Courses for Fall 2020

Independent Study in Nonfiction Writing

Tutorial instruction oriented towards some work in progress by the student. Requires submission of a written proposal to a college supervisor. Section numbers range by teacher. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

Undergraduate Independent Study in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures

Tutorial instruction oriented towards a literary research matter. Section numbers range by instructor. Instructor permission required.

Undergraduate Independent Study within the Enlightenment and the Rise of National Literatures

Tutorial instruction oriented towards a literary research matter. Section numbers differ by instructor. Instructor's permission required.

Undergraduate Independent Study in Modern and Contemporary Literatures

Tutorial instruction oriented towards a literary research topic. Section numbers vary by teacher. Instructor's permission required.

Graduate Independent Study in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures

Section numbers vary by teacher. May be repeated for credit. Instructor's permission required.

Graduate Independent Study within the Enlightenment and the Rise of National Literatures

Section numbers vary by teacher. May be repeated for credit. Instructor's permission required.

Graduate Independent Study in Modern and Contemporary Literatures

Section numbers range by teacher. May be repeated for credit score. Instructor's permission required.

Preliminary Examination Preparation

For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration payment to continue active enrollment whereas getting ready for a preliminary examination.

Thesis Preparation

For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are persevering with analysis on a full time foundation.

Terrible Births: the Novel out of Romanticism

A new world struggled to be born on the flip of the nineteenth century, as Europe was consumed in revolutionary wars, the Industrial Revolution spawned new powers and violence, and the age of Romanticism envisioned a Promethean spirit unbound in poetry. We might be studying the novels that defined this tumultuous age and those that got here in its wake. We will learn Shelley's "Frankenstein," Brontë's "Wuthering Heights," and books by Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë, and Charles Dickens.

Black Poetics

This course is thinking about poetic pondering: how a poem inclines towards a certain type of understanding; how a poem’s imagining invites philosophical considerations (as in, what's being, and the way to be); how a poem’s language and its formal qualities maintain such pondering. We have an interest, additionally, in how poetic thinking reckons (with) blackness.

Fantasies of Milton

Paradise Losthas served as the idea for quite a few fantasy novels. Even
Comushas turn into a (supposedly inappropriate) kids's story. How can a seventeenth-century poet's treatment of temptation, disobedience, purpose and self-regard come to appear relevant in the current? What do modern writers feel compelled to protect and to vary? How might we reimagine Milton? Enrollment limited to 20.

American Renaissance

A course specializing in the writings of the Transcendentalists, reform literature, antislavery and Native American and Indigenous rights. The topics of historical past, the capitalist market, Nature, and the development of recent authorship and literary professionalism. Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, Alcott, as well as Harriet Wilson, William Apess, and journal writing.

Reading New York

This course explores narratives of New York City in a variety of genres, from the early 20th century to the present. Topics include immigration, mobility, cosmopolitanism and the neighborhood, cruising, gentrification, submit-9-11. Work by John Dos Passos, Nella Larsen, E.B. White, Jane Jacobs, Frank O’Hara, Samuel Delany, Patti Smith, Nan Goldin, Ernesto Quinones, Teju Cole. Prerequisite: one earlier literature course.

The Pursuit of Happiness: Transatlantic Literary Culture within the Long Eighteenth Century

English and American literature of the lengthy eighteenth century with a focus on emerging ideas of happiness. Reading consists of poetry, novels, satire, travel, moral philosophy, and different genres. The right to pursue happiness placed in the context of new types of social mobility such as education, class, and affectionate marriage, but additionally within the context of warfare, empire, slavery, and different metropolitan and colonial cultural formations and exchanges.Enrollment limited to fifteen.

Memory/Matter/Time: Literature and the Changing Earth

In this collaborative seminar we will think about the flickering edge between metaphor and materiality within the shadow of the Anthropocene. Weekly discussions shall be built around a series of “threshold websites”—including Sea, Sun, Silk, Plastic, Forest, Photograph, Shell, Horse, Whale—in which "matter" and "figure" may be seen to be simultaneously in relation and at odds. We will endeavor to think metaphoricity because the imbrication of materiality and semiosis, and in its relationship to ecological time, through readings from Lucretius, Melville, Coleridge, Ponge, Moore, Bervin, Barad, Haraway, Derrida, Ricoeur, among others. Enrollment limited to 15.

Bakhtin and the Political Present: Literature, Anthropology, Dialogue

This collaborative humanities graduate seminar explores the revolutionary ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, contemplating their affect in two disciplines, literary studies and linguistic anthropology. The primary historic context of the course is our personal political present, characterised by linguistic homogeneity, the unification of energy, and the rise of authoritarian governments. How effective are Bakhtin's theories of dialogue, polyphony and carnival as principles of resistance to the challenges of the current moment? Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 15.

