Tentative Course Descriptions (subject to additions, deletions and revisions at a later date.)
* Check Registrar’s listing for course times
For courses listed as “300/400,” undergraduates should list only the “300” number on their registration forms; graduate students should list only the “400” number.
ENGL 146
Tools, Not Rules: English Grammar for Writers
MW 3:20—4:35 Demeter
This course provides an Introduction to English grammar in context for academic writers. It focuses on the study of language in use, including parts of speech, sentence grammar, paragraph structure, and text cohesion. This course is specifically designed for multilingual students, but native speakers of English may take the course with the approval of the instructor.
ENGL 150
Expository Writing
MWF 9:30—10:20 Staff
English 150 is three-credit course designed to help students build on basic academic writing skills by further developing the sophistication of their claims, the strategies of argumentation, and the practices of research and source integration. Students will develop strategies for developing compelling and sophisticated claims, reading texts critically and effectively communicating their views in writing. Students will learn techniques for research, source evaluation, and the development of sophisticated claims through the process of a drafting and revising a substantial researched essay. Topics, readings, and writing assignments vary across individual course sections.
ENGL 150
Expository Writing
MWF 11:40—12:30 Staff
English 150 is three-credit course designed to help students build on basic academic writing skills by further developing the sophistication of their claims, the strategies of argumentation, and the practices of research and source integration. Students will develop strategies for developing compelling and sophisticated claims, reading texts critically and effectively communicating their views in writing. Students will learn techniques for research, source evaluation, and the development of sophisticated claims through the process of a drafting and revising a substantial researched essay. Topics, readings, and writing assignments vary across individual course sections.
ENGL 155
Introduction to Rhetoric and Public Speaking
TTh 4:00—5:15 Doll
In this course we will learn how to develop and deliver a variety of oral presentations, from those in informal and impromptu settings, to more formal speeches for group or business settings. In building our public speaking skills, we will explore some of the classic theories of rhetoric, from those of Aristotle, to Cicero and Kenneth Burke—and examine the speaking styles of public speakers from Lincoln to Obama to Jon Stewart.
The assignments and exercises will give students practice developing and delivering several types of speeches, both as a speaker and as a speechwriter.
ENGL 180
Writing Tutorial (1 credit)
TBA Jewell
English 180 is a one-credit writing tutorial class designed to develop students’ expository writing skills through weekly scheduled conferences with a Writing Resource Center Instructor. Goals are to produce clear, well-organized, and mechanically acceptable prose, and to demonstrate learned writing skills throughout the term. Course content is highly individualized based on both the instructor’s initial assessment of the student’s writing and the student’s particular concerns. All students must produce a minimum of 12 pages of finished writing and complete other assignments as designed by the instructor to assist in meeting course goals.
ENROLLMENT: Course times are based on both the student’s schedule and instructor availability. After enrolling, students are responsible for contacting the Writing Resource Center to begin the scheduling process. Students may e-mail writingcenter@case.edu, or call the Director, Dr. Megan Swihart Jewell, at 216-368-3799.
ENGL 183
Academic Writing Studio
W 4:25—5:15 Assad
This course provides practice and training in formal academic writing in a small-group, workshop environment. Weekly class sessions are supplemented by individual consultations with the instructor to provide targeted support based on each student’s needs and goals. This class has been developed particularly for international students who have successfully completed FSCC 100 and would like additional writing training as they advance through University Seminars and other writing-intensive classes.
ENGL 203
Introduction to Creative Writing
TTh 10:00—11:15 Staff
This course acquaints students with opportunities for creative expression across genres. The course primarily focuses on poetry and short fiction – though playwriting, screenwriting, and genres of creative nonfiction will also be explored. We will attend to those elements that make for vivid, effective writing, including relevant detail, lyrical language, and memorable images; inventive metaphor and simile; and authentic voice, setting, and characterization. Taking this course will help us to further develop an understanding and practice of creativity in the medium of language and to distinguish among the creative opportunities and constraints of different literary genres.
