Global Arc

The New Eve is a distinctly modern creation, a radical and arresting re-imagining of her mythical original, the first woman venerated as the mother of humankind and blamed for its fallen humanity. We read the literary works of nineteenth and twentieth-century writers (e.g., Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Nella Larsen, James Joyce) and directors (e.g., Fritz Lang, Jane Campion) alongside psychoanalytic case studies and contemporary works of feminism, critical race, and trans theory to think anew Freud's notoriously unanswered question, what does a woman want. No prior knowledge of critical theory is required.

An introduction to American graphic narrative by way of understanding comics as a medium of textual and visual expression. Readings consist of modern and contemporary works that blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, novel and memoir, memory and history. In reflecting on the medium-specific qualities of comics, the course addresses questions of genre definition, cartoon aesthetics, and readerly experience.

This class explores the underside of civility: the indifference of good manners, the controlling attention of caregivers, the loving coercion of family, the quiet horrors of neighbors, friends, and allies. We will explore characters in fiction and film whose militant niceness exercises killing privilege or allows for the expansion of their narcissism...people with "good intentions" who nonetheless wreak havoc on the people and the environment around them. We will consider "niceness" as social performance, as cultural capital, as middle-class value, as sexual mores, as self-belief, and as affective management.

The senior thesis (ENG 498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

The senior thesis (ENG 498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

This course examines the major works of Aldous Huxley as vital contributions to the emerging 20th century canon of modernism, internationalism, pacifism, spiritualism, and the psychology of consciousness. The course probes Huxley's writings in the context of evolutionary, secular thought, while also reading them as strivings towards models of world peace. This course is intended to be of importance to students interested in the intersections of 20th century British literature and non-Western philosophical and religious systems, as well as to students interested in an intensive study of one of the 20th century's most prolific authors.

"Revenge my foul and most unnatural murder!" A ghost compels his conflicted son, Hamlet, to address something rotten in the state of Denmark with these words in Shakespeare's great tragedy. Whether or not you have read Hamlet, or have seen it performed, you probably know the story. This course aims to recontextualize Hamlet in early modern English theater history. Through study of other "revenge tragedy" plays from this period, seminar participants will gain new perspective on Hamlet's embeddedness in a culture and an art form probing the ethics of seeking justice through violence.

The wilderness tale is one of North America's most enduring literary genres. Stories of misfortune, hardship, and heroism in the continent's untamed landscapes have long entertained readers with both the romance and the realism of human encounters with the wild. This diverse literary tradition encompasses survival sagas, adventure tales, exploration thrillers, pioneer stories, escape fantasies, and animal yarns. What exactly is wilderness, and how have American and Canadian fiction writers shaped our thinking about the wild?

This seminar will explore a wide range of modern drama, poetry, and fiction by Irish authors. We will read plays by J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, Brian Friel, and Eva O'Connor; fiction by Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Anna Burns, and Sally Rooney; and poetry by W.B. Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, and Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi. We will probe the roles of Irish history, culture, and law in shaping Irish authors and their writings. Themes will include sexual identity and sex crimes; human rights; contracts, blackmail, and defamation; political and domestic violence; masculinity; and abortion rights.

"Money, money, money, and what money can make of life!", a woman laments in Dickens's Our Mutual Friend. We will read four novels in this class, two by Charles Dickens (Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend), one by Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White) and one by George Eliot (Silas Marner) to see how money and the need for it penetrate souls and societies in these works. We will consider how conceptions of gender, intrigues of sexuality and fears of foreigners shape the imagination of the power and limit of money in the world that these three eminent Victorians inhabit and illuminate.