Washington College: A Top-Tier Maryland Liberal Arts College

ENG 101 10: Gillin MWF 9:30-10:20
ENG 101 11: Dubrow MWF 10:30-12:20
ENG 101 12: Volansky MWF 10:30-12:20
ENG 101 13: Knight MWF 11:30-12:20
ENG 101 14: Meehan MWF 12:30-1:20
ENG 101 15: Olsen MWF 12:30-1:20
ENG 101 16: Meehan MWF 1:30-2:20
ENG 101 17: Harvey MWF 2:30-3:20
ENG 101 18: Wagner TTH 10-11:15
ENG 101 19: Boyd TTH 10:11:15
ENG 101 20: De Prospo TTH 11:30-12:45
ENG 101 21: Walsh TTH 1-2:15
ENG 101 22: Hadaway TTH 2:30-3:45

This course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading, critical analysis, and writing through the study of literature. There are frequent writing assignments, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing.

MWF 2:30-3:20 Dubrow

This course is designed for students interested in pursuing a minor in creative writing, or who want to investigate an interest in doing so. This workshop will offer guidance in honing craft in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, and may be considered a helpful continuation of the Freshman Creative Writing course for those who feel they would benefit from more work on fundamentals and additional workshop experience before going on to the Advanced Workshops. Registration for this course would be monitored to implement a pecking order: first eligible would be those students who have declared a CW minor but have not taken—nor, because they are sophomores and juniors, cannot take—Freshman Creative Writing.

TTH 2:30-3:45 Moncrief

This course, the second part of the Shakespeare sequence, will examine some of Shakespeare's best known later plays both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions--with significant contributions from student papers--will explore Shakespeare's writings through the consideration of issues including authority and justice, appearance and identity, seeing and believing, memory, forgiveness, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and local live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been and as they might be interpreted for performance.

10: MWF 10:30-11:20 Gillin

11: TTH 1:00-2:15 Gillin

A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.

TTH 1-2:15 De Prospo

A survey of principal American writers from colonial times through World War II.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Knight

This course surveys African American authors from the Harlem Renaissance to the present. It is designed to expose students to the writers, texts, themes, and literary conventions that have shaped the African American literary canon since the Harlem Renaissance. Authors studied in this course include Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. There are no prerequisites for this course; however, students are encouraged to take HIS 320 “African American History from 1865” as a co-requisite.

TTH 11:30-12:45 Olsen

This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Meehan

This course explores a creative and rich tradition within the genre of nonfiction writing, autobiography, in arguably its most significant location: the American literary tradition. In addition to surveying some classic texts and critical problems in the tradition of writing about the self, we will focus on more recent autobiographical works that explore the terrain of childhood and coming of age. We will be reading these works both critically and creatively, thinking about issues (childhood, memory, race, gender, identity) and styles of American autobiography, and more broadly, creative nonfiction, as both readers and writers—in other words, as American autobiographers ourselves. In America, everyone has an autobiography waiting to be written. We will explore that idea in our readings and take it up in our writing.

Course Materials:

Andrews (editor), Classic American Autobiographies
Cary, Black Ice
Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
Momaday, The Names
Wolff, This Boy's Life

TTH 11:30-12:45 Gillin

The movement from the late eighteenth century to 1832 considered as a revolution in the aims and methods of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

MWF 12:30-1:20 Knight

This course examines the origin and development of the African American novel. We will begin with the earliest novels and conclude with an analysis of contemporary novels by African American writers. We will examine novels from multiple genres and give careful attention to the intersection of race, gender, class and environment in representative novels of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Prerequisite: Any combination of two 200-level English courses, or permission of the instructor.

M 6:30-9 B. Gillin

Various genres will be treated with regard to historical, social, cultural, and contemporary perspectives. Readings for the course will be drawn from the folk tale, fairy tale, poetry, myth, fiction, and picture books. The art and practice of storytelling will be treated, and students are expected to work up a performance. Prerequisite: Any two English courses on the 200-level.

TTH 2:30-3:45 Mooney

The modern short story is part of an international tradition. The form is a relative newcomer to literature, and for various reasons that we will investigate, the Irish have taken to it with particular verve. Through lecture-discussions and response paper and essay assignments, the course teaches techniques for interpreting stories from the abundantly rich Irish imagination evident in its mythology and folklore to the modern agora of the written page. Writers include Maria Edgeworth, Elizabeth Bowen, Liam O’Flaherty, Frank O’Connor, Sean O’Faolain, Edna O’Brien, and William Trevor.

W 2:30-5 Maloney

Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage.

W 4-6:30 De Prospo

Readings will include fiction that has been labled transgressive, and in all but the very latest examples for a time banned in the U.S.; feminist theory from DeBeauvoir to Judith Butler; and works  associated with the pornography debate from Katherine MacKibbon and Andrea Dworkin through Linda Williams.

MWF 11:30-12:20 Dubrow

This course will focus on the soldier-poets whose writings have helped to shape our ideas of the modern battlefield. We will begin with British poets of the First World War, such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, then move to American poets who benefited from the GI Bill after World War II, then to the conscientious objectors, and finally to contemporary poetry collections such Yusef Kumunyakaa's book about Vietnam, Dien Cai Dau, and Brian Turner's recent bestselling collection about Iraq, Here, Bullet. Readings in poetry will be supplemented by critical texts like Chris Hedges’s War Is the Force that Gives Us Meaning and James Anderson Winn’s The Poetry of War. This class will discuss the ways in which the soldier-poet simultaneously praises heroism while attempting to speak about the darkness and terror of war. What are the rhetorical challenges of war poetry and of political poetry in general? Is poetry is able to address combat in ways that prose cannot?  How does the soldier-poet use lyricism and narrative differently than does a novelist, a journalist, or a memoirist?  

