English Language/Literature
Introduction to Literature
LIT 011-012; 3 s.h./term
This course offers intensive instruction in advanced reading, writing, and conversational skills for non-native English speakers who have completed ESL.
Two semesters of this course will be counted as one 3-credit course in the liberal arts for students who transfer into the Bachelor’s program.
Readings will include essays, short stories, plays and novels.
Language and Literature
ENG 101–102; 3 s.h./term
A course in writing, reading, and critical thinking, required of all students in the Bachelor of Music program. Students are introduced to a wide range of genres and periods of English and American literature.
Shakespeare
LIT 111; 3 s.h.
An in-depth exploration of six of the plays of Shakespeare. The course includes a study of Shakespeare’s life and times.
Shakespeare and Others
LIT 112*; 3 s.h.
A comparison of Shakespearean texts to those of other authors and librettists who have drawn on his work. The coursework includes attendance at a performance of a Shakespeare play or an opera based on his work, if possible.
Irish Literature
LIT 117*; 3 s.h.
An in-depth study of the poetry, prose, and drama of Ireland. Readings include Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Ni Dhomnail, Boland, O’Faolain, and Heaney. Several guest speakers are invited.
Modernism
LIT 135; 3 s.h.
An exploration of authors at the turn of the century, with an aim to understand how modernism corresponds to changing views on mass production and mass movements, the machine, the body, and the human mind. In addition to works by Joyce, Eliot, Gide, and Stein, the course will consider examples of modernist art and music, as well as the emergence of radio and cinema.
Postmodernism
LIT 136; 3 s.h.
An examination of factors that contributed to the radical turn to postmodern literature around the time of World War II. The postmodern narrative will be studied with respect to language and its representation of the world and the status of the narrator, as well as this new attitude’s political and social consequences.
The Literature of War
LIT 157–158*; 3 s.h./term
A study of the fiction, poetry, and memoirs produced in the time of war. Both World Wars and the Vietnam War will be of particular interest in this course. Guest speakers are invited.
American Literature
LIT 235*; 3 s.h.
A study of 19th-century American prose and poetry, concentrating on Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and James.
Fiction Workshop
LIT 301*; 3 s.h.
The writing of weekly stories in a variety of voices and forms supplemented by reading and discussion of short fiction by such authors as Dinesen, Fitzgerald, Malamud, Conrad, Barthelme, Oates, Munro, and Carver. Guest authors speak to the class. Limited to ten students.
Modern Drama
LIT 303–304*; 3 s.h./term
A look at the changes wrought dramatists and depicted on the stage during “modern times,” reading works by Chekhov, Ibsen, Beckett, O’Neill, and Friel.
Drama Workshop
LIT 306*; 3 s.h.
A study of the history and elements of theatrical expression through improvisation and acting. The course also includes playwriting and performance.
Poetry Workshop
307*; 3 s.h.
A course in writing poetry and reading selections from the finest poetry of the contemporary era.
Russian Literature in Translation
LIT 323*; 3 s.h.
The rise of Russian prose and the novel in the 19th century during the struggle against serfdom and the transition to an urban industrial society and revolution. The course explores the texts’ representations of the quest for freedom and social and moral justice. Texts include works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Akhmatova.
19th-Century Novel in Russia and France
LIT 325*; 3 s.h.
The development of the short story and novelistic forms, as well as important links between Russian and French literary traditions during the 19th century. Readings include novels, short stories, and plays by Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chateaubriand, Balzac, Sand, Flaubert, and Zola.
The Rise of the Novel: British Literature of Empire
LIT 329*; 3 s.h.
A look at the development of the British novel, starting in the late 18th century. The course will focus on connections between the project of imperial expansion and the production of national identity through literary narratives. Readings include Behn, Defoe, Swift, Shelley, Brontë, and Conrad.
Postcolonial Perspectives: The Empire Writes Back
LIT 330*; 3 s.h.
A study of novels from former British colonies that respond to the British literary tradition. Readings include authors from Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean.
Kierkegaard, Mozart, and Desire
LIT 331*; 3 s.h.
A survey of philosophical, theological, and psychoanalytical literature on the theme of desire/desire for the Other: human objects of desire and the Divine Object of desire, conscious and unconscious desire, the mechanisms of desire, and desire as an index of the soul/psyche. Works included are by Kierkegaard, Plato, and Lacan.
American Moderns: Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir
LIT 335*; 3 s.h.
The characteristics of early hard-boiled fiction and film noir, including new attitudes in the 20th century toward knowledge, power, identity, and desire, as well as new technologies and regulations that influenced the production of print media and film. Readings include works by Dashiell Hammett, W. R. Burnett, Raymond Carver, Chester Himes, Dorothy Hughes, Patricia Highsmith, Walter Mosley, and Paco Ignacio Taibo. Screenings may include such films as Detour, The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Brick, and The Big Lebowski.
Don Quixote and the Rise of the Novel
LIT 345*; 3 s.h./term
This course will offer regular chances to gain knowledge and know-how, self-knowledge, selfconfidence, self-centeredness and self-abnegation -- all while speaking lines someone else (say, Shakespeare or Chekhov or Caryl Churchill) has composed, and, by term's end, moving onstage easily and with point -- gestures, postures, and facial expressions, to say nothing of legerdemain, character and relationship building. Theater's a wonderful means of centering and grounding body and mind, learning to match words with emotion and movement, to say what you mean and mean what you say deliberately, clearly, powerfully. Acting, to be sure, but entailing practical, real-life awareness and insight.
Students will read, rehearse, and possibly perform good drama, and write shortish argumentative and analytical essays.
Philadelphia and Its Writers
LIT 351*; 3 s.h.
Philadelphia and the Enlightenment
LIT 354*; 3 s.h.
