Not available at this time

An introduction to digital culture, visual images, audio content, archives, and new media. Critical approaches include a focus on formal analysis, historical perspective, reception and audience, and cultural theory.

In this class, we will study video games, postmodern cultural theory, and (tangentially) comic books as we ask questions about the persistence of dystopian narratives in print and digital visual culture. For example, what do dystopian narratives in comics, video games, and new media productions have in common? What makes "dark," "moody," and outright apocalyptic narratives like The Walking Dead, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Sweet Tooth and the web series Down Twisted popular in this current historical moment?

A seminar in writing poetry for students who demonstrate familiarity with the basics of imagery, rhythm, and form. Students write regularly, read and criticize one another's writing, read in contemporary poetry.

The drama of the English Renaissance. Selected works by several major Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, including Marlowe, Jonson, Chapman, Middleton, Webster, and Ford. Emphasis on the artistic and intellectual character of the English Renaissance as reflected in drama.

This course explores the definition and evolution of a national literary tradition in the United States from the Civil War to the present. We will examine a variety of issues arising from the historical and cultural contexts of the 19th and 20th centuries, the formal study of literature, and the competing constructions of American identity. Students will consider canonical texts, as well as those less frequently recognized as central to the American literary tradition, in an effort to foster original insights i9nto the definition, content, and the shape of ?literature? in the United States.

This course explores the definition and evolution of a national literary tradition in the United States from the Civil War to the present. We will examine a variety of issues arising from the historical and cultural contexts of the 19th and 20th centuries, the formal study of literature, and the competing constructions of American identity. Students will consider canonical texts, as well as those less frequently recognized as central to the American literary tradition, in an effort to foster original insights i9nto the definition, content, and the shape of ?literature? in the United States.