English

The material on this page is from the 1996-97 catalog and may be out of date. Please check the current year's catalog for current information.

Professors Deiman (on leave, 1996-1997), Turlish, Chair (fall semester) (on leave, winter semester and Short Term), Thompson, and Taylor, Chair (winter semester and Short Term); Associate Professors Freedman, Dillon, Malcolmson, and Nayder; Assistant Professors Chin (on leave, fall semester) and Shankar; Mr. Farnsworth and Ms. Laroche

Through a wide range of course offerings the Department seeks to develop each student's capacity for reading -- the intense, concerned involvement with textual expression. All courses are intended to foster critical reading, writing, and thinking, in which "criticism" is at once passionate appreciation, historical understanding, and the perpetual re-thinking of values. More specifically, the English major prepares students for careers such as teaching, publishing, and writing, for graduate study in literature, or for graduate programs leading to the study of practice of medicine or law. Though we as a department embody a variety of teaching styles and interests, we all believe in the fine art of patient, engaged reading as both knowledge and pleasure.

Departmental offerings are intended to be taken in sequence. Courses at the 100 level are open to all students. Courses at the 200 level are open to students who have completed two 100-level courses, and are more difficult in terms of both the amount of material covered and the level of enquiry; they also address questions of theory and methodology in more self-conscious ways. Seminars at the 300 level are for juniors and seniors who have completed the 100-level requirements (the latter requirement may be waived at the discretion of the instructor for certain interdisciplinary majors).

Majors must complete eleven courses of which a minimum of seven must be taken from the Bates faculty. Students may receive no more than two credits for junior semester abroad, and, normally, no more than two credits for junior year abroad. Under special circumstances, and upon written petition to the English department, junior year abroad students may receive credit for three courses. In accordance with College policy, two course credits are granted for Advanced Placement scores of four or five, but these credits count only toward overall graduation requirements, not toward the eleven-course major requirement.

A total of eleven courses are required for the major and must include: a) two courses at the 100 level; b) nine courses at the 200 level or above which must include three before 1800 and one emphasizing critical thinking (indicated "pre-1800" and "critical thinking" in course listings); two junior-senior seminars; and a senior thesis (English 457) which may be undertaken independently or as part of a junior-senior seminar.

Students may count one course in a foreign literature (with primary focus on literature rather than on language instruction) and/or one course in creative writing toward the major.

English majors may elect a program in creative writing. This program is intended to complement and enhance the English major, and to add structure and a sense of purpose to those students already committed to creative writing. Students who wish to write a creative thesis must undertake this program.

Requirements for the concentration in creative writing include:

Two introductory courses in the writing of fiction and poetry (291 and 292).
One advanced course in the writing of fiction or poetry (391 or 392).
Three allied courses in the English department or in the literature of a foreign language.
A one- or two-semester thesis (non-honors) in which the student will write and revise a portfolio of poems or stories.

Students who elect the creative-writing concentration must fulfill all English major requirements but may count toward them one creative-writing course as well as the allied literature courses and thesis.

With departmental approval, students may write a two-semester honors thesis in the senior year. Majors who wish to present themselves as potential honors candidates are encouraged to register for at least one junior-senior seminar in their junior year. Majors who elect to participate in the JYA program and who also want to present themselves as honors candidates must submit evidence of broadly comparable course work or independent study pursued elsewhere; such persons are encouraged to consult with the Department before their departure or early in their year abroad. Prospective honors candidates must submit a two-page proposal of their theses at the end of their junior year (due at the Department Chair's office on the first day of Short Term).

Students planning to do graduate work should seek out advice early on concerning their undergraduate program, the range of graduate school experience, and vocational options. Graduate programs frequently require reading proficiency in up to three foreign languages, so it is strongly recommended that prospective graduate students achieve at least a two-year proficiency in a classical (Latin, Greek) or modern language.

Courses
121. Colloquia in Literature. Colloquia introduce students to the study of literature from a variety of perspectives, such as author, genre, and literary period. These courses not only delve into their particular subject matter, they also allow a preliminary discussion of critical vocabulary and method that will carry over into more advanced classes. Discussion and frequent writing characterize each section. Enrollment is limited to 25 per section. Prospective majors are urged to take at least one colloquium.

121E. Introduction to Poetry. An introduction to reading poetry, through the close reading of British and American poems from the Renaissance to the present day. Topics include: authorial intention, literary "meaning," cultural context, the diversity of traditional forms, and contemporary lyric genres. The course is based around the discussion of one or two poems each class day. Enrollment is limited to 25 per section. S. Dillon.

