Spring 2010
(Click Here for Fall 2009)

ETS 107-1 Living Writers W 3:45-6:30
AND
ETS 107-2 through 9
Instructors: Staff
This class gives students the rare opportunity to hear visiting writers read and discuss their work. The class is centered on six readings and question-and-answer sessions. Students will be responsible for careful readings of the writers' work. Critical writing and detailed class discussions are required to prepare for the question-and-answer sessions with the visiting writers.

ETS 113-1 Survey of British Literature to 1789
MW 2:15-3:35
Instructor: Rinku Chatterjee
This course attempts to provide an overview of British literature from old English literature to the rise of Romanticism in the late eighteenth century with the beginning of French Revolution in 1789. Though seemingly dealing with old texts, the readings are surprisingly relevant to us in shaping our perception of the world. As in all surveys, we will go over the greatest hits of these centuries, books that became an integral part of the institutionalized study of English literature in the nineteenth century. We will read the selections of old English poetry as well as Middle English literature, represented by Chaucer (in modern English translation), drama of Shakespeare and Jonson in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Milton's Paradise Lost , an early novel and the poetry of the pre-Romantics. We will situate these texts in their historical contexts and explore their concerns for their original readers as well as for us—their present audience.

ETS 114-1 Survey of British Literature since 1789
MW 3:45-5:05
Instructor: Elizabeth Porter
Our class will survey primarily canonical texts written between the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 and the present. You will perhaps recognize some of these texts, such as The Prelude , Great Expectations or The Satanic Verses , at least in name, and we will work to develop a familiarity with these and lesser-known novels, poems, plays and essays from the Romantic age, the Victorian age and the twentieth century. In this class, students will gain knowledge of movements and trends in British intellectual, social, and literary history which will contextualize and enrich their understanding of the texts under investigation. Because the texts were written by authors with varied backgrounds, we will also consider what it means to attach to a work a label of “British”, or any other cultural signifier. Required texts for this course will include an anthology and one or two more recent novels. This class fills the requirement for a writing-intensive course.

ETS 117-1 Survey of American Literature to 1865
TTH 11:00-12:20
Instructor: CJ Dosch
This course offers an introduction to the literatures of America between early European colonization and the US Civil War. During this period, the foundational values of “America” as an idea and the presumed character of “Americans” were of continual concern for the writers we will encounter in this course. Writing in 1782, J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur poses the question most simply: “What is an American?” Reading a broad range of genres and modes of writing by diverse writers, we will examine how this question is quickly complicated by issues such as religion, slavery, gender, social structures and the presence of Native Americans. In attempting to answer the question posed by Crevecoeur, we may very well find that the question itself is the wrong one to ask. Structured chronologically, the course will provide opportunities to gain understanding of the literature as well as a basic sense of the political, cultural and social history of the period. Assignments will include several short response papers, two longer essays and a final examination.

ETS 118-2 Survey of American Literature since 1865
MWF 11:40-12:35
Instructor: Rachel Collins
In this course we will examine American literature produced between the Civil War and World War II. During this period increasing urbanization, immigration and industrialization were shaping American culture and manifesting themselves in American literary production. As such, our course texts are concerned with urban poverty and growing class conflict, African Americans' "great migration" to the North, contestations over women's social place, and the rapid expansion of a consumer-oriented society. We will pay particular attention to the three major fictional modes of the period—realism, naturalism and modernism—and will place them in a sociohistorical context in order to understand how the larger social conflicts and upheavals of the period prompted writers to become dissatisfied with inherited forms of literary representation. In addition to fiction, we will read a sampling of poetry, plays and nonfiction from this period. Writers will likely include: Henry James, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Jane Addams, Edith Wharton, W.E.B. DuBois, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and William Faulkner, among others.

ETS 119-1 Topics in U.S. Literary History: Post-1945 American Fiction
MW 12:45-2:05
Instructor: David Yaffe
When the New York Times Book Review recently polled hundreds of writers and critics to determine the "best work of fiction" over the past 25 years, a debate ensued. We will use the resulting controversial list as a starting point for this course, while also looking back further to the beginning of the period after World War II in search of the best. As we do so, we will examine how the "best" is chosen and which texts are likely to remain relevant in the future. Readings may include Vladimir Nabokov, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Toni Morrison and Mary Gaitskill. Particular attention will be paid to bringing these novels and short stories to the "way we live now," but we will also put these works in their proper context. We will examine relevant developments in music and film (competing and complementary media in an era like no other) as well as attitudes about race, sex and politics. How a cultural moment results in a particular literary style will also be important. Two papers, quizzes and a presentation are required.


