241 - 250 of 276 results for: ENGLISH

This course reads through the poetry and prose of a writer whose whole course of life was given, as one critic puts it, to "pursuing practical ways of restoring paradise." Non-specialists are welcome; Milton arguably represents the single best figure from the English literary past with whom to think about the problem of poetry as a vocation. Depending on participant interest, a portion of this seminar may be set aside for joint preparation towards the departments comprehensive exam.

This course will look at classic writings on cultures and subcultures, publics and counterpublics/"intimate publics," highbrow and lowbrow, both to map some basics about representations and corresponding cultural identities -- and to begin a practical project of inviting graduate students to research and write about contemporary subcultures after the transition to the internet.

Exploration of various post45 literary phenomena with special attention to broader conceptual models in and by which they might be interpreted.

What are we to make of the fact that individual literary texts always come to us as instances of larger generic forms? Why have some texts been thought more "generic" than others? Reading some key texts in the history of genre theory, this class will ponder these questions with specific reference to the modern novel.

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).

(Same as LAW 7014.) The guiding question of this course will be how we should think about the role of the U.S. Constitution in American law and American life. In considering this issue, we will address debates about constitutional interpretation (including both originalism and living constitutionalism), the nature and features of constitutional change within the American context, the role of federalism and the separation of powers in the constitutional scheme, and the nature of American constitutionalism as opposed to English and continental European models. We will tackle these debates in the context of some specific contemporary controversies about the Constitution, including: How do the civil rights movement and other social movements impact our understanding of the Constitution?; Does the Constitution reject a European-style inquisitorial process in favor of an Anglo-American vision of due process?; How important is consensus within the Supreme Court to establishing the legitimacy of constitutional meanings?; Why do we have nine Supreme Court justices, and; What is the Constitution, and how much does it include outside of the written document? Throughout we will be contemplating the extent to which our interpretation of the constitution depends on our vision of American democracy and the good society.

Why are the thoughts, feelings, and actions of English poets a millennium ago still so important in modern and contemporary poetry? Early English literature has long had an extraordinary influence on later writers from John Milton to Elizabeth Elstob, William Morris, W. H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Evan Boland, Denise Levertov, Jorge Luis Borges, and Maria Dahvana Headley. This course will ask what is so special about these creative connections across time. We'll closely examine English lyrical, devotional, heroic, and fantastic poetry from the tenth to the twelfth centuries to consider the themes, ideas, and emotion that motivated later poets to adopt, adapt, and echo their age-old predecessors. Students will learn?through hard work?how to translate and evaluate Early English (getting an excellent knowledge of English grammar, lexis, and form into the bargain) in order to produce their own inventive poetry in the vein of inspired Old English shapers of verse.

The course considers representative works by ten poets from the Renaissance to the present. Each set of poems is framed by a problem in poetics discussed in recent theory, such as artifice and sound, the making of voice, the meaning of lyric, and the nature of historicist and biographical interpretation. Conversation in the seminar will move from particular poems to general problems and back again, according to the priorities of the members.

How can an intellectual fight forces far larger than a single individual? How can solidarity be an antidote to racism? Why is there no distinction between the local and the global? What is the scholar's role in an alienating political climate? Why are criticism and humanism necessary partners? The author of Orientalism and world-changing frameworks such as Travelling Theory, Permission To Narrate, and Contrapuntal Reading, as well as remarkable texts, such as On Late Style and Representations of the Intellectual, teaches us how criticism can blunt instruments of empire. In this course, students observe the journey of one scholar as he writes between worlds against imperialist supremacy and colonial logic. They'll move from Exile to Indigeneity, Silence to Music, Centers to Margins, Victimhood to Dignity, West to East, Peace to Terror, Theory to Practice, Politics to Knowledge, Religiosity to Secularism, Statehood to Fragmentation, and back.