Instructor: Marc Shell Wednesdays, 3-5 pm | Location: Dana Palmer 102 Class will be held from 3-5 pm.
This course examines literary, theatrical, and cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Students learn how artists, including Shakespeare, have used creative production of the past to understand and address concrete issues and problems of the present, including political scandal and persecution, imperial...
Instructor: James Simpson Mondays & Wednesdays, 10:30-11:45 am | Location: Barker 114 Website
Enrollment: Limited to 27 students.
Across the period 700-1700 the shapes of British culture were absorbed from different centers of Western Europe. When these cultural forms arrive in Britain, they meet and mix with established cultures. This course will delineate the principal cultural forces (e.g. religious, political, social) that shaped England in particular. We will look to the ways in which those vibrant yet opposed forces find expression in the shape, or form, of literary works.
Note: Be sure to attend first class meeting to be considered for admittance.
Instructor: Anna Wilson Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30-2:45 pm | Location Sever 107 Website
Enrollment: Limited to 27 students.
In this course we will read some of the most significant and influential works of literature written in England before 1700. We will encounter the genres, tropes, forms, and language of medieval and early modern English literature, while exploring how these texts respond to and shape issues of their time, including war, political regimes, the emergence of national, racial, and religious identities, and changing attitudes to gender and sexuality. We will also develop a foundational range of critical writing skills and methods for approaching English literature.
Note: Be sure to attend first class meeting to be considered for admittance.
Lyric poems are short bursts of metrically organized language that capture, in art, moments of entangled feeling and thought. How has lyric poetry in English developed or changed from the Renaissance to the romantics? In this...
Instructor: Daniel Donoghue Tuesdays & Thursdays, 1:30-2:45 pm | Location: Sever 202 Enrollment: Limited to 27 students.
An introduction to major works in English literature from Beowulf through the seventeenth century, the course will explore various ways that new literatures are created in response to cultural forces that shape poets, genres, and group identity. We will hone close reading skills, introduce...
The material of this course consists of the following exceptionally rich late medieval and early modern Trojan materials: Chaucer’s House of Fame; Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde; Lydgate’s Troy Book (Book 2); Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid; and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. We will be guided into these materials by the inter-related topics listed in the course title. Wherever possible and appropriate, we will absorb the publication conditions and media of these texts and/or performances.
What challenges and opportunities arise for artists and writers working under dire conditions—martial, political, medical, and natural states of emergency? To what extent are such exceptional...