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Academic Catalog 2022-2023 
    
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Academic Catalog 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses

 

Liberal Arts: Literature, Writing, and Film
  

  • LALW100 Thinking, Making, Writing: Using Words with Clarity and Flair 3 cr.

    An introduction to art writing. Six to eight writing assignments are designed to develop deep thinking skills. Course includes expository and critical essays, with some requiring research. Students practice close reading skills with outstanding pieces of prose, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction selected for the artist. In-class writing exercises are designed to generate first material for essays. Course includes weekly critiques and re-visioning first drafts of writing work. Required library sessions focus on information literacy and research needed for the final Art Research Paper.. [Formerly known as Written
    Communication]

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Required
    Fall/Spring
  

  • LALW200 Literary Traditions 3 cr.

    An exploration of the sources of culture through a survey of literary masterpieces from the ancient world to the seventeenth century.

    Prerequisites: LALW100; FRSM100 (Freshman Seminar

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Required
    Fall/Spring
  

  • LALW203 Film Viewing and Criticism 3 cr.

    A critical and creative study of the expressive elements of film and video. Class meetings consist of film viewing, evaluations, filmmaking exercises, and discussions. Students frequently write critical papers and undertake film making exercises that teach essential features of the language of film and video.

    Prerequisites: LALW100

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW205 Children’s Literature 3 cr.

    What makes a children’s book a classic? We’ll find out as we read, analyze, and enjoy the best of the field–fantasies from Peter Pan to Harry Potter, realistic novels from Anne of Green Gables to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and stories falling somewhere in between, like The Secret Garden. Though our emphasis will be on longer books for older children, we’ll also consider fairy tales and picture books. Final project: writing a “classic” children’s book, illustrating one, or both.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW206 Graphic Novels 3 cr.

    The course explores the art and composition of the graphic novel and examines its many sub-genres, from superhero tales to memoirs to manga. The textbook is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Other texts include Watchmen, Contract With God, Sandman, Maus, and Persepolis. For the final project, students create and make preliminary sketches for an original graphic novel.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW210 Famous Writers & their Celebrated Illustrators 3 cr.

    Famous Writers and their Celebrated Illustrators combines literature and art. Discussed are great works of literature and the visual images they inspired. Writers include Dante and Cervantes. Pushkin, Gogol, Corneille, Swift, Defoe and Wilde, among others, are discussed. Illustrators include Botticelli, Dore, Delacroix, Beardsley, Picasso, Pasternak (the father), Favorsky, Baskin, and numerous contemporary illustrators.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW214 History and Issues of Documentary Films 3cr

    Documentary, as defined by John Grierson, is the
    creative treatment of actuality. Grierson coined
    the term in his review of Robert Flahertys Moana
    (1926). Contemporary culture expands on classical
    rhetorical and observational forms to include
    docusoaps, agitprop, advocacy, animation, sensory
    ethnography, mockumentary, first-person, and more.
    In this course we will explore the origins of
    documentary, discuss the central issues of the
    field, examine historical and contemporary trends,
    and identify the aesthetic strategies and
    techniques used by documentary makers along with
    their rhetorical effects.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture

    Undergraduate Elective
    Spring
  

  • LALW215 Memoir & the Artist 3cr

     Learn how to tell your story so the world listens. Study contemporary memoirists to understand principles of effective storytelling in this popular genre. Memoir writing is one part experience and one part reflection. How much of each varies from one artist to the next.

    Using structured in-class writing exercises and critiques, you will have the opportunity to explore various ways to approach your experience and learn to build your skills for reflection. This course culminates in your memoir project that showcases your unique and original voice using word and image combined.

