to pay attention to our encounters with the natural world and translate sensory experience to the page. Students keep field journals to collect observations and cultivate a reflective practice. In-class writing experiments lead to original nonfiction combining personal narrative and scientific curiosity. Students workshop their projects, receiving supportive feedback from the group. You will develop a more patient and observant eye, improve your ability to articulate scientific concepts, and, hopefully, have a bit of fun along the way.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 158H:
Science Meets Literature on the Monterey Peninsula (BIOHOPK 158H, BIOHOPK 258H)
(Graduate students register for 258H.) This course will consider the remarkable nexus of scientific research and literature that developed on the Monterey Peninsula in the first half of the 20th century and how the two areas of creativity influenced each other. The period of focus begins with the 1932 association of John and Carol Steinbeck, Ed Ricketts, and Joseph Campbell, all of whom were highly influenced by the Carmel poet, Robinson Jeffers ¿ and ends with the novels Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954). An indisputable high-tide mark, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely of Travel and Research (1941) will be considered in detail. Weekend field trips will include intertidal exploration, a tour of the Jeffers Tor House in Carmel, and whale watching on Monterey Bay.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 160:
Poetry and Poetics
Introduction to the reading of poetry, with emphasis on how the sense of poems is shaped through diction, imagery, and technical elements of verse.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 161:
Narrative and Narrative Theory
An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? Focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 162W:
Writing Intensive Seminar in English (WISE)
In these highly regarded, small-group seminars, students explore unique topics in English language literature, reading select primary texts alongside exemplary critical works and/or other cultural artifacts, while also honing their research and writing skills through series of assignments that culminate in a substantial original research essay. Classes are capped at 8, allowing for individualized attention and rich feedback. Click Schedule below to see individual course titles (in Notes). For fuller details and descriptions, go to https://english.stanford.edu/writing-intensive-seminars-english-wise. Enrollment is by permission. 2018-2019 course topics include: neo-slave narratives; nineteenth-century novels; Renaissance drama; American conspiracy theories; James Joyce and modernism; Shakespeare adaptations; colonies of the gothic; and the Beats. English majors must take at least one WISE to fulfill WIM. Non-majors are welcome, space permitting.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
| 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: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ENGLISH 165:
Perspectives on American Identity (AMSTUD 160)
Required for American Studies majors. In this seminar we trace diverse and changing interpretations of American identity by exploring autobiographical, literary, and/or visual texts from the 18th through the 20th century in conversation with sociological, political, and historical accounts. *Fulfills Writing In the Major Requirement for American Studies Majors*
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
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: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 177:
Contemporary Novel in U.S. Perspective (AMSTUD 177)
This course investigates a selection of novels from 2001 to the present, either authored in the United States or strongly and meaningfully received here by critics and gatekeepers. In the absence of a fixed academic canon or acknowledged tradition of exemplary works, this course includes evaluation as one of its central enterprises. Students help to make arguments for which works matter and why. Students consider topics including the demotion of the novel to a minor art form, competition from the image, transformations of celebrity culture (in literature and outside it), relevance or irrelevance of the digital age, aftermaths of the modernist and postmodernist project, eccentricity and marginality, race and gender politics in putatively post-feminist, post-racial,and post-political vantage, and problems of meaning in rich societies oriented to risk, probability, economization, health, consumption, comfort, and recognition or representation (rather than action or event). Novels and short stories may be supplemented by philosophical and sociological visions of the contemporary.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 183E:
Self-Impersonation: Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir (COMPLIT 183)
Course will examine the intersecting genres of fiction, autobiography, and memoir. Topics will include the literary construction of selfhood and its constituent categories (gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.); the role of language in the development of the self; the relational nature of the self (vis-à-vis the family, "society," God); the cultural status of "individuality"; the concept of childhood; and the role of individual testimony in our understanding of family, religious and national history. In addition to short theoretical works, authors will include Knausgaard, Nabokov, Hoffman, Winterson, Said, Levi, Barthes, and Duras.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 184D:
Race, Gender, and Literary Digital Humanities (CSRE 184E)
