Course Listings for 2004-2005

For updated information see http://www.columbia.edu/cu/bulletin/uwb/
More information on many courses available at courseworks.columbia.edu

Introductory

1201x,y. First-Year English: Reinventing Literary History
[For more information see course web site or library research guide]
Close examination of texts and regular writing assignments in composition, designed to help students read critically and write effectively. Sections of the course are grouped in three clusters: I. Legacy of the Mediterranean; II. The Americas; III. Women and Culture. The first cluster features a curriculum of classic texts representing key intellectual moments that have shaped Western culture, as well as excursions to the opera, the theatre, and museums. Offering revisionist responses to the constraints of canonicity, the last two clusters feature curricula that explore the literary history of the Americas and the role of women in culture.—Director and Staff. 3 points.  Click here  for section times or consult department bulletin board.

1202x. Studies in Writing
Intensive practice in writing, emphasizing drafts, revision, peer response, and individual conferences. Consideration of the conventions of English style, usage, and grammar by means of both informal and formal writing, culminating in expository essays. Recommended for (but not limited to) first-year students and students whose first language is not English. Permission of the instructor required.—Director and Staff.  3pts.  Sec 1. T Th 9:10-10:25; Sec. 2 M W 2:40-3:55;  Sec. 3 T Th 4:10-5:25.  Consult department bulletin board for section times.

Writing

Registration in each course is limited and permission of the instructor required; for courses 3105-3118, submit a writing sample in advance.  File signed departmental registration blanks with the Director of Creative Writing, T. Szell (423 Barnard).  Two creative writing courses may not be taken concurrently.

3101x. The Writer's Process: A Seminar in the Teaching of Writing
An exploration of theory and practice in the teaching of writing, designed for students who plan to become Writing Fellows at Barnard. Students will read current theory and consider current research in the writing process, and engage in practical applications in the classroom or in tutoring. 3 points.

3103x, 3104y.  Essay Writing
English composition above the first-year level.  Techniques of argument and effective expression. Weekly papers. Individual conferences.  Some sections have a special focus, as described.  Section 3 is offered Autumn semester for students whose first language is not English and who seek an upper-level writing course. 3 points.

3105x, 3106y. Fiction and Personal Narrative
Short stories and other imaginative and personal writing.—x: T. Szell; y: A. Hamburger.  3 points. x: W 2:10-4; y: W 6:10-8.

3107x, 3108y. Introduction to Fiction Writing
Practice in writing short stories and autobiographical narrative, with discussion and close analysis in a workshop setting.—x: N. Piore, y: C. Baker.  3 points.  x: Th 4:10-6; y: T 6:10-8:00.

3110x,y. Introduction to Poetry Writing
Varied assignments designed to confront the difficulties and explore the resources of language through imitation, allusion, free association, revision, and other techniques.—x: S. Hamilton; y: L. Gregg.  3 points. x: M 4:10-6:00; y: M 2:10-4:00. 

3113x. Introduction to Playwriting
A workshop to provoke and investigate dramatic writing.—E. McLaughlin.  3 points.  M 4:10-6.

(For spring semester, see Theatre BC3300: Playwrighting Lab.  This course can count toward an English/Creative Writing Concentrate.)

3115x, 3116y. Story Writing
Advanced work in writing, with emphasis on the short story.  Prerequisite: Some experience in the writing of fiction. —x,y: M. Gordon.  3 points.  Conference hours to be arranged.  T 4:10-6.

3117x. Fiction Writing
Assignments designed to examine form and structure in fiction. Some attention given to the role of the writer in society.—R. Antoni. 3 points. T 4:10-6.
Students will have already written a substantial body of work.  Prerequisite: Writing sample and interview with the instructor.

3118y. Advanced Poetry Writing
Weekly workshops designed to critique new poetry. Each participant works toward the development of a cohesive collection of poems. Short essays on traditional and contemporary poetry will also be required.—S. Hamilton. 3 points. M 4:10-6:00.

You may not apply for more than one writing course at a time or enroll in two creative writing courses simultaneously.  Since screenwriting is considered part of the Film Concentration, you may apply to screenwriting in addition to either a poetry or prose course.  However, you are strongly advised to take only one writing class in any given semester.

(For Screenwriting, see 3119y under the Film category)

Speech

Registration in each course is limited and permission of the department required.