ENGL 217B
Writing for the Health Professions
MW 4:50—6:05 Staff
Communication skills are essential in every profession, but in the health professions, the well-being of human lives depends on clear and accurate messages, whether the audience is a patient, colleague, or caregiver. To better prepare students for the challenge of successful professional communication, this class targets the three main audiences of the health provider: patients and clients, other medical professionals, and the public. For each of these audiences, students will learn the writing techniques and practices that best ensure their messages are understood by a variety of audiences. In this course, some of the genres you will have the opportunity to write include graduate school application materials, job application materials, and grant proposals. You will also analyze, design, and write a public health campaign as well as practice using HoloLens to communicate health information.
ENGL 257A
The Novel
TTh 4:00—5:15 Staff
The novel, as a literary form, has become so ubiquitous to us in the twenty-first century as to be almost invisible. But how have we come to embrace this style of long-form prose narrative as our main vehicle for written storytelling? What perspectives does it grant – or deny – to us over the narratives of our own lives, and the lives of others?
In this course, we will undertake a brief survey of some of the ways that the novel form (in English) has evolved over the past 300 years. We will concentrate on a few selected works from notable eras and genres, with a focus on how authors from different times and places have handled narrative point of view. To that end, the works we will cover during this semester will be those that experiment, in one way or another, with narration from a first-person perspective: the way that it can create intimacy or distance between characters and readers, the way that different points of view can warp or clarify a sequence of events, and the way that it can enhance or undermine the themes of a text.
This course is designed to serve as both an introduction to critical reading practices and an opportunity to get a more in-depth look at the novel as a form. No prerequisites are necessary; majors and non-majors are both encouraged to enroll.
ENGL 300
English Literature to 1800
MWF 10:35—11:25 Vinter
This course introduces students to British literature written from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. We’ll read poetry, drama and prose by established canonical figures – including Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton – and also by less well-known authors. We’ll pay particular attention to the historical development of literature. In part, we’ll focus on the internal features of texts, asking questions about how literary conventions change over time. What makes certain forms (the sonnet, the pastoral, the novel) particularly attractive at particular moments in history, and why do genres sometimes fall out of fashion? How do authors define their works against what has come before, or against literature in other genres? But we will also place the texts we read in their social and historical context by asking who writes literature, who consumes it and why, and in particular by considering how groups whose voices are often excluded from cultural conversations (such as women and the lower classes) can make themselves heard. When do texts mirror the world around them, and when do they appear at odds with it? How do works of literature reinforce existing power structures? Conversely, how do works of literature express political, social or religious dissent, or imagine alternatives to the status quo? Can literature ever change the world, or does it only offer a temporary escape from it? Requirements include regular participation in the classroom and on Canvas, short writing assignments, two 5-7 page papers, a midterm and a final exam.
ENGL 301
Linguistic Analysis
TTh 10:00—11:15 Schaffer
This course offers introductory analysis of modern English from various theoretical perspectives (e.g., structural, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and cognitive linguistic). In particular, the course provides an introduction to theoretical concepts and methods of linguistics, such as morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and dialects, as well as writing systems and the nature and form of grammar. It is designed for any student with interest in language or its use; no prior linguistic background is assumed. This course provides humanities and social science students with training in the description and explanation of important technical aspects of language. This course also provides students of communication disorders with a basic foundation in language science, crucial information to understanding language acquisition.
ENGL 302
English Literature Since 1800
MWF 10:35—11:25 Siebenschuh
This course introduces students to a broad spectrum of British literature from the late eighteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth century. Reading will include selections from the great romantic poets—Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, fiction by Mary Shelley, Dickens, Hardy, and Joyce, and selected readings from Arnold, Browning, Carlyle & Tennyson. Because so many of the works we will read reflect and comment on the dramatic political events and the rich and turbulent intellectual currents of their time, we will be focusing not only on the texts themselves but also on the intellectual, political, and social contexts in which they were conceived and written and with which they are in more or less constant dialog. Course requirements include regular attendance, participation in discussion, two five to seven page papers, a mid-term and a final.
ENGL 303/303C
Intermediate Fiction Workshop
T 1:00—3:30 Grimm
”I want to use physical details and spiritual light and darkness in such a way that a reader experiences them and becomes the character, goes through what the character goes through. But when I’m writing, I always become the character. I just go through the story with the character to see what is going to happen.” –Andre Dubus
In this class we’ll be taking the same road that Dubus did, with much reading, much writing along the way. I am assuming that you have a knowledge of the basics of writing fiction, i.e., that you have taken other creative writing courses or have done extensive writing on your own. This is a workshop class, with extensive discussion of your own and each other’s work: participation is important, attendance essential.
