University Course Description: This course explores a variety of topics in United States literature after 1865, often focusing on a particular theme or genre. A description of the specific topic offered will be posted prior to the registration period. All sections satisfy a requirement for the English major and concentration; an elective for the Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities major; and an Exploration requirement for the Core Curriculum. 3.00 credit hours. Topics may include (among others): Women of the West: Despite the American West’s reputation as a place where “men can be men,” women have always been there too, and these women participated equally with men in creating the West’s myths as well as its realities. Through examining women’s stories of the West, this course will explore the ways that the region functioned as a borderland or “contact zone” where gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual identities were destabilized and negotiated. We will also analyze the ways women used literature to represent their own relationship to the landscape, and we will consider the perspectives of both newcomers and those who call the region not “the West,” but simply “home.” Women’s YA Dystopias: Dystopian fiction envisions a bleak, often post-apocalyptic future in which people are subjugated and surveilled by social, political, and technological regimes; blighted by contagion and disease; and devastated by environmental catastrophe. This course takes up this genre with particular attention to the recent explosion of dystopian fiction written by women for young adult readers. How do women writers deploy this genre, often with strong female protagonists, to intervene in the world of the present, in which a new generation is coming of age in the shadow of climate change, social upheaval, war, dehumanization, and political repression, among myriad other existential threats? Who defines what is dystopic; whose definitions get normalized, and why? And how is dystopian fiction a site of productive, even positive, cultural work and social change in our own, present world? From Whitman to Hip Hop: One way to think of this course is as a kind of adventure, a journey that leads us to experience some of the wonders of a great tradition of literature in the United States that originates with Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in the 19th century and continues to flourish in marvelous ways—including in contemporary music such as Hip-Hop—right up to the present. Our itinerary focuses on the poetry that emerges during this period and assumes that many, if not most, of us feel that poetry is hard to read and understand—that we just can’t “get it.” But as we will see as we travel together across the landscape of this tradition and get a feel for its contours, one of its wonderful qualities is that much of it is accessible: we don’t need to have a special aptitude for poetry in order to experience its delights. This is an introductory-level course and does not require or assume any prior coursework in English. All are welcome!
3.000 Credit hours
Student Course Description: This course covers a plethora of fiction with a focus on female writers. Novels and readings will be based on post 1800 ideas, with inclusion of the “Western” ideas. Authors included will be Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson. Students will examine how literature has been shaped over the course of history especially with the female influence. They will also reach the examination of hip-hop and modern day text with examination of past influences.
