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HUMW-011 Critical Reading and Writing
Staff
The primary goal of all sections of this course is to offer intensive instruction and practice in reading and writing to develop critical thinking. Each section focuses attention on a single problem or topic in textual or cultural studies. The course will be conducted as a seminar, with regular student participation and a concentration on student writing.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
Course syllabi
The following syllabi may help you learn more about this course (login required):
Spring '10:
Morris, M
(file download)
Spring '10:
Rifkin, Libbie
(description, file download)
Spring '10:
Tomlinson N
(file download)
Spring '10:
Tomlinson N
(file download)
Spring '10:
O'Connor, P.
(description)
Spring '10:
O'Connor, P
(description)
Spring '10:
Nestor, Amy
(description)
Fall '09:
Nanney L
(description, file download)
Fall '09:
Debelius, M
(file download)
Fall '09:
Rivers, Nathaniel A
(description)
Fall '09:
Rivers, Nathaniel A
(description)
Fall '09:
Shinn, Christopher A
(file download)
Fall '09:
Shinn, Christopher A
(file download)
Fall '09:
Sitterson, J
(description, file download)
Additional syllabi may be available in prior academic years.
Sections:
HUMW-011-01 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
No faculty information available
HUMW 011
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-02 Russian Drama
Spring only
This course will examine several plays from different periods (1825-1930) in terms of genre features (historical drama, comedy, realist drama, drama of non-action, symbolist drama and social satire), literary movements, and historical context. The playwrights to be discussed include Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Blok, and Mayakovsky. In addition the class will extensively discuss the theoretical problems facing each playwright. Particular attention will be paid to two of Russia’s prominent directors, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, and their role in the development of Russian theater and their acting methods. The course will also address the intensifying clash of modern drama with Aristotelian principles of drama and the role of theater in the new Soviet state.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-03 APOCALYPSE & REVOLUTION
Spring only
This is a course centered on artistic texts – understood as both written and visual – and how we interpret them vis-à-vis their cultural contexts. The texts in question are complex and can be interpreted in many ways. What any given reader has to say about a particular text depends entirely on what questions s/he asks her/himself. Accordingly, there are many ways of reading or viewing and many legitimate interpretations. While I will offer my own interpretations of each text, you can and even MUST question my views and present your own interpretations. Disagreement with me will in no way reflect negatively on your grade; to the contrary, the more you develop your own critical skills, the higher will be my assessment of your work. Most particularly, I do NOT want to hear my own views of the texts repeated back to me in your papers. The works you will be writing about are sufficiently complex that we will not be able to touch on all their aspects. Their complexity also dictates that one and the same episode is usually susceptible to multiple interpretations. There are, therefore, many opportunities for you to express an original viewpoint.
REQUIRED READING
Novels (available in Georgetown’s Bookstore):
F. Dostoevsky, Demons
A. Bely, Petersburg
B. Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
Scripture (find on your own):
The New Testament Apocalypse of St. John (Book of Revelation)
REQUIRED VIEWING
Films (to be shown by schedule, outside class hours)
Burnt by the Sun
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-04 True Fictions
Fall only
This is a course that examines the tension between literature and history and asks how we ascertain and convey what “really” happened in the past. Texts will include a series of Russian historical fictions: Pushkin’s Captain’s Daughter, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Tynianov’s Lieutenant Kizhe and Young Vitushishnikov, Solzhenitysn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Akunin’s Turkish Gambit. The focus will be double-pronged: on the one hand, we will ask of each literary text how it allows its readers to revisit the past and re-imagine it in a different – maybe even a more adequate – way from a more straightforwardly “historical” text. On the other hand, we will examine the inherently ambiguous nature of time as presented in historical fiction – to what extent does a given text relate to the particular era that it ostensibly re-presents and to what extent does it relate to the time in which it is written?
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-05 The Russian Novel of Adultery
Fall only
Through a close reading of several narratives of (actual or potential) adultery, we will explore how the eternal quest for love and happiness plays out in the cultural space of 19th-century Russia. We will investigate the varied ways in which classic Russian authors and their readers (including our contemporaries, who grow up in Russia
reading these works) pose the many convoluted questions related to the
pursuit of love and happiness. How does one define happiness? What is a (or
the) good life? How is romantic passion related to happiness and personal
freedom? Finally, how do these authors perceive the role of society, gender,
national identity, and religion within this complex equation, and how do
those issues interact with the genre of the novel and the adultery plot?
