Guided Elective: pre-1700

Instructor: Stephen Greenblatt Tuesday & Thursday, 1:30-2:45 pm | Location: HArvar Hall 202 An exploration of Shakespeare at work: what plot devices was he particularly drawn to? how did he develop characters? how did he characteristically construct...

Instructor: Anna Wilson Tuesday & Thursday, 1:30-2:45pm | Location: TBD Fanfiction is a surprisingly powerful tool for examining medieval literature. It sheds light on the dynamics of rereading and transformation that characterizes medieval literary...

Instructor: Alan Niles Wednesday, 9:45-11:45am | Location: Lamont 401 Enrollment: Limited to 15 students Henry VIII, “Bloody” Mary, Queen Elizabeth; Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne. In a little over a century, the Tudor dynasty reshaped English literature...

Instructor: Gordon Teskey Monday, 12:45-2:45pm | Location: Barker 316 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This is a seminar for first-year students that introduces lyric poetry from Asia, Europe, and North America. The seminar covers a wide...

Instructor: Gordon Teskey Monday, 3:45-5:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students In an age of scientific and political revolution, how do poets respond when common beliefs about God, humans, cosmic and social order, consciousness, and...

Instructor: Alan Niles and Philip Deloria Tuesday, 12:45-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 15 students Harvard’s beginnings included a promise to educate both “English and Indian youth.” From its inception, however, Harvard’s endowment...

Instructor: Alan Niles Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:15pm | Location: 2 Arrow St 408 Course site Shakespeare’s plays have always been “popular” in the multiple senses of the word: drawing on a stock cultural repertoire of characters and themes, appealing to...

Instructor: Nicholas Watson Tuesday & Thursday, 9:00-10:15am | Location: TBD What makes stories so pleasurable and revealing but also so enraging and dangerous? How are we to think about the strong emotions they evoke and learn to resist as well as...

Instructor: Daniel Donoghue Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:15pm | Location: TBD This course combines language study with the investigation of a critical theme. The narratives set for translation provide a thematic coherence as we dig into the language of Old...

Instructor: Anna Wilson Tuesday, 9:00-11:45am | Location: Please login to the course catalog at my.harvard.edu for location Enrollment: Limited to 15 students. Course Site This course focuses on representations of race, religion, and cross-cultural...