ENGL 394 - Topics in Literature in English since 1900

Credits: 3 in fall or winter, 4 in spring

Winter 2020, ENGL 394A-01: Topics in Literature in English since 1900: American Outdoor Adventure Stories (3). Here in the New World, where Europeans arrived already excited about untouched wilderness waiting to be explored (and willfully blind to the native peoples living here), stories about travel and adventure were popular from the start. This class studies selected stories historically, seeing how the careers of writers like Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and Herman Melville began with travel writings, and how adventure stories since then have developed, contributing to an explosion in extreme sports and outdoor recreation. Other authors may include John Muir, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, Hampton Sides, Jon Krakauer, and Cheryl Strayed. We also study contemporary movies like Free Solo and corporations like Patagonia. How do these outdoor adventure stories impact our lives and culture now? (HL) Smout.

Winter 2020, ENGL 394B-01: Topics in Literature in English since 1900: She Had Some Horses: Native American Women’s Literatures 1900-2019 (3). A seminar course with special emphasis on research and discussion. Elizabeth Cook Lynn, Crow Creek Sioux, says that “Art and literature and storytelling are at the epicenter of all that an individual or a nation intends to be. …a nation which does not tell its own stories cannot be said to be a nation at all.” How do Native women writers counter the misrepresentations of Native Americans in familiar narratives like Pocahontas, Sacajawea, or the Land O’ Lakes Maiden? This course examines novels, short stories, and poetry by contemporary Native American women authors, addressing racial and gender oppression, reservation and urban life, acculturation, political and social emergence as well as the leadership role of Native American women. Writers may include Erdrich, Silko, Hogan, Tapahonso, Long Soldier, Chrystos, Brant, and Harjo. (HL) Miranda.

Spring 2020, ENGL 394-01: Advanced Seminar in English after 1900: 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 the new visual mode of film storytelling. We hear reports from students about additional films to expand the repertoire of films we study and enjoy. (HL) Dobin.