Brochure produced by

Elizabeth Giedraitis ‘18

Department of

English Course

Offerings

Key to abbreviations:

“A” = Approaches course

“cr” = credits

“FYS” = First Year Seminar

“ILS” = Integrative Learning Seminar

“MAA” = Major American Author

ENGL. 470 -D (4 cr.)

John Ashbery in Context

Fest, B. Clark 329

TTh 2:30 - 4:30 p.m.

John Ashbery’s passing at the age of ninety in September

2017 occasioned an outpouring of appreciation commemorating

his distinguished career. His death reminded many that he was,

quite simply, one of the most important United States writers of

the last sixty years. In addition to being a prolific, celebrated, and

widely-read poet, authoring over two dozen books of poetry, he

was a distinguished critic, collagist, playwright, novelist, and

teacher whose true impact on American letters is only beginning

to be felt. This course will read broadly, selectively, and deeply

into his life and work. We will also read Ashbery’s work in

context. We will look at French symbolism, surrealism, Wallace

Stevens, and other modernist precursors, we will investigate the

political, social, historical, and cultural milieu of 1950s Paris and

New York from the 1960s–2010s, and we will explore Ashbery’s

various and wide-reaching legacies, from the

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry of the 1970s and 80s, to the avant-

garde movements of the twenty-first century. The course will also

focus on important works of literary theory and criticism from the

period, including specific readings of Ashbery by some of his

most famous critics—Harold Bloom, Marjorie Perloff, and

others—and important essays by Jean Baudrillard, Fredric

Jameson, and other theorists of the postmodern. Students will

actively shape their own reading, writing, and research projects in

order to produce an original work of scholarship by semester’s

end.

ENGL. 380-67 (4 cr.)

MAA: Melville and His World

Cody, D. Clark 329

MW 2:30 - 4:30 p.m.

This course explores the world of Herman Melville, perhaps

the greatest of American truth-tellers and literary subversives.

Our primary texts include important works by Melville himself

(including Typee, Moby-Dick, short stories, essays, and poems)

and selected works by relevant precursors, contemporaries, and

disciples. Any student who successfully undertakes the course of

reading, analysis, and writing that this enterprise entails will

emerge a better reader, analyst, and writer with a deeper

understanding of American literature, religion, culture, and

philosophy before, during, and since Melville’s day. Since this is

an “Approaches” class, we will also be exploring the received

tradition of Melville scholarship relating to the above-mentioned

works. Students will write two papers, and there will be a

midterm and final examination.

ENGL. 155-2 (3 cr.)

FYS: Men, Manhood, & Culture

Navarette, S. Clark 251

MWF 9:05 - 10:00 a.m.

This course takes as its subject representations of

masculine behavior in contemporary American popular culture,

with feature films, documentaries, fiction, and essays

constituting course content. The works of writers such as

Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber, Margaret Talbot, Judith

Butler, and Norah Vincent, and films such as Tarzan the Ape

Man (Van Dyke, 1932), Shane (Stevens, 1953), On the

Waterfront (Kazan, 1954), The Graduate (Nichols, 1967), Do the

Right Thing (Lee 1989), Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992),

and Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) serve as so many

“opportunities”—disguised as cultural artifacts—to examine the

myths, models, and modes of masculine behavior that are

circulated through American popular culture, establishing

common conceptions and constructions of men, their manhood,

and the competing masculinities that constitute a contemporary

sense of what it means to be “a real man”—or, at least, to act like

one.

ENGL. 190-6 (3 cr.)

Introduction to Literature and Criticism

Cody, D. Clark 251

MWF 1:25 - 2:20 p.m.

An interdisciplinary seminar in which the primary

emphasis is on discussion and the free-wheeling exchange of

intriguing ideas, this course is both a seminar open to all first-

year students and a “gateway” prerequisite course for English

majors. We will be reading, discussing, and writing about a wide

range of texts in a number of genres (literary, artistic, and

cinematic). Primary readings will include poems by Andrew

Marvell, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson; short stories by

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Rudyard Kipling and

Charlotte Perkins Gilman; engravings by William Hogarth; films

by John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Werner Herzog; novels by

Vladimir Nabokov and Stanislaw Lem. By semester’s end,

engaged and hard-working students will have acquired a valuable

critical vocabulary, a degree of familiarity with a number of

important literary and critical texts, and an understanding of basic

assumptions underlying various critical and scholarly

perspectives. Students will write individual papers and work

collaboratively on class projects that may include library,

museum, and on-line exhibits. There will be a midterm and a

final examination.

ENGL. 375-B (3 cr.)

Contemporary American Literature

Seguin, R. Clark 252

TTH 10:10 - 11:30 a.m.

