Courses Fall 2024
ENGL 10000-01 Exploring the Major HU LA 3A h
4 Credits
ICC ATTRIBUTE:N/A
INSTRUCTOR: Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT: 25 students per section
PREREQUISITES: None
COURSEDESCRIPTION:This course intends to assist scholars interested and/or majoring in Literatures in English (primarily those in their first or second year) with understanding and exploring opportunities available to them during their time at Ithaca College and after graduation. As part of this, you will learn about the mission of a liberal arts education and contemplate the purpose of college. You will also work to define your own purpose in coming to Ithaca College and choosing your major. Though the course is primarily discussion-based, current faculty members and students in the major will deliver guest presentations to introduce you to important information and connect you to useful resources. You will actively pursue knowledge of yourself, your educational options, extra-curricular and professional interests, and you will learn research, writing and decision-making strategies that will benefit you while in college and beyond. We will also dedicate time in class for your own questions to be discussed.
COURSEFORMAT/STYLE: Discussion with the occasional context-setting lecture
COURSEREQUIREMENTS: One 500-word personal reflection, and active participation in class discussions.
ENGL 11200-01, 02 INTRODUCTION TO SHORT STORY: THIS AMERICAN LIFE (LA)
4 CREDITS
ICC DESIGNATION: Perspectives: HU/CA; Themes: Identities/Inquiry, Imagination, and Innovation
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Hansom, 306 Muller, ext. 4-3563
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITE: None
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:25-11:05 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will read a wide range of American short fiction, gathered loosely around the themes of childhood, adolescence, adult relationships, aging and death. In the course of our reading and discussion, we will traverse issues related to American identity, especially as they are inflected by race, ethnicity, and gender. We will also become familiar with formal elements of the short story, including point of view, plot, tone, and dialogue. Over the course of the term, we will read a combination of classic and contemporary American stories. We will end the term by reading Alexander Weinstein’s collection, Children of the New World.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two short essays (2 pages), two longer essays (5-6 pages), a mid-term, a final exam, and class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 11300, Introduction to Poetry
4 Credits
ICC THEMES: Identities; Inquiry, Imagination, and Innovation ICC PERSPECTIVES: Humanities and Creative Arts
INSTRUCTOR: Alexis Becker, Dan Breen
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES:
Becker: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:35-3:50 PM, and Fridas, 3:00-3:50 PM
Breen: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:25-10:40 AM, and Wednesday, 10:00-10:50 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: How does a poem produce meaning? What does poetry do with language? This course is an introduction to a) the constituent elements of poems and the vocabulary with which we can analyze them and b) the extraordinary variety and capaciousness of texts we call “poems.” The aim of this course is to arrive at a sense, both ample and precise, of what a poem is, what it does, how it does what it does, and, perhaps, why we should care.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Short writing assignments, recitations, poetic compositions, annotated poetry anthology, lively participation.
ENGL 18200-01, 02 The Power of Injustice & the Injustice of Power HU LA 3A h
TOPIC: Life at the Margins in American Literature
4 Credits
ICC ATTRIBUTE:Diversity, Humanities Perspective, Power & Justice and Identities Themes
INSTRUCTOR: Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES: MWF 11:00-11:50 AM plus Monday 4:00-4:50 PM
COURSEDESCRIPTION: Many individuals continue to feel as though they live at the margins of society, despite the “melting pot” rhetoric of inclusivity and acceptance that dominates narratives of American identity. While we commonly consider purposeful exclusion an act of injustice on the part of the powerful, we are often unaware of the way that subtle, hidden forms of power render particular groups and individuals powerless. American literature is one of the most widely utilized platforms for articulating the specific issues that arise in response to these forms of power. Thiscoursewill use an array of American literary texts to explore the complexities of the life experiences of those who are forced by the powerful to live at the margins. We will read the work of Rebecca Harding Davis, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Junot Diaz, Adam Mansbach, ZZ Packer, and Tommy Orange.
