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ENG 1722 Scriptwriting
Sect. 361 Students will practice the rudiments of dramatic writing in this course. In the first half of the semester, we will focus on writing and reading scenes for the stage; in the second half, we will concentrate on writing, reading and viewing films. Dramatic tension and conflict, stage business, character development, subtext, the use of visuals to tell a story will be some of the elements we will discuss and put to use. Students will use improvisation, silent and vocalized, and story boards to explore possibilities of narrative. Guest writers and a trip to a play will be on the calendar. Weekly writing assignments, readings, and a final portfolio and presentation of work will comprise the work of the course. ENG 1723H Fiction WritingSect. 261 Writer-In-Residence W 6:45-9:25 This class is a workshop-based fiction writing course. Students will devote much of their energy to writing numerous short exercises and more polished works of fiction. Members of this class will be expected to read their classmates' work and respond to it in a productive and disciplined manner. We will also read and discuss a variety of published works as a basis for the class discussion and a source of ideas about the form and its possibilities. ENG 2003 British Literature: Medieval through Shakespeare
Sect. 251 This course will focus on major developments in British literature, language, and culture, beginning with the Anglo-Saxon period and concluding with a play by Shakespeare. Through close reading of selected texts, students will: · Become familiar with the distinctive voices of a range of British writers from the early and late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance; · Get acquainted with various literary genres and their specific characteristics; · Explore the relationships between literature and historical events, cultural issues, beliefs, and values, sometimes with the aid of supplementary background readings (some of them online). · Develop strategies for reading and evaluating texts perceptively, critically, and analytically, both in class discussion and in writing.
Requirements: regular class attendance and participation; six 15-minute quizzes (given approximately every other week); one short analytical essay (4-5 pages); one longer essay (8-10 pages); a comprehensive final examination. This course can be used to fulfill the 1st and/or 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College. ENG 2003H British Literature: Medieval through Shakespeare -- Honors
Sect. 331 This is an honors course because of its writing intensity, its modest research component, and its relatively sophisticated discussion of various dimensions of interpretation. Its other goals include: · understanding and appreciation of major authors and works including Beowulf, Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare; · mastery of the basics of literary theory textual, reader response, biographical, social and cultural in order; · to understand how assumptions about literature shape interpretations of specific works; · attentive reading, with respect for the text as written and an eye to the interrelationships of style, form, content, interpretive framework, and social and cultural contexts; · analytic and critical thinking about literature and in general. Brief lectures will punctuate guided Socratic discussions intended to stimulate genuine thoughtfulness about the means, ends, and multivalent meanings of specific works of literature. Requirements: attendance, active participation, 2 essays 4-6 pages each, a thorough revision of the second, a 6-8 page essay, a thorough revision of that essay, and a final essay exam Prerequisites: at least the first term of composition (ENG 1101) or else H1 (ENG 1931H) This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2004 British Literature: Donne through the Romantics Sect. 331Dr. Michael Schwartz TR 1:30-2:45
This course will survey metaphysical, neoclassical, Augustan, sentimental, and Romantic literature. By the end of the semester, you will know what these terms mean and why they are extremely limited in definitive value. The course will focus primarily on poetry and drama, but may evoke the so-called birth and "rise" of the novel. Authors will include some of the following: Donne, Jonson, Philips, Milton, Dryden, Etherege, Addison, Defoe, Pope, Gay, Smith, Johnson, Wordsworth, Keats and Austen. Some secondary reading will be assigned as well, to help illuminate the primary texts. You will also be expected to purchase a style manual, and throughout the semester we will work on elements of effective writing. You will write two or three short papers and a final.
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2005 British Literature: Victorian through Contemporary Sect. 261Dr.
