English Elective Courses
EN 093 An Introduction to Modern Irish I (Fall: 3)
This course continues in second semester as SL 028/EN 094
The Irish language in its cultural environment: a course for total beginners.
Over the course of the semester, we'll aim to develop conversational and
compositional skills and, in particular, your ability to read Irish prose
and poetry. Texts and lectures will also introduce you to major themes in
Irish history and culture associated with the rise and fall of Gaelic over
the centuries. In the spring semester you can build on what you've gained
and later, if you wish, fulfill your A&S language requirement by completing
the two semesters of Continuing Modern Irish.
Joseph Nugent
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 094 An Introduction to Modern Irish II (Spring: 3)
Prerequisite:
SL 027/EN 093
A continuation of EN 093, this course offers a continuing introduction to
the Irish language for American students. We will continue to emphasize
pronunciation, linguistic structures and grammar points. Our aim will be
to increase our capacity to read and pronounce contemporary texts with
the aid of a dictionary and to enlarge our understanding of the cultural
heritage out of which the language emerged. Completion of this and Continuing
Modern Irish will fulfill the A&S language requirement.
Joseph Nugent
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 097 Continuing Modern Irish I (Fall: 3)
This is a continuing course in modern Irish for those with a basic knowledge
of the language. Emphasis will be on developing the ability to read contemporary
literature in various genres. With the skills we developed in An Introduction
to Modern Irish, we'll progress towards further vocabulary and work
especially to improve our abilities with translation of modern poetry and
prose. Completion of the second semester of Continuing Modern Irish will
fulfill the Arts and Sciences language proficiency requirement.
Joseph Nugent
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 098 Continuing Modern Irish II (Spring: 3)
Prerequisite:
EN097
In this completion of the two-year cycle of Irish language learning, we
will engage deeply with modern texts and work with Irish through other media—psound
and film. You will become familiar with contemporary texts and will engage
in a sustained project of reading and translating in the original Irish
one or more of the great works of literature written in Irish.
Joseph Nugent
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 110 Classical and Biblical Backgrounds of English Literature (Spring: 3)
The goals for this course include: (1) exposure to a broad range of Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew literature in translation (myths, histories, authors,
characters, plots, themes); (2) attentiveness to what is at stake, theoretically
and practically, in translation into English; and (3) the development of
comparatist practices of reading that respect cultural differences. Emphasis
on the Homeric epics, Greek tragedies, the more conspicuously literary parts
of the Hebrew Bible, and the metamorphoses of the Greek and Hebrew traditions
in the Roman world during the transition to the Common Era.
Dayton Haskin
Last Updated: 24-JAN-13
EN 125 Introduction to Feminisms (Fall/Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
HS148, PS125, SC225
Fulfills Women Writer's requirement for EN/LSOE majors.
This introductory course offers both an overview and a foundation for understanding
the various movements that make up what has come to be called the feminist
movement in the U.S. Because systems of privilege and disadvantage shape
women's and men's identities and social positions in multiple and unique
ways, Introduction to Feminisms analyzes gender from an interdisciplinary
approach and applies numerous academic disciplinary methods to the study
of gender, including history, literature, psychology, and sociology, and
explores women's and men's experiences within various cultural contexts,
including socioeconomic class, race and ethnicity, religion and spirituality,
nations of citizenship, origin and generation.
Stephanie May
Last Updated: 14-MAR-13
EN 131 Studies in Poetry (Fall/Spring: 3)
The goals of the course are close reading of poetry, developing the student's
ability to ask questions which open poems to analysis, and writing lucid
interpretative papers.
The Department
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 131.01 Studies in Poetry (Fall 2012-2013: 3)
This section of Studies in Poetry is designed for students who love poetry
and are eager to explore the work of contemporary poets (Mark Doty, Brian
Turner, Sharon Olds, Peter Balakian) as well as the poetry of canonical
figures including Keats, Donne, Dickinson, Hopkins, Plath, Marvell, Frost
and Stevens. In addition to focusing on the close reading of poetry, we
will study poetic forms and critical terms. We will conclude the semester
by thinking about the way that poetic form shapes the lyrical novel, using
Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse as our example. Requirements
include a series of quizzes on technical material as well as five short
critical essays due over the course of the semester.