This course will introduce students to the ways that the practices of literary text mining can help us to understand, study, and shape our understanding of identity. Each week, we will spend one class discussing critical works by theorists like Toni Morrison, and Linda Martín Alcoff and digital scholars like Roopika Risam and Ted Underwood; we will then spend the second class of the week learning and practicing digital methods in programs like Python and Gephi. Students do not need any programming knowledge to take this class.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-AQR
ENGLISH 184E:
Literary Text Mining
This course will train students in applied methods for computationally analyzing texts for humanities research. The skills students will gain will include basic programming for textual analysis, applied statistical evaluation of results and the ability to present these results within a formal research paper or presentation. Students in the course will also learn the prerequisite steps of such an analysis including corpus selection and cleaning, metadata collection, and selecting and creating an appropriate visualization for the results.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-AQR
ENGLISH 189D:
Literature and Science
How do novelists and scientists render visible the invisible? How do they think outside the accumulated meanings of their time? And how do they confront the risk of disenchantment that knowledge and explanation pose? This course centers on major literary works including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Topics include experimentation in science and in art, the use of fictions in science, how science and art train our perceptual capacities, imagination and responsibility, metaphor and metaphorical thinking, & objectivity and its alternatives.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 190:
Intermediate Fiction Writing
Intermediate course in the craft and art of fiction writing. Students read a diverse range of short stories and novel excerpts, complete writing exercises, and submit a short and longer story to be workshopped and revised. Prerequisite: 90 or 91. nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190D:
Dialogue Writing
Study how dialogue develops character, reveals information, moves plots forward, and creates tension. Use of short story, novels, graphic novels, and films. Students will write many short assignments, one dialogue scene, and one longer story or script (10-20pages). Prerequisite: 90.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 190E:
Novel Writing Intensive
The main requirement for this course is a 50,000 word novel. The course explores elements of novel writing including fictional structure, character creation, scene vs. summary, as well as description, narration, and dialogue. Students will read four to five short novels during the first half of the course and then participate in National Novel Writing Month, an international writing event. Students will additionally write synopses, outlines, character sketches, and search tirelessly for the novel¿s engine: its voice. Designed for any student who has always wanted to write a novel.
Terms: Aut
| 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. Prerequisite: 90.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
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, Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190M:
Intermediate Queer Stories
Intermediate Queer Stories is a workshop class open to any and all students, regardless of how they define their gender or sexuality. The goals of the class are to read widely in the canon of twentieth and twenty-first century queer prose literature, and to create work that draws on the styles, modes, and subjects of these writers. In the second half of the class, students will workshop a longer piece of their own writing that in some way draws upon the aesthetics or sensibilities of the writers we have read. This piece may be a short story, a personal essay, a chapter from a novel or memoir, or a piece that, in the spirit of queerness, blurs or interrogates standard demarcations of genre.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 190S:
Short Story Salon
Who better to discuss a book with than its author? In this course we will immerse ourselves in eight short story collections and meet with many of the authors of these collections to hear about their experience drafting, revising, and sending their books out into the world. We will read as writers for inspiration and craft and analyze the collections for structure, character development, dialogue, setting, language, and theme. We will pay particular attention to the range, arrangement, and architecture of the story collection as a whole. How does a collection become greater than the sum of its parts? How does an author manage so many stops and starts? We will write about, discuss, and present the collections we read, participate in Q&A with visiting authors, and complete weekly in-class writing exercises designed to inform and inspire our own writing.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 5 units total)
ENGLISH 190SW:
Screenwriting Intensive
The main requirement for this course is a full length film script. The course explores elements of screenwriting including beat structure, character creation, scene vs. montage, as well as description and dialogue. Students will read four to five screenplays during the first half of the course and then write a 90-page film script in the second half of the course. Students will additionally write synopses, treatments, character sketches, and beat sheets. Designed for any student who has always wanted to write a screenplay
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 5 units total)