Pamela Brown
MW 6:45-8:00
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2010 Interpreting Texts Sect. 231: MW 3:00-4:15 Dr Paula Geyh Sect. 261: MW 6:45-8:00
This course will introduce students to different theoretical approaches to literature defining current literary studies. The course material is organized in clusters of literary, theoretical, and critical texts in order to show how they work together and reciprocally shape one another. The course begins with a discussion of three founding texts of the Western tradition--Sophocles’s Oedipus the King, on the literary side, and Plato’s dialogues and Aristotle’s Poetics, on the theoretical side. The goal of this discussion is to see how these works, especially Plato’s and Aristotle’s, both establish the Western critical tradition and, against their own grain, open up a critique of this tradition, including of their own key ideas. The course will then proceed to examine several important contemporary paradigms of literary criticism using key theoretical texts and representative works of literature (including works by Conrad, James, and Woolf, among others). Among the paradigms we’ll be exploring are the psychoanalytic (via Freud and Lacan), Marxist (via Marx, Althusser, and Williams), and feminist (via Woolf, Beauvoir, Cixous, and Butler).
Requirements: § Class participation and attendance (10%) § One 2-page paper (10%) § One 5-6 page paper (30%) § A midterm and final exam (50%)
ENG 2201 World Literature: Ancient and Classical Sect. 331 Dr. Louis Feldman T 3:00-4:15, R 3:45-5:00
This is a survey course in the greatest masterpieces of ancient Greek and Latin literature: selections from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aristotle's Poetics, Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Prometheus Bound, Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Antigone, Euripides' Hippolytus, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (selections), Aristophanes' Clouds, Plato's Apology, Crito, Phaedo (selections), and Republic, and Virgil's Aeneid (selections). The emphasis is on the analysis of the virtues that the Greeks and Romans admired and on the solutions that they offer to the question of divine justice. There is a mid-term and a final examination. There is a term paper presenting a critical discussion on a topic of the student's choice comparing and contrasting some aspect of Hebraism with some corresponding aspect of Hellenism. The student will get extensive written comments and suggestions from the instructor. He may then revise his paper as often as he wishes, with each submission being commented upon by the instructor and with the grade being based on the final submission.
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2202 World Literature: Post-Classical to Modern Sec. 231 Prof. Mark Hoffman MW 3:00-4:15
The primary goal of the semester will be to gain a greater understanding and appreciation for some of the masterpieces of post-classical world literature. The reading will span the later Ancient, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic periods, as well as the Realism/Naturalism of the 20th century. Active and attentive reading of the texts will be stressed as the content, form, and style will be closely examined. Each text will be placed within its historical, philosophical, and cultural context. Students will be encouraged to think, read, discuss, and write critically about the literature. The readings will be selected from the New Testament, and the works of St. Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Machiavelli, Cervantes, Swift, Moliere, Voltaire, Rousseau, English Romantic poets, Whitman, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Kafka, Achebe, and 20th century American poets.
In addition to the readings, course requirements will include a take-home mid-term and a take-home final exam (both requiring the writing of mid-length essays) as well as a long paper on one full-length work outside of the syllabus.
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2202 World Literature: Post-Classical to Modern Sect. 341 Dr. Manfred Weidhorn T 4:30-5:45; R 5:15-6:30
A chronological survey of the major works from the New Testament to the present; simultaneous study of theme and structure, matter and manner. Objectives: 1) To teach students how to think by showing the role of assumptions in all forms of thought and by exposing them to unfamiliar value systems. 2) To stimulate students to both know themselves and understand others (e.g., do they really disagree with Machiavelli on whether the end justifies the means?) 3) To provide an overview of Western Civilization and a consequent insight into how we got to where we are (i.e., a secular, pluralist, and allegedly pagan and immoral society. 4) To expose students to great works--from various disciplines, nations, periods--dealing with "the best that has been thought," as well as to familiarize them with the intellectual vocabulary and currency of the secular society in which they propose to thrive. 5) To entertain a series of conjectures on the ultimate question, what is the design of the universe and, consequently, the meaning of life?
Topics: The development of Christianity as seen in the New Testament, St. Augustine, and Dante; the rise of the heterodox or skeptical spirit in Machiavelli, Montaigne, Cervantes, and of the scientific spirit in Galileo; the Enlightenment celebration of reason; the Romantic emphasis on the emotional life; the modern spirit of uncertainty and pessimism.
