Literature

Shakespeare: The History Plays — LIT2214.01

Fall 2016

Instructor: Annabel Davis-Goff

Credits: 4

We will read and watch seven of Shakespeare history plays (two Roman and five English). We will examine the historical background of each play, the sources from which Shakespeare drew his material, and a range of critical responses to the plays. Classes will also include discussion, written responses, and student recitals of selected scenes or speeches. Students will write two

Literature

Shakespeare: The History Plays — LIT2214.01

Spring 2022

Instructor: Maya Cantu

Credits: 4

"An explosion of history plays appeared on the scene in Elizabethan England,” as Marjorie Garber describes England’s transition into a “political power, proud of its absolute monarch.” Of these plays, few offered more multifaceted portrayals of pageantry, tyranny, succession, and causality than the history plays of William Shakespeare. The playwright examined the power

Drama Literature

Shakespeare: The Poetry — LIT2218.01

Fall 2014

Instructor: camille guthrie

Days & Time: TBA

Credits: 4

"What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?" Sonnet 53 In this course we will immerse ourselves in the major works of Shakespeare's poetry: the Sonnets; his Neoclassical poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; A Lover's Complaint; and several poems from the plays. While we expand our understanding of Shakespeare's

Literature

Shakespeare: The Tragedies — LIT2217.01) (day/time updated as of 10/9/2023

Spring 2024

Instructor: Michael Dumanis

Credits: 4

We will spend the term immersed in in-depth reading and analysis of the plot, structure, and language, and cultural context of five Shakespeare tragedies: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello. We will also read Tom Stoppard’s 20th-century existentialist, absurdist parody of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. We will focus on the themes of

Literature

Shakespeare: The Tragedies — LIT2217.01

Spring 2016

Instructor: Marguerite Feitlowitz

Credits: 4

We will read the major tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony Cleopatra; view important film productions; and read a range of historical and contemporary criticism. There will be exams, papers, and in-class conferences.

Literature

Shakespeare: The Tragedies — LIT2217.01

Spring 2018

Instructor: Michael Dumanis

Credits: 4

We will spend the term immersed in in-depth reading and analysis of the plot, structure, language, and cultural context of five Shakespeare tragedies: Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. We will also read Thomas Kyd's 16th-century play The Spanish Tragedy, to which Shakespeare owed a significant debt, and Tom Stoppard's 20th-century existentialist,

Literature

Shakespeare: The Tragedies — LIT2217.01

Spring 2014

Instructor: Annabel Davis-Goff

Credits: 4

We will read and watch six of Shakespeare's Tragedies, and will read the sources from which Shakespeare drew his material. Students will write two essays, and are expected to participate in discussion based on careful reading of the plays. Please note there will be two evening film screenings, times to be arranged.

Literature

Shakespeare: The Tragedies — LIT2217.01

Fall 2019

Instructor: Marguerite Feitlowitz

Credits: 4

We will read the major tragedies--Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony Cleopatra; view important film productions; and read a range of historical and contemporary criticism. There will be exams, papers, and in-class conferences.

Drama Literature

Shakespeare: The Tragedies — LIT2217.01

Spring 2026

Instructor: Michael Dumanis

Days & Time: M/Th 8:00AM-9:50AM

Credits: 4

We will spend the term immersed in in-depth reading and analysis of the plot, structure, and language, and cultural context of six Shakespeare tragedies: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello. We will focus on the themes of power, corruption, betrayal, revenge, despair, and madness, among others. We will

Literature

Shakespeare’s Problem Plays — LIT4332.01) (cancelled 1/31/2023

Spring 2023

Instructor: Carly Rudzinski

Credits: 4

What do you do with a cruel comedy? With a tragedy that ends ‘well’? With a play that defies generic classification altogether? In this course, we’ll read four of Shakespeare’s so-called ‘problem plays’ — Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and The Winter’s Tale — with particular attention to their use of language, and we’ll

Literature

Shipwrecked — LIT2289.01

Fall 2020

Instructor: Carly Rudzinski

Credits: 4

Alienation, deprivation, solitude, and starting anew may be prevalent ideas in contemporary dystopian storytelling, but the physical and psychological circumstances of running aground have long been fertile ground for writers. The course will reflect on the precursors of such narratives, beginning in the eighteenth century with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and

Literature

Shipwrecked — LIT2289.01

Fall 2017

Instructor: Akiko Busch

Credits: 4

Alienation, deprivation, solitude, and starting anew may be prevalent ideas in contemporary dystopian storytelling, but the physical and psychological circumstances of running aground, along with its rewards, have long been fertile ground for writers. The course would reflect on the precursors of such narratives, beginning in the eighteenth century with Robinson Crusoe and

