SPRING 2020
ENGL 3040: Introduction to Literary Studies
DISCHINGER M/W 12:30
Lost Objects, Lethal Symbols, Missing Persons, Hungry Ghosts: This course will involve us in, among other (no)things, a number of ghost stories: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, James’s Turn of the Screw, Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Morrison’s Beloved, and Delillo’s The Body Artist. With Shakespeare and James, we will be using critical editions with essays representing theoretical approaches such as feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and deconstruction.
THOMAS T/R 11AM
ENGL 3250: Topics in Theory—Theoretical Reicide, or How the Symbolic Order Kills the Real Thing
Here we’ll explore “reification” and discover why the real purpose of theoretical writing is to perpetually negate or fight against it—“to dereify the language of thought” (as Fredric Jameson puts it). Texts include Ten Lessons in Theory: An Introduction to Theoretical Writing and Adventures in Theory: A Compact Anthology.
THOMAS T/R 12:45
ENGL 3310: Old English
When did literature in English begin? We look back a thousand years to when “England” was just beginning to be imagined and “English” was so different that it seems like a foreign language. Study the rudiments of the Old English language and explore medieval manuscripts using the many digital resources available today. Read heroic poetry celebrating the feats of dimly remembered heroes, stories of voyages to exotic places, and the miraculous lives of saints.
CHRISTIE T/R 5:30
ENGL 3410: Seduction, Revolution, and the Birth of Science
When, on the morning of 30 January 1649, Charles I was led onto the scaffold outside St. James’s Palace and publicly executed, England was suddenly without a monarch. This course studies how various writers responded to some of the nation’s most violent and turbulent decades. It was a period in which sensual poetry flourished and modern scientific writing was published for the first time. Read works by Francis Bacon, John Donne, George Herbert, Thomas Hobbes, Aemilia Lanyer, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton.
DOBRANSKI T/R 9:30
ENGL 3610: Love and Death in Victorian Poetry
Victorian poets sought to create taste and value, construct gender definitions, and forge national identity — all while reflecting on love and mortality. Early in the twentieth century, Freud hypothesized that two dominant impulses drove human experience the drive to life and the drive to death. This course will test Freud’s hypothesis against the poetry of love and death so central to Victorian experience.
SCHMIDT T/R 9:30
ENGL 3630: Haunted Texts — American Gothic
Twisted characters, darkened minds, and violent pasts. This course explores the emergence of gothic fiction in American literary history and the diverse ways American writers employ it. Readings include works by Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Charles Chesnutt, Flannery O’Connor, and Shirley Jackson.
NOBLE M/W 3:30
ENGL 3710: Late Twentieth-Century British Lit
English literature from post-WW2 through Brexit, including works by Philip Larkin, Barbara Pym, Harold Pinter, Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Warsan Shire, Patience Agbabi, Hari Kunzru, and more, with attention to cultural happenings in other media as well (Monty Python, The Beatles, Downton Abbey).
MALAMUD M/W 11AM
ENGL 3830: American Modernisms
Explores modernist literature of the U.S. in national and transnational contexts, with a focus on how writers responded to modernization, displacement, urbanization, and popular culture. Selected authors may include Stein, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, McKay, Faulkner, Hurston, Bishop, Cather, Dos Passos, Bulosan, Paredes, and Chandler.
ROUDANE M/W 12:30
ENGL 3920: Southern Lit
An experiential exploration of southern history and literature that will include the High Museum, Martin Luther King Center, Auburn Avenue Research Library, Center for Civil and Human Rights as well as A Mercy by Morrison, The Underground Railroad by Whitehead, Monument by Trethewey, and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Ward.
MCHANEY Thurs 9:30
ENGL 3970: Caribbean Lit
Caribbean literature has never been more relevant to contemporary social and political issues than it is today. This course provides an introduction to literature from the Caribbean, including Jamaica, Trinidad, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
RAJIVA M/W 2PM
ENGL 3980: Women’s Literature before 1800
We will consider female authors who often had to fight for acceptance. Despite the odds against them, these poets, essayists, and novelists became strong, unforgettable writers. Authors considered include Murasaki Shikibu, Christine de Pizan, Aemilia Lanyer, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Phillis Wheatley, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
SNOW M/W 11AM
ENGL 4030: Literature & the City
Join our Publishing Field School during Spring Break. This course is taught on location in New York, NY. The Field School is designed to introduce students to the publishing houses and agencies. The program also incorporates visits to cultural sites, museums, theatre productions, and literary reading. Email heather@gsu.edu for authorization.
SEXTON
ENGL 4040: Religion and Literature — The Epic
Advanced study of literary epics linked to particular religious traditions.
VOSS M/W 5:30
ENGL 4101: Wilde
Oscar Wilde wrote, “The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.” Whether you dress fabulously or not, prepare to be well-educated about Wilde. We’ll read his sublime comic plays, paradoxical essays, short stories, poetry, and the iconic Picture of Dorian Gray.
RICHARDSON T/R 3:45
ENGL 4101: Joyce
We will read two novels by the Irish Modernist writer James Joyce, who revolutionized prose fiction in English: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his autobiographical Bildungsroman, and Ulysses, banned for obscenity before it was canonized.
RICHTARIK Tues 12:45
ENGL 4140: Shakespeare, Later Works
Selected works from the second half of Shakespeare’s career, such as Othello, The Winter’s Tale, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest.
VOSS M/W 3:30
ENGL 4300: Senior Seminar — Ecocriticism
What is happening to the world ecologically, and what does literature have to do with this? How can culture inform us? What can we do, as readers, writers, and thinkers, to help remediate the onslaught against nature?
MALAMUD M/W 2PM
FOLK 3000: American Folklore
An introduction to folklore in the United States. Is there a body of traditions shared by all in our nation, or is American folklore more about regional, ethnic, and occupational diversity? Study various genres and expressive forms, from folklore takes, oral, musical, and customary traditions to material folk culture (architecture, crafts, food) that address this question.
BURRISON T/R 11AM