ENAM News and Events
Harriet Scott Chessman
The Beauty of Ordinary Things
Monday, December 2, 2013
4:30 p.m. Abernethy Room
Axinn Center
Author Harriet Scott Chessman will read from her new book, The Beauty of Ordinary Things (Atelier26 Books, 2013). This passionate, honest novel is the story of the unexpected love between a young Vietnam veteran and a Benedictine nun. As Benny Finn and Sister Clare come to know each other at an abbey in New Hampshire, in 1974, their profoundest desires emerge with courage and contemplative power. www.harrietchessman.com
Co-sponsored by the Scott Center, and the Department of English and American Literatures.
Antonia Losano
Associate Professor of English and American Literatures
Email: alosano@middlebury.edu
Phone: work802.443.3242
Office Hours: Fall 2013: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8:00-9:00 and Thursday 12:00-1:30 or by appointment
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Antonia Losano joined the English and American Literatures department in 1999. She teaches courses in 19th century literature, gender studies, mystery fiction, and the intersections of literature and the visual arts. Her book on women writers and painters in the Victorian era, The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature, was published in 2008; she has also published articles on women travel writers, the Bronte sisters, Virginia Woolf, and exercise videos. Currently she is working on a book on the history of solitude. She received an M.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Courses
Courses offered in the past four years.
▲ indicates offered in the current term
▹ indicates offered in the upcoming term[s]
CRWR 0560 - Special Project: Writing ▲ ▹
Special Project: Creative Writing
Approval Required.
Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Winter 2014, Spring 2014
CRWR 0701 - Senior Essay: Creative Writing ▹
Senior Essay: Creative Writing
Discussions, workshops, tutorials for those undertaking one-term projects in the writing of fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction. (Formerly ENAM 0701)
Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014
ENAM 0102 / WAGS 0102 - Gender/Sexuality/Literature
Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Literature
This course offers an introduction to the ways in which literature reflects, influences, creates, and reveals cultural beliefs about gender and sexuality. We will read a wide range of novels, poems, and plays from a diversity of eras and national traditions; we will also study seminal works in feminist theory, queer studies, and the history of sexuality, from early thinkers to today's cutting-edge theorists. Throughout the course, we will explore the ways in which gender intersects with other crucial cultural issues such as race, nationhood, globalization, and class. 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Fall 2012
ENAM 0103 - Reading Literature
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.
Winter 2010, Spring 2010, Spring 2013
ENAM 0108 - Animals in Literature ▹
Animals in Literature and Culture
Animals, wrote anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, are good to think with. They are good to write with as well; almost all works of literature include animals, their importance varying from the merely peripheral to the absolutely central. Among other narrative functions, animals serve as essential metaphors for understanding the human animal. In this course we will read a wide variety of fiction, poetry, children's literature, philosophy, science, history, and cultural theory from Ancient Greek sources (in translation) to the present. We will consider theoretical, ethical, religious, psychological, linguistic, and political issues pertaining to animals and their representation in literary texts. lect./disc.
Fall 2011, Spring 2014
ENAM 0205 / CMLT 0205 / LITS 0205 - Intro:Contemporary Lit. Theory
Introduction to Contemporary Literary Theory
This course will introduce several major schools of contemporary literary theory. By reading theoretical texts in close conjunction with works of literature, we will illuminate the ways in which these theoretical stances can produce various interpretations of a given poem, novel, or play. The approaches covered will include New Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Marxism and Cultural Criticism, Feminism, and Post-Structuralism. These theories will be applied to works by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, The Brontës, Conrad, Joyce, and others. The goal will be to make students critically aware of the fundamental literary, cultural, political, and moral assumptions underlying every act of interpretation they perform. 3 hrs. lect/disc.
Spring 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2013
ENAM 0220 - The Early English Novel
Castaways, Courtesans, and Criminals: The Early English Novel (II)
The novel was a young and scandalous literary genre in the 18th century. The reading public found the novel to be confusing, unpredictable, racy, morally dangerous--and of course very exciting. In this course we will examine the rise of the novel as a controversial literary genre, tracing its development from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders in the early part of the century, through Richardson’s didactic Pamela and Clarissa and Fielding’s lively Tom Jones in mid-century, to Sterne’s wildly experimental Tristram Shandy and the more familiar world of Jane Austen at the century’s end. We will also consider the ways in which this history has shaped the fiction of today by reading a 21st century novel, to be determined by the course participants.