Laura Tanner
Last Updated: 14-JAN-13
EN 131.05 Studies in Poetry (Fall 2013-2014: 3)
An introduction to the close reading of poetry. Focusing on the short lyric,
we will read a range of poets, beginning with Shakespeare's sonnets. Our
guiding questions will be both theoretical and practical: What is poetic
form? Is it intrinsic to each poem? If not, how much background knowledge
(biographical, historical, technical) do we need to understand and enjoy
poems, especially those of the past? Likely candidates for emphasis include
John Keats, Adrienne Rich, and Elizabeth Bishop.
Andrew Sofer
Last Updated: 01-FEB-13
EN 131.11 Studies in Poetry (Fall 2013-2014: 3)
Close reading of poems, mainly lyric, from the 16th to the 20th century,
with attention to metrical patterns and formal structures. Our main focus
will be on the devices and uses of language that poets employ to express
their ideas and feelings and to elicit certain responses from the reader.
Several analytical papers and other written exercises will be assigned over
the course of the semester.
Robert Kern
Last Updated: 25-JAN-13
EN 133 Studies in Narrative (Fall/Spring: 3)
This course introduces students to questions that they might bring to the
study of narrative works—primarily novels, tales, and non-fictional
narratives, though it may also include drama, film, and narrative poems.
It aims to introduce the various critical frames through which we construct
interpretations. As part of the process of reading, students will be introduced
to common critical terms; narrative genres, conventions, and discourses;
the construction of the character and the ways of representing consciousness;
and the ordering of narrative time. The course will also expose the student
to the implications of taking critical positions.
The Department
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 133.06 Studies in Narrative (Spring 2013-2014: 3)
This course aims to foster a deep appreciation for the art of literary narrative,
and to develop a sophisticated vocabulary with which to assess and interpret
these narratives. The particular skills of literary analysis you will learn
in this course, namely: close reading, learning to speak and write within
the parameters of a given discourse, and constructing an argument, are not
merely academic but "life skills" that extend beyond literature and the
classroom. Texts will include "great" novels as well as works of literary
theory, and critical methodology.
Kalpana Seshadri
Last Updated: 30-JAN-13
EN 141 American Literary History I (Spring: 3)
Students need not take these courses in chronological order.
Fulfills
the pre-1900 requirement.
From Anne Bradstreet's meditation on the burning of her house to Thoreau's
determination to simply his life, from Frederick Douglass' denunciation
of slavery to the troubling passivity of Melville's Bartleby—EN 141
provides an overview of American literary history between the landing of
the Mayflower and the start of the Civil War. In addition to those
already mentioned, writers studied will include Mary Rowlandson, Edward
Taylor, Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Susanna
Rowson, and Walt Whitman.
Paul Lewis
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13
EN 142 American Literary History II (Fall: 3)
Fulfills pre-1900 requirement.
This is the second course surveying American literature, from the end of
the Civil War to World War I. It covers the literary movements of realism,
naturalism, and regionalism. It includes key literary figures such as Henry
James, Mark Twain, and Stephen Crane, as well as women writers (Kate Chopin,
Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton), immigrant writers (Abraham Cahan), and
African American writers (W. E. B. Du Bois and Charles Chesnutt). Topics
will include the role of capital, ethnicity and the transformation of urban
space, regional identity, and ongoing struggles relating to race, class
and gender.
Lori Harrison-Kahan
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13
EN 143 American Literary History III (Fall: 3)
This course will provide an introductory overview of literature written
in America from World War I to the present. We will focus on the relationship
between cultural tensions and narrative or poetic strategies, as well as
the literary periods of modernism and post-modernism. In our analysis of
primary texts by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Eliot, Larsen, DeLillo
and others, we will explore constructions of national identity, governing
myths of the American Dream, the development of commodity culture, the place
of the family, the significance of space, the construction of narrative
subjectivity, and issues of gender, race and class.
Laura Tanner
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13
EN 143.01 American Literary History III (Fall 2013-2014: 3)
This course will provide an introductory overview of literature written
in America from World War I to the present. We will contextualize specific
literary works within historical, cultural and aesthetic frameworks, focusing
on the impact of World War I on literature, the relationship between cultural
tensions and narrative or poetic strategies, and the literary periods of
modernism and post-modernism. A series of student presentations on issues,
texts and events in twentieth century American history, art and popular
culture will set the stage for the literary works we will study by providing
a sense of the cultural conflicts, historical events and artistic breakthroughs
of the twentieth century. The class will focus on novels including Hemingway's
A Farewell to Arms, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Hurston's
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, DeLillo's
White Noise and Morrison's Beloved. We will also read poetry
by Eliot, Stevens and Olds, short fiction by Alexie, Diaz, Moore, O'Brien,
Gen and Lahiri, as well as two plays. Requirements for the course include
class participation and attendance, an oral presentation, two critical essays,
a midterm and a final exam. Interested and enthusiastic students from outside
the English major are welcome to attend.
