North Carolina Campus, 2012 Courses
Group I (Writing, Pedagogy, and Literacy)
7002 Poetry: Reading for Writing/E. Shockley/M, W 2–5:00
There is no better way to gain a fuller understanding of what is possible in the creation of poetry than to read and read and read poetry. In this course, which is half workshop, half adventures-in-contemporary-poetry, we will dive into some exciting collections of poetry published within the last two decades and see what they can teach us and inspire in us for our own writing. The selected texts feature poets who employ a diverse range of aesthetics but who (mostly) have in common a Southern background. Written assignments will include prose (analysis and explication) as well as poems. (This course can be used to satisfy a Group IV requirement.)
Texts: Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split (TriQuarterly/Northwestern); Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box (Penguin); Sawako Nakayasu, Texture Notes (Letter Machine); Lee Ann Brown, The Sleep That Changed Everything (Wesleyan); Alena Hairston, The Logan Topographies (Persea); Sebastian Matthews, We Generous (Red Hen).
7121 Literacy as a Civil Right/M. Winn/M, W 9–11:45
This seminar will examine research and scholarship that challenges educators, teacher educators, and policy makers to demand critical literacies for all people and, more specifically, for youth who have been marginalized socially, educationally, economically, and politically in the context of the United States. Throughout this course, students will examine the significance of upholding literacy as both a “civil” and “human” right. Students will explore the consequences of considering literacy as a “civil right” by asking: What counts as literacy? Who gets to be considered “literate”? How do language and power impact schooling and education? Topics include tensions and conflicts in the teaching and learning of literacy in urban public schools, the school-to-prison pipeline, youth-centered research methodologies and student-centered literacy education, and future directions for the field of language, literacy, and culture. While the readings for the seminar are primarily from scholarly books and journals, there will also be opportunities to engage policy reports and briefs produced by nonprofit organizations.
Texts: Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniv. ed. (Continuum); Literacy as a Civil Right, ed. Stuart Greene (Lang); Ernest Morrell, Critical Literacy and Urban Youth (Routledge); Quality Education as a Constitutional Right, ed. Theresa Perry et al. (Beacon); Maisha Winn, Girl Time: Literacy, Justice, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Teachers College); and a course pack available through the Middlebury Bookstore.
7190 Ways of Reading, Ways of Writing/L. Engle and H. Laird/T, Th 9–11:45
This course will investigate modes and methods, some traditional and some innovative, of reading and writing. Reading literary texts from the Renaissance to the present, and contemporary essays, the class will emphasize the ways engaged reading is enacted and completed through critical writing—exploring the special challenges and pleasures of writing about the written word. Class sessions will be workshop-based and will focus on various skills and formulations involved in reading and writing about literature, with some attention to pedagogy. Collaboration in thinking, reading, writing, and teaching will be emphasized. With guidance from the instructors and from each other, students will develop a portfolio of varied writing to submit at the course’s end. For Mr. Engle’s workshops, we’ll read pieces by Appiah, Berger, Butler, Carson, Foucault, Freire, and Wallace from Ways of Reading, lyrics by Wyatt, Sidney, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Milton, and Marvell from the Norton volume B (and perhaps other readings as well). For Ms. Laird’s workshops, students will have relative freedom to choose which essays they wish to work with in Ways of Reading; and reading assignments from the Norton volume 2 will be minimal—when reading prior to the summer session, please pick and choose from these volumes at your own pleasure. (This course can be used to satisfy a Group III requirement.)
Texts: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. B and Vol. 2, both 8th ed., both volumes ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (Norton); Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers, 9th ed., ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky (Bedford/St. Martin’s).
Group II (British Literature through the Seventeenth Century)
7210a Chaucer/P. DeMarco/T, Th 2–4:45
Chaucer was the first English writer who aspired to become a poet of lasting fame, the first to emerge out of the shadows of anonymity and construct himself as an "author" in our modern sense of the term. Even though his habitual narrative persona was modest and self-effacing, he took on a daunting range of genres. In this course, we'll study the The Canterbury Tales intensively, moving from Chaucer's refined explorations of the psychology of love, to his fast-paced tales of sexual exploits and urban cunning, to his more serious, philosophical explorations of what it means to act as a meaningful agent in the world. With the help of background readings, we will consider how Chaucer situated himself in relation to his royal patrons while also registering the social dynamism of a vibrant commercial London urban center. Our interpretive discussions will range as broadly as Chaucer's interests, but will certainly include questions of identity (gender, class) and subjectivity ("the self" as it was shaped by pre-modern ideals of communal/corporate belonging). We will also consider how the Tales invite their Christian readers to engage imaginatively with "other" faiths (Judaism, Islam) and cultures (especially pagan antiquity). Gaining a solid working knowledge of Chaucer's Middle English is one goal of the course, but no previous experience is assumed or needed.
