50:350:105
Success in Research and Writing (1)
Focus on the practical application of theories and methods introduced in Introduction to English Studies (50:350:201). It is a writing and skills-based workshop covering a wide variety of skills and methods related to English Studies. Sessions will be devoted to such topics as finding peer-reviewed research resources, deploying digital tools in humanities research, and experimenting with creating writing, among others.
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50:350:106
Literature Appreciation (3)
This course is intended for nonmajors who want to gain a
college-level understanding of literature. Students will learn about the major literary genres and terms. The class emphasizes critical reading skills
and is not writing intensive.
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50:350:150
Introduction to Digital Humanities (3)
An introduction to work at the intersection of digital technology and the humanities. Coursework involves the use of digital technology to compose, design, and create digital projects and also the analysis of digital objects from a humanistic perspective.
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50:350:160
Texts and Theories (3)
Survey of critical approaches to reading and writing about literary texts.
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50:350:200
Introduction to Disability Studies (3)
The objective of the course is to introduce students to disability as a category of literary and cultural analysis. It understands people with disabilities as a political minority whose representation raises similar (and interconnected) issues as that of other marginalized groups, such as African Americans, women, and children.
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50:350:201
Introduction to English Studies (3)
This course is intended to answer the question: What are we
doing and learning when we major in English? We will explore the conventions,
methods, assumptions, and concerns of some of the subdisciplines in English
studies: literature and literary criticism, creative writing, composition,
rhetoric, business/technical writing, linguistics, film/media studies,
and journalism. Required for all English majors.
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50:350:203
Literature of Hip-Hop (3)
A funky excursion through the history of hip-hop, following the
footsteps from oral poetries to diverse musical influences, from poetic
techniques to the development of the genre since 1974. We will talk about the
politics, history, and economics of the United States as well as research and
discover favorite artists old and new. We will be reading about hip-hop, listening
to hip-hop, and even throwing down in our own freestyle event. Graded
assignments includes multimodal, creative, and analytical work designed to test
and expand critical thinking skills.
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50:350:204
Immigrant Voices (3)
This course examines literature written by and
about immigrants in search of the American Dream. We will read a wide variety of 20th-
and 21st-century texts ranging from fiction to poetry to essay to
memoir by authors from China, India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mexico, Puerto Rico,
and other non-European countries. In our
discussion of these readings, we will explore how and why America has come to
represent the land of hope and opportunity, and we will question to what extent
the American Dream is a necessary illusion. Course requirements include active
class participation, several short quizzes, two papers, a midterm, and a longer
final project.
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50:350:205
Responses to Landscape in English Literature (3)
Nature in English literature, from the Middle Ages to the present,
has been praised as religious revelation or spiritual consolation, yet
persistently devastated, deforested, and polluted. Mindful of climate
change, we will track this contradictory process from Gawain and the
Green Knight to Nobel prize-winning contemporary poet Seamus Heaney.
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50:350:212
Global Perceptions of Religion, Race, and Gender in Literature (3)
A comparative study of modern texts from various cultures: Anglo-American, European, African, Indian, and Islamic. We will look at a variety of genres, and our study will be informed by various theoretical perspectives impinging on feminism, religion, colonialism, and international political developments in the modern era. The texts in this course will be examined in their historical contexts, with due emphasis upon their intentions.
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50:350:213
Literature of Abrahamic Faiths (3)
Study of selected literature
from the three great monotheistic religions, beginning with their respective
scriptures, and proceeding through their philosophical and literary traditions
to their contemporary writings. Figures to be examined will include: Augustine,
Philo, Aquinas, Dante, al-Ghazzali, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Maimonides, Sa'adi,
Rumi, Spinoza, Bialik, Uri Zevi Gruenberg, Nizar Qabbani, Iqbal, and Isaac
Bashevis Singer.
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50:350:220
Critical Methods in English (3)
Survey of research sources and critical approaches to be used in reading and writing about literary texts, including materials available on the internet.
