This capstone course offers an intensive, research-based study of a single important work of literature in English, seen in its social, historical, and intellectual context on the one hand, and in terms of its reception history on the other. Course may be repeated once for credit with different topic and instructor. Permission of the instructor required. Enrollment limited to 12 Prerequisites: two 200-level courses in either the reading of fiction or in 19th century British literature, or a combination thereof.

Admission via writing sample mailed to the English Office one week before the first day of classes.

Taught by the Grace Hazard Conkling Poet in Residence, this is an advanced poetry workshop for students who have developed a passionate relationship with poetry and who have substantial experience in writing poems. Texts are based on the poets who will read at Smith next semester, and students will gain expertise in reading, writing, and critiquing poems.

Same as ARH 247. A survey of the book- as vehicle for the transmission of both text and image - from the manuscripts of the middle ages to contemporary artists' books. The course will examine the principal techniques of book production -- calligraphy, illustration, papermaking, typography, bookbinding -- as well as various social and cultural aspects of book history, including questions of censorship, verbal and visual literacy, the role of the book trade, and the book as an agent of change. In addition, there will be labs in printing on the handpress and bookbinding.

A writer's workshop designed to explore the complexities and delights of creative nonfiction. Constant reading, writing, and critiquing. Admission by permission of the instructor. Course description to be determined.

What is literature? Why and how should it be studied? How does literature function in culture and society? Does the meaning of a text depend on the author's intention or on how readers read? What counts as a valid interpretation? How do changing understandings?of language, the unconscious, history, class, gender, race, or sexuality?change how we read?

Although we sometimes think only of modern-day authors like Amy Tan or Jhumpa Lahiri when we think of Asian American literature, in fact Asian Americans have been writing and publishing in English since at least 1887. In this course, we will read selected Asian American poetry, novels, short stories, plays, and films produced from the late nineteenth century until the present. We will consider how works engage with issues that have always concerned Asian Americans, like identity development and racism.

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.

A study of the major poems and selected prose of John Milton, radical and conservative, heretic and defender of the faith, apologist for patriarchy and advocate of human dignity, the last great Renaissance humanist, a poet of enormous creative power and influence. Not open to first-year students.

Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale. Not open to first-year students.