141. American Writers to 1900. A study of ten to twelve American texts selected from the works of such writers as Bradford, Mather, Bradstreet, Edwards, Franklin, Cooper, Hawthorne, Fuller, Emerson, Thoreau, Jacobs, Melville, Douglas, Stowe, Wilson, Whitman, and Poe. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. L. Turlish.

152. American Writers Since 1900. A study of ten to twelve American texts selected from the works of such writers as Dickinson, Twain, Gilman, Chestnut, James, Adams, Dreiser, Hughes, Frost, Stein, Hemingway, Larsen, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Pound, Eliot, Crane, Cullen, Wright, Stevens, Williams, Baldwin, Plath, Albee, Brooks, Walker, Ellison, Pynchon, and Morrison. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. L. Turlish.

171. European Literature: European Tradition from Homer to Cervantes. A study of major texts of European literature, read in English, with attention to their importance as both works of art and documents in cultural history. Texts include works by Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Sappho, Vergil, Dante, Rabelais, Montaigne, Cervantes, and others. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. C. Malcolmson, S. Dillon.

172. European Literature: European Tradition from Voltaire to Sartre. A study of major texts of European literature, with attention to their importance as both works of art and documents in the history of ideas. Texts include works by such authors as Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Chekhov, the French Symbolists, Mann, Proust, Kafka, Brecht, and Sartre. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. Staff.

Note: The following courses are open to students who have taken two 100-level courses.

201. Old-English Literature. An introduction to Old English poetry and prose, in the original, with special attention to the cultural backgrounds of early English civilization. Translation and interpretation of such works as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Battle of Maldon, and Beowulf (selections). Although no prior knowledge of Old English is required, previous study of a foreign language is recommended. Offered occasionally. A. Thompson. *(pre-1800)

205. Middle-English Literature. A study of the literature of medieval England between 1200 and 1500. Representative authors include the Gawain poet, William Langland, Marie de France, Thomas Malory, and Geoffrey Chaucer. All works are read in Middle English. A. Thompson. *(pre-1800)

206. Chaucer. Reading and interpretation of the greatest work of the fourteenth-century Middle English poet: The Canterbury Tales. All works are read in Middle English. A. Thompson. *(pre-1800)

211. English Literary Renaissance (1509-1603). A study of major texts of the Elizabethan Age, especially nondramatic works. Writers may include More, Sidney, Spenser, Labé, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Raleigh, and others. Attention is given to allied developments in Renaissance politics, society, religion, and thought. C. Malcolmson. *(pre-1800)

213-214. Shakespeare. A study of the major plays, with some emphasis on the biography of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan background. Students planning to take both English 213 and 214 are advised to take 213 first. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. S. Freedman, C. Malcolmson. *(pre-1800)

222. Seventeenth-Century Literature. A study of significant writers of the seventeenth century. Writers may include William Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, John Milton, and Aphra Behn. Attention is given to the intellectual, political, and scientific revolutions of the age. C. Malcolmson. *(pre-1800)

223. Pre-1800 Women Writers. The course considers the conditions that obstructed and supported writing by British women from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Topics include changing accounts of gender difference, the possibility of a self-conscious female tradition, elite versus non-elite genres, and the emergence of the professional woman writer. C. Malcolmson. *(pre-1800)

225. Elizabeth I and Victoria. This course examines literary and visual representations of the queen in Renaissance and Victorian culture, and the conflict between her royal authority and the ideal of female subservience. We consider the strategies employed by the queens to diffuse the threat of "petticoat government"--their use of virginity and motherhood to render their regimes acceptable--and varying responses to their rule. Readings include histories and popular broadsheets, works by Shakespeare, Spenser, Kipling, Haggard, and Carroll, and the diaries, poetry and speeches of the queens. L. Nayder and C. Malcolmson. *(pre-1800)

232. Eighteenth-Century Literature. A study of Restoration and eighteenth-century British authors, including Dryden, Congreve, Swift, Pope, Fielding, and Johnson. Attention is given to parallel developments in Continental literature and to continuity with Renaissance humanism. S. Freedman. *(pre-1800)

241. American Fiction. Critical readings of representative novels by American novelists such as Cooper, Melville, Hawthorne, Twain, Howells, James, Crane, Frederic, Norris, Chopin, Dreiser, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Lewis, Faulkner, Cather, Wolfe, Steinbeck, Wright, and Warren. Discussions of individual novels examine their form within the context of the major directions of American fiction. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. L. Turlish, C. Taylor.

