Department of Language and Literature
Fall 2007 courses in literature

To see detailed descriptions of the department’s fall 2007 literature classes, click on a course title or scroll down to see the full list.

LITR 255 | American Literature I
LITR 257 | British Literature I
LITR 268 | Studies in Drama
LITR 269 | Introduction to Creative Writing
LITR 291/391 | Topics/Advanced Topics in Lit: Victorian Literature
LITR 305 | Critical Theory
LITR 360 | Modern Poetry
LITR 399 | Senior Seminar

Note: Department course offerings are subject to change at any time. For the most up-to-date information, please check BenULive.

 

›› LITR 255 | American Literature I (Chen)

This course is a survey of American literature from Native American and exploration accounts to the mid-nineteenth century, including Puritanism, Deism, Enlightenment, American Romanticism, and Transcendentalism. The story of American literature is often fiercely contested, historically and in our contemporary culture, and we will examine how these different narratives relate, compare, and conflict with one another. We will, moreover, pay close attention to the tensions, fissures, ambivalences, and hybridities within texts that have been placed in this literary tradition. Possible topics of study include the following: how do we tell the story of America and its literature? How have various figures (literary and political) attempted to narrate what it means to be an American? Who gets to tell this story, and why are some voices heard and others unheard? At the heart of our inquiry is a commitment to tracing and constructing an intellectual dialogue over the history, nature, and significance of American literature.

 

›› LITR 257 | British Literature I (Amir)

This course provides an introductory survey of British literature written between the medieval period and the late-eighteenth century. Over the course of the semester, we’ll discuss the literary movements out of which these texts emerged, as well as the broader historical circumstances of their production. Other topics to be discussed may include how authors like Chaucer, Shakespeare and Pope participated in complex literary, social, and cultural conversations in their work. How did British writers during these centuries respond to and adapt existing forms and conventions? How did their work outline—either implicitly or explicitly—standards of masculinity and femininity? In what ways did medieval, Renaissance, and eighteenth-century texts complicate those definitions? How did views of religion, class, and the state become subject to similar challenges? As we explore these questions, we’ll discuss strategies for approaching poetry, fiction, and drama productively, giving special attention to refining critical reading and writing skills.

 

›› LITR 268 | Studies in Drama (Kauth)

This course focuses on medieval and Renaissance drama, examining the development of the genre in the West from the Middle Ages through the 1500s. Because most plays are written to be performed rather than, or as well as, read, the class will also discuss, rehearse, and present scenes from the plays in order to analyze them as performance and participatory texts.

 

›› LITR 269 | Introduction to Creative Writing (Fortier)

This course is a writing workshop in which students will explore the public and private roles that writing can play in their lives by creating and critiquing fiction, poems, and plays. Students will participate in peer critiques, discussion of readings, and in-class writing exercises.

 

›› LITR 291/391 | Topics: Victorian Literature (Amir)

In this course, we’ll focus on the rich literary tradition of the Victorian period (1830-1900), giving special attention to the uneasy relationship between nineteenth-century writing and the social, cultural, and political upheavals from which it emerged. We’ll discuss how shifting conceptions of class, gender, and sexuality, unprecedented technological change, newly emergent scientific discourses, and the growth of the British Empire all shaped and energized Victorian poetry and prose. How did period writers respond to the tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions associated with these transformations? And to what extent can we read the formal and thematic innovations of Victorian literature as continuous with these broader changes sweeping across nineteenth-century England? As we examine these questions over the course of the term, we’ll work on honing close reading skills and developing complex critical arguments about the texts we read.

 

›› LITR 305 | Critical Theory (Kubek)

This course is an introduction to twentieth-century developments in the analysis of literary and cultural texts, especially those modes of thought usually grouped under the heading “critical theory.” The readings for the course include a selection of modern philosophical, political, and psychological texts that have shaped the development of contemporary theories regarding the production of meaning. Further readings will trace the development of structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralist thought on contemporary textual analysis, and will also introduce students to cultural critique.

 

This seminar focuses on the poetic movements of the twentieth century and their influence on contemporary poetry. Topics of study may include the following: the rise of literary modernism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the modernist transformation of formal and generic elements, such as rhyme, linearity, and subject matter; the eclectic use or “sampling” of texts and conventions from all periods and cultures; the exploration of “voice” (in terms of both aural quality and characterization) as a site of originality and vision; and the development of post-modernism, a set of literary trends that both builds on and challenges key assumptions made by modernist writers. Readings will include the works of the acknowledged “greats” of modern poetry; additional readings may include the politicized, proto-post-modern poetry of the American 1960s, and writing by Seamus Heaney, his protégé Paul Muldoon, and the Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan.

 

›› LITR 399 | Senior Seminar (Chen)

Intended as a capstone to the literature major at Benedictine, this course provides an advanced introduction to the theory and practice of literary study, as well as to the kinds of professional work undertaken by those pursuing careers in education, research, and writing. We’ll spend time discussing research methodology and consider how various contemporary theoretical approaches to literary analysis open up—and, at times, foreclose upon—crucial questions about the texts we study. These conversations will form the basis of a semester-long research project, one that will culminate in a finished publication-length essay.