    (Formerly titled: Memoir Writing)

    Prerequisites: LALW100

    Seminar

    Spring
  

  • LALW220 Why I Write, Why I Create 3cr

    An introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing for the Artist. Reading, discussions, and writing exercises will focus on best practices of this contemporary literary form including nature and environmental literature, travel, food, and adventure too. In-class writing exercises are designed to generate the first material for essays. Course includes weekly critiques and re-visioning essays. First essays will concentrate on experimental forms that encourage artist to work at the intersection of word and image or visual art. Final project will encourage the integration of work in art and design majors with one work in creative nonfiction writing.. [Formerly Titled: Creative Nonfiction]

    Prerequisites: LALW100

    Lecture

    Undergraduate Elective
    Fall
  

  • LALW222 Fantasy Worlds 3cr

    Modern fantasy literature consists of fantastic stories set in imagined worlds. It features characters created by the author rather than drawn directly from traditional myths and legends. The course examines the origins of the genre, which emerged during the nineteenth century, and which has taken both epic and satiric forms. Although some attention is given to the legends, folktales, and romances that provided models and inspiration to fantasy authors, the main focus is on the classic works of the genre. Students are assigned one critical paper, one final project (create and illustrate an imaginary world that would provide a framework for fantasy fiction), bi-weekly blogs, and oral presentations. Forty to sixty minutes of class time allotted to Student Workshop/Critiques, in which students develop work-in-progress to present to instructor and peers for discussion, assessment, and advice towards course goals.

    Prerequisites: LALW100

    Lecture

    Spring
  

  • LALW229 Social Justice Documentaries 3cr

    This course will introduce social justice issues
    as they are represented and explored through
    documentary film and video. The course provides a
    conceptual overview of the forms, strategies,
    structures and conventions of documentary film
    and video. The class will examine documentaries
    that construct arguments about the power
    relations in society, while attempting to raise
    awareness and motivate action for social justice.
    Students will consider dominant, experimental and
    emergent modes of representation; including
    important documentary texts, movements,
    filmmakers and selected documentary genres.
    Specific topics for the course include: Mental &
    Physical Disabilities, Notions of “Race”, Crime &
    Punishment, Immigration, War, Gender & Sexual
    Identity, Environmental Concerns, Social Class &
    Workers’ Rights, Personal Narratives, Politics,
    Education, and Counter Cultures.

    Through this course, students should gain
    knowledge of the current theoretical dilemmas and
    debates in documentary filmmaking, including
    questions of how to define documentaries, what
    constitutes the ethical treatment of subjects and
    subject matter, documentary’s construction and
    positioning of audiences, as well as political
    and economic constraints on documentary
    filmmaking. Ultimately, the course will emphasize
    critical thinking and viewing skills related to
    representations of the social world through
    documentaries.

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Lecture

    Spring
  

  • LALW233 Creative Writing Workshop: A Multigenre Workshop 3cr

    This course introduces students to creative
    writing-through poetry and fiction-and explores
    hybrid genres and connections between word and
    image. Students learn the elements of craft that
    are particular to each genre and universal for
    both. They write their own pieces that are
    critiqued by peers and instructor. Students also
    read literature as models for their own writing
    and become familiar with contemporary literary
    journals.

    Seminar

    Spring
  

  • LALW300 Playwriting 3 cr.

    A course that teaches the fundamentals of writing drama for the stage. Students study the craft of successful plays by Edward Albee, August Wilson, Paula Vogel and others, applying what they learn to writing their own scenes and plays. The course culminates in a public developmental reading of some of the best one-act plays written by the students.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW301 Monster Madness 3 cr.

    We round up the usual suspects: the appalling and tragic monster and his equally tragic and appalling creator; the charismatic vampire and his bevy of vamps; the traveling salesman who finds himself transformed into a giant dung-beetle. More broadly, the course studies the idea of monstrosity and the ways in which monsters represent the shadowy side of human nature: what people fear and what they desire. The syllabus includes Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and Nabokov’s Lolita.

     

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
    Summer (PCE)
  

  • LALW306 Modernist Word and Image 3 cr.

    Nearly 100 years on, the visual and verbal experiments of high Modernism still have the
    power to arrest our gaze and our attention. In this course, we explore the unique conversation between word and image that occurred between approximately 1910 and 1945. How did visual artists respond to innovations in poetic form? What does literature look like when it aspires to be pictorial or visual? Do artists and writers actually practice the principles laid out in their manifestos? Questions like these-and many others- guide our investigation and analysis. Texts include seminal writings from Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism; avant-garde poetry by Apollinaire, Pound, Stein, Williams, and others; Wyndham Lewis’ periodical Blast; Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and other readings that complicate the boundaries between mediums, genres, and forms of
    expression.