243. Romantic Literature (1790-1840). The theoretical foundations of English and European Romanticism, including its philosophical, critical, social, and other backgrounds. Concentration on Rousseau, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Attention also to Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Swedenborg, and other prose figures and critics of the period. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. R. Farnsworth, S. Dillon.

245. Studies in Victorian Literature (1830-1900). Selected topics in the period, organized by author, genre, and historical connections. Special attention is given to philosophical backgrounds and the critical language of the day. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. S. Dillon.

250. The African American Novel. An examination of the African American novel from its beginnings in the mid-1800s to the present. Issues addressed by the course include a consideration of the folk influences on the genre, its roots in the slave narrative tradition, its relation to Euro-American texts and culture, and the "difference" that gender as well as race makes in determining narrative form. Readings include narratives selected from among the works of such writers as Douglass, Jacobs, Wilson, Delany, Hopkins, Harper, Chesnutt, Johnson, Toomer, Larsen, Hurston, Wright, Petry, Ellison, Baldwin, Walker, Morrison, Marshall, Reed, and others. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40. T. Chin.

252. Literature and Empire. This course examines literary works that have imperialism as their theme. Ranging from the eighteenth century to the present day, readings include Robinson Crusoe as well as Victorian and postmodern retellings of Defoe's novel: Collins's The Moonstone and Coetzee's Foe. Students consider changing representations of empire-building in narratives by Haggard, Kipling, Conrad, and Dinesen, discuss the analogy commonly drawn between racial and sexual conquest, and study the varying ways in which imperial ideologies are justified and challenged. Enrollment is limited to 40. L. Nayder.

254. Modern British Literature (1900 onward). Introductory lectures on the birth of modern literature and its roots, with attention to its philosophical and critical foundations and some emphasis on its relationship to the previous century. Concentration on Conrad, Yeats, Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Auden, Thomas, and Forster. Enrollment is limited to 40 per section. L. Shankar.

264. Modern Irish Poetry. A study of the development and transformation of Anglo-Irish poetry in the twentieth century, especially as it responds to the political, social, and gender forces at work in Ireland's recent history. Beginning with brief but concentrated study of poems by W. B. Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh, the course then examines the work of inheritors of these major figures' legacies: Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Thomas Kinsella, Eavan Boland, Eamon Grennan, Paul Muldoon, Medbh McGuckian, etc. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 30. R. Farnsworth.

270. Contemporary British Poetry. The course examines recent trends in British poetry, from the Martian poets to the rediscovery of the narrative poem, to black and feminist poetry. The poems will be scrutinized for any evidence of an engagement with the legacy of W. H. Auden, the Britain of class politics, involvement in Northern Ireland, and antagonism toward the European Community Ideal. Enrollment is limited to 40. R. Farnsworth.

275. English Novel I. A study of the English novel, from its origins to the mid-nineteenth century. Readings include selections from Homer's Iliad, and novels by Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Radcliffe, Austen, Scott, C. Brontë, and Dickens. Among the issues addressed by this course are the relation of the novel to the epic, and the social and political orientation of this new genre. Enrollment is limited to 40. L. Nayder. *(pre-1800)

276. English Novel II. A study of the English novel, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Readings include novels by Collins, Eliot, Hardy, Conrad, Woolf, Forster, Rhys, Rushdie, and Coetzee, as well as theoretical works by M. M. Bakhtin, D. A. Miller, and Lennard Davis. Special attention is given to the revisionary nature of the novel, and its relation to social change and the status quo. Enrollment is limited to 40. L. Nayder.

291. Fiction writing. A course for students who wish practice and guidance in the writing of fiction. Admission by writing sample and written permission of the instructor. Open to all students without other requirements. Enrollment is limited to 15. A. Thompson.

292. Poetry Writing. A course for students who wish practice and guidance in the writing of poetry. Admission by writing sample and written permission of the instructor. Open to all students without other requirements. Enrollment is limited to 15. R. Farnsworth, S. Dillon.