TTH 10-11:15 Price

This course will introduce participants to the basic architecture of the film play. Instruction will concentrate on the synopsis, the treatment and sequencing. Through this exploration participants will acquire a basic understanding of conventional and experimental designs of screenwriting. Students will explore cinematic techniques that provide a vocabulary for creating tightly crafted film stories.

W 2:30-5 Mooney

This workshop offers guided practice in the writing of short fiction. Using the work of established writers as models, considerable effort is put toward the objective of learning to read as writers and, in the process, becoming better critics of the students own work and the work of others in the group. By offering a more intimate familiarity with the elements of fiction, students write and revise prodigiously and, in the process, learn and practice a repertoire of literary strategies in preparation and in support of short stories of their own composition.

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

W 2:30-5 Nowak

This course will use a workshop approach for students who are interested in developing their skills in a kind of writing which combines elements of journalism, such as the feature article, with elements of the literary, such as the personal essay. In addition, students will also develop their essay skills in the form of the personal narrative and travel writing. In essence this course treats the various forms of the essay with a special emphasis on the creative ways the genre can be interpreted and rewritten. Readings of representative essays will be included.

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

TBA, Lang

This course teaches basic news reporting and writing -- the who, what, when, where, why & how of story organization; getting quickly to the point; conciseness; straightforward exposition; accuracy, fairness and balance, and ethical issues.

For the student who wants to write for the Elm, the internship makes minimal demands. Requirements are that interns report and write regularly in the Elm; bring first draft of stories to the instructor for review and guidance, for 15 minutes of personal instruction; meet with the instructor, other interns and Elm editors for an hour on Fridays, after the Elm is distributed, to deconstruct and reconstruct that issue, passing plaudits or brickbats, planning follow-ups and story ideas for weeks ahead.

Hours vary. Students can pick their 15-minute slot for individual session with the instructor anytime between 3 and 5:30 on Tuesdays. The hour for full staff session on Fridays is adjusted each semester to best accommodate the schedules of editors and interns but typically is between 1 and 4.

TTH 10-11:15 Ames

A study of the works of James Joyce with special emphasis on Ulysses.

MWF 1:30-2:20 Olsen

The beginning of the 20th century saw a major shift in literary thoguht and sensibility. While his peers, the modernists, were responding in one way, J.R.R. Tolkien was moving in a diametrically different direction, reviving a literary and linguistic culture from England’s past. With his astounding breadth of invention and his almost unequalled mastery of language, Tolkien crafted one of the most powerful and influential literary works of the century. In this course, we will begin with a study of the literary and theoretical foundations of Tolkien’s work and then move through a careful study of Tolkien’s major works: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.

W 7-9:30 Mooney

In this seminar, each student will work toward a completed manuscript of poetry or fiction (at least thirty pages for poetry and fifty for fiction). Reading lists will be tailored to the specific needs of each student, and a series of short response papers will be assigned along with weekly work on the manuscripts.

Prerequisite: Creative Writing Minor, graduating senior status.

TTH 1-2:15 Moncrief

This honors course focuses on the advanced study of plays initially covered in the 200-level Shakespeare course in conjunction with the study of contemporary literary theory. The semester begins with an introduction to literary theory and methodology. Then, using plays as case studies, we will examine each play in relation to historical, seminal, or controversial criticism. Reading will concentrate on important critical approaches to the study of Shakespeare (i.e., New Criticism, Reader Response Theory, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Marxism, Feminism, New Historicism/ Cultural Materialism, Performance Criticism and Post-Colonialism). Additionally, two Shakespeare critics will present public lectures and will meet with the class to discuss their work.

Prerequisite: At least one semester of Shakespeare on the 200-level or permission of the instructor.

ENG 101 10: DiQuinzio MWF 9:30-10:20
ENG 101 11: Gillin MWF 9:30-10:20
ENG 101 11: Knight MWF 11:30-12:20
ENG 101 13: Dubrow MWF 11:30-12:20
ENG 101 14: Meehan MWF 12:30-1:20
ENG 101 15: Olsen MWF 12:30-1:20
ENG 101 16: Meehan MWF 1:30-2:20
ENG 101 17: Martin MWF 1:30-2:20
ENG 101 18: Wagner TTH 10-11:15
ENG 101 19: Miller TTH 8:30-9:45
ENG 101 20: Miller TTH 10-11:15
ENG 101 21: De Prospo TTH 11:30-12:45
ENG 101 22: Cousineau TTH 1-2:15
ENG 101 23: Staff TTH 2:30-3:45

This course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading, critical analysis, and writing through the study of literature. There are frequent writing assignments, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing.

*ENG 103 10 (Freshman Creative Writing): TTH 11:30-12:45 Wagner
*ENG 103 11 (Freshman Creative Writing): TTH 1-2:15 Mooney
*ENG 103 13 (Freshman Creative Writing): MWF 10:30-11:20 Dubrow

A workshop on the forms of creative writing—primarily poetry and fiction as practiced by the students themselves. Readings in contemporary literature and craft. First-Year students only.

TTH 2:30-3:45 Moncrief

This course will examine some of Shakespeare's best known earlier plays (those written before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions, with significant contributions from student papers, will explore Shakespeare's writings as products/producers of early modern culture through the consideration of issues including identity, politics, monarchy, religious conflicts, crime and justice, play and festivity, enclosure and urbanization, world exploration and colonization, nation and national identity, theatricality and theatre-going, religion, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been interpreted for performance.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Gillin

A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.

