The following courses are recommended to all students interested in literature as a foundation for the study of the humanities. No previous college course work in literature is assumed. These courses may not be used toward the minimum requirements for the English major.
Film as Literature
V41.0070 Formerly V41.0170. Identical to V30.0501. Offered every year. 4 points.
The development of the film as a major art form and its relationship to other art forms. Particular attention to the language of cinema, the director and screenwriter as authors, and the problems of translating literature into film, with extensive discussion of the potentials and limitations of each art form. Milestone films are viewed and analyzed.
CORE COURSES FOR MAJORS AND MINORS
Offered every term. Required for English majors: V41.0200, V41.0210, V41.0220, and V41.0230. Required for English minors: V41.0200. Open to nonmajors who have fulfilled the College's expository writing requirement.
Literary Interpretation
V41.0200 Prerequisite: V40.0100. Open to English majors and minors only. 4 points.
Conducted in a seminar format. Introduces students to the demands and pleasures of university-level investigation of English literature. Students develop the tools necessary for advanced criticism, including close-reading skills, knowledge of generic conventions, mastery of critical terminology, and skill at a variety of modes of analysis, from the formal to the historical. Also emphasizes the writing process, with the production of four to five formal papers.
British Literature I
V41.0210 Prerequisite or corequisite: V41.0200 or equivalent approved by the course instructor. 4 points.
Survey of English literature from its origins in the Anglo-Saxon epic through Milton. Close reading of representative works, with attention to the historical, intellectual, and social contexts of the period.
British Literature II
V41.0220 Prerequisite: V41.0210 or equivalent approved by the course instructor. 4 points.
Survey of English literature from the Restoration to the 20th century. Close reading of representative works with attention to the historical, intellectual, and social contexts of the period.
American Literature I
V41.0230 Prerequisite: V41.0200 or equivalent approved by the course instructor. 4 points.
A survey of American literature and literary history, from the early colonial period to the eve of the Civil War. The goal is to acquire a grasp of the expanding canon of American literature by reading both established, canonical masterpieces and texts traditionally considered marginal. Topics include the relation between history and cultural mythology, the rise of “literature” as a discipline unto itself, the meaning of American individualism, the mythology of American exceptionalism, the dialectic of freedom and slavery in American rhetoric, the American obsession with race, the ideology of domesticity and its link to the sentimental, and the nature of the “American Renaissance.”
American Literature II
V41.0235 Offered every year. 4 points.
Survey of American literature from the Civil War to the present. Close reading of representative works, with attention to the historical, intellectual, and social contexts of the period.
COURSES IN LITERATURE FOR MAJORS AND MINORS OPEN TO ALL UNDERGRADUATES
The following courses are open to all undergraduates who have fulfilled the College’s expository writing requirement.
The Middle Ages at the Movies
V41.0033 Identical to V65.0983, V30.0033. Offered every year. 4 points.
See description under Medieval and Renaissance Studies (65).
History of Drama and Theatre I and II
V41.0125,0126 Identical to V30.0110,0111. Either term may be taken alone for credit. 4 points per term.
Examines selected plays central to the development of world drama, with critical emphasis on a cultural, historical, and theatrical analysis of these works. The first semester covers the major periods of Greek and Roman drama; Japanese classical theatre; medieval drama; theatre of the English, Italian, and Spanish Renaissance; and French neoclassical drama. The second semester begins with English Restoration and 18th-century comedy and continues through romanticism, naturalism, and realism to an examination of antirealism and the major dramatic currents of the 20th century, including postcolonial theatre in Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Theory of Drama
V41.0130 Identical to V30.0130. Offered every year. 4 points.
Explores the relationship between two kinds of theories: theories of meaning and theories of perfor-mance. Among the theories of meaning to be studied are semiotics, deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis, new historicism, and postmodernism. Theories of practice include naturalism, Dadaism, futurism, epic theatre, theatre of cruelty, poor theatre, and environmental theatre. Theories are examined through theoretical essays and representative plays.
Drama in Performance in New York
V41.0132 Identical to V30.0300. Offered every year. 4 points.