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2318H The World Of King Arthur Sect. 341 Dr. Joan Haahr T 4:30-5:45; R 5:15-6:30
Have you ever wanted to learn about King Arthur and the Knights and Ladies of the Round Table? About the wizardry of Merlin and the search for the Holy Grail? About the tragic loves of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult? About Arthur, the messianic “once and future king,” expected to return from Avalon whenever the world needs him? Although we tend to think of them as medieval, Arthurian legends have flourished for almost 1500 years and are as popular now as they were during the Middle Ages. In this Honors course, we will study those legends, both to understand their continuing appeal and to examine the ways that they have been exploited for non-literary ends. Readings consist primarily of 12th-15th century English and French courtly literature, although we will also read some early Welsh and Latin historical texts and some nineteenth and twentieth century Arthurian poetry and fiction. Many of the works belong to the genre called romance, and one aim of the course is to consider the conventions and traditions of this popular narrative mode that continues to flourish today in science- and fantasy-fiction. We will also view several films: a documentary and two or three popular feature films. All works are read in Modern English translation.
An important aspect of the course is its use of the Internet. Students are expected to work online and to use Internet resources as well as traditional scholarly printed texts. Course requirements are: weekly e-mail submissions, group oral reports, mid-term and final web projects, and a final examination. Technical assistance will be available for those who need it.
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2360 The Enlightenment: Western Literature, c. 1650-1800 Sect. 361
Objective: The Luther-Galileo Great Paradigm Shift (c. 1500-1650) in religion and science resulted in a sweeping reorientation in all intellectual disciplines, as Reason replaced what came to be seen as "superstitious" Christianity. We will survey the major works which helped turn the theocentric, tradition-oriented West into a society based on emancipated reason, science, dynamism, change, pluralism, iconoclasm, and individualism. Readings will be from the great British authors of the age--Locke, Newton, Swift, Pope, Hume, Gibbon, Boswell--as well as from continental masters like Vico, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau.
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2611 American Literature I: Beginnings to 1865 Sect. 251 Dr. Joanne Jacobson MW 5:00-6:15
This course will examine writing from the time of the earliest European explorations of North America through the Civil War. We will be particularly concerned with literature’s role in dialogues between “old” and “new” worlds and in the development of modern notions of “America” and of “literature.” Discussion will therefore be especially concerned with the relationship between literature and cultural transition: with the ways in which writing and reading literature became legitimated in this country; with the part which American writers played in defining, and re-defining, the terms of community and nationhood; with evolving notions of human authority, potential, and creativity; with shifting attitudes toward (cultural, gender, racial) difference; and with the emergence of an urban industrial society.
Readings will begin with Indian creation myths and the writings of Spanish explorers and English Puritans, continue through early American autobiography (Franklin, Thoreau, Douglass), and conclude with the fiction and poetry of the first half of the nineteenth century (Irving, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman).
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2612 American Literature II: 1865 to the Present Sect. 221
Literature is both reflective and generative. It both mirrors our world and participates in the production of our world. It shapes the world we see, the way we see this world, and the way we see ourselves. For example, while literature reflected the rise of industrialism, the growing dominance of a market economy, and the emergence of an apparently permanent lower class in America, it also participated in the naturalization of these social forces, and in the construction of our selves in relation to these social forces. While literature both illustrated and often critiqued racism, sexism, classism and homophobia, it also, often within the same text, naturalized many of these very discourses. This course will engage the American literary landscape from 1865 to the present through the many theoretical and philosophical traditions that emerged during this time period. There will be a midterm exam, a final exam, and two short papers.
This course can be used to fulfill either the 1st or the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 2910 American Autobiography Sect. 331 “In spite of the fact that autobiography is impossible, this in no way prevents it from existing.” (Philippe Lejeune, “The Autobiographical Pact”)
“The motives of memory are never pure.” (James Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning)
This course will examine personal narratives written in the United States from the end of the seventeenth century to the present. We’ll be exploring a number of issues central to autobiographical writing: the cultural conditions amenable to the emergence of autobiography; the human drive to create narrative; the question of truthful representation of memory and of the self. At the same time, we will be examining autobiography as an arena within which diverse versions of American lives, experience and values have been—and continue to be—modeled, tested, challenged, and re-written.