Texts: The Canterbury Tales, ed. R. Boenig and A. Taylor (Broadview; please purchase this edition, which includes source texts as well as Chaucer's complete text); Chaucer: An Oxford Guide, ed. Steve Ellis (Oxford) provides background readings in the culture of the era; the 14 chapters of Part I, "Historical Contexts," should be read before our first meeting.
7251 Early Shakespeare: Love and Cruelty/L. Engle/T, Th 2–4:45
This course will explore the first half of Shakespeare’s career in readings of history plays, comedies, poems, and sonnets. Shakespeare tracks relations between love and socio-political engagement in all of these, and he takes a particular interest in relations among love, pain, and cruelty in both public and private life. We’ll read both historical tetralogies (Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3; Richard III; Richard II; Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2; Henry V) as well as King John; we’ll also read the Sonnets, A Midummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice. The course has both a pedagogical and a critical agenda. I assume that students in it will at some point have the opportunity to teach Shakespeare, and I will provide ideas about how that can be done. At the same time, I’ll introduce students to contemporary Shakespeare criticism and give them some idea of its richness and variety. Students should come prepared to act: all students will memorize a part and perform a scene from a play, with extensive coaching in advance from the instructor. Other assignments will include weekly reading notes, a teaching segment, a shorter essay (c. 1,500 words), a longer essay (c. 3,000 words), and group exercises in criticism.
Text: The Norton Shakespeare, Vol. 1: Early Plays and Poems, 2nd ed., ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (Norton).
Group III (British Literature since the Seventeenth Century)
7190 Ways of Reading, Ways of Writing/L. Engle and H. Laird/T, Th 9–11:45
See the description under Group I offerings. This course can be used to satisfy a Group III requirement.
7360b The Victorians Revisited/H. Laird/T, Th 2–4:45
Through exploring novels, stories, poetry, autobiography, and prose, this course will question retrospective judgments that have clung to the Victorians, like those of their didacticism, repressiveness, morbidity, stagnation, effetism, or general failure to live up to romanticist and/or modernist norms. The class will return Victorianism to a more fully intertexual context, resisting the tendency in modern scholarship to isolate Victorian “genres" from each other. We will attend to the Victorians’ explicit engagements with social, philosophical, political, and aesthetic questions, alongside sounding the pleasures of these texts. While not required, it would be helpful if students had read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre at some point prior to our first meeting.
Texts: William Makepeace Thackeray, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. (Oxford); Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford (Oxford); Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (Oxford); John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (Penguin); Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm (Penguin); The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory (concise ed.), ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle (Broadview).
Group IV (American Literature)
7002 Poetry: Reading for Writing/E. Shockley/ M, W 2–5:00
See the description under Group I offerings. This course can be used to satisfy a Group IV requirement.
7591a Faulkner/S. Donadio/T, Th 9–11:45
An intensive reading of the major works, for those interested in securing a comprehensive grasp of this author's artistic achievements during the most important phase of his career.
Texts: William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Sanctuary; As I Lay Dying; Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; The Wild Palms; Go Down, Moses; Collected Stories. Except for the Collected Stories (Vintage paperback), these works are all included in the Library of America volumes devoted to William Faulkner: Novels 1926-1929; Novels 1930-1935; Novels 1936-1940; Novels 1942-1954. (There is also a fifth volume that includes works published in the author’s final years.) Throughout the session, all of our detailed discussions will refer to the first four Library of America volumes, which students are expected to purchase—new or used—in advance. These durable hardbound volumes are available at discount from numerous sources, and in addition to containing extremely useful chronologies and notes, they represent a wiser and significantly more economical investment than any paperback editions.
