Undergraduate Courses (Spring 2008)
(Last updated: 1/28/08)

Please note that when a course is marked (2nd Am Lit), it means the course fulfills the second American Literature English major requirement. Such courses offered this semester include: ENGL 279-L1 Introduction to American Studies, ENGL 300-L1 Junior-Year Seminr in English Studies: Rhetoric, Politivs, and the Essay, ENGL 300-L2 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Race & Slavery in American Culture, ENGL 300-L3 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Darwinism and American Literature, ENGL 491RR William Faulkner. In addition, some courses offered at the Five Colleges also fill this requirement.

Please note that when a course is marked (Jr-Yr Writing), it means the course fulfills the Writing & Criticism/Junior-Year Writing requirement for English majors. Such courses offered this semester are: ENGL 300-L1 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Rhetoric, Politics, and the Essay, ENGL 300-L2 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Race and Slavery in American Culture, ENGL 300-L3 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Darwinism and American Literature, ENGL 300H-L1 Honors Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies: Her Head a Village: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad, ENGL 419H Honors Games Thinkers Play, ENGL 469H Honors Victorian Monstrosity, .

(Click here to see a list of courses from the Five Colleges Spring 2008)
(Click here to see a list of undergraduate courses from Fall 2007)
(Click here to see a list of undergraduate courses from Spring 2007)

115H-L1 Honors American Experience (ALU) 80733
Instructor: M. Lowance T/Th 11:15 am
Commonwealth College Honors. This is a 4-credit Honors course. Commonwealth College students only. The course will examine the literature of the antebellum slavery debates in nineteenth-century America in A House Divided: The Antebellum Slavery Debates in America , 1776-1865 ( Princeton , 2003) and through the voices of the slave narrators Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs. Biblical proslavery and antislavery arguments, economic discourse, the conflict of writers and essayists like Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman and Lowell, James Kirke Paulding, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mary Eastman combine with scientific arguments and Acts of Congress relating to slavery to provide the historical background for examinations of the issues surrounding slavery. The seminar will also examine the abolitionist writings of William Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, and the New York Abolitionists Arthur and Lewis Tappan and Gerrit Smith. Four literary works will be studied in detail: Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin , Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson , and Morrison's Beloved , all of which represent approaches to the legacy of slavery. We will consider minstrel stereotyping, the sentimental novel as a vehicle for abolitionist arguments, and the rhetorical strategies of each of theses texts.

117-L1 Ethnic American Literature (ALU) 55482
Instructor: B. Comfort MWF 11:15 am
American literature written by and about ethnic minorities, from the earliest immigrants through the cultural representations in modern American writing.

120-L1 English Composition 55484
Instructor: L. Bradley MWF 10:10 am
Stockbridge students only. English 120 is the writing requirement for undergraduates in the Stockbridge School . It gives practice in the persuasive techniques of expository writing and shows their usefulness in both academic and business contexts.

120-L2 English Composition 55486
Instructor: L. Bradley MWF 11:15 am
Stockbridge students only.

120-L3 English Composition 55488
Instructor: L. Bradley MWF 1:25 pm
Stockbridge students only.

120-L4 English Composition 55490
Instructor: L. Bradley MWF 12:20 pm
Stockbridge students only.

131-L1 Society and Literature (ALG) 55608
Instructor: M. O'Brien MW 4:40 – 5:30 pm
This course will consider the ways in which 19th- and 20th-century authors have perceived the relationship between individuals and their societies, including the meanings and effects of being part of–or excluded from–groups, families, cultures, or nations. It will also pay attention to the ways writers address social and political issues, such as the relations between people of different races, ethnicity, genders, classes, and sexual orientations. And it will investigate the connections between art and politics, literature and society: how society and its history shape language and literary culture, how literature responds to society, how art may reimagine society in utopian or dystopian ways, and how art may affect society and influence politics. All texts will be poems.

131-D1 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: N. Cannon F 10:10 am 81277
131-D2 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: N. Azank F 9:05 am 81278
131-D3 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: N. Azank F 10:10am 81279
131-D4 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: S. Magin F 11:15 am 81282
131-D5 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: S. Luders-Manuel F 1:25 pm 81283
131-D6 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: C. Kelleher F 10:10 pm 81284
131-D7 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: C. Kelleher F 11:15 am 81285
131-D8 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: S. Magin F 2:30 pm 81286
131-D9 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: S. Luders-Manuel F 9:05 am 81287
131-D10 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: N. Cannon F 11:15 am 81288
131-D11 Society and Literature (ALG) Instructor: L. Storey F 1:25 pm 81289

132-L1 Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture (ALG) 55496
Instructor: C. Bondhus MWF 9:05 am
This course investigates images of men and women in poetry, drama, and fiction. It aims at appreciating the literature itself, with increasing awareness of the ways in which men and women grow up, seek identity, mature, love, marry, and during different historical times, relate in families, classes, races, ethnic groups, societies, cultures. What are the conventional perspectives and relationships of “Man” and “Woman”? How does literature accept or question these conventions? What alternative perspectives and relationships are imagined in literature?

132-L2 Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture (ALG) 81290
Instructor: M. Boucher MWF 1:25 pm
Southwest RAP student only. In this course we will examine cross-cultural representations of gender and sexuality through literature and film.  We will explore the ways in which norms of gender and sexuality shape our lives and relationships. We will ask how conventional ideas about "man" and "woman" are both produced and
reimagined through literature and film. In addition to looking at heterosexual
experiences and identities, representations of gay, lesbian, bisexual,
intersex, and transgender experiences will be explored.

132-L3 Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture (ALG) 81291
Instructor: C. Maksimowicz MWF 2:30
Orchard Hill Central RAP students only.

141-L1 Reading Poetry ( AL ) 55596
Instructor: A. Moharreri MWF 11:15 am
An introduction to themes and forms of poetry through a reading of selected poems in English. Emphasis on such poetic techniques as word choice, imagery, and structure, and on such modes as the ballad, lyric, sonnet, ode, and dramatic monologue.

196 Independent Study 55498
Instructor: TBA TBA
Contact department to add course.

200-L1 Seminar in Literary Studies 55500
Instructor: A. Nadkarni MW 8:40 am
Pre-English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. This course addresses the relationship between writing and identity, focusing explicitly on discourses of race, ethnicity and postcoloniality. Through an examination of postcolonial and diasporic novels, short stories, poetry and dramatic works, we will ask how each genre generates different expressions of identity and voice. Questions we will consider include: what kind of voice is enabled by the formal aspects of each genre? How does the play of identity work similarly or differently across genres? What is the relationship between postcolonial and diasporic writings and their American and British antecedents—is it merely imitative or does it entail a radical remaking of Western forms? The course includes poetry by Meena Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali, Sarojini Naidu, and Derek Walcott; novels by Michelle Cliff and R. Zamora Linmark; short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri; and a play by David Henry Hwang. There will be weekly writing assignments and three papers. Students must receive a grade of ‘B-' or higher in ENGL 200 to be officially admitted to the English major. Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

200-L2 Seminar in Literary Studies 55502
Instructor: J. Greve T/Th 11:15 am
Pre-English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. This course will focus on questions of genre— as a way especially of engaging questions of literary form, literary conventions, the expectations genre sets up for readers, and the ways authors use features of genres creatively. What is "genre" and how does it contribute to our appreciation and understanding of literature? What are the purposes of genre classification? How do authors question generic conventions, or manipulate them for artistic, or even political, purposes? These are just a few of the questions this course will explore by offering in-depth study of a range of literary genres and the conventions that distinguish them. Requirements: One 3-4 page paper; three 4-6 page papers; eight weekly writings (informal responses to readings.) Students must receive a grade of ‘B-' or higher in ENGL 200 to be officially admitted to the English major. Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

200-L3 Seminar in Literary Studies 55504
Instructor: J. Almeida-Beveridge T/Th 2:30 pm
Pre-English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. In this course, students will develop the skills and vocabulary needed for the close reading of a text in genres such as poetry, drama, and prose. The first section of the course will be devoted to mastering the terms of prosody —meter, rhyme, and different stanza structures. We will then turn our attention to drama and narrative forms like the short story. The class will analyze how concepts of authorship, textuality, and audience have developed in the discipline, and think about the social and historical factors that affect the reception of a text. Selected essays from a number of critical approaches including feminism, Marxism, deconstruction, new historicism, and cultural studies will inform class discussion. Requirements: three papers, response papers as assigned (1 page), assignment on scansion, active participation. Students must receive a grade of "B-" or higher in ENGL 200 to be officially admitted to the English major. Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

200-L4 Seminar in Literary Studies 55506
Instructor: E. Gallo T/Th 2:30 pm
Pre-English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. Students must receive a grade of 'B-' or higher in ENGL 200 to be officially admitted to the English major.  Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

200-L5 Seminar in Literary Studies 55508
Instructor: A. Higgins T/Th 2:30 pm
Pre-English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. Students must receive a grade of ‘B-' or higher in ENGL 200 to be officially admitted to the English major. This course introduces prospective English majors to the study of literature.  We will engage in close study of a range of works from the medieval to the modern period, paying particular attention to the roles played by form and convention in the creation of meaning in literary texts.  Readings include short poems from the medieval to the modern period, one play, and two or three novels. Several short writing assignments and three essays. Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

200H-L1 Honors Seminar in Literary Studies 80736
Instructor: H. Phan T/Th 1:00 pm
Pre-English majors only. Prerequisite: Gen. Ed. CW. This course will introduce students to a range of contemporary literary theory and critical reading practices, and provide a survey of the various turns and debates in the recent history of literary studies. As an honors course, its study of literary texts will be guided by several questions organized around the relationship between history, theory, and literary form: What historical and/or theoretical assumptions do we bring to our readings of literary texts? What histories and prior readings do literary texts carry embedded within them? In what broader social-historical contexts are literary texts produced? How do literary texts address thematic or historical concerns through their formal conventions and innovations? What are the historical functions of literature, literary criticism, and literary theory? The goal of this honors course is to equip students with the critical and theoretical tools necessary for advanced study in both the interpretation of literary-cultural texts and the writing of literary-cultural criticism. Accordingly, students will write short close reading papers and longer interpretive papers on select literary works, as well as brief exegeses of articles on criticism and theory. Students must receive a grade of ‘B-' or higher to be officially admitted to the English major. Come to 252 Bartlett at Pre-Registration to add the pre-major.