Registration in each course is limited. Students may sign up for theatre courses outside the Theatre office, Room 507 Milbank Hall. See Theatre Department course descriptions for Theatre History (THTR 3150, 3151), Drama, Theatre, and Theory (THTR 3166), Modernism and Theatre (THTR 3737), and The History Play (THTR BC 3750).

ENTH BC 3136y. Shakespeare in Performance
The dramatic text as theatrical event. Differing performance spaces, production practices, and cultural conventions promote different modes of engagement with dramatic texts. We will explore Shakespeare's plays in the context of actual and possible performances from the Renaissance to the 20th Century. Enrollment limited to 18 students. 4 points.—P. Denison. Not offered in 2004-05.

ENTH BC 3137y. Restoration and 18th-Century Drama
Performance conventions, dramatic techniques, and cultural contexts from 1660 to 1800. Playwrights include Wycherley, Etherege, Behn, Trotter, Centlivre, Dryden, Congreve, Farquar, Gay, Goldsmith, and Sheridan. Enrollment limited to 18 students. 4 points.—P. Denison. Not offered in 2004-05. 

ENTH BC 3139y. Modern America Drama and Performance
Modern American drama in the context of theatrical exploration and cultural contestation. Playwrights include Glaspell, O'Neill, Odets, Johnson, Hurston, Hansberry, WIlliams, Hellman, Stein, Miller, and Fornes. Enrollment limited to 18 students. $60 fee. 4 points.—P. Denison. T 11:00-12:50.

ENTH BC 3140y. Women and Theatre
An exploration of the impact of women in theatre history—with special emphasis on American theatre history—including Glaspell, Crothers, Hellman, Finley, Hughes, and Smith. Enrollment limited to 18 students. 4 points.—P. Cobrin. Th 11:00-12:50.

Film

3119y. Screenwriting.
A practical workshop in dramatic writing for the screen. Through a series of creative writing exercises, script analysis, and scene work, students explore and develop the basic principles of screenwriting. Either a polished short film script or a preliminary draft of a feature screenplay is the final project. (Preference given to students concentrating in film. Does not count as a course for those concentrating in writing.)— M. Regan.  3 points. M 11:00-12:50.

3200x,y. Film Production.
An exploration of basic narrative tools at the filmmaker's disposal, with a particular emphasis on camera work and editing.  Examines basic cinematic syntax that provides a foundation for storytelling on the screen.—L. Engel.  3 points. x: T 10:00-1:00, y: M 1:00-4:00.
Prerequisite: ENGL BC 3201x and permission of the instructor.  Sophomore standing.  ENROLLMENT LIMITED TO 12 STUDENTS.  Students must send a one-page application to the instructor via e-mail (lbe1@Columbia.edu) explaining why the student wishes to take the course, the foundation work (whether academic or work-related) in film, video, the arts, etc. the student has had, and any final project the student may have in mind.  They should also include their affiliation, year of graduation and major or concentration.

3201x. Introduction to Film and Film Theory.
A survey of the history of American and international film and an introduction to film theory, including feminist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, and post-structuralist methodologies. Film contextualized through theory and through the lens of popular culture (advertising, television, music videos) and genre (the Hollywood film, women’s film, action movies, westerns, sci-fi, documentary, “Third World,” and “alternative” film, etc.) Weekly screening.—M. Regan.  3 points. M 6:10-10:00.

(See 3140y and 3998y for Film Seminar Courses)
[Re Film: New at Columbia this semester: CLEN W 3390x. Studies in Narrative - The Road Movie. see below]

3140x, y. Seminars on Special Themes. 3 points. Registration is limited. Sign up on bulletin boards across from the English Department office, 417 Barnard Hall.

3140x:
1. Explorations of Black Literature: 1760-1890.
Poetry, prose, fiction, and nonfiction, with special attention to the slave narrative. Includes Wheatley, Douglass, and Jacobs, but emphasis will be on less familiar writers such as Brown, Harper, Walker, Wilson, and Forten. Works by some 18th century precursors will also be considered.—Q. Prettyman. M W 11-12:15.

2. Fable and Fantasy.
Selected works by 19th- and 20th-century authors Lewis Carroll, Ursula LeGuin, C.S. Lewis, and others.  Their use of religious and philosophical fable, nonsense, and paradox; their creation of other worlds.—A. Prescott. T Th 11-12:15.