     

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
    Fall/Spring
  

  • LALW309 Twentieth Century American Literature 3 cr.

    A focus on major writers who emerged in the twentieth century. The course concentrates on late twentieth century figures and earlier modernist writers.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW312 Creative Writing: The Essay 3 cr.

    This course, conducted as a workshop with essays read aloud and critiqued in class, provides students with an opportunity to explore through their own writing the power and variety of the essay form. From memoir to observation, personal profile to political observation, this course encourages students to transmit interior reflection and external observation into essay form. Assigned reading of essays. Grade based on 25-page portfolio (usually five essays).

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW317 (Im)migrant Voices: the Future of the American Dream 3 cr.

    This class focuses on a variety of literary texts
    that examine the experience of immigrants in the
    USA from the 1950s to the present. The primary
    and secondary readings, supplemented by in class
    viewing of films and documentaries, offer a range
    of immigrants’ narratives both in their specific
    socio-cultural contexts, and in relation to this
    country.
     
    The class will shed light on American culture and
    society in its unifying values and
    contradictions, through the angle of vision given
    by outsiders looking in, and often challenging
    ideas of race, gender, identity, ‘home’, and the
    American Dream.[Formerly Immigrants
    in America]

    Due to the intensive nature of this class, Prof.
    Preziuso does not accept any student who wishes
    to enroll in her class after week 1 of the
    semester, hence having missed the first week of
    class.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
    Fall/Spring
  

  • LALW320 Poetry Workshop 3 cr.

    In this course, students write, revise, and share poems as a community, experimenting with new subjects and forms-and ways of responding attentively to classmate’s poems. Additionally, they consider published poetry to learn key elements of poetic craft. Students assemble their original poems into portfolios to demonstrate their command of imagery, diction, stanza, line, voice, form, prosody (sound and rhythm), and other aspects of richly dynamic poetry.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW326 Asian Cinema: Postwar India, Japan & China 3cr

    This course looks at the development of Asian cinema through the lens of three of the most important national film industries: India, Japan, and China.  How do the films from these countries reflect diverse but interrelated cultural traditions?  How is the cinematic representation of these traditions shaped by a dialogue with Hollywood and European film?  How does the development of post-war Asian cinema reflect the shift from a national to a more global film market?  This course explores these and other related questions though a combination of weekly film screenings, lecture, and class discussion.  Directors include Satyajit Ray, Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, John Woo, and Wong Kar-Wai.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture

    Undergraduate Elective
    Fall & Spring
  

  • LALW329 Literature & Culture of the Great War 3 cr

    The Great War (1914-1918) altered global politics, national cultures, language, consciousness, and aesthetics in ways that the world is still processing. This course explores the culture into which the war exploded; the lived and written experience of soldiers and civilians alike; and hallmarks of the diverse body of literary and artistic output that responded to the horrors of mechanized trench warfare, shellshock, and massive loss. The reading list includes works by Robert Graves, David Jones, Guillaume Apollinaire, Virginia Woolf, Erich Maria Remarque, Wilfred Owen, and others.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture

    Elective
    Fall/Spring
  

  • LALW338 Film Script Writing; Adaptation 3cr.

    Students learn film scriptwritng, film aesthetics, and fundamental features of literature and film viewing, discussing and evaluating films derived from selected fiction. Students compare remakes of fiction filmed multiple times. Students learn and employ industry-standard script writing software to create, discuss and evaluate original screenplays they themselves create from works of fiction. [Fromerly Film Script Writing]

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Fall and Spring
  

  • LALW340 Black Cinema:American Myth, Racial Ideology and Hollywood 3cr.

