Below are the course descriptions for the English courses offered for Spring 2025. Click the course title to read the full description and see the book list for each course.听
NB: Professors may make small modifications to the descriptions and lists of works between now and the beginning of classes.听
People move. We change homes, schools, jobs or sometimes countries. We leave one neighbourhood, city, region or country for another, and in so doing we confront new habits, traditions, cultures and languages. We move into worlds that welcome, worlds that ignore, worlds that reject, or worlds that show indifference. One place may feel suddenly foreign, while another feels like home. Personal journeys take place during these moves, creating life stories. In this course we will contemplate these life stories and the implications of personal journeys on individual and collective experience and identity. Based on films and readings, we will experiment with academic, journalistic and creative writing, always working towards developing your own voice in written and spoken English.听听
奥辞谤办蝉:听 听
There is something uniquely fascinating about peeking behind the curtain to see how another family functions, even if they are fictional . . .
This College Writing course will do just that --peek behind the curtain -- and explore family dynamics, for better or worse , and how families define, nourish and sometimes smother each other.听 Can families truly be 鈥榟appy鈥? Maybe so, but what happens when desertion and neglect, betrayal, jealousy and disapproval rear their ugly heads?听 What, if anything, do family members owe each other? The texts and films for this course explore families set in a variety of contexts, from 16th century Spain to Victorian England to1950s Harlem to contemporary Iran, and by a range of protagonists including orphans, mad scientists, vampires, and heroin addicts. Close reading will be encouraged, and we will work extensively on the skills involved in constructing strong academic papers.
Works:
Films:
There is something uniquely fascinating about peeking behind the curtain to see how another family functions, even if they are fictional . . .
This College Writing course will do just that --peek behind the curtain -- and explore family dynamics, for better or worse , and how families define, nourish and sometimes smother each other.听 Can families truly be 鈥榟appy鈥? Maybe so, but what happens when desertion and neglect, betrayal, jealousy and disapproval rear their ugly heads?听 What, if anything, do family members owe each other? The texts and films for this course explore families set in a variety of contexts, from 16th century Spain to Victorian England to1950s Harlem to contemporary Iran, and by a range of protagonists including orphans, mad scientists, vampires, and heroin addicts. Close reading will be encouraged, and we will work extensively on the skills involved in constructing strong academic papers.
Works:
Films:
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to read critically, recognise historical contexts, and craft well-structured academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN1010 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.听听
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to read critically, recognise historical contexts, and craft well-structured academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN1010 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.听听
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to read critically, recognise historical contexts, and craft well-structured academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN1010 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.听听
This course explores the material and metaphorical dimensions of fashion across cultures and time periods. Pairing texts and cultural theories of fashion, we will examine ancient Buddhism鈥檚 ambivalence towards make-up as a sign of beauty and of cosmetic artificiality in Ashvaghosh鈥檚 Handsome Nanda. The high fashion of the Japanese Heian court will be the focus of our study of Genji, in which dress signifies both power and desire in an exquisite, arbitrary system of silks, screens and signs. Crossdressing will structure our analysis of Shakespeare鈥檚 Twelfth Night, a play whose preoccupation with clothes and fabric reflects prevailing sumptuary laws as well as gender. Reading with and against Jane Austen鈥檚 Northanger Abbey will teach us how the appearance of muslin revolutionised fashion in England (it was the nineteenth-century equivalent of the synthetics revolution in the twentieth century). It also marked a key moment in the history of global capitalism (muslin was supplied by Britain鈥檚 Indian colonies). Fashion is central to redesigning identity in clothesline poems of a selection of First Nation, diasporic and postcolonial writers as well as in the lush, provocative music videos of Francophone icon Myl猫ne Farmer. In the course of our investigations of cochineal eyeliner, kimono sleeves, breeches, cross-garters and even undergarments, we will style ourselves as textual dressmakers, choosing materials (sources), imagining a design (argument), working the fabric (writing), and adding the final flourish of accessories to the crown the effect (style).
Works:
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to sharpen your critical reading skills, compare historical contexts, and craft independent, well-researched academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN2020 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.
