printer friendly pageENGLISH 107B: Literature of the English Revolution
At the beginning of the seventeenth century it was possible for English monarchs to invoke a divine right to rule. Within decades, the churn of petitions, printed pamphlets, and newsbooks would overturn bedrock assumptions of sociopolitical continuity, reconstituting the body politic. In addition to reading through the textual agitation that is popular politics, we will likely consider movements of radical democracy and egalitarianism (the Levellers, Diggers) alongside works of lyric poetry (Herrick, Marvell) and political philosophy (Filmer, Locke).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Yu, E. (PI)
ENGLISH 110A: Books to Bollywood
This course will investigate filmic adaptations of Anglophone literary texts in India. We will study popular films as well as Indian art cinema, alongside their novelistic inspirations, which range from seventeenthÂcentury texts to twentyÂfirst century ones. The course's multimedia approach will require students to interpret novels and films in relation to and in dialogue with one another, analyzing not only the pair of texts but the process of adaptation itself. Doing so will raise cultural questions around globalization, universalism and feminism, as well as generic questions regarding the limitations and strengths of different media to represent different kinds of stories. We will situate all these questions within a larger discussion of the relationship of medium to modernity in India. Students will also gain the terminology and the analytic framework needed to write cogently about the two different media, both on their own and in relation to one another.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Kantor, R. (PI)
;
Thong, C. (TA)
ENGLISH 112B: African Literature: From Chinua Achebe to Afrofuturism (AFRICAAM 112B)
This course will be an exploration of the major writers and diverse literary traditions of the African continent. We will examine various elements (genre, form, orality, etc.) across a variety of political, social, and literary categories (colonial/postcolonial, modernism/postmodernism, gender, class, literary history, religion, etc.). We will also address issues such as African literature and its relationship to world literature and the question of language and of translation. Writers to be discussed will include Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Kamel Daoud, Tayeb Salih, and NoViolet Bulawayo, among others.nThe class will be structured around the close-reading of passages from individual texts with an attempt to relate the details derived from the reading process to larger areas of significance within the field. Students should make sure to bring their texts to class with them and must be prepared to contribute to class discussions.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Quayson, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 114C: "Books Promiscuously Read": Varieties of Renaissance Experience
What is the point of reading? In this course we will begin by exploring the ways in which writers from Antiquity through the Renaissance attempted to answer that crucial question. Keeping in mind that to read a writer is to read a reader, we will examine central topics of the Renaissance (such as rhetoric, statecraft, religion, gender) while thinking about how modes of reading inform the craft of writing. Texts will range from the established classics to the often neglected, so the course will benefit students with all levels of familiarity with the period. Authors may include Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, St. Augustine, Petrarch, Erasmus, Machiavelli, Udall, Sidney, Shakespeare, Whitney, Lanyer, and Milton.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 115: Virtual Italy (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 computational 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 programming experience necessary.
Terms: Win, Sum
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Ceserani, G. (PI)
;
Lamar, A. (TA)
ENGLISH 115C: Hamlet and the Critics (TAPS 151C)
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: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Lupic, I. (PI)
ENGLISH 115F: Tragedy: Forms and Conflicts (TAPS 115F)
This course introduces students to central questions of tragedy. Why do we find tragic spectacle so compelling, even pleasurable? What role does conflict play in individual selfhood and social formation? And why does tragedy elicit such strong theoretical and philosophical responses? At the same time, the course provides an introduction to literary history through the study of genre. What might connect modern tragedy to ancient Greek drama? How are genres transformed through reading, commentary, and adaptation? The course will be based on close reading and discussion of authors including Sophocles, Seneca, Shakespeare, Calderon, Milton, and Buchner.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 118A: Illness in Literature
This class provides an overview of illness narratives in fiction from the 19th century to the present. We will examine how authors use language, plot, and structure to portray illness and even recreate its sensations within the reader. We will also study how domestic arrangements, art, medicine and technology mediate the experience of disease. Our discussion of fiction will be buttressed by theoretical texts about the function (and breakdown) of language when deployed to describe physical and mental suffering. Finally, we will consider the ethics of writing about illness. What does it mean to find beauty in descriptions of pain? What role can literature play in building empathy for experiences we have not (yet) experienced ourselves?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Houghteling, S. (PI)
ENGLISH 122C: Medieval Fantasy Literature
This is a comparative medieval literature course that surveys Anglo-Norman and English romance, English and Norse heroic epic, and Norse and Celtic mythology. What significance and meaning did medieval writers from different times and places see in magic and monsters; what superstitions and beliefs converged in their efforts to represent things ¿from the other side,¿ and what compelled them to do so? We will address such questions by reading the literature against the social, cultural, and religious contexts that shaped medieval life and artistic production. Finally we will turn to the modern era with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring and Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant, reflecting on how literary medievalism has cultivated the tropes of medieval fantasy to produce works which mediate between an imagined history, sublime fabrication, and contemporary concerns.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Ashton, M. (PI)
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:EC-AmerCul, GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Burbank, S. (PI)
;
Cain, B. (PI)
;
Fishkin, S. (PI)
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more instructors for ENGLISH 124 »
Instructors:
Burbank, S. (PI)
;
Cain, B. (PI)
;
Fishkin, S. (PI)
;
Freyberg, D. (PI)
;
Kennedy, D. (PI)
;
Hammann, A. (TA)
;
Krass, M. (TA)
;
Oberholzer, J. (TA)
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