ENGL 10500-01, 02: Introduction to American Literature: The Flaws of Memory: 20th-Century American Literature
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Jeong Yeon Lee
ENROLLMENT: 25 students per section
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES: Section 01 MW 12-1:15, F 3-3:50. Section 02 MW 2-3:15, F 4-4:50.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: How do we bear the fact that our memories fade, fissure, and falter? What does it mean for us to remember things we wish had never happened? How does memory account for intolerable loss? In this course, we will explore how American writers in the 20th-century have tried to reckon with the inadequacies of memory. Reading works by writers like James Baldwin, Marilynne Robinson, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, and Essex Hemphill, we will broaden our understanding of memory and consider it not just as a matter of recollection, but also as an expression of desire, a collective experience, political project, and literary device.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Attendance and participation, short writing assignments.
ENGL 11200-01, 02 INTRODUCTION TO SHORT STORY: THIS AMERICAN LIFE (LA)
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Hugh Egan
ENROLLMENT: 25 students per section
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES: MW 2-3:15; F 3-3:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will read a wide range of American short fiction, gathered loosely around the themes of childhood, adolescence, adult relationships, aging and death. In the course of our reading and discussion, we will traverse issues related to American identity, especially as they are inflected by race, ethnicity, and gender. We will also become familiar with formal elements of the short story, including point of view, plot, tone, and dialogue. Over the course of the term, we will read a combination of classic and contemporary American stories. We will end the term by reading Alexander Weinstein’s collection, Children of the New World.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two short essays (2 pages), two longer essays (5-6 pages), a mid-term, a final exam, and class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 11300, Introduction to Poetry
4 Credits
ICC THEMES: Identities; Inquiry, Imagination, and Innovation ICC PERSPECTIVES: Humanities and Creative Arts
INSTRUCTOR: Dan Breen
ENROLLMENT: 25 students per section
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES:
Breen: Tuesday and Thursday, 10-11:15, and M 9-9:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION: How does a poem produce meaning? What does poetry do with language? This course is an introduction to a) the constituent elements of poems and the vocabulary with which we can analyze them and b) the extraordinary variety and capaciousness of texts we call “poems.” The aim of this course is to arrive at a sense, both ample and precise, of what a poem is, what it does, how it does what it does, and, perhaps, why we should care.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Short writing assignments, recitations, poetic compositions, annotated poetry anthology, lively participation.
ENGL 18200-01, 02 The Power of Injustice & the Injustice of Power
TOPIC: Life at the Margins in American Literature
4 Credits
INSTRUCTOR: Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES: MW 2-3:10PM/ F 2-2:50
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Many individuals continue to feel as though they live at the margins of society, despite the “melting pot” rhetoric of inclusivity and acceptance that dominates narratives of American identity. While we commonly consider purposeful exclusion an act of injustice on the part of the powerful, we are often unaware of the way that subtle, hidden forms of power render particular groups and individuals powerless. American literature is one of the most widely utilized platforms for articulating the specific issues that arise in response to these forms of power. This course will use an array of American literary texts to explore the complexities of the life experiences of those who are forced by the powerful to live at the margins. We will read the work of Rebecca Harding Davis, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Junot Diaz, Adam Mansbach, ZZ Packer, and Tommy Orange.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion with the occasional lecture
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Students will closely examine course materials, actively engage in class discussions, write short textual analysis essays
ENGL 18500-01,02: Earth Works: Literature, Nature, and the Environment. (LA)
4 credits
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Hansom
ENROLLMENT: 25 per section
PREREQUISITES: None
STUDENTS: Open to all students.
Meeting Times: MW: 2-3.40; T/TH: 3-4.40
COURSE DESCRIPTION: What is the nature of nature? This class offers an exciting literary, cultural, and historical exploration into the idea of “nature” and the “natural.” While it may seem self-evident to us that nature is all of that stuff “out there” – trees, rocks, oceans, animals, you know what I mean – this class will explore how natural environments in literature are not simple, common-sense places, but are in fact dynamic cultural constructions that change over time. What do we actually mean by nature? How do we understand it as a place, as an object, or as a literary form? Might nature be nothing more than a unique human experience? As you can see, this class will raise many intriguing questions, and by examining the “eco-literature” embodied in novels, stories, poems, biographies, and non-fictions, our sense of the natural will be challenged, and hopefully, expanded. We will be helped on our journey by Thoreau, Wordsworth, Cather, Wolfe, Krakauer, Snyder – among many others.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/ limited lecture. The class is designed around focused discussions of primary works.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Active class participation, two short response papers, two 6 page analytical essays, Nature Log book, final Personal Meditation.