Literature

Social Semiotics of Contemporary Literature — LIT2561.01

Spring 2023

Instructor: An Duplan

Credits: 4

Writers don’t just tell stories. They live them. In Familiar Stranger: A Life between Two Islands, Stuart Hall describes his upbringing in 1930’s Jamaica, then a British colony. Eventually, Hall–– who is credited with being one of the founding figures of the field of Cultural Studies––made his way to the UK, where he went on to publish a number of seminal texts. Without a doubt

Literature Society Culture and Thought

Songlines: One Thousand Years of Music and Poetry — MHI2229.01

Fall 2019

Instructor: Joseph Alpar

Credits: 4

Uniting text and music has been a continuous and vital expression of musical creativity for millennia. In this course we will investigate how composers and songwriters have set poetry to music for nearly one thousand years. What can we as contemporary songwriters, poets, and music listeners learn from these histories? How does a musical setting function as a composer’s reading

Music Literature

Sound and Cadence for the Contemporary Ear/Era — LIT2200.01

Spring 2022

Instructor: Carly Rudzinski

Credits: 4

Sounds make us feel things. Sometimes, sound even unites us in feeling things. We might hear the words of Bob Marley swooning, “Let’s get together and feel alright.” Yet the effects (and affects) of music can also be detrimental. In Sonic Warfare, musician Steve Goodman (aka Kode9) argues that sound can be—and has been—used to express social threat and to create widespread

Literature

Special Projects in Translation: Tolstoy’s War and Peace — LIT4606.01

Spring 2026

Instructor: Mariam Rahmani

Days & Time: WE 2:10pm-5:50pm

Credits: 4

This intensive advanced translation workshop focuses on student work. Meant for those who have taken Ethical Translation and learned the nuts and bolts of translation there – or otherwise have translation and/or extensive foreign language experience – here we dig into your longer translation projects. The aim of the course is to transform your approach to a substantive

Literature

Special Topics in Trans Lit: Spirituality — LIT2570.01

Spring 2025

Instructor: Zoe Tuck

Credits: 4

“Batter my heart, transgender’d god” —Meg Day In this course, we will be reading and writing through work treating spirituality by trans and nonbinary writers. We will read writers from a variety of religious traditions and practices (including atheism), with varying degrees of orthodoxy or heterodoxy. As we do, we will let questions like, “What is the relationship of trans

Literature

Speculative Fiction — LIT2422.01

Spring 2022

Instructor: Paul La Farge

Credits: 4

For the last hundred years or so, speculative fiction has been a way for writers to imagine the future, but also, implicitly or explicitly, to think about the present. We’ll read genre, mainstream, and hard-to-classify works from the 1920s to the 2010s, with particular attention to the ways in which speculative fiction uses language to create a world, and the ways in which its

Literature

Starring the Translator! — LIT2406.01

Spring 2021

Instructor: Marguerite Feitlowitz

Credits: 2

The figure of the literary translator has a checkered history—ambassador and traitor, solitary bookworm and cultural heroine, detective and spy, poet par-excellence and self-effacing scribe. Rich, provocative, and rarified, the history and practice of literary translation have given rise to a host of literary works in multiple genres. The star? It’s the literary translator,

Literature

Starring: The Translator! — LIT4272.01

Fall 2016

Instructor: Marguerite Feitlowitz

Credits: 4

The figure of the literary translator has a checkered history—ambassador and traitor, solitary bookworm and cultural heroine, detective and spy, poet par excellence and self-effacing scribe. Rich, provocative, and rarefied, the practice and history of literary translation has given rise to a host of novels, memoirs, and essays. The star? It’s the literary translator wrestling

Literature

Steal This Book: Literature of the 60s and 70s — LIT2248.01

Fall 2013

Instructor: Benjamin Anastas

Days & Time: TBA

Credits: 4

The 1960s and 70s have been so thoroughly trivialized by the culture wars that Timothy Leary’s mantra ‘Turn on, tune in and drop out’ has become the era’s defining slogan. But the counter-culture helped produce some of the most genre-breaking literature we have, and this course will dive into the alternative canon for a long, strange trip among the famous, the forgotten, and

Literature

Style and Tone in Essay Writing — LIT2397.01

Spring 2017

Instructor: Wayne Hoffmann-Ogier

Credits: 4

This introductory course focuses on the weekly writing of extended essays, including nonfiction narrative, personal essay, literary criticism, research writing, and the analytical essay. It gives particular attention to developing individual voice and command of the elements of style. The class incorporates group editing in a workshop setting with an emphasis on re-writing. It

Literature