Brochure produced by
Katie Naubereit ‘15
Key to abbreviations:
“A” = Approaches course
“cr” = credits
“ILS” = Integrative Learning Seminar
“SiST” = seminar in selected topics
“Til” = “topics in literature”
“WL3” = course will facilitate advancement to WL4
“WS” = “Women Studies” cross listing
ENGL. 470-Gh (4 cr.)
SiST: Rationalism & Riotous Misrule in the
Age of Reason (ILS)
Navarette, S. Clark 251
TTh 02:30-04:30 p.m.
The regularity with which crime and disorderly conduct
figure in its pages and on its canvases suggests that eighteenthcentury British literature and art take as one of their defining subjects
the contest between error and understanding, as well as several
complementary sets of contesting values, such as reason and instinct,
nature and affect. Because its investigation will focus not merely
upon a selection of authors and artists whose work examines the
character of reasoning thought, but also upon the conditions under
which rational states of mind are subverted, “Rationalism, Revelry,
and Riotous Misrule” is intended to provide an introduction to a
range of representative authors and texts considered in their cultural
context. Topics of inquiry will include the increasingly
commercialized nature of human interactions within eighteenthcentury British society; nationhood and the construction of national
identity; the emergence of a literary marketplace and the
“professional” author; the inscripting of the female body as
negotiable currency. We will examine our authors’ exploration of
the ways in which men and women, what Aristotle had rather
optimistically designated “the rational animal,” carried on their
negotiations within the various economies—cultural, national,
sexual—that constituted the society that they were constructing for
themselves. Authors will include Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift,
Daniel Defoe, Tobias Smollett, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Jane
Austen. Given that Engl. 345 will serve in spring of 2014 as a senior
seminar, students should expect to play an active role in establishing
and developing relevant lines of inquiry. Assignments will include
presentations, exams, and essays.
January Term
2014
ENGL. 250-12
(4 cr.)
Til/Poetry and Performance
(Also listed as THEA 250: Poetry and Performance)
Bensen, R.
Clark 329
MTThF 10:00 a.m.-01:30 p.m.
“A poem comes into its full physical being only briefly during
the act of reading it aloud.”
—M.H. Abrams, “On Reading Poems Aloud,” Cornell U.,
16 April 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Ofwljw4Y0
Growing student interest in expressive writing and in
presenting their work in public (as in readings and slams) has
encouraged me to offer a class devoted to taking the poem from the
page to the stage. The class will be both writing and performance
workshop, in practice and theory. The class will culminate in a public
performance at the end of January Term.
We will be creating poems for public presentation and
performance. We want to think about the poet as actor, the poem as
script, the audience as reclamation site for auditory renewal. We want
to conceive poet's rebirth in the poem. We want to remember poetry’s
origin in the sounds of the world. In so doing, we will consider ways of
writing, reading, remembering, and re-envisioning poems. We will
consider the opportunities that performance and presentation give to
composition.
Textbooks to be selected from:
Guskin, Harold. How to Stop Acting. NY: Faber & Faber, 2003.
Pinsky, Robert. Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poetry to
Read Aloud. NY: Norton, 2009.
Smith, Marc Kelly, and Joe Kraynak. Take the Mic: The Art of
Performance Poetry, Slam, and the Spoken Word. NY: Sourcebooks
MediaFusion, 2009.
Rodenburg, Patsy. The Actor Speaks: Voice and the Performer. NY:
St. Martins Press, 2000.
[Plus poetry texts to be selected]
ENGL. 378-Cd (WL3; 3 cr.)
American Indian Literature
Bensen R. Clark 252
TTh 10:10-11:30 a.m.
American Indian literature is shaped by ancient tradition
and contemporary life, but above all it is an expression and
means of cultural survival. Indian people live in two
worlds. Native writers occupy a borderland as well, politically
and artistically, in the project of making English an Indian
language. Readings include work by early writers and those from
the post-1969 American Indian renaissance, such as Zitkala Sa,
E. Pauline Johnson, James Welch, Louise Erdrich, Carter Revard,
Leslie Silko, N. Scott Momaday, Eric Gansworth, Phil Young,
Joy Harjo, and others. We will also study other forms of art and
cultural expression, such as music and dance, oral narrative,
spiritual and philosophical ideas, that will help us appreciate the
situation of the original people within our borders.
ENGL. 375-05
(3 cr.)
Contemporary American Literature
Seguin, R.
Clark 251
WF 12:20-01:40 p.m.
A close reading of some of the most exciting current
writers in America. Authors may include Don DeLillo, Toni
Morrison, David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, Jhumpa
Lahiri, Percival Everett, Jennifer Egan, Cormac McCarthy, Junot
Díaz, Sherman Alexie, Rachel Kushner, Aleksandar Hemon, Hari
Kunzru, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Norman Rush, Dave Eggers, Chris
Kraus, and Gary Shteyngart.