    “What is “”Black Cinema”“? How did “”Black Cinema”” originate? What gives “”Black Cinema”” a
    distinct voice of its own? Must “”Black Cinema”” only be directed by African Americans, feature an
    all Black cast, or only address a Black audience and “”Black issues”” in order to qualify as
    “”Black Cinema”“? Should we differentiate between “”Black Cinema”” and “”Cinema”“? What are the
    ethical, social and political implications central to making these distinctions? This course
    examines those questions while chronicling the history and present state of “”Black
    Cinema”“(from the early 20th century filmmaking of Oscar Micheaux; Blaxploitation films of Gordon
    Parks and Melvin Van Peebles; fiction films by Charles Burnett, Spike Lee, Lee Daniels, Steve
    McQueen and Dee Rees; documentaries by Marlon Riggs, Stanley Nelson and June Cross; as well as
    animation films made for TV and media streamed online). Despite the contributions to cinema by
    these distinguished people of African descent, there remains a significant need for Black cinema
    studies within the broader areas of Africana Studies in the US and abroad. For these reasons,
    this course explores how Black authorship, content and reception have been defined and
    reconsidered in relation to dominant American myths, racial ideology and film industry
    practices, that have long presented limited and distorted social and political constructs of
    African Americans and the African Diaspora in cinema. This course challenges those portrayals
    and assumptions through thoughtful inquiries into the intricate modes of racial coding of moving
    images.

    Prerequisites: LALW-100 & FRSM-100

    Fall Only
  

  • LALW341 Writers of the Black Atlantic 3cr

    This class offers a cross-cultural survey of

    black literature in the 20th-Century.  It

    explores the ways black writers from Africa,

    Europe, and the Americas share a globalized

    perspective that is not distinctly African,

    European, or American but rather a multicultural

    perspective that historian Paul Gilroy has called

    the culture of the Black Atlantic.  Based on the

    history of transatlantic crossings of the slave

    trade and its aftermath, this Black Atlantic is a

    confluence of diverse cultural traditions. 

    Covering topics such as slavery, racism, and

    colonialism, this class focuses on the ways

    writers of the Black Atlantic have used this

    multicultural perspective to establish a critical

    voice for expressing the black experience in the

    20th-Century.

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Lecture

    Spring
  

  • LALW342 Fiction Workshop 3cr

    This course supports students to write original

    fiction prompted by assignments on the

    fundamental elements of the craft and the study

    of published fiction. Students share and provide

    feedback to other students in critique workshops.

    Discussions focus on what comprises a good story,

    with an emphasis on characterization, narration,

    plot, scene, setting, dialogue, and style, and

    ways of generating one’s own stories. Comparisons

    between written and graphic narratives are also

    explored.

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Seminar

    Fall
  

  • LALW346 Camelot: Tales of King Arthur 3 cr.

    A study of the literary epics of the legends surrounding Camelot and King Arthur, their origins in the middle ages and subsequent variations.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW400 Directed Study 3 cr.

    A Liberal Arts directed study is a research project selected by a student in a Liberal Arts discipline. Typically, the study results in a research paper of thirty plus pages or the equivalent, as agreed upon by the faculty member supervising the project. Because of its advanced nature, a Liberal Arts LALW directed study is open only to seniors and is limited to one per semester. No more than two Liberal Arts directed studies may be counted toward Liberal Arts degree requirements. Students seeking to register for a LALW directed study must execute a directed study proposal form that describes the proposed project, includes a bibliography, and describes the final project. Liberal Arts directed studies proposals require the approval of the Liberal Arts Department chair.

     

    Prerequisites: LALW200 enrollment senior elective, and consent of the instructor.

    Lecture/Seminar

  

  • LALW402 Advanced Poetry Workshop 3cr.

    In this workshop, students write, revise, and discuss their own poetry in peer critique
    workshops as they sharpen their poetry writing skills beyond an introductory level and examine
    how their own poetry is situated in the context of contemporary poetry. Guided by peer critique
    and the instructor’s feedback, they assemble a final collection of poetry, possibly
    demonstrating how their poems intersect with their own major. Students also delve into a wide
    array of published poetry to deepen their understanding of poetry, compose a statement of
    their aesthetics, gain experience as editors, and write a critical study of some poets in relation
    to their own aesthetics. Finally, as a collective, students read their poems in public
    and/or publish a compilation of selected poems and artwork.

    Prerequisites: LALW-320 or LALW-308 or LALW-233 or by permission of
    instructor.