COURSEFORMAT/STYLE: Discussion with the occasional lecture
COURSEREQUIREMENTS: Students will closely examinecoursematerials, actively engage in class discussions, write short textual analysis essays and a
ENGL 18300-01, -02 ENGENDERING MODERNITY: TWENTIETH-CENTURY WOMEN WRITERS
4 Credits
ICC THEME: Identities
ICC ATTRIBUTE: Diversity
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Spitzer, 305 Muller
PREREQUISITES: None
ENROLLMENT: 20 Students per section
MEETING TIMES:
Section 01: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:10-2:25 PM, and Wednesday, 1:00-1:50 PM
Section 02: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:35-3:50 PM, and Wednesday, 3:00-3:50 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will focus on a representative body of twentieth-and twenty-first century Anglophone women writers, writers who adapted earlier literary forms, and in some cases produced major stylistic innovations. We will examine how these authors negotiated a predominantly male literary tradition and marketplace, and how they drew upon and constructed their own literary communities, audiences, and ancestries. We will read works that self-consciously reflect on issues of identity, gender, sexuality, feminism, and authorship, as well as works that explore the complex intersections of race, class, ethnicity, nationality, gender and sexuality. We will also consider the relationship between gender and genre by reading a wide range of literary forms, from novels, short stories, and poetry, to memoirs, essays, and political manifestos. Authors include Kate Chopin, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Claudia Rankine, and Jhumpa Lahiri.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion, with brief lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: One 4-5 page essay, one 5-7 page final paper, midterm exam, and short informal writing. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation and attendance will be an essential part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 19413-01 and 02 Embodying the Perverse: Vampires in Literature
3 CREDITS
ICC DESIGNATION: Mind, Body, Spirit and Identities
Cross Listed with Women and Gender Studies
INSTRUCTOR: Julie Fromer, 434 Muller
ENROLLMENT: 20 students
PREREQUISITES: None
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:10-2:25 PM, and Friday, 1:00-1:50 PM
OBJECTIVES: The center of this course focuses onDracula, a foundational text for vampire literature. Draculapresents the heternormative vampires that we have become accustomed to in 21stcentury renditions of bloodsucking relationships. But surrounding this depiction of powerful heterosexual vampires we will explore portrayals that stray widely from the expectations set up by Stoker’s novel.
Vampires in literature can be seen as representations of what is literally “perverse” in culture and society—social and sexual identities that “twist” or “turn” away from wider social norms. Some of the earliest depictions of vampires in English literature, including Coleridge’s “Christabel” and LeFanu’s “Carmilla,” explore the dynamics of homosexual desire. Looking at vampires as metaphors for “other” selves and identities, we will continue to trace gendered reflections of power and desire in Anne Rice’sInterviewWithTheVampire.
In this course, we will explore sexual politics through vampire literature, asking questions about power, gender, class, and social and sexual identities. At the end of the course, we will train these questions onTwilight, considering how our own ideas about vampires and gender have been shaped by Meyer’s novel.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, with some context-setting lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING: Three 2-page response papers, one 3-page essay, one 5-page essay, a take-home final exam, and class participation. Grading will be A-F based on the above requirements. Since this is a discussion-based course, class participation will be an essential part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 20100-01 APPROACHES TO LITERARY STUDY
4 CREDITS
ICC DESIGNATION: Writing Intensive
INSTRUCTOR: Chris Holmes, 318 Muller
ENROLLMENT: 15 students per section
PREREQUISITES: One course in English.
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:25-10:40 AM, and Friday, 9:00-9:50 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: How and why do we read literature? How do we frame our interpretations of poems, novels, and short stories? Focusing on these foundational questions, this class introduces students to the diverse ways that critics and theorists interpret literary texts. It shows how the discipline of English has developed, and explores influential and emerging methods of literary analysis, from New Criticism to postcolonial theory, with an emphasis on the relationship between literature’s competing discourses of philosophy, history, politics, and science. In the process, it provides students with critical tools for examining literature and the world around them. A central goal of the class is to help students to become confident and sophisticated literary critics, and adept readers of interdisciplinary theoretical work. Readings include literary criticism and theory, and may include works by Hoagland, DeLillo, Eliot, Coetzee, Ishiguro, Faulkner, and others.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING: Two 5 page essays, an in-class presentation, a midterm, and a longer final research project.
ENGL 21900, SHAKESPEARE
4 CREDITS
ICC DESIGNATION: Identities; Inquiry, Imagination, and Innovation
INSTRUCTOR: Christopher Matusiak, Muller 326
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: One course in the humanities or social sciences, or sophomore standing.
