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S.I. UNDERGRADUATE FLYER
FALL 2016
ENG. 1100C: Literature in Global Context (71222)
Travel and the Camino de Santiago
TF 9:05 – 10:30 AM
Dr. Brian Lockey
In this course, we will examine a number of fictional works which explore intersections between the related themes of travel and spiritual enlightenment. We will consider a number of literary and film works about pilgrimage, and we will focus in particular on the Camino de Santiago, the most important pilgrimage route for Christians in the world, which ends at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where according to tradition the remains of St. James are buried. We will consider such questions as the following: what motivates people to travel? How does travel serve allegorically to represent an inner spiritual journey? What is the relationship between travel and the lack of resources? Why do so many depictions of travel involve the journeys of characters that are deprived of basic necessities? What about migration and resettlement? Do people migrate in order to escape the scarcity of resources or in order to enrich themselves with an overabundance of resources? What is the role of the exile, the individual who is forced to migrate against his or her own will? Along with these questions, we will consider a number of related themes, including the symbology of ships and islands, the fear of annihilation and the apocalypse, and how the topics of conquest, civilization, and barbarism are treated in these works.
ENG. 1100C: Literature in a Global Context (70802)
MR 10:40 – 12:05 PM
Dr. Melissa Mowry
This class examines literature’s contribution to the rise and dominance of the British Empire through the iconic novel Danile Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. We will begin by reading some of the works that Defoe drew on, read the novel, and engage with its effects on the post-modern novelist J. M. Coetzee. 3 short papers and 1 long paper.
ENG. 1100C: Literature in a Global Context (71223)
MR 3:25 – 4:50 PM
Dr. Chiara Cillerai
In this course we will examine texts from a variety of different cultural and literary contexts and explore the role that cosmopolitanism (the idea of universal friendship and supra national belonging) plays in these texts. We will also think about how the texts we read belong to and define literary genres. Throughout its history cosmopolitanism has generated a large number of literary tropes. This is particularly true of American literature—a literature begun in the realm of voluntary or forced migration, literary and cultural exchanges, and a literature that exists in a global context. We will consider how American writers use the language of cosmopolitanism to find a place in their culture, to connect with their pasts, and to imagine different futures. Among the texts we will read are Benjamin Franklin’s newspaper writings, Henry James’s travel narratives, Ernest Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast, and Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel American Jazz.
ENG. 2100: Literature and Culture (74776)
“The Raw, the Cooked, the Down, and the Dirty”
TF 1:50 – 3:15 PM
Dr. Robert Fanuzzi
This is an interdisciplinary class that uses literature, history, art, anthropology, and film to study food. We investigate two research questions: 1.) why are the foods that are repellent to some people delicacies to others? We explore this question through the literature of European/Native contact and cultural conflict, which often focused on food, as well as modern stories of food panic and acquired tastes. 2.) what do poor people do to feed themselves? We examine this question through in-depth studies of African-American and Italian-American food histories, memoirs, and fiction.
ENG. 2200: Introduction to English Studies (72178)
Religion and Secularism
TF 12:15 – 1:40 PM
Dr. Brian Lockey
How do we discuss and write about literature? This course will answer this question by introducing students to some of the modes of critical thought used in the academic discipline of English literature. Emphasis will be placed on learning traditional close-reading skills as well as contemporary literary critical approaches to literature. More specifically, this course will examine a number of fictional works which explore the intersection between religious and secular culture. We will consider such questions as the following: how and why do writers of fiction secularize religious themes? How does the secularization of Christian themes participate in religious culture, and to what degree does it signal a break with religion? What is the relationship between Old Testament themes and New Testament themes in literary works? What will be the continued power of religious themes in literature as more and more Westerners identify themselves as agnostic or non-believers? Is literature even possible without some dialogue with the spiritual? Finally, what do works of fiction suggest is the proper relationship between religious and secular culture? Is the boundary between them porous or is it an impermeable barrier? Is it possible to have one without the other? Along with these questions, we will consider a number of related religious themes, including Edenic and the apocalyptic motifs, and how the topics of civilization and barbarism are treated in such works.
ENG. 3260: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Literature (74775)
DIVISION II
MR 10:40-12:05
Dr. Rachel Hollander
In this course, we will read novels, poetry, and non-fiction prose by a range of nineteenth-century woman writers from England. The class will be organized historically, in order to provide a solid grounding in the development of literary forms over the course of the century: we will cover the distinction between the Romantic and Victorian periods, the evolution of the realist novel, and the major cultural shifts taking place in Britain, including industrialization, imperialism, and urbanization. We will also, however, view these larger trends through the particular perspective of the woman writer, exploring how ideas about marriage, family, education, gender roles, class, and race are reflected in the fiction, poetry, and prose of our literary women. Finally, we will look at how feminist criticism of the twentieth century has played a role in our understanding of what it means to be a woman writer. Readings will include Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Olive Schreiner.
NOTE: Students in this course are strongly encouraged, but not required, to simultaneously take PSY 2240, Psychology of Women, with Dr. Carolyn Vigorito
ENG. 3430: Modern Poetry (74773)
DIVISION IV
W 10:30 – 1:30 PM
Dr. Stephen Paul Miller
This course grapples with what is distinctive about modern poetry—and perhaps different from contemporary poetry—by studying poets such as Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Pound, Loy, Stevens, Williams, Eliot, Cummings, Hughes, Reznikoff, Moore, and Oppen.
ENG. 3730: Poetry Workshop (73483)
W 1:50 – 4:40 PM
Dr. Stephen Paul Miller
Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Freedom is not given to us by anyone: we have to cultivate it ourselves, it is a daily practice.” This course facilitates such practices and exercises in your writing. Using modern and contemporary poetry models by Kenneth Koch, Mina Loy, John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and others, you will establish yourself as a writer and a poet.
ENG. 4991: Seminar in British Literature (74774)
Literature and the Culture of Dissidence during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum
MR 12:15 – 1:40 PM
Dr. Melissa Mowry
The English civil wars began in 1642 and did not end until 1649 when Charles I was executed. The monarchy was not restored until 1660. Though Restoration writers were fond of describing this period as dark and uncultured, England continued to produce a rich variety of literary and non-literary works, many of which sought to alter the way we produce, understand and read texts. In this class we will read a wide range of genres and writers including but not limited to John Milton, Margaret Fell, Anne Hutchinson, John and Elizabeth Lilburne, Richard and Mary Overton, Anna Trapnell and others. We will likely take a field trip to the NYPL to look at original pamphlets. There will be two short papers and a work of original research at the conclusion of the semester.