Combines the study of drama as literary text with the study of theatre as its three-dimensional translation, both theoretically and practically. Drawing on the rich theatrical resources of New York City, students see approximately 12 plays, covering classical to contemporary and traditional to experimental theatre. On occasion, films or videotapes of plays are used to supplement live performances. Readings include plays and essays in theory and criticism.
Dante and His World
V41.0143 Identical to V65.0801, V59.0160. 4 points.
See description under Medieval and Renaissance Studies (65).
Writing New York
V41.0180 Identical to V18.0757. Prerequisite: V55.04XX. Offered every year. 4 points.
An introduction to the history of New York through an exploration of fiction, poetry, plays, and films about the city, from Washington Irving’s A History of New York to Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Two lectures and one recitation section each week.
Modernism and the City: London and New York
V41.0181 Offered periodically. 4 points.
Explores the cultural dynamics of transatlantic modernism as seen through the lens of urban experience. Focusing on London and New York as centers of gravity for modernist culture, explores the reciprocal relationship between modernism and the city: How was modernism shaped by the urban experience, and how, in turn, did modernism help to mold our conception of the modern city? Examines the parallels and contrasts among a variety of forms, including literature, film, art, music, and architecture, stressing the uneven developments of the period, with special attention paid to the tension between highbrow and popular forms.
African American Literary Cultures
V41.0185 Identical to V18.0770. Prerequisite: V55.04XX. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Surveys African Americans’ engagement with literacy—as readers, writers, and purveyors of verbal-expressive materials—from the 18th century to the present. The focus is not simply on literary reflection of black peoples’ experiences but on the various uses to which African American populations have put the modes of literacy to which they have had access. Considering such forms as verse and addresses from the Enlightenment and romantic periods, abolitionist tracts and uplift novels from the antebellum era and Reconstruction, realist and modernist literary fiction from the Harlem Renaissance and after, and such contemporary pop-cultural genres as slam poetry and cinematic depictions of the writing life, the course exposes students to African American literary culture in its most wide-ranging manifestations.
The American Short Story
V41.0240 Offered periodically. 4 points.
Study of theme and technique in the American short story through readings in Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, James, Hemingway, Faulkner, Porter, and others, including representative regional writers.
16th-Century English Literature
V41.0400 Identical to V65.0400. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Introduction to the major writers of the 16th century. Such representative works as More’s Utopia, Sidney’s Defense of Poetry, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and works of the lyric poets from Wyatt to Sidney are studied as unique artistic achievements within the cultural crosscurrents of humanism and the Reformation.
Shakespeare I, II
V41.0410,0411 Identical to V30.0225,0226. Either term may be taken alone for credit. Offered every year. 4 points per term.
Introduction to the reading of Shakespeare. Examines approximately 10 plays each term. The first term covers the early comedies, tragedies, and histories up to Hamlet. The second term covers the later tragedies, the problem plays, and the romances, concluding with The Tempest.
English Drama to 1642
V41.0420 Offered periodically. 4 points.
Reading of major non-Shakespearean drama, including plays by Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Webster, and others, with attention to both formal and historical questions. Among issues to be addressed are genre, gender and sexuality, status, degree, and nation.
17th-Century English Literature
V41.0440 Identical to V65.0440. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Introduction to the prose and poetry of the 17th century—an age of spiritual, scientific, and political crisis. Readings in Jonson, Donne, Bacon, Herbert, Marvell, Milton, Browne, and others.
The 18th-Century English Novel
V41.0510 Offered every other year. 4 points.
Study of the major 18th-century novelists, including Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Burney.
The English Novel in the 19th Century
V41.0530 Offered every year. 4 points.
Studies in the forms and contexts of the 19th-century English novel.
Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost
V41.0555 Offered every other year. 4 points.
With the appearance of Emerson, American literature entered a new epoch. In departing from the New England religious tradition, Emerson redefined in transcendental terms the ordering principle of the universe, the nature of the self, and the work of the poet. These concepts remain central to the work of Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost, who, in responding to the issues Emerson raised, explored the possibilities of a genuinely native American poetry. Some previous experience in reading and writing about poetry is desirable.
The British Novel in the 20th Century
V41.0605 Offered every other year. 4 points.