3. The Eighteenth Century Novel.
The eighteenth century in Britain is the age of the rise of the novel.  The course pays special attention to the development of the novel form, oppositions between city and the country, social order, and the construction of gender.  Authors include Burney, Defoe, Edgeworth, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Richardson.—G. Gerzina. T Th 10:35-11:50.

3140y.
1. Madness and Literature
Explores the literary representation of "madness" in works ranging from antiquity to the present. Authors include Euripides, Chretien de Troyes, Shakespeare, Swift, Bronte, Dostoevsky, Woolf, Plath, Kesey, and others.—E. Weinstock. M W 1:10-2:25.

2. Christians, Jews, and Israel in 17th Century England & America 
Explores how Christians represented themselves as Israel, the relation of Christianity to Judaism, and the relation of Christians and Jews. Readings include George Herbert, John Milton, some Quakers, John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, Roger Williams, and Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel.—A. Guibbory. T Th 2:40-3:55

3. Topics in Literature and Film: Memory and Forgetting
An experimental course that links literature to painting, photography and film, as well as texts in psychology (Freudian trauma theory and recovered memory). We will explore the role of personal and cultural memory in the creative process through key examples from the medieval "memory room" to the work of Alain Resnais.—R. Hamilton and H. Schulze. T Th 4:10-5:25.

4. Topics in American Literature and Film: War and Propaganda
The course examines the role of American film-makers in dramatizing, promoting and critiquing America's participation in the military conflicts of the past sixty years. From the gung-ho patriotism of Howard Hawks' SGT YORK to the calculated cynicism of Barry Levinson's WAG THE DOG, we explore shifting political realities and cultural expectations: How do they shape the artistic perspectives that materialize during specific eras, from World War II to the war on terrorism?—D. McKenna. T 6:10-10:00. This class has unlimited enrollment.

3141x, 3142y. Major English Texts
A chronological view of the variety of English literature through study of selected writers and their works. Autumn: Beowulf through Johnson. Spring: Romantic poets through the present. Guest lectures by members of the department.—P. Ellsberg. 3 points. x: T Th 10:35-11:50; y: M W 11:00-12:15.

3143y. Middle Fictions: Long Stories, Short Novels, Novellas 
Discussion of fictions between 60-150 pages in length. Authors include James, Joyce, Mann, Nabokov, Cather, Welty, West, Porter, Olsen, Trevor.—M. Gordon. 3pts. T Th 1:10-2:25.

English-Women's Studies ENWS BC 3144y. Minority Women Writers in the United States
Literature of the 20th-century minority women writers in the United States, with emphasis on works by Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American women. The historical and cultural as well as the literary framework.—Q. Prettyman. 3pts. M W 2:40-3:55.

3149y. Cultures of Colonialism: Palestine/Israel
The significance of colonial encounter, statehood, and dispossession in Palestinian and Israeli cultures from 1948 to the present, examined in a range of cultural forms: poetry, political tracts, cinema, fiction, memoirs, and travel writing. Authors include: Darwish, Grossman, Habibi, Khalifeh, Khleifi, Kanafani, Oz, Shabtai, Shalev, and Yehoshua.—B. Abu-Manneh.  3pts.  T Th 9:10-10:25.  (No auditors)

3155y. Canterbury Tales
The foundation of early modern literature. Chaucer as inheritor of late-antique and medieval conventions, and as founder of the later English literary tradition. Formalist, historicist, and feminist approaches.—T. Szell. 3pts. T Th 1:10-2:25.

3158x. Medieval Literature
Literatures of the British Isles and their continental connections, from late antiquity to the close of the Middle Ages. Emphasis on issues of cultural transformation, authorship and textuality, and "identity" (individual, social, cultural).—E. Weinstock. 3 points. T Th 1:10-2:25.

3159x-3160y. The English Colloquium
Major writers and literary works of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, examined in terms of leading ideas in those periods. Required of majors in the junior year. 4 points.