Laura Tanner
Last Updated: 23-JAN-13
EN 170 Introduction to British Literature and Culture I (Fall: 3)
Fulfills the pre-1700 requirement.
This course, along with Introduction to British Literature and Culture II,
given the following semester, will offer an historical survey of British
literature from Beowulf to the present. This first part will cover the
Middle Ages, Renaissance, Restoration, and earlier Eighteenth-Century literature,
offering a basic map of British literature and culture as they developed
during these periods and introducing the major authors and cultural themes,
as well as lesser known authors and historical background.
Mary Crane
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13
EN 171 Introduction to British Literature and Culture II (Spring: 3)
Fulfills the pre-1900 requirement.
This lecture course explores great British writers from 1700 to the present.
This period includes (among much else) the great essayists and satirists
of the eighteenth century, the Romantic poets and Victorian novelists of
the nineteenth, the modernists of the twentieth, and the world writing that
follows the break-up of the British empire. We consider these works in light
of the cultural context in which they were written.
James Najarian
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 175 Jewish Writers in Russia and America (Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
SL375
Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement
All readings and classes conducted in English.
The experience of Jewish writers living in Russia and America from the 1880s
until the present, examined through prose, poetry, drama, and memoirs written
in English or translated into English from Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew.
The responses of Jewish writers to Zionism, the Russian Revolution, and
the Holocaust with attention to anti-Semitism, emigration, limits of assimilation,
and the future of Jews in Russia and America. The works of authors such
as An-sky, Babel, Bagritskii, Bellow, Bialik, Erenburg, Malamud, Arthur
Miller, Ozick, Philip Roth, Sholom Aleikhem, and Ulitskaia.
Maxim D. Shrayer
Last Updated: 24-JAN-13
EN 201 Versions in Black: Genres of Black Women's Writing (Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
BK201
Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement
The phrase "Black Women's Writing" suggests that such writing is a fixed
or homogeneous body of work that can be neatly defined and represented.
Our course constitutes itself against this idea. By re-thinking these
works, we also re-examine notions of literary canon, race, gender, sexuality,
community, and history. Significantly, we "de-construct" common notions
of Black Women's Writing by examining the varied genres these writers use
to express their imaginings. Required readings come from the fields of
science fiction (Octavia Butler), prose/experimental (Gayl Jones and Martha
Southgate) novels, drama (Suzan-Lori Parks), poetry (Elizabeth Alexander),
and autobiography/memoir (Toi Derricotte).
Rhonda Frederick
Last Updated: 22-JAN-13
EN 204 London: A History in Verse (Spring: 3)
Capitalizing on Mark Ford's recent collection of poetry that engages with
one of the world's great cities, this new course aims to explore, and to
enhance pleasure in, poems that span about six centuries of urban experience.
For counterpoint, there will be intermittent forays into the country, with
some classical pastoral poems in modern translation and glimpses from the
likes of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Frost, and Elizabeth Bishop.
Dayton Haskin
Last Updated: 25-JAN-13
EN 212 Introduction to Medical Humanities (Spring: 3)
An exploration of health and illness in literary texts, from the classical
period to the present. Topics will include the representation of woundedness
and isolation; contagion and contamination; cultural fascination with and
apprehension of embodied "otherness;" writing about pain; metaphors of disease;
the peculiar associations between health and beauty in contemporary culture;
visualism in health care practices; the shape of debates about end-of-life
decisions. Primary texts may include works by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Montaigne,
Bacon, Camus, Grealy, Audre Lorde, Anatole Broyard, Ann Fadiman, and Margaret
Edsel; theoretical readings by Elaine Scarry, Susan Sontag, Rosemarie Thomson
Garland, and Byron Good.
Amy Boesky
Last Updated: 28-JAN-13
EN 221 Introduction to Creative Writing (Fall/Spring: 3)
An introductory course in which students will write both poetry and short
fiction and read published examples of each. We will experiment with the
formal possibilities of the two genres and look at what links and separates
them. The course is workshop-based, with an emphasis on steady production
and revision. Through exercises and/or open and directed writing assignments,
students will produce a portfolio of short fiction and poetry.
