2004 Spring Course Listings

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

Courses of Instruction Introductory

1201y. First-Year English: Reinventing Literary History [web site] [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 pts.

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). A student is not permitted to take two writing courses concurrently.

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 4 is offered in each semester for students whose first language is not English and who seek an upper-level writing course. 3 pts.

 Sec. 1   T 4:10-6.      H. Schulze (Writing About the Visual Arts)
 Sec. 2   W 11-12:50. M. Ellsberg
 Sec. 3   Th 4:10-6.    A. Schneider
 Sec. 4   M 11-12:50. (ESL) Philip Kain
 Sec. 5   W 4:10-6.    Journalism and popular writing, methods of news writing and news judgment. F. Brady

3106y. Fiction and Personal Narrative
Short stories and other imaginative and personal writing.—T. Szell. 3 pts.

Sec. 1   W 2:10-4 pm.
Sec. 2   Th 4:10-6 pm.

3108y. Introduction to Fiction Writing
Practice in writing short stories and autobiographical narrative, with discussion and close analysis in a workshop setting.—Christine Schutt. 3 pts. Th 6:10-8.

3116y. Story Writing II
Advanced work in writing, with emphasis on the short story. Prerequisite: Some experience in the writing of fiction. —Roddy Doyle.  3 pts. Conference hours to be arranged. T 4:10-6 pm.

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

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.)—Marie Regan. 3 pts. M 11:00-12:50.

Theatre

Registration in each course is limited. Students may sign up for theatre courses outside the Theatre office, 5th floor, Milbank.  See Theatre Department course descriptions for Theatre History II (THTR 3151y), Women and Theatre (THTR 3140y), Drama, Theatre, and Theory (THTR 3166), Senior Seminar: Modern American Drama and Performance (THTR 3888).

ENTH 3136y. Shakespeare in Performance
The dramatic text as theatrical event.  Differing performance spaces, production practices, and cultural conventions promote differing 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 20 students.—P. Denison. 4 pts. T 11:00-12:50.

ENTH 3137y. Restoration and 18th-Century Drama
Performance conventions, dramatic techniques, and cultural contexts from 1660 to 1800.  Playwrights include Wycherley, Etherege, Behn, Pix, Centlivre, Dryden, Congreve, Farquhar, Gay, Goldsmith, and Sheridan. Enrollment limited to 20 students.—P. Denison. 4 pts. M 11:00-12:50.

ENTH 3140y. Women and Theatre
An exploration of the impact of women in theatre history—with special emphasis on American theatre history—including how dramatic texts and theatre practice have reflected the ever-changing roles of women in society. Playwrights include Glaspell, Crothers, Hellman, Finley, Hughes, and Devere Smith.—P. Cobrin. 4pts. Th 11:00-12:50. Enrollment limited to 20 students.

[For information about studio courses in theatre, go to the Theatre office, 5th floor Milbank.]

Language and Literature

3140y. Seminars on Special Themes. 3 pts
Registration is limited. Listings across from the English Department office, 417 Barnard Hall.

1. “Madness” and Literature.
This course will examine the literary representation of mental illness in works ranging from antiquity to the present. Emphasis on the relationship between the categories of mental illness (“hysteria,” “melancholy,” “madness”) and society; on the impact of war, modernization, developments in science and medicine, and notions of gender and sexuality on the ways individuals conceive of, experience, and write about mental illness. Authors will include Euripides, Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Woolf, and Plath, among others.—E. Weinstock. M W 1:10-2:25

2. Poetics
An investigation of philosophies of imagination. Selected prose and poetry by Coleridge, Stein, Pound, William, Celan, Jabes, Baraka, and Hejinian.—S. Hamilton. M W 1:10-2:25.

3. War and the Literary Imagination - Not offered in spring 2004 -
The literature of problematic wars: The Trojan War, British writing about the First World War, and the Vietnam War. Male and female voices in drama, poetry, autobiography, and fiction, from Euripides to the 1970's.

4. Contemporary Irish Literature
Writers Irish and not dead. The authors introduced in this course have three things in common: they're Irish, they write fiction, and they're alive. Most write about Ireland, but it is a country that has changed dramatically in recent years. Names on the reading list run from the younger, emerging voices, like Claire Keegan and Keith Ridgway, to the older, revered names, like William Trevor and Edna O'Brien.—Roddy Doyle T Th 11:00-12:15

5. The Enchanted Imagination
Romantic and post-Romantic fantasy that examines the transformative role of imagination in aesthetic and creative experience. Challenges accepted boundaries between the imagined and the real, and celebrates otherness and magicality in a disenchanted world. Authors include Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Mary Shelley, Tennyson, Carroll, Tolkien, LeGuin, Garcia Marquez.—J. Pagano. T Th 4:10-5:25

6. American Literature and Film: Horror.
The genre of horror in literature and film. Weekly screenings.—D. McKenna. T 6:10-10:00pm

3142y. Major English Texts II
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 pts. M W 2:40-3:55.