201-L1 Major British Writers I 55570
Instructor: J. Freeman MW 2:30 pm
COMBINED CLASS WITH LECTURE 3. 11 SEATS RESERVED FOR English majors, International/ National exchange majors, or Masters students with TECS subplan only.

201-L2 Major British Writers I 55572
Instructor: A. Higgins T/Th 11:15 am
English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with TECS subplan only. An introduction to English literature from the Middle Ages to the Early-Modern period. In this course we will survey the development of English literature over a span of about a thousand years, considering issues of form and genre, and thinking about the ways in which literary works reflect the changing linguistic, social, and cultural contexts of their composition. Among our readings will be the 8 th -century Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf , romances from twelfth and thirteenth-century England , Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , and works by Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton. All the works we will read, despite their many differences from each other, are part of the body of literary work we identify as “English.” As we read them, we will consider the question of their English identity—both where that Englishness lies, and its significance for the development of English literature through the centuries. Assignments include three short papers; research project; midterm exam; final paper.

201-L3 Major British Writers I 55640
Instructor: J. Freeman MW 2:30 pm
COMBINED CLASS WITH LECTURE 1. 24 SEATS RESERVED FOR English TAP students.

202-L1 Major British Writers 55510
Instructor: J. Freeman MW 4:40 pm
English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with TECS subplan only .

221-L1 Shakespeare (AL) 55512
Instructor: J. Black MW 1:25 pm
Why are Shakespeare's plays still so widely performed, read, filmed, revised and appropriated four centuries after they first appeared on stage?  What makes them continue to speak so powerfully to audiences, writers, directors, and actors?  This course provides an overview of Shakespeare's work, focusing on careful readings of eight plays, including examples of comedies, tragedies, romances, and histories.  We will pay some attention to genre (what is a comedy?); cultural and social contexts (how did the Renaissance approach issues of politics, gender, social hierarchy, marriage, cosmology, and personal identity, and how do these ideas inform these plays?); and to questions of production, staging, and Renaissance theater practice. Assignments include three short papers, exam, attendance of both lecture and discussion section, and lively participation.  Discussion section required.

221-D1 Shakespeare ( AL ) Instructor: T. Watt F 9:05 am 55514
221-D2 Shakespeare ( AL ) Instructor: T. Watt F 10:10 am 55516
221-D3 Shakespeare ( AL ) Instructor: J. Landis F 11:15 am 55518
221-D4 Shakespeare ( AL ) Instructor: J. Landis F 2:30 pm 55520

254-L1 Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature (AL) 55522
Instructor: J. Wasneski MWF 11:15 am
Analysis of issues of form, elements of genre, style, and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts.

254-L2 Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature (AL) 55524
Instructor: M. Slater MWF 10:10 am

254-L3 Writing and Reading Imaginative Literature (AL) 55602
Instructor: W. Christian T/Th 9:30 am

270-L1 American Identities (AL) 55526
Instructor: N. Bromell T/Th 9:30 am
Discussion section required .

270-D1 American Identities (AL) Instructor: C. Hayman Th 11:15 – 12:05 pm 71638
270-D2 American Identities (AL) Instructor: C. Hayman Th 1:00 – 1:50 pm 71640
270-D3 American Identities (AL) Instructor: C. Beuermann Th 1:00 – 1:50 pm 71642
270-D4 American Identities (AL) Instructor: C. Beuermann Th 2:30 – 3:20 pm 71644
270-D5 American Identities (AL) Instructor: M. Carrere Th 11:15 – 12:05 pm 71646
270-D6 American Identities (AL) Instructor: M. Carrere Th 2:30 – 3:20 pm 71648

279-L1 Introduction to American Studies (2nd Am Lit) 55672
Instructor: J. Skerrett T/Th 4:00 -5:15 pm
John Sayles's America . This course will explore the work of fiction writer, screenwriter and film director John Sayles as an approach to American self-examination in the late twentieth century. Sayles is perhaps the most successful director of independent films, successful enough to maintain control over his subjects and to attract high profile actors who help the films reach relatively large audiences. Both as writer and director, he projects his dreams of America at an audience that responds and encourages him by attending the films. His films explore racial oppression (Brother from Another Planet), sports and corruption (Eight Men Out), economic oppression (Matewan), borderland social relations (Lone Star), and other topics avoided by most Hollywood productions. The films also explore a variety of settings, urban and rural, and a variety of historical moments. We will read some short stories and a novel by Sayles, look at six or eight of the films and discuss the relations among his dreams and nightmares of America and our own. Students will produce two five-page papers and a longer final paper or take-home exam assignment. Films will be shown in the late afternoon or evening, outside of class time. Lab section is required .

279-Lab1 Intro to American Studies I nstructor: J. Skerrett M 6:00 – 8:00 pm 81494

296 Independent Study 55528
Instructor: TBA TBA
Contact department to add course.

297II Experimental Writing Workshop 81495
Instructor: E. Renaud/B. Mihok Th 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. Up, Up and Away: Reading and Writing the Graphic Novel. What is the difference between graphic novels and comic books, and why do they have such a bum academic rap? This semester, we'll discuss and analyze the graphic novel through a critical lens. By reading examples of hero-based stories as well as stories that break the traditional boundaries of the superhero narrative, we will get an in-depth look at the composition of the genre. We'll also pay careful attention to the craft and philosophy behind the graphic novel as a medium through which artists struggle for intellectual respect.

297LL Experimental Writing Workshop 55746
Instructor: A. Khosla/P. Woods T 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. Telling it Straight, Telling it Slant, Telling it Digital. What are the rules of narrative? Can these rules be broken? But more importantly, how can we tell stories as we transition into the new digital age? In this course we will write stories that follow and break traditional rules, as well as stories that are told through sound and visual images. As we move through these different ways of telling stories we will explore how what gets told is shaped by how it is told.

297MM Experimental Writing Workshop 81498
Instructor: N. Cannon/S. Jaffe T 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. Queer Texts: Writing Queer Experience, Representing Queer Bodies. This course will allow students—both queer-identified and not—to use writing to express queer experiences and identities. Using creative and theoretical texts, we will examine the ways in which queer experience is often implicitly or explicitly “written out” of dominant discourse, and investigate how writers have subverted, spoken back to, or otherwise counteracted this exclusion. We'll then go on to write in various genres about personal and cultural experiences of queerness.

297NN Experimental Writing Workshop 81505
Instructor: A. Feld/A. Moharreri Th 4:30 – 7:00 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. American Lyrics. The writing communities from which songs emerge exist not only in the record store or on the Internet, but also with the people you know. In that sense, all music is folk music. This semester, we'll express a collective and eclectic lyrical community by studying the songwriting and poetics that the American experience has produced. Focusing on the orality of texts, we will listen to recordings, recite compositions, and write our own. This course is not a survey of the American song; rather, it is a chance to participate in that song. No musical training required!

297OO Experimental Writing Workshop 81506
Instructor: M. Koyama M 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. Mission Improbable! Your mission: Find and describe Jane Austen's bicycle. Channel Holden Caulfield. Create a Kafkaesque treasure hunt.
Welcome to the class in which students send each other on literary escapades! Students make up literary “missions” that include a reference to a literary figure, movement, or era. “Agents” then investigate the references and creatively complete the mission. Finally, we anthologize. Become an impressionist guerilla!

297PP Experimental Writing Workshop 81508
Instructor: A. Cuellar/ S. Stanley T 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. “It Figures!” Writing Metaphors: A Metaphorical Study of Metaphors. This course will blow your mind and your pen! We will be experimenting with metaphors, living with metaphors, seeing metaphors, and writing metaphors (literally!) all semester. How do we “read” metaphors, especially when they are established and their meaning is “understood” via cultural and contextual norms? By playing with metaphors of popular culture, art, psychology, and more, we will build our awareness of our audience, our culture, and ourselves. You will fall in love with metaphors all over again!

297QQ Experimental Writing Workshop 81509
Instructor: L. Dich/G. Llarull Th 3:00 – 5:30 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. “Do You Want to Role-Play?” Role-Playing as Revising: Multiple Identities and Heterotopic Spaces. What kind of identity do we take on when posting a profile on online “worlds” (e.g., Facebook, WoW, Amazon.com)? In what way(s) does it differ from the identities we assume when we live our everyday lives? Our many and messy selves don't always form a coherent whole—or do they?

298A-L1 Practicum: Shakespeare on Film 55674
Instructor: J. Black M 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. One film each week. 1 credit. This course is a one-credit practicum whose sole purpose is to introduce you to Shakespearean cinema. Some of these films are modern adaptations. There is no discussion component of this course and no written work.  The only requirement is that you attend the screenings, and that you enjoy!

