Global Arc

A detailed discussion of different bodies of theatrical literature, with emphasis and choice of materials varying from year to year. The focus will be on a group of related plays falling within a specific historical period, the developing work of one playwright, or the relationships among thematics, characterization, and structure. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Courses offered under this rubric will investigate ethical questions in literature. Topics will range from a critical study of the textual forms these questions take to a historical study of an issue traditionally debated by both literature and ethics (responsibility, rhetoric, justice, violence, oppression). Two lectures, one preceptorial.

How does Beowulf work as a poem? In this course, we will find out, learning the poem through close study of its manuscript context and of its literary and historical milieux. We will examine its genre; sources of and analogues to it; its metrics; its place in theories of oral performance; codicological problems (e.g., why the manuscript looks as it does; how paleography helps to date the poem); and its historical and cultural settings. Tune up your harp, sharpen your wits, and find out why this poem is first in collections of English literature.

How do novels represent the global? How have new media systems and economic exchange transformed not only the way novels are produced and distributed but also the internal form of the literary works themselves? This course examines how writers register the interconnected nature of modern life and the narrative strategies that they invent to make sense of migration, war, urbanization, and financialization. Students will learn interdisciplinary methods for reading literature's potential for sociological and historical knowledge by considering how the global novel grapples with empire and what political futures it forecloses and opens up.

An introduction to English literary history. Centered on four great writers--Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Pope. Two lectures, one 50-minute preceptorial.

The 21st century has seen many Greek classics re-told in ways that challenge dominant power structures. We will analyze some of these new versions of old stories while interrogating the very idea of a 'classic'. Why re-tell a story from over 2,000 years ago to begin with? What are the politics of engaging with texts that have been used to underpin ideas of a superior Western civilization? What challenges do writers have to overcome in working with ancient texts? Students will consider these questions as readers but also as writers who will work towards a classics re-write of their own.

The young Irish novelist Sally Rooney is widely seen as the writer who best expresses the anxieties and hopes of her generation in the western world. Her three novels - Conversations with Friends (2017); Normal People (2018); and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021) - have sold millions of copies and explored sexuality, friendship, communication, social class and inequality. In this seminar course, we explore Rooney's work in the context of the recent and remarkable flowering of fiction by Irish women.

If we remember one thing about ancient myths, it is not to read them literally: Icarus didn't really fall into the sea because he flew too close to the sun. In this class, we will explore the frequently contentious debates about how to interpret myth as they played out in Europe from about 1500-1750. As we shall see, writing about myths ("mythography") mattered to the early moderns as a powerful way of making arguments about topics including politics, philosophy, religion, science, and sexuality. We will consider the histories of literature, ideas, and visual art, and treat authors ranging from Boccaccio and Machiavelli to Milton and Newton.

Students learn to write clear and persuasive criticism in a workshop setting while becoming familiar with a variety of critical practices and research methods. The course culminates in the writing of a junior paper. Each section will pursue its own topic; students are assigned according to choices made during sophomore sign-ins. Required of all English majors. One three-hour seminar.

A study of particular developments in criticism and theory, from Aristotle to Nietzsche. The course will also consider the relation of contemporary criticism to movements and issues such as deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis, and cultural materialism. One three-hour seminar.