TTH 1-2:15 De Prospo

A survey of principal American writers from colonial times through World War II.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Knight

This course is a survey of African American literature produced from the late 1700s to the Harlem Renaissance. It is designed to introduce students to the writers, texts, themes, conventions and tropes that have shaped the African American literary tradition. Authors studied in this course include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Frances E. W. Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes. There are no prerequisites for this course; however, students are encouraged to take HIS 319 "African American History to 1865" as a co-requisite.

TTH 11:30-12:45 Olsen

No work has had a more profound impact on Western thought than the Bible. Familiarity with the Biblical texts is necessary for an informed understanding of almost any aspect of Western art and culture, from medieval love poetry to modern political debates. This course is designed to introduce students to the stories, doctrines, and themes of the Bible upon which most of English and American literature presumes.

TTH 10-11:15 Cousineau

This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus.

TTH 11:30-12:45 Gillin

The triumph and decline of the neoclassic ideal in the eighteenth century. The course concentrates on the great figures of Swift, Pope, Johnson, and Boswell.

TTH 2:30-3:45 Mooney

This course focuses on the study of American fiction from 1945 to the present. Emphasis includes an examination of the work of major American fiction writers of the past half-century. The course is structured in a way similar to a traditional offering in literature with this difference: some of the writers whose work is studied in class will at some time during the semester come to Washington College to visit the class, discuss their work with course participants, and give a public reading.

W 2:30-5 Maloney

Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage

MWF 11:30 Cousineau

A study of selected masterpieces of the early phase of modernist writing (1890-1922). Emphasis will be equally placed on the formal and thematic innovations introduced by the major writers of this period (Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H.Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot) and on their indebtedness to the "great tradition" of western literature.

MWF 1:30-2:20 Olsen

Throughout the Middle Ages, the story of King Arthur and his knights was continually adapted and eagerly retold in epics, romances, and histories alike. In this course, we will examine the development of the Arthurian legend from its Celtic roots through the signature English treatment of the story by Sir Thomas Malory. We will end the semester with a look at the continuation of the legend in modern film.

TTH 1-2:15 Moncrief

This course will focus on Milton's poetry, especially his epic poem Paradise Lost, with some attention to his minor poems and prose. Through close, critical reading of the poetry, we will examine Milton's obsession with temptation, rebellion, loss and grief, defeat, the presence of evil in the world, and the limits of human knowledge and will pay attention to his biography, especially his experience of blindness and revolutionary defeat. We will study the formal elements of his poetry, including his use of and experimentation with blank verse as well as his appropriation, exploitation, and subversion of generic forms. We will also explore Milton's literary texts in relationship to his culture—regicide and revolution, the turmoil of the seventeenth-century Puritan experiment, the commonwealth government, and restoration of the monarchy. We will also attempt to understand the importance of Milton's poetry in literary history. Why has such a revolutionary poet come to be identified with conservative establishment? Why is Milton revered and reviled? How do we, in an age when feminism, canon revision, post-modernism, and post-colonialism, understand and critique Milton?

W 4-6:30 De Prospo

At the height of the Blitz in 1941 the Oxford Don F.R. Leavis proclaimed, in Scrutiny, the journal he founded to establish once and for all the excellence of English literature, that "the Great English novelists are Jane Austin, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad"; at the end of the war he would republish this judgment in the book designed to establish, once and for all, the canon of English fiction, The Great Tradition.

In 1939 Orson Welles planned to make Heart of Darkness as his first motion picture. The studio, fearing cost overruns, backed out and Welles made Citizen Kane instead.

In 1969 Francis Ford Coppola founded American Zoetrope studio and decided that its first production would be an adaptation of Heart of Darkness. That same year John Milius--who would later direct Red Dawn, which would turn out to be Timothy McVeigh's favorite film--decided to write the screenplay, because Heart of Darkness "was one of my favorite things I ever read. It had been tried, and no one could lick it. Orson Welles had tried, and he couldn't lick it. And somebody else had tried, Richard Brooks, I think, and he couldn't lick it. No one could possibly write this thing and that was the first thing I tried."

In 1975 as the annual Chancellor's lecture at Amherst College Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe delivered "An Image of Africa; Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," later to be republished in Achebe's collection of essays, Hopes and Impediments.

In 1979 Nobel Prize- winning novelist V.S. Naipul published A Bend in the River, which, although it never mentions Conrad or Heart of Darkness explicitly, has been taken by many literary scholars and critics to invite comparison, and, perhaps even to imply answering back, to the earlier book.

In 1999 James M. Jeffords, U.S. Senator from Vermont, met with President Bill Clinton to urge him to apologize to the nation because of his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. "The President started talking at length about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It had been many years since I had read it, so I had a hard time following what he was trying to say. Later, when I refreshed myself, I still had difficulty. He seemed to be saying that he had been overwhelmed with the opportunities his position provided [!] and was sorry he let us down."

There's something about Heart of Darkness--neither the most readable nor the most teachable of books, even of Conrad's books. And there's something about Conrad, too, a native Pole for whom English was a third language, a third language that he evidently spoke so poorly that when conversing with his American literary friend Henry James they both reverted to what was for both of them a second language: French. The course will try to explore what it is that has attracted so many white male Anglophone intellectuals--and inspired the mockery of one black rapper, and, perhaps, the rivalry of another, brown, novelist--over the more than hundred years now since the original publication of Heart of Darkness in 1899 in England in Blackwood's Magazine.

