SPRING 2008

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Class Numbers are included in parentheses following the course number.
List of all graduate course numbers.

6311-001 (5941).  SURVEY OF LITERARY CRITICISM.  11 TTh.  120 Dallas Hall.  Prof. Foster.

A survey of literary criticism and theory from some of the ancient roots of critical thought to contemporary literary practice: from Heraclitus to Badiou.  The purpose of the course is to provide the theoretical background necessary to understand the discipline of literary study. The course will require regular critical responses and several essays analyzing both critical and literary texts. 

Enrollment limit: Graduate Students only.

Texts: TBA

6335-001 (5946).  EARLY MODERN AMERICAN LITERATURE.  12:30 TTh.  Texana Room, DeGolyer Library.  Prof. Householder.

This course surveys written responses to the social, political, cultural, economic, and intellectual changes wrought on both sides of the Atlantic as a result of the English colonization of North America, from first contact to the burgeoning settlements of New England in the mid-seventeenth century. Although many of our readings will focus on English ventures and texts, and on familiar figures and events (e.g., the “lost colony” of Roanoke, John Smith and Pocahontas, the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving) we will also read some less familiar texts, including some by writers who were not English, or who never even traveled to the Americas, to help understand the origins and significance of these cultural icons.

Writing assignments: 15 page paper, research presentation, final examination.

Enrollment limit: Graduate Students only.

Texts: Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville; More, Utopia; Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies; Hariot, A Briefe and True Report; Strachey, A True Repertory of the Wracke; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Bradford et al., Mourt’s Relation; Wood, New England’s Prospect.
 

6340-001 (5947).  BRITISH LIT IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION.  2 W.  137 Dallas Hall.  Prof. Murfin.

An examination of eight British novels spanning the periods commonly referred to as Victorian, Edwardian, and modern, this iteration of English 6340 will focus more on social, sexual, and aesthetic revolutions than on specifically political upheavals.  We will read one early novel by each of the following authors:  Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist [1837]), George Eliot (Adam Bede [1859]), Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd [1874], and D. H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers [1913]).  Then we will study four later, more mature works by the same four novelists:  Bleak House [1852-3], Middlemarch [1871-72], Tess of the d’Urbervilles [1891], and Lady Chatterley’s Lover [1928].  Special emphasis will be placed on changing definitions of truth, fiction, and justice (especially but not exclusively in works by Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy)—as well as on evolving representations of interpersonal relationships involving friendship, romantic love, and sex (especially but not exclusively in works by Eliot, Hardy, and Lawrence).  Students will write two medium-length papers and take an essay final.  In addition, during the course of the semester, they will lead two discussions of passages chosen for their broad significance and make one bibliographic presentation involving an overview of recent criticism and scholarship.

Enrollment limit: Graduate Students only.

Texts: See above description.

7340-001 (5951).  SEMINAR IN BRITISH LITERATURE: MALORY.  2 M.  156 Dallas Hall.  Prof. Wheeler.
A study of Malory’s late fifteenth-century Arthurian in relation to its chivalric predecessors; genres and styles; role in shaping the idea of ‘England’; editorial history and hot spots; liminal status on edge of script and print cultures; classic and contemporary interpretations. Expectations: weekly ‘focus’ responses; regular oral presentations; significant seminar paper.

Enrollment limit: Graduate Students only.

Texts: Vinaver’s Works of Sir Thomas Malory (1 vol OUP pb) and other editions TBA.