Acts of Care in British Literature
In a world wracked by a pandemic; systemic racism; and the violent injustices that many marginalized communities endure, what might we learn from early texts and authors about what it means to care for one another? Over the course of this semester, students will read a selection of early British literature, attending to representations of care in particular. We will ask of all of the literature we read—how is care represented scientifically, culturally, politically, and rhetorically? As well, we will consider the lived experiences these representations reflect. From canonical authors and works such as Beowulf and William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, to less familiar works such as Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure and John Milton’s Samson Agonistes, we will discuss the relationship between care and deep-seated ideologies of culture, conflict, illness, intimacy, and definitions of life. This survey is bookended by authors and texts influential to British literature and the course theme: Zadie Smith’s “The Embassy of Cambodia” (2013); Terence’s Eunuchus (161 BC); and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2015).
Black Lives in Shakespeare’s PLays
“Is black so base a hue? Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.”
Taken from William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Aaron “the Moor” holds his newborn baby in the epigraph above, confronting the Nurse who just described the child as “joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful.” Is Shakespeare simply representing a father’s love for his son by questioning constructions of blackness in early modern England, here? Or might we think of the Bard in conversation with racist and anti-racist rhetoric today? In this course, we’ll read Shakespeare’s Black characters—from characters such as Aaron in Titus Andronicus; the “Moor with child” and Prince Morocco in The Merchant of Venice; and the “Dark Lady” sonnets, alongside other representations of Black lives in the period. In addition, through encounters with early modern medical texts, travelogues, and ballads we’ll also consider constructions of whiteness in early modern England and how these narratives played—and continue to play—into nationalist fantasies.
Queer Life WRiting
In this course, we will examine LGBTQ+ lives through the genres of memoir and life-writing. Memoir, in particular, blurs the line between fact and fiction—a creative expression of individual experience. And fictional texts scholars have shown to be based on lived experience, such as The Glass Menagerie, also blur lines between fact and fiction / truth and illusion. Consequently, we will think through what accounts of queer lives have to offer LGBTQ+ readers—as well as their authors. We will also explore the potential of LGBTQ+ memoirs to matter—what the intimate experience of reading, and the vulnerable experience of writing, a memoir might do to create a less “poisonous present” for queer people today.
Black Playwrights from Antiquity to now
Does the theater matter, and how have Black playwrights informed this question? The stage is a space where bodies perform, speak, and emote for a congregation of audience members—a political yet currently privileged space. Since the classical period, groundlings and Queens alike have come to the theater yearning for this collaborative encounter, but today some of the most ground-breaking productions are virtually inaccessible. This course introduces students to a range of historical and contemporary plays written by Black playwrights in order to explore the nature and purpose of live theater and the relationships between performance and text. In order to work through what has kept this art form alive for so long, we will explore what audiences go to the theater for; what they pay to see; and what "residue," to use José Muñoz's phrase, lingers on after these ephemeral performances. In grappling with how these texts make meaning, we will seriously consider the question the theater community grapples with, is this place—the stage—still a realistic and relevant space to catalyze political change?
Race and Reproduction in Literature
This course is about literary representations of reproduction and their relationship to ideas of culture, conflict, and definitions of life. As a class, we will trace the relationship between race, science, and reproduction in literature written as early as c.1330 and as late as 2019. Accompanying secondary sources and medical texts will help us think through the different contexts in which these texts were written, and how these contexts shape reproduction in the cultural imagination. From William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, to Octavia Butler’s Dawn, to Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus, to Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Husband Stitch,” we will ask of these literary texts—how is reproduction represented scientifically, culturally, politically, and rhetorically? In turn, what does research and writing that “bears witness” to the violence wielded against reproductive bodies in the margins, at the intersection, look like? Our conversations will both reveal and challenge the way we understand representations of reproduction in literary texts and the contradictory beliefs and actions associated with these representations. As well, we will consider the lived experiences they reflect.
Introduction to Narrative: Human Rights
“Stories are much bigger than ideologies. In that is our hope” – Donna Haraway
Most of us would accept that human rights exist, but what is their foundation? On what grounds do we hold these rights? Do they still exist if we have no forum in which to seek remedy for their violation? Over the course of this brief semester, we will explore narrative theory through a particular question—what power do narratives have when it comes to creating, claiming, and making readers aware of human rights? In addition to introducing non-major students to a wide range of narratives, however, this course also works to underscore how these fictions are pieced together out of lived experiences, and continue to inform how we understand human rights in our daily lives. Throughout the course, consequently, students are required to think critically about literature in ways that question simplistic understandings of fiction and reality.