Studies in the forms and contexts of the 20th-century British novel.
20th-Century British Literature
V41.0606 Offered every other year. 4 points.
Poetry, fiction, and drama since World War I. Selected major texts by modernist, postcolonial, and postmodern writers.
American Fiction from 1900 to World War II
V41.0635 Offered every year. 4 points.
Close reading of fictional works by Dreiser, Anderson, Stein, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Fitzgerald, West, Wright, Hurston, Faulkner, and others. Studies the texts in light of traditional critical approaches and recent developments in literary theory. Some of the perspectives that enter into discussion of the texts are the cultural and aesthetic background, the writer’s biography, and the articulation of distinctly American themes.
American Fiction After World War II
V41.0640 Offered every year. 4 points.
Examination of representative works by contemporary novelists. Authors generally include Barthelme, Bellow, Ellison, Gaddis, Hawkes, Mailer, Malamud, Morrison, Nabokov, Oates, Pynchon, Roth, Updike, and Walker.
Topics in Caribbean Literature and Society
V41.0704 Identical to V18.0780, V29.0132. 4 points.
See description under Comparative Literature (29).
Colonialism and the Rise of Modern African Literature
V41.0707 Identical to V29.0850. 4 points.
See description under Comparative Literature (29).
Arthurian Legend
V41.0717 Identical to V29.0825, V45.0813, V90.0800. 4 points.
See description under Medieval and Renaissance Studies (65).
Tragedy
V41.0720 Identical to V30.0200, V29.0110. 4 points.
See description under Comparative Literature (29).
Comedy
V41.0725 Identical to V30.0205, V29.0111. 4 points.
See description under Comparative Literature (29).
Asian American Literature
V41.0716 Formerly V15.0301. Identical to V18.0306, V29.0301. Offered every year. 4 points.
See description under Asian/ Pacific/American Studies (18)
Science Fiction
V41.0728 Offered periodically. 4 points.
Considers contemporary science fiction as literature, social commentary, prophecy, and a reflection of recent and possible future trends in technology and society. Writers considered include such authors as Isaac Asimov, J. G. Ballard, Octavia Butler, Arthur C. Clarke, Samuel Delany, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Neal Stephenson, and Bruce Sterling.
The Theory of the Avant-Garde, East and West, 1890-1930
V41.0730 Identical to V29.0841, V91.0841. 4 points.
See description under Russian and Slavic Studies (91).
Queer Literature
V41.0749 Identical to V18.0482. 4 points.
See description under Gender and Sexuality Studies (18).
Topics in Irish Literature
V41.0761 Identical to V58.0761. 4 points.
See description under Irish Studies (58).
ADVANCED COURSES IN LITERATURE
The following courses have departmental prerequisites. Colloquia are restricted to majors only. Qualified nonmajors may enroll with the permission of the instructor.
18th- and 19th-Century African American Literature
V41.0250 Identical to V18.0783. Prerequisite: V41.0185 or V41.0230. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Survey of major autobiographies, fiction, and poetry from the early national period to the eve of the new Negro renaissance. Writers considered generally include Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Frances E. W. Harper, and Harriet Wilson.
20th-Century African American Literature
V41.0251 Identical to V18.0784. Prerequisite: V41.0185 or V41.0230. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Survey of major texts—fiction, poetry, autobiography, and drama—from Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903) to contemporaries such as Amiri Baraka, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. Discussion of the Harlem Renaissance and its key figures, including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Ralph Ellison.
Contemporary African American Fiction
V41.0254 Identical to V18.0786. Prerequisite: V41.0185 or V41.0230. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Focuses on major novels by African American writers from Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) to the present. Readings generally include novels by Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Chester Himes, as well as more recent fiction by Ernest Gaines, John Widerman, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and others.
Medieval Visionary Literature
V41.0309 Identical to V65.0321. Prerequisite: V41.0210. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Exploration of a variety of medieval dream visions. Beginning with the great prophetic visions of the Bible (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Apocalypse), students then read a number of early visions of journeys to heaven and hell, versions of earthly paradise, and other visionary texts.