ENGL. 250-22
(3 cr.)
Til/Four Modern American Poets
Travisano, T. Clark 252
MTWF
10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
In this class we will read, experience and develop an
understanding of four of the greatest and most original American
poets of the twentieth century: Robert Frost, Marianne
Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Lowell. Other goals will be
to develop critical reading and writing skills and to develop an
understanding of the art of poetry and how poets create a working
style. Finally, we’ll work on presentation skills.
ENGL. 250-23
(3 cr.)
Alfred Hitchcock
Cody, D. & Navarette, S.
MTWF
Clark 251
12:30 - 03:30 p.m.
Penelope Houston has described Alfred Hitchcock as a
craftsman of genius “who liked to hear an audience scream.”
This course will explore the literary, psychological, and political
aspects of the Hitchcockian metaphysic, with particular emphasis
on the relationships (some obvious, others unexpected) that exist
both between Hitchcock and other directors (including Fritz
Lang, Orson Welles, and Preston Sturges) and between his films
and the literary works that inspired them. Primary texts include
stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Joseph
Conrad’s The Secret Agent, John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, Daphne
Du Maurier’s Rebecca and “The Birds,” and Cornell Woolrich’s
“Rear Window.” Films include Blackmail (1929), The Lady
Vanishes (1938), Rebecca (1940), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941),
Notorious (1946), Rope (1948), Strangers on a Train (1951),
Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958),
North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960). Students enrolled
in this course will be charged a user's fee in order to access the
films.
ENGL. 370-Gh
(3 cr.)
American Literature: Beginnings Through
the Civil War
Cody, D.
TTh
Clark 248
02:30-03:50 p.m.
As its title suggests, this course serves as an introduction
to some of the most significant American literary figures of the
pre-Civil-War period. We will examine some of the ways in
which works by these authors (including William Bradford, John
Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, William Apess, William Bartram, J. Hector St.
John de Crèvecœur, James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe,
Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau,
Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson) served to articulate, define,
sustain, critique, contradict, and/or subvert the mysterious vision
that we still refer to as the “American dream.” Each student will
write two research papers, and there will be a midterm and a final
examination.
ENGL. 355-Cd (4 cr.)
The English Romantics (A) (ILS)
Navarette, S.
Clark 251
TTh 10:10 a.m.-12:10 p.m.
Although it spanned a relatively brief period of time, the
Romantic period in British literature produced a remarkably
complex, exotic, and radical collection of writings—writings that,
however individually diverse, share a devotion to discretely
articulated aesthetic, philosophical, and political values: “beauty,”
“nature,” “imagination,” the primacy of individual experience.
So experimental was the literature produced by authors such as
John Keats, Lord Byron, William Blake, and Mary Shelley that it
may be said to have provided the inceptive energy informing
other important literary and cultural movements that, in the final
weeks of the semester, we will “read” as expressions of lateRomanticism: for example, American Transcendentalism, PreRaphaelitism, Décadence, and even the “hippie” culture of the
1960s and ‘70s. Exams, essays, presentations, good conversation
will constitute course obligations.
Spring Term
2014
ENGL. 190-04 (3 cr.)
Introduction to Literature & Criticism
Darien, L. Clark 329
MWF 11:15 a.m.-12:10 p.m.
This course is a gateway to the English major both literally
and figuratively.
It is a literal gateway in that it is required that all English
majors take any section of this course within one semester of
declaring their intention to major in English. Thus at the
beginning of their study of English at Hartwick College, all
majors must (successfully) pass through this or another section of
ENGL 190.
But our use of the term “gateway” is itself at heart a
metaphor: this is a college course, not an actual gate through
which one passes. And, more importantly, this gateway course is
not just a door one passes through and forgets: it is an opening, an
entryway into the beautiful and exciting world of literature and
literary study. In that sense, this course is figurative gateway, an
entrance into the imaginative spaces of the great works of
literature.
After introducing the terms and methods of literary
scholarship and criticism, we will explore a small section of this
enormous space, the world of literature, as we read, discuss, and
analyze works from a great variety of times, places, and genres,
works that are united only by their ability to speak to us and teach
us both about literature and about human life.
ENGL. 336-Ef
(4 cr.)
Shakespeare I
Darien, L.
TTH
Clark 251
12:20-02:20 p.m.
This course focuses on the advanced study of the first half
of Shakespeare's dramatic career. During this period,
Shakespeare wrote most of his great history plays, including the
so-called Henriad – Richard III, 1Henry IV, 2Henry IV, Henry 5 –
as well as many of his most famous comedies, including Taming
of the Shrew, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About
Nothing, As You Like It, and The Merchant of Venice.
Students will study not only these particular plays (and
some others as well), but also their cultural context, performance
history, and critical reception. In addition, we will consider two
broad (and unanswerable) questions: How does historical drama
change history? And what makes comedy funny?
