printer friendly pageENGLISH 261E: Black Mirror: Representations of Race & Gender in AI (AFRICAAM 261E, ENGLISH 152E)
tba
Last offered: Spring 2023
ENGLISH 269B: Becoming Modern: American Literature 1880-1920 (AMSTUD 269B)
Looking at the generation before the 'Lost Generation,' this course explores a period in which 'modernistic' techniques and representations were unfolding from the jangling dissonances, the jarring juxtapositions, and the tumbling orthodoxies that accompanied the tectonic technological and social shifts around the turn of the century. Topics and contexts include: immigration, urbanization, race, the 'New Woman,' cultural developments (vaudeville, cinema, ragtime and the blues), and contemporaneous theories of consciousness and sexuality.
Last offered: Spring 2023
ENGLISH 274: Comedy and Social Critique
Comedy has been used to shine a no-holds-barred light on everything from the rise of fascism to the inanities of fashion. Over the decades, it has generated a number of questions. Some of these are ethical. What can we legitimately find funny or make fun of? Are there things we shouldn't laugh at? Can and should comedy be delimited or censored? When does comedy become abuse? When does it become hate speech? Some of the questions we will consider are more general: does comedy change through history? Is it culturally specific? Is it gender-specific? Is there a point at which these specifities give way to the possibility of a form of humor common to us all and the role laughter plays across human cultures. Finally, we will explore the expressive forms of comedy, including parody, satire, slapstick, tragi-comedy, the comics, stand-up, and physical comedy which raises the question of whether comedy can be said to reside in the body. Graduate and undergraduate students welcome.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
ENGLISH 279: Traveling Through Eternity: The Illuminated World of William Blake
tba
Last offered: Winter 2023
ENGLISH 283: The Sublime and the Ugly
Why is it that the aesthetic pleasures resulting from artistic representation so often depart from the "pure" ideal of beauty? Is tainted beauty more, or less, than beautiful? Is there any such thing as a "pure" aesthetic category, after all, or is all experience in relation to the arts hybrid? Pain may enhance pleasure in the case of the sublime, but where does disgust fit in? or does it? And what about ugliness? Campiness? Grotesqueness? The uncanny? This course is designed to put literary, psychoanalytic, sociological, architectural, post structural, and queer theory as well as philosophical and art historical writings in conversation with poetry, narrative fiction, creative nonfiction, and film, in order to develop a critical skill set designed not only to address such questions but, more critically for an active mind, to posit new ones.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Gigante, D. (PI)
ENGLISH 283E: Self-Impersonation: Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir
Memoirists, autobiographers and novelists are commonly advised or advise others to 'write what you know.' But how do you know what you know? And what, when it comes down to it, are 'you' once you are put on the page, a human document? This course will examine the intersecting genres of fiction, autobiography, and memoir. Topics will include the literary construction of selfhood and its constituent categories; 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"; conceptions of childhood; race, sexuality and selfhood; and the role of individual testimony in our understanding of family, religious and cultural identity.
Last offered: Winter 2023
ENGLISH 287: Moving the Message: Reading and embodying the works of bell hooks (AFRICAST 202, CSRE 202, DANCE 122, FEMGEN 201)
In this course, we will spend time reading, discussing and embodying the work of Black feminist theorist and teacher bell hooks. hook's work focuses on practices rooted in Black feminism, the role of love in revolutionary politics, rescuing ourselves and each other from hegemonic forces, and building the components necessary for a life of liberatory politics. Through a process grounded in movement improvisation, creative writing and expression we will explore how the words and theories of bell hooks can literally move us towards freedom and self recovery. This course is presented by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts, IDA.
Last offered: Spring 2023
ENGLISH 290: Advanced Fiction Writing
Workshop critique of original short stories or novel. Prerequisite: Intermediate prose workshop.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
Instructors:
Johnson, A. (PI)
;
Quade, K. (PI)
ENGLISH 291: Advanced Creative Nonfiction
English 291 takes as its occasion for your creative and critical development an examination of essays and book excerpts in various creative nonfiction subgenres. These essays and excerpts work within traditional and innovative forms to find new and exciting ways to represent personal experience. This course also serves as the continuing examination and practice of creative nonfiction in
English 191. You will write, workshop, present to the class, and revise drafts of work. All workshops will serve as the springboard for larger class conversations about theme and craft. A variety of creative prompts, critical exercises, and assigned readings will foster your understanding and appreciation of creative nonfiction, as well as your growth as a creative writer. All prompts will move you toward a culminating project of realizing either an essay to submit for possible publication or a draft book-length synopsis and outline. This course is designed for students who have completed
English 191. Students who have completed creative nonfiction writing course elsewhere or who have extensive other writing workshop experience may petition the instructor for enrollment. Energetic, committed participation is a must.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
Instructors:
Frisch, S. (PI)
ENGLISH 291DC: DCI Advanced Memoir Workshop
Open to DCI Fellows and Partners only. DCI Advanced Memoir will take as its occasion for your creative and critical development an examination of essays and book excerpts in groundbreaking and traditional memoir forms. These texts broadly innovate within and outside of the formal traditions you studied in DCI Memoir and DCI Intermediate Memoir, finding new and exciting ways to represent personal experience. This section will also serve as the continuing examination and practice of those formal elements. You will write, workshop, present to the class, and revise at least two short essays, one long essay, and working drafts of excerpts from those essays. All workshops will serve as the springboard for our larger class conversation about theme and craft. During the quarter, we will meet in individual conferences. Throughout the quarter, creative work will be assigned in the form of essays, imitations, and revisions. Critical work will be assigned in the form of written analysis, a reading
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Open to DCI Fellows and Partners only. DCI Advanced Memoir will take as its occasion for your creative and critical development an examination of essays and book excerpts in groundbreaking and traditional memoir forms. These texts broadly innovate within and outside of the formal traditions you studied in DCI Memoir and DCI Intermediate Memoir, finding new and exciting ways to represent personal experience. This section will also serve as the continuing examination and practice of those formal elements. You will write, workshop, present to the class, and revise at least two short essays, one long essay, and working drafts of excerpts from those essays. All workshops will serve as the springboard for our larger class conversation about theme and craft. During the quarter, we will meet in individual conferences. Throughout the quarter, creative work will be assigned in the form of essays, imitations, and revisions. Critical work will be assigned in the form of written analysis, a reading response, starting a class discussion, and writing and discussing critiques of your colleagues' essays. A variety of creative prompts, critical exercises, and assigned readings will foster your understanding and appreciation of creative nonfiction, as well as your growth as a creative writer. Energetic, committed participation is a must.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Evans, J. (PI)
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