Class texts will include Conrad's novel, Coppola's Apocalypse Now!, Tupac's TUPACalypse Now!, Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (which contains a prominent , to my knowledge as yet unremarked, allusion to Heart of Darkness), Achebe's essay, Naipul's novel, a sampling of the blizzard of journalistic quotations of the novel's title and of its most famous, four-word, speech, plus some theorizings of race and gender that I think might shed light on why the book has managed to appeal so strongly to a relatively homogenous cohort of readers and adaptors.

W 2:30-5 Mooney

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

This workshop offers guided practice in the writing of short fiction. Using the work of established writers as models, considerable effort is put toward the objective of learning to read as writers and, in the process, becoming better critics of the students own work and the work of others in the group. By offering a more intimate familiarity with the elements of fiction, students write and revise prodigiously and, in the process, learn and practice a repertoire of literary strategies in preparation and in support of short stories of their own composition.

W 2:30-5 Dubrow

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

This course builds upon the students' previous training in creative writing, asking that they hone their skills not only as writers but also as readers and critics of poetry. Using eight debut collections as models for their own work, students will address concepts of diction, the line and line break, figurative language, image, rhyme, meter, and narrative. Each of the assigned texts has been published within the past two years; therefore, the class will be able to speak with authority about current trends in contemporary poetry. Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

MWF 12:30-1:20 Knight

This course is an introduction to the major issues that encompass the interdisciplinary field of the History of the Book. The Society of the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) defines the academic field of book history as "not only about books per se: broadly speaking, it concerns the creation, dissemination, and reception of script and print, including newspapers, periodicals, and ephemera. Book historians study the social, cultural, and economic history of authorship; the history of the book trade, copyright, censorship, and underground publishing; the publication histories of particular literary works, authors, editors, imprints, and literary agents; the spread of literacy and book distribution; canon formation and the politics of literary criticism; libraries, reading habits, and reader response."

In this course, students will learn about the creation, dissemination and reception of print communication in America. The lines of inquiry are adapted from Robert Darnton's seminal article, "What is the History of Books?" namely, what was the nature of an American literary career, and how was it pursued? How did American writers deal with publishers, printers, booksellers, reviewers and one another? What impact has the printed word had on American culture? A heavy emphasis will be placed on developing advanced research skills in order to help students learn how book history can enhance literary, historical and American Studies research projects.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Meehan

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman are giant writers in American literary and cultural history, inventing their own traditions in American prose and poetry in the nineteenth century and influencing a wide-range of writers (American and international) who would follow: from Delilo to Dillard, Stevens to Springsteen, Nietzsche to Neruda. Their words have even appeared in commercials (Emerson, selling Reeboks in the 1980s) and in political scandals (Clinton gave Lewinsky a copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass). This course explores the significant work of both writers, from Emerson's major essays to the endless evolution of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Critical focal points along the way will include the writers' interests in self-representation, nature, technology, education and a prominent paradox in their writing: they both sought to cultivate readers who would learn from them by resisting their influence, even the very books they were reading. As Whitman would say of Waldo's influence: Emersonianism breeds the giant that destroys itself.

In our efforts to track these self-slaying (and self-celebrating) giants of American literature, course work will include: journal writing, shorter essays leading to a larger final essay informed by research and criticism, presentations to the class, collaborative work on a digital writing project, active class participation in the Emersonian and Whitmanian vein. Cross-listed: American Studies. For additional information, consult the course web: http://luminousallusion.wordpress.com/

MW 8:30-9:45 Shoge

The course covers literary works of writers of the Caribbean Diaspora published in English from the early 1920s to the present. The writers originate from the English, French, and Spanish islands as well as Guyana and became self-selected exiles or emigrants to the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. The authors include Claude McKay, George Lamming, Samuel Selvon, Edward Braithwaite, Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Fred D'Aguiar, and others and collectively their works cover the colonial to post colonial eras. They write about the Caribbean from the center and from outside the center. Fiction, poetry, and plays of these writers will provide the literary framework from which students can examine the multiplicity of Caribbean native and diasporic cultural identities. Through critical analysis of literary elements students will understand the tensions and symbiotic relations from which the blending and creating of new characters, imagery, symbolism, rhythms and tones emerged.

ENG 101 10 Gillin
ENG 101 11 Walsh
ENG 101 12 Dubrow
ENG 101 13 Knight
ENG 101 14 Volansky
ENG 101 15 Meehan
ENG 101 16 Meehan
ENG 101 17 Olsen
ENG 101 18 Wagner
ENG 101 19 DeProspo
ENG 101 20 Knight
ENG 101 21 Cousineau, T
ENG 101 22 Miller
ENG 101 23 Hadaway

This course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading, critical analysis, and writing through the study of literature. There are frequent writing assignments, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing.

Section 10: MWF 11:30-12:20 with Dubrowr
This course is designed for students interested in pursuing a minor in creative writing, or who want to investigate an interest in doing so. This workshop will offer guidance in honing craft in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, and may be considered a helpful continuation of the Freshman Creative Writing course for those who feel they would benefit from more work on fundamentals and additional workshop experience before going on to the Advanced Workshops. Registration for this course would be monitored to implement a pecking order: first eligible would be those students who have declared a CW minor but have not taken—nor, because they are sophomores and juniors, cannot take—Freshman Creative Writing.