Curriculum 50:350 students only.
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50:350:221
Literatures in English I (3)
Historical survey of literatures written in English (primarily British and American literatures) from the Middle Ages through 1660.
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50:350:222
Literatures in English II (3)
Historical survey of literatures written in English (primarily British and American literatures) from 1660 to 1900.
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50:350:223
Literatures in English III (3)
Survey of 20th-century literatures written in English, with emphasis on colonial and postcolonial themes.
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50:350:224,225,226
Special Topics (3 each)
A course in a specially selected topic.
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50:350:227
Folk and Fairy Tales across Media (3)
This course introduces students to diverse fairy
and folk tales from a variety of critical lenses. Students will practice
critical approaches to classic tales and their adaptation across time, space,
and media.
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50:350:232
World Novel in the 20th Century (3)
Major novels from the literatures of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the East, read in translation.
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50:350:234
Graphic Storytelling (3)
From cave
drawings to computer-generated avatars, visual storytelling has always been
central to how we know ourselves. Over the course of this semester, we'll study
nine graphic novels and memoirs as way into thinking about the central issues
of our age. How does the graphic form synthesize our evolving ideas of gender,
race, and class? How does it manage to break down public and private, highbrow
and lowbrow, and all the expected binaries? What can graphic narratives do that
traditional text-alone narratives can't do? Through careful study and joyful
appreciation of the work in front of us, we'll think about the matters of
identity, interaction, and intertextuality as a way to become more attuned to
ourselves and others: the culture in which we live.
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50:350:235
Short-Story Collections of the Ancient and Medieval World (3)
The short story is often presumed to be a
relatively recent invention, a diminutive offshoot of the novel, a form which saw its major growth in the 18th century. But the short story has been
thriving, independent of long-form fiction, with a long heritage in world
literature, and is often found as pieces in larger narrative tapestries. This
course will explore five of these collections of shorter fiction, ranging from
classical India, to the
Roman Empire, to the heights of medieval Arab civilization, to Italy and England just before the European
Renaissance. These stories comprise some of the most interesting and innovative
attempts to fictionalize human experience, ranging from animal fables to
fabliaux and other bawdy tales, to works of religious experience and
mythological explanations of the natural world. We will read narratives of
change and wonder, encounter the values of high and low culture, and learn how
different authors have encapsulated the diversity of human life in the ancient
and medieval era, across two continents.
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50:350:236
Fictions of Masculinity (3)
This course will explore
depictions of masculinity in literature of the West from the ancient Greeks to
contemporary times. Texts to be considered include: Homer's Odyssey;
Shakespeare's Hamlet; Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman; J.D.
Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye; Richard Wright's Native Son;
and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. We will supplement our
explorations in literature with critical texts from the growing body of work in
masculinity studies.
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50:350:238
World Masterpieces I (3)
Studies in great works of world literature from antiquity to the early modern era.
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50:350:239
World Masterpieces II (3)
Studies in great works of world literature from the dawn of the modern era to the present.
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50:350:241
Medieval European Itineraries (3)
Explores travel as a foundational
activity for early European narratives. How are fictional and literary accounts
of the world enabled by the activity of travel? Why are quests, which often
take a protagonist to dangerous and distant realms, often synonymous with
character development? What is the
social usefulness of travel as an educational process? We will start off with
two ancient accounts of travel (one biblical, the other classical), and then
plunge headlong into an exploration of our own of the Middle Ages and its
conceptions of not just the physical world but also of the universe enabled by
moving, at least intellectually, through geographical space. Along the way we
will read Arthurian quest romances, tours of hell and heaven, dream-visions, as
well as the accounts of actual world travelers (such as Marco Polo).
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50:350:242
Reading History as Literature (3)
What we call history is the result of the way great writers shape it. The course examines not only of what happened but the narratives that have described what happened and the writers whose rhetorical skill is the overlooked, invisible agency behind historical memory.
