The literature major is designed to give students an understanding and appreciation of our literary heritage, and to allow them to develop and pursue their personal literary interests. Literature is a humanistic discipline that emphasizes close observation and analysis, imaginative response, thinking in a broad intellectual and historical context, and the skills of speech and writing. Literature majors thrive in many professions, but the skills we emphasize trans-late most directly into careers in law, government, business, advertising, journalism, education, and entertainment.

The major consists of a two-course survey of the principal writers of British literature, usually taken in the sophomore year; an intensive course in the history of literary criticism, usually taken in the junior year; one course focusing on the work of a single British or Amer­ican author; one course in American literature; and a set of four electives, two unrestricted and two distributed by period. Literature majors should have an advisor in the department, or regularly consult with a member of the department as they are planning their courses.

The Literature department is strongly committed to helping students improve their writing. All first-year students take Literature 10, a one-semester course in Composition and Literary Analysis.

Courses

10. Composition and Literary Analysis.
An introduction to the principles of written expression and to the critical reading of fiction, drama, and poetry. Students will write the equivalent of at least twenty-five typewritten pages. Individual sections may also require oral presentations or other speaking-intensive assignments. First and second semester. Staff

34. Creative Journalism.
An intensive hands-on course in feature writing styles and journalistic ethics; a primer for writing in today’s urban America. Essentially, journalism, like all art, tells a story. How that story is told is as critical to the success of a piece as the importance of its theme. A series of writing exercises and reporting “assignments” will give both inexperienced and more advanced writers the tools to explore their
writerly “voice.” Special attention will be devoted to discussions of the role of the journalist in society. Prerequisite: written permission of department chair. All registered students must attend the first class. Second semester. Martinez

36. Screenwriting.
A seminar-workshop on the theory and practice of writing screenplays. We will view films and read scripts in a variety of genres, examine the roles of art, craft, and commerce in writing for film, and discuss in general the enterprise of being a writer. Each student will make substantial progress in the writing of an original screenplay. Prerequisite: written permission of department chair. All registered
students must attend the first class. Second semester. Staff

38. Fiction Writing.
This course, which will be conducted as a workshop, will deal with both short and long forms of fiction. Participants, who may choose either form, will present their original manuscripts and will discuss those submitted by their fellow writers. Prerequisite: written permission of instructor. All registered students must attend the first class. Second semester. Morrison

57. British Writers I.
A survey of the major British writers from the medieval and Renaissance periods. Throughout the course we will pay attention to how this literature reflects political, religious, and philosophical influences, as well as particular aspects of the early development of the English language. First semester. Meyer

58. British Writers II.
A survey of representative major themes and texts from the Restoration through the early 20th century. The course, which emphasizes poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose, addresses the transitions between Neoclassic, Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist trends in British literature. Second semester. Bilger

60. American Writers to 1900.
A survey of major American writing (excluding novels) illustrating the development of a national literature from the Colonial period through the 19th century. Readings will be chosen from the works of such representative writers as Edwards, Franklin, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson and Henry James. Considerable attention will also be paid to the social and philosophical forces which influenced the literature. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

61. The Bible.
This course focuses on intensive reading in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, with special attention to the complexities of interpreting a sacred text. The problems of authorship, historical and religious context, canon formation, and translation will be considered in light of the history of interpretation from midrash, St. Augustine, and Origen through modern literary criticism, especially Robert Lowth, Eric Auerbach, Northrop Frye, and Robert Alter. Special attention will be given to the use of the
Bible by modern writers. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

62. Shakespeare’s Tragedies.
This course will treat the development of Shakespeare’s tragic dramas and explore the nature of tragedy. We will read seven works by Shakespeare and three by his contemporaries Marlowe, Tourneur, and Webster. Shakespeare’s contribution to tragedy will be studied partly in the context of ancient and medieval as well as Renaissance conceptions of tragedy. First semester. Meyer

63. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales.
Geoffrey Chaucer was the greatest English poet of the 14th century, and his literary achievements have earned him the title “the father of English poetry.” Of all his works, The Canterbury Tales display most fully Chaucer’s mastery of the art of story telling. This course is meant to enable students to read and enjoy Chaucer’s poetry in its original Middle English. We will study how the Canterbury pilgrims and the tales they tell are mutually illuminating and will examine the tales in relation to Chaucer’s historical context. We will also look at relevant sources for The Canterbury Tales in an attempt to understand the philosophical motivation of Chaucer’s poetics and his unique treatment of conventional medieval literary genres. Second semester. Meyer

64. Shakespeare.
This course studies representative plays from each of the major phases of Shakespeare’s evolution, from the histories, the comedies, the tragedies, to the last plays, or romances. Designed for literature majors and non-majors alike, this course enables the latter, in particular, to proceed to other plays in the Shakespearean canon. While focusing on different stages in his development, it also looks to the more enduring thematic patterns and personal myths present in Shakespeare’s work. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

65. Love Poetry of the English Renaissance.
The ages agree that love is among the most powerful and significant human experiences. Love is the most urgent of poetic messages, and has inspired the greatest variety of expressive forms. This course will explore the depiction of love in English poetry from the early 16th to the late 17th centuries, in courtly sonnets, erotic narratives, marriage poems, devotional meditations, metaphysical lyrics and satire. Authors will include Skelton, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Marvell, Rochester, and Swift. Second semester. Farrell

67. Milton.
England’s greatest epic poet was also a political and controversial religious thinker whose life and work had an enormous influence on British and American writers from Blake to Melville. This course will examine Milton’s major epic poems -Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes - as well as his great early poems Lycidas, and Comus, in the context of biblical and classical literary traditions as well as the religious and political crises of his time. Milton’s controversial prose writings on education, kingship, marriage, and freedom of the press will also be considered. First semester. Faggen

68. Restoration and 18th-Century British Stage Comedy.
When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, he re-opened the theaters and inaugurated one of the richest periods of British drama, a period best known for its brilliant comedies and its preoccupation with sexuality. This course will examine the rise of Restoration comedy, the debates that arose in the early 1700’s about morality and the stage, and the development of sentimental comedy in the mid-to-late 18th century. We will pay attention to the historical particularities of the Restoration and 17th-century theatre: the intimate performance space of the former, the relative spaciousness of the latter; the appearance of the actress and the professional woman writer; the themes of marriage, money, and masking; and the controversy over licentiousness. We will also consider comedy as a vehicle for social criticism and political satire. Readings will include plays by Aphra Behn, Susanna Centlivre, Hannah Cowley, William Congreve, John Dryden, John Gay, Oliver Goldsmith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Richard Steele, and William Wycherley. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

70. The Rise of the Novel in 18th-Century England.
This course will examine the emergence of the novel as an important literary genre and will consider the controversies that surrounded its popularity. Because the novel is the first major genre to be founded by both male and female writers, we will consider the role that gender plays in these early examples. Why, for example, do so many male authors choose to focus on female protagonists? What
made the novel a favorable genre for women writers? How did the expanded female readership affect the status of novels? We will also explore the notion of realism and measure the progress of conceptions of inferiority or psychology in the novel. We will read Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Eliza Haywood’s Adventures of Betsy Thoughtless, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Sarah Fielding’s David Simple, Frances Burney’s Evelina, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

71. 19th-Century British Novel.
The novel is the crowning achievement of 19th-century British literature, a form which fully retains its immense popularity, critical interest and critical acclaim today. The accomplishment of such masters as Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot and Hardy will be seen through a close reading of major works. Discussions and lectures will focus both on concerns and issues of the period as well as on ways in which Victorian masterworks like Vanity Fair, David Copperfield and Jude the Obscure reflect the growth and change of the novel form itself. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

72. Austen, Bronte, and Woolf.
This course will examine the works of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Virginia Woolf. Widely divergent in style and technique, these writers helped to shape the novel as a genre within their lifetimes and beyond. We will focus on their major novels and will also read examples of their juvenilia, essays, and other writings. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

