CoursesSenior Seminars

This course examines literary and cinematic representations of the American immigrant experience over the last century. To live between cultures, to experience the confounding processes of racialization and assimilation, to labor to translate one’s deepest interiority into a foreign language––all these aspects of migration make a new imaginative relationship with the world a necessity for the migrant and, as such, are fertile ground for literary exploration and cinematic expression. In this class, we study novels and movies as distinct mediums even as we attend to their affinities, such as an impulse toward narrative storytelling. Among our films, one is from the silent era (Chaplin’s The Immigrant); among our novels, one is a wordless story of sequenced, illustrated panels (Tan’s The Arrival). Other novels include Eugenides’ Middlesex, Ozeki’s A Tale for a Time Being, Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World. Other movies: Coppola’s The Godfather, Nair’s The Namesake, Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

In this capstone seminar we will study the poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). Although she was unknown during her lifetime, after her death Dickinson became perhaps the best known woman writer of the nineteenth century. We will approach our topic from several vantages: by studying Dickinson’s poetics and the form and style of her work; by examining the material practices of her compositions, including her use of letters and manuscript books; by analyzing the history of editing her poetry for publication; and by surveying the history of her reception by readers, poets, filmmakers, composers, and literary critics. Since this is a capstone course, students will have the option to write a research paper on a topic of their design, or to create another kind of project inspired by Dickinson’s work.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

This seminar delineates and interrogates the idea of a homogeneous “Asian American Experience” by way of texts that challenge, subvert, or simply chuck that model minority myth out the window. Readings will highlight the recent explosion of contemporary Asian American voices, writers who are introducing new perspectives, styles and subject matters to the English language literary canon. We will analyze and discuss notions of “bad” and “bad kids” in the works of Asian American writers who portray themes that include but are not limited to: race, ethnicity, boredom, sexuality, mental health, religious marginalization and rebellion. We will also look at issues of class, family, love, and friendship as portrayed by second-generation, first-generation, and one-point-five generation immigrant writers. How do their voices differ and what stylistic and thematic similarities are shared?  The course covers work by Ling Ma, Mira Jacobs, E. Alex Jung, Cathy Park Hong, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Yanyi, Elysha Chang, and others.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

From the journalists who struggled to report events as they unfolded, to the poets, dramatists, and others who continually return to it, the 1992 Los Angeles Riot remains a site of disputed memory and divergent interpretations, with commentators divided even on what to call it. Insurrection, riot, rebellion, urban unrest, uprising? This course surveys documents, literature, performances, and other works that grapple with the reality and the spectacle of interracial conflict and violence in Los Angeles. Reading may include works by Ai (Florence Anthony Ogawa), Lucille Clifton, Wanda Coleman, Walter Moseley, Anna DeVeare Smith, Courtney Faye Taylor, and others.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

This course examines literary and cinematic representations of the American immigrant experience over the last century. To live between cultures, to experience the confounding processes of racialization and assimilation, to labor to translate one’s deepest interiority into a foreign language––all these aspects of migration make a new imaginative relationship with the world a necessity for the migrant and, as such, are fertile ground for literary exploration and cinematic expression. In this class, we study novels and movies as distinct mediums even as we attend to their affinities, such as an impulse toward narrative storytelling. Among our films, one is from the silent era (Chaplin’s The Immigrant); among our novels, one is a wordless story of sequenced, illustrated panels (Tan’s The Arrival). Other novels include Eugenides’ Middlesex, Ozeki’s A Tale for a Time Being, Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World. Other movies: Coppola’s The Godfather, Nair’s The Namesake, Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

In this capstone seminar we will study the poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). Although she was unknown during her lifetime, after her death Dickinson became perhaps the best known woman writer of the nineteenth century. We will approach our topic from several vantages: by studying Dickinson’s poetics and the form and style of her work; by examining the material practices of her compositions, including her use of letters and manuscript books; by analyzing the history of editing her poetry for publication; and by surveying the history of her reception by readers, poets, filmmakers, composers, and literary critics. Since this is a capstone course, students will have the option to write a research paper on a topic of their design, or to create another kind of project inspired by Dickinson’s work.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

Why can’t we stop thinking, reading, and writing about the Victorians? The last few decades have produced a wave of so-called Neo-Victorian novels, works that both embrace and subvert our expectations for the Victorian period and its fictional conventions and preoccupations. In this capstone seminar, we will consider what it meant to be a Victorian producer and consumer of popular literary culture and examine the ways in which 21st-century authors have reimagined the Victorian period and its novels for a contemporary audience. Our two core texts, Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1860) and Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith (2002), will provide the foundation for a wide-ranging exploration of the historical, literary, and cultural issues at stake in both 19th-century texts and 21st-century novels, films, and other artifacts that draw on the Victorian period for inspiration.

This seminar delineates and interrogates the idea of a homogeneous “Asian American Experience” by way of texts that challenge, subvert, or simply chuck that model minority myth out the window. Readings will highlight the recent explosion of contemporary Asian American voices, writers who are introducing new perspectives, styles and subject matters to the English language literary canon. We will analyze and discuss notions of “bad” and “bad kids” in the works of Asian American writers who portray themes that include but are not limited to: race, ethnicity, boredom, sexuality, mental health, religious marginalization and rebellion. We will also look at issues of class, family, love, and friendship as portrayed by second-generation, first-generation, and one-point-five generation immigrant writers. How do their voices differ and what stylistic and thematic similarities are shared?  The course covers work by Ling Ma, Mira Jacobs, E. Alex Jung, Cathy Park Hong, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Yanyi, Elysha Chang, and others.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.

From the journalists who struggled to report events as they unfolded, to the poets, dramatists, and others who continually return to it, the 1992 Los Angeles Riot remains a site of disputed memory and divergent interpretations, with commentators divided even on what to call it. Insurrection, riot, rebellion, urban unrest, uprising? This course surveys documents, literature, performances, and other works that grapple with the reality and the spectacle of interracial conflict and violence in Los Angeles. Reading may include works by Ai (Florence Anthony Ogawa), Lucille Clifton, Wanda Coleman, Walter Moseley, Anna DeVeare Smith, Courtney Faye Taylor, and others.

 

Enrollment will be restricted to American Literature & Culture seniors on first pass. English seniors may enroll during second pass, space permitting.