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50:350:243
Children's Literature, Film, Media, and Animation (3)
A study of children's literature in multiple media, including textual, pictorial, visual, digital, interactive, and animated.
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50:350:245
Folklore (3)
The major genres of folklore, including proverb, folktale, and folk song, with some attention to the methods of collecting and analyzing these materials.
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50:350:247
Literature of Horror (3)
A study of the horror story from its Gothic origins to its present popularity in fiction and film.
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50:350:248
Comic Literature (3)
A study of the comic tradition in British and American literature, including such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Fielding, Byron, Dickens, Twain, Shaw, and Waugh, as well as some contemporary humorists.
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50:350:249
Electronic Literature (3)
A workshop-based course that meets the digital studies elective criteria for
developing knowledge and skills in new media and multimedia composition. In
this course students will explore the intersection between digital literature
and digital performance.
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50:350:250
How to Read a Poem (3)
This course examines contemporary poetry in terms of the ways it uses sound, rhythm, silence, metaphor, lacuna, and pace. It asks how a poem enacts an experience and conveys meaning. Students will interact with texts through group activities, including essays, presentations, readings, and discussions.
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50:350:251
Ten Books I Should Have Read by Now (3)
Reexamines standard literary texts in secondary school curricula, asking fundamental questions about the process of canon formation.
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50:350:252
Native American Literature (3)
A study of the major
Native American authors and the major themes, issues, and movements in Native
American literary history, from its origins to the present.
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50:350:261
Text and Film (3)
A study of novels, canonical and noncanonical, and their film adaptations.
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50:350:264
The Short Story (3)
A study of the short story as a literary genre by examining the works of major world authors.
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50:350:265
Science Fiction (3)
A study of major works of science fiction by such authors as Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov, LeGuin, and Ellison.
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50:350:271
images of the Hero (3)
A study of archetypal criticism and its application to ancient and modern texts, with emphasis on the tension between individual heroes and their heroic careers.
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50:350:275
Detective Fiction (3)
The development of this popular literary genre from its beginnings in
Poe's short stories through the present, with varying emphasis on
American, British, and European authors, among them Doyle, Chandler,
Faulkner, Nabokov, and Borges.
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50:350:281
Asian Narratives (3)
Fiction, poetry, and essays by Asian-American and Asian-British authors, and by writers from the Near, Middle, and Far East, read in translation.
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50:350:283
The Irish Renaissance (3)
A study of important figures, including Yeats, Gregory, Synge, and
O'Casey, in the creation of an Irish national literature beginning
around 1890.
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50:350:300
Foundations of Literature (3)
A study of literary works across multiple historical periods covering at least
200 years and demonstrating how these periods relate to one another. Required for all English majors.
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50:350:301
Historifications (3)
Is there any difference
between documents that make up the historical record and works of fiction? Both
are examples of human discourse and subject to the same rules; they are
produced and edited, exalted and condemned, remembered or forgotten for the
same reasons. The course sets out to demonstrate an insight of Philip K. Dick:
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of
words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who
must use the words." We will be looking at both the controllers and the
controlled, the users and the used. Along with electronic handouts, the only
required texts are a daily newspaper and two short contemporary novels.
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50:350:302
The War and the Warrior (3)
Dr. Johnson once remarked that every man secretly thinks the worse of himself if he
has not been a soldier. Erasmus argued to the contrary that war is criminal,
fomenting in humans a savagery worse than the beasts'. What is certain is that
organized war has been with us as long as the state itself, created together
around 3,500 BCE in ancient Sumer, and militarism, along with adulation of
warrior greatness, has been continuous. Despite the explicit pacifism of its
founder, Christianity has historically offered little resistance to celebration
of slaughter, beyond formulating the (arguably manipulable) principles of the
Just War, and the Bible itself offers contradictory perspectives. There have
been, however, large cultural variations in the definition of the warrior and
his virtues, just as the technology and techniques of waging war have been
transformed beyond recognition, and at many points aversion to war--in some
early Christian Fathers, some Renaissance Humanists, certain strains in
Romanticism, reactions to Vietnam--has challenged its institutional idealization. Mindful that we live
still in a world haunted by warfare, this course will track, meditate, and
debate the long cultural history of this toweringly important topic through
close readings of literary texts, surveying depictions from Homer to the
20th century.