In this section we will read Tolstoy’s great Anna Karenina (1877)
and its Russian precursors: Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (1830), Herzen’s
Who Is to Blame? (1847), and Druzhinin’s Polinka Saks (1847). All readings are in English.
Students will write tree 5 page papers and a number of shorter assignments.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-06 Critical Reading and Writing
Spring 2010
Professor Margaret Debelius
This section is organized as a writing-intensive workshop, which makes it possible for students to have their work read and discussed by several audiences, including small groups of classmates and tutors who meet regularly with students in the class. Our theme for the semester is “Nice Work,” which we’ll explore by reading several pieces of fiction and nonfiction about the concept of work (both academic and professional). Through frequent in-class writings, drafts, exchanges and essays, we’ll come to some understanding about what constitutes nice written work in a variety of contexts.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-07 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Margaret Debelius
This section is organized as a writing-intensive workshop, which makes it possible for students to have their work read and discussed by several audiences, including small groups of classmates and tutors who meet regularly with students in the class. Our theme for the semester is “Nice Work,” which we’ll explore by reading several pieces of fiction and nonfiction about the concept of work (both academic and professional). Through frequent in-class writings, drafts, exchanges and essays, we’ll come to some understanding about what constitutes nice written work in a variety of contexts.
Spring 2010
HUMW 011 Conflicting Views
M. Lindsay Kaplan
In this course we will read a variety of texts, ranging from the Bible to a graphic novel, in which opposing ideas are presented and explored. We will consider differences between an individual and G-d, an individual and state authority, different groups within a society or family, and individual rulers of different states. We will attend carefully to the expression of varying opinions in these works and use them to develop our own arguments about our readings. Students will be encouraged to develop and express strong opinions, consider and respond rigorously and respectfully to opposing views, and employ persuasion by presenting compelling and coherent evidence. The course is reading- and writing-intensive and will concentrate on close readings in order to learn how to analyze and explain texts, develop a powerful argumentative thesis about a text, use evidence to prove and persuade a reader, and respond to objections to one’s argument. Students will be introduced to basic library skills and will be required to research and present their findings in a short classroom presentation. Active participation in class discussion required.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-08 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Jennifer Fink
COLLOQUIUM
This intensive writing class will examine the social, historical, aesthetic, literary, political, erotic, and narrative dimensions of urban space. As we investigate the peculiar problems, pressures, and pleasures of writing about the city, we will experiment with a wide variety of approaches to writing about our own particular urban space: contemporary Washington, D.C. We will also read closely a variety of texts that 'write the city,' and examine their narrative approaches and strategies. Expect to write rigorously, imaginatively, and weekly as we explore the metaphorical and physical space of Washington.
Spring 2010
Professor Alvaro Ribeiro, S.J.
HUMW-011-08 (COL) HUMANITIES AND WRITING – I
“Marino Workshop Plus”
This section is organized as a writing-intensive workshop, which makes it possible for students to have their work read and discussed by several audiences: small groups of classmates; a Teaching Assistant; and Writing Tutors who meet regularly with students in this class. Intentionally designed as a follow-up class to the Marino Family Writers’ Workshop 2009, taken by all incoming students of the Class of 2013, the readings and writing which constitute the Syllabus of this course will examine and analyze closely the prose writing of the award-winning Irish writer, Sebastian Barry in hopes that such close reading will assist students to become accomplished and confident writers themselves.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-09 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Nathaniel Rivers
Focusing on and through the rhetorical tradition, elements of persuasion, and the practices of academic writing and research, this course examines the history and multiple traditions of the modern American university. That is, students are invited to examine the purpose of a university education (i.e. “Why am I here?”) and the range of university types and missions in their broadest historical and cultural contexts. This engagement includes reading philosophical discourses about the nature of knowledge and the goals of education, reviewing ethnographic research on student life, and analyzing contemporary debates concerning academic freedom, university life, and the place of politics in the classroom. In addition to these course readings, students have the opportunity to produce a variety of texts across a spectrum of styles, media, and topics. Ranging from blogs, position papers, and multimedia compositions, students in this writing intensive course research and compose individually and collaboratively on a variety of issues related to the university. The ultimate goal of this seminar-style course is for the students to work together in formulating, asking, debating, and deciding upon the questions and purposes of a university education.