ENGL 18300-01, -02 ENGENDERING MODERNITY: TWENTIETH-CENTURY WOMEN WRITERS
4 Credits
ICC ATTRIBUTE: Diversity
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Spitzer, 305 Muller
PREREQUISITES: None
ENROLLMENT: 25 Students per section
MEETING TIMES:
Section 01: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:10-2:25 PM, and Wednesday, 1:00-2:40 PM
Section 02: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:35-3:50 PM, and Wednesday, 3:00-4:40 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will focus on a representative body of twentieth-and twenty-first century Anglophone women writers, writers who adapted earlier literary forms, and in some cases produced major stylistic innovations. We will examine how these authors negotiated a predominantly male literary tradition and marketplace, and how they drew upon and constructed their own literary communities, audiences, and ancestries. We will read works that self-consciously reflect on issues of identity, gender, sexuality, feminism, and authorship, as well as works that explore the complex intersections of race, class, ethnicity, nationality, gender and sexuality. We will also consider the relationship between gender and genre by reading a wide range of literary forms, from novels, short stories, and poetry, to memoirs, essays, and political manifestos. Authors include Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nella Larsen, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jamaica Kincaid, Maggie Nelson, Torrey Peters, and J. Jennifer Espinoza.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion, with brief lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two short essays, a midterm exam, and short informal writing. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation and attendance will be an essential part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 19421: SciFi: Exploring Science Fiction Innovation in Film and Fiction
COURSE DESCRIPTION:This class looks at Science Fiction short stories, novellas and classic films to consider the way that this genre embodies our hopes, fears and dreams for the future. Texts include short stories by Harlan Ellison and Octavia Butler as well as NiIgerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor's Binti; the first book of the Murder Bot series; andBecky Chambers' Psalm for the Wild-Built.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion, with brief lectures.
Meeting Times: MW 2-3:40
ENGL 27401 01 & 02: The Golden Age of Children's Literature
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class looks at a wide range of literature written for children from the 16th to 19th centuries. We start with the Pious Death Narratives, and go on to Fables, Fairytales, Didactic Fiction, and Nonsense Verse. Major texts include Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Pollyanna , and The Secret Garden . On Thursdays we will be doing a slow read of the first three books of The Wizard of Oz series.
Meeting Times: MW 12-1:15 R 1-1:50pm
ENGL 29700 Professional Development: Graphic Novels
2 credits
You do not need to have an extensive background in comics or graphic novels to take this 2-credit course. We do a mix of writing reviews, editing a national newsletter, giving informative presentations, and doing kids' programs in local libraries. We also play a substantial role at ITHACON.
For more information, see https://www.ithaca.edu/graphic-novel-advisory-board
Meeting Times: R 3-4:15
ENGL-21900, SHAKESPEARE
4 CREDITS
DESIGNATIONS: CSA, DLIT, EP19, HM, TIDE, TIII
INSTRUCTOR: Christopher Matusiak, Muller 326
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: One course in the humanities or social sciences, or sophomore standing.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Shakespeare was a poet of enormous talent and insightfulness. But because he wrote for audiences four centuries ago, his elevated status in present-day education and popular culture is subject to regular critical and social reassessment. Why study Shakespeare now? Does he still ‘speak’ to our 21st-century concerns? Do the plays have anything meaningful to teach us about rising political authoritarianism by a gerontological political elite? Endemic social and economic inequality? Environmental crises or technological revolutions? We will work to answer such questions collectively; no prior knowledge of Shakespeare is necessary to succeed in the course, only intellectual enthusiasm and a readiness to study three works intensively—The Taming of the Shrew , King Lear , and The Tempest —both in the context of Shakespeare’s time and our own.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/lecture.
Meeting Times: MW 8:35-9:30am and F 9-9:50
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; reader-response journaling; take-home final exam.
ENGL 27100 Renaissance Literature
4 Credits
ICC ATTRIBUTES: Writing Intensive
ENGL ATTRIBUTES: EP 19
INSTRUCTOR: Dan Breen
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITES: WRTG 10600 or ICSM 10800
RESTRICTIONS: One course in the humanities or sophomore standing
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00-2:15 PM, and M 10:00-10:50 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course aims to present a broad-based chronological survey of many different literary genres that we’ll use as a guide for an investigation of the social and intellectual status of writing in England in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. How do authors use literature to address conflicts, provide instruction, or produce entertainment, and what expectations do audiences bring to different kinds of writing? In addition, we’ll read work by Continental authors in order to place England within the context of the broad intellectual and artistic movement that we’ve come to know as the European Renaissance.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: One major essay requiring drafting and revising; several short writing assignments, both inside and outside of class; midterm and final exams; lively participation.