    For permission, please email Cheryl Clark
    (cclark@massart.edu) a sample of 5 poems in one document
    with a brief explanation of why you would like to take this
    workshop. Include a list of relevant courses you have
    taken. If I find that this sample is not sufficiently
    strong, indicating that your command of poetry writing is
    insufficient for success in the class, I will let you know
    by e-mail as soon as I can. Send the sample as soon as
    possible.

    Spring Only
  

  • LALW403 Artist’s Writing 3 cr.

    A workshop in which initial drafts and subsequent revisions of students’ writings are photocopied, distributed to all members of the class, and critiqued. The objective is to help students develop artist’s statements that: (a) are appropriate to the purposes for which they are written; (b) articulate what the student wants to say about their art; and (c) communicate clearly to the intended audiences. [Formerly titled Writing an Artist’s Statement]
     

    Prerequisites: Seniors Only

    Lecture/Seminar

    Senior Elective
  

  • LALW407 Literature & Culture of the Great War 3cr.

    The Great War (1914-1918) altered global politics, national cultures, language,
    consciousness, and aesthetics in ways that the world is still processing. Planned for the
    centenary of the beginning of Great War hostilities, this course will explore the culture
    into which the war exploded; the lived and written experience of soldiers and civilians
    alike; and hallmarks of the diverse body of literary and artistic output that responded to
    the horrors of mechanized trench warfare, shellshock, and massive loss. The reading list
    includes works by Robert Graves, David Jones, Guillaume Apollinaire, Virginia Woolf, Erich
    Maria Remarque, Wilfred Owen, and others.

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Spring Only
  

  • LALW410 Opera and the fusion of the Arts 3 cr.

    What is opera? German composer Richard Wagner described it as a “total art work,” combining music, drama, singing, and scenic design. This course encourages new ways of thinking about the relationships between different artistic disciplines and forms. Students view and discuss a selection of operas from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. No classical music background is required, and no one is expected to sing. In a final project combining artwork and critical writing, students imagine and design a production for an opera of their choice.

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Lecture/Seminar

    All College Elective
  

  • LALW411 Man Vs. Wild and Other Stories We Tell 3cr

    Droughts scorch the Middle East and the American
    southwest. Wildfires rip across Indonesia. Rising
    sea levels are already beginning to swallow up
    island nations, and warming waters are decimating
    ocean life. As the effects of climate change
    wreak havoc on human societies and ecosystems
    across the globe, they also shine an increasingly
    bright spotlight on how human beings think about
    and interact with the natural world. This class
    will explore changing attitudes toward nature
    over several centuries, including, and
    especially, the present day. We will discuss the
    role that writing and art have played in shaping
    our understanding of the natural world over time
    (with possible selections from Genesis, Edmund
    Burke, William Wordsworth, Charles Darwin, and
    Henry David Thoreau). We will also explore how
    writers, artists, and filmmakers are confronting
    the representational challenges posed by climate
    change today (possible readings include Margaret
    Atwood, Oryx and Crake; Paolo Bacigalupi, The
    Water Thief; Indra Sinha, Animal’s People; Kim
    Stanley Robinson, Green Earth; selections from
    Bill McKibben, Stacy Alaimo, William Cronon, bell
    hooks, E.O. Wilson, and Eduardo Kohn; films such
    as Racing Extinction, This Changes Everything).
     
    Over the course of the semester, you will
    undertake research on an interdisciplinary
    project that investigates a site of human-nature
    interaction of your choosing, traces its impact
    on the world, and explores creative ways to
    express this impact. You will receive feedback on
    this project in beginning, intermediary, and
    final stages, and it will include both written
    and creative components. We will have several
    exciting opportunities to broaden our
    perspectives on this topic. First, this course
    will be participating in the interdisciplinary
    Sustainability Studio in the DMC, through which
    we will be opening several of our classes to the
    public. Second, we will meet multiple times over
    the semester with Professor Nava’s summative
    elective course, which approaches many of the
    issues we will be addressing from a scientific
    perspective that will deepen our humanistic one.