Attendance will be taken at each screening. If you miss more than one screening, you will not get credit for this practicum.

298C-L1 Practicum: World Cinema 55690
Instructor: K. Farrell W 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. One film each week. 1 credit . "Childhood in World Cinema." This series screens visions of childhood from film-makers around the world. These are films that every student of literature should be aware of, not only for their opening to the wider world, but also for their stunning insights into art and human behavior.  If you're interested in writing, these screenplays are a must.

Requirements: 1 credit, pass/fail, one unexcused absence. The schedule includes: Spirit of the Beehive (Spain), Time of the Gypsies (Bosnia), Me without You (Britain), The Hairdresser's Husband (France), King of Masks (China), Ponette (France), Thief (Russia), La Promesse (Belgian-French), Since Otar Left (Georgia), Cyclo (Vietnam), The Return (Russia), Grown Ups (Britain), Strayed (France), Turtles Can Fly (Kurdistan). Requirements: 1 credit, pass/fail, one unexcused absence.

298D-L1 Careers for English Majors 81510
Instructor: J. Greve Th 4:00 – 5:15 pm
Mandatory Pass/Fail course. 2 credits. For students who wish to be pro-active in paving the road to employment both during and after the completion of their degree in English, this course introduces a range of career options, including graduate school as a route to a career.  It equips students with job search skills and a cover letter and résumé of immediate use, for which students will receive individualized guidance.  Various guest speakers will feature, among others, former English graduates with rewarding careers and free-lance writers of genres ranging from fiction to the personal essay.  In addition to the cover letter and résumé, assignments are likely to include an interview with a professional from a field the student is interested in, an interview essay, and a job search journal. Attendance at all meetings and completion of assignments are mandatory.  Motivation and curiosity are a must for benefiting from the course's goal of preparation for the job world.

298H Honors Practicum: Teaching in the Writing Center 80737
Instructor: A. Napoleone W 11:15 am
Prerequisite: ENGL 329H. Second-semester follow-up to the first-semester tutoring seminar (ENGL 329H).  Practicum consists of four-hours per week tutoring in the Writing Center and one-hour weekly meetings to discuss tutorials and supplementary readings, to write, and to work on committee projects.  To add this course students must contact the Writing Program, 305 Bartlett Hall, 545-0610.

300-L1 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies (2nd Am Lit) (Jr-Yr Writing) 71682
Instructor: H. Hoang T/Th 1:00 pm
Senior and Junior English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only.
Rhetoric, Politics, and the Essay. This course explores essay writing as a vehicle for socio-political commentary.  In order to advance their facility with research and essay writing, students will be introduced to classical rhetorical principles and put into practice the five canons: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.  With this framework, we will read nonfiction texts that shed light on complex public issues--think, for example, of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed, Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation , or any of Michael Moore's documentaries.  Our discussions will be a study of the writers' strategies with particular attention to how the writers interweave research, analysis, and narrative in the service of their political critique.  In addition to writing rhetorical analyses of published nonfiction, students will also be expected to craft a well-researched essay that speaks to a current socio-political issue of their own choosing.  Readings will include Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students as well as select nonfiction texts.  The course will also require substantial writing and revision: weekly writing exercises; one rhetorical analysis essay; and one research essay. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement .

300-L2 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies (2nd Am Lit) (Jr-Yr Writing) 71684
Instructor: M. Lowance T/Th 2:30 pm
Senior and Junior English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only.
Race & Slavery in American Culture. The course will examine the literature of the antebellum slavery debates in nineteenth-century America in A House Divided: The Antebellum Slavery Debates in America , 1776-1865 ( Princeton , 2003) and through the voices of the slave narrators Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs. Biblical proslavery and antislavery arguments, economic discourse, the conflict of writers and essayists like Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman and Lowell, James Kirke Paulding, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mary Eastman combine with scientific arguments and Acts of Congress relating to slavery to provide the historical background for examinations of the issues surrounding slavery. The seminar will also examine the abolitionist writings of William Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, and the New York Abolitionists Arthur and Lewis Tappan and Gerrit Smith. Four literary works will be studied in detail: Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin , Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson , and Morrison's Beloved , all of which represent approaches to the legacy of slavery. We will consider minstrel stereotyping, the sentimental novel as a vehicle for abolitionist arguments, and the rhetorical strategies of each of theses texts. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement .

300-L3 Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies (2nd Am Lit) (Jr-Yr Writing) 71686
Instructor: R. Knoper T/Th 11:15 am
Senior and Junior English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only.
Darwinism and American Literature. The course will be an investigation, first, of American literature in the wake of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man , with a focus on later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century fiction. Darwin 's impact on every dimension of U. S. culture was of course tremendous. His work profoundly challenged a religious culture and its ideas of humanity, progress, and the meaning of life. And his ideas were quickly enlisted to support a host of (often contradictory) social and political ideologies. How did American authors grapple with Darwinism? How did they represent or imaginatively transform ideas of evolution and heredity? How did they treat ideas about the continuities between human beings and animals--in their consciousness, mental faculties, emotions, and “social instincts”? How was their writing affected by evolutionary ideas about the progress of civilization, or about the “nature” (and, often, the presumably retarded development) of women, nonwhite races, “savages,” and criminals? Those are some of the questions this course will engage. Second, as an Advanced Seminar for Junior Year Writing, the course will consider the reasons for and ways of asking such questions. What is the relation of literature to intellectual history? What are the current practices of interdisciplinary study and “cultural studies” that may shape the way we investigate relations between literature and its contexts? What might be the reasons for looking at such issues in literature ? That is, can literature give us some special purchase on these questions, something that the discourse of science does not? And what might be the benefits of this kind of historical study? Amidst the current resurgence of Darwinist thinking--sociobiology, arguments about race and intelligence, explanations of our mating practices in terms of “reproductive success”--is reading century-old literature enlightening? Readings may include: Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage and New York stories; Jack London, The Call of the Wild , White Fang , and The Sea-Wolf ; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics and other stories and writings; Frank Norris, McTeague ; Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood ; Theodore Dreiser, Jennie Gerhardt ; Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes . Writing requirement: two papers, one shorter (five pages), one longer (ten pages), plus drafting, peer-review, and revision. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement .

300H-L1 Honors Junior-Year Seminar in English Studies (Jr-Yr Writing) 80747
Instructor: R. Mordecai T/Th 1:00 pm
Senior and Junior English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only.
Her Head a Village: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad . In this course we will study women writers whose work spans the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking literatures of the Caribbean (all texts will be read in English), as well as addressing immigrant experiences in North America. The core group of texts, and some related critical/theoretical essays, will ground our explorations of race, gender, culture and immigration; we will also discuss the writers' differing evocations of home, family, belonging, love, and work.  In our conversations, we will not be able to escape addressing racism, sexism, cultural imperialism and other expressions of relations between the empowered and the disempowered, both in the postcolonial contexts of the Caribbean , and in the metropolitan “North.” While some better-known authors (such as Jamaica Kincaid) may appear on the reading list, this course is an opportunity for students to expand their familiarity with this rich field of writing, and to discover such lesser-known writers as Loida Maritza Pérez, Lorna Goodison, Patricia Powell, and Gisèle Pineau. This is an intensive seminar for Honors students, and therefore will ask for more effort in preparation (reading), participation (discussion) and critical engagement (writing). Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement .

354-L1 Creative Writing: Introduction 55532
Instructor: C. DeWeese MWF 10:10 am
English majors, BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Introduction to Poetry. Intense investigation of poetry and the imagination. Experiments and creative detective work. Emphasis on exploration and magic tricks. Helmets optional.

354-L2 Creative Writing: Introduction 55534
Instructor: R. Wilson T/Th 9:30 am
English majors, BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Introduction to Fiction .

356-L1 Creative Writing: Poetry 55536
Instructor: M. Espada MW 2:30 – 3:45 pm
English majors , BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Prerequisite: ENGL 354 or 354H with a grade of 'B' or better. Admission by permission of professor. Students must submit a portfolio of three poems with name and student id number to Professor Espada's mailbox outside the main English Office, Bartlett 170.

This is an advanced undergraduate poetry workshop. Students produce poems independently for review in class, review work submitted by others, and engage in writing exercises. There are two major objectives: 1) finding a voice, i.e. a distinct identity in terms of language and subject; and 2) reinforcing the fundamentals of writing poetry, with a particular emphasis on the image. The various strengths of student poems receive as much attention as those areas requiring improvement. The course text is Poetry Like Bread , an anthology providing models for class discussion and writing.

356-L2 Creative Writing: Poetry 80786
Instructor: J. Hennessy T/Th 1:00 pm
English majors , BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Prerequisite: ENGL 354 or 354H with a grade of 'B' or better. To add course, students should submit a portfolio of 3 poems or 3-5 pages of work with name and student id number to Professor Hennessey at murhen@earthlink.net. Applications received before Dec. 1 will receive priority attention. English 356 is a poetry writing workshop. This course will integrate in-class writing exercises and weekly poetry assignments with an introduction to traditional lyric forms as well as "experimental" departures. We will read complete collections by a diverse group of contemporary poets in addition to our anthology selections. Class time will be divided between workshops, discussion of the weekly readings, and enjoyable, informal writing assignments. Pre-requisites may be waived with instructor's permission.