ETS 119-2 Topics in U.S. Literary History: Narratives of 9/11
MW 2:15-2:35
Instructor: Carol Fadda-Conrey
The events of 9/11 are perceived as having forever changed the face of not only the US, but of the whole world. Such a widespread belief raises the following questions: Did 9/11 have uniform US national and collective repercussions? Have the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq changed our perception and understanding of the September 11 attacks? How do the experiences of minority groups such as Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans change the master narrative of fear, patriotism, homeland security and war on terror that quickly developed after 9/11? To address these questions, this course will compare various personal, communal, national, as well as international literary and cultural narratives that developed after and in response to 9/11, analyzing how they transform and complicate simplistic notions such as “'why do they hate us?' and ‘you're either with us or against us'” that were circulated right after 9/11. Students will read a variety of texts that explore and diversify the national 9/11 experience, including works by Jonathan Safran Foer, Don Delillo, Art Spiegelman, Suheir Hammad, Yussef El Guindi, Joseph Geha, Fawzia Afzal Khan and Lawrence Joseph to underscore the change that such diverse voices lend to a seemingly unified experience of national trauma.

ETS 121-1 Introduction to Shakespeare
TTH 9:30-10:50
Instructor: Stephanie Shirilan
This is an introduction to the world of Shakespeare through attentive study of seven of the Bard's greatest plays: Henry V, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Winter's Tale . These plays are not commonly read at the pre-collegiate level and have been chosen to challenge the interpretive models by which you might have been introduced to the Renaissance previously. We will move beyond the little world of man and the wheel of fortune to consider Shakespeare's unexpected representations of historical norms, cultural codes, modes of governance and comportment and structures of belief. We will discuss questions of artistic enigma, canonicity, the Shakespeare industry (in film and music), as well as the place of Shakespeare in various nationalist agendas. Even while we consider the import of reading Shakespeare in and outside of the Western canon, our discussions will constantly return to a central problem: What does it mean to read Shakespeare when Shakespeare wrote plays to be played upon a stage? Stressing the multi-sensory experience of Elizabethan and early Jacobean play-going, we will read aloud for one another. Be prepared to take turns acting out parts and scenes in order to discover the rich sonic structures of meaning in Shakespeare's language.


ETS 145-1 Reading Popular Culture
MW 11:40-12:35
Film Screening W 7:00-9:50
Instructor: Steven Cohan
ETS 145-5 & 7 Discussion Section F 10:35-11:30
ETS 145-8 & 9 Discussion Section F 11:40-12:35
ETS 145 pivots around the problem of how to read the media-oriented culture which we inhabit. The course therefore operates from the assumption that all texts and their meanings are socially and historically conditioned; popular texts are no exception, which is why they deserve close analysis and critical reflection. But the course is not meant to be a survey of mass culture; rather, it studies popular culture. What distinguishes popular from mass culture as an object of analysis for ETS 145 is the extent to which popular culture is understood to be participatory, not passive. As a means of exploring what it means to read popular culture from this perspective, the course syllabus will be organized around these related questions: Who produces popular texts and for whom? Why do different audiences read them differently? How do their readings depart from the intentions of producers? How do audiences find value or relevance through their readings? How do audiences form communities to share that understanding? And how is it the case that such communities of readers ultimately constitute what we think of as popular culture? To explore these questions, the course will concentrate on film, television and the internet. The weekly screenings scheduled for this course are required.  

ETS 151-1 Interpretation of Poetry
TTh 3:30-4:50
Instructors: Bruce Smith and Sarah Harwell
This course will consist of discussion of poems from the various traditions of poetry. We're interested in what makes a poem memorable and moving and how it is a vehicle for the emotions. We're interested, too, in what provokes and challenges us, what gives it its power to seduce and trouble and soothe, what gives it its music and voice as distinct from speech.
      
Students will be asked to write six short two-page papers in which they examine closely a single poem by a poet from the text. Students may opt to write more papers and receive extra consideration for them. In addition, students will be asked to choose a poet and present the work of the poet in class. The presentation will be the basis of a longer paper on that poet. Memorization of a single poem will also be required. Attendance at readings on campus is encouraged. Emphasis in discussions will be on style and substance, music and image. Multiple ways of reading poems will help the students expand the range of poetic possibilities.