MEETING TIMES:
Section 01: Monday and Friday 9:00-10:15 AM; Wednesday 9:00-9:50 AM
Section 02: Monday and Friday 11:00 AM-12:15 PM; Wednesday 11:00-11:50 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Why study Shakespeare now? The question has never been more pressing for those who would situate the playwright and his works at the heart of English studies and other Humanities disciplines. Shakespeare was an immensely talented poet, but he died over 400 years ago. Of what use can he be in grappling with the problems currently confronting us?—rising tides of political authoritarianism and war; economic inequality, systemic racism, xenophobia, misogynistic violence; and, critically, ideological polarization that prevents us from arriving at a consensus on ‘reality’ itself? If Shakespeare is to be viewed as relevant in 2023, his work arguably must help bring the challenges we now face into better focus and inspire us to respond in meaningful ways. Whether indeed they have this capacity will be the question that guides us throughout the semester. No prior knowledge of Shakespeare is necessary to succeed in this course—only enthusiasm, curiosity, and a readiness to study three rich texts—The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Winter’s Tale—both in the contexts of Shakespeare’s time and our own.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/lecture.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active participation; close-reading exercises; a reader-response journal; a take-home final exam.
ENGL 22000-01 BLACK WOMEN WRITERS 3a h HU LA
TOPIC:Writing as Resistance in the post-Civil Rights Era
3 Credits
ICC DESIGNATIONS:Diversity
INSTRUCTOR:Derek Adams, Muller 304
ENROLLMENT:20
PREREQUISITES:One course in the humanities or social sciences, or sophomore standing
MEETING TIMES: MWF 12:00-12:50 PM; Tuesday 4:00-4:50 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The end of the global Civil Rights era of the 1960s led many to consider issues of race, gender, sexuality, and social class closed. Civil rights legislation enacted in the United States, they believed, served as an armistice between governing institutions and those groups who had been traditionally marginalized by discriminatory practices. For them, this “resolution” made it unnecessary to ever again re-litigate issues of identity and marginalization in the realm of public discourse. Black women across the African Diaspora immediately saw through the superficiality of this resolution, and in the years following the final moments of the era, used their writing to continue resisting the marginalization they experienced in their daily lives. This course focuses on the forms of resistance that these black women offer in their texts, paying careful attention to the types of power they are actively working against. Their written work invites us to consider how black women’s resistance to institutional authority redefines discourses of feminism and women’s liberation for a new generation of activists and scholars. We will also explore how the category of black womanhood transforms through the process of writing.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE:Classroom discussion with occasional lectures
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:Five short, focused response papers, an engaging in-class presentation, an annotated bibliography, regular attendance and active participation in class discussions, and an open mind.
ENGL 23100 Ancient Literature
3.0 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Robert Sullivan
ENROLLMENT: 20
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:10-2:50 PM
Literatures (and cultures) have roots that nurture and, to some extent at least, determine their subjects, attitudes, and forms. This course will take us to the Greco-Roman roots that have nourished Western textual traditions for over 2500 years. Together we will encounter lyric poetry, tragic and comedic theatre, and epic, as one might expect, as well as other genres such as panegyric, mythology, biography, epistles, oratory, or varieties of philosophical literature with which one might well be less familiar. Particular emphasis will be placed on bodies of work that have had powerful influences on later literatures, including those of Homer, Vergil, Ovid, Seneca, Plautus, Isocrates, Cicero, Euripides, Sophocles, Lucretius, and Sappho. We’ll also read some of the critical texts by which the scholars of antiquity, such as Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and the pseudo-Longinus, sought to make sense of what they were reading. All our readings will be in English translations.
ATTRIBUTES: 3A, CSA, G, H, HU
PREREQUISITE: One course in the humanities or social sciences, or sophomore standing.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Active class participation, short writing assignments, one term paper.
