English

Exploring the nature of myth, this course asks where we see myths being created and retold in the modern era and why a form that is often considered to be ancient still has such prominence today. Students read a range of modern mythic narratives, from the Caribbean to Japan, from the United States to the UK, considering how and why myth takes shape in 20th- and 21st-century literature. Examining the modern reception of ancient myths from Greek and Yoruba culture and delving into the creation of new mythic tales in graphic novels and performance poetry, students ask questions about what makes a text mythic and explore the ways in which myth continues to be used to address and think through very contemporary concerns.

Students study one of the most exciting periods of British literary and social history, when tumultuous political and social changes such as revolution and industrialization produced a range of remarkable and enduring literary responses. The course examines British Romantic literature through the close study of a broad range of prose, poetry, and non-fiction. The course is structured around examination of the work of the "Big Six" high Romantic writers, whose work is read alongside that of noncanonical Romantic writers. It examines a wide range of literary genres from the period, including various forms of poetry, the novel, and non-fictional prose writing, and offers the opportunity to study both canonical and lesser-known authors. 

This course examines the changes that occur as particular texts move between various cultural forms. The media under consideration will include print, radio, theatre, television, film and videogames, but some adaptations that change cultures rather than media, such as television formats and cross cultural stage adaptations will also be examined.

This course is dedicated to the practice of writing as literary experiment: a radical inquiry into the possibilities of mind and language and, by implication, an exploration into the nature of difference and interdependence. As such it regards creative writing as an extension of critical reading and seeing. Through a series of workshops this course invites students to move through a number of short literary exercises, some of which orbit existing models, while others are freshly imagined. These are culled from the study of the methods, processe, and techniques of a range of writers and artists that cut across time and discipline, and are as different from one another as Virginia Woolf, Basho, Frank O'Hara, Paul Cezanne, Gertrude Stein, Charles Olson, Hélène Cixous, Amiri Baraka, Patrick Keiller, Charlie Parker, Raymond Queneau, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jackson Pollock, and Allen Ginsberg. 

This course offers an introduction to Old English, the form of English used in England between the 5th and 11th century beside languages like Celtic, Old Norse, and Latin. Students read a selection of Old English texts in translation. A central theme of the course is the extent to which we can meaningfully locate the origins of England and the English in the Old English period.