Spring 2010
Professor David Gewanter
In this course we'll study fascinating works that display a crucial literary process--how texts incorporate, cannibalize, and respond to earlier texts. Our approach presumes that all writing, and especially imaginative stuff, can be understood as thickly layered with earlier versions and attempts, and heavily revised. We'll study ‘transformed texts' of several genres, including short poems, stories and memoirs, plays & movies, novellas—even a cartoon novel (Maus). We'll sleuth through writers' rough drafts, weird contradictory explanations of their own work, radical revisions, and monstrous growths. Some writings have changed genres (stories made into poems, poems triggering novels, cartoons redrawn); other works—like Hamlet—enter a longstanding conversation about unsolvable problems. Our writing: we will produce, from exercises, drafts, and revisions, four essays.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-10 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Nathaniel Rivers
Focusing on and through the rhetorical tradition, elements of persuasion, and the practices of academic writing and research, this course examines the history and multiple traditions of the modern American university. That is, students are invited to examine the purpose of a university education (i.e. “Why am I here?”) and the range of university types and missions in their broadest historical and cultural contexts. This engagement includes reading philosophical discourses about the nature of knowledge and the goals of education, reviewing ethnographic research on student life, and analyzing contemporary debates concerning academic freedom, university life, and the place of politics in the classroom. In addition to these course readings, students have the opportunity to produce a variety of texts across a spectrum of styles, media, and topics. Ranging from blogs, position papers, and multimedia compositions, students in this writing intensive course research and compose individually and collaboratively on a variety of issues related to the university. The ultimate goal of this seminar-style course is for the students to work together in formulating, asking, debating, and deciding upon the questions and purposes of a university education.
Spring 2010
Introduction to Disability Studies
Professor Libbie Rifkin
This course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to figuring out how “disability” is defined in our culture. We will explore such literary works as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Josephine Miles's poems, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the poetry of AIDS, as well as films as diverse as the Farrelly brothers’ “The Ringer” and “Murderball.” We will frame our analysis of these works with close readings of foundational texts in critical and gender theory that have played an important role in considerations of the social construction of the “normal” body. We will also examine some of the legal foundations for (and challenges to) the Americans with Disability Act (AD) and other disability legislation.
Of particular interest in this course will be recent disputes over the status of embodiment in an era of neo-natal testing, physician assisted suicide, and genetics. Debates such as the one over Terri Schiavo have created divisions within the disability community as well as among civil rights activists over the existence of “lives not worth living.” Another focus will be “dependency theory” and feminist implications of care-giving, assisted living, and non-traditional families.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-11 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Rebecca Boylan
MISFITS and REBELS ~ Participants in this course will read a selection of novels, poetry, short stories, and essays reflecting the voice of the outsider. We will also look at the exiled identity as portrayed in film, photography, painting, and song. What experiences and views of the misfit and rebel are universal? Which ones belong distinctly to this lone ranger? Why do the various arts listed above provide insightful ways to perceiving and perhaps even understanding the outsider? What about the outsider awakens our sympathy? Our fear? Our admiration? Our fascination? Our anger? Why do we seem to need misfits and rebels – without as well as within our sense of self? Where does the sense of not belonging begin – how do we become outside of societal norms? What does the fear of being ordinary share with the fear of being extraordinary? Is double daring oneself an act of courage or giving up? The works we will read and view, from a variety of global locations, include Edward Scissorhands, The Outsider, Milk, Let the Right One In, Breath, The Trial, Cat’s Eye, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Spring 2010
Introduction to Disability Studies
Professor Libbie Rifkin
This course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to figuring out how “disability” is defined in our culture. We will explore such literary works as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Josephine Miles's poems, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the poetry of AIDS, as well as films as diverse as the Farrelly brothers’ “The Ringer” and “Murderball.” We will frame our analysis of these works with close readings of foundational texts in critical and gender theory that have played an important role in considerations of the social construction of the “normal” body. We will also examine some of the legal foundations for (and challenges to) the Americans with Disability Act (AD) and other disability legislation.
