Queens Campus
ENG 100: Modern Critical Theories
(13392)
W. 4:40-6:40 p.m.
Dr. Melissa Mowry
Culture Wars. Most of us have heard this phrase in one venue
or another. And most of us have some understanding that the
culture wars are synonymous with conservative attacks on liberal
representations—those that seem outside the traditional values of
“family unity” (where family is understood as nuclear),
conventional gender roles, and, with the advent of the Patriot Act,
representations that challenge the authority of various branches of
government. Most of us also believe that the culture wars are
a “new” feature of the post 9/11 world. The truth is that
American and European culture has been in the grips of a protracted
culture war since the end of WWII. The culture wars of the
early 21st century are simply the latest version of the conflict
between those who view cultural authority with profound distrust
and those who view cultural authority as the only real vehicle to
social stability. Regardless of which side of the issue you
stand on, this debate that has radically altered the way those of
us working in the humanities generally and literature departments
in particular teach and research. In this class, we will
explore both the historical and intellectual antecedents of the
rich and nuanced conflict over cultural authority in post-WWII
Europe through the writings of Foucault, Derrida, Althusser and few
others. We will then move on to examine the conflict over
history sparked by post-colonial theory’s challenges to the
dominant cultural narratives of the West. During the second
half of the semester, we will consider the implications of these
earlier incarnations of the debate for new theoretical work on
cultural and literary forms, literary research methodology, and the
shape of literature curricula. Students should expect to write
several short papers that will culminate in a larger project that
may or may not take the shape of a conventional seminar paper.
ENG 115: Arthurian Romance
(14499)
M. 6:50-8:50 p.m.
Dr. Margaret Kim
In this course we will read medieval romances built around the
figure of Arthur, from Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram de Eschenbach,
to Malory. We will study the genre and convention of romance,
its significance as historical and political writing in the Middle
Ages, and explore the prominent themes of gender, class, and
history in these texts.
ENG 290: Seminar in 16th and 17th Century
British Literature (14497)
W. 6:50-8:50 p.m.
Dr. Brian Lockey
New World Encounters and Conquests in Renaissance Literature
What are the historical, cultural, and literary antecedents to the
Anglo-American notion of a humanitarian war, such as the invasion
of Iraq, the purpose of which was purportedly to “bring democracy
to the Iraqi people?” This course will consider how such a notion
of charitable conquest originates in the Early Modern period within
fiction written about the conquests and settlements of Ireland and
the New World. In addition to investigating Early Modern rationales
for “ethical conquest” and “lawful” acts of war, we will consider
the way in which literary works differentiate between the Irish and
New-World colonial contexts as well as how Ireland was viewed by
many Renaissance writers as a natural “jumping off” point into the
New World. Our readings will be primarily literary, but there
will also be some focus on the historical context that produced
such literary works. For example, we will explore the Spanish
writings (in translation) that influenced English ideas on
exploration and overseas settlement. We will also read the
historical and literary critical work on this growing subject. A
brief list of authors and works to be read: Shakespeare’s The
Tempest, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Edmund Spenser’s
The Faerie Queene and A View of the Present State of
Ireland, Aphra Behn’s The Widow Ranter, Mary
Rowlandson’s The Captive, Christopher Columbus’s writings,
Bartolome de las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of
the Indies.
ENG 351: Seminar in 18th Century British
Literature (14569)
R. 6:50-8:50 p.m.
Dr. Kathleen Lubey
Reading Sex in the Eighteenth Century
In recent years, historians and literary critics have “discovered”
the origins of modern pornography in the literature of the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In political and
religious satire, in scandalous amatory fiction, and in England’s
fascination with translations of erotic French texts, these critics
suggest, we see the emergence of a resilient interest in sexual
matters, plots, and descriptions. And indeed, this erotic
canon comprises works that, even by modern standards, discuss sex
boldly and explicitly. Our course will evaluate this view of
pornography’s history by examining ostensibly erotic works from
1670 to 1770. As we read in this period, we will pursue
several questions concurrently. First, to what degree do the
sexually explicit texts of this period correspond to our modern
definition of pornography—namely, a genre primarily aimed at
arousing its audience? Second, is it only in “low” and vulgar
literature that we witness a recurrent interest in sexuality?
And might we see writers testing things other than their readers’
libido as they present erotic scenes? Our reading will include
works that manifestly center themselves on questions of sexuality
(Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Rochester’s libertine
poetry, Haywood’s amatory fiction, writings on prostitution) as
well as texts that more delicately discuss the body, the senses,
and feelings of ecstasy (aesthetic philosophy, Pope’s Rape of the
Lock, the sentimental novels of Sterne and MacKenzie).
Evaluation will be based primarily on class participation and a
seminar-length paper, due at the end of the course.
ENG 560: American Novel to 1914
(14498)
Hybrid Online class: 4:40-6:40 p.m. every other Thursday night
beginning 1/19/06
Queens Campus
Dr. Jennifer Travis
The identification of men with the public sphere and women with the
private sphere posed an artificial divide on American culture in
the nineteenth century: polarizing men and women, male spaces and
female spaces, romantic literature and domestic literature.
Nina Baym famously described this separation of the literary
landscape as the “melodrama of beset manhood”: the hypothesis that
American literature dramatized by definition man’s escape from the
feminine sphere of sentiment and intimacy. Together we will
complicate this framework. We will examine American women
writers who command us to rethink the boundaries of “separate
spheres,” and we will analyze women’s contributions to the history
of the novel in the U.S., from seduction and sentiment to romance
and realism. This will be a hybrid online course. We will
meet as a group on the following dates: January 19, February 2,
February 16, March 2, March 23, April 6, and April 27. On
weeks that we do not have class students will post responses to
assigned readings on WebCT. Please note that E. 876, taught by Dr.