356-L3 Creative Writing: Poetry 80788
Instructor: J. Habel T/Th 9:30 am
English majors , BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Prerequisite: ENGL 354 or 354H with a grade of 'B' or better. To add course, students should submit a portfolio of 3 poems and a one page statement about your interest in poetry with name and student id number to Professor Habel's mailbox outside the main English Office, Bartlett 170. Applications received before Dec. 1 will receive priority attention. This course is an investigation of the craft and process of writing poetry. Students will write poems to be reviewed in class and conferences, experiment with writing exercises, and complete a portfolio of revised poems. Significant class time will be devoted to discussion of student poems. We will also examine a variety of published poetry, paying particular attention to the choices poets make and the effects of those choices. Regular attendance and active participation are required.

358-L1 The Romantic Poets 80789
Instructor: J. Almeida-Beveridge T/Th 11:15 am
English majors , BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. In her preface to Percy Shelley's drama, Prometheus Unbound , his wife Mary Shelley writes that he “believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no evil, and there would be none.” The transformative ethos in which Shelley placed such faith animates the literary period that we have come to know as Romanticism. In this course, we will examine major Romantic poets and their contemporaries. Alongside the canonical poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron and Shelley, we will also consider the works of women Romantic writers like Mary Shelley and Felicia Hemans, and relative newcomers to the Romantic canon like Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. We will explore questions such as: How do Romantic poets transform poetic form and language? How do they define poetry and the role of the poet? What is the Romantic writer's relationship to nature and place? How do Romantic poets define the role of the imagination in the creative process? What is their take on the defining events of their time (and our own modernity) like the French Revolution or the anti-slavery debate? How do women writers envision authorship? Our discussions will engage a variety of critical approaches, including formalism, feminism, post-colonialism, and new historicism.

359-L1 Victorian Imagination 80790
Instructor: S. Daly T/Th 1:00 pm
English majors , BDIC, UWW, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. The Victorian Imagination: Imagining Crime and Punishment. What kind of crimes did the Victorians like to imagine, to read about, to punish vicariously through their fiction? What did criminality itself mean in nineteenth-century Britain ? We will read a range of works that take up these questions from various perspectives. Novels may include Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret; Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone; Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist; George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, and Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four.  We will also read poetry by R. Browning, C. Rossetti, Tennyson, and Swinburne. A final reading list will be emailed to enrolled students in January.

369-L1 Studies in Modern (20th Century) Fiction (AL) 55538
Instructor: S. Clingman MW 10:10 am
This course will survey major trends in twentieth century fiction by taking as its theme the idea of "writing at the frontiers." This will be understood in various ways, ranging from the frontiers of form in the work of some of the century's foremost writers, to the literal frontiers that many of them have faced: of geography, culture, race, gender, politics. Writers will range from one end of the century to the other, including a selection from the following: Conrad, Forster, Rhys, Morrison, Coetzee, Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Zadie Smith. The course is offered this semester in lecture form, with discussion sections and other kinds of participation (very likely online). Requirements: participation; two essays; presentations; final exam. Discussion section is required .

369-D1 Studies in Modern (20 th Century) Fiction (AL) Instructor: P. Palmer F 9:05 am 55622
369-D2 Studies in Modern (20 th Century) Fiction (AL) Instructor: P. Palmer F 10:10 am 55624
369-D3 Studies in Modern (20 th Century) Fiction (AL) Instructor: S. D'Stair F 11:15 am 55626
369-D4 Studies in Modern (20 th Century) Fiction (AL) Instructor: S. D'Stair F 1:25 pm 55628

381-L1 Professional Writing and Technical Communication II 55574
Instructor: J. Solberg MW 2:30 pm
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380. Continues and extends the work of ENGL 380. Students will learn and apply principles of software documentation, information design, typography, and page design. The objectives of this course are to increase students' writing, organizational, and graphical sophistication and to enable them to produce portfolio-quality documentation that introduces an audience to industry-standard software (typically, Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe FrameMaker). (3 credits)

382-L1 Professional Writing and Technical Communication III 55540
Instructor: J. Solberg MW 4:40 – 5:55 pm
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380. ENGL 382 serves as the capstone course for the Professional Writing and Technical Communication Certificate. As such, the course has two aims: professionalization and specialization. Students will participate in mock interviews, workshop their professional portfolios, and learn about careers in technical writing and information technology from working professionals. The course will also provide students with directed opportunities to explore the theory and practice of particular kinds of writing and technology (e.g., report writing, grant proposals, speechwriting, voiceovers, integration with video and film, web site development). Each student will present a significant report on a topic related to technology, communication, and culture. (3 credits)

391C-L1 Advanced Software Professional Writers 55542
Instructor: D. Toomey T/Th 1:00 pm
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380 or permission of the instructor. Upon successful completion of this course the student will be proficient in the intermediate and  advanced use of HTML, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 , Adobe Photoshop CS3 , Adobe Flash CS3 , and Microsoft PowerPoint . The major and ongoing project for the course will be an online portfolio that demonstrates skills as a web designer and professional writer. The portfolio will be built with the software cited above. During class sessions, students will work on Macintosh computers.  Most class time will be given to laboratory work on some part of the portfolio, and most class sessions will involve an in-class assignment.  Preference will be given to students enrolled in the PWTC Program.

391C-L2 Advanced Software Professional Writers 55544
Instructor: D. Toomey T/Th 9:30 am
Senior and Junior students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Prerequisite: ENGL 380.

396 Independent Study 55546
Instructor: TBA TBA
Contact department to add course.

416-L1 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 80791
Instructor: S. Harris T/Th 9:30 am
John Dryden called Chaucer "the father of English poetry," and equated him to Homer and Virgil. Chaucer, said Dryden, "is a perpetual fountain of good sense." This course introduces you to one of the most influential story collections of English literary history, The Canterbury Tales . Bawdy, profound, rude, and beautiful--Chaucer's tales continue to inspire, delight, confuse, and awe their readers. We will read his tales in their original Middle English. We will also read works by Chaucer's English, French, and Italian contemporaries in order to contextualize his tales. No previous knowledge of Middle English is required. Frequent quizzes, short paper, and a choice between final paper and final exam.

419H-L1 Honors Games Thinkers Play (Jr-Yr Writing) 80793
Instructor: E. Gallo T 5:00 – 7:30 pm
Senior and Junior English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. Subject matter: the act of interpretation. Most texts are ambivalent and support a wide range of interpretation—even contradictory interpretations. From this fairly obvious fact certain less obvious consequences arise. We interpret certain texts in order to see how their language behaves and just where ambivalence resides. We then examine other critics' interpretations of texts in order to decide how persuasive these interpretations are.

Language is ambivalent and reason is often uncertain: does it follow that its meaning is forever unrecoverable? We examine postmodern claims that even the language of the hard sciences is ambivalent, that all of our knowledge is no more than an inflated myth-making. We consider the possible ways in which an interpretation can be grounded on fact--the facts of the author's intention, historical background, and--in a few cases--well supported scientific theory. There are no predetermined answers to the questions we will consider.

Nine short papers and four exercises (done in class).

Texts include Burke (on Keats' " Ode on a Grecian Urn "); selections from the Presocratic poet-philosophers; Kenneth Burke (dramatism); Lévi-Strauss (structuralism); Joseph Campbell (Jungian analysis); Derrida and J. Hillis Miller (deconstruction); Niels Bohr (on complementarity); and others. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement .

469H-L1 Honors Victorian Monstrosity (Jr-Yr Writing) 80799
Instructor: K. Farrell MW 2:30 - 3:45 pm
Senior and Junior English majors, International/National exchange majors, or Masters students with a TECS subplan only. We'll be reading novels of the 1890s that project visions of monstrosity and crystallized many of the themes of modernism haunting us today. Radical historical change raised liberating and terrifying questions about identity: What sort of creatures are we?  This is not a conventional literature course: we'll be using history, anthropology, psychology, and other disciplines to explore the impact of modernism. We'll work with overt monsters in Frankenstein and Dracula , but also with a range of sublimated grotesques, from Sherlock Holmes to Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray . The seminar includes a required lab section that meets once a week to screen related films (Oscar Wilde plays, etc). Reading : all or part of seven novels, plus Richard D. Altick's Victorian People and Ideas , Ernest Becker's Escape from Evil , and Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth .  Recommended: Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower .

In fulfilling the second part of the Junior-Year Writing Requirement, the seminar will focus on criticism. Plan to write a page or two about each book and a longer semester essay. Satisfies Junior-Year Writing Requirement . Lab section is required .

469H-Lab1 Honors Victorian Monstrosity I nstructor: K. Farrell W 4:00 – 6:30 pm 80801

491A-L1 Neruda in Translation 55604
Instructor: M. Espada M 4:00 pm
COMBINED CLASS WITH 491A-L2. 10 SEATS RESERVED FOR SPANISH MAJORS ONLY. This is an introduction, in English translation, to the man considered by many to be the greatest Latin American poet of the 20th -century. The poetry of Neruda is marked by a series of aesthetic and political metamorphoses, and the course is organized around the enormous diversity of the work: the early love poems, surrealism, the political poems, brought on by Neruda's experience with the Spanish Civil War, the sweeping historical works best represented by his masterpiece, The Heights of Macchu Picchu, the humorous odes, the nature poems, and so on. The life of Neruda was also characterized by dramatic change, likewise charted throughout the course: from his career as a diplomat to his bitter years as a hunted political exile, from his acknowledgment as Nobel Laureate to his isolated death in the wake of the 1973 coup in Chile. Neruda was a witness to history, and special attention will be devoted to that history, particularly in terms of the Spanish Civil War and the Chilean coup. The course will also focus on the process of translation, and students will be encouraged to compare translations with one another, as well as against the original text.