English-Women's Studies 
3144y. Minority Women Writers in the United States
Registration is limited. Listings on bulletin boards outside of 403 Barnard Hall.
Literature of twentieth-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. 3 pts. M W 2:40-3:55.

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.—E. Weinstock. 3 pts. T Th 1:10-2:25.

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 pts.

Students may substitute 3 courses—from ENTH BC 3137, 3141, 3163 or 3164; or from ENTH BC 3136, 3165-3169, 3173-3174, or 3179. This year 3140.4 Renaissance Women Writers may also count as a substitution. At least one substituted course must cover material before 1660 (i.e. Renaissance) and one material after 1660 (i.e., Restoration or 18th Century). One of these substituted courses will also count toward satisfying the "before 1900" requirement. 4 pts.

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.---J. Basker. W 9-10:50 am.

II. Skepticism and Affirmation [sample syllabus] [sample library research guide]
The development of modern concepts of subjectivity and authority. The rise of art and the artist. Humanism, rationalism, and empiricism. Sadism and evil. The exploration of limits and the limitless.---R: Hamilton. T 2:10-4.

III. Reason and Imagination [fall syllabus] [spring syllabus]
-- Not offered in Spring 2004 --
Relation of subjective to objective vision; reason and the irrational; reason vs. reasonableness; outward and inward authority; faithful reason and reasonable faith; empiricism and its discontents; historicity and freedom; reason and revolution.

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

3166y. Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry
God, love, sex, and politics in the literature of the late English Renaissance. Works by Donne, Jonson, Wroth, Herbert, Herrick, Milton, Philips, Marvell, Bunyan, and Behn.— A. Prescott. 3 pts. T Th 5:40-6:55.

3167y. Milton
-- Not offered in Spring 2004 --
Milton's career from his early poems and prose to Paradise Lost and beyond. Topics include poetic vocation, political controversy, sex and gender, and Biblical interpretation. 3 pts.

3169y. Renaissance Drama: Kyd to Ford.  1580-1642
Major plays of the English Renaissance (excluding Shakespeare), with emphasis on Marlowe and Middleton.—P. Platt. 3 pts. M W 1:10-2:25.

3173y. Eighteenth-Century Literature, 1660-1740
Tradition and innovation in several forms, with emphasis on colonialism, travel writing, and imaginary geographies. Readings in Dryden, Behn, Defoe, Pope, Addison, Montagu, Swift, Gay.—C. Yang. 3pts. T Th 10:35-11:50

3176y. The Romantic Era [sample syllabus] [sample library research guide]
Romantic writers in their intellectual, historical, and political context, with reference to contemporary movements in philosophy, music, and the plastic arts. Authors include Goethe, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, P. B. Shelley, and Keats. An emphasis on close reading of the poetry.—R. Hamilton. 3 pts. T Th 10:35-11:50.

3180y. American Literature, 1800-1870 [web site]
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.—L. Gordis. 3 pts. M W 11-12:15.

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

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

3190y. Global Literature in English - 20th Century Indian Literature in English
This course will begin with early twentieth-century Bengal (Tagore and Chaudhuri), continue with the development of the novel, including writers of South Indian (Narayan, Raja Rao, Anantha Murthy), and with writing about the coming of independence and about partition (Singh and Mehta), and conclude with contemporary fiction of such writers as Desai, Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Ghosh, and Mishra.  We will examine the relation between indigenous and colonial traditions; the interaction of literature and politics in India; connections between writing in English and in other Indian languages; the influences of region, religion, caste, class, and gender.  Some films will be included.  Requirements include participation, independent research, a short paper of 5 pages, a longer one of 10-15 pages, and an exam.—L. C. Mehta. 3 pts. M W 2:40-3:55.

CLEN W3270y British Literature 1950-Present
This course will trace English fiction (and a few films) from the center and from the margins, from the post-WWII era to contemporary and postmodern preoccupations. Writers will include: Martin Amis, John Banville, Pat Barker, Anthony Burgess, Amitov Ghosh, Graham Greene, James Kelman, Ian McEwan, Iris Murdoch, V.S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie.—M. Spiegel M W 4:10-5:25.

3191y. The English Conference [more information] [past syllabi]
Enrollment limited: sign up with Maria Konovaloff in the English Department office.
Special topics presented by visiting scholars in courses that will meet for 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. More information available on bulletin board across from 417 Barnard Hall.

Boccaccio'sDecameron and Renaissance Fiction.---L. Bartoli. 4:10-6 p.m.:
Tuesday, March 23, Thursday, March 25, Tuesday, March 30, and Thursday, April 1, 2004.