ENGLISH 190W:
Contemporary Women Writers (FEMGEN 190W)
"Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version¿¿is this what sets contemporary women writers apart? How can we understand the relation between the radically unprecedented material such writers explore and ¿the official version¿? What do we find compelling in their challenging of structure, style, chronology, character? Our reading- and writing-intensive seminar will dig into the ways women writers confront, appropriate, subvert, or re-imagine convention, investigating, for example, current debate about the value of ¿dislikable¿ or ¿angry¿ women characters and their impact on readers. While pursuing such issues, you'll write a variety of both essayistic and fictional responses, each of which is designed to complicate and enlarge your creative and critical responsiveness and to spark ideas for your final project. By affirming risk-taking and originality throughout our quarter, seminar conversation will support gains in your close-reading practice and in articulating your views, including respectful dissent, in lively discourse¿in short, skills highly useful in a writer¿s existence. Our texts will come from various genres, including short stories, novels, essays, blog posts, reviews, memoir.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 190YA:
Young Adult Fiction
This is an intermediate course on the art and craft of fiction writing in the young adult genre. We will read widely in the genre. The aim of our reading will be to discover principles of craft, at the sentence level and at the narrative level, that generate powerful and enduring fiction. As we read, we will work to develop a writer's definition of YA. What are the differences between great YA and other great literature? What are the best ways to understand quality in a YA text? Within what bounds, stylistic, ethical, and otherwise, are we working as practitioners of the art form? Students will begin a young adult novel and submit pages from their work to the class on a regular basis. We will convene as a workshop to discuss one another's work.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 191:
Intermediate Creative Nonfiction
Continuation of ENGLISH 91. Reading a variety of creative essays, completing short writing exercises, and discussing narrative techniques in class. Students submit a short (2-5 page) and a longer (8-20 page) nonfictional work to be workshopped and revised. Prerequisite ENGLISH 90 or ENGLISH 91. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 191T:
Special Topics in Intermediate Creative Nonfiction
Workshop. Special Topics continuation of 91. Focus is on forms of the essay. Works from across time and nationality for their craft and technique; experimentation with writing exercises. Students read and respond to each other's longer nonfiction projects. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 91 or 90.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 191V:
Reading for Creative Non-Fiction Writers
Taught by the Stein Visiting Writer. Prerequisite English 90 or 91. Permission number required to enroll.nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 192:
Intermediate Poetry Writing
Students will examine a diverse range of contemporary poetry. Students write and revise several poems that will develop into a larger poetic project. Prerequisite: 92. NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
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. By application. Permission number required to enroll.
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 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: ;
Algee-Hewitt, M. (PI);
Antopol, M. (PI);
Boland, E. (PI);
Brewer, W. (PI);
Carlson-Wee, K. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Clark, H. (PI);
Drangle, C. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Evans, J. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Friedman, N. (PI);
Frisch, S. (PI);
Gluck, L. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greif, M. (PI);
Hutchins, S. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Kantor, R. (PI);
Kealey, T. (PI);
Labowskie, M. (PI);
Marra, A. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Perham, B. (PI);
Petersen, K. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Phillips, P. (PI);
Porter, E. (PI);
Pufahl, S. (PI);
Ross, M. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Schloesser Tarano, N. (PI);
Shanahan, C. (PI);
Sharif, S. (PI);
Shewmaker, M. (PI);
Smith, A. (PI);
Soileau, S. (PI);
Staveley, A. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Tanaka, S. (PI);
Tomar, R. (PI);
Trahan, J. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Walser, H. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI);
Ablaza, C. (GP)
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 in October.
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 204:
Digital Humanities Across Borders (COMPLIT 204A, DLCL 204)
English-language resources have dominated the discourse of digital humanities across the globe. This course takes a broader view, focusing on the methods, tools, and discourse of digital humanities as applied to textual materials in languages other than English. Students will develop practical skills in applying digital humanities research methodologies to texts in any language of their choosing. In addition, students will become familiar with major digital humanities scholarly organizations, movements, and debates that have their origins in different linguistic and cultural identities. No prior technical or digital humanities experience required, but students must have a reading knowledge of at least one non-English language (modern or historical).
