Literature Requirements

Stories are everywhere. We use them, consciously or unconsciously, to make sense of identities, experiences, and desires. And, at the same time, we are shaped by the stories that we absorb and interpret. This course explores how storytelling both reflects and shapes our lives. It introduces students to keywords and terms for reading and reflecting upon stories, both in the pages of books and in everyday life. The course considers a variety of narrative forms, including short stories, novels, fairy tales, self-help manuals, comics, films, podcasts, and political discourse. The course introduces students to fundamental questions about the nature of storytelling, while developing the vocabulary and critical skills for analysing and discussing stories. This is a writing intensive course in which students read as they learn to write. Students practice applying a critical vocabulary to textual forms as well as becoming familiar with the skills of drafting and editing. The course also introduces students to some of the professional pathways open to writers and storytellers. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

This course has two primary goals: to introduce students to the history and theoretical writings of various strands of cultural studies, and to acquaint them with some of the intersecting axes - race, class and gender - that energize the field. Close attention will be paid to issues such as the shaping of identity, forms of representation, the production, consumption and distribution of cultural goods, and the construction of knowledge and power in a host of cultural practices and cultural institutions.

This interdisciplinary course will explore the theme of justice through the medium of the graphic novel. Although the battle between 'good' and 'evil' has been a mainstay of comic books for many generations, the emergence of the graphic novel as a recognized and serious artistic and literary medium has also problematized the theme of justice and its many variants, whether environmental, social, sexual, gendered, or racial. This course takes a serious look at how the graphic novel tells stories about justice. It explores the rhetorical, visual and semiotic strategies authors are using to tell those stories, considers critical approaches to the graphic novel as a medium, and studies the reception of graphic novels about justice in comparison with other media.

This interdisciplinary, writing-intensive course will introduce students to environmental literary criticism, more commonly known since the 1990s as “ecocriticism.” As a theoretical approach to literature, eco-criticism provides a secondary lens through which to analyze primary sources; an eco-critical approach focuses on how these primary sources have “constructed” our relationship to the natural world through writing and narrative. In applying eco-critical theory to a selection of primary fiction, students will examine some of the major environmental themes found in literature, among others: land use, speciesism, climate change, environmental apocalypse, and the post-human. Students will explore these themes using some of the basic critical tools and methodologies of ecocriticism, not only to explore how authors write about the environment, but also to examine how the environment itself is constructed through aesthetic discourse. Students should leave the course with improved critical environmental literacy skills that will enable interdisciplinary reflection about our interactions with the natural environment. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

The primary thematic focus of this course is the Bloomsbury Group, a loose network of writers, artists, and intellectuals (including Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, and Roger Fry) who gathered in the squares of the Bloomsbury area of London during the first decades of the twentieth century. The course considers the exciting and creative possibilities of living in this period of dramatic social and cultural change. It pays particular attention to the possibilities for artistic creation at a time when art was not ethereal but rather a concrete and vibrant part of everyday life. Students will visit a variety of locations associated with the Bloomsbury Group: the homes that became laboratories for artistic production; public spaces of popular, commercial, and high art such as cinemas, galleries, and bookshops; as well as muse-ums and archives. In addition to London, the travel will take students to other locations in southern England, including Brighton, Lewes, and Charleston.

The literature of Prague lies in the city's complex web of identities, a web created by social upheaval through the ages. Beginning with sixteenth-century tales of the Golem, the clay figure animated by Rabbi Loew to protect the city's Jewish community, students will investigate how Prague's writers have responded to the politics of their times by embracing the surreal and the ambiguous. In particular, this class will look at how these authors have found inspiration in the city itself. Reading includes Franz Kafka's evocation of the early twentieth-century city and a selection of works by more recent writers such as Weil, Kundera, and Hakl. Studying the way these writers repeatedly draw on each other through the idea of the city as a text, students will visit their haunts in Prague and its surroundings, and map their works onto the city's landscape and onto its history, with the surreal Kafka museum as a starting point.

This course examines what it means to "be human" and how humanity, or its opposite, has been depicted in literature and film. Through reading a broad selection of texts, from the classics to the present day, students will explore such issues as: the relationship between self and other; madness; the borders between human and monster, human and animal, and human and machine. The course will cover religious, philosophical, scientific, and cultural conceptions of human character and purpose. Students will read a broad variety of works that unsettle the boundaries of the self, that draw attention to those groups that have been excluded from the category of the human, and that ask us to engage with what Aristotle called, "being qua being" or, the study of what it is to be. The course reading list may include such works as: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Janice Galloway's The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, Andrew Currie's Fido, Richard Wright's The Invisible Man, and Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry.