ETS 152-1 Interpretation of Drama
TTh 11:00-12:20
Instructor: William West
Ritual, pageant, mime, dance, vocal display: all have been instrumental in creating drama—a powerful mirror reflecting the lives and customs of a people and of individuals. This course examines this 'mirror' as it has evolved in European and American culture from the Greek Drama of ancient Athens to the present. We'll begin with a reading of Aristotle's Poetics , and continue with one of the great 'problem' plays of Shakespeare, Measure for Measure ; thence the beginnings of modern drama with two plays by Henrik Ibsen ( A Doll's House and Ghosts ), followed by five great twentieth-century American plays: Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night , Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour , Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge , August Wilson's The Piano Lesson and David Mamet's Oleanna .


ETS 153-2 Interpretation of Fiction
TTh 8:00-9:20
Instructor: William West
The course will discuss the nature of narrative (story-telling and plot), fiction and the novel. Having established these boundaries, we shall then study examples from different historical periods and cultural traditions, all of which have as an important element in their narrative the societal role of women. Novels for study and discussion will include Jane Austen's Emma (1816); Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd (1874); E. M. Forster's A Room with a View (1908); André Gide's novella, The Pastoral Symphony (1919); F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and contemporary American novelist Ann Patchett's Bel Canto (2001).


ETS 153-3 Interpretation of Fiction
TTh 5:00-6.20
Film Screening
Th 7:00-9:50
Instructor: Gohar Siddiqui
This course will teach you how to analyze fiction and to that end seeks to familiarize you with the practices of interpreting and making meaning in different forms of literature (short story and novel) as well as in film. We will examine the aesthetic, formal and rhetorical aspects of these texts along with the socio-historical and cultural factors that affect and inflect them. We will pay close attention to matters of style, narrative and plot, genre and context and analyze the extent to which these shape the meanings of the texts that we study. We will also analyze some texts in pairs to examine how different cultural and critical contexts affect their production and reception. Finally, we will examine texts that get a trans-media makeover (e.g. from literature to film) and see how interpretation is dependent on formal features and matters of production and reception specific to each medium.

Texts will likely include Arthur Conan Doyle's stories (Sherlock Holmes) and House , Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea , Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice , Ismat Chughtai's The Quilt and Deepa Mehta's Fire.


ETS 153-3 Interpretation of Fiction
MW 3:45-5:05
Instructor: Jessica Kuskey
This course will introduce you to ways of closely reading and interpreting fiction and will enable you to sharpen your skills of reading, discussing, and writing about literary texts. Our primary task will be to analyze textual details and the formal aspects of fiction such as point of view, plot, narrative structure, character and figurative language. We will then step back and examine the relationship between these formal details and the specific historical and cultural contexts within which our course texts have been produced and read, contexts such as imperialism, colonialism and nationalism. Paying particular attention to representations of race, class and gender, we will analyze the ways that texts are shaped by, respond to, resist and subvert the material conditions of their production.

We will read a diverse collection of short stories and novels from different nations and historical periods, all linked by the theme of “empire.” Texts will include: Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories; Wilkie Collins's sensational detective novel The Moonstone ; Rider Haggard's adventure story King Solomon's Mines ; Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness , Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (paired with excerpts from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre ), and J.M. Coetzee's Foe (paired with excerpts from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe ).


ETS 153-4 Interpretation of Fiction
TTh 2:00-3:20
Instructor: Amy Leal


ETS 154-1 Interpretation of Film
MWF 12:45-1:40
Film Screening
M 7:00-9:50
Instructor: Steven Doles
This course will instruct students in the basics of film analysis. The semester will roughly divide into three sections. In the first, students will learn how to interpret film by paying close attention to the material elements of the text. We will then move on to consider the larger structures that organize these material elements into coherent texts, including narrative, genre and the division of film into fictive and non-fictive modes. In the final portion of the course we will consider a series of special topics that inform how films are experienced beyond the bounds of the text itself, such as authorship and stardom. Students who take this course will gain a general knowledge of the history of film, and also learn how to apply historical contexts to the reading of films. Film screenings will be drawn primarily from the Classical and post-Classical eras of Hollywood film, but will also include international films and films from other periods. Graded work for the course will consist of three critical papers and a final exam. The weekly screenings scheduled for this class are mandatory.


ETS 154-3 Interpretation of Film
WF 12:45-2:05
Film Screening
W 7:00-9:50
Instructor: Michael Dwyer
Nearly everyone is familiar with watching films, but how does one interpret film? This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the skills to identify and interpret the ways in which films produce meaning. Focusing primarily on English-language Hollywood film, this course will introduce students both to the formal aspects of cinema—mise en scene, cinematography, editing and sound—as well as the practices of production, exhibition and reception that guide our understanding of “what movies mean.” Assignments will include weekly discussion board posts, short response papers, a midterm and final exam, as well as a final essay. No prior experience with film studies is necessary. The weekly screenings scheduled for this class are mandatory.