3193y. 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 3193x in the Autumn Term. Registration in each section is limited. Please sign up on the bulletin board between rooms 420 and 421 Barnard Hall.—Members of the Department. 4 pts.

CLEN W 4563y. Psychoanalysis and Literature: reading Lacan.
An intensive reading of Lacan's Seminar XX: Encore: On Feminine Sexuality and selections from other Seminars together with texts by Lispector, Duras, Lawrence, Camus, Goethe, and others.  Emphasis on Lacan's redefinitions of feminine sexuality in relation to issues of pleasure, love, desire, drive, death, transference, jouissance, and the unconscious.--- M. Jaanus,  3 pts.  Th 6:10-8:00 p.m.

3196y. Home to Harlem: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
Explores the cultural contexts and aesthetic debates surrounding the Harlem or New Negro literary renaissance, 1920-30s. Through fiction, poetry, essays and artwork, topics considered include: modernism, primitivism, patronage, passing and the problematics of creating a "racial" art in/for a community comprised of differences in gender, class, sexuality, and geographical origin.—M. Miller, 3 pts. T Th 2:40-3:55. Class limited to 35; Preference given to juniors and seniors.

3197y. Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group
Virginia Woolf and her friends were among the most innovative and creative people of their time, producing art, literature, and a way of life that both shocked and impressed the cultural establishment of early twentieth-century Britain. Readings include Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, A Room of One's Own, and several essays; E.M. Forster's Howard's End; short pieces by Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, Maynard Keynes, and Lytton Strachey; a selection of letters by Carrington; and Aldous Huxley's novelistic satire of Bloomsbury, Crome Yellow.  ---G. Gerzina.  3 pts. T Th 9:10-10:25.

3200y.  Film Production.
—Larry Engel. 3 pts. T 10:00am-1:00pm

W3270. British Literature. 1950-Present
This course will trace English fiction (and a few films) from the center and from the margins, from the post-WWII era to contemporary and postmodern preoccupations.  Writer will include: Martin Amis, John Banville, Pat Barker, Graham Greene, James Kelman, Ian McEwan, Iris Murdock, V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Will Self and Jeanette Winterson.  ---M. Sigel. 3 pts. MW 4:10-5:25.

ENRE 3810y. Literary Approaches to the Bible
This seminar will explore a variety of 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 discipline of biblical studies. —P. Ellsberg. 4 points. Enrollment limited to 20 students. M 11:00-12:50.

3996y. Special Project in Theatre or Writing
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 department representative is required.

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 pts.

1. Text and Context: The Legend of Troilus and Cressida [library research guide]
-- Not offered in Spring 2004 --
The metamorphoses of the myth (in terms of sexual politics, courtship, identity, and gender) from classical to medieval continental and English accounts, closing with Shakespeare’s cognominal play in light of literary, historicist, political, and cultural approaches.—T. Szell.

2. The City in Literature [web site]
How 20th-century New Yorkers have created a self-consciously modern and ethnic brand of American culture. Emphasis on the literary and artistic representation of assimilation, alienation, race, and cultural difference amid the city. Works by Wharton, James, Yezierska, Hurston, Hughes, DiDonato, and others.—W. Sharpe. T 11-12:50.

3. Black Stereotype and Racial Performance: Negotiations of Identity and Difference
[library research guide]
Exploration of the relationship between stereotypical images of African Americans and their constant rewriting and revision in American literary and visual culture. Topics addressed: blackface minstrelsy, tricksters, passing, standards of beauty, Hollywood, and the art market. Authors include Brown, Stowe, Melville, Twain, Chesnutt, Larsen, C. Johnson, Ellison, and Morrison. Artwork, films, and performance pieces. — M. Miller. T 6:10-8.

4. The Family in Turn-of-the-Century American Fiction [library research guide]
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, Crane, Hopkins, Gilman, Cather, and Faulkner.—J. Kassanoff. W 11-12:50.

5. Film: The Man in the Crowd/The Woman of the Streets
In novels, stories, and films, this course explores 19th- and early 20th– century formulations of the masses, the public, the people, the social nebulae, and the individual as conceived in relation to them. 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. T 4:10-6.

6. Late Shakespeare: Visions and Revisions [library research guide]
Shakespeare’s last plays as both experimental and revisionary. Topics will include aesthetics, philosophy, politics, sexuality, and gender, as well as 20th-century criticism’s reconstruction of these final plays. Probable texts: Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.—P. Platt. T 4:10-6:00.

3999 y. Independent Study
Senior majors who wish to substitute Independent Study for one of the two required senior seminars should consult the Department Representative.  Permission is given 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.  Permission of the instructor and department representative required. 4 pts.

The Guidelines for Independent Study Projects and the Independent Study Application are also available.

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