This course is designed as an introduction to the field of postcolonial studies. Readings will familiarise students with a diversity of “world literature” and grant an understanding of key debates in postcolonial studies. As postcolonialism is not a unified field of study, the course engages with different theoretical understandings of the term and queries what it even means to be “postcolonial.” When exactly does the postcolonial begin? What are the implications of using such a broad umbrella term to designate writings from around the world? Students will explore depictions of the colonial encounter and decolonisation, question the links between colonialism and globalisation, and examine constructions of East and West, Global North and Global South. Central to the course will be the themes of: power and violence; economics and class; land and nation; authenticity and development; gender and sexuality; history and memory; the politics of literature; and the politics of print culture. Students will read a diverse and broad historical selection of texts from a variety of geographical locations including, India, Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Jamaica. Literary texts will be paired with theoretical readings from such critics as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ann McLintock, Benita Parry, Franz Fanon, and Edward Said. Although the main focus of study is literature, the course will adopt an interdisciplinary approach, understanding literary works as products of cultural, historical, social, and political circumstances. Throughout the course, students will explore how colonial power has shaped—and continues to shape—the world in which we live. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

For such a small nation, Scotland is certainly a very noisy one. From traditional Mouth Music, to Gaelic folk tales, to the Bay City Rollers, The Proclaimers, and indie-pop groups such as Belle and Sebastian and Django Django, Scotland has a long and rich culture of music. This travel course places Scotland’s rich musical heritage in the broader context of storytelling in all its forms and genres, including film, fiction, and poetry. Students will travel from Edinburgh on the east coast to Glasgow on the west, and will also visit the Highlands and Islands to study the vibrant folk music culture there. Scottish music will be used as an entrance point to the country’s culture and history. As students close read (and close listen) a variety of works, they will investigate the ways in which these works buy into, help to build, or struggle against particular mythologies of “Scottishness.” The course will also explore the links between storytelling and nationalism, oral and written tradition, popular and “high” culture. While most attention will be paid to works produced in Scotland, the course will also take into account externally produced images of Scotland and the Scottish (for example, the abiding popularity of Braveheart or The Simpson’s Groundskeeper Willie). Finally, the course will consider how Scottish music and literature has been marketed and produced in such venues as university departments of Scottish or Celtic Studies, record labels such as Postcard Records, and publishers such as Cannongate Press.

In this course, students will read a broad selection of British Literature, from the post-war period to the present day. While the literature of the early twentieth century is often characterized as international in nature, in the post-war era and during the epoch of decolonization, British literature takes an apparent inward turn, becoming increasingly interested in the nature and definition of Britishness. Yet, the literature from this period is not necessarily insular or parochial, but rather depicts the emergence of a complex and contested national identity as the British archipelago developed from within its own borders to become a more and more culturally diverse territory. During the course, students will examine how regional identities conflict or overlap with national identity considering, for example, the North/South divide and urban/rural divisions; will study the rise of various competing nationalisms within the bounds of the archipelago, including Scottish nationalism; and will explore the growing impact of diverse immigrant communities on the national character. The course examines British literature and culture not as a homogenous whole but as a varied and sometimes contentious conglomeration. Through reading a variety of poetry, prose, and drama, students will explore what characterizes contemporary Britain and what the status and role of literary culture is today. They will develop an understanding of the current state of British literary production as well as the relation between the nation state and the state of fiction. Reading list may include works by: Julian Barnes, Seamus Heaney, Sam Selvon, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith, and Irvine Welsh.

This course explores the meanings of "Modernism," the artistic tendency which sprang up in a profusion of forms in the first half of the twentieth century. This was a time of sweeping social change and radical innovation in literature. As students ask, "what is modernism?" they will engage with the contingencies, complexities, and contradictions of modern literature, and acknowledge the sheer diversity of the literary responses to modern times. Students will read works from a variety of modernist movements, and consider the relationship between literary modernism and developments in music and the visual arts. They will study works by such writers as Mulk Raj Anand, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, and Nella Larsen. As modern literature often broke with or transformed traditional concepts of literary realism, some of the course work will be challenging; it will ask students to pay close attention to narrative innovations such as stream of consciousness, irony, and multiple point of view. The course will consider various issues, including: emerging psychological theories, responses to imperialism, technological and scientific advances, the city, attitudes towards history, concepts of self and other, and changing relations between genders, cultures, and races.