This course will survey some of the most exciting

developments in American literature over the last twenty years or

so. These years have seen a surge of creativity outside of the

confines of traditional literary fiction, and hence we will be

interested in reading works that come from more marginal places

on the literary map: science fiction and fantasy, graphic novels,

and assorted genre-bending voices from the edges of the

mainstream. Writers may include Colson Whitehead, Alison

Bechdel, David Foster Wallace, Junot Diaz, Claudia Rankine,

Paul Beatty, Kim Stanley Robinson, Charles Yu, David

Mazzuchelli, and Jesmyn Ward.

ENGL. 350-C (4 cr.)

Postcolonial Literature and Culture

Cable, U. Clark 252

TTh 12:20 - 2:20 p.m.

The field of postcolonial studies is about understanding

the conditions and legacies of colonialism and imperialism. The

term “postcolonial” refers not only to formerly colonized people,

societies, and places, it also refers to a form of cultural critique

which centrazlizes the legacy and ongoing conditions of

colonialism in society and culture today. In writing on the

relationships between culture and power, Edward Said wrote that

“culture is a sort of theater where various political and ideological

causes engage one another.” As such, this course focuses on

cultural productions—literature, film, visual art, performance, etc.

— as a site of ideological and political engagement and

struggle. We will primarily examine cultural productions of

formerly colonized people and societies, as well as those who

continue to endure colonial conditions today. But we will also

learn how to apply postcolonial critique to any cultural text—

whether produced by the colonizer or the colonized. At the heart

of our inquiry will be an interrogation of the relationship between

representation and power. We will begin with a brief overview of

how and why the issue of representation is so important to

postcolonial studies before delving deep into postcolonial theory

and analyzing the work of Arab, African, Asian, Latinx, Native

American and Indigenous, as well diasporic and transnational

writers, filmmakers, and artists.

This course takes as its subject representations of

masculine behavior in contemporary American popular culture,

with feature films, documentaries, fiction, and essays

constituting course content. The works of writers such as

Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber, Margaret Talbot, Judith

Butler, and Norah Vincent, and films such as Tarzan the Ape

Man (Van Dyke, 1932), Shane (Stevens, 1953), On the

Waterfront (Kazan, 1954), The Graduate (Nichols, 1967), Do the

Right Thing (Lee 1989), Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992),

and Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) serve as so many

“opportunities”—disguised as cultural artifacts—to examine the

myths, models, and modes of masculine behavior that are

circulated through American popular culture, establishing

common conceptions and constructions of men, their manhood,

and the competing masculinities that constitute a contemporary

sense of what it means to be “a real man”—or, at least, to act like

one.

ENGL. 250-A (3 cr.)

Masculinities

Navarette, S. Clark 251

TTh 8:40 - 10:00 a.m.

ENGL. 250-B (3 cr.)

Introduction to Media Studies

Cable, U. Clark 342

TTh 10:10 - 11:30 a.m.

What is media? How and why should we study media?

What role does media play in society and politics? How

is media produced? How does media effect our everyday lives?

This course defines media as a diverse array of cultural forms,

tools, and practices by which information is communicated and

circulated. It is through media that people, societies, governments,

institutions, and corporations express ideas, information, and

creative impulses. Media can be print/textual, visual, televisual,

cinematic, aural, musical, digital, and more. This course begins

with a brief historical overview of major transformations

in media technologies (such as the inventions of: the printing

press, motion picture film, etc.) before learning theoretical

approaches and methods of analysis. We will learn how to

analyze a variety of media forms—print news, cinema, television,

music, social media, and more—as well as how the production,

reception, and influence of that media effects society, culture, and

politics.

ENGL. 331-B (A) (4 cr.)

Chaucer

Darien, L. Clark 351

TTh 10:10 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.

Chaucer is one of the great writers in all of world literature. Like

Shakespeare, Chaucer wrote a variety of works that have strongly

influenced both literature written in English and Western culture more

broadly. But unlike Shakespeare, Chaucer is not widely studied today,

perhaps because of the perceived distance between Chaucer’s language

and culture and ours: a distance that seems to grow with each passing

year.

The truth is that Chaucer IS different. Chaucer’s language, Middle

English, is hard to comprehend, at least at first. The culture about

which he wrote is also very different from ours and must be understood

in order to truly appreciate his poetry. So studying Chaucer is not easy.

Then why do it? Because Chaucer’s poetry truly is great: it’s

profound, it’s funny, it’s profane, it’s beautiful, it’s not to be missed.

After a few weeks, you’ll wonder why you ever worried about the

language in the first place. And you’ll be glad you took up the

challenge to study something different and difficult – after all, isn’t that

why you’re here at Hartwick in the first place?

Please note that this is a 300-level course that it is being offered as an

Approaches course, meaning we will study the works of Chaucer in

Middle English as well as their critical reception. Besides taking

exams, students will write a variety of short papers as well as a

substantial research paper that employs critical theory. If you have any

questions about whether this course would be appropriate for you,

please contact Professor Darien (darienl@hartwick.edu)

ENGL. 329-4 (3 cr.)

British Literature Survey: Beginning

Through Milton

Darien, L. Clark 251

MWF 11:15 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.

