Courses for Fall 2009 - Lit and Crit

Select course name for a detailed description.

ENGL 674: Bibliographical Methods: The course will provide an overview of Graduate Study and the Profession of Literature; enable graduate students to develop skill and confidence in literary research and critical writing that will support them in completing papers, articles, theses and dissertations; and introduce the study of the fields of Book History and Material Culture.
ENGL 676: Critical Approaches: This course will provide students with an understanding of the major contemporary theoretical approaches to literature including Marxism, post-structuralism, postmodernism and feminism.
ENGL 760/860: Teaching College Literature: This is a seminar and workshop course for students in need of experience teaching college literature in which we'll focus as pragmatically as possible on current approaches to teaching introductory courses in literature--as informed by recent theory as well as the real constraints of the classroom, the institutional setting, and the needs of our students and ourselves.
ENGL 761/861: Topics in American Literature before 1870: Rethinking the American Renaissance: This class will attempt to re-situate the pantheon of American Romantics in dialogue with the society in which they lived and to collapse distinctions between high and low culture that these writers either ignored or elided.
ENGL 763/863, Sec. 1: Topics in British Literature before 1660: This course will center on many of the literary masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries. Predictable “greats” will be featured in the course—Spenser, Shakespeare, Mary Sidney, Donne, et.al.—but many other writers, of less or much fame, will also be examined—for instance, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Askew, John Webster, George Herbert and John Milton.
ENGL 763/863, Sec. 2: Topics in British Literature before 1660: This course will center on many of the literary masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries. Predictable “greats” will be featured in the course—Spenser, Shakespeare, Mary Sidney, Donne, et.al.—but many other writers, of less or much fame, will also be examined—for instance, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Askew, John Webster, George Herbert and John Milton.

ENGL 772/872, Sec. 1: Topics in Women’s Literature: More information about this course will be posted at a later time.
ENGL 772/872, Sec. 2: Topics in Women’s Literature: More information about this course will be posted at a later time.
ENGL 797/897: Independent Seminar: Independent Seminar provides an opportunity to pursue interests not accommodated by course offerings. It is not recommended during a student's first semester of course work.
ENGL 955: History of Criticism: This course will be not so much a history of ideas as an exploration of those significant cultural conflicts which have produced the society, the disciplines, and the vocabulary with which we describe ourselves and our literature.
ENGL 983: Seminar in American Literature: E-crit-er-a-ture: This seminar will introduce students to the significant issues and topics at the intersection of literary studies and digital technology, with an aim towards engaging in theory and practice relevant to students' future as scholar/teachers.
ENGL765/865: Topics in Literature as Genre: Film: This course will explore the nature of the uncanny as a distinct aspect of modernity in film and literature. Texts to be considered will include early cinema, ghost films, and the work of Stephen King.
ENGL766/866: Topics in Comparative Literature: This course will introduce students to the Holocaust through the lens of the written word and of the literary imagination. We will examine texts written by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, victims and perpetrators.