294. Storytelling. This course introduces cross-cultural forms, contexts, and strategies of storytelling in the process of analyzing and practicing how stories are told and interpreted in everyday life. With an emphasis on theory, practice, and cultural history, primary readings include a range of stories characteristic of oral and written traditions; folk, elite, popular, and commercial cultures; and contemporary genres and disciplines. Secondary readings offer diverse explanations of how stories mean from narratology, cultural psychology, anthropology, and the sociology of literature. Recommended background: introductory courses in literature, anthropology, or the sociology of knowledge. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 40. C. Taylor. +(critical thinking)

295. Critical Theory. Major literary critics are read, and major literary works are studied in the light of these critics. Critical approaches discussed may include neoclassical, romantic, psychoanalytical, formalist, generic, archetypal, structuralist, and deconstructionist. Enrollment is limited to 30. S. Freedman, C. Malcolmson. +(critical thinking)

360. Independent Study. Upperclass students, and occasionally others, who wish to engage in individual study, writing, or research projects should consult with a member of the staff and the Chair. Students are limited to one independent study per semester. Staff.

365. Special Topics. Offered occasionally by a faculty member in subjects of special interest. Staff.

391. Advanced Fiction Writing. Prerequisite: English 291. Enrollment is limited to 12. Staff.

392. Advanced Poetry Writing. Prerequisite: English 292. Enrollment is limited to 12. R. Farnsworth.

395. Junior-Senior Seminars. Seminars provide an opportunity for concentrated work in a restricted subject area. Two such seminars are required for the English major. Students are encouraged to see the seminar as preparation for independent work on a senior thesis. They may also choose to use the seminar itself as a means of fulfilling the senior thesis requirement. Sections are limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required.

395A. Twentieth-Century Caribbean Narrative. A close examination of eight to ten narratives by writers from the English-speaking Caribbean, with particular attention to questions of colonialism and "postcoloniality," nationalism, exile and displacement, cultural identity and affirmation. Readings include narrative fiction by Claude McKay, George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul, Orlando Patterson, Wilson Harris, Merle Hodge, Zee Edgell, Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, and Paule Marshall, as well as a range of critical and theoretical texts that situate the readings in terms of important historical, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Enrollment is limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. +(critical thinking). T. Chin.

395B. A Dissenting Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Literature. This seminar examines literature by or about those who have felt themselves outside the mainstream of American culture. Focusing on issues concerning poverty, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, it places close reading in the context of cultural history and theory. Works include texts by such writers as Anaya, Baldwin, Hurston, Kingston, Naylor, Morrison, Pinzer, Roth, Silko, and Steinbeck. Enrollment is limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. C. Taylor.

395C. Frost, Williams, and Stevens. As inheritors of Emersonian slants on poetics and imagination, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams constitute a solid American grain of modernism in poetry. Thorough reading of their work reveals their surprising affinities and differences. How dark a vision of life (social and existential) does each seem to abide? What roles do wit, irony, verbal extravagance, and inherited poetic forms play in the work? What does each take to be the function of poetry in modern American life? The work of tutelary ancestors, competitors, and critics complements the substance of the course: comprehensive reading, writing, and discussion of these poets' poems and theoretical prose. Enrollment is limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. R. Farnsworth.

395D. Victorian Crime Fiction. The seminar examines the detective fiction written by British Victorians, the historical context in which this literature was produced, and its ideological implications. Students consider the connection between gender and criminality, and the relation of detection to class unrest and empire building. Readings include works by Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Grant Allen. Enrollment is limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. L. Nayder.

395E. The Cultures of Poetic Suicide. Just how connected is a late sixteenth-century proclamation, "To be or not to be/That is the question," with a reductive, twentieth-century explanation, "There is but one truly philosophical problem and that is suicide"? Is the notion of a single, natural model of death anthropocentric, and misconstruing of history? The moderns, Benjamin, Trakl, Woolf, Plath, Hemingway, and Berryman, are studied against the presuppositions of pre-eighteenth-century philosophical and literary texts. Enrollment is limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. S. Freedman. *(pre-1800)

457, 458. Senior Thesis. Students register for English 457 when completing thesis in the fall semester, and for English 458 when completing thesis in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both English 457 and 458. Staff.

Short Term Units
s17. Sexual Harassment and the U.S. Senate's Thomas-Hill Hearings. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the Bush Administration's nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court captured the complexity of past and current issues in struggles for women's rights in the United States. With their presentation and representation, they captured a political process which included issues of language, performance, class, gender, racialization, and a culture's historical legacy. This unit examines the issue of sexual harassment and the impact of the Committee's hearings since 1991. What political ideologies and cultural ethos were reflected in the hearings? What did print and visual media present and not present in relation to the hearings? How did the hearings affect women's struggles against sexual harassment in the workplace? What have been male responses to the hearings and male perspectives on the issue of sexual harassment? What has been the impact of the hearings since October 1991? This unit is the same as Sociology s17. Enrollment is limited to 35. C. Malcolmson, C. Brinkley.

