Jesse Matz

Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of the department chair. Offered every year.

What is “the literary,” and how can it be studied? How do distinct methods of reading impact the ways a text is understood to produce meaning and knowledge? What are the conditions and limits of such methods? This course investigates encounters between the literary and theory. As we compare how theorists have approached “the literary” across time and place, so too we press up against what constitutes “theory” and according to whom. Is there something literary about theory itself? By surveying major innovations and interventions in literary theory over the past century, we trace the political histories of reading as a practice of imagining the world otherwise, all the while interrogating ideology and injustice, identity and alterity, ethics and aesthetics, representation and relationality. We study the craft of critical inquiry while considering how literary and theoretical texts may resist and recast the very questions we ask. Our aim is dialogic exchange; in other words, beyond applying a given approach to a given text, we seek to surmise how literature and theory challenge and contest each other in practice. We may encounter works of Marxism, structuralism and poststructuralism, post- and anti-colonialism, queer and transfeminisms, critical race theory, abolition, affect theory, psychoanalysis and critical pedagogy alongside an array of literary works. The theoretical focus of this course may vary; for more information, students should contact the instructor. This counts toward the methods requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104. Open only to first-year and sophomore students. \n

From basic techniques of critical analysis to far-reaching questions about language, literature, culture and aesthetics, this course introduces students to many of the fundamental issues, methods and skills of the English major. Topics range from the pragmatic (e.g., how do you scan a poem? What is free indirect discourse? How do you use the M-LA bibliography, OED, JSTOR?) to the theoretical (How does a genre evolve in response to different historical conditions? What is the nature of canons and canonicity? Why are questions of race, class, gender and sexuality so important to literary and cultural analysis?). Students are given many hands-on opportunities to practice new skills and analytic techniques and to explore a range of critical and theoretical paradigms, approaches which should serve them well throughout their careers as English majors. Our discussions focus on representative texts taken from three genres: drama (Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), the novel (Shelley's "Frankenstein"; Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway") and lyric poetry (a variety of poems representing four centuries and several traditions). This counts toward the methods requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104. Open only to first-year and sophomore students. Strongly recommended for anyone contemplating an English major.

This course is an introduction to the theory of narrative, through reference to five paradigmatic narrative texts: Daniel Defoe’s "Robinson Crusoe," Jane Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice," Charles Dickens’ "Great Expectations," Frederick Douglass’ "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," and Henry James’ "The Portrait of a Lady." Main topics include the essentials of narrative form (plot, character, voice, perspective) as well as their different functions (aesthetic, social, cognitive). Discussions explore a wide range of issues including the power of narrative closure, the narrative representation of the individual mind, how narrative patterns time, the development of realism across the history of the novel, the practice of narrative in psychology and medicine, and the ethics of narrative engagement. This counts toward the methods requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104. It is open only to first-year and sophomore students.

"Modernism" refers to art that aimed to break with the past and create innovative new forms of expression. The modernists, writing between 1890 and 1939, tried in various ways to make literature newly responsive to the movements of a rapidly changing modern world. Alienated by the upheavals of modernity — or inspired by modern discoveries and developments in psychology, technology and world culture — modernist literature reflects new horrors and traces new modes of insight. Experimental, often difficult and shocking, modernist literature pushes language to its limits and tests the boundaries of art and perception. This course studies the nature and development of modernist literature, reading key texts in the context of the theoretical doctrines and cultural movements that helped to produce them. The key texts include poetry and fiction by T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Nella Larsen, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, William Faulkner and Ezra Pound. The secondary material includes essays, paintings and manifestoes produced at the moment of modernism, as well as later criticism that helps explain what modernism was all about. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104. Open only to first-year and sophomore students. Offered every year.

For at least 100 years now, novelists have experimented with ways to make fiction "modern," to make it better able to reflect and resist the perils and pleasures of modernity. This course explores the ways they have done so, tracing the evolution of the modern novel from its origins in the realist fiction of the 19th century to its contemporary incarnations. We consider such authors as Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, E.M. Forster, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Anthony Burgess and Salman Rushdie. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 210-291 or junior standing.