How do we define home? What does it mean to feel or make one's self at home? Is a home a house, a place, or, to use another cliché, is home "where the heart is"? In this course, students will examine different conceptions of home in a variety of fictional works. The course will look at constructions of home as an architectural, domestic, and often gendered space. It will also ask students to think about what it means to define home more broadly as, for example, a homeland or native tongue, and, in so doing, consider how modern immigration and the processes of globalisation have changed our relationship to our homes. Throughout the course readings will invite us to reflect upon the links between home and belonging. Finally, as students read about homes that are on the move (caravans, nomads, etc.) or otherwise in flux, they will rethink the binary opposition between the home and the journey. Works read include: Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark, Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust, Henry James's The Spoils of Poynton, and Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines.

E. M. Forster famously said, "if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." His words suggest that, in thinking about the communities that we live within, we might distinguish between those that we are born into and those that we form by choice. Throughout the semester this course will consider both specific literary representations of chosen or "elective" ties and their broader cultural significance. The course is interested in examples of what can happen when elective ties clash with other concepts of community. Students will thus consider various philosophies of and models for friendship, including comradeship, brother/sisterhood, and loyalty. They will look not only at positive examples of elective ties but also at examples of potentially dangerous or destructive ties, such as bullying. Because one significant aspect of elective ties is the way in which they cross over national, cultural, and linguistic borders, the works studied will also cross these borders. Students will engage with a broad range of critical texts, novels and films. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

This course considers why we laugh and what we laugh at. In many ways, it is easier to explain tragedy than it is to understand comedy and, indeed, laughter is often neglected in literary criticism that concentrates on so-called “high” culture. Moreover, if we examine humor too closely then we risk ruining, or at least losing sight of, the joke. Nonetheless, the course offers an investigation into the literary and cultural functions of laughter. Laughter is sometimes warm, but can also be dark, aggressive, or even cruel. Socrates even argued that comedy and tragedy are in fact two versions of the same thing. Laughter is culturally, ethnically, and gender specific, and jokes are notoriously hard to translate or explain across such borders. Throughout this course, students will explore different subgenres of comedy, from wit and satire, to slapstick and farce; they will read a broad range of texts from novels and poems to cartoons, films, and stand-up comedy. Primary readings will be complemented by a range of critical material, including work by Freud, Bergson, and Bakhtin. By the end of the course, students will gain a fuller understanding of the psychological and cultural complexity of laughter as well as the diverse representations of comedy in literature without, hopefully, losing their own senses of humor.

This course considers a special topic in postcolonial studies. At different times, the course may focus on a particular region, writer, or theme, such as, for example, litera-ture from post-apartheid South Africa, depictions of the immigrant experience, or Car-ibbean poetry.

The course departs from the question of whether vision is simply what the external world imprints on our retina or if it is a cultural construct? Is it purely physiological or can we speak of a history or histories of the eye? How do culture, science, and ethnicity influence what we see and how se see it? Keeping these questions in mind the course studies aspects of vision (perception, reception, revelation, blindness) - both from an empirical and from an historical point of view. Besides practical exercises related to the seeing eye, the course examines the discovery of perspective in the Renaissance, the invention of the Baroque theater, gender and gaze in modernity, and optical instruments of the Enlightenment as precursors for modern photography and film.

This course offers an introduction to the history of photography from its inception in the early 19th century to the present day. It considers the specific historical development of the photographic medium through the evolution of both its technical possibilities during the period and the range of its applications. The course will question past and present readings of photographs, while reflecting on the peculiar modes of representation implied by the use of the daguerreotype, the calotype and the negative-positive photographic process, the commercialization of photographic equipment in the early 20th century, the introduction of the Kodacolour film in 1942, and the changes in the late 20th century with the introduction of the digital camera. It will consider a set of different objects favored by the medium, such as the landscape, the city, the portrait, the body, taking into account the historical socio-political contexts in which these various photographic practices developed. It will consider the history of genres within photography: documentary photography, photography as fine art, photography in advertising and media, fashion photography, as well as its archival and historical documentation. Finally, the course will emphasize the question of the impact and influence of photography on other artistic mediums, such as painting and literature, as well as on the modern and contemporary experience of the world.