Spring 2013
ENAM 0241 - 19th Century Literature
From Austen to Dracula: The Transformation of 19th Century English Literature (II)
In this course we will trace the development of 19th century literature from the polite and decorous world of Austen in the early decades to the blood-thirsty depravity of Dracula and his kin in the fin de siecle. Far from merely reflecting the society that created it, 19th century literature played an active part in constructing its readers' ideas of gender and sexuality, imperialism and colonialism, class, religion, and technology. We will read novels by Austen, the Brontës, Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Stoker; poetry by Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, and Christina Rossetti; and works by Oscar Wilde and others that defy classification. We will pay special attention to authors' efforts to make literature relevant and revelatory in a time of swift and sometimes frightening social and intellectual innovation. 3 hrs lect./disc.
Fall 2012
ENAM 0246 - Literature and Social Protest ▹
Books that Changed the World: Literature and Social Protest
Can literature change the world? In this course we will examine a wide range of texts written in response to war, economic and social crises (such as the Great Depression or environmental crises), health crises (the AIDS pandemic, for example), social and political oppression (slavery; racial, gender or sexual discrimination), and other historical events. We will explore the profound impact literature can have on the world and examine the rhetorical strategies writers use to effect real-world social change. Readings will include social theories and historiographies as well as literature. lect./disc
Spring 2014
ENAM 0441 / WAGS 0441 - Literature and Seduction
Literature and Seduction
This course will look at works of erotic and emotional persuasion: some represent seductions, some (love poems and love letters) are intended as persuasive documents themselves, while others (some first person narratives) are arguably designed to seduce the reader. As we explore material from antiquity through the 21st century, we will examine the ways in which the idea of seduction has (or has not) changed, and what cultural conceptions of seduction say about ideologies of gender, subjectivity, sexuality, and literary representation. Texts will include works by Ovid, Plutarch, Keats, Wilde, Bronte, Nabokov, Rostand, Laclos, Wittig, and others; numerous historical documents and theoretical texts; and contemporary treatments of the subject from Nora Roberts to Cosmo to Neil Strauss. (This course satisfies the ENAM seminar requirement; this course meets the major requirement for WAGS 0400 for 2011-2012 only). Sem.
Spring 2012
ENAM 0500 - Special Project: Lit ▲ ▹
Special Project: Literature
Approval Required.
Winter 2010, Spring 2010, Fall 2011, Winter 2012, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Winter 2014, Spring 2014
ENAM 0560 - Special Project: Writing
Special Project: Creative Writing
(Approval Required)
Winter 2010, Spring 2010, Fall 2011
ENAM 0700 - Senior Essay: Critical Writing ▹
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.
Spring 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014
ENAM 0701 - Senior Essay: Creative Writing
Senior Essay: Creative Writing
Discussions, workshops, tutorials for those undertaking one-term projects in the writing of fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction.
Spring 2010, Fall 2011
ENAM 0710 - Senior Thesis: Critical Writ. ▲ ▹
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.
Winter 2010, Spring 2010, Fall 2011, Winter 2012, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Winter 2014, Spring 2014
ENAM 0711 - Senior Thesis: Creative Writ.
Senior Thesis: Creative Writing
Discussions, workshops, tutorials for those undertaking two-term projects in the writing of fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction.
Winter 2010, Spring 2010
FYSE 1341 - The Bronte Sisters
The Brontë Sisters
Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë produced some of the most outstanding and outrageous fiction and poetry in English. In this course we will read four of their novels: the classic Jane Eyre and the somber, visionary Villette (both by Charlotte), the wild and gothic Wuthering Heights (Emily’s only novel), and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (by Anne), a strident critique of women’s social oppression. In addition, we will read some of their poetry and their fanciful juvenilia. Readings will also include theoretical, historical, and biographical essays about the Brontës’ lives and literature. 3 hrs. sem.
Fall 2011
FYSE 1395 - Literature on Trial
Literature on Trial: Banned Books, Dangerous Books, Dirty Books
Some of the best-known works of literature—from Animal Farm to Madame Bovary to The Satanic Verses—have been banned, removed from library shelves, forbidden in schools, or otherwise condemned at the state or national level. The reasons for such censorship vary as widely as the troublesome texts themselves: works are outlawed for obscenity, religious blasphemy, political dissent, or other conflicts with the reigning socio-political system. In this course we will read a range of works banned by various countries; in addition, we will read reports of the legal and political debate which accompanied the censorship of these works. 3 hrs. sem.
Fall 2013