This seminar requires students to undertake a research paper of their own design, within the context of a course that ranges across genres, literary periods and national borders. Students study literary works within a variety of critical, historical, cultural and theoretical contexts. All sections of the course seek to extend the range of interpretive strategies students can use to undertake a major literary research project. Each student completes a research paper of 15 to 17 pages. Senior English majors pursuing an emphasis in creative writing are required to take ENGL 405 instead. Students pursuing honors will take ENGL 497 instead. Senior standing and English major or permission of instructor.

In the field of narrative theory, certain fundamental questions continue to provoke debate: What are minor characters? Does description hinder plot? Is it possible to narrate the stream of consciousness? Are narrators ever really “omniscient”? Does sexuality fundamentally shape how narration proceeds? Does nation? Such questions are the focus of this advanced seminar, which explores the latest thinking on 13 key problems. Each week, we discuss an inventive contemporary approach to a fundamental problem, comparing it to more traditional approaches. A final project invites students to build upon one of these discussions or to develop their own inventive approach to a problem we have not discussed together. Permission of instructor required.

Language, race, history, commodity culture, gender, narratology, imperialism, decolonization, sexuality: If the list reads like an encyclopedia of modern/postmodern preoccupations, it's because the text it refers — James Joyce's "Ulysses" — stands at the de-centered center of so many discussions of 20th-century culture. With a brief review of "Dubliners" and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" as our preamble, we spend the majority of our seminar following Leopold Bloom through the Dublin day that left its traces on so many aspects of modern and postmodern culture. In the process, we engage several of the major theoretical paradigms that shape contemporary literary studies. A course in modernism/modernity, the novel as genre, literary theory, Irish literature or Irish history is highly recommended. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. No prerequisite. Permission of instructor required.

Individual study in English is a privilege reserved for senior majors who want to pursue a course of reading or complete a writing project on a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum. Because individual study is one option in a rich and varied English curriculum, it is intended to supplement, not take the place of, coursework, and it cannot normally be used to fulfill requirements for the major. An IS earns the student 0.5 units of credit, although in special cases it may be designed to earn 0.25 units. To qualify to enroll in an individual study, a student must identify a member of the English department willing to direct the project. In consultation with that faculty member, the student must write a one- to two-page proposal that the department chair must approve before the IS can go forward. The chair’s approval is required to ensure that no single faculty member becomes overburdened by directing too many IS courses. In the proposal, the student should provide a preliminary bibliography (and/or set of specific problems, goals and tasks) for the course, outline a specific schedule of reading and/or writing assignments, and describe in some detail the methods of assessment (e.g., a short story to be submitted for evaluation biweekly; a 30-page research paper submitted at course’s end, with rough drafts due at given intervals). Students should also briefly describe any prior coursework that particularly qualifies them for their proposed individual studies. The department expects IS students to meet regularly with their instructors for at least one hour per week, or the equivalent, at the discretion of the instructor. The amount of work submitted for a grade in an IS should approximate at least that required, on average, in 400-level English courses. In the case of group individual studies, a single proposal may be submitted, assuming that all group members follow the same protocols. Because students must enroll for individual studies by the seventh class day of each semester, they should begin discussion of their proposed individual study well in advance, preferably the semester before, so that there is time to devise the proposal and seek departmental approval.

This seminar, required for students in the Honors Program, relates works of criticism and theory to various literary texts, which may include several of those covered on the honors exam. The course seeks to extend the range of interpretive strategies available to students as they begin a major independent project in English literature or creative writing. The course is limited to students with a 3.33 GPA overall, a 3.5 cumulative GPA in English and an application to become an honors candidate in English. Enrollment limited to senior English majors in the Honors Program; exceptions by permission of the instructor. Undertaken in the spring semester; students register with the senior honors form. Permission of instructor and department chair required.