Readings will be from the work of such authors as Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Mary McCarthy, Claude Brown, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, Art Spiegelman, Tobias Wolff, and Lucy Grealy.
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 3237 Short Fiction Sect. 261 Professor Nadine Kavanaugh MW 6:45-8:00
A gulp, a sip, a taste: just enough fiction for a sitting. How much life, humor, horror, pain, or even mundanity can be fit into five pages? How about fifty? In this course we’ll read a lot of short fiction, and even some short-short fiction, and analyze it closely, taking a particular look at how length constrictions affect narrative arc, style, and subject. Because the pieces of fiction themselves will be short, we will able to take a wide-ranging look at the genre. Likely authors include: Raymond Carver, Robert Coover, Jorge Luis Borges, Henry James, Katherine Mansfield, Jamaica Kincaid, Ernest Hemingway, Tim O’Brien, Edgar Allan Poe, Margaret Atwood, David Brooks, Joyce Carol Oates, and more.
Coursework includes participation, short weekly writing assignments, one 4-6 page essay, and one 8-10 page essay.
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 3408 The Art of Drama Sect. 251 Dr. Richard Nochimson MW 5:00-6:15
We will read and discuss together a relatively small number of plays (probably about a dozen) chosen from different time periods and cultures. The emphasis will be on plays from the modern (late 19th century and early 20th century) and contemporary (1945-present) periods. Possibly there will be some reading of background materials.
Everyone will SEE three plays; I hope that one of two of these will be plays on our reading list.
Students will keep a journal of informal reactions to the plays and will write two brief papers (reviews of performances, no research required).
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 3742 Modern Poetry Sect. 231 Dr. Will Lee MW 3:00-4:15
Through modern poetry surge experiments with voice, style, form, content, and purpose. Experimentation for its own sake is not the best poets' point; rather, they strive to "make it new," to render the ordinary extraordinary, to create new worlds in language, and thereby to revitalize old truths and discover new ones. The main point of the course is to learn how to read their poetry to appreciate its depths and nuances, to hear its often dissonant music, to develop a critical vocabulary for analyzing its complex interrelationships among style, form, voice, and content. After briefly scanning the roots of modern poetry in Wordsworth, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, and Hopkins, we will concentrate on major poets such as Hardy, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Frost, Stevens, Williams, Moore, Cummings, Crane, Langston Hughes, Auden, Roethke, Thomas, Levertov, Ginsberg, and Rich. We may also read Neruda and Milosz, two of the greatest and best translated foreign poets. Though some modern poetry is difficult, we will refuse to be intimidated.
Requirements: a short essay, a 12-15 pp. essay on one poet’s contributions to the modern tradition, and a final.
Prerequisite: English 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, or the equivalent. The course is designed for upperclassmen, but literarily experienced underclassmen are welcome.
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva College.
ENG 4552 African American Literature Sect. 231 Mr. Clarence Robertson MW 3:00-4:15
This course will focus on literature written from1865 (the moment of African-American emancipation) to the present. While we will trace various motifs of race that have occurred throughout the African-American literary tradition, we will also focus on historically locating the particulars of each text that we examine. For example, while we will examine the recurrence of concepts such as double consciousness, rhetorical strategies like masking, and recurrent motifs that emerge out of the blues and jazz traditions, we will always keep in mind the particular historical moment and place in which the text occurs. In many ways, this will involve an analysis of what can and cannot be said at particular historical moments in relation to specific events that both have taken and are taking place at the time of each text’s conception. To this end, our discourse will include theoretical methodologies specific to the African-American tradition itself, but we also employ methodologies that emerge out of the semiotic, narratological, dialogic, and psychoanalytic traditions. There will be a midterm exam, a final exam, and two papers required for this course.
This course can be used to fulfill the 2nd semester of the two-semester literature requirement for graduation from Yeshiva. |
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