Instructor: Moncrief
Section 10: TTH 1:00-2:15
Section 11: TTH 2:30-3:45

This course examines some of Shakespeare's best known later plays (those written after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions, with significant contributions from student papers, will explore Shakespeare's writings as products/producers of early modern culture through the consideration of issues including identity, politics, monarchy, religious conflicts, crime and justice, play and festivity, enclosure and urbanization, world exploration and colonization, nation and national identity, theatricality and theatre-going, religion, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been interpreted for performance.

MWF 10:30-11:20 with R. Gillin

A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.

TTH 1-2:15 De Prospo

A survey of principal American writers from colonial times through World War II.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Knight

This course is a survey of African American literature produced from the late 1700s to the Harlem Renaissance. It is designed to introduce students to the writers, texts, themes, conventions and tropes that have shaped the African American literary tradition. Authors studied in this course include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Frances E. W. Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes. There are no prerequisites for this course; however, students are encouraged to take HIS 320 "African American History to 1865" as a co-requisite.

Section 10: TTH 10-11:15 with Cousineau Section 11: TTH 11:30-12:45 with Olsen

This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus.

TTH 11:30-12:45 with Gillin

The movement from the late eighteenth century to 1832 considered as a revolution in the aims and methods of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

TTH 2:30-3:45 with Mooney

Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Twain, Crane, James, Hemingway, Porter, and Salinger are among the writers this course will consider. The study will be chronological and historical, placing emphasis upon the development of the genre.

TTH 10-11:15 with Knight

This course examines the literature and intellectual thought of the Harlem Renaissance (roughly 1922-1933). It is designed to move beyond a cursory treatment of the movement and offer students the opportunity to study key figures and texts at length. Authors studied in this course include Alain Locke, W. E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes. Prerequisite: Any combination of two 200-level English courses, or the permission of the instructor.

MWF 11:30-12:20 with Cousineau, T.

A study of selected masterpieces of the later (post-1922) phase of modernist writing. Writers include: Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Fernando Pessoa, Virginia Woolf, and Jorge Borges.

MWF 1:30-2:20 with Dubrow

This course explores the rich literary tradition of received forms in English and American verse. By studying a wide range of formal poems—by authors as diverse as William Shakespeare, Edna St. Vincent Millay, e.e. cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, and John Ashberry—students will discover the adaptability of fixed forms like the sonnet, villanelle, and sestina. In addition, students will deepen their understanding of prosody, learning the ways in which poets use metrical and stress patterns to create music and meaning in their work. Class assignments will include both scholarly writing and creative "experiments" in poetic forms.

MWF 10:30-11:20 with Meehan

The course combines intensive reading in the rich history of American environmental literature, from Thoreau in the nineteenth century to recent examples of literary ecology and eco-criticism, with extensive experience writing about and within our environment. The course also pursues interdisciplinary connections with the sciences and environmental studies as we explore the role of writing and imagination in an understanding of the natural world.

TTH 10-11:15 with Price

This course examines aspects of recitation and the oral traditions of poetry, emphasizing America's long history of memorizing and reciting favorite poems. The influences of Native American, African, European and other traditions on the performance of poetry will be considered, as well as the growing popularity of the "spoken word" genre. Students will consider the dialect poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the blues and jazz poetry of Langston Hughes and Ted Joans, the improvisational recitation of the Beats, the influence of Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement, and the Nuyoricans and contemporary "Slam Poetry." Class assignments will involve students reading, examining and reciting their work and the work of other assigned poets.

MWF 12:30-1:20 with Olsen

Geoffrey Chaucer has long been considered the father of English literature, and he remains one of the most subtle, witty, trenchant, and jovial writers that our language has ever known. This class serves as an introduction to Chaucer's language and thought through a detailed study of his greatest work, The Canterbury Tales.

W 2:30-5 with Mooney

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

TTH 11:30-12:45 with Shenk

This course will use a workshop approach for students who are interested in developing their skills in a kind of writing which combines elements of journalism, such as the feature article, with elements of the literary, such as the personal essay. In addition, students will also develop their essay skills in the form of the personal narrative and travel writing. In essence this course treats the various forms of the essay with a special emphasis on the creative ways the genre can be interpreted and rewritten. Readings of representative essays will be included. Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

W 2:30-5 with Maloney

Advanced workshop in writing for the stage. Prerequisite: ENG 450 Playwriting I

Schedule To Be Added, with Lang

This course teaches basic news reporting and writing -- the who, what, when, where, why & how of story organization; getting quickly to the point; conciseness; straightforward exposition; accuracy, fairness and balance, and ethical issues. For the student who wants to write for the Elm, the internship makes minimal demands. Requirements are that interns report and write regularly in the Elm; bring first draft of stories to the instructor for review and guidance, for 15 minutes of personal instruction; meet with the instructor, other interns and Elm editors for an hour on Fridays, after the Elm is distributed, to deconstruct and reconstruct that issue, passing plaudits or brickbats, planning follow-ups and story ideas for weeks ahead. Hours vary. Students can pick their 15-minute slot for individual session with the instructor anytime between 3 and 5:30 on Tuesdays. The hour for full staff session on Fridays is adjusted each semester to best accommodate the schedules of editors and interns but typically is between 1 and 4.

T 7-9:30 Mooney

In these seminars, each student will work toward a completed manuscript of poetry or fiction (at least thirty pages for poetry and fifty for fiction). Reading lists will be tailored to the specific needs of each student, and a series of short response papers will be assigned along with weekly work on the manuscripts.