80. 19th-Century American Fiction.
A study of the short stories and novels of selected authors, including Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Twain, Melville, and James. Particular attention will be given to the tension in these works between domesticity and the adventure far from home. We will also explore the various ways in which the past intrudes upon characters’ new worlds. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

81. Melville.
This seminar will examine the work and life of Herman Melville, one of the most complex and influential of American writers. After attention to several of the early novels, particularly Typee and Redburn, the focus will turn to the major novels, Moby Dick, Pierre, The Confidence Man, and Billy Budd, as well as the stories of The Piazza Tales. Melville’s poetry, including the epic pilgrimage Clarel, will be considered in depth in the context of the Civil War and in relation to is ongoing spiritual occupations. Literary, religious, scientific, and political contexts will structure readings and discussions. Students are encouraged, though not required, to have taken a course in Shakespeare, the Bible, or Milton prior to enrollment. Second semester. Faggen

82. American Modernism.
The great innovations of American literature in the early 20th century were accomplished in large part by a rebellious group of young poets and novelists in European exile, determined to free themselves from the limited outlook of American culture and achieve the renewal of life in art. This course will examine the theory and practice of Modernism or “making it new,” and some of the “Lost Generation” which followed in its wake. Authors will include Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

83. 20th-Century American Short Story.
Reading “a national art form” as a record of literary and social development. Authors include Hemingway, Faulkner, Anderson, Fitzgerald, O’Connor, Porter, Williams, Welty, Schwartz, Salinger, and Pancake. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

85. Contemporary American Fiction.
This class will explore major American novels and short fiction since 1945. We will examine the work of various authors in terms of their art and personal vision as well as their relation to particular literary movements and social and political circumstances. Texts will include Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse; Don Delillo’s White Noise; Jessica Hagendorn’s Dogeaters; Sandra Cisnero’s Women Hollering Creek; Marilyn Robinson’s Housekeeping; Leslie Marmon’s Silk’s Ceremony; among others. First semester. Bower

86. The American Novel, 1900-1945.
Early 20th-century America witnessed tremendous social changes that transformed the way Americans represented themselves and their nation. This course will explore the literary, cultural, and social landscape of this pivotal and exciting period, focusing in particular on how authors shaped and were shaped by historical occurrences such as urbanization, industrialization, immigration, class conflict, and women’s suffrage. Though the emphasis will be on literary writers, the course will also look at other types of historical and cultural material, including paintings, photographs, and sociological studies. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

88. L.A. Stories.
Los Angeles has been described as both utopia and dystopia, a city of movie stars, gang violence, illegal immigration, Rodney King, and Disneyland. Guided by cultural critics like Mike Davis, Joan Didion, and Jean Baudrillard, this class will tour the genres and themes most associated with L.A.: the noir visions of Double Indemnity, If He Hollers Let Him Go, and The Big Sleep; the post-modern land­ scapes of The Crying of Lot 49; the ethnic communities chronicled in Seventeen Syllables, The Moths, and Mi Familia; and the apocalyptic nightmares of Day of the Locust and Blade Runner. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

89. Daisy Doesn’t: Fallen Women in American Literature.
A startling number of American novels revolve around the question: does she or doesn’t she? The sexual status of heroines preoccupies authors and audiences not only because “fallen women” challenge traditional definitions of sexuality and gender, but also because the rhetoric of “fallenness” plays an important role in articulating what it means to be an American. We will explore the significance of female virtue in American literature, asking questions like: How is virtue defined? What literary and social purposes does it serve? And what factors (like race, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity) affect its construction? Texts will include: Charlotte Temple, The Scarlet Letter, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Maggie, Daisy Miller, The House of Mirth, The Lost Lady, Passing, and The Women Warrior. Second semester. Bower

91. American Poetry: Tradition and Experiment.
An introduction to major American poets including Emerson, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, Frost, Stevens, Eliot, Lowell, and others. Emphasis will be on basic concepts of metaphor, prosody, and myth and their relation to American thought. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