The Department
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 224 Post-Soviet Russian Literature (Fall: 3)
Cross Listed with
SL224
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, dramatic cultural shifts have
transformed Russian literature--writers no longer work under the "red pencil"
of censorship, but like writers in the West, under the "censorship" of the
marketplace. Crime fiction vies with more highbrow literature, and post-modern
themes and devices prevail among a younger generation less influenced by
a classical or Soviet heritage. Diversity (e.g., gender and ethnic identities),
newly acquired tastes, and a predictable tension between Soviet and post-Soviet
values characterize works by Boris Akunin, Valeriia Narbikova, Viktor Pelevin,
Nina Sadur, Vladimir Sorokin, Olga Slavnikova, and Liudmila Ulitskaia.
Cynthia Simmons
Maxim D. Shrayer
Last Updated: 05-FEB-13
EN 227 Classics of Russian Literature (in translation) (Fall: 3)
Cross Listed with
SL222
Offered periodically
Conducted entirely in English
Undergraduate major
elective
Required for Russian majors
A survey of selected major works, authors, genres and movements in 19th-century
Russian literature, with emphasis on the classic works by Pushkin, Lermontov,
Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. All readings and discussions
are in English.
Cynthia Simmons
Last Updated: 30-JAN-13
EN 235 Second Voices: 21st Century American Fiction by Immigrants (Spring: 3)
This course will examine the fiction and essays of several 21st-century
writers who have immigrated to the US. While each text raises a different
exile, choice, national and trans-national identities. Looking closely
at language itself, we will ask what it might meant for some of these writers
to be writing in their second language. Texts by Edwidge Danticat, Junot
Diaz, Dinaw Mengestu, Gary Shteyngart, Ha Jin, and Iris Gomez. Writer Edwidge
Danticat will visit campus in March. Students are required to attend two
of her events outside of class.
Elizabeth Graver
Last Updated: 28-JAN-13
EN 237 Studies in Children's Literature: Disney and the Wondertale (Fall: 3)
Disney films have remained outside the critical landscape because they have
been considered either beneath artistic attention or beyond reproach. The
goal of this course will be to explore the issues presented in such Disney
films as The Lion King, Aladdin, Prince of Egypt, and Pocahontas.
To do this, we will read source material (The Arabian Nights, Hamlet,
tales about Pocahontas, Bible stories about Moses, Exodus, etc.) and secondary
studies.
Bonnie Rudner
Last Updated: 23-JAN-13
EN 240 Modern Theater and Drama (Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
CT365
This upper-level theatre studies course traces the development of modern
European drama from Ibsen to Beckett, or roughly speaking, from 1875 to
1975. Other major dramatists to be studied include Strindberg, Chekhov,
Shaw, Pirandello, Brecht, Genet, and Ionesco. The various movements within
modernism -- naturalism, symbolism, expressionism, futurism, and surrealism
-- are also examined. Students are expected to read one or two plays a week,
write two substantial papers, and take a comprehensive exam.
Dr. Stuart J. Hecht
Last Updated: 24-JAN-13
EN 246 Introduction to Asian American Literature (Fall: 3)
Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement
This course is a broad introduction to Asian American literature, criticism,
and culture. This means that we will read at least one book-length work
from each of the following ethnic groups: Filipino, Japanese, Chinese,Korean,
South Asian, and Vietnamese. Together, the readings provide us with an opportunity
to reflect on the long sweep of Asians in America struggling togive expression
to their experiences. Discussion will often touch on many sensitive topics,
so I wish to emphasize the importance of keeping an open mind, being respectful
of others' opinions, and keeping up with the reading.
Min Song
Last Updated: 23-JAN-13
EN 260 Talking Things in the 18th Century (Spring: 3)
Eighteenth-century texts through the lens of "thing theory," a theoretical
approach addressing how inanimate objects help to form and transform human
beings. During the eighteenth century, what did objects mean? How
did people understand their things as things? We will read classic works,
including Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Pope's The Rape of the Lock,
and Swift's Gulliver's Travels, among other works, alongside relevant
thing theory. We will also explore how human beings were treated as objects
under chattel slavery. This class offers expertise in the practice of "thing
theory" and access to a eighteenth-century texts from a number of genres.
Elizabeth Wallace
Last Updated: 25-JAN-13
EN 277 Introduction to American Studies (Spring: 3)
This course offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of American
culture. It is not a survey of American cultural history; rather, we will
concentrate on approaches, methods, and themes of interest as we assemble
critical skills for making interpretive arguments about aspects of culture
in their historical moment. The forms we analyze will include examples from
literature, film, painting, music, theater, landscape, and architecture,
among others. Members of the American Studies faculty will present guest
lectures to highlight various aspects of the field.