Students may substitute 3 courses—from ENGL 3163-3164, 3165-3169, ENGL 3173-3174, and 3179, or ENTH 3136-3137. This year 3140x: 3, The Eighteenth Century Novel will also count as a substitution. Students may also take 1 colloquium and 2 substitutions. At least one substituted course must cover material before 1660 (i.e. Renaissance) and one material after 1660 but before 1800 (i.e., Restoration or 18th Century). One of these substituted courses will also count toward satisfying the "before 1900" requirement.

I. Imitation and Creation
New ideas of the mind's relation to the world. New perspectives, the emergence of new forms, experimentation with old forms, and the search for an appropriate style.
x,y: R. Hamilton. x: W 11-12:50, y: W 9-10:50. 

II. Skepticism and Affirmation
The development of modern concepts of subjectivity and authority. The rise of art and the artist. Humanism and education. Rationalism and empiricism. The tension between belief and doubt. The exploration of the limits and the limitless.
x: P. Platt; y: T. Szell. x: W 2:10-4, y: Th 4:10-6:00.

III. Reason and Imagination [fall syllabus] [spring syllabus]
Humanism, reformation, and revolution: the possibilities of human knowledge; sources of and strategies for secular and spiritual authority; the competing demands of idealism and experience.
x,y: C. Plotkin. x: T 4:10-6:00; y: W 4:10-6.

IV. Order and Disorder
The tension, conflicts, and upheavals of an era in the arts, religion, politics, aesthetics, and society.—A. Guibbory
x: W 4:10-6:00.

3163x, 3164y. Shakespeare 
A critical and historical introduction to Shakespeare's comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances. 3 points.—P. Platt. x, y: M W 9:10-10:25. 

3165y. The Elizabethan Renaissance
Literature and culture during the reign of Elizabeth I. Topics include God, sex, love, colonization, wit, empire, the calendar, cosmology, and Elizabeth herself as author and subject. Authors include P. Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Mary Sidney Herbert.—A. Prescott. 3pts. T Th 4:10-5:25.

3166y Seventeenth Century Poetry and Prose
God, sex, love, religion, politics, and science in a century of revolutions: includes poetry by Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Herbert, Wroth, Philips, Marvell, Behn, Rochester; prose by Bacon, Burton, Donne, Browne, Hobbes, Sprat, Cavendish.—A. Guibbory. 3 points. T Th 11:00-12:15.

3167x. Milton
Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes and selections of Milton’s earlier poetry and prose (defenses of free press, divorce, individual conscience, political and religious liberty) read within the context of religious, political, and cultural history, but with a sense of connection to present issues.—A. Guibbory. 3 points. T Th 11:00-12:15.

3169y. Renaissance Drama: Kyd to Ford
Major plays of the English Renaissance (excluding Shakespeare), with emphasis on Marlowe and Middleton.—P. Platt. 3 points. Not offered in 2004-05.

3178y. Victorian Poetry and Criticism.
Poetry, art, and aesthetics in an industrial society, with emphasis on the role of women as artists and objects.  Poems by Tennyson, Arnold, Christina and D.G. Rossetti, Swinburne, and Elizabeth and Robert Browning;  criticism by Ruskin, Arnold, and Wilde; paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites and Whistler; photographs by J.M. Cameron.—C. Plotkin.  3 points. T Th 5:40-6:55.

3179x. American Literature to 1800 [web site]
The formation and development of American literary traditions. Writers include Bradford, Shepard, Cotton, Bradstreet, Taylor, Rowlandson, Edwards, Wheatley, Franklin, Woolman, Brown. 3 points. Not offered in 2004-05.

3180x. American Literature, 1800-1870.
The development of a national literature from the late Republican period through the Civil War. Writers include Irving, Emerson, Poe, Fuller, Thoreau, Douglass, Stowe, Jacobs, Whitman, Dickinson.—M. Vandenburg. 3 points. T Th 4:10-5:25.

3181x. American Literature, 1871-1945 [library research guide]
American literature in the context of cultural and historical change. Writers include Twain, James, Du Bois, Wharton, Cather, Wister, Faulkner, Hurston.—J. Kassanoff. 3 points. T Th 10:35-11:50.

3182y. American Fiction
American fiction from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.  Writers include Rowson, Hawthorne, Melville, Alcott, Twain, James, Wharton, Faulkner, Wright.—J. Kassanoff. 3 points. MW 10:35-11:50.