93. Intoxication in Literature: Romantic to Modern.
Intoxicant use is one of the most prevalent yet critically neglected topics in the literature of the past two centuries. This course explores the ways that literary depictions of alcohol and drugs raise important questions about human consciousness, behavior, and perception, and examines changing attitudes toward intoxicant use and abuse, temperance, addiction, and intoxication’s supposed links to creativity. Texts will generally include works by Thomas DeQuincey, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, George
Eliot, Charles Dickens, Stephen Crane, James Joyce, Eugene O’Neill, Malcolm Lowry, and the Beats, as
well as supplementary readings in medical and social history. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

94. Border Crossings: Immigration in American Literature.
American history is characterized by waves of immigration and migration, by borders crossed and contested. This class will study ethnic literatures that explore the impact of such crossings on our personal and national identities. We will begin by looking at literal journeys from the “old country” to the “new world” in The Rise of David Levinsky and The Joy Luck Club. Next, we will focus on the condition of living in the “borderlands,” of “riding the hyphen” between two cultures as portrayed in Love Medicine, Woman Hollering Creek, Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man, and No-No Boy. We will conclude with an analysis of the condition of exile as envisioned in Praisesong for the Widow and Dogeaters. Second semester.Bower

96. Literature of the American West.
“The Western wilds, from the Alleghenies to the Pacific,” wrote the historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1903, “constituted the richest gift ever spread out before civilized man.” As Turner’s now infamous thesis reminds us, the frontier exists not just as a historical region, but as a constellation of myths, images and stories that have shaped our sense of national identity and have become one of the defining themes in American literature. We will examine authors who contribute to the formation of this myth, such as James Fenimore Cooper, Willa Cather, Frank Norris, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister, but we will also study writers who, to one degree or another, challenge its authority, such as Americo Paredes, Gloria Anzaldua, and Louise Erdrich. First semester. Bower

97. “The Jazz Age”: American Culture in the 1920’s.
“The Jazz Age was an era of flappers and gangsters, of bathtub gin and the Ku Klux Klan, of the Cotton Club and the Red Scare. The spirit of Fitzgerald’s description of a “new generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken” characterizes the era, but it co-exists with more disturbing social and historical realities. The course will examine this tumultuous period through literary movements such as modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, as well as selections from the period’s film, music, and art. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

98. News from the Delphic Oracle: Ancient Greek Literature and Culture.
In this course we will examine ancient Greek literature in the context of its culture, starting with the traditional foundations of Greek religion and heroic ideals embodied in epic, lyric, comedy, and tragedy. Then we will progress to the great period of questioning that followed, exemplified by the figure of Socrates, and expressed in the writings of philosophers and historians. Authors will include Homer, Simonides, Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. (Note: This course is a good antidote to Literature 165.) (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

100. Junior Seminar in Literary Criticism.
What is a good book? How do we decide whether a work of literature is worth reading? What is the basis of literary judgment? How do we bring history, religion, and myth to bear on our understanding of literary texts? How does imaginative literature differ from other forms of discourse? These are among the fundamental questions explored in this course through the eyes of major literary thinkers. The course examines literary criticism as a discipline with unique traditions of inquiry beginning with classical debates about form and reality and the tensions between the moral and aesthetic dimensions of literature as they have been engaged by such writers as Plato and Aristotle, Sidney, Johnson, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Arnold and Pater, Woolf, and Eliot. Second semester. Morrison

102. Exploring Poetry.
This course is designed to introduce students to the thorough, systematic study of poetry, thus increasing students’ enjoyment of poetry and preparing them for advanced study of poetry in other courses. We will examine such issues as theories of poetry, form, poetic voice, symbolism and metaphorical language, irony, meter, and recurring themes as treated by poets of different back-grounds, in different cultural and historical contexts. The course will be organized thematically, but will include work by poets from the middle ages to the present. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

105. Tragedy and the Tragic.
Tragedy is the spectacle of pain and loss suffered by worthy human beings to the limit of what can be endured. In life we cringe before tragic events, but on the stage they give profound satisfaction. Why should this be? In this course we will consider the theory and practice of tragedy ancient and modern. Authors will include Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Racine, Goethe, Hegel, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Chekhov, Beckett and others. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