Suspicion and Its Others

From the hermeneutics of suspicion to publish-critique, a variety of thinkers and theories have positioned suspicion as a central important disposition of the trendy age. In this collaborative seminar we will explore the concept and follow of suspicion both in relation to the traditional objects over against which it emerged—morality, religion, and custom—and thru the lens of different modes of engagement more just lately proposed, together with charity, reconstruction, attunement, quiet, resonance, and reparative practices of reading. Readings shall be drawn from philosophy, crucial principle, race and ethnicity research, gender and sexuality studies, and literary theory and criticism.

The Medieval King Arthur

Where did tales of King Arthur come from and how did they develop within the Middle Ages? We will learn the earliest narratives of King Arthur and his companions, in histories and romances from Celtic, Anglo- Norman, and Middle English sources, to look at Arthur's varying personas of warrior, king, lover, thief. Enrollment restricted to 19 first-year college students.

Hawthorne and James

An introduction to a pair of writers whose work continues to form our understanding of American literature and American id. Focusing on a lot of their most essential work, our goal will be to know how their conceptions of the connection between writing and historical past both complicate and complement one another. Limited to 19 first-12 months students.

Brontës and Brontëism

The novels of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë alongside works (fiction and movie) influenced by or continuing their powerful (and competing) authorial visions:
Wide Sargasso Sea(Rhys),
Rebecca(Hitchcock),
The Piano(Campion), and
Suspiria(Argento). Among different questions, we will talk about the function of Romanticism, feminism, the bodily imaginary, colonialism, and genre. Enrollment limited to 19 first-12 months college students.

Shakespeare

We will read a consultant choice of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances, contemplating their historical contexts and their cultural afterlife in terms of belief, doubt, language, feeling, politics, and kind. Students should register for ENGL 0310A S01 and may be assigned to convention sections by the trainer during the first week of class.

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and the Lost Generation

An introduction to two of the most well-liked and influential American novelists of the twentieth century, Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. We will read a lot of their most necessary novels and stories, including
The Great Gatsby,
Tender is the Night,
In Our Time,
The Sun Also Rises, and
A Farewell to Arms. In addition we will look at the work of the modern American writers who most influenced them: Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, and T. S. Eliot.

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

Middle English narratives by Geoffrey Chaucer's band of fictional pilgrims, read of their 14th-century historic and literary contexts. Prior data of Middle English not required. Not open to first-yr college students.

Modern African Literature

This course considers themes, antecedents, and contexts of modern African literature and related types. Our readings will embody fiction in English or in translation, conventional oral forms like panegyric and pageant poetry, and a few films. We will study how these numerous supplies discover the interplay of ethnicity, nationality, and race. We will also handle the issue of "custom" in contexts the place nationalisms of various stripes have gotten stronger, even because the world becomes more interconnected by way of commerce, immigration, and digital know-how. Authors will include Achebe, Adichie, Dangarembga, Kourouma, Ngugi, Salih, Soyinka, Wicomb. Films by Kouyaté, Loreau, Sembène.

History of Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism

A survey of the major theorists of literature in the western custom, from the Greeks to the contemporary period. Recurrent issues will embody the definition of literary worth, the distinctiveness of the aesthetic experience, and the moral and social makes use of of literature. Enrollment limited. Banner registrations after courses begin require teacher approval.

Reading Narrative Theory

Narrative is a powerful class of analysis spanning genres, historic durations, media forms, and the excellence between the "fictional" and the "real." This course examines main narrative theorists of the 20th and twenty-first centuries. We will give attention to literary examples, such as theories of the folktale and novel, and scholarship that interrogates the work of narrative in historiography, in cinema and tv, and in extra-literary contexts (within the struggle of political campaigners to “control the narrative” or debates on narrative in gaming, medical research, regulation, and theory itself). Limited to 20 senior English concentrators. Others admitted by instructor permission only.

Senior Honors Seminar in English

Weekly seminar led by the Advisor of Honors in English. Introduces college students to sustained literary-important analysis and writing abilities essential to profitable completion of the senior thesis. Particular consideration to environment friendly ways of developing literary-important initiatives, as well as evaluating, incorporating, and documenting secondary sources. Enrollment limited to English concentrators whose applications to the Honors in English program have been accepted. Permission must be obtained from the Honors Advisor in English. S/NC

Proseminar

This seminar, required for
first-year graduate college students in English, considers the state and stakes of literary research at present. The course goals to familiarize students with contemporary critical debates and stances within the wider discipline, and to interact with present methodologies, theories, and analytical tensions. We also tackle problems with professionalization as they relate to the primary years of graduate work. Enrollment limited to 10. S/NC.