Owens, will also be a hybrid online course, with classes meeting on
the opposite Thursday nights on the Manhattan campus: January 26,
February 9, February 23, March 16, March 30, April 20, May 4.
This will allow students to register for both courses if they wish,
even though they both meet 4:40-6:40 on Thursday nights.
Students registering for this course can e-mail Dr. Travis at travisj@stjohns.edu for more
information.
ENG 685: Literary Modernism
(14496)
M. 4:40-6:40 p.m.
Dr. Stephen Sicari
In this course we will examine the emergence and development of
modernism in literature from 1900 through WWII as a series of
imaginative responses to some enormous political events.
Distinguishing between modernity and modernism, we will try to
historicize modernism in literature as an artistic counter-movement
to modernity in general. The readings will be organized
around three aspects of modernity that roughly form a linear
sequence: Heart of Darkness, Howards End, and A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man as responses to imperialism; The Waste Land
and To The Lighthouse as responses to the Great War; The Cantos,
The Revenge for Love (Wyndham Lewis), Between the Acts (Woolf’s
posthumous novel), and the poetry of Wallace Stevens as responses
to the rise of totalitarianism.
ENG 695: Topics in American Studies
(14570)
T. 6:50-8:50 p.m.
Dr. Granville Ganter
Native American Literature
This course will attempt to straddle both anthropological and
literary aspects of U.S. Native American literary traditions. In
terms of anthropology and culture, we will look at selected North
American myths; some of the speeches and addresses of Red Jacket
and William Apess; and the narratives of Black Hawk and Black
Elk. In a more traditional literary vein we will look at some
of the landmark novels written by U.S. Native Americans, such as
John Ridge’s Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta; Darcy
McNickle’s Surrounded; Momaday’s House Made of Dawn; Erdrich’s Love
Medicine; Silko’s Ceremony; and Sherman Alexie’s stories.
ENG 861: Art and Propaganda
(14548)
T. 4:40-6:40 p.m.
Dr. Gregory Maertz
An advanced course on the political uses of literary and visual
culture (art and film) from the rise of Napoleon to the collapse of
Nazi Germany. Writers and artists to include Jacques Louis
David, William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Arno Breker, Ernst Widmann, and Leni Riefenstahl. Students
will develop original projects and present their research and
submit a term paper before the end of the term. Readings and
discussion will be supplemented by slides, films, and visits to the
Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Neue
Galerie.
Suggested background reading:
William Vaughan, Romanticism and Art (Thames & Hudson).
Toby Clark, Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century
(Abrams).
David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda
(Routledge).
Manhattan Campus
ENG 876: Writing Nonfiction
(14629)
Hybrid Online class: 4:40-6:40 p.m. every other Thursday night
beginning 1/26/06
Dr. Derek Owens
This is an introductory workshop exploring various genres of
nonfiction, with special emphasis on the essay, literary
journalism, and memoir. Half of the course will be in the
form of a writing workshop where we critique each other’s
nonfiction; the other half will revolve around discussions of
classic and contemporary nonfiction prose. Students will have
the option of choosing to write on a range of themes; possible
topics might include neighborhood portraits, childhood memories,
biographical reflections, or cultural investigations.
Suggested texts might include selections from Phillip Lopate’s The
Art of the Personal Essay and Sims & Kramer’s Literary
Journalism, along with Dave Egger’s A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius, Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman, and works
by Michel de Montaigne, Joan Didion, Frank McCourt, Jamaica
Kincaid, and others. This will be a hybrid online course. We
will all be in e-mail contact beginning the first week of the
semester. However, we will only meet as a group on the
following dates: January 26, February 9, February 23, March 16,
March 30, April 20, May 4. On weeks that we do not have class
students will post responses to assigned readings on WebCT.
Please note that E.560, taught by Dr. Travis, will also be a hybrid
online course, with classes meeting on the opposite Thursday
nights: January 19, February 2, February 16, March 2, March 23,
April 6, April 27. This will allow students to register for
both courses if they wish, even though they both meet 4:40-6:40 on
Thursday nights. Students registering for this course can e-mail
Dr. Owens at owensd@stjohns.edu for more
information.
Staten Island Campus
ENG 201: Major British Author of 19th
Century (14585)
T. 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Dr. Amy King
“Jane Austen Today”
This course proposes to concentrate on the work of a single author,
Jane Austen (1775-1817); and the various ways in which her work may
have been understood and ideologically situated both in her own
moment and in ours. Austen’s novels have assumed a pivotal
position in the way our culture narrates courtship and gender
norms, and understands received notions of taste. We will
read the major works—including Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride
and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816),
Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818)—alongside the major
contemporary critical debates that surround Austen’s fiction.
In addition, we will engage selected contemporary reactions to and
adaptations of her work by recent films and novels (including, for
instance, the novel Bridget Jones’s Diary and the film
Clueless). We will seek to understand Austen in her own time,
in relation to the politics, culture, aesthetics, and literary
landscape of the late eighteenth century, and “today,” taking into
account the work that Austen’s name and narratives perform in our
contemporary moment.
ENG 900 Master’s Research
(10258)
ENG 901 Readings and Research
(10257)
ENG 925 Maintaining Matriculation (MA)
(10255)
ENG 930 Maintaining Matriculation (DA)
(10254)
ENG 975 Doctoral Research Essay (DA)
(13512)