In this course we will read and analyze some of the greatest

works of English literature, those that were written in the earliest

periods of English literary history beginning with, well, the

beginning, and ending with the death of John Milton in the late

seventeenth century.

We will start by reading a few works in Old English, paying

particular attention to Beowulf, the masterpiece of that (or any)

era. The Middle English period will be represented by Sir Gawain

and the Green Knight and by selections from Chaucer’s

Canterbury Tales. As we move from the medieval to the early

modern, we will explore the growth and development of the

sonnet and other lyric forms during the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries. We will also read substantial parts of the two great

epics of early English literature: Spenser’s Fairie Queene and

Milton’s Paradise Lost.

In this class students will also explore the historical and

linguistic contexts of these works of literature as well as their

formal qualities and their relation to one another. Finally, we will

concentrate on learning to understand poetic genres, conventions,

and forms as almost all of the works we will read are verse.

Besides the prerequisite noted below, students should be

aware that this course is required for all English majors -- both

those who are concentrating in literature and those concentrating

in creative writing -- and that it is offered only once a year, in the

Fall semester.

NOTE: Completion of any section of ENGL 190, Introduction

to Literature and Criticism, with a grade of C or better, is a

prerequisite for enrollment in this course.

ENGL. 250-D (3 cr.)

TiL/The Short Story

Cody, D. Clark 251

TTh 2:30 - 3:50 p.m.

Although its origin may be traced back to the fables and

parables of antiquity, the short story remains the most modern

and in many ways the most liberated, imaginative, and

unrestrained of literary genres. In this course we will explore

short story masterpieces (including satires, manifestos, horror

stories, fantasies, “hard-boiled” crime stories, and works of

science fiction) by authors both famous and obscure, including

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville,

Frances Browne, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Henry James,

Ambrose Bierce, Charles W. Chesnutt, Mary Wilkins Freeman,

Rudyard Kipling, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, H. G. Wells, Jack

London, Edith Wharton, H. P. Lovecraft, Ernest Hemingway, F.

Scott Fitzgerald, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, William

Faulkner, Jorge Luis Borges, John Updike and Daphne du

Maurier. Each student will write two papers and there will be a

midterm and a final examination.

ENGL. 312-C (4 cr.)

Intermediate Poetry Workshop

Fest, B. Clark 248

TTh 12:20 - 2:20 p.m.

In Intermediate Poetry Workshop, students will read the work of

published poets, compose poems of their own, and study poetics (that is,

critical writing about poetry). Building upon work students have undertaken

in Introduction to Creative Writing, the focus of this class will be honing

their craft in a workshop setting by engaging with the “nuts and bolts” of

the techniques, choices, and strategies that will allow students to continue

exploring their poetic voice. With contemporary poetry as our subject, we

will explore the formal elements necessary for successful poetic

composition. In addition to studying the effective use of image, metaphor,

line-breaks, sound, shape, and voice in poems, we will also work within

both established and invented forms. This focus on form will give us a

better understanding of the various writers we will be reading and will help

workshop participants to explore the power and necessity of limitation in

their own work.

Further, we will discuss a wide range of poets. A writer must develop

ways of thinking and talking critically about the work of others and must

also appreciate the literary, cultural, and political milieus in which they

reside. Students will read poetry concerned with contemporary issues, as

well as the work of such renowned poets as Christian Bök, Carolyn Forché,

Ben Lerner, Jill McDonough, and current US poet laureate Tracy K. Smith.

Through these readings, students will address broad issues within twenty-

first century poetics and about the role and function of poetry at the present

time. To be alive in 2018 is to exist in a time of crisis. Given the political,

economic, and social realities of our era, many are questioning the value of

the arts and humanities (to say nothing of poetry!). One of the contentions

of this class is that poetry remains an essential human activity for not only

responding to the various crises of contemporaneity, but thinking,

imagining, building, and creating a different, better world.

ENGL. 321-67 (3 cr.)

Drama to 1850

Shaw, M. Clark 349

MW 1:25 - 3:25 p.m.

This course is cross-listed on webadvisor as THEA 321-67:

Drama to 1850.

We will explore the foundational works of Western dramatic

literature, as well as a few classical works of Asian drama (Chinese and

Japanese). We will come to an understanding of why these living

documents are important theatrically and socio-historically. In order to

increase understanding of those primary dramatic texts, we will also

explore theatre history, as well as trace various theoretical concepts

over time. Each student will put their new knowledge into practice in a

variety of ways including written and oral assignments, group work,

exams, and quizzes. There will also be practical performance

opportunities for those so inclined (although no performance is

required).

Required text:

The Norton Anthology of Drama, Volume One: Antiquity through the

Eighteenth Century

Our reading will include:

Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes (Lysistrata), Hrotsvit

of Gandersheim, The Wakefield Master, Everyman, Marlowe, Lope de

Vega, Moliere, Wycherley, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Lillo, Guan

Hanqing, Zeami Motokiyo