ENGL 396

Fall 2023 All Classes

All Classes

English Honors Seminar

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Credit: 3 hours.

An open-topic, discussion-oriented seminar aimed at majors who have shown high skill and intensive interest in the area of English studies.

May be repeated up to 6 hours in the same term to a maximum of 12 hours. Prerequisite: A 3.33 grade point average or consent of the English Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies. Restricted to English majors.

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ENGL 396 class schedule data for fall 2023
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	32226	Lecture-Discussion	C	10:00AM -10:50AM	MWF	135 English Building	Murison, J	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/21/23-12/06/23 Special Approval: Departmental Approval Required Section Title: Love & Money in the 19c Novel Section Info: FA23 ENGL 396 Love and Money in the Nineteenth-Century Novel - Justine Murison: It’s no accident that many of the best-known novels of the nineteenth century were about love and money. Across this century, both Britain and the US experienced a radical sea change in views on love, marriage, divorce, and women’s access to property ownership and political power, massive shifts fueled by the rise of capitalism and its creation of new, unequal forms of wealth and disruption of older class hierarchies. The novels of the era reflected these tremendous changes, but they also did more than that. They shaped how everyday readers imagined new possibilities for their private lives. In this honors seminar, we will consider how nineteenth-century novels played a significant historical role in the changing relationship of love to money, paying particular attention to the history of the novel, its genres, and its modes of publication. Along with reading some of the best novels of the nineteenth century, we will also hone our writing and research skills. How do you find out more than surface level information about a novel’s original publication and reception? How do you research and then explain effectively a novel’s historical context, such as the era’s laws about marriage, inheritance, and divorce? And above all, how do you learn to write your own prose with verve, precision, and style? These and other questions will guide our research and writing during the semester. Authors may include Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, and Edith Wharton.
	40420	Lecture-Discussion	E1	11:00AM -12:20PM	TR	135 English Building	Cole, L	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/21/23-12/06/23 Special Approval: Departmental Approval Required Section Title: Literature, Ecology & Ice Age Section Info: FA23 ENGL 396 Literature and the Little Ice Age, Lucinda Cole: Temperatures dropped across Europe. Violent storms and unseasonal rains spoiled harvests. Livestock sickened. In the hope of protecting diminishing grain supplies, governments hammered out national vermin eradication policies. Rivers and coastal seas froze, so trade ground to a halt, which contributed to food shortages and sometimes famine. Witches blamed for foul weather burned at the stakes. Stories about vampires, zombies, and the walking dead began to appear. This is the Little Ice Age. For the purposes of this seminar, the term is used to describe the period between 1500 and 1850, when the North Atlantic world reeled from climactic instability and its effects. This class is grounded in the Environmental Humanities which, in recent years, has been examining the roles of wind, weather, and energy demands on the production, content, and meaning of literary texts. We will study relationships among literature, this early modern climate crisis, and politics, broadly conceived. Politically explosive, characterized by rebellions, wars, plague, and widespread migration, the Little Ice Age provides a fascinating window into contemporary environmental politics. The seminar will be based on a class packet, but texts include are The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare), The Golden Age (Aphra Behn), The Storm (Daniel Defoe), The Seasons (James Thomson), The Sugar Cane (Grainger), The Vampyre (Polidori), and The Last Man (Shelley), supplemented by a group of short poems, magazine articles, period art, and secondary sources. Final grades will be based on a series of short papers that will lead to a 10-page research paper, along with a final presentation.