This course explores the material and metaphorical dimensions of fashion across cultures and time periods. Pairing texts and cultural theories of fashion, we will examine ancient Buddhism鈥檚 ambivalence towards make-up as a sign of beauty and of cosmetic artificiality in Ashvaghosh鈥檚 Handsome Nanda. The high fashion of the Japanese Heian court will be the focus of our study of Genji, in which dress signifies both power and desire in an exquisite, arbitrary system of silks, screens and signs. Crossdressing will structure our analysis of Shakespeare鈥檚 Twelfth Night, a play whose preoccupation with clothes and fabric reflects prevailing sumptuary laws as well as gender. Reading with and against Jane Austen鈥檚 Northanger Abbey will teach us how the appearance of muslin revolutionised fashion in England (it was the nineteenth-century equivalent of the synthetics revolution in the twentieth century). It also marked a key moment in the history of global capitalism (muslin was supplied by Britain鈥檚 Indian colonies). Fashion is central to redesigning identity in clothesline poems of a selection of First Nation, diasporic and postcolonial writers as well as in the lush, provocative music videos of Francophone icon Myl猫ne Farmer. In the course of our investigations of cochineal eyeliner, kimono sleeves, breeches, cross-garters and even undergarments, we will style ourselves as textual dressmakers, choosing materials (sources), imagining a design (argument), working the fabric (writing), and adding the final flourish of accessories to the crown the effect (style).
Works:
In this course, students will explore the ways in which the visual and the written word interact. We will examine the connections between literary texts and visual images through different lenses. How can the written word exist alongside a work of art? What does it mean when both occupy the same space, and how can the literary text help us understand a visual work of art?听
We will begin with a survey of ancient Indian and Arabic texts, the poetry of Sappho, as well as illuminated manuscripts from the Medieval period to familiarize themselves with the various ways in which books have existed throughout history. Then, we will explore new ideas of the book that incorporate both visual and written elements. These explorations will be interspersed with trips to museums in Paris and readings in art criticism and ekphrastic writing.
Students will experiment with both academic and more creative modes of critical writing, building a portfolio that includes writings about museum exhibitions, films, paintings, and other forms of creative expression, along with a final paper. This course includes an extra visiting period on Thursdays, allowing students to attend exhibitions and gallery openings.
Works:
The Writing and Criticism courses aim to refine the skills of critical reading and academic writing through a series of written exercises, and the careful consideration of a range of literary and other texts from the ancient world to the present day.
This section, entitled 鈥淩eading Matter, Writing Matter鈥, offers a genealogy for thinking a crucial question of our time, namely the question of materialism. Some commentators on our 鈥榩ostmodern鈥 condition, since the 1980s, have stressed the de-materialisation of our age. Our realities have, in this account, become digital and virtual, and our bodies, our pleasures, our thoughts, and our economies depend less than even before on the matter of the world. This kind of thought has started to look increasingly limited recently as we face up to ecological catastrophe, and it is clear that we need to find new ways of conceiving and imagining the distribution and social reality of the stuff of the world, the matter in which and by which we live. The boundary between 鈥榠deas鈥 and 鈥榤aterial reality鈥 is hard to place, and hard to police, in the digital world.
This course will explore some elements of this idea, and look to the resources of literature听 and of the history of ideas for ways of thinking freshly about matter. We start with Lucretius, the Roman Epicurean thinker. His book-length poem on 鈥淭he Nature of Things鈥 links sensual experience to an atomic theory of matter and an account of the cosmos; we shall look to the great modernist novelist, Virginia Woolf, and the important contemporary ecological poet, Juliana Spahr, to consider how desire and memory might inform, and be informed by, the way we think of the material world. A politics emerges when we consider that our identities are traversed and constructed by material processes. German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his contemporary, the philosopher Walter Benjamin, address the question of the politics of materialism directly. Recently, ecological thinking has developed a 鈥榥ew materialism鈥, in which our participation in nature is the condition of our experience 鈥 we鈥檒l look at the challenges of imagining ourselves in this way, at the time of ecological crisis, through the work of a range of writers, including Amitav Gosh. Throughout, we shall also, in our critical reading and in our creative and academic practice, be paying attention to the matter of language - to the sense that words are material, and imbued with weight and history. We will consider this question very directly as we read a selection of Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnets.
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to sharpen your critical reading skills, compare historical contexts, and craft independent, well-researched academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN2020 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.
鈥榃hat a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel. In apprehension how like a god.鈥 Hamlet鈥檚 words from Shakespeare鈥檚 play express optimism about human possibilities, ironically placing them in the mouth of one of the dramatist鈥檚 most self-conflicted protagonists. This course will look at a range of works with such self-questioning in mind. Who am I? What am I? What kinds of relationship do I have with others? Even with myself?