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50:350:303
Weird Books (3)
A study of experimental novels that pays particular attention to the book as material form
and the ways in which authors and artists have distorted, broken, or challenged
the traditional structure of both the narrative and the material form of the
book.
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50:350:304
Women in Speculative Fiction (3)
A study of the ways
in which speculative genres such as fantasy, utopian and dystopian literature,
and science fiction have taken as their focus gender identity and in particular
the construction and policing of the idea of femininity or womanhood.
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50:350:305
Poetry and Performance (3)
In this course we will examine poetry in
performance, a term which encompasses forms like slam, musical and dance
collaborations, and others. Students will study aspects of performance in
relation to more conventional constructions of poetry, including traditional
prosody, its variations, and deviations.
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50:350:306, 307
Study Away (3,3)
Study Away is an opportunity at Rutgers University-Camden for students to enhance coursework on campus through travel within the United
States.
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50:350:313
Classical Backgrounds of English Literature (3)
The influence on English and American literature of classical Greek and Roman epic, tragedy, comedy, and other literary forms.
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50:350:314
Biblical Backgrounds of English Literature (3)
The influence of the King James and other versions of the Bible on English and American literature.
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50:350:315
Survey of Medieval British Literature, ca. 500-1485 (3)
The European Middle Ages was surprisingly diverse, filled with travelers and goods
from distant lands. Even a land at the edge of Europe like the British Isles
contained multitudes. This course looks at British medieval literature as a
crossroads of multiculturalism, including Latin, Greek, Irish, Welsh, Dutch,
French, English, and Scandinavian texts. We will also discuss the place of
continental European, African, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern influences on
the British Middle Ages. Expect to write two short papers plus some other minor
but fun assignments.
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50:350:316
Medieval Literature (3)
Survey of literature, from Beowulf through the 15th century: plays, songs, adventure narratives, religious allegories, and other genres.
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50:350:317
English Renaissance Literature (3)
A study of major authors, including More, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Donne.
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50:350:318
Seventeenth-Century Literature (3)
A study of major writers in the age of metaphysical wit and emerging new philosophies: Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Lady Mary Wroth, Marvell, Burton, Browne, and Bunyan.
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50:350:319
Gothic Writing (3)
A survey of British and American Gothic writing from the late 18th century to the fin-de-siècle.
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50:350:320
The Novel of Sensibility (3)
This course explores the major aesthetic development of the novel from the
late 18th through the early 19th centuries. Roughly
translated into contemporary terms, sensibility refers to a person's refined
sense of empathy and extreme sensitivity. Yet, this seemingly personal attribute
formed a site of intense philosophical and political controversy during the
Revolutionary period; "sensibility" was used to bolster everything from the drive for abolition to animal rights. At the same time, skeptics of
sensibility caricatured these novels from the very outset, making for a comic
counter-discourse, which we will examine with equal zest. The course will
include novels by Lawrence Sterne, Henry Mackenzie, and Jane Austen, among
others.
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50:350:321
Eighteenth-Century Literature (3)
Major themes and writers in English from Dryden to Wollstonecraft, emphasizing the emergence of women as writers and readers of literature.
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50:350:322
Romantic Period (3)
Literature of the Age of Revolution: major works of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Smith, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, and Keats.
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50:350:323
Romantic Drama (3)
Historical survey of English drama 1780-1830 with an emphasis on the material history of theatrical productions.
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50:350:324
Victorian Literature (3)
A thematic and analytic approach to the major prose and poetry of the period, with emphasis on the works of Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, Arnold, Carlyle, and Ruskin.