3183x. American Literature since 1945
History, memory, family, death, machines, sex and worry are preoccupations of the texts selected for this course. Authors will include: Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Paula Fox, Jonathan Franzen, Toni Morrison, Richard Powers, Ishmael Reed and Phillip Roth. —M. Spiegel. 3 points. T Th  5:40pm-6:55pm.

3184x. House and Home in American Culture [web site]
An interdisciplinary examination of house, home, and family in American life from 1850 to the present. Attention to the interrelation between architectural design, ideologies of family, class identity, racial politics and gender formation.  Historical sites include the plantation, the nomadic dwelling, the mansion, the tenement, the apartment, and the suburb.—J. Kassanoff. 3 points. T Th 2:40-3:55.

3185y. Modern British and American Poetry
The poetry of three decades, 1915-25, 1955-65, and 1991-2001. Poems by Yeats, Eliot, Williams, Millay, Larkin, O’Hara, Rich, Hughes, and others.—P. Ellsberg. 3 points. MW 2:40-3:55.

3188y, The Modern Novel
Works by Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner, Lawrence, Forster, West, Barnes, and Desani. 3points.—M. Vandenburg. T Th 1:10-2:25.

3189. Postmodern Literature
Writers since 1945, mostly English and American, and concepts of postmodern culture. Works by Beckett, Borges, Nabokov, Rhys, Barthelme, Pynchon, and others. 3 points.—Not offered in 2004-05.

3190x. Global Literature in English
A selective survey of fiction from the ex-colonies, focusing on the colonial encounter, cultural and political decolonization, and belonging and migration in the age of postcolonial imperialism. Areas covered include Africa (Achebe, Aidoo, Armah, Ngugi); the Arab World (Mahfouz, Munif, Salih, Souief); South Asia (Mistry, Rushdie, Suleri); the Carribean (Kincaid); and New Zealand (Hulme). 3pts.—B. Abu-Manneh. T Th 2:40-3:55.

3191x,y. The English Conference: The Lucyle Hook Guest Lectureship.  
Enrollment limited: sign up in the Department office.
Special topics presented by visiting scholars in courses that will meet for two to four weeks during each semester. To be taken only for pass/fail. 1 point. To receive credit for this course students must attend all lectures. Information will be available online.

Fall: 3191x. Writing Madness Psychoanalysis will provide the framework for exploring the function of writing for psychotics and the relationship of psychotics to writing. Authors discussed will include Schreber and Joyce, Plath and Frame. Aspects of Aimée, treated by Lacan, and the Papin sisters, discussed by Genet, will be examined if time permits.  Russell Grigg, Professor of philosophy and psychoanalytic studies at Deakin University, Australia will be giving the course this fall.  Professor Grigg is a member of the Ecole de la Cause freudienne and the Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis. He has translated Lacan's Seminar III: The Psychoses (Routledge, 1993) and Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2005) and is the author of numerous articles on Lacan and philosophy.  M W for two weeks: Oct 4, 6th, 11, and 13th, in 409 Barnard Hall.  Students can add this course until Oct. 6th, which is past the normal Sept. 17th deadline.

Spring: 3191y.  Psychoanalysis and Film.  
M W 6:10-8 p.m., in 304 Barnard Hall, March 21, 23, 28, & 30.  Deadline to register is 3/23.
The artist always precedes the psycholanalyst according to the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.  This sentence holds true for great film makers and for the characters they invent and insert in the narrative plot.  Many pictures teach us about the subject of speech and language, and also about the symptom as a special mode of jouissance which inscribes the subject in a social link, as exemplified through the characters in the texture and the style of the film.  We will draw from texts from Lacan to comment some extracts of the following pictures: “A Woman Under the Influence,” “El Habla Con Ella,” “The Hours,” “Fatal Attraction,” “Taxi Driver,” “When Harry Met Sally,”  “Catch Me If You Can,” and “In the Bedroom.”—P.G. Guéguen.  M W 6:10-8 p.m., in 304 Barnard Hall, March 21, 23, 28, & 30.

Prof. Pierre-Gilles Guéguen, Ph.D.,  is President of the W.A.P. (World Association of Psychoanalysis), member and former Director of L’École de la Cause Freudienne (E.C.F.), manager and faculty member of the Clinical Section, in France, faculty member of the Department of Psychoanalysts, Paris VIII University, and author of numerous articles on Lacan.