Medieval Literature in Translation
V41.0310 Identical to V65.0310. Prerequisite: V41.0210. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Introduction to the culture and literature of the medieval world through translations of diverse texts written in Latin, French, German, Italian, Icelandic, and other vernacular languages. Texts are selected according to the theme or focus chosen by the instructor.
Introduction to Old
English Language and Literature
An introduction to the
Old English language and literature as well as the culture of England before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Students
learn the grammar and vocabulary of this earliest surviving form of English,
while being introduced to topics such as the heroic code; conversion and
cultural syncretism; the rise of English national identity; monasticism and
spirituality; the law and customs of the Anglo-Saxons; the Viking invasions and
the Norman Conquest; and hybridity and multilingualism. The course end with
reading excerpts from Beowulf in the
original and orally performing scenes from the poem.
Colloquium: Chaucer
V41.0320 Identical to V65.0320. Prerequisite: V41.0210. Offered every year. 4 points.
Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer’s major poetry, with particular attention to The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s language and versification are studied briefly but intensively so that students are able to read his 14th-century London dialect with comprehension and pleasure. Special critical attention is given to his narrative skills, methods of characterization, wide range of styles and forms, and other rhetorical strategies. Students are also encouraged to explore Chaucer’s artistry as a reflection of late medieval social and cultural history.
Colloquium: Shakespeare
V41.0415 Identical to V30.0230, V65.0415. Prerequisite: V41.0210 or V41.0125. Offered every year. 4 points.
Intensive reading of six to eight plays of Shakespeare chosen from among the comedies, tragedies, and histories, with attention to formal, historical, and performance questions.
Colloquium: The Renaissance Writer
V41.0445 Identical to V65.0445. Prerequisite: V41.0210. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Topic varies each term. Consult the department’s undergraduate Web site for further information.
Colloquium: Milton
V41.0450 Identical to V65.0450. Prerequisite: V41.0210. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Emphasis on the major poems—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—with some attention to the early poems and the prose. Traces the poet’s sense of vocation, analyzes the gradual development of the Miltonic style, and assesses Milton’s position in the history of English literature, politics, and theology.
The poetry, prose, and drama from the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 to the death of Pope in 1744. Readings include texts by such writers as Haywood, Astell, Montague, Dryden, Defoe, Swift, Pope, Wycherley, Gay, Congreve, Behn, and Richardson.
Mid- and Late Eighteenth-Century Literature
V41.0501 Prerequisite: V41.0210 or V41.0125. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Restoration and 18th-Century Drama
V41.0505 Identical to V30.0235. Prerequisite: V41.0210 or V41.0125. Offered periodically. 4 points.
Development of English drama from 1660 to 1780, illustrating the comedy of manners (both sentimental and laughing), the heroic play, and tragedy. Playwrights may include such writers as Behn, Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Goldsmith, and Sheridan.
Colloquium: The 18th-Century Writer
V41.0515 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Topic varies each term. Consult the department’s undergraduate Web site for further information.
The Romantic Period
V41.0520 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every year. 4 points.
Study of late 18th-century and early 19th-century genres. Authors might include Burns, Blake, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Austen, Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Barbaud, Keats, Scott, Hemans, De Quincey, and Clare.
19th-Century Writers
V41.0525 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Readings in the genres of 19th-century writing.
From Victorian to Modern
V41.0540 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Study of late Victorian and early modernist literature and culture.
Colloquium: The 19th-Century British Writer
V41.0545 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Topic varies each term. Consult the department’s undergraduate Web site for further information.
Early American Literature
V41.0548 Prerequisite: V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Examines the large variety of writing produced in North America between 1600 and 1800, from indigenous/European encounters through the American Revolution and its aftermath. Genres discussed in their cultural contexts include colonization, captivity, slave, and travel narratives; sermons; familiar correspondence; autobiographies; poetry; drama; and the novel.
American Romanticism
V41.0551 Prerequisite: V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Readings in Irving, Cooper, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. Lectures emphasize their varying attempts to reconcile “nature” with “civilization” and to grant expression to instinct, whim, and passion while preserving the traditions and institutions that hold society together. Various expressions of the nature/ civilization conflict are considered: frontier/city, America/Europe, heart/head, natural law/social law, organic forms/traditional genres, and literary nationalism/the republic of letters.