No exams.
Prerequisite: ENGL 203, ENGL 213, or permission of instructor.
ENGL 304/304C
Intermediate Poetry Workshop
T 4:00—6:30 Gridley
This course continues developing poetic techniques introduced in English 214, with greater emphasis on self-direction via student prompt development. Students can expect to practice: close readings of poetic models in conjunction with writing exercises; craft readings and commonplace book; weekly poetry writing assignments and workshop discussions. There will be a midterm presentation and a final portfolio. Written evaluation of poems provided regularly by instructor. Letter grade evaluation provided only at midterm and end of term. Students are welcome to consult on academic standing at any time during the semester. Some memorization and recitation required. Pre-requisite for ENGL 304: ENGL 203 or 214, or permission of the instructor. Prerequisites for ENGL 304C: students wishing to take ENGL 304 C must be English majors who have already taken ENGL 380 and ENGL 304 (and the prerequisites for ENGL 304: either ENGL 214 or 203). Students taking this course for their SAGES Capstone will not be repeating material they covered in ENGL304. They will be required to complete 25 pages of combined creative and critical writing and attend some separate meetings to discuss their progress on the Capstone project. Capstone students will also be required to present reports on their research projects at a public Capstone presentation at the end of the semester.
ENGL 312/312C
Chaucer
MWF 2:15—3:05 Siebenschuh
My object in this course will be to introduce students to Chaucer’s major poetry, the assumptions he made about his writing, and the traditions and conventions that influenced him and that he in turn influenced. We will read selections from The Romance of the Rose, The Book of the Duchess, The Parliament of Fowles, The House of Fame, Troilus & Criseyde entire, and selected Canterbury Tales. Topics discussed will include Chaucer’s career, changes from early works to late, the role of the artist in Chaucer’s day, conventions that shaped his thinking as a writer, and his texts as a window to the world of the late middle Ages. Having completed the course, students will I hope have become familiar with Chaucer’s major works and have acquired a better understanding of the traditions, assumptions, and literary conventions that shaped middle English and early modern literature. Course requirements include a 10-12-page research paper, midterm and final.
ENGL 325/325C
Shakespeare: Comedies/Romances
MW 12:45—2:00 Vinter
In this course we’ll read a selection of Shakespeare’s comedies and romances. These texts span the entirety of Shakespeare’s career, and in part we’ll be using them to understand the development of his drama and his shifting place within the renaissance theater and wider social sphere. What made Shakespeare so successful in his own time? What differences emerge as we move from early comedies such as The Taming of the Shrew to middle period problem plays such as Measure for Measure and late romances such as The Winter’s Tale? How do the plays respond to changing artistic fashions and performance conventions, as well as to different social, political and economic conditions? In particular, how is Shakespeare reflecting, commenting on or contesting common renaissance understandings of drama and language, gender roles and sexual identities, ethnic and religious differences, and trade and financial speculation? But we’ll also be thinking about what it means to be reading and watching Shakespeare today, in part by looking at more recent reception and adaptations of some of his plays. What explains the continued attraction of Shakespeare? What is gained and what is lost when we treat him as our contemporary?
Requirements for 325 include regular participation in the classroom and on Canvas, two 5-7 page papers and a final project. This class fulfills pre-1800 distribution requirement for the English major.
Students registering for ENGL 325C—the Capstone version of this class—will be required to develop and complete a Capstone research project in the wider field of study covered by the course. This Capstone project will have an approximate length of 25pp. and will also include a public presentation of the project. This Capstone research project will fulfill the formal writing requirements for 325. All other reading, class participation, and final exam requirements will be identical for 325 and 325C. Completion of the major’s pre-1800 requirement is a prerequisite for 325C.
ENGL 358/358C/458
American Literature 1914-1960
The Beat Generation
MW 12:45—2:00 Marling
Study the legends! Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, di Prima and more. This course opens up the culture and writing of the famous, rebellious coterie of mid-20th century American youth culture known as The Beats. We will do some background reading, watch several films, and read the central texts.
Required texts: you must have the books, and you must bring them to class. You cannot take the course on screen.