It starts with 鈥楢ntigone,鈥 a work of ancient Greek tragedy having much to say about social and moral bonds. 鈥楬amlet鈥 introduces the liberal themes of self and society, separating private conscience from public roles and the range of selves presented to others. Mary Shelley鈥檚 鈥楩rankenstein鈥, written against the background of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the growth of the factory system, poses the question of human possibilities anew, this time in terms of scientific discovery. Freud鈥檚 鈥楩ragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria鈥 and Woolf鈥檚 鈥楻oom of One鈥檚 Own鈥 present new ways of writing about the self, whether in terms of psychoanalysis or against the background of political and social change, while Sartre鈥檚 鈥楴ausea鈥 draws together themes of self and society, personal identity and social relations, in the context of an elaborate philosophical system.
Books:
When we read, we enter a different world, travelling in an unknown country where some things are familiar, others strange and new; our adjustment to this theatre of the real reconstructs our own world, emotionally, morally, politically. Empathy arises in the midst of this strangeness, and we find ourselves (in many senses) in the place of the other. As our contemporary world is more and more violently tested, our course looks at this intensely powerful creative process. We begin with one of the greatest and freshest theatrical representations of emotional exploration, Shakespeare's听Romeo and Juliet, reading substantially from the point of view of the actor exploring a role.听Xavier de听Maistre鈥檚听playfully profound conversation with himself in his Voyage Around My Room, written under house arrest in 1790 with no intention of publication, announces the ironic solitude of nineteenth century Romanticism, but speaks volumes to our own experience of lockdown. We enter the surreal, grotesque and poignant world of Russia鈥檚 encounter with modernity in Gogol鈥檚 tales. We end with three very different, fragmented narratives of life in the twentieth century, from Persian and Japanese explorations of the imaginary and the real, of worlds inner and outer, and somewhere in between, to our final text, a selection of Carver鈥檚 short stories, turned into a memorable film by Robert Altman, with which we shall finish our course.
Works:
Notions of what is normal and what is abnormal are at the heart of our experience of reading, as of our experience of the world. To what extent transgression, the violation of laws, is a necessary component of 鈥榦riginal鈥 experience, to what extent it remains outside what we think we desire, or should desire, are central components of the texts on our course. We begin with Homer鈥檚 epic of human identity, where transgression metamorphoses into a mode of fate as the human world defines itself in centrifugal translations through time and space, with "powers to draw a man to ruin.鈥 Carroll鈥檚 classic exploration of the limits of 鈥渘ormality鈥 in Wonderland, lived through the eyes of a young girl, leads us to the Japanese 鈥渉eart of things鈥 in one of the world鈥檚 great novels of the inner life, Soseki鈥檚 Kokoro. We read two English feminist writers on the intensely repressive or liberating experience of transgression, in May Sinclair鈥檚 miniature Life and Death of Harriett Frean, and Woolf鈥檚 transgender, transhistorical fantasy Orlando. We go to Nigeria, to Amos Tutuola鈥檚 tale The Palm Wine Drinkard that scandalized the normalizing literary establishment in the postcolonial transition, and end with the deceptively casual freedoms of the great American poet Frank O鈥橦ara.
Works:
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to sharpen your critical reading skills, compare historical contexts, and craft independent, well-researched academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN2020 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to sharpen your critical reading skills, compare historical contexts, and craft independent, well-researched academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN2020 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.
鈥榃hat a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel. In apprehension how like a god.鈥 Hamlet鈥檚 words from Shakespeare鈥檚 play express optimism about human possibilities, ironically placing them in the mouth of one of the dramatist鈥檚 most self-conflicted protagonists. This course will look at a range of works with such self-questioning in mind. Who am I? What am I? What kinds of relationship do I have with others? Even with myself?
It starts with 鈥楢ntigone,鈥 a work of ancient Greek tragedy having much to say about social and moral bonds. 鈥楬amlet鈥 introduces the liberal themes of self and society, separating private conscience from public roles and the range of selves presented to others. Mary Shelley鈥檚 鈥楩rankenstein鈥, written against the background of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the growth of the factory system, poses the question of human possibilities anew, this time in terms of scientific discovery. Freud鈥檚 鈥楩ragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria鈥 and Woolf鈥檚 鈥楻oom of One鈥檚 Own鈥 present new ways of writing about the self, whether in terms of psychoanalysis or against the background of political and social change, while Sartre鈥檚 鈥楴ausea鈥 draws together themes of self and society, personal identity and social relations, in the context of an elaborate philosophical system.
Books:
By engaging with major works of World Literature across genres, time-periods and cultures, you will be able to sharpen your critical reading skills, compare historical contexts, and craft independent, well-researched academic arguments in oral and written form. All EN2020 classes help you fulfil the 鈥淐ritical Inquiry and Expression鈥 core curriculum requirement.