7646 Contemporary Narratives of Slavery/E. Shockley/M, W 9–12:00
Some of the most widely read and highly acclaimed novels of the past few decades have been set during the era of slavery: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World, both Pulitzer Prize winners, among others. Such works tell narratives of the impact of slavery on the lives of black people—enslaved and free, during the antebellum period and since—from their perspectives, as the authors imagine them. This course will consider the significance of contemporary narratives of slavery to the African American literary tradition, in terms of such questions as: What draws late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century writers to revisit this historical territory? What can creative inquiries into the lives of the enslaved teach us about contemporary African American subject positions? How do writers imagine the subjectivity of people who were only rarely allowed to tell their stories during the long centuries of slavery in the Americas? Issues of agency and resistance, gender and sexuality, cultural memory, the definition of freedom, and the limitations of history will also connect the texts we take up.
Texts: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself and Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs (Modern Library, dual ed.); Octavia Butler, Kindred (Beacon); Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose (William Morrow); Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (Scribner); Edward P. Jones, The Known World (Amistad); Thylias Moss, Slave Moth (Persea); Toni Morrison, A Mercy (Vintage). Secondary readings will also be available at Bread Loaf.
7647 The Black Arts Movement/M. Winn/M, W 2–4:45
From 1965–1975 the United States witnessed the emergence of Black poets, writers, and artists who also positioned themselves as political activists, institution builders, literacy advocates, and architects of education for Black children. The Black Arts Movement (BAM), nested in the Black Power Movement, signaled a shift in priorities for Black artists; participants in these movements believed their creative endeavors were inextricably linked to the struggle for social justice and democratic engagement for marginalized peoples. The purpose of this seminar is to situate the literature of BAM in a larger discussion of citizenship and democracy in the U.S. using a range of sources: poetry, prose, films, documentaries, and community narratives. Through a rereading of the Black Power Movement, this seminar will re-examine the movement through the lens of citizenship and democracy and explore the ways in which poets, writers, and artists utilized their creative endeavors to agitate, educate, and organize through their works. (Students who have taken 7147 should not register for this course.)
Texts: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Dutchman and the Slave: Two Plays (HarperPerennial); Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing, ed. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal (Black Classic); Black Power: Music of a Revolution (CD), various artists (Shout Factory); Gwendolyn Brooks, Selected Poems (HarperPerennial); Maisha Fisher, Black Literate Lives: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge); Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (Vintage);Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (CD; RCA); T. Martin, Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts, and Harlem Renaissance (Majority).
Group V (World Literature)
7714 Vengeance/P. DeMarco/T, Th 9–11:45
“O what a brilliant day it is for vengeance!” —Aeschylus
The vengeance plot—or revenge as a theme—can be found in virtually every historical era of literature. In this course we will study a rich variety of treatments of vengeance beginning with ancient epic (Homer, The Iliad), turning to medieval epic (Dante, Inferno) and chivalric romance (Malory, Morte D'Arthur), and concluding with early modern drama (Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus). We'll examine how ancient value systems centered on honor/shame-shaped poetic ideals of the avenging hero, justice, and fate. As we turn to medieval literature, we'll explore the ways in which emerging judicial institutions and Christian theologies of atonement posed challenges to ancient ideals of vengeance and reappropriated earlier ideas of honor, vengeance, and pity. To enrich our understanding of our own culture's preoccupation with vengeance, we'll study the representation of vengeance in the modern western (Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino, director) and in modern renditions of classical narratives (Medea, Lars Von Trier, director). We will also examine theologies of divine vengeance, legal articulations of vengeance as a way to restore the balance to the scales of justice (as in the eye for an eye code of the lex talionis), and efforts to cast "revenge as a kind of wild justice" (Francis Bacon) outside the bounds of reason and civilized conduct. Finally, we'll draw on contemporary scholarship on the psychology of anger to better understand the motives that drive individuals to revenge, the goals that the avenger seeks, the pleasures (and, perhaps surprisingly, the lack of satisfaction) that the pursuit of vengeance provides.
Texts: Homer, The Iliad, ed. Bernard Knox, trans. Robert Fagles (Penguin); Dante, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Vol. 1, Inferno, trans. Robert Durling (Oxford); Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur: The Winchester Manuscript, ed. Helen Cooper (Oxford); William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, ed. Jonathan Bate (Arden 3rd Series). Please use the editions listed here since other editions differ quite markedly.