491QQ-L1 Life-Writing and Self-Fashioning in the Americas 80811
Instructor: R. Mordecai T/Th 9:30 am
In this course we will read autobiographies, memoirs and essays from a variety of locations (geographical, racial, and social) across the Americas . We will think, talk and write about how the autobiographical mode has been and is being used for artistic, personal and political purposes. We will also ask ourselves and each other what we expect from autobiography, how we read it and why, and how those expectations are affected by what we know about the author's identity (in other words, how do we approach a memoir by an Afro-Caribbean woman differently than a memoir by a Native American man?) We will discuss matters of truth, authenticity, memory and creativity as they show up in our approaches to autobiographical texts. Finally, we will wonder together about what it means to be American, within and beyond the borders of the USA , and how these texts take part in creating that identity. Authors may include Patrick Chamoiseau, Maxine Hong Kingston, Henry Louis Gates, Zora Neale Hurston, Isabel Allende, Michelle Cliff, Jamaica Kincaid, Thomas King, Austin Clarke, and others. Students will respond to the texts through some combination of presentations, short reflective papers and a longer critical paper.

491RR-L1 William Faulkner (2nd Am Lit) 80812
Instructor: A. Kinney Th 4:00 pm
Often considered the greatest American fiction writer of the twentieth century, William Faulkner used his work to put his own white aristocratic heritage in direct confrontation with the forces that surrounded him in his native Mississippi : clan, class, gender, religion, and—most especially—race. His works made him an outcast in his home town and led to death threats from local citizens. We will examine how he fashioned stories and used special poetic techniques to accommodate his vision in a society known for intolerance to change.

We will concentrate on five novels: Flags in the Dust , The Sound and the Fury , Light in August , Absalom, Absalom! , and Go Down, Moses , but students will be expected to read and report on one other novel or group of stories to show how they address his concerns. One final paper on a topic chosen by the student and approved by the instructor.

491SS-L1 Trauma into Art: The Ethics of Witnessing History and Violation 80821
Instructor: T. Fernando T/Th 9:30 am
CANCELLED

491TT-L1 The Old English Epic: Beowulf 80820
Instructor: S. Harris T/Th 1:00 pm
"Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon ...." So begins the epic poem  Beowulf , which we will read in its original Old English and in modern English translation. Written between c. 750 and c.1000 AD,  Beowulf  is the chief poetic achievement of Anglo-Saxon England. It is a poem of stunning artistry. Beowulf inspired J. R. R. Tolkien and Seamus Heaney as it continues to inspire today. We will read it in its mythical and literary contexts, from Woden and Scyld to Grettir and Bilbo Baggins. Recommended for students who have taken English 313 Introduction to Old English Poetry or a similar course. We will spend the first three weeks reviewing the Old English language. If you think you can manage it, you're welcome to join in.

491UU-L1 American Orientalisms: Afro/Arab/Asian Connections 80823
Instructor: K. Cardozo M 2:30 pm
Linking European imperialism to false constructions of the “Other,” Edward Said's theory of Orientalism will underwrite our comparative approach to Afro/Arab/Asian experiences.  9-11 and the current war in Iraq further compel this dual investigation of both American Orientalism and the “ Third World ” struggle for self-determination inspired by Marxist, postcolonial or religious thought.  Feminist critiques will reveal the gendered structure of Orientalist discourses while theories of Occidentalism and Afro-Orientalism will highlight counter-discursive strategies.  Through multiple media, this course will examine both the global forces that “divide and conquer” and the “polycultural” alliances that may generate alternative visions of social organization. 

492D-L1 Children's Literature 80826
Instructor: J. Atkins T/Th 9:30 am
In this course we will consider the poetry and prose of some folk tales and picture books, which are not only most peoples' introduction to literature, but often illustrate the vigor of pared down language. The Once and Future King will give us some grounding in conventions of fantasy and Arthurian legends. We'll read Winnie-the-Pooh , The Wind in the Willows , Alice in Wonderland , The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , and Charlotte's Web and discuss what these classics have to say about humans, animals, nature, society, and joy. The Secret Garden , The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , and Bridge to Terabithia will offer a chance to explore the imaginative worlds some children find or create. We will read The Hundred Dresses and The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 and think about how these realistic novels deal with social issues. Maybe we can answer Grahame Greene's question: "What do we ever get nowadays from reading to equal the excitement and the revelation in those first fourteen years?" Course expectations include class discussion, a reading journal, two papers, and two exams.

496 Independent Study 55548
Instructor: TBA TBA
Contact department to add course.

499D-L1 Capstone course: Lifelong Writing: Poetry, Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction 55606
Instructor: A. Phillips T/Th 2:30 pm
Senior Honors students only. This capstone course is the second part of a two semester sequence; English 499C was offered in the Fall 2007 semester. It fulfills the Culminating Experience requirement of Commonwealth College . This course is designed to give creative writers and readers from all disciplines an environment in which to work and learn from each other and from established writers in the university and community. Poets, fiction, and creative nonfiction writers participate in weekly workshops that focus on close reading and developing proficiency in discussing literature by engaging with our own work and outstanding contemporary works. We will attempt to identify useful method to inspire us to write, or, when inspiration is lacking, to help us write anyway. We are also trying to gain confidence as readers. Class work is augmented by discussions with award-winning faculty and community writers, attendance of the Juniper Initiative-sponsored Writers Work series, and attendance of the Visiting Writers reading series. Preference in registration for senior honors students.

English Courses From The Five Colleges (Spring 2008)

Please note that when a course is marked (Engl 200), it means the course fulfills the pre-major requirement English 200: Seminar in Literary Studies for Pre-English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Brit Lit Pre-1700), it means the course fulfills the British literature pre-1700 with some coverage of Medieval requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Brit lit 1700-1900), it means the course fulfills the British literature 1700-1900 requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Engl 221/222), it means the course fulfills the British literature Shakespeare English 221/222 requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (2nd Am Lit), it means the course fulfills the second American Literature requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (JR-YR WRITING), it means the course fulfills the Junior-Year Writing requirement for English majors.

Please note that when a course is marked (Upper-level elective), it means the course fulfills an Upper-Level 300 or 400 level requirement for English majors.

(Click here to see Amherst College classes)
(Click here to see Hampshire College classes)
(Click here to see Mount Holyoke College classes)
(Click here to see Smith College classes)

AMHERST COLLEGE

HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE

HACU 0127-1 Ways of the Russian Novel (Upper-level elective)
Polina Barskova T/Th 2:00PM-3:20PM, MW 6:00PM-9:00PM
Modernity. Quest for the Divine. Scandal. Madness. Erotic obsession. State surveillance. These are a sampling of the topics found in two major Russian novels: "The Idiot" (1868) by Fedor Dostoevskii and "Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov (1929-1940). Close reading of these texts within their historical, social, and cultural contexts will allow us to pose the following questions: what are the defining features of the novel genre in its Russian manifestation? What is the trajectory of the genre's development from the "great Russian novel" in the 19th century to Bulgakov's "great underground Soviet novel"? In our analysis, we will implement various Western and Russian theories of the novel and discuss the validity and intentions of various film adaptations of these texts. Students are expected to produce short response papers, longer analytical papers, and oral presentations for the class.

HACU 0145-1 Latin American Literature (Upper-level elective)
Norman Holland MW 2:30PM-3:50PM
"Imperialism," writes Edward Said, "consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a global scale." Following Said, one could argue that "globalization" is the politics and economics of Imperialism on speed. Despite the persistence of long traditions, sustained habitations, national languages and cultural geographies, interference and contamination might be the only real alternatives to our contemporary complex incorporative economy and powerfully centralizing cultural apparatus. These alternatives might be profoundly unequal for debt is inevitable in culture as in any other field. Drawing on recent texts from around the globe and theoretical writings, this course thinks contra punctually about others and us. Writings by Lahiri, Hagedorn, Puig, Kincaid, Le Carre, and films such as Y tu mama tambien, Rang de Basanti, Maria Full of Grace, Babel will structure our discussions.

HACU 0161-1 The English Bible (Upper-level elective)
Alan Hodder MW 10:30AM-11:50AM
The English Romantic, William Blake, characterized the Bible as "the Great Code of Art," an observation that finds repeated illustration throughout the Western literary tradition from medieval mystery plays to the latest fiction of Toni Morrison. By the same token, biblical stories form the bedrock of the scriptural traditions of Christians, Muslims, and Jews the world over. What are these stories that have so captivated readers for over 2000 years? Why has the Bible had such an immense religious and imaginative appeal? This course introduces students to the full range of biblical literature from the stories of Genesis to the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. While the course emphasizes literary features of the Bible as it has been rendered in English, we will also consider important religious, moral, and theological implications. Among the biblical texts considered will be the foundational stories of Genesis and Exodus; the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth; the stories of David and Kings; the Book of Job and the Song of Solomon; the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel; New Testament gospels; Acts of the Apostles; and the Book of Revelation.

HACU 0164-1 U.S. Literature Since 1960 (Upper-level elective)
Christopher Vials MW 1:00PM-2:20PM
Though our focus will be on more recent literature of the United States , we will explore contemporary literature historically. That is to say, we will investigate literary trends over the past 40 years in order to help us define what is and is not unique to our historical moment, so that we may become more effective actors within it. Reading contemporary literature historically involves examining how particular American writers responded to and participated in socio-cultural phenomena during the last half century. To this end, we will consider how the mass consumer society enabled by postwar Keynesian economics, the social upheavals of the 1960s, the demographic shifts following the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, and 9/11 are all linked to issues of postmodernity, globalization, and identity within literary works. Authors will likely include Alice Walker, Gish Jen, David Sedaris, Don Delillo, Toni Morrison, Alan Gurganus, E.L. Doctorow, and Sandra Cisneros.

