GRADUATE FLYER
SUMMER 2018
Summer session 1: May 29 – July 2
English 310 (31264): Shakespeare’s Media: Consent, Money, Theater
Dr. Steve Mentz (mentzs@stjohns.edu)
How can Shakespeare’s plays speak to contemporary questions such as #metoo and financial inequality? One answer emerges from the continual reinvention of his plays in modern media, including film, live performance, digital media, and print. We will look at multiple representations of two plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream for its depiction of eroticized cultures of consent and coercion, and The Merchant of Venice for its anticipation of how financial capital has come to influence all facets of modern life. Students may produce creative experiments in modern media forms, including podcasts, video, and born-digital archives. The online class will also include optional field trips to Rowaytan, CT, to see Shakespeare on the Sound’s outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (June 14 – July 1), and to New Haven to see an experimental production of The Merchant of Venice in the courtyard of the Yale Law School (June 19-21).
Summer Session II: July 9 – August 9
Eng 100 (31261): Modern Critical Theories:
Dr. Greg Maertz
A study of contrasting ideas that have shaped the theory and practice of representation in the West, such as freedom of expression vs. state censorship, traditionalism vs. the myth of individual genius, realism vs. formalism, didacticism vs. the provision of pleasure, feminism vs. patriarchal control, and canonical elitism vs. the recovery of marginalized discourses. Underlying these antagonisms is the fundamental question of what constitutes genuine “art” as opposed to the “non-art” of purely commercial kitsch or overtly political propaganda. The authors to be discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer, Marx and Engels, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Benjamin, Fanon, Foucault, Derrida, Sedgwick, Butler, Said, and Spivak.
For information, please contact Lana Umali umalil@stjohns.edu or Amy King, Director of Graduate Studies kinga@stjohns.edu
Registration begins on April 9, 2018