31 - 40 of 276 results for: ENGLISH

Handwriting has a long history and significance. Think about Toni Morrison's diaries; a note by Einstein; a Laozi manuscript from the second century; Elizabeth I's poems; hieroglyphic laws; an electronic signature; a postcard from a friend. This course will investigate the history of handwriting, focusing on the importance of the technology and its digital aspects. We shall consider the training and physical efforts of scribes, and the transmission of knowledge, including that of traditionally oral cultures. We'll look at the development of western scripts, gain insight about materials and tools (from animal skin to reed pens) and learn calligraphy from an expert modern scribe, the better to understand the skill and aesthetic of this most everyday of technologies that, I shall argue, will outlive all others

English majors must take class for 5 units. 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.

In this course we'll explore the uncanny world--at once strange and strangely familiar - of early American literature and culture, as we read diverse works - including poetry, captivity and slave narratives, seduction novels, Native American oratory, short stories, essays, autobiographies, and more - in relation to political, social, and artistic as well as literary contexts from the colonial period to the eve of Civil War. Note: students majoring (or planning to major) in English or American Studies should take the course for 5 units and for a letter grade.

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). Enrollment in this course is a requirement for taking part in the spring break trip. The program 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 SAI staff. 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. In the seminar, we will prepare for the diverse experiences the trip affords and develop individual projects related to particular works of art, exhibitions, and performances that we'll encounter in person during the stay in New York. Class time will be divided between readings, presentations, and one studio based creative project. The urban setting in which the various forms of art are created, presented, and received will form a special point of focus. A principal aim of the seminar will be to develop aesthetic sensibilities through writing critically about the art that interests and engages us and making art. For further details please visit the Stanford Arts Institute website: https://arts.stanford.edu/for-students/academics/arts-immersion/new-york/

Survey of the major trends in literary history from 1850 to the present.

Emerging from the demographic, political, and cultural shifts of the late twentieth century, LatinX Literature flourishes in the twenty-first century as a hemispherically American corpus of texts. Like both ChicanX and Puerto Rican literatures before it, LatinX Literature emerges from various movements for social justice to challenge both the Anglo and the Hispanic established literary traditions of the Americas. As a transnational, pluralistic, heterogeneous, and dynamic category that considers the writings of diverse peoples with cultural ties to Latin America residing in the U.S., it complicates and transgresses the linguistic, geopolitical and cultural borders of the Americas, including those of the Afro-Caribbean, Luso-Brazilian, and the Native First Nations. Aligning itself with the issues, styles, and topics of the Global South, LatinX Literature is a product of the kind of 'border thinking' that critic Walter Mignolo has described as a 'pluriversal epistemology that interconnects the plurality and diversity of decolonial projects.' Acknowledging its emergence from literal and theoretical border spaces and decolonizing epistemologies, the 'X' of LatinX intentionally inflects the link to an origin in LGBTQI discourses signifying 'a more inclusive, non-gender-binary designation for LatinX peoples' and as a border literature that articulates heterogeneous ways of making meaning. Authors may include Jesus Colón, Sandra Cisneros, Helena Maria Viramontes, Christina Garcia, Junot Diaz, Ire´ne Lara Silva, Julia Alvarez, Américo Paredes, Daniel Alarcón, Francisco Goldman, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Tato Laviera, Ernesto Quinonez, Erika Sanchez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Luis Valdez, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Fernando Flores, or Oscar Cásares. NOTE: English majors must take this class for 5 units.

In this seminar, we will explore and theorize 'the taboo' and the consequences for transgressing taboos. On our quest, we will read broadly--from William Shakespeare's drama Othello to Christina Rossetti's poem 'Goblin Market' to Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime--to see how taboos around issues such as race, gender, and sexuality change and carry across different cultural, historical, geographical, and familial contexts. This class fulfills the WRITE 2 requirement.

Did you know that the emperor Charlemagne was illiterate, yet his scribes revolutionized writing in the West? This course follows decisive moments in the history of media and communication, asking how new recording technologies reshaped a society in which most people did not read or write--what has been described as the shift "from memory to written record." To understand this transformation, we examine forms of oral literature and music, from the Viking sagas, the call to crusade, and medieval curses (Benedictine maledictions), to early popular authors such as Dante and the 15th-century feminist scribe, Christine de Pizan. We trace the impact of musical notation, manuscript and book production, and Gutenberg's print revolution. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, how did the medium shape the message? Along the way, we will consider how the medieval arts of memory and divine reading (lectio divina) can inform communication in the digital world. This is a hands-on course: students will handle medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Special Collections, and will participate in an "ink-making workshop," following medieval recipes for ink and for cutting quills, then using them to write on parchment. The course is open to all interested students.

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.