This is the class program for this semester's ENGL 3191 English Conference: Psychoanalysis and Film:

March 21: An inquiry into passion and madness. Films: Fatal Attraction and Bunuel's El.
March 23: How bad obsession can be: the narcistic cage. Film: As Good As It Gets.
March 28: Hysteria and unsatisfaction. Film: Reflections in a Golden Eye.
March 30: The war between the sexes. Film: Adam's Rib.

Please see films before class.

Readings:
Freud's Dora and The Ratman
Readings in Lacan's Seminar III: Psychosis (To Be Announced)
Books will be available at Labyrinth Bookstore

3193x,y. Critical Writing [sample web site]
The purpose of the course is to provide experience in the reading and analysis of texts and some knowledge of conspicuous works of literary criticism. Frequent short papers. Required of all majors before the end of the junior year. Sophomores are encouraged to take it in the Spring Term even before officially declaring their major. Transfer students should plan to take it in the Autumn Term. Registration in each section is limited. Please sign up on the bulletin board between rooms 403 and 405 Barnard Hall. 4 points.—Members of the Department.

3195x. Modernism
Modernist responses to cultural fragmentation and gender anxiety in the wake of psychoanalysis and world war. Works by Woolf, Joyce, Yeats, Eliot, Stein, Hemingway, H.D., Pound, Lawrence, Barnes, and other Anglo-American writers. 3 points.—M. Vandenburg. T Th 1:10-2:25.

3198x. Poetry Movements since the 1950’s
Major poetry movements since the 1950’s, including Beat Poetry, Confessional Poetry, the Black Arts Movement, Black Mountain, the Belfast group, and Language Poetry.—S. Hamilton. 3 points. M W 1:10-2:25.

3199y. Poetics
An investigation of philosophies of poetry and imagination. Selected prose and poetry by Petrarch, Coleridge, Clare, Dickinson, Williams, Celan, and others.—S. Hamilton. 3 points. M W 1:10-2:25.

3810y. Literary Approaches to the Bible
Interpretive strategies for reading the Bible as a work with literary, historical, and social dimensions. Considerations of poetic and rhetorical structures, narrative techniques, and feminist exegesis will be included. Topics for investigation include the influence of the Bible on later literature, combined with the more formal disciplines of biblical studies.—P. Ellsberg. 4 points. T 2:10-4:00

ENGL W 3960x. Work and English Culture
A nuanced study of the aesthetic representation of work and culture in the nineteenth-century English imagination, this course will begin by considering how novels employ a Protestant concept of vocation whereby work and salvation are intertwined in methodical worldly engagement.  We will then trace the relationship of these community-centered plots of vocation to the narrative structuring of cultural identities within the English nation: Saxons, Jews, Belgians, Northerners, Bohemians, Gypsies, Vampire, Pirates.  Readings include novels by Scott, Bronte, Dickens, Gaskell, Eliot, Trollope, Du Maurier and Stoker, and works by Disraeli, Aronold, Eliot, Ruskin, Weber and Gilbert and Sullivan.  Note: no formal application or pre-registration is necessary; those interested should attend the first class meeting and register at the beginning of the semester.  But interested students are encouraged to email Prof. Cohen (mlf1@columbia.edu) to give her some idea of the likely turnout. —M. Cohen. 4 points. F 11:00-12:50.

3996x,y. Special Project in Theatre, Writing, or Critical Interpretation
Senior majors who are concentrating in Theatre or Writing and have completed two courses in writing or three in theatre will normally take the Special Project in Theatre or Writing (3996x, y) in combination with another course in their special field. This counts in place of one of the Senior Seminars. In certain cases, Independent Study (3999) may be substituted for the Special Project. Permission of the instructor and the chair required.  In rare cases, with the permission of the chair, a special project in conjunction with a course may be taken by other English majors.  Click here for the form to complete.  1 point.

3997x, 3998y.  Senior Seminars: Studies in Literature
Required of all majors, these seminars are designed to deepen knowledge of periods, writers, works, genres, and theories through readings, discussion, oral reports, and at least one significant research paper. Written permission of the instructor.  Enrollment limited to seniors. 4 points.

3997x.