HACU 0191-1 Yiddish Literature and Culture (Upper-level elective)
Rachel Rubinstein T/Th 10:30AM-11:50AM
Yiddish was the language of European Jewry for nearly 1,000 years, which produced a rich legacy of folklore, legend, music, drama, poetry, fiction, and film. Recently in the United States and elsewhere we have seen an effort to recuperate, recover, and even re-define this "lost world:" in the resurgence of Eastern European "klezmer" music, in the creation of the National Yiddish Book Center, in Yiddish courses on college campuses, and in "Queer Yiddish." This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to the broad and rich range of Yiddish cultural production, concentrating on literature, drama, and film. We will dip into Yiddish folklore and popular culture, performance and theatre, modernism and radicalism, kitsch and high art, and reflect upon the complicated emotions of mourning, memory, sentimentality, nostalgia, political resistance, fantasy, and desire that fuel today's Yiddish revival. No knowledge of Yiddish language is required.

HACU 0193-1 Ancient Ireland (Upper-level elective)
Robert Meagher MW 1:00PM-2:20PM
An introduction to the archaeology, myth, history, art, literature, and religion of ancient Ireland : 4000 BCE to 1200 CE, from the earliest megalithic monuments to the Norman conquest. Consideration will be given, then, to these distinct periods: Pre-Celtic (Neolithic and Bronze Ages--4000 BCE-700 BCE); Pre-Christian Celtic (Late Bronze & Iron Ages--700 BCE-400 CE); and Early Christian Celtic (Irish Golden Ages and Medieval--700-1200 CE). The emphasis throughout will be on the study of primary material, whether artifacts or documents. Readings will include: selections from the Mythological, Ulster, and Finn Cycles; The Voyage of St. Brendan; The History and Topography of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis; the writings of Patrick; and selections from early Irish hagiography.

HACU 0212-1 Autobiographies, Literature, Book Culture (Upper-level elective)
Jutta Sperling;James Wald -
This course examines several types of writing about the self (autobiographies, memoires, letters) in the context of rising literacy rates and the print revolution. We will read how courtesans, Rabbis, artisans, mystics, women scientists, artists, house-wives, heretics, sailors, slaves, and presumed criminals reflected about their lives, imagined the cosmos, narrated catastrophes, encountered God, told of their lovers, described their family management, or defended themselves in court. In addition, we will study writing and reading habits of the past, and get hands-on experience with Early Modern books by visiting various rare book collections in the valley.

HACU 0231-1 Fascism in American Narrative & Memoir (Upper-level elective)
Christopher Vials MW 09:00AM-10:20AM
Originally situated in a set of right wing political movements in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, the fascist has become one of the most ubiquitous and vaguely defined arch-villains in U.S. pluralist discourse. This class will focus on the trope of fascism in U.S. literature and popular culture, and the terms under which antifascism became common sense within postwar, American imagination. We will identify a pervasive, left-wing antifascism in the 1930s and 1940s, one that linked race and class in order to conceive fascism as transnational, right-wing force which was also nascent within U.S. institutions. Some questions we will consider include: when and how did Americans begin conceiving fascism as something exclusively located abroad? How has American Jewish cultural production been crucial in keeping alive a socially critical antifascism amidst conservative revisions of the concept? Most important, how did the increasing awareness and shifting readings of the Holocaust after the war transform the meaning of the term "fascist?" Studying this "other" to American pluralism will serve as a way to examine discourses of universalism and multiculturalism after WWII, and will serve as a way to illuminate shifting notions of the U.S. as a multi-ethnic society. Readings will include primary and secondary sources in literature, popular culture, history, and political rhetoric. We will read works by Hannah Arendt, Philip Roth, Langston Hughes, Henry Wallace, Marianna Torgovnick, Irwin Shaw, and many others.

HACU 0235-1 Gender, Class, Victorian Culture (Brit lit 1700-1900) (Upper-level elective)
Lise Sanders T/Th 2:00PM-3:20PM
In this course, we will analyze a number of female "types" found in Victorian fiction, poetry, and criticism -- the governess, the fallen woman, the shopgirl, and the 'new woman', to name just a few -- who figure centrally in debates over marriage, work, and the changing position of women in nineteenth-century Britain. Although our reading will range from the late 1840s to the beginning of the twentieth century, we will focus primarily on two historical periods, the 1850s-1860s and the 1890s, during which the "woman question" was hotly debated in the press and in fiction. Topics for discussion will include the convergence of gender, sexuality and politics in late-Victorian feminist and socialist reform movements; the role of class in defining female experience; and women's conflicted participation in British imperialism. Students will be encouraged to conduct primary research on nineteenth-century women's history in local archives in conjunction with course papers and divisional work.

HACU 0237-1 Fictions of Childhood (Upper-level elective)
L. Brown Kennedy MW 1:00PM-2:20PM
On one level this will be a seminar on literature written for school-aged children, including some basic introduction to major genres and selected writers of texts written in English for a child audience, and exploring particularly the question of the child as reader/ auditor and the figure of the child as stranger or outsider. However, we will also look at fictions written for adults that let us raise questions about the representation of children and childhood in the late nineteenth and, particularly the twentieth centuries. Specific themes may include: children and fantasy; childhood and memory or (forbidden) knowledge; the relation of child and adult worlds; the experience of violence and sexuality and the shifting representation of racial and cultural difference. Final projects will ask students to pursue these questions, and others of their choice, in texts published since 2001. The class may include the opportunity for community-based experience, involving an additional time commitment (contact instructor in January). Students should have college-level background in studying literary texts. Background in psychology, history, cultural studies, or education is desirable but not required.

HACU 0238-1 Reading (With) Borges (Upper-level elective)
Norman Holland T/Th 2:00PM-3:20PM
This course is devoted to the writings of the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, one of the best and most important fiction writers of the last century. Famous for his erudite fictions that speculate on time, history, knowledge, identity, reality, and the imagination, Borges taught us to think literature. He also delighted in spoofing erudition, in the conspiratorial wink against the purveyors of Culture. This playful side has its shadow, for much of his writing revolves around violence?iniquity, to cite one of his early titles. We will explore this duality of seriousness and fun selectively in his stories, poems and essays. Film adaptations of his writings will be screened outside of class. Students with a working knowledge of Argentine will be encouraged to read the original texts.

HACU 0243-1 Black Mountain Blues (Upper-level elective)
Christopher Benfey MW 10:30AM-11:50AM
An experimental school founded in North Carolina in 1933, Black Mountain College lasted for barely two decades, but its influence on art and progressive education, at Hampshire and elsewhere in the world, has been decisive. This course will examine some of the key ideas that inspired the college as well as its amazing legacy in revitalizing American culture. Students will pursue independent research; discussion will center on how to write about the arts. Readings and topics may include some of the following: Emerson and Dewey; Fenollosa's The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry; Anni and Josef Albers; Charles Olson and Robert Creeley; John Cage and Merce Cunningham; M. C. Richards and Gary Snyder.

HACU 0264-1 The Past Recaptured (Upper-level elective)
Michael Lesy MW 9:00AM-10:20AM
(Also IA 0264) This course will study the United States, 1935-1943, using an array of primary and secondary visual and written sources. These sources will include: (1) One hundred and forty-five thousand black and white images made of the American people by a team of documentary photographers employed by the US government (These photographs are in the FARM SECURITY/OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION COLLECTION. This collection is available on-line, through the Library of Congress American Memory website). (2) The Historical NEW YORK TIMES and the Historical CHICAGO TRIBUNE, available as on-line data bases. (3) David M. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize winning FREEDOM FROM FEAR, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN DEPRESSION AND WAR, 1929-1943. (4) Period novels and oral histories (e.g. Lorena Hickock's ONE THIRD OF THE NATION). Students will learn to choose and use excerpts from this array of images and texts to build narrative sequences of words and pictures that, like movies with soundtracks, tell true stories about this country and our shared pasts. Students will be expected to create sequences of words and images that, from week to week, will be the work product of this course. This course is designed for artists who are intellectuals, and intellectuals who are artists. Prerequisite: Secondary school Advanced Placement in American History, and/or American Literature courses OR: College courses in American history and/or American Literature.

HACU 0278-1 Screenwriting (Upper-level elective)
Michael Elyanow Th 9:00AM-11:50AM
This 200-level course is open to advanced students currently working on projects and/or less advanced students seeking to develop basic understandings and skills in screenwriting. Students are expected to work on writing exercises, bring in pages to read in class, and/or continue developing an existing idea or work-in-progress such as a divisional project. The focus of the class will be on screenwriting structure, with specific attention paid to the paradigmatic Three-Act Structure of narrative feature films. Alternative approaches to understanding structure and story will also be discussed, such as The Hero's Story, The Dual-Lead Story, The Multi-Protagonist Story, The Cyclical Story, The Bookended Story and Kristin Thompson's Four-Act Structure Paradigm. Other issues to be addressed include Character Development and Arc, Dialogue, Scene Structure, Scene Transitions, Point of View, Writing Directive Paragraphs, Creating Forward Movement, Plot Vs. Story and Understanding Theme. Examples of both screenplays and movie scene selections with audio commentary will be used in class. Registration is by instructor permission and will be posted after the first class.