ETS 154-4 Interpretation of Film
MW 12:45-2:05
Film Screening M 7:00-9:50
Instructor: Karen Hall
This course is an introduction to the interpretation of film. Accordingly, the course is not an overview of the filmic medium, film genres, film history or film masterpieces, but will instead emphasize film analysis. Using films which illustrate specific issues of interpretation, the course combines close attention to aesthetic, formal and rhetorical aspects of film with an investigation of the social and cultural factors that shape how we make sense of, take pleasure from and find meanings in films. We shall also interpret films in relation to their historical contexts and to our own. This course is recommended for students wishing to take more specialized and advanced ETS courses in film studies. The weekly screenings scheduled for this class are mandatory.


ETS 181-1 Class and Literary Texts
TTh 9:30-10:50
Instructor: Donald Morton
Citizens of the US still like to think that they live in a society which, if not actually class-less, is at least in principle striving—democratically—for “equality” for all. The notion that US society is on the road towards equality is belied by the fact that not only is inequality growing in this country, but also actually growing at an accelerating rate. The country's newspaper of record, the New York Times , observed in the mid-1990s that “the United States has become the most economically stratified of industrial nations.” Class differences are even sharper in the twenty-first century. This situation suggests how important it is to understand the causes and consequences of class inequality. The course will examine class issues as reflected not only in texts dealing directly and explicitly with those issues but also in film and fiction where questions of class are largely implicit.


ETS 181-2 Class and Literary Texts
TTh 3:30-4:50
Instructor: Sandeep Banerjee
The course will examine literary and other cultural texts to investigate how they construct and represent the category of “class.” It will also look at how the idea of class affects the production and reception of these literary and cultural texts. In addition, the course will engage with the various ways in which “class” has been conceptualized and inquire into its relevance as a category of analysis. It will also explore the relation between “class” and other conceptual categories such as “race” and “gender.”

The course shall focus largely, but not exclusively, on British literature from the long nineteenth century. It shall aim to develop skills of interpretation and critical analysis to understand and theorize how texts produce, maintain or challenge categories of oppression and privilege.


ETS 182-2 Race and Literary Texts: Asian American Literature
TTh 3:30-4:50
Instructor: Nancy Kang
This specialized survey course introduces the rich cultural and literary history of Asian America from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Asian Americans comprise a powerful and discrete literary and cultural community. Their voices have been obscured by racist stereotyping, exclusionary canon formation, and the false assumption that the culture is merely an offshoot of global Asian societies. Obviously, this is not the case. Asian Americans are not “really” from elsewhere, nor do they accept the definition of “immigrant” unproblematically. Many Asian Americans, especially those that have grown up with traditional immigrant parents, have ambivalent feelings toward Asia, its cultural traditions and values and its languages as a necessary part of being an "authentic" member of a minority group. There are multiple tensions that inform their identification as Americans as well as people of Asian descent. Many of these issues emerge in literature and life-writing.

As with any literature course, writing skills, originality and clarity of insight, analytical depth, mastery of historical context and technical competency will be evaluated.


ETS 184-1 Ethnicity and Literary Texts:
Contemporary Narrative in Ethnic Literatures
MW 12:45-2:05
ETS 184-4
MW 2:15-3:35
Film Screening M 7:00-9:00 (both sections)
Instructor: Meera Lee
This course will seek to understand the historical, cultural and political representations of ethnicity through the examination of contemporary literary texts. In this trajectory, students will first engage with the self-promoted narratives of migration, immigration, exile or diaspora, and further investigate to what degree stereotypes, ethnocentrism and racism come into play in relation to ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender and religion. At the same time, we will also try to examine the contradictions of the exclusion-inclusion claims in social agendas that promote diversity, in order to ask whether ethnicity is a politically constructed notion from a dominant perspective, or a mechanism to encourage political hegemony. Especially given that the current geopolitical circumstances are very complex, the course attempts to explore the narrative of ethnicity not only from the western multicultural perspective, but also within cultures both inside and outside the west, particularly in the transnational context. The literary texts selected for the course will include a broad range of contemporary ethnic and multicultural novels including, The Namesake and M. Butterfly, as well as films such as Suture and Heading South .