Of particular interest in this course will be recent disputes over the status of embodiment in an era of neo-natal testing, physician assisted suicide, and genetics. Debates such as the one over Terri Schiavo have created divisions within the disability community as well as among civil rights activists over the existence of “lives not worth living.” Another focus will be “dependency theory” and feminist implications of care-giving, assisted living, and non-traditional families.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-12 Critical Reading and Writing
Scott-Douglass, Amy
English 011: Writing about the Arts in DC
Course Objectives
The purpose of this course is to help students develop the writing skills necessary at the college level, including analysis, research, drafting, revision, expression, persuasion, and documentation. This course is tailor-made for those who are interested in film, theatre, music, dance, and the fine arts. At the same time, it is meant to serve as an introduction to the types of papers that are assigned the most frequently across the university curriculum. Students will write four research papers, including evaluation, causal, contextual, and interpretation papers. Field trips include the National Gallery of Art and the Folger Theatre.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-13 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Lisbeth Fuisz
Coming-of-Age Narratives and the Representation of Adolescence in contemporary U.S. Culture
This course examines various ways adolescence has been represented in popular culture over the past twenty years. In the 1990s, for example, the image of the wounded girl gained currency while a sense of youth in crisis pervaded American society. Critics have observed that adolescence has become a vehicle for debates over the impact of cultural change. We will look carefully at coming-of-age narratives, which describe the development of young people as they learn societal conventions and norms. These narratives appear across genres and media: in novels, memoirs, young adult fiction, popular psychology books, news articles, advertisements, television, and movies – all of which will be texts for us to analyze. Assignments in this course will center on the writing process (prewriting, drafting, responding, revising, editing, and publication) in order to develop critical thinking skills that can be used in a variety of disciplines.
Spring 2010
Professor Amy Scott-Douglas
English 011: Writing about the Arts in DC
Course Objectives
The purpose of this course is to help students develop the writing skills necessary at the college level, including analysis, research, drafting, revision, expression, persuasion, and documentation. This course is tailor-made for those who are interested in film, theatre, music, dance, and the fine arts. At the same time, it is meant to serve as an introduction to the types of papers that are assigned the most frequently across the university curriculum. Students will write four research papers, including evaluation, causal, contextual, and interpretation papers. Field trips include the National Gallery of Art and the Folger Theatre.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-14 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Lisbeth Fuisz
Coming-of-Age Narratives and the Representation of Adolescence in Contemporary U.S. Culture
This course examines various ways adolescence has been represented in popular culture over the past twenty years. In the 1990s, for example, the image of the wounded girl gained currency while a sense of youth in crisis pervaded American society. Critics have observed that adolescence has become a vehicle for debates over the impact of cultural change. We will look carefully at coming-of-age narratives, which describe the development of young people as they learn societal conventions and norms. These narratives appear across genres and media: in novels, memoirs, young adult fiction, popular psychology books, news articles, advertisements, television, and movies – all of which will be texts for us to analyze. Assignments in this course will center on the writing process (prewriting, drafting, responding, revising, editing, and publication) in order to develop critical thinking skills that can be used in a variety of disciplines.
Spring 2010
Professor Niles Tomlinson
Monsters in Literature, Film and Culture
This course turns to the figure of the monster as a critical lens for reading the value systems and anxieties of modern culture. As social outcasts and as embodiments of endless interpretative possibility, monsters resist “normal” categories and encourage us to examine the relationship not only between self and other but also between conventional and unconventional reading practices. What makes monsters both terrifying and fascinating? How do monsters challenge what we often take for granted as “natural” and is this challenge destructive, productive, or both? How do monsters provoke important discussions about gender, race, class, and species? In order to engage these questions we will read and view works by a wide range of writers and directors, including, but not limited to, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Jorge Luis Borges, George Romero, Toni Morrison, and Hideo Nikata. In this intensive writing course, students will learn the value and pleasure of close reading and will also learn some theoretical tools for deepening their understanding of literary, filmic and image-based texts.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-15 Critical Reading and Writing
Scott-Douglass, Amy; Tomlinson, Niles
Fall 2009
Professor Amy Scott-Douglas
English 011: Writing about the Arts in DC
Course Objectives
The purpose of this course is to help students develop the writing skills necessary at the college level, including analysis, research, drafting, revision, expression, persuasion, and documentation. This course is tailor-made for those who are interested in film, theatre, music, dance, and the fine arts. At the same time, it is meant to serve as an introduction to the types of papers that are assigned the most frequently across the university curriculum. Students will write four research papers, including evaluation, causal, contextual, and interpretation papers. Field trips include the National Gallery of Art and the Folger Theatre.