1. Violent Thought
Violent thought from Reformation to Romanticism. How does thought reflect and respond to cultural violence? We will pose this question, and consider answers, reading literature, philosophy, theology, and law. Authors include Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Bacon, Locke, and Wordsworth.—R. Hamilton. W 2:10-4.

2. Body and Language [syllabus] [library research guide]
Interpretations of the female body and feminine sexuality in relation to issues of pleasure, love, death, and the unconscious in various postmodern literary and theoretical (mainly Lacanian) texts.—M. Jaanus. Th 6:10-8:00.

3. The Literature of the Middle Passage [web site]
The course will look at the literature that has been produced as a result of the Atlantic Slave Trade. This includes writing from Africa, Britain, and the Americas which reflects the huge changes in history that have occurred as a result of this process of involuntary migration out of Africa. We will study literary texts by Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Du Bois, Conrad, Equiano, and Baldwin, among others.—C. Phillips. T 11:00-12:50.

4. Slavery: A Woman's Experience
Slavery as experienced in the 19th century and as recreated by later authors. Autobiography, prose, fiction, and poetry. Writers include Jacobs, Harper, Kemble, Chestnut, Chesnutt, Cable, Twain, Stowe, Mitchell, Gaines, Morrison.—Q. Prettyman. M 2:10-4.

5. Victorian Poets
Victorian Poets: The Poetics of Loss and Recovery. The focus will be on poems by Tennyson, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, with additional poems by George Meredith, Christina Rossetti, and Matthew Arnold.—A. Prescott. W 4:10-6.

6. Renaissance Love Poetry, Erotic and Devotional
Exploring the 17th-century categories (and relations between) sacred and profane, erotic/sexual and spiritual, and the role of gender, we’ll read Donne’s Songs and Sonnets, Anniversaries, and religious lyrics; Aemelia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, and George Herbert’s The Temple.—A. Guibbory. T 4:10-6.

3998y

1. The Family in Turn-of-the-Century American Fiction
An inter-disciplinary examination of changing cultural dynamics of the American family. Considers issues such as the family and the market, immigration, "race," reproductive politics, and nativism. Authors include James, Wharton, Cahan, Hopkins, Gilman, Cather, and Faulkner.—J. Kassanoff.  T 2:10-4.

2. Film: The Man in the Crowd/The Woman of the Streets
An exploration of 19th- and 20th-century formulations of the masses, the public, the people, the social nebulae, and the individual as conceived in relation to them in novels, stories, and films. Readings include works by Dickens, Gissing, Poe, Sinclair Lewis, Dos Passos, Nathanael West; films by Vidor, Chaplin, Capra, and others; and some readings in early sociology on mass psychology, conformity, and theories of the crowd.—M. Spiegel. Th 4:10-6:00.

3. Gender and Politics in the Medieval Romance
The romance genre as a form of entertainment and as social critique. Works from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries; also some readings in anthropology, social and cultural history, literary theory and criticism.—E. Weinstock. T 4:10-6:00.

4. Victorian and Modern Drama
Drama in transition. Changing social structures and dramatic structures at the turn of the century. The relationship between convention and invention in the plays of Shaw, Wilde, Pinero, Ibsen, Chekhov, Robins, and others.—P. Denison. M 11:00-12:50.

5. (ENAADS 3998y.5)  Harlem in Literature
Examines Harlem as a setting and literary device in the fiction and poetry of writers throughout the twentieth century. Authors include Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Larsen, Lorde, Morrison, Petry, McKay and van Vechten. In addition to the readings, the class will visit major Harlem cultural landmarks and take a literary walking tour.—G. Gerzina. T 12:00-1:50.

6. Modernist Visions: Conrad, Eliot, Woolf
Hearts of darkness and light, overseas and at home in London, in the first decades of the 20th century. Gender divisions; images of fragmentation and reconstruction.—C. Brown. W 4:10-6:00.

3999x,y. Independent Study
Senior majors who wish to substitute Independent Study for one of the two required senior seminars should consult the chair. Permission is given rarely and only to students who present a clear and well-defined topic of study, who have a Department sponsor, and who submit their proposals well in advance of the semester in which they will register. There is no independent study for screenwriting or film production.  Permission of the Instructor and Department Chair is required.  Click here for the form to complete.  4 points.