W 4-6:30 with DeProspo

Whereas what once seemed controversial topics--race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, borderlands --have become mainstream in college and university American Studies and English courses, one, arguably major category of cultural difference remains relatively understudied--at least in the humanities. The study of generation, like that of all of the topics listed above, is potentially subversive, and it may be neglected because of the fact that most college and university professors (admittedly with increasingly numerous exceptions) are members of the single, for some time now and for some time to come, dominant generation. The Baby Boom runs the same risks as do white people in the U.S., white Anglo-Saxon-Protestant people in the U.S., men everywhere, and heterosexuals everywhere when it acknowledges that the products of (sub)cultures other than its own are as worthy of becoming college and university curricula as its own traditional canon. The course will try to distinguish in a variety of ways the belated, frequently plaintive, cultures of the young from that of the Baby Boom. The course will define generation more culturally than demographically--as is the case in humanist area studies of race, ethnicity, etc.--, and will include, in addition to written texts, those other-than-written ones that would seem predominantly to convey the values of the offspring of Baby Boom parents and, increasingly, grandparents. Issues of race, gender, and sexual preference will be addressed in the context of their generational implications: ask, for examples, whether the relative tolerance of gender diversity and diverse sexual preferences among cultures of the young may be one way of rebelling against a more heterosexist parent culture, or whether African Americans can properly be identified culturally as members of either the Baby Boom or Generation X, due to overriding considerations of racial difference. Texts will be divided between those that have become Baby-Boom standards--Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint, Getting Straight, The Graduate, Exile on Main Street,, Hotel California, Who's Next--, and those that have become identified with Generation(s) X (Y, Z, etc.)--Generation X, Twelve, Clerks, Exile in Guyville, Veruca Salt, The Slim Shady LP, damone, and no doubt many many others much more recent and (to me) more obscure that may by now have become more representative, the knowledge of which is doubtless greater among Washington College students and seventh-graders like my son than among Washington College professors.

ENG 101 10 Gillin
ENG 101 11 Meehan
ENG 101 12 Volansky
ENG 101 13 Walsh
ENG 101 14 Knight
ENG 101 15 Dubrow
ENG 101 16 Meehan
ENG 101 17 Cousineau,T
ENG 101 18 Meehan
ENG 101 19 Olsen
ENG 101 20 Wagner, K
ENG 101 21 DeProspo,R
ENG 101 22 Martin
ENG 101 23 McCabe

This course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading, critical analysis, and writing through the study of literature. There are frequent writing assignments, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing.

Section 10: TTH 11:30-12:45 with Wagner
Section 11: TTH 1-2:15 with Mooney
Section 12: TTH 2:30-3:45 with Mooney
Section 13: MWF 10:30-11:20 with Dubrow

A workshop on the forms of creative writing-poetry, fiction, and drama as practiced by the students themselves. Readings in contemporary literature. Freshmen only.

Instructor: Moncrief
Section 10: TTH 1:00-2:15
Section 11: TTH 2:30-3:45

This course will examine some of Shakespeare's best known earlier plays (those written before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions, with significant contributions from student papers, will explore Shakespeare's writings as products/producers of early modern culture through the consideration of issues including identity, politics, monarchy, religious conflicts, crime and justice, play and festivity, enclosure and urbanization, world exploration and colonization, nation and national identity, theatricality and theatre-going, religion, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been interpreted for performance.

MWF 10:30-11:20 with R. Gillin

A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.

TTH 1-2:15 De Prospo

A survey of principal American writers from colonial times through World War II.

MWF 10:30-11:20 Knight

This course is a survey of African American literature produced from the late 1700s to the Harlem Renaissance. It is designed to introduce students to the writers, texts, themes, conventions and tropes that have shaped the African American literary tradition. Authors studied in this course include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Frances E. W. Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes. There are no prerequisites for this course; however, students are encouraged to take HIS 319 "African American History to 1865" as a co-requisite.

TTH 11:30-12:45 with Olsen

No work has had a more profound impact on Western thought than the Bible. Familiarity with the Biblical texts is necessary for an informed understanding of almost any aspect of Western art and culture, from medieval love poetry to modern political debates. This course is designed to introduce students to the stories, doctrines, and themes of the Bible upon which most of English and American literature presumes.

MW 3:30-4:45 with T. Cousineau

This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus.

MWF 11:30-12:20 with Olsen

In this course, we will explore some of the texts and ideas that dominated the cultural landscape of Europe for centuries. We will consider many of the themes and topics that occupied the imagination of medieval writers, such as courtly love, the ways of Fortune, allegory, and authorship itself. We will sample many of the great authors of the Middle Ages, including Augustine, Boethius, Dante, and Chaucer. Most importantly, we will seek to come to a clearer understanding of how medieval readers looked at the world and how medieval writers expected their texts to be read.

MW 1-2:15 with Moncrief

Early modern England saw an enormous range of popular printed materials-- many types of poetry, prose, and drama of course, but also pamphlets, ballads, broadsides, sermons, conduct books, medical manuals, domestic guides, woodcuts, and more-- available for public consumption. This course will examine a diverse range of "literary" (Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Donne, Herrick, Herbert, Marvell, Milton, etc.) and "non-literary" texts in relation to seventeenth-century culture. Class discussions-- with significant contributions from student research-- will explore print materials of the seventeenth century as products/producers of a changing culture through the consideration of cultural topics including but not limited to: politics, monarchy, authority and revolution, the city, urbanization, voyage and "discovery," nation and national identity, religion and spirituality, imagination and identity.

TTH 11:30-12:45 with R. Gillin

Major poets, novelists, and essayists including Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Pater, Bronte, and Gaskill will be studied in conjunction with the culture of the age of Victoria.