Charters, The Portable Beat Reader (Reader)
Bukowski, Ham on Rye (Ham)
Burroughs, Naked Lunch (Lunch)
Di Prima, Memoirs of a Beatnik
Kerouac, On the Road (Road)
Kerouac, Big Sur (Sur)
Knight, Women of the Beat Generation
Baraka (Leroi Jones) Dutchman
Background texts: Dr. Spock, Kinsey Reports, Mailer, Advertisements for Myself supplied as pdfs
Grades will be based on three short papers and attendance/participation: Short paper #1 on Bukowski or background—25%; #2 on Kerouac’s On the Road—25%; #3 on poetry or female writer(s) or the “gender troubles” of The Beats”—25%. Class attendance and participation—25% Attendance is taken on random days.
Can be taken as a capstone.
ENGL 367/467
Introduction to Film
TTh 1:00—2:15 (class)
T 7:00—9:30 (film viewing) Spadoni
An introduction to the art of film. Each week we’ll take an element of film form (editing, cinematography, sound, etc.) and examine how filmmakers work with it to produce effects. Most weeks we’ll also screen a whole film and discuss it in light of the week’s focus. Films screened will include masterworks of the silent era, foreign films, Hollywood studio-era classics, and more recent cinema. Students write two essays (5-6 and 8-10 pages) and take a scheduled quiz, midterm, and final exam. Grad students write a longer second essay and, in connection with it, submit a proposal and annotated bibliography.
ENGL 368/368C/468
Topics in Film
The Horror Film
TTh 4:00—5:15 (class)
Th 7:00—9:30 (film viewing) Spadoni
Cinema is a spectacular medium for eliciting horrific and other unhinging sensations. How do filmmakers do it? What means do they have at their disposal to engender fear that sets horror films apart from scary works in other media? And when a movie scares us, what fears—from ones relating to gender, race, and other forms of difference, to more universal terrors rooted in the foundations of the human psyche—does the film tap into? We’ll ask these questions as we screen classic and contemporary works of the genre, from silent masterpieces to more recent cinema. The emphasis will be on close analysis as we explore how film style, narrative, and, most basically, the medium of cinema itself contribute to the power of these films to shock, horrify, and haunt spectators. Students write two essays (5-6 and 8-10 pages), take part in a group presentation, and take occasional brief quizzes (lowest is dropped).
Students intending to take this course as their capstone (ENGL 368C) will have met the prerequisites described at case.edu/film and will do the same work as students registered for ENGL 368, only their final essay will be an extended project, in connection with which they’ll submit a proposal, annotated bibliography, and partial draft, and give an oral presentation. Grad students (registered for ENGL 468) satisfy the same requirements as the undergrads but their final essay will be an extended research project, in connection with which they’ll submit a proposal and annotated bibliography.
ENGL 368/468
Topics in Film
The Detecive in Film and Fiction
MW 3:20—4:35 Marling
A creative survey of the rich tradition of detective fiction adapted to film. After establishing our base in the literary tradition established by Edgar Allan Poe (choosing from works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Dorothy Sayers, and George Simeon), we will view the classic films based on their works. Among those possibilities will be:
The Fall of the House of Usher, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, Have His Carcase, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Murder, My Lovely, Chinatown, Roshomon, and Cotton Comes to Harlem.
Requirements: beyond attendance and participation, three short papers on works, genres, and techniques, and one long analysis (10 pages). Please note: you must buy the books and bring them to class on appropriate days. Students are responsible for viewing all required films on their own.
ENGL 369
Children’s Literature
20th Century (1930-2013)
TTh 11:30—12:45 Vrettos
This is the companion course to CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: 1865-1929, though each course can be taken on its own. The course examines classics of children’s literature from the 1930s through the first decades of the twenty-first century. We will focus on narrative and thematic developments in the genre, changing conceptions of childhood, the historical contexts in which these stories were written, as well as their influence on later writers and debts to earlier ones. Beginning with Tolkien’s The Hobbit and ending with Rowling’s Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, texts will include C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, White’s Charlotte’s Web, Sharp’s The Rescuers, Merrill’s The Pushcart War, Eager’s Half Magic, Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and/or James and the Giant Peach, Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, Konigsberg’s From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and Curtis’s Bud, Not Buddy. We may also discuss a few of the film adaptations of these texts. Requirements include attendance and active participation in class discussion, and a choice of paper assignment plans (the equivalent of three 5-7pp. papers). There will, in addition, be informal oral reports, short in-class writings, weekly Canvas posts, and a take-home final exam. Prerequisite: FSEM (or equivalent).
