ENGL 4039

A far-flung inquiry into the complicated relationship that has existed between text and image in Europe, Asia, and the Americas since the Middle Ages (with backward glances at Plato and the Bible). We shall study writings on the relationship between language and the visual arts, print culture, and the history...

All too often, English majors are told that their studies are impractical. W.H. Auden’s famous line, “Poetry makes nothing happen,” is often misunderstood as admitting the powerlessness of literature in general. In fact, though, literature has a track record of empowering social change. This course will examine the relative effectiveness...

As we reach the one-year mark of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, we now recognize how a July 2017 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education foretold the scene that unfolded in Virginia just one month later. The Chronicle explains that “Alt-right online forums have co-opted themes from the...

As we reach the one-year mark of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, we now recognize how a July 2017 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education foretold the scene that unfolded in Virginia just one month later. The Chronicle explains that “Alt-right online forums have co-opted themes from the...

In the 1890s, certain cultural critics considered civilization to be on the verge of collapse, degenerating into a world dominated by sensual appetites. Yet it was also a period of the new, the “New Woman,” the “new sciences,” the “new imperialism.” It was a period of exciting developments in thought...

The course considers a selection of contemporary American ecofictions in the context of posthuman and postnatural theory. These ecofictions rework the category of “nature” outside of a realist narrative framework but still take their bearings from notions of environmental degradation and sustainability. In the wake of the new geological epoch...