1.Forms of literature
This course will introduce English majors to the most important genres in English literature. These will range from the classical genres of poetry, prose and drama to the more recent developments in literary theory and new media. Students will receive an overview of the most important developments in genre over the last 2000 years, starting with Aristotle and culminating in hypertext.
2.Introduction to Literary Theory
An intensive immersion in literary method, this course will complement the class on literary genre. Looking at how texts ask questions, and the assumptions that go into any discussion of life and literature, we will also examine what the most important of these questions have been over the last hundred years, and how theorists like Freud, Derrida, and Spivak, among others, have addressed them.
3. Early British Literature (900-1660)
Plotting the development of the literature of the British Isles over the centuries, this course will begin with the anonymous text of Beowulf. Moving across important texts and movements through medieval and Renaissance literature to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, this course will immerse students in the early history of British literature.
4. Age of Empire (1660-1947)
Starting with the consolidation of the East India Company in the 17th century, this course will examine the wide variety of pamphlets, travel narratives, poems, novels, and prose fictions that pivot on the idea of empire and travel, from Aphra Behn’s Oronooko to E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India. Moving across countries and centuries, this course will study literary and social formations that continue to affect us to this day.
5. Postcolonial Literatures
Expanding the canvas of literature to post-colonial productions of novels, poems and drama, this course will study Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone literatures from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. From magical realism to existential drama, students will cover rich traditions of literature that have been written in response to the conditions of colonialism and post-colonialism.