s18. Elvis Godard: Topics in Experimental Writing. An introduction to a range of contemporary experimental literature in America, focusing especially on poetry, criticism, and short fiction. Topics include theory of the avant-garde, history of experimental literature, small press versus mainstream, political experimentalism, attacking the academy, postmodernism. Readings include experimental texts themselves along with description and theory of such writing; expect also brief gestures towards art and film. Daily assignments, some of which encourage "creativity," others of which may nonetheless seem stridently academic. Enrollment is limited to 20. S. Dillon.

s19. Introduction to Film Analysis: Formalism and Beyond. The unit breaks into three: 1) an introduction to languages of cinematic description through the viewing and discussion of clips and films. Reading consists of theoretical essays in, for instance, formalism, narratology, deconstruction, and feminism; 2) an intensive reading of a single film, first in terms of its own structure and elements, then in light of various methodological contexts; 3) a substantial critical writing project. Directors studied may include Scorsese, Renoir, Hitchcock, Wells, and Stone. Enrollment is limited to 15. S. Dillon, S. Freedman.

s20A. The Formal Tradition: Claiming and Using an Inheritance. If, as poet Stanley Kunitz has said, "the function of [poetic] form is the conservation of energy," how is that energy created, conserved, transformed, and released in a poem? Seeking the answer practical experience may offer, the unit requires students to write ten poems in and through an array of received metrical forms. The unit informs this practice with reading aloud, with detailed discussion of exemplary poems from Wyatt to Wakoski, and with study of various essays, ancient and contemporary, about matters of prosody, convention, and poetic form. Recommended background: English 292 or 392. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 12. R. Farnsworth.

s21. Cultural Production and Social Context, Jamaica. Although Jamaica's artistic and popular culture enjoys an internationally acclaimed reputation, it is at the same time often misunderstood. This unit affords students an opportunity to investigate a range of Jamaican cultural practices within the context of the specific social, historical, and political matrices in which they are generated and received. The unit begins with a preliminary introduction/orientation in Lewiston. In Jamaica, regular seminar meetings are supplemented by guest speakers and visits with writers and artists. In addition, each student carries out an individual research project using both textual and ethnographic methods of inquiry. This unit is the same as Anthropology s21. Recommended background: previous course on the Caribbean or in African American studies. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 18. T. Chin, C. Carnegie.

s22. The Art of the Film. A study of one or two major directors of film such as Chaplin, Griffith, Renoir, Ford, or Bergman; or a study of a major genre of the film. Students view and discuss relevant films. Lectures on related aspects of the art of the film. Enrollment is limited to 25. L. Turlish.

s23. Beatniks and Mandarins: A Literary and Cultural History of the American Fifties. An examination of established and adversarial culture in the American 1950s. Readings are in the literature and social commentary of such representative figures as Lionel Trilling, Norman Mailer, and Jack Kerouac. Some attention is given to Film Noir as the definitive fifties cinematic style and to the phenomenon which wed the recitation of poetry to American jazz. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 25. L. Turlish.

s26A. The Arts of China. The unit studies the literary, visual, and performing arts in such major cultural centers of the People's Republic of China as Beijing, Xian, Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou, and Shanghai. Introductory lectures and seminars in Beijing complement field trips and independent projects on topics concerning the historical dimensions of cultural tradition, the philosophical and religious contexts for art, the social role of the arts, and principles of aesthetics. Students have the opportunity to experience a rich variety of Chinese art forms: Yuan drama; T'ang poetry; romance; the Ming novel; the modern short story; architecture; bronzes; jade; textiles; stonework; ceramics; landscape, figure, and bird and flower painting; calligraphy; Beijing opera; folk song; and instrumental music. Language study is available but not mandatory. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 16. S. Freedman.

s27. Victorian Womanhood. Combining classroom discussion and reading with fieldwork and museum study in Boston and London, students investigate conceptions of Victorian womanhood as they were formulated, instituted, and questioned in the United States and England. The unit, which examines developments from the early nineteenth through to the twentieth century, focuses not only on literary expression, but on material culture, investigating, for example, changes in women's dress, domestic artifacts, and architecture. This unit is the same as History s27. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 20. L. Nayder, M. Creighton.

