The sustained explosion of Faulkner?s work in the dozen-odd years between The Sound and the Fury and Go Down, Moses has no parallel in American literature. He explored the microtones of consciousness and conducted the most radical of experiments in narrative form. At the same time he relied more heavily on the spoken vernacular than anyone since Mark Twain, and he made his ?little postage stamp of native soil? in northern Mississippi stand for the world itself.

Concentration on selected poems of the major romantics (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats) with prose writings by the poets themselves and by Austen and Mary Shelley.

An exploration of the remarkable variety of 17th-century lyric poetry, which includes voices secular and sacred, witty and devout, bitter and sweet, male and female. Attention to poetic forms, conventions and imagery, as well as to response and adaptation of those forms. Particular emphasis on Donne, Jonson, Herbert and Marvell, set in the context of their time and their contemporaries.

A contextualized close reading of Geoffrey Chaucer?s ambitious and enduring literary project, The Canterbury Tales, with attention to language change, narrative technique, the representation of varied and distinctive medieval voices, and the poem as vivid introduction to life and thought in the later Middle Ages. Not open to first year-students.

An introduction to the language and literature of medieval Wales in a series of graduated grammar lessons and readings from the first branch of the Mabinogi, Pwyll Prince of Dyfed (14th century), as well as from other tales of refracted Celtic mythology, the early Arthurian legend and poems of praise, love, loss and Otherworld adventure.

Brain implants, embryo selection, self-driving cars, nanotechnology, robot nurses, virtual teachers, cognitive enhancing drugs and artificial general intelligences are among the technologies that might have a large impact on our economy over the next few decades. This seminar uses the tools of microeconomics to explore the potential effects of these and other possible technologies and to explain how economic incentives shape the types of technologies businesses develop. Prerequisite: ECO 250.

An exploration of several of the following topics in the economics of higher education: the economic returns to a college education; the additional economic returns to attending an elite college; the determinants of college admissions; the role of SAT scores in determining performance in college; the construction and effects of the U.S. News rankings of colleges; peer effects in colleges; and the current (and future) crisis in funding higher education. The course emphasizes empirically testing economic hypotheses using several databases. Prerequisites: ECO 250 and ECO 220.

An examination of the trading relationships among countries and of the flows of factors of production throughout the world economy. Beginning with the theories of international trade, this course moves on to examine various policy issues in the international economy, including commercial policy, protectionism and the distribution of the gains from trade, multilateral trade negotiations, preferential trade agreements, the impact of transnational firms and globalization, immigration, and trade and economic development. Prerequisite: ECO 250.

An investigation of the role of financial instruments and institutions in the economy. Major topics include the determination of interest rates, the characteristics of bonds and stocks, the structure and regulation of the banking industry, the functions of a modern central bank and the formulation and implementation of monetary policy. Prerequisite: ECO 253 or permission of the instructor.

Focuses on the economic analysis of resource allocation in a market economy and on the economic impact of various government interventions, such as minimum wage laws, national health insurance and environmental regulations. Covers the theories of consumer choice and decision making by the firm. Examines the welfare implications of a market economy, and of federal and state policies which influence market choices. Prerequisites: ECO 150 and MTH 111 or its equivalent. Enrollment limited to 55 students.