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50:350:326
Transatlantic Literature (3)
Transatlantic Literature responds to ongoing transformations in setting the boundaries of national and geographic literatures, a development occurring in an increasingly globalized world. British and American literature, historically distinct fields of study, are now examined under the uniting rubric of the Atlantic Ocean. The shift brings students' attention to common as well as different concepts of identity, migration, travel, customs, and literary styles across centuries and between nations.
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50:350:329
Old English Language and Literature (3)
An introduction to the reading and analysis of Old English, including Beowulf.
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50:350:330
Chaucer (3)
Critical analysis of The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and selected shorter works.
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50:350:331
Shakespeare I (3)
A study of selected comedies, history plays, and tragedies of the Elizabethan period (to 1603).
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50:350:332
Shakespeare II (3)
A study of the plays of the Jacobean period (from 1603 on), with particular emphasis on the tragedies.
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50:350:333
Milton (3)
A study of the minor poems, selected prose, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
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50:350:334
The Bible as Literature (3)
A study of the Bible, its literary variety, and historical and religious development.
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50:350:335
Intellectual Backgrounds of 20th-Century Literature (3)
A study of the major works of 20th-century literature in the context of the great intellectual achievements of the past two centuries.
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50:350:338
Literature and the Natural Environment I (3)
This course is concerned with both literature and the fate
of the earth. We will study literary
representations of the natural world across Western history, from ancient
Sumeria's Epic of Gilgamesh through the ancient, medieval, and early modern
periods to today's Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.
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50:350:339
Literature and the Natural Environment II (3)
Looks at British, American, and Native-American nature writing since 1800 and considers how perceptions and uses of the natural world affect both nonhuman nature and the human communities within it.
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50:350:342
Modern British Poetry (3)
A study of the major modern poets, with emphasis on Yeats, Eliot, Auden, and Dylan Thomas.
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50:350:346
World Drama (G) (3)
A survey of drama throughout the world from Western and non-Western classics to forerunners of modern realism.
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50:350:349
English Drama to 1642 (3)
English drama (exclusive of Shakespeare) from its origins in medieval pageantry through its Elizabethan flowering to its decadence and the Puritan closing of the theaters.
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50:350:351
English Drama, 1660-1800 (3)
The English theater from the Restoration to the emergence of sentimental and "laughing" comedy.
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50:350:353
Modern Drama (G) (3)
The background of the contemporary theater explored in the works of major European and British dramatists from Ibsen and Chekhov to Brecht and Beckett.
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50:350:354
Postcolonial Literature (3)
A study of major postcolonial literary texts and theories.
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50:350:355
Modern World Literature (3)
A comparative study of selected literary texts--fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry--from around the globe.
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50:350:356
Rise of the Novel (3)
Selected novels of the 18th century with emphasis on Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Burney, and Austen.
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50:350:357
Nineteenth-Century British Novel (3)
Readings in the Victorian novel: Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, Thackeray, Meredith, and George Eliot.
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50:350:358
Modern British Fiction (3)
Development of the modern novel through examination of the works of the major writers of the century, with emphasis on Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, and Beckett.
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50:350:360
Literature of Childhood (3)
A study of classic and contemporary literature read and enjoyed by children and adolescents, including fairy tales, folklore, fantasy, picture books, chapter books, the adolescent novel, and poetry.
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50:350:361
Literary and Cultural Constructions of Childhood (3)
A study of changing representations of childhood in literary and cultural texts, including the impact of childhood on imagination, and intellectual, aesthetic traditions.
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50:350:362
Children's Literature in Print and Film (3)
Selected texts in children's literature studied alongside film adaptations of these texts.
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50:350:367
Popular Culture (3)
A study of literature as it has been influenced by such elements of popular culture as best sellers, magazines, newspapers, film, radio, and television.
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50:350:370
Biography and Autobiography (3)
Exploration of the nature of these genres in works primarily British and American by such authors as Augustine, Boswell, Rousseau, Wordsworth, and Henry James.