ENGL 373/473
Topics in Poetry:
Poetic Scopes
TTh 11:30—12:45 Gridley
Thought emerges with the poem, teaching the poet to see. —Jeremy Hooker
The word scope has a range of meanings: range, breadth, sphere, span, confine, limit, realm, field of reference, purview, leeway, orbit. When used as a suffix—telescope, periscope—gyroscope—it suggests the augmentation and/or fine-tuning of perception. In this course, we will be examining what is poetic about scopes, and what is scopic about poems. We will consider scope as a durational limit, reading very short poems, and very long ones. We will consider the scopic value of formal constraints (sestina, pantoum, sonnet, palindrome). And we will consider poems that extend their scopes beyond conventional genre boundaries (prose poems, a novel in verse, documentary poetics). Students will engage in seminar-style discussions of readings and workshop- style critiques of their own original work. Memorization and recitation required at midterm and end of term. Final portfolio evaluation. Open to graduate and undergraduate students. No prerequisite.
ENGL 380
Department Seminar
Seeing Things: Imagination & the Supernatural
TTh 2:30—3:45 Fountain
Supernatural literature—with its ghosts, cursed objects, and otherworldly entities—
inevitably contends with two interrelated problems: how to represent the seemingly unrepresentable and how to make one imagine the unimaginable. Drawing from a tradition of thinkers who asked these same questions, writers of the supernatural often engage the imagination through a kind of elevated language and vivid description that induces feelings of fear and unease. In the process, these writers invite us to see, think, and imagine in new, sometimes startling ways.
With a specific focus on “weird fiction” and the ghost story (that might not be), we will spend most of the semester reading works by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert W. Chambers, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, Toni Morrison, and Jeff VanderMeer. To complement our analysis of these fictional works, we will read select examples of contemporary criticism. To interrogate the historical relationship between issues of representation, imagination, and feeling, we will read brief excerpts from ancient rhetorical theory (Longinus and Quintilian) and 18th-century literary criticism (Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, and Hugh Blair).
The major requirements for the course include active participation, informal in-class writing, weekly Canvas posts, one short “close reading” analysis paper (approx. 5 pgs.), and a research paper (approx. 15 pgs.). The research paper will be written in drafts that include a prospectus, an outline, a first draft, and a final. At the end of the semester, students will give an oral presentation based on their research paper. Required for all English majors, preferably taken in the junior year. Fulfills the SAGES Departmental Seminar requirement. Pre-requisite: ENGL 300.
ENGL 398
Professional Communication for Engineers
TBA Staff
English 398 introduces principles and strategies for effective communication in both academic and workplace engineering settings. Through analysis of case studies and of academic and professional genres, this course develops the oral and written communication skills that characterize successful engineers. Students will prepare professional documents that focus specifically on communicating academic and technical knowledge to diverse audiences. Because such documents are always situated within professional, social, and rhetorical contexts, this course also requires students to explain and justify their communicative choices in order to become adept in navigating the rhetorical environments they will encounter as professional engineers. As a SAGES Departmental Seminar, English 398 also prepares students for the writing they will do in Capstone projects.
Note: ENGL 398 complements ENGR 398, a 1-credit co-requisite lecture course, which introduces major practical, theoretical, and ethical issues that shape the environment for communication among professional engineers. For details of the ENGR 398 objectives, work commitments, grade breakdown, and assignments, please see the separate syllabus for that course.
Additional Note: ENGL 398 is a departmental seminar, and as such, the workload and time commitment outside of class time will be demanding. Be prepared and plan ahead. Beginning assignments early, particularly near the end of the semester as things get busier, will allow you to finish on time and submit your best work. This course asks you to develop your writing skills while also honing your professional skills, including time management, organization, and punctuality. By the end of English 398, students should be able to:
- Produce written texts in a variety of professional genres – texts that communicate effectively and adhere to professional ethical standards.
- Deliver clear and professional oral presentations on a range of engineering topics.
- Reflect on and justify the rhetorical choices involved in planning, writing, revising, and presenting academic and professional engineering documents.
