English

This course presents a mix of different sorts of representation of one great historical moment, that of Civil Rights in the US from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. The movement for Civil Rights marked a decisive moment in the making of our contemporary world; although the situation of blacks in the USA was not formally a colonial one, the social determination to break the bonds of racial subjugation was part and parcel of the world becoming postcolonial; and it is an unfinished history, which still reverberates. The first few weeks focus on the novels, short stories, and autobiographical reportage of one writer, James Baldwin. Baldwin was pretty much (though not quite) the first non-white American author. Thereafter students branch out to explore different writings and different forms of representation.

This course introduces the works of William Shakespeare, both on the page and on the stage. The course studies at least three key primary texts – The Tempest, Measure for Measure, and Othello – and combines close reading with an introduction to some theoretical approaches and a strong sense of how the plays operate in contemporary culture. Special emphasis is placed on London, both as the city in which these plays first premiered and as the city it is today, and how that inflects and inspires modern stage productions.

This class is designed to provide an opportunity for students to explore short fiction and poetry writing. Students develop a writing portfolio which includes a variety of genres and participate in in-class readings and critiques.

This course explores how race is performed in theatre, art, and popular culture. Of particular interest are performances that trouble how we think or talk about race, especially as it intersects with other identity categories like gender, class, sexuality, and disability. Why are race and structural racism such difficult topics to discuss, especially in the context of performance? What does it mean to label a performance racist, and how can we as artists develop anti-racist performance practices? The topics this seminar covers could include histories of blackface minstrelsy, debates over "color-blind" casting, and the politics of cultural appropriation in pop culture.

Ranging broadly from Ireland before World War I to America of the Roaring Twenties and England during the upheaval of the 60s, this course examines the dreams and spiritual aspirations that drive some of the most compelling works of English and American fiction and drama in the past century. The course examines how the works depict challenges related to gender, race, religion and class. The readings include: two short stories by James Joyce and some poems by W.B Yeats that capture the anxiety and upheaval of pre-WWI Ireland; The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic tale about the American Dream and romantic fantasy; Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, which looks at Black American family life in the inner city; Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing's novella The Fifth Child, a chilling story of an ideal family in England during the 60s that gets disrupted by the birth of a monstrous child; England's finest playwright Tom Stoppard's comic masterpiece Arcadia, which spans two centuries while examining fundamental existential questions; the feminist poet Adrienne Rich's poems of love and protest.