Postcolonial Theory

In this introduction to postcolonial principle we'll consider key Western sources (Hegel, Marx, Lacan, Levi Strauss, Emmanuel Levinas); anticolonial manifestos (Gandhi, Fanon, Césaire, Memmi); political and moral practices (civil disobedience, armed struggle, friendship). In addition to canonical critics (Said, Bhabha, Spivak), the course will review new interests in the field (transnationalism, non-western imperialisms, the environmental flip).

Writing Science

This course explores how science, as an academic way of thinking and a way, impacts our critical considering and expression of tradition. Readings examine the assorted dialects of scientific discourse. Students write three major research essays on self-selected scientific subjects from each within and outside their fields of research. Enrollment limited to 17. Writing sample could also be required. Banner registrations after lessons start require teacher approval. S/NC.

The Artist within the Archives

While artists can benefit tremendously from archival work, they are not usually given the instruments to make use of those establishments. This writing intensive course takes a two pronged approach to the problem: embedding college students in archives both at Brown and RISD to produce creative, lyrical, and multi-media essays; and exploring how artists have used these institutions for info and inspiration. Enrollment limited to 17. Writing sample could also be required. Banner registrations after courses start require teacher approval. S/NC.

Backstory

Everything has a backstory—every event, every object, each idea. In this workshop-based course we will discover the archives at Brown and RISD to write three research essays for general audiences. Online English course for beginners can expect readings, looking at how authors like David Foster Wallace, John McPhee and Eula Biss structure their items, workshops and in-class writing prompts to get you going. Enrollment restricted to 17. Writing sample could also be required. Banner registrations after courses begin require teacher approval. S/NC.

Reframing Race in Art Writing

This seminar will consider how up to date writers and critics respond to artwork that directly addresses race and challenges institutional power. We will talk about previous and up to date controversies involving race and illustration in exhibitions and examine the relationships between artists, museums and other artwork institutions, and public audiences. We will think about how writing about arts and tradition can advance public discourse about race, equity, and justice. Enrollment restricted to 17. No pre-requisites. Writing sample required. Instructor permission required.

Digital Nonfiction

In this class, we'll be part of the host of different artists, activists, and writers that have used Twitter bots, iPhone apps, virtual reality experiences, and more to inform compelling stories. No previous digital writing experience is important, however, as a complicated creative nonfiction class, Digital Nonfiction requires students to have completed ENGL 0930 or any one thousand-stage nonfiction writing course. Enrollment is proscribed to 17. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

Further Adventures in Creative Nonfiction

For the superior author. A workshop course for college students who've taken ENGL 0930 or the equal and are in search of further explorations of voice and type. Work can embrace personal essays, literary journalism and travel writing. Readings from Ian Frazier, Joan Didion, David Sedaris, John McPhee and others. Writing pattern required. Prerequisite: ENGL 0930 or any 1000-stage nonfiction writing course. Class list might be lowered to 17 after writing samples are reviewed in the course of the first week of lessons. Preference will be given to English concentrators. Banner registrations after courses begin require teacher approval. S/NC.

Senior Honors Seminar in Nonfiction Writing

This course is designed for college students accepted into the Nonfiction Honors Program. It will be run in workshop format, and can focus on research abilities and generative and developmental writing strategies for college students embarking on their thesis projects. Weekly assignments will be directed towards helping students work by way of various stages in their writing processes. Students might be expected to reply thoughtfully and constructively in peer reviewing each other's work. Open to seniors who've been admitted to the Honors Program in Nonfiction Writing. Instructor permission required. S/NC

Seminar in Pedagogy and Composition Theory

An experimental and exploratory investigation into writing as a preparation for educating faculty-level writing. Reviews the historical past of writing about writing, from Plato to current discussions on composition theory. Against this background, examines varied processes of studying and writing. Emphasizes the practice of writing, including syllabus design. Enrollment restricted to college students within the English Ph.D. program.