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
ENGLISH 212:
Making and Interpreting Historical Records, 100-1600 (ENGLISH 312A, HISTORY 208E, HISTORY 308E)
Accessing the past through the cultural record provides us with the ability to read primary sources for ourselves; and determine the reasons behind, and resources given over to, the production of documents and manuscripts. This course will introduce students to the places and spaces that created literary and historical texts, the materials and skills involved, and the methods by which these artifacts were produced. In this course, students will be introduced to the essential skills of epigraphy, paleography, codicology and diplomatics, which involve learning how to read inscriptions, manuscripts, and single-leaf documents, like writs and charters. Students will be immersed in first-hand learning in Special Collections, and will work collaboratively on a project that brings to light thoroughly interpreted and edited early textual materials from archive to publication.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 215C:
Hamlet and the Critics (ENGLISH 115C, TAPS 151C, TAPS 251C)
Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamlet as 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: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 230:
Consent Culture and #MeToo
This seminar will examine narratives of sexual consent in light of the #MeToo movement in America. Considering shifting models and standards of consent in relation to changing cultural awareness about harassment, violence, and abuse, the class will study how consent is construed as a narrative, the history of consent culture on campus and in sex education, approaches to consent developed by minority sexual cultures, and intersectional approaches to consent, among other topics. Readings will be cross-disciplinary and will include legal theory, sociology, psychology, contemporary journalism, essays, and fiction.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 251:
Paradise Lost for Beginners
A reading class for those studying Paradise Lost in its entirety for the first time. A close reading of this very long poem, plus study of pertinent Miltonic prose, as well as historical background and classic interpretive essays.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 280:
Eighteenth-Century British Literature
The course will survey some of the major texts and authors of eighteenth-century British literature. No previous knowledge of the period is required. Particular topics we will address will include: the social and historical backgrounds of eighteenth-century literature, satire and the rise of the novel, the relationship between "elite" art and popular culture, literature and the visual arts (Hogarth), the rise of new critical approaches to works of the period.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 290:
Advanced Fiction Writing
Workshop critique of original short stories or novel. Prerequisites: manuscript, consent of instructor, and 190-level fiction workshop. nNOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 292:
Advanced Poetry Writing
Focus is on generation and discussion of student poems, and seeking published models for the work.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 293:
Literary Translation (DLCL 293)
An overview of translation theories and practices over time. The aesthetic, ethical, and political questions raised by the act and art of translation and how these pertain to the translator's tasks. Discussion of particular translation challenges and the decision processes taken to address these issues. Coursework includes assigned theoretical readings, comparative translations, and the undertaking of an individual translation project.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
ENGLISH 303D:
Thinking in Fiction (COMPLIT 303D)
Is there a boundary between fact and fiction? Is fiction a stable category at all? Should we be thinking instead about description, factual reference, the place of history, and the methods of science? This course will examine the ways in which fictions figure in the workings of the human mind and human institutions, as well as in literature. Readings will include work by philosophers and critics stretching from Locke, Hume, and Adam Smith, to twentieth-century figures such as Vaihinger (the philosophy of "as if"), to "possible worlds" theory. Bruno Latour, Marie-Laure Ryan, and Ann Banfield will be joined by Catherine Gallagher and narratologists. In reaching back to the eighteenth century, we also can have in mind important essays or prefaces by such writers as Horace Walpole, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and Anne Radcliffe. Novels, of course, raise large questions about fictionality. Works for study include: The Female Quixote, The Castle of Otranto, Tristram Shandy, and Sense and Sensibility.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 306:
Theorizing Hybridity: Whiteness
"Whiteness" has been a sign of the universal, the unmarked, the taken-for-granted, the default; it indexes privilege, divinity, beauty, cultural superiority, moral authority, and oppressive domination. As the folk saying went: "white is right." This interdisciplinary course takes up case studies in literature, art, photography, film and performance that both revisit and go beyond the whiteness studies of the 1990s to consider its vast, elastic utility within the modern imagination as well as its urgent contemporary relevance to ask: "why white now?"
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 308:
The Civilizing Process
This course considers historical changes in daily life, as practices and everyday ethics as well as ideas and rhetoric, to conceptualize the large-scale meanings of modernity and modernization, from roughly 1600 to the present. Beginning with a series of major thinkers from the mid-20th century Norbert Elias, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu we will assess the compatibility of their accounts of modern changes to domains they call, variously, habitus,interdependence,power,action,work,labor, and life. The first half of the quarter will be devoted to these theories. The second half will consider recent work in literary history, social and cultural history, gender and sexual theory, which has attempted to demarcate and explain a number of revolutions in human practices located in different historical moments and phases of the ongoing modernizing process: an affective revolution,humanitarian revolution,rights revolution, sex-gender and sexual revolutions, towards revolutions, too, of practices concerning nonhuman entities and statistical or aggregated visions of humanity. Though oriented to literary-historical knowledge, reading will be heavily historical and social-scientific; students are expected to absorb and respect the disciplinary and methodological canons of various disciplines, and graduate students from outside literature will welcomed.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 312:
