Electives - Spring 2013

HE217 Early Western Literature (3-0-3)
A balanced survey of the Western literary tradition and its backgrounds, from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages. Readings may include classical Greek and Roman epic, drama, and philosophy; selections from the Bible; and medieval poetry, drama, and philosophy

HE218 The Anglo-American Tradition in Literature (3-0-3)
A balanced survey of British and American literary history from the Renaissance through the early twentieth century. The course emphasizes the movements that have shaped our tradition: Renaissance humanism, empiricism and skepticism, Romanticism and transcendentalism, realism and naturalism, and modernism.

HE222 The Bible and Literature (3-0-3)
The Bible and its influence on European and American literature. Emphasis will be placed on modern biblical literary-critical methodology and on the symbolic richness of derivative literature from Dante to Nikos Kazantzakis.

HE250 Literature of the Sea (3-0-3)
Study of sea literature from the epic to the novel, with an emphasis on literary qualities, human relationships with the sea, and problems of command.

HE260 Literature of War (3-0-3)
A multi-genre survey of war and its consequences as represented in classic and contemporary literature with an emphasis on such issues as individual responsibility, leadership, societal values, and military culture.

HE301 Patterns in Drama (3-0-3)
A study of drama, emphasizing reading, viewing, and analyzing dramatic literature and performance.

HE302 Forms of Poetry (3-0-3)
A study in the analysis of poetic form and expression.

HE306 Types of Fiction (3-0-3)
A study of the novel and short story with particular emphasis on the conventions, techniques, and innovations in the form.

HE307 Topics in Film and Literature (3-0-3)
A study of American, European, and world film in conjunction with relevant literary works.

HE314 The Renaissance Mind (3-0-3)
Literature and thought of the period bracketed by the two great English epics, Spenser's Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost. The course includes a continental perspective, with readings from such authors as Machiavelli, Rabelais, Cervantes, Montaigne, and Castiglione.

HE317 The Romantic Period (3-0-3)
Literature and culture of the Romantic period in Britain from the 1780s to the 1830s. Readings may include works by such writers as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Austen, the Shelleys, Byron, and Keats.

HE318 Modern British Literature (3-0-3)
The literature of Great Britain and Ireland since 1900. Readings may include the novels of Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, and Lessing; the plays of Shaw, Synge, O'Casey, and Pinter; the poetry of Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, Auden, and Dylan Thomas.

HE328 American Literature from the Civil War to World War I, 1860-1914 (3-0-3)
A survey of American literature from the Reconstruction through the Gilded Age, emphasizing the rise of realism and naturalism. Readings may include works from such authors as Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, Howells, Crane, Dreiser, Chesnutt, Chopin, James, and Wharton.

HE330 Contemporary American Literature, 1945-Present (3-0-3)
A survey of American literature and culture since World War II. Readings may include works by such authors as Ellison, Ginsberg, Lowell, Bishop, Baraka, Heller, Pynchon, Bellow, Plath, Sexton, Rich, Roth, Updike, DeLillo, Mamet, McCarthy, and Morrison.

HE333 Shakespeare (3-0-3)
A study of a representative sample of Shakespeare's tragedies, histories, and comedies. Readings may also include works by Shakespeare's contemporaries.

HE343 Creative Writing (3-0-3)
An introduction to the writing of prose, poetry, and drama.

HE344 Professional Communication (3-0-3)
A study of advanced methods of presenting information in a wide variety of forms. Assignments may include preparing articles, reports, and military documents. Students may be asked to design and present a persuasive or analytical speech.

HE355 Topics in Multi-Ethnic Literature (3-0-3)
This course considers literature that raises questions of race and ethnicity, postcolonial responses to hegemonic culture, canon formation, and shifting definitions of nation and subjectivity. Readings may include the works of Achebe, Cisneros, Coetzee, Desai, Diaz, Erdrich, Gordimer, Hagedorn, Hong Kingston, Llosa, Mahfouz, Mishima, Marquez, Naipaul, Neruda, Ngugi, Puig, Rushdie, Soyinka, Tan, and Walcott.

Special Topics Courses for Spring 2013 may be found here.