Spring 2010
Professor Niles Tomlinson
Monsters in Literature, Film and Culture
This course turns to the figure of the monster as a critical lens for reading the value systems and anxieties of modern culture. As social outcasts and as embodiments of endless interpretative possibility, monsters resist “normal” categories and encourage us to examine the relationship not only between self and other but also between conventional and unconventional reading practices. What makes monsters both terrifying and fascinating? How do monsters challenge what we often take for granted as “natural” and is this challenge destructive, productive, or both? How do monsters provoke important discussions about gender, race, class, and species? In order to engage these questions we will read and view works by a wide range of writers and directors, including, but not limited to, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Jorge Luis Borges, George Romero, Toni Morrison, and Hideo Nikata. In this intensive writing course, students will learn the value and pleasure of close reading and will also learn some theoretical tools for deepening their understanding of literary, filmic and image-based texts.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-16 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall 2009
Professor Edward Tietz
Literatures of Sight and Sound: from "Serious" Comics to Sound and Digital Poetry
In this class we will examine recent examples of “visual” literature, literature that combines pictures, drawings or other graphic elements with printed words or text as well as literature “off the page” that emphasizes sound and orality in electronic recordings and performances external to the traditional support of the printed page. In examining this work, we will be especially interested in understanding the implications of such literatures, especially how they merge the tradition of literature and the visual arts, music and performance in a culture increasingly dominated by film, video, music and graphic images. We will look at graphic novels by Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware, concrete and visual poetry, sound and performance poetry, radio art, as well as recent developments in digital poetics. The course material, as well as the concepts we will discuss and develop in class, will be the basis for four writing assignments. In connection with these assignments, we will discuss thesis development, paper organization, research and documentation.
Spring 2010
Professor Joy Young
19th-CENTURY PERFORMANCE
This course introduces students to thinking critically about performance in relation to political and cultural processes of the past, specifically, 19th-century America - an era of rapid urbanization and violent civil war. We begin with the emergence of two theatrical forms that would come to dominate the period: melodrama, and black-face minstrelsy. Adopting a broader yet more nuanced understanding of “performance”, we shall then turn to other cultural performances including religious revivals, “celebrity” trials, the “living spectacles” of P. T. Barnum’s American Museum, and the mourning rituals occasioned by the mass destruction of the Civil War. The readings comprise an interdisciplinary mix of theatre, history, cultural studies, journalism, law, and performance theory.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-17 Critical Reading and Writing
Ricci, Claudia; Staff
Fall 2009
Professor Claudia Ricci
“Deconstructing the Text, Reconstructing the Self”
In this critical writing and reading seminar, we will operate within the modern (post-structural) notion of “intertextuality,” which contends that the world itself is a literary text, as is history and even, human beings themselves. According to this notion, “a specific piece of writing …has no clearly defined boundaries: it spills over constantly into the works clustered around it.” (Eagleton, Literary Theory, 138) Curiously, the internet – which came to life AFTER post-structural theory – only serves to reinforce the notion of intertextuality. With astonishing speed, the rise of blogs and other internet forms of writing and visual expression have pulled modern culture into a computerized intertextual web that continues to morph at warp speed. Working within this theoretical and practical framework, we will explore a series of literary works, as well as discursive texts, to identify how “meaning” emerges for each of us as individual reading subjects. We will take the position that the reader herself is a constantly shifting text who asserts “authority” over a given piece of writing at a given moment in time by “deconstructing” its meaning through close reading. The reader then expresses his or her “author-ity” in a variety of ways, writing in forms that include both critical analysis, first-person narrative and the generation of new fiction and poetry. In so doing, the reader in effect is “reconstructed,” acquiring and producing new ideas that enhance the “self.” Students will write intensively to explore these ever-changing reading positions. Relying frequently on free writing to excavate both rational and subconscious thinking. Students will also explore a variety of creative and rhetorical formats (the “epistolary” email; the persuasive/analytical essay; the first-person narrative, the dramatic monologue or “dialogue;” the effective “lie,” the family “creation” story; the found “self” poem, the memoir.) NOTE: while this course is launched in theory, classroom discussions and writing assignments are designed to encourage lively intellectual engagement with pressing moral and ethical questions that arise out of the readings, and out of the “texts” that are the students’ lives, both academic and personal.