106. Comedy and Laughter.
Comedy is the spectacle of justified mirth. But when is mirth justified, and how should the spectacle be arranged? What does it mean when we laugh? Is comedy entitled to be cruel? We will consider the theory and practice of comic drama, ancient and modern. Authors will include Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Behn, Hobbes, Goldsmith, Cowley, Wilde, Freud, Wasserstein, and others. First semester. Bilger

107. Modern Drama.
Reading and criticism of plays by American and European playwrights, including Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Pirandello, Synge, Yeats, O’Neill, Brecht, Miller, Osborne, Genet, Ionesco, Beckett, and Albee. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

109. The Bible in Medieval Art and Literature.
The content and language of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament permeated the thought of the middle ages. This course will focus on medieval methods of biblical interpretation and the imaginative representation of sacred texts in the literary and visual arts. In addition to key biblical texts, we will read works by Chaucer and Dante, selections from medieval drama, lyric, dream vision, apocalyptic writings and the literature of the mystics. Our study of selected medieval paintings, sculpture, and architecture will focus primarily on northern European sources. Second semester. Meyer

110. Arthurian Romance.
The medieval legends of King Arthur and his court have captured the imagination of readers and writers for more than 800 years. In this course we will trace the tradition of Arthurian literature from the 12th through the 15th centuries, drawing on medieval French, German, Welsh, and English sources. We will pay particular attention to how the earlier sources were reinterpreted and how the medieval tradition as a whole reflects evolving conceptions of heroic narrative, chivalry, courtly love, and kingship. Readings (all in modern translations) will include Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, Chretien de Troyes’ Lancelot and Perceval, selected poems of Marie de France, Beroul’s The Romance of Tristan, the Vulgate Quest of the Holy Grail, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. If time allows, we will view one or two films that were inspired by the medieval arthurian legends. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

112. Dante.
This course examines the poetry and prose writings of the great 14th-century Italian poet, Dante Alighieri. We will follow Dante’s epic journey from Hell to Paradise and study his works within the context of major classical literary sources, especially Virgil and Ovid, the lyric poetry of the Provençal troubadours, and representative texts of the late medieval intellectual tradition, especially the Bible and
writings by Augustine and Aquinas. Second semester. Meyer

114. Dante, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky.
This course will study large segments of Dante’s Comedy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth, and Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, and The Possessed. It will attempt to understand changing conceptions of crime and punishment, of ideas of the state, and of religious belief. It will be particularly interested in responses on the part of these authors to the “demonic” in human experience, as well as to the issues of foundation sacrifice and the legitimation of violence. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

115. Luther, Rousseau, and Nietzsche.
This course will study major works by three of the most influential thinkers of the modern world. From Luther, it will read the 95 Theses, The Address to the German Nobility, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Christian Liberty, and sections from The Enslaved Will; from Rousseau, the First and Second Discourses, and the Letter to Voltaire concerning Providence; from Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History, and Beyond Good and Evil. While emphasizing some similarities in the modes of thought among the three, the course will also follow the historical changes in radical discourse from Luther through Nietzsche. It will pay attention of their “break-through” works, and analyze what constitutes a major change, or conversion, in an author’s evolution, as well as what are the conse­quences of such a break through. It will study the “reception” of their works and, in so doing, examine the complex relationship of radical discourse and its audience. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

117. Satire.
One of the most versatile and long-lived of genres, satire has flourished from classical times to the present, linking such diverse works as Aristophanes’ Frogs and Trudeau’s Doonesbury. What accounts for satire’s perennial appeal? What patterns of continuity and change does this genre reveal over time? How do earlier satires continue to speak to modern political, social, and personal concerns? In addressing these questions, we will study a wide variety of authors, usually including Horace, Juvenal, Rabelais, Moliere, Swift, Voltaire, Pope, Byron, Gogol, and Orwell, with selections from contemporary satirists as well. In addition to literary analyses, students may write an original satirical work of their own. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