19th-Century American Poetry
V41.0550 Prerequisite: V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
A survey of 19th-century American verse. Considers both popular (that is, forgotten) and acknowledged major poets of the period, with an eye toward discerning the conventions that bind them to and separate them from one another.
American Realism
V41.0560 Prerequisite: V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
In-depth study of the characteristic work of Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Henry Adams. Emphasizes literary realism and naturalism as an aesthetic response to the changing psychological, social, and political conditions of 19th-century America.
Colloquium: 19th-Century American Writers
V41.0565 Prerequisite: V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Topic varies each term. Consult the department’s undergraduate Web site for further information.
Modern British and American Poetry
V41.0600 Prerequisite: V41.0210, V41.0220, or V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Readings from major modern American, British, and Irish poets from the middle of the 19th century to the 1920s—specifically, from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855) to T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922). Poets considered generally include Whitman, Dickinson, Hardy, Hopkins, Yeats, Pound, Stevens, Frost, Williams, and Eliot.
Contemporary British and American Poetry
V41.0601 Prerequisite: V41.0210, V41.0220, or V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Readings in modern American, British, and Irish poets from 1922 to the present. Poets considered generally include the middle and later T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, W. H. Auden, William Empson, Dylan Thomas, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Olson, John Ashbery, and others.
Contemporary British Literature and Culture
V41.0607 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Studies in contemporary British fiction, exploring postwar British culture in an era of profound political and economic change and social upheaval. Examines a range of avant-garde, neorealist, postcolonial, and popular texts that challenge received notions of “Englishness.” Particular attention is paid to the interaction between literature and other cultural forms, such as cinema, popular music, and sport.
Modern British Drama
V41.0614 Identical to V30.0245. Prerequisite: V41.0220 or V41.0126. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Studies in the modern drama of England and Ireland, always focusing on a specific period, a specific group of playwrights, a specific dramatic movement of theatre, or a specific topic. Among playwrights covered at different times are Shaw, Synge, O’Casey, Behan, Osborne, Pinter, Stoppard, Bond, Friel, Storey, Hare, Adgar, Brenton, Gems, Churchill, and Daniels.
The Irish Renaissance
V41.0621 Identical to V58.0621. Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Seeks to understand the extraordinary achievements of Irish writers in the last decade of the 19th and the first third of the 20th century. Wide readings in different genres—poetry, polemic, short story, novel, drama—that were remade by Irish writers during the tumultuous period from the fall of Charles Stuart Parnell into the early years of national government of the 1930s. Authors read include Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Lady Augusta Gregory, John Synge, Sean O’Casey, Elizabeth Bowen, and Flann O’Brien. Also considers the social and historical contexts of Ireland under the Union with Britain and after that Union was partially broken. In attempting to refine the proper lens through which to view this literature, addresses a number of salient issues, including the nature and cultural forms of Irish cultural nationalism, the violence of civil war, the social position of literature and of intellectuals in projects of national reconciliation and national identity, and the clash between revolutionary anti-imperialism and conservative Roman Catholicism, between rural and urban identities, and between provincialism and cosmopolitanism as strategies for literary self-fashioning.
Irish American Literature
V41.0622 Identical to V58.0622. 4 points.
Examines Irish American literature from the 19th century to the present, considering the literary responses of generations of Irish immigrants as they strove to understand and contribute to the American experience. The works of writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugene O’Neill, Flannery O’Connor, John O’Hara, and William Kennedy are explored, as are the connections between ethnic and literary cultures.
Colloquium: Joyce
V41.0625 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every year. 4 points.
An in-depth consideration of the major works of James Joyce, from the early short stories of Dubliners to the late experimental prose/ poetry of Finnegan’s Wake, concentrating on a detailed and systematic reading of Ulysses. The biographical and social/historical contexts of Joyce’s work are investigated alongside consideration of his pathbreaking formal experiments and his relations with the many currents of literary and artistic modernism. Discussion of Ulysses is complemented by consideration of the many forms of literary and critical theory that have been fashioned around readings of the book.
