498 D (Senior Seminar) 12/18: NOTE NEW INSTRUCTOR, TOPIC
MW 1:30-3:20
Coldewey
(W)
jcjc@u.washington.edu
Pre-Renaissance Drama. In this course we will examine varieties of English drama written before and leading up to Shakespeare, including the complete Chester Cycle, a number of non-cycle plays, morality plays and Tudor interludes. We will formulate some ways of approaching these playtexts: as cultural markers, as expressions of civic identity, as spectacular performative ventures, as intellectual parents and children during eras of change, as contemplative texts for reading, and as really good plays. Senior ENGL majors only. Meets w. ENGL 516A. Texts: David Mills (ed.). The Chester Mystery Cycle; John Coldewey (ed.). Early English Drama: An Anthology; Albert Labriola and John Smeltz (eds.). The Bible of the Poor (Biblia Pauperum): A Facsimile and Edition of the British Library Blockbook C.9.d.2; Michael Camille. Image on the Edge; Victor Turner. From Ritual to Theatre.

498 E (Senior Seminar)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Ibrahim
(W)
New Black Aesthetics. What cultural, theoretical and political trends inform black literary production at the end of the twentieth century, or in the era to come after the civil rights movement, the black cultural nationalist movements of the late 1960s and 1970s, and integration? In this course, our primary goal will be to examine how various “postmodern” texts—marked in part by the shifting terrain of race in America—take a look back toward earlier forms of black culture and aesthetics. Many of the texts to be considered make self-conscious efforts to re-represent history, the meaning of black identity, and the conditions of community. As we engage this literature, we will consider how it addresses both past and present circumstances, and whether we can discern a “new” black aesthetics. Required texts are likely to include: Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo; Octavia Butler, Kindred, Andrea Lee, Sarah Philips; George Wolfe, The Colored Museum; Trey Ellis, Platitudes; Jewelle Gomez, The Gilda Stories; Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist. Texts likely to be available on E-Reserve: Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (excerpts); Manning Marable, “From Freedom to Equality: The Politics of Race and Class”; Cornel West, “The Postmodern Crisis of the Black Intellectuals”; bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness”; Mark Anthony Neal, Soul Babies (excerpts).

498 G (Senior Seminar)
TTh 11:30-1:20
Modiano
(W)
modiano@u.washington.edu
Gift, Sacrifice, and Literary Identity in Coleridge and Wordsworth. In this seminar we will study the literary relationship of Coleridge and Wordsworth who, as one critic remarked, “not only pervasively influenced one another, they did so in a way that challenges ordinary methods of assessment.” We will begin with a study of contemporary theories of gift exchanges and sacrifice, which will highlight major themes in Coleridge’s and Wordsworth’s poetry and offer a new model of interpreting their unusual collaboration. We will then proceed with a close examination of Coleridge’s and Wordsworth’s work, focusing on periods in which they found themselves in close competition with one another. For example, while early on Coleridge wrote successful nature poetry and Wordsworth wrote moving stories of human suffering and social injustice, after their collaboration on the Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth turned to the philosophy of the mind’s relationship with nature, while Coleridge started to explore the effects of supernaturalism on agents caught in a world that no longer makes sense in terms of orthodox Christian theology. What will emerge from this seminar is a clear sense that Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s careers were profoundly shaped by what each took to be the identity of the other, often misconceived through the distorting lens of self-projections. We will also compare multiple versions of a few major works by Coleridge and Wordsworth (such as Wordsworth’s “Salisbury Plain” poems and The Prelude and Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”), which are an important source of understanding the origins and nature of their literary collaboration. Senior ENGL majors only. Texts: Wordsworth, Selected Poetry (ed. Roe); Coleridge, Poetry and Prose.

498 H (Senior Seminar)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Vance
(W)
Love and the Social Bond in the Middle Ages, The goal of this course is to study the tension between individual erotic passion (whatever its form of expression) and the constraints of the family, feudal society, and religion. We will address these questions by reading a selection of examples of works written between the 12th and 14th centuries: preceded by the Old Testament Song of Songs as a foundation for medieval understandings of desire. This will be followed by two stories of virgin martyrs, a selection of Provençal and French courtly lyric poems, one or two courtly romances, (Tristan and Iseut; Yvain, and/or the Knight of the Lion, by Chrétien de Troyes), Dante’s Vita Nuova, Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the “Pardoner’s Tale,” and an unusual spiritual love letter by St. Catherine of Siena. All readings will be based on English translations, but students will be encouraged to read whatever writings they can in their original language.

Here are a few of the questions we will address:

• What is the relationship between courtly desire and medieval misogyny?
• What necessary link is there between sexual desire and sin?
• How is homoerotic desire understood and expressed in medieval letters?
• Can men and women of differing social ranks or classes properly love each other?
• What is the relationship between courtly love and chivalric combat in medieval romance?
• What are the social purposes of marriage in medieval society?
• What are the consequences, real or imagined, of adultery in medieval literature?
• What place does wealth have in courtly erotic desire?
• Can there such a phenomenon as truly spiritual or sacred erotic desire?
• Can men and women desire the Virgin Mary or the flesh of Christ?

Undergraduate students will be evaluated according to: their participation (30%), two short papers, 5-8 pp. (40%) and a take-home quiz (30%) at the end of the course. Senior ENGL majors only. Meets w. ENGL 516B, C LIT 496A; FRENCH 411, FRENCH 591. Taught by Prof. Eugene Vance, French & Italian Studies.