W 4:00-6:30 with DeProspo

The course will concentrate on the writings of Poe as exemplifying the literature of the British Colonies of North America and of the early United States. Other readings will be chosen from among the writings of Bradford, Bradstreet, Taylor, Edwards, Franklin, Crevecoeur, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Brockden Brown, and Irving.

TTH 2:30-3:45 with D. Cousineau

This course will explore the way women writers both draw on literary traditions and introduce important innovations in narrrative form and subject matter. We will consider such psychlogical and cultural issues as the portrayal of female subjectivity and desire, mother-daughter relationships, and hybrid identities (racial and ethnic). Writers will include Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, and other modern and contemporary novelists.

TTH 11:30-12:45 Shenk

This course will illuminate the role of research, voice, and expertise in writing on specific disciplines. Considering such topics as food, sex, and rock 'n roll, we will closely read essays, stories, and books - often as a precursor to an encounter with the authors themselves. In addition to short analytical assignments, students will be expected to choose a topic for investigation themselves and to prepare a final creative project.

M 7:00-9:30 pm with B. Gillin

Various genres will be treated with regard to historical, social, cultural, and contemporary perspectives. Readings for the course will be drawn from the folk tale, fairy tale, poetry, myth, fiction, and picture books. The art and practice of storytelling will be treated, and students are expected to work up a performance. Prerequisite: Any two English courses on the 200 level.

W 2:30-5:00 with Maloney

Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage.

W 2:30-5:00 with Mooney

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

F 1:00-3:30 with Dubrow

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

TTH 1:00-2:15 with Cousineau

A study of selected masterpieces of the early phase of modernist writing (1890-1922). Emphasis will be equally placed on the formal and thematic innovations introduced by the major writers of this period (Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H.Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot) and on their indebtedness to the "great tradition" of western literature.

TTH 10:00-11:15 with Knight

This course examines key prose fiction from the Gilded Age of American culture (roughly 1878 - 1901). Careful attention will be given to the intersection of ethnicity, gender, class and environment in the work of Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Frances E.W. Harper, Charles Chesnutt, and others. By the end of this course, students should be able to: -Identify and critique the various treatments of "Big Business" and industrialization in literature of the period -Discuss the development of regional literature -Assess how urbanization affected the literary imagination of various authors -Identify and analyze multiple manifestations of social inequality in literature of the period.

MW 8:30-9:45 with Shoge

The course covers literary works of writers of the Caribbean Diaspora published in English from the early 1920s to the present. The writers originate from the English, French, and Spanish islands as well as Guyana and became self-selected exiles or emigrants to the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. The authors include Claude McKay, George Lamming, Samuel Selvon, Edward Braithwaite, Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Fred D'Aguiar, and others and collectively their works cover the colonial to post colonial eras. They write about the Caribbean from the center and from outside the center. Fiction, poetry, and plays of these writers will provide the literary framework from which students can examine the multiplicity of Caribbean native and diasporic cultural identities. Through critical analysis of literary elements students will understand the tensions and symbiotic relations from which the blending and creating of new characters, imagery, symbolism, rhythms and tones emerged.

T 6:30-9:00 pm with DeProspo

The course will concentrate on the writings of Poe as exemplifying the literature of the British Colonies of North America and of the early United States. Other readings will be chosen from among the writings of Bradford, Bradstreet, Taylor, Edwards, Franklin, Crevecoeur, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Brockden Brown, and Irving.

M 7:00-9:30 pm with Gillin

Major poets, novelists, and essayists including Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Pater, Bronte, and Gaskill will be studied in conjunction with the culture of the age of Victoria.

Instructors:
Section 10: Gillin, R
Section 11: Olsen
Section 12: Cousineau, T
Section 13: Campion, A
Section 14: Campion, P
Section 15: Wagner
Section 16: Cousineau, D

A study of prose fiction, poetry, and drama, this course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading and critical judgment. It also covers the fundamentals of composition. There are frequent writing assignments that are associated with the study of literature, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing. Eng 102 is the second half of the 101-102 sequence; the courses need not be taken in order.

Instructor: Wagner

This course is designed for students interested in pursuing a minor in creative writing, or who want to investigate an interest in doing so. This workshop will offer guidance in honing craft in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, and may be considered a helpful continuation of the Freshman Creative Writing course for those who feel they would benefit from more work on fundamentals and additional workshop experience before going on to the Advanced Workshops. Registration for this course would be monitored to implement a pecking order: first eligible would be those students who have declared a CW minor but have not taken-nor, because they are sophomores and juniors, cannot take-Freshman Creative Writing.

Instructor: Moncrief

This course examines some of Shakespeare's best known earlier plays (those written before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions, with significant contributions from student papers, will explore Shakespeare's writings as products/producers of early modern culture through the consideration of issues including identity, politics, monarchy, religious conflicts, crime and justice, play and festivity, enclosure and urbanization, world exploration and colonization, nation and national identity, theatricality and theatre-going, religion, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been interpreted for performance.

Instructor: R. Gillin

A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.

Instructor: DeProspo (both sections)

Taught in the spring semester and having as its prerequisite ENG 211 (AMS 201), the course is concerned with the establishment of American Studies as a curriculum in post-World War II American colleges and universities. Readings will include a variety of written texts, including those not traditionally considered "literary," as well as a variety of other-than-written materials, including popular cultural ones, in accordance with the original commitment of American Studies to curricular innovation. Introductions to the modern phenomena of race, gender, sexual orientation, and generation in U.S. culture will be included. A comparatist perspective on the influence of American culture internationally and a review of the international American Studies movement in foreign universities will also be introduced.

