English

This course is a comprehensive tour through the writing life and theatrical legacy of William Shakespeare. Taking its cue from the First Folio (1623), the book that preserved many of Shakespeare’s plays for posterity, the course spends one week on each of the main genres in which the author wrote and introduces students to key questions raised by plays such as The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Hamlet, and Othello, among others. It overviews the major plays of Shakespeare’s career and the critical questions that shape how we read them today, while giving students the chance to engage with the material conditions of Shakespeare’s world. The course includes trips to the playwright’s birthplace and grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, classroom sessions in the Bodleian Library in which students can view Shakespeare’s original early printed books, and the opportunity to see a performance of a Shakespeare play.

This course examines the kinds of fiction that are usually described as "genre" or "popular" works. It provides a practice-led exploration and analysis of a range of significant genre texts and techniques. The emphasis is on the genre novel, but also considers the theory of genre fiction, and how genres operate in the literary marketplace.

This course takes a thematic approach to the literary representation of medical professionalism, disease and illness (physical and mental), across a range of literary texts dating from the 18th century through to the present, including poetry, prose fiction, and memoir. No prior medical knowledge is required, but students are encouraged to give attention to specific cultural contexts and historically shifting medical paradigms.

This course offers an introduction to cultural criticism by looking at how critical thinkers have made connections between culture and society and analyzing a selection of novels and other texts in which key concepts of criticism are explored imaginatively. Through theoretical reflections, the course answers the question: what is the relationship between literature and other forms of art and the culture and society from which they originate? Each week of the course is organized around a key idea or concept in cultural criticism. Assumed previous knowledge includes an elementary knowledge of literature, literary history, and literary theory.

This course enables students to write better creative prose and poetry. For prose, students develop an awareness of how fiction and creative non-fiction is constructed with emphasis on the short story and the literary essay. The focus is on a deeper understanding of the creative process through language, imagery, ideas, methods of characterization, narrative movement, and dramatic tension. For poetry, students develop an awareness of the creative process, and understand some of the techniques poets use to shape material into finished works. Issues of texture in language and content are raised and a variety of techniques are discussed, using examples drawn mainly from recent and contemporary works. 

This course introduces fiction narratives, both literary and cinematic. Students learn the fundamental concepts of the storytelling art, through the analytical interpretation of fundamental literary and film works.

This seminar is divided into two parts exploring the relationship between literature, history, gender, and cultural representation from the early modern period to the present. The first part on revolution, utopia and gender examines utopian thought from Thomas More’s UTOPIA (1516) to the revolutionary era. Focusing on the English and French Revolutions, the course analyzes how utopian writing and political upheaval challenged—or reinforced—gender norms, women’s agency, and patriarchal structures. Through a range of texts by men and women, it assesses the emancipatory and oppressive dimensions of utopian imaginaries. The second part of the course focuses on contemporary film and television portrayals of Shakespeare and his circle from 1998-2025. From SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE to recent series and films, the course explores biofiction, authorship, historical imagination, and the place of Shakespeare in modern visual culture, in dialogue with major screen adaptations of his plays. Together, the course investigates how literature and media reimagine alternative social worlds and canonical figures across time. 

This is a translation workshop where students translate and do research on activism. It includes several guests speakers, including a certified court interpreter, a Translation Studies specialist on gender, a sociolinguist, and representatives from the U.S.'s Montclair State University Human Trafficking Center. Students are also introduced to a free language corpus analyzer software.

This is a survey of a century of Anglophone literature from the mid 19th to the mid-20th century. Since this period covers a challenging range of texts and authors from various backgrounds and nationalities, a central focus is on writers who, until a few decades ago, were hardly considered to be part of the canon: female or queer-identifying authors, writers of color, outsiders, exiles. In the case of the well-established authors, the focus is on texts that frame the impact of industrialization and mechanization; that represent landscapes of war, imagined or real; that explore technologies of time, that problematize gender and sexuality; and on less explored themes, such as the occult and the surreal. The course considers the distinctive characteristics of a range of literary genres; identify the historical and cultural movements specific to each period; and read the themes and formal elements of poetry, prose and essays against the social and political backgrounds that compose the ‘Brave New Worlds’ of the era.