Lori Harrison-Kahan
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13
EN 307 History of the English Language (Spring: 3)
Satisfies Lynch School of Education Requirements for English Majors
(HEL/Grammer/Syntax)
This course provides a cultural history of English over 1500 years. We examine
basic linguistic processes (meanings, sentence structure, sounds, spellings,
word formation); follow the phases of English (Indo-European, Germanic,
Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Modern English), and
interrogate notions of correctness, "standard"/"non-standard," "literary"
language, simplified language, spelling reform, pidgins and Creoles, the
increasing dominance and variety of English around the world, and the powerful
influence of cyberspace. Along the way, we will read historical events such
as invasions, political and intellectual revolutions, immigration, emigration,
and cultural assimilation as shaping forces in the living entity of the
language.
Robert Stanton
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13
EN 307.01 History of the English Language (Spring 2013-2014: 3)
This course reads English language and culture through one another over
the 1500-year history of English. and word formation. We will begin with
some of the basic concepts of language and language change, including semantics
(how words mean), syntax (sentence structure), phonology (where sounds come
from and how they are made), orthography (the bizarre English spelling system
and how it came to be), and morphology (how words are put together). From
there we will move to the prehistory of English, including the Indo-European
language family and where English fits into it. Then we will work chronologically,
moving through Old English (before 1100), Middle English (12th-15th centuries),
Early Modern English (16th-18th centuries), and Modern English (18th century-present).
We will look at issues of language use, such as the notion of linguistic
correctness, the construction of "standard" and "non-standard" English,
"literary" language, simplified or plain language, spelling reform, pidgins
and creoles, the increasing hegemony of English on a world scale, and the
important variations of English around the world. Along the way, we will
read historical events such as invasions, political and intellectual revolutions,
immigration, emigration and cultural assimilation as shaping forces in the
living entity of the language. Grammatical and linguistic terms and ideas
will be explained in as much detail as necessary. No previous background
in early English is required, and there will be enough language instruction
to allow you to delight in the difference of more youthful Englishes.
Robert Stanton
Last Updated: 30-JAN-13
EN 310 Shakespeare (Spring: 3)
Fulfills the pre-1700 requirement.
An introduction, placing Shakespeare's drama in the historical and theatrical
contexts of his time. Topics will include Shakespeare's professional career;
the playhouses for which he wrote; the structure of Elizabethan playing
companies; Elizabethan stage conventions such as blank verse, doubling,
and cross-dressing; and the textual and performance histories of his plays.
There will be two substantial papers and a final. Since one learns much
about Shakespeare on one's feet, the collaborative staging of a scene is
also required, along with active class participation.
Andrew Sofer
Last Updated: 25-JAN-13
EN 318 Nineteenth Century American Poetry (Spring: 3)
Fulfills the pre-1900 requirement.
A study of the four major canonical figures of 19th Century American poetry—Emerson,
Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson—with briefer consideration of such "fireside"
poets as Bryant, Longfellow, and Whittier, and some of the popular women
poets, especially Lydia Sigourney.
Robert Kern
Last Updated: 17-OCT-11
EN 412 Writing Workshop: Creative Nonfiction (Fall/Spring: 3)
Over the past few decades, the best nonfiction being written has expanded
to include not only such traditional forms as argument and exposition but
also the mixed modes of creative nonfiction. As an intermediate-level course,
we will build on the work of the First Year Writing Seminar and hone the
skills needed in advanced writing electives. Students in this course choose
their own topics and explore the range of possibilities now available to
the nonfiction writer.
The Department
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 412.10 Writing Workshop: Creative Nonfiction (Spring 2013-2014: 3)
This is an introductory level non-fiction writing course open to majors
(especially writing concentrators) and non-majors alike. Students will read
a number of creative non-fiction essays, to use perhaps as models, but more
to familiarize them with the possibilities and practices of the genre. Students
will be expected to submit 40-50 written pages for a grade at the end of
the semester. The class itself is primarily a workshop in which students
analyze and evaluate each other's work. There are also conferences at several
times during the semester.