s28. Three African Women Writers. Works by three African women writers introduce the problems of cross-cultural literary experience. Readings and discussion explore how narrative strategies from diverse traditions suggest complex resistances to the exercise of power in traditional, colonial, and postcolonial contexts. Primary texts include Buchi Emecheta's The Bride Price and The Joys of Motherhood; Bessie Head's A Question of Power and The Collector of Treasures; and Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. Recommended background: courses in literary theory or criticism; women's studies; anthropology and ethnography. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 15. C. Taylor.

s28A. A Sense of Place: British Writers and the British Landscape. A study of four British writers with special attention to the role played by landscape (countryside, village, city) in their work. Students travel to various locations in the British Isles in order to observe at first hand the nature of a particular setting and its influence on the literary works chosen for study. Authors vary from year to year. Recommended: at least one course in English. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 10. A. Thompson.

s29. Spots of Time: Reclaiming the Past. The unit considers how firm is the boundary between fiction and fact and questions some ties between historical language and the world. It examines four time periods: Thucydides' description of Athens during the Peloponnesian war; Stendhal's novelistic use in The Red and The Black of the Napoleonic world; Proust's psychological construction of fictional lives in Guermantes Way; and public and private histories of Bates from 1988 through 1992. Certain ideas from Schama's Dead Certainties regarding fictionalizing history play a role in the analysis. Enrollment is limited to 30. S. Freedman.

s30. Feminist Literary Criticism. A study of current modes of feminist literary theory, including materialist, deconstructionist, and psychoanalytic approaches. The unit considers theories of the contribution of literature to the social construction of gender, models of the family and society implicit in particular approaches, uses of history in feminist criticism, and analyses of the position of women writers. Prerequisite: Women's Studies 100 or English 170. Open to first-year students. Enrollment is limited to 25. C. Malcolmson.

s31. "Letters from Tasmania": Writing an Epistolary Novella. Students read an epistolary novel, and collectively write one of their own. They are presented with a specific historical context for their novella--the colonization of Tasmania by the British. They study historical source materials, and each assumes a different fictional "persona"--the cast includes both Tasmanian and British correspondents. Each student is required to contribute at least ten letters to the novella, with a minimum of twenty-five pages. This unit enables students to put into practice concepts they have studied in literature courses, and encourages them to make connections among politics, history, and literature. Prerequisite: English 170. Recommended background: at least one course in the study of fiction, British or American. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 15. L. Nayder.

s32. Performing Medieval Plays. Students read, research, and informally perform selections from the medieval English drama cycle, a series of plays which enact the medieval Christian understanding of history from creation to judgment day. These plays, which are known for their earthy realism as well as their sometimes surprisingly comic approach to sacred story, were largely staged out-of-doors by fifteenth-century craft guilds. What do these plays tell us about the religious concerns of townsmen and townswomen? Why did the guilds sponsor the enactment of these plays? Were these plays only a reflection of popular piety? This unit offers students an opportunity to explore at first hand the relation between interpretation and performance and to examine late medieval piety from a lay and urban perspective. This unit is the same as History s32. Prerequisite: one course in medieval literature or medieval history. Enrollment is limited to 25. A. Thompson.

s33. Editing Medieval Manuscripts. The South English Legendary, a thirteenth-century collection of saints' lives, forms the basis for a unit which gives students hands-on practice in reading and editing medieval manuscripts. Since many of the narratives found in the legendary have never been printed, students experience the thrill (as well as the frustration) of working with texts which are otherwise inaccessible. Prerequisite: English 205 or 206. Enrollment is limited to 12. A. Thompson.

s34. Historical Fiction. Students read two historical novels and collaborate to write their own work of historical fiction. They are presented with two specific contexts for their work: the French Revolution and the American Civil War. After working with historical source materials and two period novels, participants work together to produce a narrative composed of letters or journal entries. Each student contributes at least ten entries, with a minimum of twenty-five pages. This unit encourages interdisciplinary study and provides students with an opportunity for creative writing. This unit is the same as History s34. Prerequisite: at least one course offered by the English or history departments. Open to first-year students. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 20. M. Creighton, L. Nayder.

s43. Shakespeare in the Theater. A study of Shakespeare's plays in performance, intended to acquaint the student with problems in the interpretation of the plays which are created by actual stage production. Students see Shakespearean productions in various locations, including London and Stratford-on-Avon, England. Prerequisite: English 313-314. Usually offered in alternate years. Staff.

s50. Individual Research. Registration in this unit is granted by the Department only after the student has submitted a written proposal for a full-time research project to be completed during the Short Term and has secured the sponsorship of a member of the Department to direct the study and evaluate results. Students are limited to one individual research unit. Staff.