ENGLISH MAJOR OFFERINGS
Spring 2016
Spring 2016 course registration begins November 16, 2015. If you are a junior or senior and need to complete your major requirements, you are strongly advised to register at the first opportunity, or you may find yourself unable to meet graduation requirements. Please note: ENGW1111/ENGL1111/ENG U111 (or the equivalent) is a prerequisite for all ENGL courses except ENGL 1400. For the most up-to-date information about course scheduling, go tomyNEUand search the spring course offerings by clicking the “Schedule of Classes (Spring 2016)” link. Please see the English Department Undergraduate Program Director, Professor Beth Britt, in 409 Holmes (x 5170),if you have any questions.
All registration is now done through the Banner Self Service registration system, accessible through the myNEU Web Portal. For detailed instructions on how to use this system, go to http://www.northeastern.edu/registrar/ref-udc-reg-ugd-details.html.
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Foundational Courses
(For students entering Fall 2014 or later, take three courses: 1400, 1700, and either 1160 or 1410. For students entering prior to Fall 2014, take two courses: 1400 and 1700.)
ENGL1400:Introduction to Literary Studies
Boeckeler
CRN: 36975
Sequence F (1:35-3:15PM TF)
A foundational course required of all English majors. Introduces students to the range of materials, methods, and theories currently understood to animate and inform literary study. Explores strategies for reading, interpreting, and theorizing about texts; for conducting research; for developing thinking analytically and writing clearly about complex ideas; and for entering into written dialogue with scholarship in the field.
ENGL1410: Intro to Writing Studies
Poe
CRN: 35336
Sequence 4 (1:35 – 2:40 MWR)
Introduces students to the basic histories, theories, and methodologies surrounding how people learn to write and how writing is used in home, school, work, and civic contexts. Explores writing practices in the U.S. and in international contexts, including the social and political significance of writing in such cultural contexts. Class projects emphasize archival research and research on the development of writing practices, including students’ understanding of their own experiences and practices of other groups. Satisfies introductory course requirement for English majors.
ENGL1700: Global Literatures to 1500
Kelly
CRN: 34004
Sequence 5 (4:35-5:40 MWR)
The development of “Global Literature” as a category over that past thirty years or so arises out of a desire to break down barriers that have traditionally kept literatures of the world separate, divided by language, nationalism, geography, and politics. In this course, we’ll read several long narratives—tales of adventures to places like Troy, the faerie Otherworld, and the far reaches of Mongolia—from 2100 BCE through 1500 CE. Can we trace out a line of influence form one text to another? How do genre conventions travel over time and from place to place (imitated, borrowed, or stolen—in the most positive sense)? We’ll read The Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamia), Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey (Greece), excerpts from Dante’s The Divine Comedy (Italy), Mandeville’s Travels (England); the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Ireland); the Song of Roland (France); Sundiata (Africa); and excerpts from The Mabinogion (Wales), The Secret History of the Mongols (Mongolia), the Tale of Genji (Japan), and the Arabian Nights (India, Persia [modern Iran], Syria and Egypt). We will supplement our texts with a few films (the 2004 Troy, the 1954 Ulysses, the anime version of the Tale of Genji, Sundiata, Y Mabinogi, and the Russian Mongol). All texts in translation, of course! Requirements: brief response papers, a brief in-class presentation, and two six-page formal papers or creative projects, the first due at midterm and the second at the end of the course.
LiteraryPeriods
(Students entering Fall 2014 or later take four period course: one in Early Literatures, one in 17th-18th C. Literatures, one in 19th C. Literatures, and one in 20th-21st C. Literatures. Students entering prior to Fall 2014 take five period courses: three pre-19th C., one 19th C., and one 20th/21st C.))
Early Literatures
ENGL1600: Introduction to Shakespeare
Boeckeler
CRN: 37038
Sequence D (9:50-11:30 TF)
An introduction to the four principle genres of Shakespeare’s drama: comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. We will consider the enduring power of Shakespeare’s work and legacy through close reading of the plays and an investigation of Shakespeare’s cultural, historical, generic and performance contexts. Short papers and a final exam, with creative and/or performance options for interested students.
