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During Spring Quarter 2010, the Department of English will again offer its highly successful program of study in London. We have found that by keeping our numbers small, by tailoring our courses to what is immediately able to be seen in London and in England, and by asking students to actively participate, everyone emerges feeling fuller, as students, as tourists, as people.
The program will consist of four courses: London's Contemporary Theater, taught by UW English Professor John Webster, and Representing London: Writing and the Mediation of Experience, taught by UW English Professor Anis Bawarshi. Art, Architecture, and Society will be taught by Professor Peter Buckroyd, and Contemporary Britain will be taught by Professor Michael Fosdal, both British faculty who are experienced teachers of American students. (Three classes are considered a full-time load, but students may take all four if they wish.)
Students in the program will maintain their UW residency and any financial aid eligibility already established. Credits earned will be recorded on students' UW transcripts and apply directly to UW graduation requirements. Credits earned in English courses may be used to satisfy requirements for the English major.
Housing and board for students will be arranged with families in London. A London Transport pass, good for travel on all subways and busses, will be supplied.
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taught by John Webster , UW English Department Faculty
The goal of this class is to help students become more informed, confident
and, especially, active readers and watchers of contemporary theater.
We will approach this goal in five ways. First, we will be seeing a series of
theatrical productions during the course of the quarter, and discussing each
of those productions both before and after we see them. Second, we will be reading
several of these plays before we actually see the production—thinking
about possibilities for dramatic representations of what we read. Third, students
will be writing about what they see. They’ll be keeping a theatre notebook
as their contribution to the formal work of the quarter, and I will be reviewing
material from that notebook on several different occasions. Fourth, we’ll
be engaging in a range of informal dramatic exercises throughout the quarter,
introducing students to a range of theatrical techniques that will significantly
increase their ability to “see” what’s happening on stage.
And fifth and finally, we’ll be visiting several physical sites with special
importance to the history of drama in London--the Globe Theater, The National
Theater, The Royal Court Theater, The Theater Museum, The Southbank environs
of Shakespeare's London. For this is the place!—for fans of the
English-language theater, London is the sacred ground of sacred grounds. (The
course will also be linked with an excursion to Stratford Upon Avon and what
will by then be the newly reopened Memorial Theater.) This course meets
the Senior Capstone Requirement for English majors.
Anis Bawarshi
taught by Anis Bawarshi, UW English Department Faculty
In this course, we will explore how writing can shape the ways we experience
place. We will do this by analyzing and producing textual representations of
London, and then considering how these representations mediate the ways we encounter,
experience, and make sense of the city. The course will begin by asking students
to analyze various London-related “travel genres” such as travel
guides, tourist maps, postcards, websites, and brochures. Students will learn
and apply methods of genre analysis in order to examine how these genres work
to construct our sense of place. In the second part of the course, students
will conduct mini-ethnographies of various places around London. We will learn
strategies for conducting fieldwork, and then each student will visit a selected
place (historical landmarks, popular tourist attractions, lesser known, quotidian
sites) over a period of time in order to conduct observations about what happens
(and does not happen) at that place, how people interact with each other and
experience the place, what artifacts they use in that place, how, and why, etc.
After they complete their fieldwork, students will write up their observations
as ethnographies. In the final part of the class, and based on their ethnographic
research, students will be asked to produce their own travel genres related
to the place they observed. They can select the genre that would be most effective,
and then they will write/design it in a way that will, in their view, enable
visitors to that place to experience it in a richer and/or a more alternative
way. Students will share their projects with each other, and will be encouraged
to use each other’s genres to visit and experience the places they represent.
Throughout the course, students will have a chance to workshop, present, and
get feedback on their work in progress. This course meets the "Forms
and Genres" requirement for English majors.
Peter Buckroyd
taught by Professor Peter Buckroyd, British Faculty
This course is interdisciplinary. The material is London itself. The course is taught entirely on the streets and in buildings, ranging from medieval, Elizabethan and Jacobean to Victorian, modern and post-modern. As well as equipping students to look more carefully at buildings, pictures and sculpture, the course encourages them to do some imaginative re-creation, considering what it might have been like to have lived at different times in the past as a member of different social classes. Field trips, to locations like Stratford Upon Avon, are included, typically via chartered bus with professional drivers. Students usually stay in established B&B's for any overnight trips.
Michael Fosdal
taught by Professor Michael Fosdal, British Faculty
This course introduces students to various aspects of life in Britain, from royalty to the homeless, from politics to sport. There is a major emphasis on direct contact with the people and institutions of contemporary Britain, including meetings with homeless people and politicians, visits to Parliament and the media, and individual research projects which encourage students to follow up their own interests. The course also looks at issues such as race, crime, the family and the problems (and delights) of being young in Britain today. The course should enable students to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary Britain and equip them better to understand their own society.