HACU 0282-1 Writing the Self (Upper-level elective)
Mary Russo T 9:00AM-11:50AM
In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable transformation in the forms of autobiographical writing. "Personal writing" has infiltrated fiction, critical essays, philosophical treatises, ethnography, legal discourse, medical case studies, and political history. In this course, we will consider the varieties of contemporary memoirs and their relationship to earlier forms of confessional and testimonial writing. Political memoirs, spiritual memoirs, literary memoirs, psychoanalytical memoirs, memoirs of illness, recovery, and trauma will be discussed in relation to cultural and scientific theories of memory, its loss and recovery. Students will be expected to complete short analytical papers each week and to choose a final project that incorporates personal writing.

HACU 0289-1 Mystics and Texts (Upper-level elective)
Alan Hodder T/Th 12:30PM-01:50PM
No issue in the comparative history of religion dramatizes the challenges of cross-cultural study of religious phenomena more than what is referred to as "the problem of mysticism." Is the mystic a kind of lone ranger of the soul whose experience reveals and confirms the transcendental unity of all religions, or are the experiences of mystics entirely predetermined by a the mystics' respective contexts of history, tradition, language, and culture? What is the relation between the mystic's "interior" experiences and what he or she writes about them? In this course we will undertake a comparative study of "mystical" and scriptural texts representing Neoplatonic, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions within the framework of modern and contemporary critical contributions to the history, psychology, and philosophy of mysticism. Among the mystics and texts considered are: Plotinus, The Cloud of Unknowing, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, selected Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Mirabai, Ramakrishna, Milarepa, and Dogen. Prerequisite: at least one course in the study of religion or philosophy.

HACU 0301-1 Milton in 17th Century Context (Upper-level elective)
L. Brown Kennedy Th 12:30PM-03:20PM
Focused by a semester-long reading of Milton 's epic poem, Paradise Lost, this seminar will think about some of the major intellectual and social controversies--philosophic, political, religious, scientific, familial/sexual, economic--that roiled the middle decades of the Seventeenth century in England and the new North American colonies, as well as on the Continent. We will read Milton alongside a selection of texts by, among others, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Shakespeare, Donne, Elizabeth Carey, Oliver Cromwell, Amelia Lanyer, Eleanor Davies and various Ranters and Levelers. Sometimes described as the beginning of the modern world, this period saw in England: an attack on the legitimacy of monarch and Church, violent Civil War, changes in family structure and a small explosion in writing by women, the imaginative as well as practical impact of the discoveries of Galileo, Newton and Harvey, increased encounters with non-European peoples, along with the articulation of ideas of overseas expansion, trade, and manifest destiny--topics we may explore as we work out way through Milton's poem, reading it also with close attention to its language and structures. This upper-level seminar is designed for students with college-level background in literature, history, philosophy or related fields.

IA 0227-1 Using Suspense in Story (Upper-level elective)
Katherine McGovern Th 12:30PM-3:20PM
Writers of all genres know that suspense is integral in the creation of stories that keep people turning the pages of your work. You needn't be interested in writing about crime, mayhem, or even mystery to benefit enormously from reading some classic short stories in the genre and looking carefully at how these stories are structured, how information is revealed, and how fully drawn characters emerge. We will be looking at the writing of some of the masters: Edgar Allen Poe, Patricia Highsmith, Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, and Josephine Tey, to understand better how suspense is created and sustained throughout a story. While this will be the focus of our readings and some short writing exercises, you will be free to write stories in any style/genre you choose for workshop.

IA 0236-1 The Practice of Literary Journalism (Upper-level elective)
Michael Lesy T/Th 9:00AM-10:20AM
Literary journalism encompasses a variety of genres, including portrait/biography, memoir, and investigation of the social landscape. At its best, literary journalism uses such dramatic devices as plot, characterization, and dialogue to extend and elaborate the who/what/where/when/and why of traditional journalism. By combining evocation with analysis, immersion with investigation, literary journalism tries to reproduce the complex surfaces and depths of the real world. Books to be read will include: The Art of Fact , by Kevein Kramer and Ben Yagoda, Let us Now Praise Famous Men , by James Agee and Waler Evans, Dispatches , by Michael Herr and Awakenings , by Oliver Sacks. Students will be asked to write short, nonfiction narratives that will require participant/observation of local scenes and interview/conversation with the people who inhabit them. Students will then be asked to extend these "short stories" into longer pieces that have casts of "characters" and plots. The field work will demand initiative, patience, and curiosity. An ability to meet weekly deadlines as well as well-prepared class participation will be required.

IA 0247-1 White on Black (Upper-level elective)
Robert Coles T/Th 10:30AM-11:50AM
What happens when a white American author chooses black American life as subject matter? Is it possible for white Americans to write about black life without stereotyping and misrepresenting? This class will focus on such questions involving literary texts, mainly novels and plays, that explore black American life and experience. We will read these works and ask further questions: What unique vision do white authors bring when they treat black life? How have these works and authors contributed to the development of American literature? How has social history shaped and informed these texts? We will also examine patterns, themes, and motifs that have emerged historically in them?e.g., the tragic mulatto, primitivism, rape and lynching. Among texts we will read include: Harriet Stowe, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; William Faulkner, LIGHT IN AUGUST, Fannie Hurst, IMITATION OF LIFE; John Griffin, BLACK LIKE ME; Joyce C. Oates, BLACKGIRL/WHITE GIRL; William Styron, CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER; Lilian Smith, STRANGE FRUIT; Eugene O'Neil, EMPEROR JONES; Edward Albee, DEATH OF BESSIE SMITH.

IA 0255-1 Poetry Workshop (Upper-level elective)
Heather Madden M 1:00PM-3:50PM
For centuries, poets have been inspired by the works of visual artists. In this workshop, we'll study the art-inspired poems of a range of poets (from Romantic poet John Keats to contemporary poet Jorie Graham). As we explore the balance between the poem as an independent work and the poem as an art-inspired text, we'll grapple with a number of questions, including: "Does one's appreciation of such poetry require familiarity with the art that inspired it?" Early in the semester, workshop members will identify an artist whose work they find inspiring. For the remainder of the semester-- through focused assignments, in-class writing exercises, research, careful consideration of sources related to the selected artist, and peer workshops--each member will work to develop a portfolio of 10-12 inter-related, art-inspired poems. Prerequisite: This class is designed for students who have had at least one college-level poetry workshop or an equivalent course in Visual Arts.

IA 0265-1 Point of View in Fiction (Upper-level elective)
Benjamin James WF 2:30PM-3:50PM
One of the most profound pleasures reading offers us is the possibility of losing ourselves in someone else's distinctive and engrossing point of view. Such an immersion is especially informative in our current world, where divergent perspectives between individuals, communities, or cultures often lead to devastating eruptions of violence. This will be a craft-based reading and writing course, focused particularly on narrative point of view. Through short and long assignments, we'll work with all the forms of first-, second-, and third-person narration (including that most delicious and elusive of narrative forms, the fluid third-person), our goal being a depth of perspective that saturates the world of the fiction. Particular emphasis will be placed on the dynamic and frightening process of imagining our way into the experiences of people who are (or seem) unlike ourselves. We'll do extensive reading of published work, including a survey of several novels narrated by dogs.

MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE

ENGL 200-01 Introduction to Study of Literature (Engl 200)
Christopher Benfey MW 8:35AM-9:50AM
This course examines various strategies of literary representation through a variety of genres, including such traditional literary forms as the novel, lyric poetry, drama, and autobiography, as well as other cultural forms, such as film. Particular attention is given to student writing; students are expected to write a variety of short essays on selected topics. Though the themes of specific sections may vary, all sections seek to introduce students to the terminology of literary and cultural discourse.

ENGL 200-02 Introduction to Study of Literature (Engl 200)
Simone Davis T/Th 1:15PM-2:30PM

ENGL 200-0 Introduction to Study of Literature (Engl 200)
William Quillian T/Th 11:00AM-12:15PM

ENGL 200-04 Introduction to Study of Literature (Engl 200)
Robert Shaw MW 2:40PM-3:55PM

ENGL 200-05 Introduction to Study of Literature (Engl 200)
Eugene Hill MWF 10:00AM-10:50AM

ENGL 200-06 Introduction to Study of Literature (Engl 200)
Michael Snediker T/Th 11:00AM-12:15PM

ENGL 210-01 Medieval to Commonwealth (Brit Lit Pre-1700)
Frank Brownlow MW 8:35AM-9:50AM
This introduction to English literary history focuses on works, authors, forms, conventions, and ideas in chronological order and historical setting. Readings include Beowulf, selections from The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a Shakespeare play, and selections from such authors as Malory, Spenser, Sidney, Marvell, Donne, and Milton.

ENGL 211-01 Shakespeare (Engl 221/222)
Frank Brownlow MW 1:15PM-2:30PM
A study of some of Shakespeare's plays, emphasizing both the poetic and the dramatic aspects of his art, with attention to the historical context and varieties of critical interpretations, including those of the twentieth century. Nine or ten plays.

ENGL 214-01 Medieval Texts & Contexts
(Brit Lit Pre-1700)
This full-year course allies students of late medieval history and literature with its two instructors in exploration of texts and contexts that constituted the society and culture of England , 1350-1530. The first semester emphasizes discovery of published evidence from the era; the second challenges participants to integrate textual analysis and historical interpretation. Major texts include works by Chaucer, Gower, and Malory, read within an array of less familiar medieval sources. Major topics include languages and book culture of late medieval England ; violence and chivalry; the worlds of manors and guilds; polity, gender, and governance; and late medieval science.