Critical Reading and Writing I: The Academic Essay

An introduction to university-level writing. Students produce and revise a number of drafts of essays, apply important expertise of paragraph organization, and develop techniques of crucial evaluation and research. Readings from a wide range of texts in literature, the media, and academic disciplines. Assignments transfer from personal response papers to formal educational essays. Enrollment restricted to 17. Banner registrations after lessons start require instructor approval. S/NC.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-12 months college students; part 02 is reserved for first-year and sophomore college students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-12 months students; section 02 is reserved for first-12 months and sophomore students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-yr students; part 02 is reserved for first-12 months and sophomore college students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-yr students; part 02 is reserved for first-year and sophomore students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-year college students; section 02 is reserved for first-year and sophomore students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-year college students; part 02 is reserved for first-12 months and sophomore students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0900 sections 03 and 04 are reserved for first-yr students; section 02 is reserved for first-12 months and sophomore students.

Journalistic Writing

This course, taught by a Pulitzer Prize-successful reporter, teaches college students how to report and write exhausting information and have stories. Students study to assemble and arrange materials, develop in-depth interviewing strategies, use public data to report tales and turn into better observers of everyday life. The first half of the semester focuses on exhausting information and investigative reporting -- crime, government and courtroom information. The second half is devoted to function writing -- profiles and the artwork of narrative storytelling. Class list shall be lowered to 17 after writing samples are reviewed. Banner registrations after lessons start require instructor approval. S/NC.

Fall 2020 ENGL1050G, section 01 is reserved for first-yr and sophomore students.

Fall 2020 ENGL1050G, part 01 is reserved for first-year and sophomore college students.

The Teaching and Practice of Writing: Writing Fellows Program

This course prepares students for their work as Writing Fellows. Course readings, actions, and assignments introduce students to: publish-process writing concept and pedagogy; data-based investigations of the revision habits of skilled and inexperienced writers; and effective methods for responding to student writing and conferencing with pupil writers. Enrollment is restricted to undergraduates who have been accepted into the Writing Fellows Program in the previous July. Banner registrations after classes start require instructor approval. S/NC.

How to Do Things with Books

What can one do with a guide? Read a novel, certain, but also cook a fabulous meal, be a part of a movement, or reimagine ways of being. Each class will focus on previous or uncommon materials in the John Hay Library and all through Providence. We’ll explore the nature of the guide via dialogue and hands-on activities such as letterpress printing and zine-making. Enrollment limited to 19 first-year students.

Serial Fictions

A research of serial and serialized fictional narratives from the nineteenth century the present-- dime novels, serial genre fictions, literary novels comprised of chapters initially published as quick tales, radio and film serials, tv applications old (
The Naked City, Hawaii-Five zero), newer (
The Wire, Sex in the City), and new (
Americans), podcasts, and video games (
Legend of Zelda).

All ENGL 0100s shall be temp capped at 100 with reserved seating/registration as follows: For the FALL term: semester-level 01/03 = 25 every; and 02/04 = 5 every yielding: 60 complete (forty remaining spots for upper-ranges: seniors/juniors).

Independence and Modern Literature

Words like "freedom" and "independence" are central to fashionable international history. This course introduces college students to modernist and postcolonial poetry and fiction, exploring particular person and collective self-determination. We address questions of aesthetic autonomy and form, and collective aspirations alongside disparate strains of nation, race, gender, and sexuality. Readings from Achebe, Bulawayo, Conrad, Eliot, Hurston, Joyce, Kincaid, Lamming, Walcott, and Woolf. Students should register for ENGL 0101A S01 and could also be assigned to convention sections by the instructor through the first week of class.

All ENGL 0100s might be temp capped at 100 with reserved seating/registration as follows: For the FALL time period: semester-level 01/03 = 25 each; and 02/04 = 5 each yielding: 60 complete(40 remaining spots for higher-levels: seniors/juniors)

Inventing Asian American Literature

What insights can literature present into the sophisticated workings of race in America? What position can the invention of a literary custom play in illuminating and rectifying past and present injustices? We discover these questions by analyzing how the thought of an Asian American literary custom got here into being and by studying influential works that have become part of its canon. Students should register for ENGL 0100V S01 and may be assigned to conference sections by the instructor in the course of the first week of class.

All ENGL 0100s might be temp capped at a hundred with reserved seating/registration as follows: For the FALL time period: semester-stage 01/03 = 25 every; and 02/04 = 5 each yielding: 60 total(forty remaining spots for upper-levels: seniors/juniors)

“Killing Shakespeare”: Three Plays and their Afterlives

Do variations of Shakespeare “kill” his texts? In this course, we will explore three performs—
Othello, The Tempest,and
Hamlet—with a few of their most distinguished adaptations. We will concentrate on how these variations think about necessary political questions of their instances in relation to Shakespeare. Authors/administrators embody: Lawrence Olivier, Aime Cesaire, Jawad Al-Asadi, Vishal Bharadwaj, and Julie Taymor. Enrollment restricted to 17.