Spring 2010
Staff
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-18 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
This course examines the constructions of “Asia” in world literature and film. Our primary concern will be to analyze the interpretive acts of making and unmaking the “world.” We will address the limits and possibilities of global literary comparatism in English and examine critical issues regarding travel and translation. Attention will be given to Asia and the Asian diaspora, cultural hybridity, experimental writing and filmmaking and the depiction of world events. We will read a selection of literary works by R. K. Narayan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Dai Sijie, He Dong and Haruki Murakami, and view Asian films by Dev Anand (India), Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong), Zhang Yimou (China), Wayne Wang (U.S.) and Tran Anh Hung (Viet Nam).
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-19 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
This course examines the power of humor to challenge the categories of ethnicity and race through the genres of comedy and comedic performance. Upon whose authority can humor be limited or contained? Is all ethnic humor at base a form of social protest? Can “inside humor” be expressed cross-culturally, and when does humor cross the line and become offensive? What line? Who decides? Using a comparative approach to the study of race and ethnicity, we will read selected works by Gita Mehta, Don L. Lee, Gish Jen, John Yau, Ishmael Reed, Sherman Alexie, Luis Valdez and Philip Roth. Although our primary focus will be on contemporary expressions of humor in folklore, plays, novels, short stories, essays and satires, we will also observe the stand-up comedy routines of Margaret Cho, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Woody Allen, Sarah Silverman and Culture Clash and discuss ethnic humor in light of its broad cultural significance.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-2 Germanic Christian Hero
This course is aimed at the cultural transformation of the hero/protagonist over the course of time. The interactions and poetic syntheses of the Germanic and the Christian imagination of the human person will be examined from their origins to the nineteenth century in reading the following works: the Heliand, (the Dark Ages); Parzival (the time of the Crusades); In Praise of Folly (the Humanist Renaissance); Faust I (the Classical Period); and Mother Courage (the Twentieth Century). This course does not count toward the major, but it does satisfy the humanities requirement.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-20 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Literatures of Sight and Sound: from "Serious" Comics to Sound and Digital Poetry
In this class we will examine recent examples of “visual” literature, literature that combines pictures, drawings or other graphic elements with printed words or text as well as literature “off the page” that emphasizes sound and orality in electronic recordings and performances external to the traditional support of the printed page. In examining this work, we will be especially interested in understanding the implications of such literatures, especially how they merge the tradition of literature and the visual arts, music and performance in a culture increasingly dominated by film, video, music and graphic images. We will look at graphic novels by Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware, concrete and visual poetry, sound and performance poetry, radio art, as well as recent developments in digital poetics. The course material, as well as the concepts we will discuss and develop in class, will be the basis for four writing assignments. In connection with these assignments, we will discuss thesis development, paper organization, research and documentation.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-21 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
What skills and techniques are entailed in the reading of a poem? This course will introduce students to them, through a detailed analysis of one poem each week, texts of which will be provided by Professor Wu.
The emphasis throughout will be on disciplined, close analysis of the text, and group discussion in which everyone is expected to participate. The aim will be to enable students to reach the point at which they are able to read and analyse poetry for themselves with confidence.
Students should be prepared to write weekly essays on individual poems. Each of these essays will contribute to their overall assessment, as will their attendance record and performance in class.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-22 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
This writing and reading intensive composition course focuses on Disability Studies – an interdisciplinary field of study that examines concepts and theories of the disabled and able bodies. We will read a wide range of critical and literary texts that will explore representations and constructions of disabilities, the freakish/abnormal and “normalcy.” To that end, we will grapple with Queer theory, Feminist theory, Postcolonial Studies, etc.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-23 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
This writing and reading intensive composition course focuses on Disability Studies – an interdisciplinary field of study that examines concepts and theories of the disabled and able bodies. We will read a wide range of critical and literary texts that will explore representations and constructions of disabilities, the freakish/abnormal and “normalcy.” To that end, we will grapple with Queer theory, Feminist theory, Postcolonial Studies, etc.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-24 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Introduction to Dramatic Performance
Joy Young