ENGL3150: Topics in Early Literature: Gender, Sexuality, and the Renaissance Body
Leslie
CRN: 37039
Sequence 4 (1:35-2:40 MWR)
This class focuses on the variety of ways early modern culture understood and portrayed gender, sexuality, and the human form. We will examine the Renaissance body as it is represented (mapped, anatomized, regulated, and allegorized) in literature, medicine, philosophy, politics, and the visual arts of the 16th and 17th century. Among our areas of investigation will be courtly love, same-sex desire, cross-dressing, and the poetics of virginity and reproduction, as well as the history of intimacy, the emotions, and subjectivity. Readings will include, Renaissance sonneteers, Christopher Marlowe, Catalina de Erauso (a historical nun turned cross-dressed conquistador), Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, and Margaret Cavendish. Assignments will include an archival project (from the weird and wondrous world of early modern print) and a final research paper.
17th-18th Centuries
ENGL2296: Early African American Literature
Aljoe
CRN: 36978
Sequence 3 (10:30-11:35 MWR)
Note: This course also fulfills the Diversity requirement for English majors.
This course will focus on 18th and early 19th century trans-Atlantic (African, American, British, and Caribbean) writing by members of the African Diaspora. Recent archival research and canon reconsideration has revealed the wealth and variety of texts written by black writers during this period. Drawing on this work, we will investigate the ways in which these early Black Atlantic writers engaged with a range of issues such as the nature of the individual subject; the rise of capitalism; the rapid expansion of print culture; the development of the novel; the cultures of neo-classicism, religious sentiment, and the sublime; the rise of nationalism; and of course, the expansion of the institution of slavery. Through reading a variety of texts such as: poetry, speeches, essays, letters, fiction, slave narratives, biographies, and autobiographies—we will not only get a sense of the complexity of Early Black Atlantic literary cultures but also appreciate how these writers participated in various global literary conversations. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in the development of two public digital humanities projects. Writers may include: Wheatley, Hammon, Marrant, Equiano, Banneker, Walker, Northrup, Smith, Douglass, and Jacobs.
19th Century
ENGL3190: Topics in 19th Century American Literature: American Women’s Literature
Davis
CRN: 36981
Sequence E (11:45 – 1:25 WF)
Topics in 19th C. American Literature: 19th. C. American Women Writers What was the difference between being a writer and being a woman writer in nineteenth century America? For many writers in this era (both male and female), identifying themselves by gender was central to their sense of the art, politics, and business of creating literature--although what mattered about gender, and what gender meant, varied a great deal. We will look at this issue as we study fiction, poetry, and essays that explore questions about art's relationship to politics, the gendered quality of artistic expression, the pertinence of gender to racial politics before and after Emancipation, and the conditions of women's labor. Authors will include: Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson, Lydia Sigourney, Sarah Orne Jewett, Pauline Hopkins, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Kate Chopin.
20th/21st Centuries
ENGL3200: Topics in 20th/21st Century British Literature: Sex, Money, and the Novel
Mullen
CRN: 37040
Sequence F (1:35-3:15 TF)
From their inception, novels have been interested in the relationships between forms of sexuality and transformations in capitalism. In this course, we will consider how novels represent these connections, between sex and money, over the course of the long 20th century. We will consider sex and money as thematic elements that are key features of the stories that novels tell, and we will further consider how sexuality and economics shape the speculative structure of the novel as a form. We will consider a selection of British, Irish, Canadian, and American novels that might include Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman, and Paul Murray’s The Mark and the Void, and Belinda McKeon’s Tender.
ENGL3730: 20th/21st Century Major Figure: Toni Morrison and John Wideman
TuSmith
CRN: 36985
Sequence 4 (1:35-2:40 MWR)
“There’s a call-and-response between my writing and Toni Morrison’s,” John Wideman once said in an interview. As two of the most artistically advanced and intellectually challenging American writers today, both Morrison and Wideman require sustained, in-depth study. This course covers 3-4 full-length works by each writer, incorporating cutting-edge scholarship on each author and work. Requirements include weekly posts on Blackboard, a class presentation and write-up, textual explications, and a final paper.
Comparative
(Take Two Courses. For students entering prior to Fall 2014, this category is called “Transnational/Transhistorical” on your audit.)