ETS 184-2 Ethnicity and Literary Texts: Introduction to Indigenous Literature
TTh 2:00-3:20
Instructor: Scott Lyons
This course will introduce you to the growing body of literature—and film—now being produced by indigenous peoples around the world, with particular attention paid to the Maoris of New Zealand/Aotearoa, the Aborigines of Australia and the tribal peoples of North America. Our approach will be comparative and political, centering on questions of identity, culture, language and land rights as they have emerged wherever Native peoples endured the experience of colonization and its aftermath. In addition to engaging literary and cinematic expressions, we will also study global activism, for instance work that culminated in the 2007 passage of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples document. Finally, we will situate our readings in a wide range of critical discourses, including tribal nationalism, cosmopolitanism and postmodernism. No previous experience in Native studies is required.


ETS 184-5 Ethnicity and Literary Texts: Great Jewish Writers
TTh 12:30-1:50
Instructor: Ken Frieden
An introduction to some of the best fiction written by Jewish authors such as S. Y. Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, S. Y. Agnon, Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud.  Topics include modernization, rebellion against authority, alienation, childhood, superstition and the Holocaust. 


ETS 192-2 Gender and Literary Texts
MW 3:45-5:05
Instructor: Tanushree Ghosh
In this course we shall analyze the literary and cultural representation of gender. Through our examination of instances picked from literature, non-fiction and film, we shall see how gender identities are constructed, affirmed and/or interrogated. As we move across historical periods and cultures, the attempt will be to examine how constructions of gender are inflected by ethnic, racial, sexual and historical concerns. Texts will likely include but are not limited to fiction (Shakespeare's Macbeth , Austen's Pride and Prejudice ) and film ( Bridget Jones's Diary, Fight Club).

Since this course is writing intensive, our emphasis will be on discussion based on close reading of the texts and on written assignments. Students will be required to view several films for this class outside of class time.


ETS 215-1 Sophomore Poetry Workshop
T 12:30-3:15
Instructor: Brooks Haxton
This poetry workshop will require writing at least one new poem each week, a number of these in response to readings that illustrate particular poetic techinques, such as image, point of view, tone, diction, narrative construction, logic of argument and so on. Handouts will describe the technique for that week's reading and the requirements of the writing assignment. Final grades will measure the students' success in focusing on the assigned challenges, attentiveness and insight in critical readings of each other's poems and the ability to use the response of readers to improve poems in revision. No prerequisites. Attendance required.


ETS 217-1 Sophomore Ficton Workshop
T 3:30-6:15
Instructor: Arthur Flowers
First 3/4 weeks engaging craft: character, plot, setting, narrative strategies, literary vision etc. Remainder workshop format: two students per session and weekly discussion of published works.


ETS 236-1 Classics of World Literature II
TTh 3:30-4:50
Instructor: Harvey Teres
This course will introduce you to a number of the most highly valued literary works of the past thousand years from cultures around the world. Starting with the African Epic of Son-Jara, and moving to the formative geniuses of Early Modern Europe such as Dante, Cervantes and Shakespeare, the reading will proceed in roughly chronological sequence to include the Chinese classic Journey to the West, Voltaire, Goethe, Austen, Africa and African American orature, Tagore, Chekhov, Akhmatova, Borges and Soyinka. Each week you will hear a lecture delivered by a distinguished faculty member on a work related to his or her expertise. Then in seminar you will discuss the lectures and works in greater depth. We will investigate the notion of literary merit in relation to historical context. Social and religious ramifications of the readings will include questions about representations of morality and religious revelation, as well as standards of beauty and ideas about what art is and what it does. Careful attention to the interrelation of works from different cultural systems will help to elucidate the workings of cultural forces such as colonialism and imperialism in the production and reception of literature. Underlying the goals of the course is the belief that a vital part of any education must be the training of sensibility, the enlargement of the capacity for aesthetic experience, and the ability to make judgments regarding the quality of written and oral expression. ETS 235 IS NOT A PREQUISITE FOR THIS COURSE.


ETS 242-1 Reading and Interpretation
TTh 11:00-12:20
Instructor: Scott Lyons
ETS 242-2
MW 2:15-3:35
Instructor: Jolynn Parker
ETS 242 introduces students to the discipline of English and Textual Studies, stressing not what is read but how we read it—and the difference that makes. Its goal, in other words, is not only to show how meanings are created through acts of critical reading but also to demonstrate the consequences of pursuing one mode or method of reading over another. This course is designed to enhance your ability to read and interpret contextually as well as closely, to help you to articulate your understanding effectively and to draw connections through reading and writing. Through close, deep and thoughtful reading of literary and non-literary texts as well as essays by critics and theorists, we will explore the ways texts mean and the ways readers produce meaning. Each section of ETS 242 takes up issues of central concern within contemporary literary and cultural studies. These include representation; author/ity, textuality, and reading; subjectivity; and culture and history.