This course presents an interdisciplinary introduction to key concepts in gender studies. Focusing on the way in which gender operates in different cultural domains, this class investigates the manner in which race, culture, ethnicity, and class intersect with gender. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements).

This course aims to investigate law's place in culture and culture's place in law. This focus proceeds from the realization that law does not function in a vacuum but exerts a powerful influence on all manner of cultural practice and production, even as its own operation is influenced in turn by various forms of culture. Given this increasing porosity and interpermeability of Law and different forms of culture, the focus of this course is on the mutual influence between law and other discursive practices, such as literature, TV sit-coms and film. In studying a number of prominent legal cases such as Brown v the Board of Education, we will explore the following questions: What are the mechanisms by which popular representations and cultural practices find their way into legal processes and decisions? How does law in turn bleed into and influence cultural processes? Does law act as a buffer against societal assumptions about, and constructions of, gender, age, ability, sexuality and ethnicity, or does it re-enforce and re-inscribe existing social norms? (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

In this course, the class will work to create a more critical understanding of what race is, what race does, and how contemporary racial meanings are constructed and disseminated. In order to do so, students will explore Critical Race Theory (CRT) and critical theories of race in several contexts. CRT refers to a theory that emerged among legal educators in the US in the 1980s and 1990s. In the last twenty years, a growing number of scholars in fields such as cultural studies, gender studies, history, media studies, politics, postcolonial studies and sociology have integrated and developed the work done by critical race theorists. This course will focus in particular on this interdisciplinary approach to critical race studies. The practice of race will be examined as well as the policies and institutions that shape race in a global context in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Finally, students will consider the intersection of race and other social hierarchies, including gender, sexuality and social class.

This course examines media in the context of globalization. Most broadly, students will explore what constitutes globalization, how globalization has been facilitated and articulated by media, how media have been shaped by the processes of globalization, and perhaps most significantly, the social implications of these complex and varied processes on politics, international relations, advocacy and cultural flows. In order to map this terrain, students will survey the major theories that constitute this dynamic area of study.

The study of history is about the role of human beings in changing times. Over the last two hundred years the idea of the role of humans in history has developed from the ‘hero’s’ perspective of agency to an understanding of the interplay between the individual and the wider environment and society. This course explores how these changing examples have been represented in biographical and autobiographical writings, and what these different perspectives mean for our interpretation of the role of human beings in history. Starting with the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and excerpts from various biographies of this Founding Father of the United States, this course also serves as an introduction to the history of historiography and life writing in a western context, and enables students to further contextualize their own experience and research. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

The concept of ‘Global Britishness’ began as loyalty to the colonial motherland on the part of Britain’s white settler colonies (Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand). This was transformed after the Second World War into a set of uneasy nationalisms by the 1970s. In recent years these ex-colonies have witnessed a re-identification with earlier concepts of Britishness (royal visits, war commemoration) at a time when the very concept of Britishness is perceived to be under threat from Scottish devolution (and possible independence) and Britain’s exit from the European Union. ‘Global Britishness’ presents a fascinating array of competing and intersecting identities across global, imperial and national lines. Students gain a greater understanding and awareness of; the processes and agencies of Britain’s imperial decline; the reactions to this among the various white settler colonies; the differences and similarities between these reactions; the practices of cultural and transnational history; and, contemporary legacies of the British Empire in the settler colonial world. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

The stories told in the films and novels to be studied in this course were written by two generations of Italians typically associated in literary history with what has been called the mito americano, or American myth. Defining and contextualizing this myth will be among our first objectives. In what ways has the New World positively impacted Old World culture and, conversely, what are some of the negative perceptions of America (or apocalyptic anxieties) represented by Italian writers and filmmakers? Authors to be studied (in translation) may include Mario Soldati, Ignazio Silone, Beppe Fenoglio, Eugenio Montale, Italo Calvino, Curzio Malaparte, Elio Vittorini, Cesare Pavese, Umberto Eco, Alberto Moravia, Giorgio Bassani. Among the chief learning goals in this course is to provide students with the opportunity to consider some of the common metaphorical and allegorical terms in which America has been positively and negatively mythified through the lens of Italian film, poetry, and fiction.

