Category A
MAJOR COURSES
(These are four-credit, six-week courses and every Seminar participant is required to enroll in one)
**Each Category A course is the equivalent of a 300-level class
Romance Literature
Ralph Hanna
The literary term 'romance' covers a multitude of sins. It is the grounding of many popular literary forms—from soap operas to Harlequin romances (and thus we look at a few films that embody romance themes and techniques). But it is, equally, a distinct, if rather amorphous, literary method, one equally adaptable to knights on quest, dramatic studies of lost women, and novels of young men seeking success. This course explores some of its many possible variations and assesses why this mode of writing has proved so resilient. Readings are drawn from: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Dickens's Great Expectations, Tennyson's Idylls of the King, and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Films to be viewed may include Excalibur, Shane, and The Maltese Falcon. (Satisfies an Upper Level Elective requirement for the English major.)
Reading Jane Austen
Clare Connors
There are different Austens for different readers. Some are charmed by her wit, by her heroes and heroines, and by her capacity to write some of the greatest love stories of all time. Others view Austen as the reactionary or at least conservative voice of early nineteenth-century Tory Britain. And still others see her as dangerously subversive of the politics, manners, and mores she depicts. This course will not promote any one Austen, but, through a close exploration of each of her six major novels, we will attempt, like Elizabeth Bennet, to suspend our prejudices and sift the textual evidence, before coming to an opinion. (Satisfies an Upper Division Elective requirement for the English major.)
During your six weeks in Oxford, we will explore key Austen themes, such as love, marriage, money, morality, and sense and sensibility, relating them to their contexts within Regency Britain, and also within Enlightenment and Romantic literary traditions. More importantly, perhaps, we will scrutinize closely the linguistic texture of the novels, discussing how Austen’s famous irony works and focusing on her subtle use of free indirect speech. Since Austen is often discussed in terms of a history of 'women's writing', we will take some time to consider feminist readings of Austen's work, and relate her novels to the issues facing women in early nineteenth-century England.
Modern Irish Literature: Texts and Contexts
Lydia Rainford
Since the end of the nineteenth century, Ireland has produced some of the most significant and stylistically innovative writers of literature in English, and yet many of these writers have been dissenters who chose to live and work abroad. Such voluntary exile can be explained, at least in part, as an attempt to escape religious and political pressures at home, and to make possible a freer reflection through their art upon Ireland's troubled and often violent history and culture. This course will examine a range of seminal literary texts in relation to the social, political, and religious contexts from which they emerged and against which they stand as acts of both exploration and resistance. The works to be studied will be drawn from various genres and periods and will include J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907), James Joyce's Dubliners (1914), W. B. Yeats's The Tower (1922) and other poems, Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock (1925), Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (first London production, 1955), and selected poems by Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland. Themes to be considered will include the relation of art to nature and to politics, sexuality and religion, exile and national identity, and the potentially subversive power of comedy. (Satisfies an Upper Division Elective requirement for the English major.)
Shakespeare in Love
Sarah Poynting
In this course we shall be looking both at what Shakespeare wrote about love and at how this has been interpreted and reworked by modern directors and film-makers. We shall read two tragedies (Romeo and Juliet and Othello), two romantic comedies (Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night), and a range of Shakespeare’s poetry: love, desire and sex in their many and varied guises—young, mature, interracial, homoerotic—are put under the spotlight. Close textual analysis will be accompanied by consideration of plays in performance (watched on DVD), from those like Trevor Nunn’s Othello, a record of a magnificent stage production, and reasonably faithful cinema adaptations (Nunn’s Twelfth Night, Branagh’s Much Ado), through Baz Luhrmann’s less faithful but more genuinely cinematic William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, to modern rewritings such as the BBC’s ‘Shakespeare Re-Told’ Much Ado, which features Benedick and Beatrice as TV news anchors. Of course, Shakespeare’s own love-life has also been the subject of film-makers’ interest, and novelist William Boyd’s A Waste of Shame (on the writing of the sonnets) and Shakespeare in Love itself are not only entertaining, but revealing of the differences between approaches both to love and to the nature of the literary imagination in the Shakespearean and modern worlds. Why do we want the sonnets to be about real people and situations? Why are some people uncomfortable with the idea that Shakespeare took his plots from other literary works.
And just why did the Doctor think fify-seven academics would punch the air in The Shakespeare Code...
(Satisfies the Shakespeare requirement for the English major).
The Literary Makings of the Modern Self
Valentine Cunningham
What makes you, you? This course will involve an inspection of a group of major texts, key examples of writing across the tradition of English literature from the Renaissance to the present day, all preoccupied with issues of modern selfhood:
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1601), a foundational text for western self-consciousness
- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1720), a key to Protestant individualism
- George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860), a major nineteenth-century case of emerging, conflictual female being
- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1948), a seminal work of modern consciousness
- Martin Amis, Money: A Suicide Note (1986), whose hero is John Self.
(Satisfies an Upper Division Elective requirement for the English major.)
History of the English Language
Simon Horobin
Why do we write knight but pronounce it nite, why is the plural of ‘ox’ oxen not oxes, why does English have just one second person pronoun, ‘you’, when most other languages have two? Why do Americans say dove not dived, write color not colour, and wear pants rather than trousers? Understanding the structure and varieties of English today requires a knowledge of its history and development. This course will introduce students to the history of the language from its Germanic roots to its present-day manifestations. By examining a range of Old, Middle and Early Modern English texts students will study how the language has changed and why these changes have occurred. As well as providing students with an overview of the English language and its history, this course will also consider developments in literary language and will thus be of use to students wanting to develop their skills in literary analysis. (Satisfies an Upper Division Elective requirement for the English major.)
Introduction to International Law
Martins Paparinskis
The end of the Cold War brought new challenges for, and new expectations of, international law. Recent terrorist attacks have raised, in stark form, questions about the potential and limitations of law in establishing and maintaining world order. The law surrounding the uses of force is, of course, one of the most significant areas of international law, but recent years have also seen important developments in other key areas, particularly the preservation of the environment and the protection of human rights. This course will introduce the foundations of public international law. In light of these key areas, we will question whether international law can truly be termed law and whether it can hope to provide a realistic solution to the problems facing the world today. The course will interest not only those contemplating a career in law and who would like an introduction to legal reasoning via a fascinating and accessible area of the law; but also those who are considering careers in foreign affairs, politics or the media. No prior legal knowledge will be assumed.
Graduate Study
For graduate students, six weeks at Oxford University can offer excellent opportunities for guided research and study. All graduate students enrolled in the Seminar will receive the same accommodations and amenities that are offered to undergraduates. Graduate applicants should contact the Seminar Director concerning academic opportunities available to them.
