ENGL 380 - Advanced Seminar

FDR: HL
Credits: 3 in fall or winter, 4 in spring
Planned Offering: Fall, Winter, Spring

Winter 2015 topic:

ENGL 380: Advanced Seminar: The Ghost in the Machine (3). Consciousness is both very familiar and very strange. As you read these words, you probably don’t doubt that you’re conscious. But what exactly is consciousness? Where does it come from? Is it the result of an immaterial soul buried somewhere deep within the body–a kind of “ghost in the machine,” as the philosopher Gilbert Ryle puts it–or does the body alone do all the thinking? In this course, we consider the way in which literature–from the 17th and 18th centuries to the present–responds to these problems of self, soul, matter, and consciousness. We read scurrilous love poetry (by the Earl of Rochester) and experimental novels (by Eliza Haywood) where the body has a mind of its own. We see how writers like Laurence Sterne and Virginia Woolf attempt to capture the fleeting movements of the psyche by developing a “stream of consciousness” style. We consider how certain literary texts give us a glimpse into the inner lives of non-human thinking things (such as a bat, a talking parrot, and even a brain in a vat). We also think about how literature responds to developments in neuroscience–which means reading some contemporary “neuro-novels” by Richard Powers, Rivka Galchen, and Ian McEwan. (HL) Keiser.

Fall 2014 topics:

ENGL 380-01: Advanced Seminar: Cormac McCarthy (3). A study of selected works by one of America’s most renowned post-modern authors, who treats shocking subjects in an inimitable style. McCarthy has developed gradually over the last 50 years from a struggling writer and auto parts worker too poor to buy toothpaste to a number one box office draw, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, eager candidate for the Nobel Prize, and author of a major motion picture. Our key questions: Why is McCarthy so famous now? How does he do it? What do his works say to us that we are drawn to hear? (HL) Smout. Fall 2014

ENGL 380-02: Advanced Seminar: Celluloid Shakespeare (3). The films adapted from or inspired by William Shakespeare’s plays are a genre unto themselves. We study a selection of films, not focused on their faithfulness to the original playscript, but on the creative choices and meanings of the distinct medium of film. We see how the modern era has transmuted the plays through the lens of contemporary sensibility, politics, and culture–and through this new visual mode of storytelling. This course is very much an exploration of how to interpret and appreciate film broadly, as we learn the concepts and lexicon of film with Shakespeare as our case study. Our methods vary: sometimes we study the play in detail and compare several film versions; or we see a film fresh–without having read the play–to approach it as a work of art on its own terms; or we hear individual reports from students about additional films to expand the repertoire of films we study and enjoy. The films we view range from multiple versions of Hamlet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to adaptations of As You Like It and Henry V, to original Shakespeare-inspired films such as Forbidden Planet, A Thousand Acres, and My Own Private Idaho. (HL) Dobin. Fall 2014

ENGL 380-04: Thrilling Tales: New North American Fiction (3). A study of 21st-century novels and short stories by North American authors. We examine the recent movement of literary fiction into genres traditionally limited to pulp writing. Texts may include: McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon; Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake; Isabel Allende’s Zorro; Sherman Alexie’s Flight; Octavia Butler’s Fledgling; Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, and Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible. (HL) Gavaler. Fall 2014