ENGL 232-01 Global Diversity/European Modernity (Upper-level elective)
Siraj Ahmed W 1:15PM-4:05PM
For two centuries, academic disciplines have been based on the premise that early modern Europe laid the foundations of 'modernity'--scientific method, markets, mobility, democracy, and global exchange, or, in a word, 'progress'--and then brought it to the rest of the world. But what were those other worlds, both in Europe and outside, that modernity superseded? What trace have they left--how can we know them--after they have been destroyed? Juxtaposing Enlightenment literature and post-Enlightenment theory concerned with historical difference, this class aims to rethink what actually constitutes the peculiar modernity that came to shape our lives.

ENGL 235-01 Modern British Poetry (Upper-level elective)
Nigel Alderman MW 11:00AM-12:15PM
This introduction to modern British poetry pays special attention to the emergence, consolidation, and dismantling of modernist poetry and poetics. It will link this literary history with, amongst other things, the loss of faith, the two world wars, and the relationship between monumental aesthetics, utopian poetics, and totalitarian politics. Writers will include Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, H.D., and Auden.

ENGL 236-01 The English Novel/Defoe to Austen (Brit lit 1700-1900)
Jennifer Pyke T/Th 8:35AM-9:50AM
This course will focus on well-known English novels of the 18th and early 19th century while introducing some of the different theoretical arguments regarding the emergence and history of what is called the modern novel. Novelists will include Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Burney, Radcliffe, and Austen, with supplementary readings in theory and criticism.

ENGL 241-01 American Literature II (2nd Am Lit)
Elizabeth Young MW 1:15PM-2:30PM
A continuation of English 240, which explores the diversity of writers and literary forms that arose in U.S. society in the period from the Civil War to World War I. Authors may include Alcott, Chopin, Crane, Dreiser, Dunbar, Dunbar-Nelson, DuBois, Sui-Sin Far, Gilman, Harper, James, Jewett, Stein, Twain, Wharton, and Whitman. Will address the development of realism and naturalism, and the beginnings of modernism, and explore literary redefinitions of race, gender, sexuality, and class as shaped by social and economic pressures during this era.

ENGL 250-01 African American Literature (2nd Am Lit)
Ronaldo Wilson T/Th 1 :15PM-2:30PM
This course will explore twentieth-century and contemporary African American writers of great political import and innovation, beginning in the 1950s before the Black Arts movement with Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry, turning to writers such as June Jordan, Amiri Baraka, and Ishmael Reed. Post-movement writers may include Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Harryette Mullen, Rene Gladman, Gary Fisher, and Anna Deveare Smith. Students will address the role of artistic strategy in these writers' works--poem, essay, play, novel, particularly in thinking about issues of race, gender and sexuality, and (black) self representation.

ENGL 253-01 African Literature (Upper-level elective)
John Lemly MW 2:40PM-3:55PM
An introduction to African literature in English since 1960. Fiction, drama, autobiography, essays by such writers as Ama Ata Aidoo, Ayi Kwei Armah, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nadine Gordimer, and Bessie Head. Particular attention to themes of exile and imprisonment, political struggle before and after independence, the convergence of oral cultures and European languages, and the emergence of postcolonial and feminist discourses in contemporary Africa.

ENGL 254-01 Postcolonial Theory (Upper-level elective)
Amy Martin T/Th 1:15PM-2:30PM

ENGL 302-01 Nonfiction Writing/Literary Journalism (Upper-level elective)
Margaret Murphy M 7:00PM-10:00PM
This course will focus on the techniques and skills needed to research and write compelling narratives about the recent and more distant past. In addition to regular writing and interviewing assignments, students will read and analyze the work of literary journalists who emphasize context and creative storytelling about events and trends. This course focuses on the reporting and writing of longer, in-depth articles, suitable for publication in magazines, journals, or books.

ENGL 303-01 Short Story Writing II (Upper-level elective)
Corinne Demas W 1:15PM-4:05PM
This workshop is for students seriously engaged in writing short stories. Students will refine their technical skills and work on the subtleties of style. Extensive readings are required.

ENGL 304-01 Verse Writing II (Upper-level elective)
Robert Shaw T 1:15PM-4:05PM
This workshop allows students to explore traditional verse forms as well as to invent some of their own. Each meeting provides time for discussion not only of student work but of poetry of other periods and sensibilities.

ENGL 309-01 Crafting the Novel (Upper-level elective)
Amity Gaige M 1:15PM-4:05PM
This writing- and speaking-intensive course is designed for students seriously engaged in writing fiction who want to study the craft of novel writing. Weekly writing assignments, discussions, and readings will lead up to each student's submission of the beginning of a novel. Extensive readings are required, as well as extensive critiques of peer work.

ENGL 311-01 Chaucer: Troilus & Criseyde (Brit Lit Pre-1700) (Upper-level elective)
Carolyn Collette T/Th 8:35AM-9:50AM
This course will read Chaucer's great love story Troilus and Criseyde, an exploration of love, compulsion, and betrayal, within the multiple intellectual contexts that framed the narrative for a late medieval audience: close attention to issues of free will, women's agency, the story of Troy in medieval literature, love as obsession, chivalry and war, construction of medieval authorship. We will also explore Chaucer's poetic achievement in this poem long recognized as his master work.

ENGL 313-01 Milton (Upper-level elective)
Eugene Hill MWF 11:00AM-11:50AM
A study of Milton 's major works, both in poetry and prose, with particular attention to Paradise Lost.

ENGL 323-01 Gender & Class in the Victorian Novel (Brit lit 1700-1900) (Upper-level elective)
Amy Martin T/Th 11:00AM-12:15PM
This course will investigate how representations of gender and class serve as a structuring principle in the development of the genre of the Victorian novel in Britain . We will devote significant attention to the construction of Victorian femininity and masculinity in relation to class identity, marriage as a sexual contract, and the gendering of labor. The texts chosen for this course also reveal how gender and class are constructed in relation to other axes of identity in the period, such as race, sexuality, and national character. Novelists will include Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, C. Bronte, and Hardy. Supplementary readings in literary critisicm and theory.

ENGL 324-01 Road from Xanadu (Brit lit 1700-1900) (Upper-level elective)
Virginia Ellis MW 1:15PM-2:30PM
Readings of some majors writers from the second part of the nineteenth century. The poetry of Tennyson; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Robert Browning; Arnold; the Pre-Raphaelites and their heirs (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne); Wilde and the Aesthetes; Hopkins; Hardy. Central critical prose by Ruskin, Arnold, Pater, Wilde, and Wilde's A Picture of Dorian Gray.

ENGL 334-01 Queer Kinship/Asian American Literature (2nd Am Lit) (Upper-level elective)
Iyko Day W 1:15PM-4:05PM
This course examines alternative kinship formations in Asian North American cultural production. It will focus on the gender and sexual management of racial bodies since the nineteenth century--from the U.S. Page Law of 1875 that restricted Chinese women on the basis of their presumed sexual immorality to various forms of "racial castration" that mediate Asian masculinities. We will consider how alternative kinship arrangements and queer cultural projects expose and/or upset the narrative assumptions embedded in heteronormative scripts of nationalism.

ENGL 337-01 Political Imagination: US/S. Africa (Upper-level elective)
Donald Weber T 1:15PM-4:05PM
This seminar examines the variety of literary and cultural expression in South Africa since the 1970s, focusing on the relations between art and political struggle. Among the topics to be discussed are the imagination of history in South African literature; the emergence of the Black Consciousness movement (and its legacies); the role of theater and poetry in the anti-apartheid movements; and the responses of the Truth of Reconciliation Commission. Among the authors to be studied are Gordimer, Coeztee, Fugard, Ndebele, Wicomb, Tlali, and Mda, along with a number of contemporary poets, playwrights, and filmmakers.

ENGL 344-01 Projects in Critical Thought (Upper-level elective)
Nigel Alderman M 7:00PM-10:00PM
This course will explore the work of a range of the most important cultural theorists of the last 50 years and consider what they can contribute to the analysis of all forms of cultural works, both past and present. We will be particularly interested in writers who attempt to construct models that seek to explain everything, who in their intellectual projects try to think the totality. This semester we will be focusing on Western Marxism, particularly in relation to cultural theory.

ENGL 348-01 Instide/ Out Hampden County (Upper-level elective)
Simone Davis F 9:30AM-12:00PM
This course will bring together Five College students with women incarcerated in Hampden County , to work together as peers for a semester-long exploration combining literary analysis and creative writing. Building such a collaborative classroom community proves transformative for all participants. Texts include Patricia McConnel's Sing Soft, Sing Loud and Jimmy Santiago Baca's A Place to Stand. Professor Davis will be joined by award-winning co-facilitator Lysette Navarro of Voices from Inside. One meeting each week 2 ½ hours, plus travel time. Class meets Fridays 9:30 - noon. STUDENTS WILL BE SELECTED BY INTERVIEW, TO BE CONDUCTED IN NOVEMBER 2007: swdavis@mtholyoke.edu.

ENGL 349-01 Globalization and Culture (Upper-level elective)
Siraj Ahmed Th 1:15PM-4:05PM
This class will probe the global conflicts exploding around us to find the material forces hidden there. We will briefly study market cultures from time out of mind to recover how Greek and Renaissance literature reconci