- Summarize the research writing of an academic engineer for a non-technical audience.
- Demonstrate the ability to work as part of a research team, coordinating workflow and collaboratively presenting outcomes.
- Synthesize the academic research and professional best practices related to an engineering project in the student’s field.
- Produce and refine an array of personal professional documents.
- Demonstrate the capacity for life-long learning through sustained reflection, revision, and research.
ENGL 517
American Literature
The City in Postwar American Writing
M 4:25—6:55 Clune
In this seminar we will explore the image of the city in postwar American writing. We begin with a brief survey of the pre-war vision of the city as a wasteland that must be reshaped as a planned, simplified, rationalized urban space. After 1945, an image of the city as a self-organizing system where apparent disorder is the sign of an underlying, spontaneously arising order begins to challenge the modernist vision. This new image of the city reveals new forms of freedom, and new forms of slavery. We’ll look at works that explore the dynamics of this shift in a variety of interrelated areas: free and black markets; drugs and addiction; technology; conspicuous consumption and invisibility; sex and money; race and the ‘urban crisis’; government as conspiracy. We will approach these questions through encounters with both theoretical writing about the city, and the new literary forms identified with the city (urban fiction, rap, the New York School of poetry).
ENGL 519
English Literature: 1800 to 1900
The Embodied Mind:
Victorian Literature and Psychology
T 4:00—6:30 Vrettos
This course studies the development of “psychological realism” — the dominant genre of British fiction during the Victorian era– and its relationship to nineteenth-century (mostly pre-Freudian) psychology. The focus of the course is predominantly historical; that is, rather than applying 20th- and 21st-century psychological models to 19th-century fiction, we will study how Victorian novelists understood the mind, and how they were influenced by, and in turn helped to influence, contemporary debates in the field of psychology. Over the course of the semester we will encounter the appearance in literature of such issues and theories as: phrenology and physiognomy; mesmerism and hypnotism; monomania, moral insanity, and hysteria; crowded minds, divided minds, wandering minds, emerging theories of multiple personality and trauma; theories of character development, personality, eccentricity, habit, free will, and the self; theories of sympathy, affect, emotional evolution and duration; theories of memory, nostalgia, the unconscious, and paranormal experiences (such as ancestral memory, emotional memory, telepathy, déjà vu, spiritualism, and other psychic phenomena); and, finally, theories of attention, reverie, and consciousness (including the emergence of the term “stream of consciousness”). Although we will take brief forays into genres such as Victorian gothic and sensation fiction (which were influenced by developments in the field of abnormal psychology and research into the paranormal), most of our attention will focus on the development of psychological realism in novels by Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James. We will also read selections from Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Alexander Bain, Henry Maudsley, George Henry Lewes (George Eliot’s partner), and William James (Henry James’s brother), as well as selections from popular advice manuals such as Samuel Smiles’ Self Help and Sarah Ellis’s The Women of England, and recent works of literary criticism, history, and theory. Requirements for the course include attendance and active participation in seminar discussions, weekly discussion questions posted on Canvas, brief oral reports, one short paper, and one research paper submitted in two forms—as a 10pp. conference paper presented to the class toward the end of the semester, and as a 20pp. seminar paper due in revised form during finals week.
Novels will probably include: Villette, Great Expectations, Cranford, Middlemarch, The Return of the Native, and The Portrait of a Lady.
ENGL 520
20th Century Literature
Edwardian Literature and Periodical Studies
W 4:25—6:55 Koenigsberger
The seminar will attend to the relation of literary production to publishing format in the early twentieth century – roughly 1900-1914, with some wiggle room on either side. Rather than pursue a particular thesis about this relation, students will be encouraged to explore both the study of the Edwardian period as an age of “literature in transition” (as a prominent journal of the period terms it) and the recent return to periodical studies in the humanities more generally. We’ll start with classic formulations of Edwardian literature (from Virginia Woolf to Samuel Hynes) and periodical studies (Robert Scholes, Mark Morrisson, and Pat Collier, among others), before attending closely to texts by authors such as Joseph Conrad, May Sinclair, A. C. Doyle, E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Edith Nesbit, E. W. Hornung, and others, in the format and context of their first appearance. Monograph reviews, periodical analyses, and seminar papers will be due on rolling bases.