George O'Har
Last Updated: 28-JAN-13
EN 417 The Politics and Literature of the Irish Nation, 1800-1922 (Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
HS417
Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement
Offered Periodically
Explores Irish literature and history during a century of turbulent social
and political change--as Ireland moved from Union with Great Britain (1800)
to rebellion and independence. (1921). By studying some key works of fiction
(Edgeworth, Owenson, Carleton, Somerville and Ross), poetry (Ferguson, Mangan,
Davis, Yeats), and drama (Boucicault, Yeats, Synge), we will examine contesting
visions of national identity as well as evidence about Ireland's material
culture. We will also explore the connections between literary works and
the political rhetoric and actions of a rapidly changing society. Whenever
appropriate, we will look at the cultural evidence of visual art as well.
Vera Kreilkamp
Last Updated: 24-JAN-13
EN 476 Studies in Words (Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
SL376, CL386
The ways of words in the life of language as seen through the linguistic
techniques of morphology, lexicography, semantics, pragmatics and etymology.
Aspects examined include: word formation, word origins, nests of words,
winged words, words at play, words and material culture, writing systems,
the semantic representations of words, bytes and words, the creative word,
the Word made flesh, awkward words, dirty words, dialect vocabulary, salty
words, fighting words, words at prayer, new words, and the Great Eskimo
vocabulary hoax.
M.J. Connolly
Last Updated: 24-JAN-13
EN 502 Boston: History, Literature and Culture II (Spring: 3)
Covering the period from the Civil War to the present, this is the second
half of a two-semester, interdisciplinary course on Boston's history, literature,
and culture. Team-taught by a History and an English professor, and drawing
on faculty in other departments and experts in the Boston area to provide
insights into Boston's culture broadly defined, the class examines Boston's
literature, film, art, music, and other cultural forms in relation to political
and social developments. Site visits will take students out to the streets,
museums, and archives of one of the most historic cities in the United States.
Carlo Rotella
David Quigley
Last Updated: 31-JAN-13
EN 531 Race in Literature (Fall: 3)
This course examines the cultural diversity of American literature. It focuses
on the themes of self-invention and re-invention in multi-ethnic texts with
an emphasis on African American and immigrant writers. Genres and topics
include: slave narratives, passing novels and the color line, coming-of-age
stories, assimilation and Americanization, Orientalism, blackface performance,
whiteness and the Africanist presence, transnationalism, urbanism and regionalism,
multiracial and post-race identities, and post-9/11 immigrant experiences.
Although the primary focus will be the relationship between race and nation,
we will also consider how gender, sexuality, and class intersect with ethno-racial
difference. Two lectures and one discussion section each week.
Lori Harrison-Kahan
Last Updated: 31-JAN-13
EN 588 Business Writing (Fall/Spring: 3)
For CSOM students, the course is also available as MH 588.
This course is designed to expose students to the type of writing done on
the job. It is a practical course where real-life examples are used to
illustrate appropriate writing strategies, style, language and formats commonly
found in a business setting. By the end of the semester, students will
be proficient in producing business correspondence, instructions, reports,
proposals, resumes, and presentation materials.
Department
Last Updated: 25-APR-13
EN 599 Undergraduate Reading and Research (Fall/Spring: 3)
The Department
Last Updated: 05-DEC-12
EN 627 Capstone: Ways of Knowing (Spring: 3)
Cross Listed with
UN513
Capstone:Ways of Knowing offers seniors the opportunity to examine the workings
of memory in a variety of texts--fiction, poetry, memoir, and film, public
memorials and community rituals--and to develop related reflections that
also explore their own memories and the ways in which these give meaning
to the present and may help to discern the future. A discussion and writing
course, texts will come from such writers and artists as Toni Morrison,
Chang-Rae Lee, Michael MacDonald, Sherman Alexie, and Zakes Mda, filmmaker
Marlon Riggs, playwright Athol Fugard, and poets Elizabeth Bishop, Philip
Levine, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Martin Espada.
Carol Hurd Green
Last Updated: 30-JAN-13
EN 637 Capstone: The Vision Quest: A Multicultural Approach to Self-Discovery (Fall: 3)
Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement
We will use the Vision Quest, a Native American ritual for finding oneself,
as a metaphor for four years at Boston College. Relating their own lives
to the lives of the characters, who have all gone on some variation of a
quest, students will explore ways their education and experiences at college
have prepared them to face the great mystery of life ahead. The main texts
include: The Grass Dancer, The Life of Pi, Go Tell It On the Mountain,
The Bonesetter's Daughter, and How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents,
and the films Thunderheart and The Whale Rider.
Dorothy Miller
Last Updated: 10-JAN-13