498 B (Senior Seminar)
MW 9:30-11:20
Wong
(W)
homebase@u.washington.edu
Screenwriting for Readers & Writers. This seminar is designed for both creative writers and those who don’t consider themselves writers but think of themselves as critical readers. The class will study films adapted from short stories, examine the screenwriting process and, through small group collaboration, write a screenplay adaptation of a short story. Text: Paul Argentini, Elements of Style for Screenwriters.

498 C (Senior Seminar)
MW 10:30-12:20
Dunn
(W)
dickd@u.washington.edu
Literary Learning: Challenges to Sense-Making.

“Is it not a pleasure to learn and to repeat or practice from time to time what has been learned?” –Confuscius

“Fictions are for finding things out, and they change as the needs of sense-making change.” –Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction

“Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense.” --favorite adage of former Seattle DJ team

This seminar focuses on three primary texts: a late 20th-century consideration of what schools are for, Neil Postman’s The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School; a writer’s meditation about ways of knowing and being, John Fowles’ The Tree; and a novel that makes its own sense of individual and collective American life, post-Vietnam, John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. This seminar will provide opportunity for reflective as well as critical conversation and writing, and both creative writing and literature/culture majors are welcome. Senior English majors only, registration periods 1 & 2. Texts: Postman, The End of Education; Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany; Fowles, The Tree (note: the Bookstore may not be able to acquire used copies of Fowles’ The Tree; therefore please try to purchase from on line –google author and title for available copies.)

498 L (Senior Seminar)
TTh 10:30-12:20
Karl
(W)
agkarl@u.washington.edu
Consuming Literature, Literary Consumption. Love, money desire, consummation, shopping: in this course we will delve into the pleasures and delusions of consumption. Starting in the late nineteenth century when department stores brought mass-consumerism to cities in Europe and the United States, we’ll investigate how consumption is a key trope in literature, and by which we read literature throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. We’ll consider consumption broadly as an economic, emotional, corporeal, and historical concept – and one that simultaneously encapsulates mundane, everyday activities (buying coffee, eating lunch, cruising the mall) and global economic and political conditions. We will follow these various notions in and through literature to evaluate how consumption and consumerism develop and change, and to ask just how prominently they matter. Some of the ideas, debates and phenomena we’ll trace include how anxieties over the cultural impact of mass-consumerism and consumer capital emerge in literary texts; how consumption and circulation condition national, gendered and racial identities and histories; whether love and desire are forms of consumption, and what it means to be consumed by one’s desires; how literature itself is consumed as a commodity in the marketplace and as stories that have cultural staying-power. Be prepared for a brisk reading pace, regular writing and collaborative assignments, and an annotated bibliography and substantial research paper at the end of the quarter. Senior English majors only, Registration Periods 1 & 2. Texts: Emile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Djuna Barnes, Nightwood; Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle; Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight; Monique Truong, The Book of Salt; Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’ Diary.

498 M (Senior Seminar)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Johnson-Bogart
(W)
kbogart@u.washington.edu
Mapping the Reader’s Journey. We book lovers have had our hearts stolen, been transported to a different place by at least one book. Because you can never take the same journey twice, rereading a beloved book can be revelatory, of the reader as well as the book. In this course we’ll attend to the process of reading, exploring the difference between first readings and subsequent readings, discovering how the book is never the same and how we change as readers trekking across readings and through time. In addition to Anne Fadiman’s Rereadings, a collection of essays by diverse writers on the surprises and insights rereading brings, Italo Calvino’s compound positioning of the reader in If on a winter’s night a traveler, and a few articles, you will work closely with a book you choose. Writing assignments will include regular reflective exercises to log your journeys, as well as formal arguments you develop through rereading and revision. To prepare for this class, think carefully about which old love you want to revisit again for a few weeks. A book you read several years ago when you were in another time and place, and one about which you’ve already done some writing will be a good choice. Hopefully, neither of you will get through your reunion unchanged and you, dear traveler, will have a deepened appreciation for who you are as a reader and the role reading can play in your present and future journey. Texts: Anne Fadiman, Rereadings; Italo Calvino, If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

498N (Senior Seminar)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Dean
(W)
gnodean@u.washington.edu
Added 2/14; sln: 12792
Circa 1900: Transitional Realisms. How did resourceful, independent Huckleberry Finn grow up to become Benjy Compson, the wise-fool "idiot" narrator of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury? How did late nineteenth-century American literary values, which emphasized everyday life and everyday folks, transform in just a few decades to accommodate the experimental forms and perspectives of modernist writers like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot and Zora Neale Hurston? In this class, we will investigate the pronounced cultural change that occurred across the divide of the twentieth century by examining its roots, through several clusters of "realist" texts produced around the year 1900. Our first "case study" involves Henry James and the perceptual uncertainties of novels such as The Turn of the Screw (1898) and What Maisie Knew (1897), along with several longish short stories, texts by James' literary associates, nineteenth-century psychologists, critical essays and some examples of visual art. Our second "case study" focuses on Charles Chesnutt and the ambiguities of the color line, via his novel The Marrow of Tradition(1901) and his stories of the color line (1899), alongside other stories about racial identity and conflict, critical essays, and examples from popular journalism, photography and anthropology similarly concerned with race and its elusive "definitions." In the final third of the quarter, students will compile their own "case study" of another set of texts circa 1900, working individually and in groups. Overall, our aim is to query the idea of "realism" and its capacity to generate radically different approaches to representation. This class should be especially useful (and fun) for students of literary history, cultural studies, modernism and nineteenth-century American literature, but will also satisfy those who simply like to read deeply. Texts: Henry James, What Maisie Knew; The Turn of the Screw (with The Aspern Papers and Two Stories); Charles Chesnut, Conjure Tales and Stories of the Color Line; The Marrow of Tradition.

UW English Undergraduate Programs
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Updated April 06 2022