ENGL 27800 Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries
4 CREDITS
Instructor: Kasia Bartoszynska
ENROLLMENT: 21
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Jane Austen is one of the most loved authors of the long eighteenth century, but she is often read as an isolated genius, a woman whose greatness transcended her own era. In this class, we will deepen our understanding of Austen’s craft by reading her alongside other authors who were major influences on her work. In the process, we will learn about how eighteenth-century women authors thought about what life was like for women of their time—and especially, how they thought about their struggles in relation to the trans-Atlantic slave trade during the era of abolition. As we contemplate the continuing popularity of Austen’s works, we will ponder how her novels speak to our own historical moment: how they inform the way we think about love, marriage, independence, good manners, and what the world is like.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Attendance and participation, short writing assignments, final paper.
ENGL 29401 Slow Read: The Secret History
1 CREDIT
Instructor: Chris Holmes
ENROLLMENT: 20
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The Secret History is the cult classic par excellence. It has become an obsession for many, and it is the founding text of the Dark Academia movement of fashion, art, and literature. Donna Tartt's masterpiece takes place at a fictionalized Bennington College where a rarified group of intellectuals has become consumed by the Greek seminars of one charismatic professor. Their collective mantra, "Beauty is Terror," will lead them to participate in unspeakable acts of violence in the name of a pure experience of the aesthetic. We will read it SLOWLY and with delight.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Intense discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; attendance at all class sessions
ENGL 29400-01(CRN 40721) Atonement., by Ian McEwen
1 CREDIT
INSTRUCTOR: Bob Sullivan
ENROLLMENT: 20
PRERQUISITE: None
MEETING TIME: Wednesday 4:00-4:50.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: One of the most highly considered novels of our era, Atonement has an epic sweep that takes the reader into the mind of Briony Tallis, whose actions as a child bring destruction to the people she loves. We follow her as she dedicates her life to reconciliation with the past. The novel raises important questions about guilt and forgiveness while also providing readers with a profound meditation on the craft and ethics of fiction. We will also view and discuss the 2007 film made of the novel, the screenplay of which was written by Ian McEwen.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: A/F. There will be a few short response papers, though the major focus of the course will be sustained engagement with the text and our fellow Slow Readers..
ENGL 29500 The New Voices Seminar (must be taken in concert with Professional Development ENGL 29701)
4 CREDITS
Instructors: Chris Holmes and Jacob White
ENROLLMENT: 18
PREREQUISITES: BY APPLICATION ONLY!
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is the course that prepares admitted students to plan and implement the annual new voices festival at the college that is held each April. Students read the works by the seven invited writers (poets, novelists, essayists, playwright), become experts in one writer to which they act as the guide, and plan the social media, community outreach, create and design merchandise, develop themes for panel topics, plan logistics for each of the major readings and events, write an original introduction for the writer, and then deliver that introduction at one of the major readings. A life changing experience. Apply in Nov. each year.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Student-led discussion, team-centered event planning
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; original introduction for writer; participation in all aspects of the festival
ENGL-31100, DRAMATIC LITERATURE I
4 CREDITS
DESIGNATIONS: CSA, DLIT, EP19, WI
INSTRUCTOR: Christopher Matusiak, Muller 326
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: Three LA courses in ENGL or THEA; WRTG 10600 or ICSM 10800 or ICSM 11800.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: It had been commonplace until recently to talk about English theatre before the seventeenth century as the sole preserve of men. Yet women and their experience have always been central concerns of early English drama: modern research shows that premodern female involvement was in fact substantial, although long hidden from sight. We now know that Englishwomen wrote plays modeled on ancient comedy as early the eleventh century, and that female performers acted on public and private stages well before the Restoration of 1660, when “the actress” finally came to be enshrined as a category in popular culture (replacing many more derogatory terms). Indeed, without women’s creative and managerial input as authors and theatre owners, and without their skilled labor as costume and property makers, the English stage never would have flourished as it did. With special attention to the concepts of mimicry , performativity , and ideology , students in this course will explore constructions of ‘women’ as saintly mothers and transgressive wives in medieval religious drama; we will study the semiotics of cross-dressing and female impersonation by ‘boys’ in early modern London; consider the politics of ‘closet drama’ by the highly educated Tudor and Stuart noblewomen Lady Jane Grey and Lady Elizabeth Carey; and we will discuss the proto-feminisms of the earliest ‘professional’ dramatists Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn. This course offers a vivid picture of the political and economic situation of medieval and early modern women; it encourages students to understand how and why premodern society discursively encoded gender in the ways it did; and to come to appreciate what was at stake—on and off stage—when women diverged from strictly prescribed cultural norms.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/lecture.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active class participation; reader-response journaling; a formal essay; take-home final.
