English 291w. Writers, Readers, Canons: Studies in Premodern Authorship

Instructor: Leah Whittington and Irene Peirano Garrison
Wednesday, 12:45-2:45pm | Location: TBD
Enrollment: Limited to 15 students

This course examines role played by writers and readers in the construction of literary canons and concepts of canonicity, with an emphasis on texts from classical antiquity, the late middle ages, and the early modern period. What are canons and how are they created? How to writers construct their own canonicity? How do readers participate in the processes of canonization? What can the history and reception of pseudepigraphic texts, para-canonical works, biofictions, and fictions of authentication tell about the cultural processes of canon formation in the premodern era?

Jointly Offered with Classics as CLASPHIL 299