Colloquium: The Modern American Writer
V41.0626 Prerequisite: V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Topic varies each term. Consult the department’s undergraduate Web site for further information.
American Poetry from 1900 to the Present
V41.0630 Prerequisite: V41.0230 or V41.0550. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Survey of the development of 20th-century American poetry.
Modern American Drama
V41.0650 Identical to V30.0250. Prerequisite: V41.0125, V41.0126, or V41.0230. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Study of the drama and theatre of America since 1900, including Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell, the Group Theatre, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Maria Irene Fornes, and David Henry Hwang.
Irish Dramatists
V41.0700 Identical to V58.0700, H28.0603, V30.0700. 4 points.
A study of the rich dramatic tradition of Ireland since the days of William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, and the fledgling Abbey Theatre. Playwrights covered include John Millington Synge, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Frank McGuinness, and Anne Devlin. Issues of Irish identity, history, and postcoloniality are engaged alongside an appreciation of the emotional texture, poetic achievements, and theatrical innovations that characterize this body of dramatic work.
Colloquium: The Postcolonial Writer
V41.0708 Prerequisite: V41.0200. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Focuses on the works of a single author from the field of postcolonial literature. Some of the most important and interesting Anglophone writers of recent times belong to Britain’s former colonies in Africa, South Asia, or the Caribbean, whether living in the countries of their origin or in the West. The postcolonial literary canon includes writers who have won international recognition, marked by awards like the Nobel Prize for Literature (Wole Soyinka, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott) or the Man Booker Prize in Britain (Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai). They are admired for their often innovative use of the English language, their oppositional politics, and their historical centrality.
Narratology
V41.0710 Prerequisite: V41.0200. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Examines the nature of discourse, with focus on the novel and special emphasis on contemporary critical theory (e.g., semiotics, deconstruction) and the status of nonliterary prose discourse (usually Freud) as narrative in its own right. Readings survey the history of English and American fiction and critically examine the notion of literary history.
Major Texts in Critical Theory
V41.0712 Prerequisite: V41.0200. Offered every year. 4 points.
Major texts in critical theory from Plato to Derrida, considered in relation to literary practice. The first half of the course focuses on four major types of critical theory: mimetic, ethical, expressive, and formalist. The second half turns to 20th-century critical schools, such as Russian and American formalism, archetypal criticism, structuralism, psychoanalytic criticism, feminism, reader theory, deconstruction, and historicism.
Freudian and post-Freudian psychological approaches to the reading and analysis of literary works. Covers manifest and latent meaning, the unconscious, childhood as a source of subject matter, sublimation, and gender and sexuality. Readings are chosen from such writers as Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley, Hawthorne, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Melville, James, Woolf, and Faulkner.
South Asian Literature in English
V41.0721 Prerequisite: V41.0220. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Explores the rich cross-cultural perspectives of 20th-century Indian English literature. Moving from the classic British writers about India (Kipling and Forster) to the contemporary voices of Salman Rushdie, R. K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Bapsi Sidhwa, Sarah Suleri, Vikram Seth, Bharati Mukherjee, and others, the course focuses on key experiences of empire, the partition of India and Pakistan, and diaspora. Themes of identity, memory, alienation, assimilation, and resistance, and of encountering and crossing boundaries, define culture, nation, and language in complex interrelations and link Indian English literature to writing in other colonial/postcolonial settings in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Readings in Contemporary Literary Theory
V41.0735 Prerequisite: V41.0200. Offered every year. 4 points.
Topics vary from term to term.
Representations of Women
V41.0755 Identical to V18.0734. Prerequisite: V41.0200. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Selected readings in British and American poetry and fiction provide the focus for an exploration of representations of gender as they intersect class, race, nation, and sexuality. Readings may include the work of Jane Austen, the Brontës, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman, Doris Lessing, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, and others.
SEMINARS
All majors must take one of the following courses to fulfill the seminar requirement.
These courses offer research, criticism, and class discussion in a seminar format. Topics and instructors vary from term to term. Students should consult the department’s online listing of courses to determine which courses and what topics are being offered each term. Prerequisites: V41.0200, V41.0210, V41.0220, and V41.0230, or permission of the instructor.