Course requirements include several short writing
assignments, two exams, an in-class presentation, and a
substantial paper (approximately 15 pages) using secondary and
critical sources.
Please note that although there is no prerequisite to this
course, it is an upper-level English course and thus requires
advanced analytic and writing skills for student success. In
addition, it is assumed that students in the class already have
some facility in understanding Shakespeare’s language. If you
have any questions about whether or not this course is appropriate
for you, please talk to Professor Darien before enrolling.
ENGL. 250-78 (3 cr.)
ENGL. 208-02 (3 cr.)
Four Fantasists: Tolkien & His Precursors
The Anatomy of English
Cody, D.
Clark 349
MW 02:55-04:15 p.m.
This exploration of the literary fantasy—the realm, that is,
of the imaginary, the fabulous, the unreal, and the uncanny—will
center on the works of four crucial figures in the history of the
genre. William Morris—poet, artist, political radical, a man who
according to his own reckoning was “born out of his due time”—
created the modern literary fantasy when he wrote The Wood
Beyond the World in 1894. Shortly thereafter, H. G. Wells began
to publish his “scientific romances”—works such as The Time
Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds,
“atrocious miracles,” as J. L. Borges has called them, that “will be
incorporated into the general memory of the species and even
transcend the fame of their creator or the extinction of the
language in which they were written.” In 1926, E. R. Eddison
produced The Worm Ouroboros, which remains, in the opinion of
the cognoscenti, the best of the “heroic” prose fantasies. And
beyond them all, of course, looms J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of
the Rings, the most popular work of fantasy ever written and in
many ways both a compendium of and a response to much that
came before it. As we read and discuss these and related works
by peers and precursors such as Dunsany, Buchan and Lovecraft,
we will examine the ways in which our authors attempted to come
to terms with the issues-- industrialization, imperialism,
technology, warfare, pollution, consumerism, alienation, and
exploitation--that have tended to dominate modern life and
culture. Each student will write two research papers, and there
will be a midterm and a final examination.
Suarez Hayes, J. Clark 252
MWF 09:05-10:00 a.m.
“I really do not know that anything has ever been more
exciting than diagramming sentences.”
--Gertrude Stein
What would possess Gertrude to say such a thing? Why
bother to diagram a sentence? Have you pondered the Existential
“there” lately or been accused of dangling a participle? If you
have ever wondered why English does what it does, this course in
basic syntax is for you. We will probe these mysteries through a
systematic, practical, and analytic study of the structure and
function of words, phrases, and clauses in the English language
and in-depth study of authentic materials by authors from diverse
backgrounds while emphasizing recognition of form and analysis
of function. Recommended for those students planning to teach
secondary English as well as for English majors and minors, those
planning to tutor at the Writing Center, and students serious about
writing as a career.
If you have ever wondered why English does what it does,
this course is for you.
ENGL. 245-Ef (3 cr.)
ENGL. 250-03
(3 cr.)
African American Literature
Til/Utopias & Dystopias in Literature & Film
Seguin, R. Breese 208
Seguin, R. Clark 251
TTH 12:20 - 01:40 p.m.
This course will survey a broad spectrum of AfricanAmerican literature, from its origins to the present. Beginning
with the founding texts of the tradition -- slave narratives, folk
tales -- we will then move to the creative ferment of the Harlem
Renaissance of the 1920s and its efforts to forge a cutting edge
conception of “blackness” adequate to an era of rapid social
transformation. Next comes the turmoil and fresh horizons of the
Civil Rights era, with its calls for “black power” and increasingly
experimental literary ventures. Finally we will look at our
contemporary period, a time when many of the most exciting
African American writers are grappling with a vexing set of
questions: What is the place of black culture in an increasingly
diverse America? Are we perhaps on the verge of a new, “postracial” reality? Authors we will look at will include: Frederick
Douglass, Harriet Wilson, W.E.B. DuBois, Nella Larsen, Zora
Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison,
Colson Whitehead, Alice Walker, and Octavia Butler.
MWF
10:10 -11:05 a.m.
As REM sang once upon a time, it’s the end of the world
as we know it and I feel fine. Certainly that would seem to be the
case today, given the tremendous popularity of dystopian
literature: we really do like our doom-laden scenarios. But why?
Do we simply not believe in progress anymore, thinking instead
that some form of social and/or ecological catastrophe is more
likely? What if, though, such narratives were secretly meditating
upon the possibility of a better future, nourishing unfashionable
thoughts of political and social redemption? Indeed, the Utopian
impulse has been under attack and in hiding of late, but signs of
revival are perhaps in the air. In this course, we will survey the
contemporary cultural landscape for signs of hope and despair
alike, and reflect on some of the Big Questions: what is the nature
of human destiny? Is failure and destruction our fate, or can we
mount a project that will improve our lot? We will read an
eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction, watch a few films, and
enjoy a few guest appearances by experts from around campus.