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Seminar

    Spring
  

  • LALW412 Your Ted Talk 3cr

    Students conceive, propose, revise, and deliver an original ten-minute TED-style talk that presents a participant’s senior (studio-department) thesis, or a participant’s artist’s statement, or a participant’s statement of core beliefs. Participants review widely-shared TED Talks and the research, literature, and other sources informing them. Students critique each other’s TED Talks. Talks are digitally recorded and edited by Mass Art technicians. Talks may be internet-posted.

    Prerequisites: LALW-200

    Seminar

    Fall and Spring
  

  • LALW414 Why Novels Now? Create Your Own Long-Form Fiction 3cr

    Why Novels Now? Create Your Own Long-Form Fiction, an LALW Summative Elective, is designed for upper-level students with an active interest in the longer forms of fiction, especially those who are completing the Creative Writing Minor. Why Novels Now? is a defense of the need for leisurely literature in our electronically-rushed world; it is both an inspection of the history and future of novels and a craft class in which each student plans and writes their own novel or graphic novel.  To unlock valuable storytelling secrets, we’ll compare two well-made novels: E. M. Forster’s 1910 English classic Howards End and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, her 2005 parallel to Forster’s book that’s set in the Boston area. Other course texts: Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel and Scott McCloud’s Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels.  Each class session will include an in-class writing workshop aimed at practicing a different technique of the writing craft.

    Prerequisites: Take 15 cr from Lib. Arts

    Seminar

    Spring
  

  • LALW415 Creating a Comic Book 3cr

    In this course, you will be both students and
    creators of the graphic novel form. We will begin
    by familiarizing ourselves with the history of
    “sequential art,” from comic strips to superhero
    comics, from comics to graphic novels. After
    establishing this larger historical context,
    though, most of our time will be spent on
    exploring the possibilities of the form. To do
    this, we will seek out and study cartoonists who
    have experimented with comics and graphic novels.
    Through a series of weekly in-class and
    extracurricular sketching and writing
    assignments, you will also experiment with the
    form. Ultimately, you will draft, revise, and
    complete a polished, substantial graphic
    narrative that tells a story of your choosing;
    and a preface that contextualizes your narrative
    within the class’s readings and your personalized
    research.

    This is a Summative Elective Liberal Arts class,
    meant to represent the culmination of three to
    four years of integrating liberal arts and studio
    classes at MassArt. The assignments in this class
    embody this synthesis. As you write and re-write
    your comic, you will draw on analyses of other
    graphic novels, research tailored to your story,
    and feedback from your peers and me. This course
    is especially suitable for students who have
    studied graphic novels in other settings but is
    open to all who are intrigued by the endless ways
    to tell stories through comics.

    Prerequisites: Take 15 credits from Lib. Arts

    Seminar

    Spring
  

  • LALW416 I Hear America Singing 3cr

    Specifically engaging works about America by
    Americans, this course emphasizes the
    sociocultural work of the musical as conveyed
    through its elements of music and dance. With
    scripts and soundtracks as the primary texts,
    students will experience and analyze a selection
    of works, critically engaging issues such as
    adaptation, musical genre, performance history,
    and representations of gender and race.

    Prerequisites: LALW-100, LALW-200 and 9 credits from Liberal Arts

    Seminar

    Fall
  

  • LALW423 Shakespeare and Identity:Race, Religion, Gender, and Sexuality On the Elizabethan Stage 3cr

    This course considers the topic of identity from the standpoint of the Age of Shakespeare late 1500s to early 1600s). The syllabus focuses on eight early modern English plays by William Shakespeare and his contemporary, Christopher Marlowe that explore issues related to different types of identity (race, religion, gender, and sexuality). Shorter supplementary readings include poems, essays, and treatises from Shakespeare’s time, as well as classical writings that Shakespeare and his contemporaries would have known. Students are assigned one critical paper, one final project (create a mise en scéne of one of the plays on the syllabus), bi-weekly blogs, and oral presentations. Forty to sixty minutes of class time are set aside for Student Workshop/Critiques, in which students bring work-in-progress to present to instructor and peers for discussion, assessment, and advice towards course goals.[Formerly titled Shakespeare and the
    Other]

    Prerequisites: LALW200

    Seminar

    Fall and Spring