With Columbia

CLEN W 3390x. Studies in Narrative - The Road Movie.
This course is taking temporary shelter under the title 'Studies in Narrative,' but its actual subject is a particular narrative genre, the 'road movie.'  The particular question I want to keep asking is how this genre became so knowing, so assured about itself, even at the relatively early stages in its emergence.  As one element of this course, we will begin by looking at some literary precursors: the Odyssey; and early 'picaresque' novel called The Unfortunate Traveller; the satiric and widely traveled Candide; Huckleberry Finn; On the Road; and a contemporary fiction; Jonathan Saffran Foer's Everything is Illuminated.  I assume that most members of the class will have previously read the Odyssey, and so I will ask everyone to show up at the first class having recently refreshed themselves on its contents.

Then, on to film.  Bibliographies and material on film theory will be provided.  We will start with two important precursors, It Happened One Night (Capra, 1934) and Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1941).  Then on to a crucial early rendition, in which most elements of the mature road movie are present, but not fully developed, They Live by Night (Ray, 1948).  Then the sublime Badlands (Malik, 1973); followed by Thelma and Louise (Scott, 1991) in which women do the driving; and a film which in my view signals the possible decadence of the genre, Natural Born Killers (Stone, 1994); and finally a film that knits many of our themes together, O Brother (Coen Brothers, 2000).  Members of the seminar will also be encourages to do some freelance viewing, of such films as Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967), Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969), Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971), and Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984); I'll have a pool of DVDs available for loan, together with local rental options.
All this will lead up to two 'finished' papers (over and above some short classroom presentations): a 6-8 page paper on one of the literary narratives (or a related narrative) read in the first six weeks, and then a 15 page 'seminar' paper on one of the films we have viewed, or a similar film of your choice, in its enlarged literary/cinematic context.  One of the questions I want to keep asking throughout involves the shifting relations of the transients and the societies they encounter: what is the locus and relative balance of 'good' and 'evil,' criminality and honesty, innocence and experience?  Another question involves the challenge posed to genre criticism by the fact that genres are never 'pure.'  In the case of film, what about the constant tendency of 'road' movies to diversify and merge with various look-alikes, some very different in their core assumptions: gateway movies, heist movies, buddy movies, and the like?

People seeking admission to this course need not have extensive film studies experience, but should be ready to view and discuss movies without checking their brains at the door.  I'll expect you to be no less smart and alert and rigorous about Badlands than about any canonical literary text.  Those seeking admission should send Michael Mallick (mgm3@columbia.edu) a paragraph about reasons for wanting to take the course, class standing, and other possibly relevant considerations - no later than Friday 3 September.  No one should enroll who cannot attend the Tuesday evening screenings.  The class roster will be posted in Philosophy Hall by noon Monday 6 September. - P. Strohm.  4 points. Class meeting: R 4:10pm-6:00pm, Screenings: T 8:00pm-10:00pm.

W4390x. Dickens & the 19th Century.
This course will trace the arc of Dickens’ career, his evolution as a narrative strategist and social visionary, with attention to such nineteenth-century preoccupations as urban life, poverty, crime, detection, bureaucracy, reform, disease, self-help, sentimentality, and the problem of virtue. Dickens’ more intimate concerns, including companionate love, relations between fathers and daughters, generational conflict, female modesty and respectability, will also come under our scrutiny.—M. Spiegel. 3 points. M W 6: 10-7:25.

ENTA W 4724x. Modern Drama
A survey of modern drama from roughly 1870-1960, with particular attention to the foundations of modern theatre in the works of Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, and Shaw.  Other playwrights may include Wilde, Synge, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, O'Neill, Williams, and Miller.  We will also discuss the development of modern techniques of acting, directing, theatre architecture, and scene design. —M. Smith. 3 points. T Th 1:10-2:25.

CLEN W4995y . Reading Lacan.
An intensive reading of selections from Lacan's Seminar VI: Desire and Its Interpretation with Hamlet, of Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis with Antigone and Kant's Ethics; of Seminar VIII: Transference with Plato's Symposium, and of Seminar X: Anxiety and Seminar XX: Encore: On Feminine Sexuality with selected novels. Emphasis on the relevance of Lacan's thought to literature and culture and on his shift from desire and language to jouissance, love, and poetry as well as on the significance of his inclusion of the symptom in his knot of the Imaginary, Symbolic, and the Real.—M. Jaanus. 3pts. Th 6:10-8.