English

This course studies utopian and speculative literature as narrative tools to imagine the future. Students learn that these utopian texts reflect a historical setting and mind set. The course studies the function and meaning of utopian texts at two turning points in history: the age of colonialism and the scientific revolution (sixteenth through eighteenth century) and the social-economic tensions and changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Central in these two periods is the focus on the interplay between the European and non-European visions on possible futures. In the early modern period, utopian writers and thinkers have to adapt to a broader geographical (The New World) and philosophical (a New World view) perspective. They have to deal with their role as colonizers (cultural superiority vs. cultural relativism) and scientists (positivism vs. skepticism). In the second period, utopian writing itself is becoming a global endeavor, and often takes the shape of a literary dialogue between former colonizing and colonized countries. In both periods the role of utopias and dystopias in social and political constellations is addressed. Students consider how literature intervenes in conflicts and debates on science, religion, and politics; how utopian optimism or irony can develop into pessimism and (dystopian) skepticism. 

The course introduces students to the extraordinary range of American poetry in the first half of the 20th century, which includes, for example, the radical experiments of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Mina Loy and William Carlos Williams; the conservative modernism of Robert Frost; the European-oriented neo-classicism of T.S. Eliot and H.D.; the cerebral playfulness of Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens; the political daring and earnestness of Muriel Rukeyser; the marriage of avant-garde irreverence with a democratic openness to popular culture (cinema, jazz) represented by Langston Hughes; or the subtle social, sexual and racial awareness to be found in the work of Gwendolyn Brooks.

This course explores the long history of oratorical performance in the USA, from presidential speeches to University debates, from Native American orature to political activism. In so doing, students are introduced to the necessary tools to understand and critique the rhetorical choices of a range of speakers; to analyze the specific historical and cultural factors that give rise both to the speeches they encounter and the rhetorical choices of their delivery; and to a range of key historical and political events in the life of the USA as well as the range of activists and advocates that give voice to them.

We live in times that seem increasingly apocalyptic. From our current pandemic, we look around us and see catastrophic climate change, systemic racism, food insecurity, and youth unemployment. Since the turn of the century, we have experienced 9/11, nuclear meltdowns, and financial crises. We live on a peninsula which is technically still at war, seven decades after a cease-fire armistice. In popular culture, we see these themes reflected in film and other media, ranging from the zombie apocalypse to AI cyborgs to futuristic interstellar journeys. In this course, we will explore the idea of the apocalypse/post-apocalypse in English literature through the ages. Our main reading will be a trio of powerful contemporary novels (Mitchell, Foer, Ozeki) that treat these topics within defining events of our generation. In between, we will take a step back into history, reading eighteenth and nineteenth century selections (Defoe, Malthus, Shelley, and Jefferies).

The Internship Workforce course provides students with an overview of working in the United Kingdom. The course looks at the changing organizational structures of work in Britain. It examines the social and economic changes that affect the workplace in the UK. Topics covered include: sociology of work, trade unions, 0ppression at work, generational changes at work, and the future of work. An internship while studying in London provides an opportunity to experience a “hands on” working situation and a different perspective on the workplace and working practises, while developing professional skills.
 

The field of modernist studies has undergone a radical transformation over the last decade.  This course introduces students to a range of modernist writing, as well as investigating what is at stake in such reconfigurations of modernist literature and culture.  Students approach both the primary texts and investigation of the field through the lens of space and place.  Students focus on the geographical co-ordinates of modernism, as well as the way the field has been "mapped," provides a thread through the course.  It leads students into the material spaces of urban interaction, the places (cafes, galleries) where the crucial transnational collaborations occurred that have defined the period.  Students also consider the spatial politics (urban, domestic, textual, and psychological).  The course pays careful attention to the social and politics contexts in which these writers operated, and the transatlantic and colonial networks which facilitated their writing and their aesthetic experiments.