Reading Literature
This course seeks to develop skills for the close reading of literature through discussion of and writing about selected poems, plays, and short stories. A basic vocabulary of literary terms and an introductory palette of critical methods will also be covered, and the course's ultimate goal will be to enable students to attain the literary-critical sensibility vital to further course work in the major. At the instructor's discretion, the texts employed in this class may share a particular thematic concern or historical kinship. 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013

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Slumdogs and Millionaires: Fictions of Globalization
In this course we will explore the rich and still growing body of creative writing addressing the processes (cultural, social, and economic) we now know as globalization. Viewing English as a global literary language, we will read both established and lesser-known authors to examine their sense of globalization's human impact. Special attention will be paid to literary representations of migration, and to certain narratives of self-making and economic possibility shared by fictional, cinematic, and "official" accounts of the recent past. Authors will include V.S. Naipaul, Jamaica Kincaid, Amitav Ghosh, R. Zamora Linmark, Kiren Desai, Aravind Adiga, and Monica Ali.

Spring 2011, Spring 2014

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Multi-Ethnic British Literatures
"My name is Karim Amir," announces the protagonist of a Hanif Kureishi novel, "and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost." In this course we will investigate the complex subject of ethnic and national identity in the writing of British authors of Asian, African, and Caribbean descent. We will trace the shifting meanings of "black" and "British" as we move from 1950s migrant fictions to more recent reckonings with British multiculturalism. Topics to be considered will include diaspora and the work of memory; race and religion after 9/11; the representation of urban space; and the experience of asylum-seekers and refugees. 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Fall 2012

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Affect, Emotion, and Structures of Feeling
What is the role of emotion in the shaping of identities, communities, and political cultures? How have narratives of shame, love, melancholy, anger, and “muddle” allowed writers to address experiences of injury and stigmatization? In this seminar we will explore the growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship on affect. Readings will include theoretical approaches (Deleuze, Berlant, Ngai, Hardt/Negri, Williams, Love) and literary works drawn mostly from queer and postcolonial archives. Topics considered will include affective citizenship; embodiment and touch; antisocial behavior; empathy, hospitality, and conviviality; care-giving and affective labor; and the recent embrace of tragedy in postcolonial studies. 3 hrs. sem.

Fall 2014

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Special Project: Literature
Approval Required.

Fall 2013, Fall 2014

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Senior Essay: Critical Writing
Individual guidance and seminar (discussions, workshops, tutorials) for those undertaking one-term projects in literary criticism or analysis. All critical essay writers also take the essay workshop (ENAM 700Z) in either Fall or Spring Term.

Fall 2011, Fall 2013, Fall 2014

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Senior Thesis: Critical Writing
Individual guidance and seminar (discussions, workshops, tutorials) for those undertaking two-term projects in literary criticism or analysis. All critical thesis writers also take the thesis workshop (ENAM 710z) in both Fall and Spring terms.

Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Winter 2014, Spring 2014

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The Work of Art: Labor in Contemporary Literature and Visual Culture
In this seminar we will examine imaginative accounts of work and workers in recent literature, art, and film. Garment workers, miners, computer programmers, taxi drivers, teachers, and sex workers will take center stage as we consider the shifting meanings of paid and unpaid labor in contemporary culture. Class materials will consist of an international mix of novels, poems, photographs, performance pieces, theoretical texts, documentaries, and feature films. Topics to be considered include women’s work, labor migrations, the rise of service work and other forms of “affective” labor, and the representation of the body at work. 3 hrs. sem.

Fall 2013

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British Popular Culture
George Orwell once described the English in terms of their fondness for “the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside, and the ‘nice cup of tea'." But what would he have made of the Sex Pistols or Amy Winehouse? In this course we will trace a particular arc through post-1945 British popular culture in order to ask how we got from Orwell to The Office, from the Rolling Stones to Radiohead. We will ask how film, music, and TV prepared the ground for important episodes in British history: the “special relationship” with the United States, the modernization of sexuality, the transformation from welfare state to free market capitalism, the slow passage toward a multicultural society.

Winter 2013

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This course is an introduction to the critical analysis of imaginative literature of the world, the dissemination of themes and myths, and the role of translation as the medium for reaching different cultures. Through the careful reading of selected classic texts from a range of Western and non-Western cultures, students will deepen their understanding and appreciation of the particular texts under consideration, while developing a critical vocabulary with which to discuss and write about these texts, both as unique artistic achievements of individual and empathetic imagination and as works affected by, but also transcending their historical periods. 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Spring 2011

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