ENGL1500: British Literature to 1800
Leslie
CRN: 34003
Sequence 2 (9:15-10:20 MWR)
This course surveys the topography of English literature and culture from the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf to Gulliver’s Travels, that is, from around the early 10th century to the 18th century. We will develop a repertoire of familiar traditions, genres, and themes and see how they are revised and reimagined over time. We will also explore the complex intersections of literary texts and their social contexts in a variety of forms, including the connections between courtly love and political rivalry, romance and exploration of the new world, epic and nation building. Course requirements: Blackboard posts, a creative assignment, a midterm essay exam, and a regularly scheduled final exam.
ENGL1701: Global Literature 1700 to Present
Aljoe
CRN: 36976
Sequence A (11:45-1:25 MR)
Focuses on the literatures (in English or in translation) of the world from the Enlightenment era to the present. Recent scholarship has revealed the ways in which rather than a movement confined to Northern Europe, the Enlightenment was in actuality a global phenomena. Kant’s 1787 engagement with the question, “What is Enlightenment” was under debate not only in London, Paris, and Berlin, but also in places such Bagdad, Chennai (Madras), and Lagos. Consequently, this course will begin by reading a selection of 18th texts from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East that grappled with understanding the individual. We will then read a range of 20th and 21st century world novels and short stories to explore the ways in which these writers extend and complicate similar questions about the relationships amongst identity, freedom, and community that developed out of the various ‘Enlightenments. Contemporary texts may include: The Heart of Darkness, Purple Hibiscus, Beasts of No Nation, Abeng, Persepolis, and The God of Small Things.
ENGL2510: Horror Fiction
Goshgarian
CRN: 36979
Sequence 2 9:15-10:20 MWR
This course explores English and American horror fiction from Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker (Dracula) to contemporary masters such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and others. Using short stories, novels, and movies, we will examine the evolution of horror fiction and the various themes, techniques, and uses of macabre. Student writing: announced quizzes, midterm & final take-home essay exams (7-10 pages); optional critical analysis of some horror work not covered in the course. (7-10 pages). Occasional horror author visits.
ENGL3572: Fantasy
Kelly
CRN: 35193
Sequence B (2:50-4:30 MW)
In The Craft of Fiction, the 1921 study that enshrined the opposition between showing and telling in modern critical consciousness, Percy Lubbock begins his discussion of Flaubert by asserting that
the art of fiction does not begin until the novelist thinks of his story as a matter to be shown, to be so exhibited that it will tell itself. . . . The book is not a row of facts; it is a single image. . . . Narrative—like the tales of Defoe for example—must look elsewhere for support; Defoe produced it by the assertion of the historic truthfulness of his stories. But in a novel, strictly so called, attestation of this kind is, of course, quite irrelevant; the thing has to look true, and that is all. (62)
And this is where we will begin: how is it that fantasy worlds—parallel worlds, or worlds laid on top of the “real” world, and/or worlds powered by magic—look true? Why is it that so many of us desire to suspend our disbelief in order to enter into the worlds of C.S. Lewis, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R.R. Martin, J. K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others? (And why do fantasy writers have so many initials?)
We’ll begin by reading Libriomancer (Jim C. Hines, 2012), a tale about wizards who have developed the ability to reach into any book and pull out any object they desire. (Sounds like reading to me, or at least an allegory for reading!) We’ll read a few classics, such as The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908), The Hobbit (J.R.R Tolkien, 1937), and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis, 1950), and discuss the film adaptations as well. We’ll read War for the Oaks (Emma Bull, 1987), a fine example of urban fantasy, and The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969)—sci-fi, granted, but fantasy-like: the book presents an opportunity to talk about genre in/and speculative fiction. We’ll also move back in time and read The Mabinogion, a compilation of medieval Welsh tales of faerie and magic, and the artful modern retelling, Children of Lyr (Evangeline Walton, 1971). And there’s a marvelous film adaptation. I’ve saved time for the class to research and then choose two novels for everyone to read. (Familiarity with the Harry Potter books and/or films assumed, as well as a knowledge of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire . . .) Requirements: brief response papers, a brief presentation on an example of fantasy in other media (graphic novels, video games, music, painting), and two six-page formal papers, the first due at midterm and the second at the end of the course. Optional, but really fab: attending Boskone 53, a sci-fi and fantasy conference, 19-21 February 2016 (http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/).
Theories & Methods
(Take One Course)
ENGL3381: Processes of Writing and Tutoring
Gonso
CRN: 36984
Sequence 2 (9:15-10:20 MWR)