118. The Romantic Revolution.
A study of the revolution in human consciousness known as Romanticism. The course concentrates on the British Romantics, but also studies Romanticism as an international phenomenon. Writers studied include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Rousseau, Goethe, Schiller, Emerson, Thoreau, Lermontov. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

119. 19th-Century Russian Novel.
This course examines the explosive growth of the Russian novel. Students will read major works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy and will become familiar with such themes as Slavophilism, realism, revolution versus tradition, and national identity. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

122. European Modernist Fiction.
The first half of the 20th century produced an exceptional body of powerful and innovative fiction. Modernist fiction is notable for its stylistic originality, formal experimentation, psychological depth, sensuality, wit, nostalgia and irony. Authors will include Conrad, Joyce, Ford, Woolf, Lawrence, Kafka, Proust, Gide, Mann and others. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

123. Fugitives From Utopia: The Writers of Post-War Poland.

This course will consider the great literature of post-war Poland in the context of the major historical and social forces that have contributed to its development. Among the authors read will be Herbert, Milosz, Gombrowicz, Szymborska, Kolakowski, Lem, Baranczak, Swir, Singer, and Zagajewski. Because of the immense popularity and influence of many of these authors, almost all are available in very fine English translations. All major genres will be included with particular attention to the stunning body of poetry, some of the 20th century’s very best. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

125. 20th-Century English and Irish Poetry.

This course will introduce English and Irish poetry of the 20th century, with special attention to the central figures of Hardy, Yeats, and Auden, but also including, among others, Houseman, Hopkins, the poets of World War One, Dylan Thomas, Larkin, Hughes, and Heaney. First semester. Farrell

127. The Novel Since World War Two.

Since 1945 the novel has increasingly become an international genre, with a reading public and lines of influence between writers that transcend the boundaries of language and nation. This course will consider a selection of the most important and influential works written in this period in America and abroad. Texts will include Invisible Man, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Go Down, Moses, On a Winter’s Night a Traveler..., The Kiss of the Spider Woman, A Clockwork Orange, Labyrinths, Beloved, V., Midnight’s Children, and Pale Fire. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

130. Language of Film.
From its inception, cinema has often been conceptualized as having a “language” of its own. This course examines that metaphor from aesthetic, cultural, social, and historical perspectives. We will begin with close analysis of a contemporary popular film, in an effort to “defamiliarize” typical conventions of cinematic expression, and then proceed through a study of multiple movements and genres in the history of film, from German Expressionism to the French New Wave, from Hollywood to documentary to avant-garde and independent filmmaking. Overall, the course is intended to provide students with a broad introduction to film analysis and to the field of Film Studies. First semester. Morrison

133. Film and the Novel.
A comparative study, this course focuses attention on film as a narrative art. Although the list of films and novels is not the same each semester, by considering the film versions of such novels as Jane Eyre, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Red Badge of Courage, and Great Expectations, the course attempts to analyze the similarities and dissimilarities of the two forms in dealing with such matters as point-of-view, the narrative voice, time and space, realism, and fantasy. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

134. Special Studies in Film.

A seminar designed to explore the aesthetic achievement and social impact of film as an art form. Subjects for study include such topics as specific film genres, the work of individual film-makers, and recurring themes in film. Each year the seminar concentrates on a different area - for example, “Film and Politics,” “The Director as Author,” or “Violence and the Hero in American Films.” Second semester. Morrison

136. American Film Genres.

Mainstream genres can be seen as expressions of American culture’s popular mythology. This course will concentrate on selected genres to examine the social values, issues, and tensions that underlie these narratives and their characteristic ways of resolving fundamental societal conflicts. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

138. Film and Mass Culture.

This course will examine film as art and as medium in the context of the rise of 20th-century “mass culture.” We will take up such topics as the role of film in producing the ideas of “mass culture”; the cinematic representation of the “masses;” film as an instrument of the standardization of culture and as a mode of resistance to it; film and modernism; film and postmodernism; representations of fascism in cinema; and “subculture” considered as an effect of mass culture. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