Topics: Medieval Literature
V41.0950 Identical to V65.0953. 4 points.
Topics: Renaissance Literature
V41.0951 Identical to V65.0954. 4 points.
Topics: 17th-Century British Literature
V41.0952 Identical to V65.0955. 4 points.
Topics: 18th-Century British Literature
V41.0953 4 points.
Topics: 19th-Century British Literature
V41.0954 4 points.
Topics: 20th-Century British Literature
V41.0955 4 points.
Topics: Early American Literature
V41.0960 4 points.
Topics: 19th-Century American Literature
V41.0961 4 points.
Topics: 20th-Century American Literature
V41.0962 4 points.
Topics: African American Literature
V41.0963 4 points.
Topics: Emergent American Literatures
V41.0964 4 points.
Topics: Transatlantic Literature
V41.0965 4 points.
Topics: Critical Theories and Methods
V41.0970 4 points.
Topics: Dramatic Literature
V41.0971 4 points.
Topics: Genre Studies
V41.0972 4 points.
Topics: Interdisciplinary Study
V41.0973 4 points.
Topics: Poetry and Poetics
V41.0974 4 points.
Topics: World Literature in English
V41.0975 4 points.
Topics: New York Literature and Culture
V41.0976 4 points.
HONORS COURSES
Junior Honors Seminar
V41.0905,0906 Prerequisite: admission to the department’s honors program. One seminar is required for honors majors. 4 points.
Research, criticism, and class discussion in a seminar format. The subject—the works of a major writer or writers, or a critical issue—varies each term at the instructor’s choice. A final paper of about 20 pages prepares the student for the senior thesis.
Senior Honors Thesis
V41.0925 Prerequisites: successful completion of either V41.0905 or 0906, and permission of the director of undergraduate studies. 4 points.
To complete the honors program, the student must write a thesis under the supervision of a faculty director in this individual tutorial course. The student chooses a topic (normally at the beginning of the senior year) and is guided through the research and writing by weekly conferences with the thesis director. Students enrolled in this course are also expected to attend a yearlong colloquium for thesis writers (V41.0926). Students should consult the director of the honors program about the selection of a topic and a thesis director. Information about the length, format, and due date of the thesis is available on the department’s Web site.
Senior Honors Colloquium
V41.0926 Prerequisites: successful completion of either V41.0905 or 0906, and permission of the director of undergraduate studies. 2 or 4 points.
Two terms required of all honors seniors. Meets approximately eight times each term.
INTERNSHIP
Internship
V41.0980,0981 Prerequisite: for majors, permission of the student’s departmental adviser; for minors, permission of the department’s internship director. May not be used to fulfill the minimum requirement of either the major or the minor. 2 or 4 points per term; 8 total internship points are the department maximum. Pass/fail.
Requires a commitment of 8 to 12 hours of work per week in an unpaid position to be approved by the director of undergraduate studies. The intern’s duties on site should involve some substantive aspect of literary work, whether in research, writing, editing, or production (e.g., at an archive or publishing house, or with a literary agent or an arts administration group). A written evaluation is solicited from the intern’s supervisor at the end of the semester. The grade for the course is based on a final paper submitted to the faculty director.
INDEPENDENT STUDY
Independent Study
V41.0997,0998 Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies. May not duplicate the content of a regularly offered course. Intended for qualified junior and senior English majors or minors, but may not be used to fulfill the minimum requirements of either the major or the minor. 2 or 4 points per term.
Requires a paper of considerable length that should embody the result of a semester’s reading, thinking, and frequent conferences with the student’s director. The paper should show the student’s ability to investigate, collect, and evaluate material, finally drawing conclusions that are discussed in a sound and well-written argument. Proposals, approved by the student’s faculty director, must be submitted to the director of undergraduate studi
es in advance of the registration period for the term in which the independent study is to be conducted.
GRADUATE COURSES OPEN TO UNDERGRADUATE ENGLISH MAJORS
Junior and senior English majors may take 1000-level G41 courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Science with permission from the director of undergraduate studies. Consult the department’s graduate Web site for descriptions of 1000-level courses being offered in a given term.