Native Intelligence
This course will help students build a template for rigorous interdisciplinary writing. It uses a series of case studies to reveal the disparate ways in which literary study and its social-scientific ¿others¿ have approached the problems of narrative and representation. In doing so, the course engages enduring theoretical questions about the nature of communication and the risks of encounters that cross divides of culture, class, and language. Students will use insights from class to develop a narrative project of their own, which may take the form of traditional seminar paper or a grant proposal to support further research.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 312A:
Making and Interpreting Historical Records, 100-1600 (ENGLISH 212, HISTORY 208E, HISTORY 308E)
Accessing the past through the cultural record provides us with the ability to read primary sources for ourselves; and determine the reasons behind, and resources given over to, the production of documents and manuscripts. This course will introduce students to the places and spaces that created literary and historical texts, the materials and skills involved, and the methods by which these artifacts were produced. In this course, students will be introduced to the essential skills of epigraphy, paleography, codicology and diplomatics, which involve learning how to read inscriptions, manuscripts, and single-leaf documents, like writs and charters. Students will be immersed in first-hand learning in Special Collections, and will work collaboratively on a project that brings to light thoroughly interpreted and edited early textual materials from archive to publication.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 313:
Performance and Performativity (FEMGEN 313, TAPS 313)
Performance theory through topics including: affect/trauma, embodiment, empathy, theatricality/performativity, specularity/visibility, liveness/disappearance, belonging/abjection, and utopias and dystopias. Readings from Schechner, Phelan, Austin, Butler, Conquergood, Roach, Schneider, Silverman, Caruth, Fanon, Moten, Anzaldúa, Agamben, Freud, and Lacan. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
for credit
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 316:
American Story Cycles
A survey of American literature told through the history of an important, complex, and neglected genre, the short story cycle, ranging from Washington Irving¿s Tales of a Traveller (1824) to William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses (1942). Other authors include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt, Gertrude Stein, and Sherwood Anderson. The course will introduce students to the patterns of American literary development, its social and cultural contexts, and the major critical/theoretical lenses through which it has been understood. In particular, we will consider the unique formal qualities of the story cycle its liminal status between novel and story collection, its vacillation between unity and multiplicity, connection and disconnection in relation to broader American questions of identity and community.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 318:
Pitching and Publishing in Popular Media (DLCL 312)
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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
ENGLISH 321:
Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Poetics
The course elucidates sixteenth-century English poetry in a continental context. While narrative and discursive poetry will be explored, the emphasis is on lyric poetry, and the continuous focus is on generic experimentation from several distinctive standpoints: e.g. Petrarchism; the plain style; psalters, religious lyrics, and contrafacta; lyric sequences and other fictions of scale; and socially (but not necessarily poetically) marginal voices. Even where the course broaches conventional material, there will be an effort to redefine the questions that animate the field.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
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 333:
Philosophy, Literature, and the Arts Core Seminar (DLCL 333, MUSIC 332, PHIL 333)
This course serves as the Core Seminar for the PhD Minor in Philosophy, Literature, and the Arts. It introduces students to a wide range of topics at the intersection of philosophy with literary and arts criticism. The seminar is intended for graduate students. It is suitable for theoretically ambitious students of literature and the arts, philosophers with interests in value theory, aesthetics, and topics in language and mind, and other students with strong interest in the psychological importance of engagement with the arts. May be repeated for credit. In this year¿s installment, we focus on how artistic kinds or genres help set the terms on which individual works are experienced, understood, and valued, with special attention to lyric poetry and music.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 20 units total)
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 345G:
Modeling the Post45 Literary Field: Forms, Frames, Contexts, Themes
Exploration of various post45 literary phenomena with special attention to broader conceptual models in and by which they might be interpreted.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 350:
Law and Literature
After its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, many wondered whether the law and literature movement would retain vitality. Within the last decade there has, however, been an explosion of energy in the field, which has expanded beyond the boundaries of the literary text narrowly conceived and incorporated a range of other genres and humanistic approaches. Several recent or forthcoming books survey the range of emerging scholarship and the potential for new directions within the field. Using one of these--New Directions in Law and Literature (Oxford, 2017)--as a guide, this course will delve into a variety of topics that law and literature approaches can illuminate. These include, among others, conceptions of sovereignty and non-sovereign collectivities, the construction of the citizen and refugee, competing visions of marriage and its alternatives, law and the rhetorical tradition, and theoretical perspectives on intellectual property. Nearly every session will pair recent scholarship in the field with a literary or artistic work, ranging from Claudia Rankine's Citizen to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Students taking the course for R credit can take the course for either 3 or 4 units, depending on the paper length. This class is limited to 22 students, with an effort made to have students from SLS (16 students will be selected by lottery) and six non-law students by consent of instructor. Elements used in grading: Attendance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. Cross-listed with the Law School (LAW 3517).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