MEETING TIMES: MW 12-1:15
ENGL 31900: Great American Writers before 1890
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Jeong Yeon Lee
ENROLLMENT: 22 students per section
PREREQUISITE: 3 courses in ENGL, WRGT, or ICSM
MEETING TIMES: TR 1-2:40
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, we will approach American literature before 1890 as a series of overlapping and constitutive contestations. Who counts as an American? What are the rights and protections afforded by citizenship? How and why are gender and sexuality related? Who qualifies as a good immigrant? What is gender? What is race? Reading across a range of genres including poetry, sermons, pamphlets, speeches, autobiographies, and short stories, we will track the beliefs, theories, and arguments that shape so much of our present-day common sense. Rather than treating historical figures as relics frozen in time, we will engage with them as real people who made decisions plagued by all the doubts, insecurities, and uncertainty we experience today. In so doing, we will experience some of the dynamism of early American literature and learn how to interrogate how and why we know what we know.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Attendance and participation, short writing assignments, final paper.
ENGL 36500 ST: Novels of Global Fascism
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Holmes
ENROLLMENT: 20
PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing and 3 credits in English or Writing
MEETING TIMES: Monday and Wednesday, 12:00-1:15 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The 20th century saw the rise of a form of nationalist politics called by one of its most fervent practitioners "el fascismo". Italy's Benito Mussolini spoken approvingly of Fascism's totalizing way of thinking. We will take up the once and future forms of this autocratic way of governance as represented in novels from Chile, Argentina, Germany, Japan, and the US. We will read theoretical and historical sources that define and explain the different manifestations of fascism, and we will pay careful attention to current events in the US to understand how our current politics may or may not be replicating older forms of totalitarian rule.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, with some context-setting lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two 6-8 page analytical essays, a final oral exam, and active class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 36800-01 Dangerous Women in Dramatic Literature HU, LA
TOPIC: Dangerous Women in Dramatic Literature: Over Her Dead Body
3 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Claire Gleitman, 303 Muller, ext. 4-3893
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing and 3 credits in English or Writing.
MEETING TIMES: Monday and Wednesday, 1:00-1:50 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will read a range of plays, beginning in the ancient Greek period and extending to the present day, which feature female characters who might be described as “dangerous”—often because they challenge status quo assumptions about femininity and a woman’s role in her society. In each case, we will consider what constitutes female danger in the play and the culture that we are addressing. What norms are being challenged so that the female elicits male fear and violence (and often, also and simultaneously, desire)? What is it about her that is so threatening that she needs to be controlled, contained, and sometimes killed? Is the playwright using her to question the norms that she challenges or to reinscribe them? As we read these plays, we will situate them within their cultural contexts and we will read secondary material (historical and theoretical) to better understand how notions regarding female danger change over time. Our plays will include some or all of the following: Medea , The Oresteia, Othello, The Duchess of Malfi, Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Hedda Gabler, All My Sons, Top Girls, Oleanna, Harlem Duet, By the Bog of Cats .
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, with some context-setting lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two 6-8 page analytical essays, frequent short response pieces, a take-home final exam, and active class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 46000-01 Seminar in Contemporary African American Literature HU LA 3A h
TOPIC: Toni Morrison through the Decades
4 Credits
INSTRUCTOR: Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT: 10
PREREQUISITES: Four English courses; junior standing
COURSE DESCRIPTION: To be clear, I love Toni Morrison! She is, quite simply, one of the greatest authors of the 20thand 21stcenturies. Although Morrison’s inclusion in the American literary canon now goes unquestioned, rarely is her work examined in a single author course. As a result, much of what we learn about her and her fiction are fragments of a whole. This class will attempt to cultivate a more comprehensive understanding of Morrison and her entire body of work through an examination of her literature spanning five decades. We will focus on one text from each decade –Song of Solomon (1977),Beloved (1987),Jazz (1992),A Mercy (2008),God Help the Child (2015) – devoting three full weeks to each. We will consider how issues of race, gender, sexuality, and social class shape a reader’s understanding of the material and how the material influences our understanding of those same identity categories. Too, we will pay particular attention to motifs such as home/homelessness, memory, family, trauma, violence, love, and history.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Seminar
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Regular attendance and active participation in class discussions, along with an open mind. Students will complete one midterm essay, one final research essay (based on the midterm), a reading journal, an annotated bibliography, and a group discussion facilitation.