ENGL 23300-01:JOANOFARC, 1412-2024
4 CREDITS
ENROLLMENT: 21 students
PREREQUISITES: One course in the humanities or social sciences, or sophomore standing
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 4:00-5:15 PM, and Wednesday, 4:00-4:50
JoanofArc, now a patron saintofFrance, heard divine voices, participated in the Hundred Years’ War, suffered through a heresy trial, and was ultimately burned at the stake at the ageofnineteen In this course, we will read and watch a rangeoftexts and films that attempt to adapt, adopt, think through, or think with this mysterious and compelling figure, ranging from sources written during her fifteenth-century lifetime to texts from the 2020s. These include the recordsofJoan’s trial; ostensibly straightforward retellingsofher story; experimental poetry; imaginingsofJoanas a labor leader or a post-apocalyptic eco-terrorist; trans readingsofJoan; and more. Among other topics, we will think about gender, nationalism, sainthood, how someone becomes an icon, and what makes a figure likeJoanavailable for so many different kindsofappropriation and projection. Assignments will include short writing assignments and other explorations.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, film screenings, some context-setting lectures
REQUIREMENTS: Regular attendance, active and rigorous participation in class discussion, writing assignments and other explorationsofthe course topics and themes
ENGL 27100-01 RENAISSANCE LITERATURE
3 CREDITS
ICC DESIGNATION: Writing Intensive
INSTRUCTOR: Dan Breen, 302 Muller, ext. 4-1014
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITE: One course in a humanities or social sciences discipline, or sophomore standing
MEETING TIMES: Tuesday and Thursday, 10:50 AM-12:05 PM, and Wednesday 11:00-11:50 AM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: England did not experience a Renaissance in the same way that Italy did. The revival of interest in Classical history, architecture, and rhetoric, and in the ancient Greek language, that historians have come to identify with Italy and France in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries reached England comparatively late, and at first found a fairly limited audience at court and in the universities; in other words, solely at relatively small, elite institutions. The influence of this Continental scholarship—later defined as “humanism”—did, however, help to set the stage for the period we refer to as the English Renaissance (c.1500-c.1650) by offering a new set of intellectual resources with which to address existing questions and challenges. Indeed, this principle of reexamination rather than the advent of humanism might be considered the hallmark of the English Renaissance as English readers and writers found new ways to address old problems: how to define the experience of religious faith; how to write literature in the vernacular without the formal rigidity of Classical prescriptions; how the expressly patriarchal institution of monarchy can be adapted and mastered by women rulers; how to articulate a national identity. Continental humanism was one important element in this enterprise but there were many others, among them medieval theology, political and social philosophy, patterns of economic theory and practice, and English legal tradition. This course aims to present a broad-based chronological survey of many different literary genres that we’ll use as a guide for an investigation of the social and intellectual status of writing in England in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. How do authors use literature to address conflicts, provide instruction, or produce entertainment, and what expectations do audiences bring to different kinds of writing? In addition, we’ll read work by Continental authors in order to place England within the context of the broad intellectual and artistic movement that we’ve come to know as the European Renaissance.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, with some context-setting lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: One short (2-3 pages) essay; two 5-7-page essays; a midterm and final exam; and class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 27400 Golden Age of Children’s LiteratureCRN: 40879
INSTRUCTOR:Katharine Kittredge, Muller 317, Ext. 4- 1575
ENROLLMENT:10
PREREQUISITES: none
NOTE: This course counts for the English Department’s pre-20thcentury requirement; Its approval for the ICC theme “Identities” is pending
OBJECTIVES: This course supplies an overview of pre-20th century children's literature with particular focus on the ’Golden Age of Children's Literature’ in the Victorian era. The class will look at the precursors to the golden age texts: chap books, didactic literature, fables and fairytales, and will then go on to look at some of the major texts of the era in both fiction and verse.Novels will include: Alice in Wonderland; Little Women; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Treasure Island; Tom Sawyer; The Wind in the Willows, and The Secret Garden.
FORMAT/STYLE:Lecture, discussion, small group, collaborative activities
GRADING:Weekly response pieces; individual presentation; mid-term; final project.
ENGL 29400 (01) Slow Read: Middlemarch
1 Credit
Kasia Bartoszynska
Middlemarchhas been called one of the greatest novels of all time (Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson were both fans), but unlike many books that claim that title, it isn’t an especially difficult text. But it is one that rewards slow, careful attention, because it is so rich in detail; a thick description of a small town, full of memorable characters and thought-provoking philosophical insights. This slow read is less a class than an excuse to set aside the time to read this book and enjoy discussing it with others.
PREREQUISITE: No prerequisites. All are welcome.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Active class participation, short writing assignments, one in-class presentation.
MEETING TIMES: Friday 2:00-3:15 PM
ENGL 29400 (02) Slow Read: The Aeneid
1 credit
Robert Sullivan
The Aeneid.Virgil’sAeneidisthegreat Roman epic. In 9,896 lines of dactylic hexameter, it tells the legendary tale of the flight of the survivors of the Trojan War to their founding of the city of Rome. The story abounds in adventure, romance, cruelty, and violence, as well as powerful meditations on destiny, love, and duty. We’ll be reading Shadi Bartsch’s brilliant translation of Virgil’s Latin into English.The Aeneidwas written in imitation of the Greek epic masterpieces,IliadandOdysseyand this seminar will conclude a cycle of Slow Reads of the Classical epics.