Instructor: Olsen

This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus.

Instructor: R. Gillin

The movement from the late eighteenth century to 1832 considered as a revolution in the aims and methods of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

Instructor: T. Cousineau

A study of the major novels of such early modernist writers as Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf.

Instructor: T. Cousineau

A study of the major poetic innovators of the modernist period, including W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Mina Loy.

Instructor: DeProspo

Readings will be chosen from among the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman.

Instructor: Maloney

Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage.

Instructor: Price

This course examines aspects of recitation and the oral traditions of poetry, emphasizing America's long history of memorizing and reciting favorite poems. The influences of Native American, African, European and other traditions on the performance of poetry will be considered, as well as the growing popularity of the "spoken word" genre. Students will consider the dialect poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the blues and jazz poetry of Langston Hughes and Ted Joans, the improvisational recitation of the Beats, the influence of Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement, and the Nuyoricans and contemporary "Slam Poetry." Class assignments will involve students reading, examining and reciting their work and the work of other assigned poets.

Instructor: Staff

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

Instructor: Shenk

This course will use a workshop approach for students who are interested in developing their skills in a kind of writing which combines elements of journalism, such as the feature article, with elements of the literary, such as the personal essay. In addition, students will also develop their essay skills in the form of the personal narrative and travel writing. In essence this course treats the various forms of the essay with a special emphasis on the creative ways the genre can be interpreted and rewritten. Readings of representative essays will be included.

Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.

Instructor: Lang

This course teaches basic news reporting and writing -- the who, what, when, where, why & how of story organization; getting quickly to the point; conciseness; straightforward exposition; accuracy, fairness and balance, and ethical issues.

For the student who wants to write for the Elm, the internship makes minimal demands. Requirements are that interns report and write regularly in the Elm; bring first draft of stories to the instructor for review and guidance, for 15 minutes of personal instruction; meet with the instructor, other interns and Elm editors for an hour on Fridays, after the Elm is distributed, to deconstruct and reconstruct that issue, passing plaudits or brickbats, planning follow-ups and story ideas for weeks ahead.

Hours vary. Students can pick their 15-minute slot for individual session with the instructor anytime between 3 and 5:30 on Tuesdays. The hour for full staff session on Fridays is adjusted each semester to best accommodate the schedules of editors and interns but typically is between 1 and 4.

Instructor: Staff

Each student will work toward a completed manuscript of at least fifty pages of fiction. Reading lists will be tailored to the specific needs of each student, and a series of short response papers will be assigned along with weekly work on the manuscripts.

Prerequisite: Creative Writing Minor, Senior Status

Instructor: P. Campion

Each student will work toward a completed manuscript of at least thirty pages of poetry. Reading lists will be tailored to the specific needs of each student, and a series of short response papers will be assigned along with weekly work on the manuscripts.

Prerequisite: Creative Writing Minor, Senior Status

Instructor: Peterson

This course explores the literature of historical, popular and folk heroes that emerge throughout the Black/African Diaspora. With an expressed focus on African American Heroes (like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, John Henry, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, and Angela Davis), the course will wrestle with the various ways in which heroes are made, commodified and historicized in the public sphere. One of the goals of the course is to engage the various texts in which heroes (or allusions to them) appear. Some of these "texts" include film (Spike Lee's Malcolm X, The X-Men, Scarface), music (ballads of John Henry, lyrics from Tupac Shakur, Scarface and others), and Comic Books. In fact, the conceptual and visual inspiration for this course is the Marvel Comics superhero: Black Panther. The Black Panther is an African hero from the fictitious utopian nation of Wakanda who moonlights as a super hero in the Marvel Comics Universe. His imaging and character development are key touchstones to the themes and concepts explored in this course.

Instructor: Olsen

The beginning of the 20th century saw a major shift in literary thought and sensibility. While his peers, the modernists, were responding in one way, J.R.R. Tolkien was moving in a diametrically different direction, reviving a literary and linguistic culture from England's past. With his astounding breadth of invention and his almost unequalled mastery of language, Tolkien crafted one of the most powerful and influential literary works of the century. In this course, we will begin with a study of the literary and theoretical foundations of Tolkien's work and then move through a careful study of Tolkien's major works: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.

Instructor: P. Campion

Taking its title from Randall Jarrell's famous book of criticism, this course will offer an in-depth examination of five or six American poets now writing. (Probables include Louise Gluck, Frank Bidart, Robert Pinsky, C.K. Williams, James McMichael, and Anne Winters.) While basing our reading on formal analysis, we'll also focus on how these poets respond in their work to the very experience of contemporary life. In particular we'll ask what makes their poetry American? How do the personal and the public intermingle in their art? How have they reinterpreted the traditions they've inherited?

Instructor: Moncrief

This honors course focuses on the advanced study of Shakespeare's plays in conjunction with the study of contemporary literary theory. Using the plays (including Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest and others) as case studies, the class will examine each play in relation to historical, seminal, or controversial criticism. Readings will concentrate on important critical approaches to the study of Shakespeare including New Criticism, Reader Response Theory, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Marxism, Feminism, New Historicism/ Cultural Materialism, Performance Criticism and Post-Colonialism. Students will learn how to read literary criticism and how to employ various approaches in their own analysis of the texts. The course also emphasizes research methodology, including understanding and using important library resources and databases to locate secondary source material. Additionally, two Shakespeare critics will present public lectures and will meet with the class to discuss their work.

Pre-requisite: at least one semester of Shakespeare at the 200-level or permission of the instructor