160. Science and Faith in Modern Literature.

A study of the origins and impact of nihilism in modern literature. Beginning with Nietzsche, Dosto­evsky, and James, the course will look at major 20th-century authors as a battleground between scientific realism and faith. T. S. Eliot, Frost, Hardy, Auden, Camus, Mann, Milosz, and Simone Weil will be among the major authors considered against the background of biology, psychology, and physical science. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

162. Literature and the Visual Arts.

An exploration of the relationship between literature and art, especially painting, from the mid-18th to the early 20th centuries. Major writers and artists to be covered are Hogarth, Fielding, Blake, Constable, Byron, Turner, Keats, the Pre-Raphaelites, James, Wilde, Ruskin, Yeats, and the early Modernists. In different years, the course will occasionally shift in emphasis between British and Amer­ican figures. No prior experience with art history is assumed. First semester. Warner

163. Leadership in Literature and Film (with Practicum).

This course examines different aspects of the leadership theme in literature, with special attention to such topics as ethical dilemmas confronting leaders, different styles and models of leadership, the competing loyalties and pressures felt by leaders, as well as the questions that literature raises about the very nature and validity of leadership’s various forms. Authors to be studied include Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, and Zora Neale Hurston. Additional readings by Carlyle, Byron and Emerson may be assigned as needed. We will also study several films dealing with the leadership theme. First semester. Warner

164. British Feminist Literature.

In this course we will trace the fortunes of British feminism from the late 17th century to the early 20th century. We will begin with early polemics by Judith Drake and Mary Astell, whose rationalism set the tone for 18th-century feminist discourse. After studying key Enlightenment feminist texts, we will look at Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolutionary Vindication of the Rights of Women and the backlash that followed its publication. Next, we will explore the covert strategies that 19th-century women used to challenge conventional views of female nature, and will end by focusing on Virginia Woolf’s early 20th-century formulation of a feminist program. In order to do justice to the many voices of this wide-ranging tradition, our readings will encompass a variety of genres: dramatics works, poetry, novels, autobiographies, and essays. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

165. Paranoia in Modern Literature and Culture.

Paranoid characters are subject to delusions of grandeur and an unjustified sense of persecution. They are abnormally suspicious and tend to find hidden meanings everywhere. The social world seems to them fundamentally hostile and manipulative. Can it be a coincidence that so many of the most influ­ential modern intellectuals have had pronounced paranoid personalities, and that suspicious megalomania is what distinguishes many of the most memorable figures represented in modern litera­ture? In this course we will explore the intellectual, social, and imaginative origins of paranoia in the attempt to discover what Don Quixote, Thomas Hobbes, Lemuel Gulliver, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Captain Ahab, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Adolf Hitler, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Pynchon all have in common. First semester. Farrell

170. Women and Comedy.

A study of women’s comic writing in poetry, prose, drama, and fiction. We will begin with the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn, and read British and American authors from the 17th century to the present, including Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, “Fanny Fern,” Emily Dickinson, Marietta Holley, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Parker, and Fay Weldon. We will conclude with a segment on stand-up comedy. Special attention will be given to feminist theories of comedy and to a consideration of comedy as a vehicle for social criticism. (Not offered in 2002-2003.)

177. The Art of Oratory.

Great speeches have changed history. This course will explore the art of oratory from ancient Greece to modern America. Examination of speeches of Demosthenes, Pericles, Cicero, Burke, Webster, Lincoln, Churchill, Martin Luther King and others will be combined with study of theories of oratory and rhet­oric from Aristotle to Wayne Booth. Major speeches from classical and modern drama and epic including Shakespeare, Milton and Melville will also be studied along with films and recordings of 20th-century political oratory. Speech writing and performance will form a practical component of this course. Second semester. Faggen

199. Independent Study.

Students who have the necessary qualifications and who wish to investigate an area of study not covered in regularly scheduled courses may arrange for independent study under the direction of a faculty reader. (See “Academic Policies and Procedures” for details.) First and second semester. Staff