English

The course introduces students to a diverse selection of medieval literature, including works by both highly influential writers and less familiar figures. The medieval period witnessed many turbulent events, including war, plague, religious conflict, and social revolt, but was also a period of dynamic cultural invention, as English writers drew on rich Classical and biblical traditions, while also engaging in cross-cultural dialogue with works in other European vernaculars, such as French and Italian. These early writers test the limits of literary possibility across a range of genres, from tragedy to comedy, romance to exemplum, dream-vision to autobiography; as they imagine a world of gods and fairies, of heroes and monsters, they challenge modern readers to question our assumptions about what literature can or should be.

This course is an examination of modern and contemporary English literature through the lens of multiculturalism. The focus of the course changes from semester to semester, foregrounding different sets of literary texts by writers concerned with issues of race, identity, and the multicultural dynamics of the English-language world. Possible topics include: race and sexuality, First Peoples’ literature and cultures, jazz and African American literature, cultural politics, immigration and literature, Asian American literature, and Hispanic literature and culture. Students read a variety of literary genres, including novels, plays, and creative non-fiction, by writers who are concerned with issues of colonialism, race, language, and identity within multicultural societies. Some of the important questions the course addresses are: what are the concerns of so-called “ethnic” writers in contemporary cultures of the English-language world, what is the relationship between identity politics and literature, and how can we use critical race analysis as a part of literary study?

The course examines authors’ use and adaptation of folkloric and mythological material in their works. The course examines a variety of early modernist and contemporary texts alongside earlier materials alluded to or explored by those texts. Straddling the perceived divide between popular fiction and classic literary works, the course considers the writing of W. B. Yeats and other authors of the Irish Revival as well as J.R.R. Tolkien, James Joyce, John Updike, and Kazuo Ishiguro. The course enables students to query the nature of literary production and reception across different time periods. It allows them to explore why authors choose to underpin their works by references to well-known narratives, and, conversely, why authors choose to revive forgotten legends.

This course introduces the whole book of Analects. It encourages students to recite several chapters, understand the basic knowledge of Confucius as well as Confucianism, and improve the understanding of ancient Chinese after reading Analects and introducing relevant knowledge. The course introduces relevant literature, history, commentary and academic background knowledge around Analects and Confucius.

This course provides a general history of the evolution of the English language, analyzing the mechanisms behind linguistic change, as well as the types of change. It addresses language relationships within the Germanic group, as well as the process of phonetic, grammatical, and semantic changes. The course also reviews the external history of the English language, examining Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Contemporary English.