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50:350:372,373
Topics in Irish Literature (3,3)
A study of an aspect of a national literature that has produced four Nobel Prize winners--Yeats, Shaw, Beckett, Heaney--in the 20th century.
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50:350:374
Legends Past and Present (3)
Narratives of heroes, quests, supernatural occurrences, and other extraordinary activities of humans past and present, focusing on Germanic, Celtic, and Native-American cultures.
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50:350:376
Literature and Psychology (3)
Psychological interpretation of the literary text; the psychology of composition and of reader response.
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50:350:377
Literature and Sexuality (3)
Sexual themes, fictions, and fantasies in English and American
literature: the distinction between pornographic and nonpornographic
erotic writing, the grotesque, the violent, and the romantic.
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50:350:378
Religion in Literature (3)
A study of religious themes in British and American literature from the 17th century to the present.
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50:350:379
Literature and Poverty in Western Cultures (3)
A survey of attitudes toward poverty as presented in Western literatures from the ancient world to the present.
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50:350:380
Mythology (3)
Narratives of interaction between human and divine, as retold in literature and cultures including ancient Greek and Judeo-Christian.
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50:350:382
Irish Fiction (3)
A survey of Irish fiction of the 20th century, with attention to the works of James Joyce.
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50:350:384
Literature of the Islamic World (3)
A study of literary and philosophical texts of the Islamic world in their historical context.
|
50:350:388
Women in Literature (3)
Analyzes the treatment of women in selected world fiction, drama, poetry, and essays.
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50:350:389,390
Department of English Learning Abroad Program (1-3,1-3)
A course focusing on a literary theme including regular class meetings, required readings, and written assignments, as well as a short-term learning experience outside the United States.
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50:350:391,392
Special Topics in Literature (1-3,1-3)
A course in a specially selected topic. Satisfies major requirement (pre-2008) "British literature before 1800."
Primarily, but not exclusively, for advanced students. Courses with different topics may be repeated for credit.
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50:350:393,394
Special Topics in Literature (1-3,1-3)
A course in a specially selected topic. Satisfies major requirement (pre-2008) "British literature after 1800."
Primarily, but not exclusively, for advanced students. Courses with different topics may be repeated for credit.
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50:350:395,396
Special Topics in Literature (1-3,1-3)
A course in a specially selected topic. Satisfies major requirement (pre-2008) "cross-cultural perspectives."
Primarily, but not exclusively, for advanced students. Courses with different topics may be repeated for credit.
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50:350:397
Special Topics: Great Literary Origins (3)
A theme in some great works of the Western literary traditions.
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50:350:400
Portfolio Proseminar (1)
A one-hour seminar in which students complete a self-directed electronic
portfolio that presents their experience and achievements as English majors in
relation to professional life, graduate school, and/or other postbaccalaureate goals.
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50:350:407,408
Independent Study in English (BA,BA)
An opportunity for advanced students to work individually with an instructor on a self-determined course of study. The project culminates in a substantial paper.
|
50:350:415,416
Seminar in English Studies (Capstone) (3,3)
Capstone course for advanced students on a special topic.
|
50:350:431
World Novel to 1900 (3)
Major novels selected from such world literatures as Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese, and German, read in translation.
|
50:350:441
Literary Theory and Criticism (3)
A study of major approaches to literature ranging from Plato and Aristotle to the present.
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50:350:481,482
Readings in Major Authors (3,3)
An intensive study of the works of a single author, or of two or three related authors. Satisfies major requirement (pre-2008) "British literature before 1800."
|
50:350:483,484
Readings in Major Authors (3,3)
An intensive study of the works of a single author, or of two or three related authors.
|
50:350:495,496
Honors Program in English (3,3)
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50:350:497
Internship in English (3)
Application of English skills in a volunteer or professional employment setting. Individually designed and evaluated experience under supervision of intern adviser. Commitment of at least 100 hours. Normally limited to English majors.
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