Queer Histories & Hauntings
This course takes “haunting” as a point of entry into the rich history of LGBTQ+ lives and queer theory. How might we mine a “heavy present,” to use Lauren Berlant’s term, for gaps, auras, residues, and negations in the literary canon? How might we see ghostly presences in literature, certain structures of feeling that gesture towards lived experiences that have otherwise been marginalized, invisible? As a class, we will situate ourselves through an overview of queer theory, and then delve into texts that discuss “absented bodies”—the logic of ghosts. From Jacques Derrida’s philosophical concept of “hauntology” to José Esteban Muñoz’s “ghosts of public sex,” we will think through affective histories; queer archives; and what has or has not been lost. We will then put these theories into practice, working through what they have to offer literary texts from Sappho to Carmen Maria Machado.
College Writing: Dream Interpretation
In this course, we will explore the art and science of dreaming in order to practice college writing skills. Can dreams help us understand the self, as Freud argues? Are dreams mystical, magical…even prophetic? Or are they simply the meaningless result of randomly fired neurons? What do they have to do with memory, metaphors, repressed desires, and waking life? How have they driven and inspired artistic endeavors? These questions speak to the uncertainties and ambiguities that scholars grapple with while researching and writing about dreams; however, these complexities also explain why dreams have fascinated great thinkers across historical and disciplinary gulfs, and inspired all types of artists and writers, from William Shakespeare, to Salvador Dalí, to Stephanie Meyers. The topic of dreams is one that integrates the personal and the academic, allowing us, as a class, to practice different kinds of writing, directed at many different types of audiences and disciplines.
The Life and Death of the Author
“…writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin.”—Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”
In this course, we will explore the merits and limitations of “killing” and “resurrecting” the Author—metaphorically speaking—in order to write about literature. As we read “fictional” literary texts, we will also consider letters, journals, memoirs, biographies, interviews and other resources in which the author speaks about their work’s relationship to their lived experiences. In doing so, we will explore the possibilities and limitations of keeping the author in mind. The authors we’ll study are diverse in their personas, voices, and technique—even within their own oeuvres. Some examples of these voices include Terence, John Donne, Sylvia Plath, Richard Wright, Sandra Cisneros, Haruki Murakami, Tennessee Williams, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.
Tales of Terror
When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and [yet] with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience.”—Edmund Burke
Over the course of the semester, we will immerse ourselves in narratives that incite intense fear and dread; shudders and thrills; loathing and repugnance; aversion and dread; excitement and shock—and ask ourselves why readers are continually drawn to these tales, the bodies that inhabit them, and the feelings they stir. These narratives deal with violent and terrifying monsters, ghosts, and ghouls, as well as the more subtle aspects of the horror genre: the human psyche, fears of victimization, threatening sexuality, loss of identity, the merging of the boundaries between self and other, reason and madness, civilization and barbarism, and good and evil. In all cases, the assigned texts are born out of real-life horrors, as shocking if not more so than the fictional monsters in these tales. In turn, this course underscores how these fictions are pieced together out of lived experiences, and continue to inform how we understand terror in our daily lives.
Introduction to Poetry: Violent Matters and Movements
“i hope my last words / call for revolution / i would rather my pen / be at least as might as the sword”—“The Last Word,” Amina Baraka
What counts as poetry? What does it do? Why does it matter? As a class, we will explore these overwhelming questions through a specific theme: violence. Wallace Stevens, a canonical poet, describes poetry as “a destructive force.” In the above remarks, Emily Dickinson uses the language of freezing and dismemberment to describe the bodily response, the feeling, she gets when reading poetry. For Amina Baraka, the pen that writes “poem after poem” is as “mighty” as a sword in the fight against oppression and instigating revolution. What responsibility do readers of poems have to these violent images and imaginings, whether exaggerated, veiled, blatant, erased, or silenced? Where do these fictions come from and how do they, in turn, inform and perpetuate lived experiences of violence?