This course introduces students to the study of dramatic performance and the interpretative techniques required to read, to watch, to think critically, and to write about dramatic texts and live performance. Unlike other literary modes (poetry, narrative), drama is a live-action encounter with a written text. As such, we will pay particular attention to the "act of witnessing" the ways that we as spectators are being engaged, exposed, dramatized, and argued with in each work. Our working definition of dramatic performance will extend beyond plays to political performances such as trials, public speaking, culture jamming as well as textless performances such as sporting and musical events, dance, and religious & social rituals. Students must be available to attend at least five performances of their choice over the course of the semester. Our readings will range in time and form drawing from texts, film, and live performance and will include works by Euripides, Shakespeare, Artaud, Brecht, Anna Deveare Smith, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, Theatre of the Oppressed, Improv Everywhere, and the Georgetown Performing Arts Department.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-25 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Introduction to Dramatic Performance
Joy Young
This course introduces students to the study of dramatic performance and the interpretative techniques required to read, to watch, to think critically, and to write about dramatic texts and live performance. Unlike other literary modes (poetry, narrative), drama is a live-action encounter with a written text. As such, we will pay particular attention to the "act of witnessing" the ways that we as spectators are being engaged, exposed, dramatized, and argued with in each work. Our working definition of dramatic performance will extend beyond plays to political performances such as trials, public speaking, culture jamming as well as textless performances such as sporting and musical events, dance, and religious & social rituals. Students must be available to attend at least five performances of their choice over the course of the semester. Our readings will range in time and form drawing from texts, film, and live performance and will include works by Euripides, Shakespeare, Artaud, Brecht, Anna Deveare Smith, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, Theatre of the Oppressed, Improv Everywhere, and the Georgetown Performing Arts Department.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-26 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Staff
The primary goal of this course is to offer intensive instruction and practice in reading and writing to develop critical thinking. Each section focuses attention on a single problem or topic in textual or cultural studies. The course will be conducted as a seminar, with regular student participation and a concentration on student writing.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-27 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Tomlinson, Niles
Monsters in Literature, Film and Culture
This course turns to the figure of the monster as a critical lens for reading the value systems and anxieties of modern culture. As social outcasts and as embodiments of endless interpretative possibility, monsters resist “normal” categories and encourage us to examine the relationship not only between self and other but also between conventional and unconventional reading practices. What makes monsters both terrifying and fascinating? How do monsters challenge what we often take for granted as “natural” and is this challenge destructive, productive, or both? How do monsters provoke important discussions about gender, race, class, and species? In order to engage these questions we will read and view works by a wide range of writers and directors, including, but not limited to, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Jorge Luis Borges, George Romero, Toni Morrison, and Hideo Nikata. In this intensive writing course, students will learn the value and pleasure of close reading and will also learn some theoretical tools for deepening their understanding of literary, filmic and image-based texts.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-28 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Harlan, Elizabeth
Fall 2007
Stranger than Fiction
In both fiction and non-fiction writing, realism is often a central issue, but how important is it to our ultimate understanding and appreciation of a book? Do we read a nonfiction novel of crime, such as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the same way we would a completely fictional detective novel? Why did many eighteenth-century novelists insist on presenting their work as if it were real, in the form of diaries or collections of letters? Do readers at times attach too much validity to a fictional work? Can
a work of fiction be too realistic? Can a historical novel have a fantastical character that spans centuries and still be considered a historical novel? In the end, do any of these questions really affect how we enjoy or interpret a book?
This course will address these questions of realism and how it functions in fiction and nonfiction, utilizing the theories of Georg Lukacs, Michael McKeon, Marthe Robert, Jose Ortega Y Gasset, among others. Possible readings include Capote, Virginia Woolf’s historical novel Orlando, Johann von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Daniel DefoeDefoe’s Moll Flanders, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, and George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. Writing assignments will include short reviews of three of the books we discuss in class, in-class essays, and a longer critical paper comparing the theme of the course as it appears in two contrasting works.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-29 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Harlan, Elizabeth
Fall 2007
Fall 2007
Stranger than Fiction
In both fiction and non-fiction writing, realism is often a central issue, but how important is it to our ultimate understanding and appreciation of a book? Do we read a nonfiction novel of crime, such as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the same way we would a completely fictional detective novel? Why did many eighteenth-century novelists insist on presenting their work as if it were real, in the form of diaries or collections of letters? Do readers at times attach too much validity to a fictional work? Can
a work of fiction be too realistic? Can a historical novel have a fantastical character that spans centuries and still be considered a historical novel? In the end, do any of these questions really affect how we enjoy or interpret a book?