In Excess: Rossetti, Hopkins, Wilde

This seminar shall be a focused shut studying of three late Victorian writers whose works could be described as radically excessive insofar as they transgress and push past the bounds of social, ethical, aesthetic, sexual, and political conventions. What does it imply to describe a text as excessive, and how can excess be considered as a constitutive a part of its type? We will concentrate on poetry, performs, and theoretical texts, putting our authors into dialog with up to date thinkers of extra. Enrollment restricted to 20.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Poetry, Popular Music, and Politics

Can poetry and popular music transform our understanding of politics? This class examines how poetry and music as representational types change how we see each other and the world. We additionally contemplate non-representational dimensions of lyric, such as sound. Readings and music from key historical moments in the US might embody Claudia Rankine, Lucille Clifton, Bob Dylan, and Kendrick Lamar. Enrollment limited to 17.

Literature and the Problem of Poverty

This course explores poverty as a political and aesthetic downside for American writers. Examines the ways that writers have imagined the poor as harmful others, agents of city decay, bearers of folks culture, and engines of sophistication revolt. Learn English kids include Stephen Crane, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright.

Blackness and Being

Through studying criticism, theory, literature, we will think about the representational, aesthetic, and, philosophical (ontological, epistemological, ethical) questions that form blackness as a conceptual notion. Our study will think through feminist and queer studies, in addition to through diaspora and American and ethnic research, and will think about the historical trajectory of various important turns in theorizing (literary) blackness. Enrollment restricted to twenty juniors and seniors. Instructor permission required. Class record might be finalized after the primary day of classes. Please e-mail the professor to add your identify to the potential roster.

Introduction to Creative Nonfiction

Designed to familiarize students with the techniques and narrative structures of inventive nonfiction. Reading and writing concentrate on private essays, memoir, science writing, journey writing, and other related subgenres. Fluent English speaking course for any 1000-level nonfiction writing course. Writing pattern may be required. Enrollment restricted. Banner registrations after courses begin require teacher approval. S/NC.

Fall 2020 ENGL0930 sections 01, 02, 04, 05, and 06 are reserved for first-year students; section 03 is reserved for first-year and sophomore college students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0930 sections 01, 02, 04, 05, and 06 are reserved for first-yr college students; part 03 is reserved for first-year and sophomore students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0930 sections 01, 02, 04, 05, and 06 are reserved for first-12 months college students; part 03 is reserved for first-year and sophomore college students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0930 sections 01, 02, 04, 05, and 06 are reserved for first-12 months college students; section 03 is reserved for first-year and sophomore college students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0930 sections 01, 02, 04, 05, and 06 are reserved for first-year students; section 03 is reserved for first-yr and sophomore college students.

Fall 2020 ENGL0930 sections 01, 02, 04, 05, and 06 are reserved for first-12 months students; part 03 is reserved for first-yr and sophomore students.

Toni Morrison

This course is an advanced introduction to the oeuvre of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. Reading her novels and nonfiction, we examine considerations that shaped our world within the last century and hang-out the present one, foregrounding Morrison’s writing as a key web site of bother and of transformation.

The Late 60s: Film Countercultures

On consultant late-60s counterculture movies concerned with antiauthoritarianism; hippy Bohemianism; social and sexual experimentation; dropping out; and psychedelia. Bookended by rock music festival documentaries (
Monterey Pop; Gimme Shelter; Woodstock), the seminar is generally involved with characteristic films (
The Graduate; Bonnie and Clyde; 2001; Midnight Cowboy; Easy Rider; Medium Cool). It may also contemplate some underground art cinema of Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol. Enrollment restricted to 20 juniors and seniors in English and MCM. Instructor permission required.

Senior Honors Thesis in English

Independent analysis and writing beneath the path of a school member. Permission should be obtained from the Honors Advisor in English. Open to senior English concentrators pursuing Honors in English. Instructor permission required.

Senior Honors Thesis in Nonfiction Writing

Independent research and writing beneath the direction of the student’s Nonfiction Writing honors supervisor. Permission must be obtained from the Honors Advisor for Nonfiction Writing. Open to senior English concentrators pursuing Honors in Nonfiction Writing. Instructor permission required.

Spenser and Shakespeare

A comparative study of theme, kind, and style primarily based upon paired works: Shakespeare’s
Sonnets/ Amoretti; Faerie Queene I/King Lear; Faerie Queene III/Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Winter's Tale, Tempest, Venus and Adonis; Shepheardes Calender/As You Like It.Weekly brief interpretative workout routines ( phrases) submitted as CANVAS discussions; draft (1250 words) and last essay (3000 words). Enrollment limited to 20.