ENGLISH 356T:
Intro to Psychoanalysis as a Critical Method (TAPS 356T)
Primary reading in Freud, Lacan, Laplanche, Irigaray and Kristeva. Secondary readings in film theory (Mulvey to Silverman), art history (Bryson, Bersani) and poststructuralism (Derrida, Foucault, Butler).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 365F:
American Renaissance Literature: The Invention of the American Author
Investigation of the problematic production of an American national literature in the antebellum period. Readings include generically diverse range of texts in which the particular requirements of an ¿American¿ authorship are specifically at issue. Focus upon various theories and problems of authorship as they appear explicitly or implicitly in the fiction, poetry, correspondence, and criticism of the period. These issues include the impact of the democratic-revolutionary legacy upon the development of American literary form; the rise of a literary cultural elite and its importance to the formation of an American public sphere; elite anxieties concerning the marginal status of United States literature in relation to European culture; the consequent marginalization of ¿Americanness¿ as that which resists cultural development; the literary appropriation of ¿commonness¿ as central to the representation of national character; theories of ¿the popular voice¿ and the textual emergence of voices resistant to such theories.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 371:
Drama and Aesthetics, Shakepeare to Schiller
Major examples of Shakespearean, Neo-classical, bourgeois, Idealist, and Romantic drama from 1600 to 1800 studied in tandem with the aesthetic and dramatic theories that underwrite them. Dramatists include Shakespeare, Addison, Lillo, Home, Schiller, and Joanna Baillie. Theorists include Dryden, Addison, Lessing, Diderot, Hume, Adam Smith, Schiller, and Baillie.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
ENGLISH 381B:
Theories of Race and Ethnicity
This interdisciplinary and reading-intensive course has been designed to familiarize you with the key scholars, as well as the most recent developments, in theorizations of race and ethnicity in literary and cultural studies, performance studies, visual studies, and philosophy. As we work our way through this diverse set of readings, particular attention will be paid to how the various approaches illuminate key issues under current debate: subjectivity, identity, biological difference, racial representation, affect, and political activism.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 389:
What was (is?) Modernism?
An introduction to modernism, focusing on the novel. Modernist studies has been eager to explore various axes of expansion, geographic (beyond Europe), temporal (beyond the early twentieth century), and cultural (across the divide between "high" and "low" realms of culture). The class will focus both on familiar modernist such as James, Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner; we'll also look at case studies of potential forms of expansion (temporal: James Baldwin; geographic: Mulk Raj Anand; and others); secondary sources will focus on recent developments that stretch the boundaries of the field of modernist studies.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
ENGLISH 390:
Graduate Fiction Workshop
For Stegner fellows in the writing program. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 392:
Graduate Poetry Workshop
For Stegner fellows in the writing program. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
for credit
ENGLISH 394:
Independent Study
Preparation for first-year Ph.D. qualifying examination and third year Ph.D. oral exam.
Terms: Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Algee-Hewitt, M. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Hoxby, B. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Ngai, S. (PI);
Orgel, S. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Treharne, E. (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. Prerequisite for teaching required for 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 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);
Bronstein, M. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Cohen, M. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greif, M. (PI);
Hoxby, B. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Kantor, R. (PI);
Lupic, I. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Ngai, S. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Phillips, P. (PI);
Rasberry, V. (PI);
Richardson, J. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Staveley, A. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 398Q:
Qualifying Exam Workshop
Qualifying Exam Workshop for 1st year cohort
Terms: Sum
| Units: 10
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: ;
Algee-Hewitt, M. (PI);
Bender, J. (PI);
Bronstein, M. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Cohen, M. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Hoxby, B. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Lupic, I. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Rasberry, V. (PI);
Richardson, J. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Treharne, E. (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: ;
Algee-Hewitt, M. (PI);
Bender, J. (PI);
Bronstein, M. (PI);
Castle, T. (PI);
Cohen, M. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fields, K. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Gigante, D. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greif, M. (PI);
Hoxby, B. (PI);
Jarvis, C. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Johnson, A. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Lupic, I. (PI);
McGurl, M. (PI);
Moya, P. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Rasberry, V. (PI);
Richardson, J. (PI);
Ruttenburg, N. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Staveley, A. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Treharne, E. (PI);
Vermeule, B. (PI);
Woloch, A. (PI)