This course will address these questions of realism and how it functions in fiction and nonfiction, utilizing the theories of Georg Lukacs, Michael McKeon, Marthe Robert, Jose Ortega Y Gasset, among others. Possible readings include Capote, Virginia Woolf’s historical novel Orlando, Johann von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Daniel DefoeDefoe’s Moll Flanders, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, and George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. Writing assignments will include short reviews of three of the books we discuss in class, in-class essays, and a longer critical paper comparing the theme of the course as it appears in two contrasting works.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-30 Critical Reading and Writing
Fall only
Attie, Katherine
The Country and the City
How are country places and urban spaces imagined in literature? What sorts of stories unfold in each and why? How are characters shaped by their environment? How does setting constitute meaning in a poem, play, or novel? These are some of the questions we’ll consider as we travel within and between the literary locales of rural and urban life. In this course we will read various poems, Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It, and Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie. Written assignments will consist of four five-page papers, weekly reading quizzes, and peer evaluations as part of writing workshop.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-43 Humanities and Writing
Spring only
Reading and Writing Critical Theory: Crimes Against Humanity
This course is a reading and writing intensive course that will examine the ways in which literary theory and cultural studies may help us extract meaning from the texts that we will study or that you will later encounter both in your academic careers and your life. These texts will range from various literary genres, films and popular cultural objects from across the globe. We will investigate contemporary conflicts in the world and consider the ways in which these conflicts are, or are not, considered crimes against humanity as the United
Nations defines them. We will seek to achieve an understanding of how these
conflicts have arisen, their affects and consequences, and what the diverse
responses are by the global community. Some critical approaches that we will
investigate are feminism, queer and gender studies, postcolonial theory,
disability studies, deconstructionism, poststructuralism and postmodernism.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-60 Russian Devils
Spring only
“Russian Devils” will examine the role and function of the devil and demons over the course of four centuries of Russian literature. It is often said that, in spite of their tortured quest for visions of the divine in the world of human affairs, Russian authors portray devils much more convincingly than they do God or his advocates. The tradition of depicting devils and demons in Russia begins in the earliest medieval period and continues unbroken throughout the twentieth century. In fact, studies of the demonic in Russian culture emphasize that Russia developed a highly elaborated demonology, featuring many varied emanations of the evil spirit. In this course we will read and analyze representative works in which the demonic plays a decisive part, and we will trace the evolution of the Russian demonic tradition.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-70 Critical Reading & Writing
The primary goal of this course is to offer intensive instruction and practice in reading and writing to develop critical thinking. Each section focuses attention on a single problem or topic in textual or cultural studies. The course will be conducted as a seminar, with regular student participation and a concentration on student writing.
This course is for SFS-Qatar students only.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-88 The Russian Novel of Adultery
Fall only
Through a close reading of several narratives of (actual or potential) adultery, we will explore how the eternal quest for love and happiness plays out in the cultural space of 19th-century Russia. We will investigate the varied ways in which classic Russian authors and their readers (including our contemporaries, who grow up in Russia
reading these works) pose the many convoluted questions related to the
pursuit of love and happiness. How does one define happiness? What is a (or
the) good life? How is romantic passion related to happiness and personal
freedom? Finally, how do these authors perceive the role of society, gender,
national identity, and religion within this complex equation, and how do
those issues interact with the genre of the novel and the adultery plot?
In this section we will read Tolstoy’s great Anna Karenina (1877)
and its Russian precursors: Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (1830), Herzen’s
Who Is to Blame? (1847), and Druzhinin’s Polinka Saks (1847). All readings are in English.
Students will write tree 5 page papers and a number of shorter assignments.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
HUMW-011-89 Russian Avant-garde
Fall only
This course examines the vibrant Russian avant-garde movement in literature, painting, and theater from the 1890s up to the 1930s. During this period the arts produced a radical transformation of Russian culture. They assailed tradition and sought to reshape art and society in the new Soviet state, and yet by 1934 they were supplanted by the Soviet doctrine of socialist realism.
What were the dynamics of this process? How was tradition reconfigured? What was the relationship among the various “-isms” (Symbolism, Futurism, Suprematism, Constructivism, etc.) of the avant-garde? Why did the avant-garde pay such attention to formal/ material aspects in the arts? How did the arts reconcile theory and practice? What was the relationship of avant-garde art to life? What role did it play in early Soviet cultural politics?
In addition to these questions, the Russian arts will be considered in the larger context of European movements, for example European Symbolism and Italian Futurism, and the European avant-garde.
“The Russian Avant-garde” fulfills one of Georgetown’s two required general education courses in Literature/Writing.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
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