PREREQUISITE: No prerequisites. All are welcome.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Active class participation, short writing assignments, one in-class presentation.
MEETING TIMES: Wednesday 4:00-5:15 PM
ENGL 29700 (02) Professional Development Practicum (Graphic Novels)
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Kittredge, Muller 317, Ext. 4- 1575
ENROLLMENT: 10
PREREQUISITES: none
MEETING TIMES: Thursday 10:50 AM-12:15 PM
OBJECTIVES: The "Graphic Novel Advisory Board" is a group of IC students who get together to review children's and teen's graphic novels. They share their findings with rural librarians and discuss ways for them to enhance their collections of graphic novels. The group puts out a monthly newsletter reviewing a wide range of graphic novels. This 1.5 credit experimental course is a great opportunity for anyone interested in education, promoting reading, or marketing/publishing graphic novels. If the pandemic allows, we also host community events promoting reading and collaborate with ITHACON to provide a whimsical reading room.
FORMAT/STYLE: Small group collaborative activities, regular writing assignments, weekend site visits.
GRADING: Performance of assigned tasks, participation in site visits, regular writing assignments, end-of-semester assessment based on personal goals (may involve event planning, reviewing, editing, or doing website enhancement), reflection on event and personal achievement.
ENGL 31900-01 GREAT AMERICAN WRITERS BEFORE 1890
Topic: Declarations of independence; revelations of confinement
3 CREDITS
ICC ATTRIBUTE: Writing intensive
INSTRUCTOR: Hugh Egan, 306 Muller
ENROLLMENT: 20 students
PREREQUISITES: 9 credits in the humanities.
MEETING TIMES: MWF 1:00-2:10 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Throughout its relatively short recorded history, America has trumpeted itself as an exceptional experiment in nationhood—a democratic, self-reliant citizenry that serves as a model to the world. In this class we will interrogate some of the assumptions behind the idea of "American exceptionalism" and the myth of the "American dream." Beginning with accounts of European contact, we will follow the “new world” theme through the Puritan, Colonial, and Transcendental eras, through the Civil War to the brink of the 20th century. In one sense, the cultural trajectory of this course traces a familiar path—from a sense of early expectation and unlimited potential to the sobering realities of human pain and historical contingency. Throughout the term, we will examine how America's declarations of independence often reveal or conceal painful episodes of confinement— literal enslavement and also psychological imprisonment. To trace this theme, we will read a variety of American documents, including religious sermons, political treatises, philosophical essays, autobiographies, poems, short stories and, at the end of the term, a novel by Kate Chopin.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Largely discussion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING: Three 5 page essays, and a substantial end-of-term research project. Grading will be A-F.
ENGL 31100-01, DRAMATIC LITERATURE I: Early English Comedy and Tragedy
4 CREDITS
ICC DESIGNATION: Writing Intensive
INSTRUCTOR: Robert Sullivan
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
PREREQUISITES: Three courses in English, history of the theater, or introduction to the theater.
MEETING TIMES: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:00-5:40 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course traces the evolution of English stage comedy and tragedy from the medieval period to the seventeenth-century. Comedy, with its emphasis on laughter, emotional fulfilment, and social harmony is sometimes viewed as less serious in its aims than its ancient counterpart, tragedy. But rarely in the English tradition are
comic and tragic impulses merely antithetical. English comedy depends upon an awareness of the precariousness of human happiness—life’s ripe potential, at every turn, for disaster and despair—while tragedy, no less conscientiously, weighs the values of joy, order, and rationality against their obliteration to achieve its fullest effects. As dramatic categories, then, comedy and tragedy are mutually constitutive and complementary in the way they artistically organize and evaluate human experience; both at once affirm and subject to painful disintegration our prized ideas about the world and our positions in it. To better grasp the formal, political, and philosophical dimensions of English comedy and tragedy before 1800, this course will first survey some foundational examples of each from ancient Greece and Rome, including Aristophanes’ Lysistrata; Seneca’s Thyestes; and Plautus’s The Haunted House. We will then study a selection of medieval and early modern English plays that adapt or appropriate past works in innovative ways, such as Noah and his Wife (and other civic Biblical pageants); Thomas Middleton’s The Bloody Banquet; Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist; Elizabeth Carey’s The Tragedy of Mariam; John Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed (a sequel to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew); and Aphra Behn’s The Feigned Courtesans.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/lecture.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active participation; close-reading exercises; an essay; a take-home final exam.