Media pervades our social and private lives. We make it and in turn it makes us. This course offers an introduction to media studies, a field which seeks to understand and use media in complex and intentional ways. The course explores media as content, as an industry and as a social force. In this way, media is understood as both as an artifact (constituted by many parts) and as a set of complex processes (including production, distribution, regulation and consumption). Students will learn key vocabularies and concepts in and approaches to media studies that will help them to define, describe, and critique media artifacts and processes in a variety of written and spoken formats. In addition to equipping students with the skills to understand and critique media, this course encourages and provides students with the building blocks to produce media content. Students who successfully complete this course will be prepared to take advanced courses in media studies.

This course uses key topics, themes and trends in journalism to explore the foundations and functions of the press, learn techniques of gathering and writing news, discuss the shifting terrain of journalism, and reflect upon the status and functions of journalism in different cultural contexts. As a writing-intensive course, this course is designed to help students produce high quality written work through a process of drafting, workshopping and editing. Written work may include journalistic reviews, letters to the editor, pitches to the editor and interviews. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

This course presents an introduction to creative writing through a variety of genres, including poetry, prose, fiction and non-fiction. By paying close attention both to literary models and original student writing, this class asks that participants reflect on the relationship between reading and writing, and voice and context. Students will compose short pieces in a variety of genres and present them for critique in weekly workshops. A final portfolio of all work during the semester will act as a springboard for more advanced courses in creative writing. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)

This Academic Travel and creative writing course creates the occasion for an intensive hybrid scholarly/creative encounter with a mythical urban landscape which figuratively lives and breathes, as a protagonist, through French literature and film. The travel component that underscores this course will also mark the culmination of this Parisian encounter, ushering students from the realm of theory to practice with daily (on-location/site-driven) writing prompts and workshop-style events designed to address the following key questions: What forms does this protagonist assume as s/he endures through time? What voices emerge from the space of her debris? What gets lost in translation and how can the dialogue between art and cultural theory aide us in finding our way through this impasse of loss? How can the deepening of a student’s cultural awareness help the City of Light avoid being subsumed by her own, distinctive, and almost irresistible, charme fatal? Three thematic modules will frame this exploration and create a groundwork on which to base the student’s intellectual discovery and experimentation as writers/travelers: the poetry of Charles Baudelaire highlights the unique experience of Parisian space; the contribution of Surrealism which both defines and defies the peculiarities of Parisian time; the French New Wave (contrasted to foreign cinematic renderings of Paris), with a focus on the twin concepts of translation-transfiguration, allegories of Light and “Othering.” Students enrolling in this course may expect dual-language editions of French literary sources and French films with English subtitles (when possible).

This course first aims at showing students how translation studies are very much concerned with interpretative categories such as gender, race, and class. It is then designed to reinforce student knowledge and understanding of different linguistic systems. It finally results in sharpening an awareness of the distinctive characteristics of both French and English cultures and languages through the translation of literary and non-literary texts.

This experimental, introductory course will explore the creative possibilities of media that have often been considered largely mechanical and reproductive processes. Comments on the history of printing will be integrated in lessons on relief and intaglio printing processes (monoprints, linoleum cuts, wood block prints, embossing, drypoint). Visits to museums, exhibits or ateliers may be organized if possible. (This course carries a fee for art supplies.)

Intermediate course aimed at further developing the basic printing skills learned in STA 106. More techniques of printmaking may be explored, for example, silkscreen or collagraph. (This course carries a fee for art supplies.)

LC 497 is the first of two capstone courses for majors in CLCS and in LIT. LC 497 is designed for all students and will follow the trajectory of a traditional reading course. Students and the professor will choose an extensive reading list that includes fundamental, primary and theoretical texts in literature and CLCS taken largely from the courses taught in the disciplines. Students will then choose their own texts to add to the core list that represent the individual student's particular area of interest. Class sessions will be devoted to the development of the list and subsequent discussion of the chosen works. Evaluation pieces include a comprehensive exam and a proposal for the subsequent thesis (LC 499) or internship project (LC 498).

LC 498 is one of two available alternatives (the other being a thesis) for the second of two capstone courses for majors in CLCS and in LIT. LC 498 represents the culmination of the interdisciplinary, intercultural experience at Franklin. Students will complete an internship that represents the capstone to their major experience. An internship is recommended for students entering a professional field.

LC 499 is one of two available alternatives (the other being an internship) for the second of two capstone courses for majors in CLCS and in LIT. LC 499 represents the culmination of the interdisciplinary, intercultural experience at Franklin. Students will complete a thesis that represents the capstone to their major experience. A thesis is recommended in particular for students interested in pursuing graduate school.