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ENGL 36500 Dragons, Knights, and Heroes: Chivalry in the Modern Novel
4 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Kenny Roggenkamp
ENROLLMENT: 20 per section
MEETING TIMES: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:10-1:50 PM, and Fridays, 1:00-1:50 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Although they are separated by nearly seven-hundred years and thousands of miles, medieval tales of courtly love in King Arthur’s court have more echoes in twentieth and twenty-first century novels than one may imagine. Indeed, the apparently medieval themes of chivalry, chastity, and nobility are almost overwhelmingly present in many modern novels, even those that do not feature a courtly setting. In this course, we will examine the roots of these motifs by reading several examples of the medieval courtly love tradition, including the legends of Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, and the Holy Grail. Then, we will interrogate how four modern
novels thematize similar concerns about gender, sexuality, and social norms. Specifically, we will read carefully through Kazuo Isiguro’s The Buried Giant, Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Throughout, we will work together to see the myriad ways in which our contemporary notions of love, gender, sexuality, and power are—perhaps—less modern than we might otherwise believe.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion/lecture.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: active participation; close-reading exercises; formal essays.
ENGL 36800-01 Dangerous Women in Dramatic Literature HU, LA
TOPIC: Dangerous Women in Dramatic Literature:Over Her Dead Body
2 CREDITS
INSTRUCTOR: Claire Gleitman, 303 Muller, ext. 4-3893
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing and 3 credits in English or Writing.
MEETING TIMES: Monday and Wednesday, 1:00-1:50 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will read a range of plays, beginning in the ancient Greek period and extending to the present day, which feature female characters who might be described as “dangerous”—often because they challenge status quo assumptions about femininity and a woman’s role in her society. In each case, we will consider what constitutes female danger in the play and the culture that we are addressing. What norms are being challenged so that the female elicits male fear and violence (and often, also and simultaneously, desire)? What is it about her that is so threatening that she needs to be controlled, contained, and sometimes killed? Is the playwright using her to question the norms that she challenges or to reinscribe them? As we read these plays, we will situate them within their cultural contexts and we will read secondary material (historical and theoretical) to better understand how notions regarding female danger change over time. Our plays will include some or all of the following:Medea,The Oresteia, Othello, The Duchess of Malfi, Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Hedda Gabler, All My Sons, Top Girls, Oleanna, Harlem Duet, By the Bog of Cats.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, with some context-setting lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: Two 6-8 page analytical essays, frequent short response pieces, a take-home final exam, and active class participation. Grading will be A-F. Because of the discussion-oriented format, class participation will be an important part of students’ final grades.
ENGL 40000-01 CAPSTONE IN ENGLISH
1 CREDIT
ICC DESIGNATION: Capstone course
INSTRUCTOR: Hugh Egan
ENROLLMENT: 20 students per section
PREREQUISITE: Senior standing in English
MEETING TIMES: Wednesday 3:00-3:50 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course provides students with an opportunity to reflect on their four years of study as English majors and within the ICC. The goal of the course is to complete all necessary material for the ICC e-portfolio, and for students to consider their own experiences within the context of College academic programming as well as the framework of the liberal arts more generally.
COURSE FORMAT/STYLE: Discussion, with some context-setting lectures.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: One 1000-word reflective essay, one shorter reflective assignment, and class participation. Grading will be P/F.
ENGL 48600 Feminist Fictions
INSTRUCTOR: Katharine Kittredge, Muller 317,kkittredge@ithaca.edu
ENROLLMENT: 20
PREREQUISITES: Four English courses
MEETING TIMES: Wednesday, 4:00-7:20 PM
OBJECTIVES: Feminist Fictions looks at twentieth and twentieth century novels, essays, and other forms of media which have shocked the nation and shaped the feminist movement. Texts will include The Bell Jar, Rubyfruit Jungle, Fear of Flying, and Stone Butch Blues, and essays from Audre Lorde, Roxanne Gay and Lindy West. Films and TV shows will be added according to popular demand. WARNING: course material includes explicit sexual descriptions including queer sexual activity and non-normative play.
FORMAT/STYLE: Full and small group discussion; collaborative activities, presentation on favorite example of female/queer representation.
GRADING: Performance of assigned tasks, weekly blog posts, one pop culture presentation, some mid-term activity; final project.