True Crime

Over the centuries, readers have been drawn to accounts of “true” crime—violent narratives involving
real people and real events. And yet, as with any literary object, the notion of “truth” is always
unstable—stories and their tellings are always shaped by the motivations, values, and choices of those
who tell them, often with an eye toward the audience that will consume them. Whether constructed in
order to moralize, to enforce or critique social or political ideologies, or purely to sell copies, “true
crime” is a literary genre that reveals attitudes about gender, race, and class; that illustrates—and

sometimes calls into question—cultural norms and mores; that calls on readers to reflect on their own
morbid curiosity and assumptions and fears. In this class we will engage with a diverse selection of
literary texts—spanning from the Middle Ages to the present day and from a range of genres,
including pamphlets, plays, novels, and more—as well as contemporary films, a tv series, and a
podcast. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will examine the evolution of the “true crime”
genre and the cultural and societal contexts that shape the portrayal of crime for popular
consumption. We will explore the ways in which texts and authors sensationalize, moralize, and
convey the complexities of crime. We will analyze point of view: who’s telling the story, whom we
sympathize with, and what insights we get into the minds of those committing crimes as well as those
who fall prey to them. We will consider justice and policing— the role played by the law and its
enforcers in shaping narratives about crime and punishment, right and wrong. Finally, we will reflect
on the ethical implications of representing real-life crimes in literature, and how “true crime”
narratives shape social perceptions, fears, prejudices, and notions of justice and morality.

• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Penelope Usher
  Info
• 3 points

Refugee/Exile

This course explores representations of forced and voluntary migration through a selection of
global literary texts and films. Examining novels, short stories, and films, the course will ask
students to reflect on how aesthetic representations of exile complicate notions of home,
belonging, sovereignty, and identity. Beginning with the birth of the modern refugee after World
War II, with its legal and political consolidation by the UN 1951 Refugee Convention, we will
discuss several dimensions of displacement and the ways in which these are differently
experienced by individuals. We will move from scenes of interminable bureaucratic stasis in
post-war Europe to depictions of border crossings along the Mexico-US border, will hear the
voices of Iranian women alongside those of Vietnamese American writers working to articulate
complex identities, and much more. While examining this constellation of diverse materials, we
will attend both to the historical and political specificity of each as well as to productive points
of convergence that they share by asking:
 What do we understand to be the possibilities and limitations of art in portraying the
experience of refugees, exiles, and migrants?
 How has exile become one of the central metaphors of modernity, and what does this
universalism bring to the fore and elide?
 How can aesthetic representation challenge popular depictions of refugees as innocent
supplicants in need of empathy and instead refigure them as political actors?
 How do these complicated texts reinforce and contest narratives that depict forced
migration as a linear movement from unstable peripheries to stable centers?

• TR 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Victor Zarour Zarzar
  Info
• 3 points

INTRODUCTION TO COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

INTRO TO COMICS/GRAPHIC N

This course provides students with an introduction to the scholarly study of comics and graphic novels. It is designed to teach students how to analyze these texts by paying special attention to narrative forms and page design. As part of this focus, attention will be given to the way that comics and graphic novels are created and the importance of publication format. In addition to studying comics and graphic novels themselves, we will look at the way that scholars have approached this emergent field of academic interest.

• TR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
• Instructor: Benjamin M Breyer
  CULPA: 13 Info
• 3 points

AMERICAN FICTION

An introduction to race, gender, indigeneity, colonialism and class in American fiction from the 18th to the mid-20th century.  Writers include Rowson, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Dunbar, James, Zitkala-Sa, Wharton, Faulkner, and Brooks.

• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennie Kassanoff
  CULPA: 20 Info
• 3 points

THE WRITER'S PROCESS

Enrollment limited to Barnard students. Application process and permission of instructor required:
https://writing.barnard.edu/become-writing-fellow
. Exploration of theory and practice in the teaching of writing, designed for students who plan to become Writing Fellows at Barnard. Students will read current theory and consider current research in the writing process and engage in practical applications in the classroom or in tutoring. The Writer’s Process is only open to those who applied to and were accepted into the Writing Fellows Program.
Note: This course now counts as an elective for the English major.

• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Pamela Cobrin
  CULPA: 6 Info
• Instructor: Alexandra P Watson
  CULPA: 16 Info
• 4 points

ACADEMIC WRITING INTENSIVE

Academic Writing Intensive is a small, intensive writing course for Barnard students in their second or third year who would benefit from extra writing support. Students attend a weekly seminar, work closely with the instructor on each writing assignment, and meet with an attached Writing Fellow every other week. Readings and assignments focus on transferable writing, revision, and critical thinking skills students can apply to any discipline. Students from across the disciplines are welcome. This course is only offered P/D/F. To be considered for the course, please send a recent writing sample to 
clie@barnard.edu
, ideally from your First-Year Writing or First-Year Seminar course, or any other writing-intensive humanities or social sciences course at Barnard (no lab reports please).

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Cecelia B Lie-Spahn
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

THE ART OF THE ESSAY

NOTE: Students who are on the electronic waiting list or who are interested in the class but are not yet registered MUST attend the first day of class.

Fall 2022 course description: Essay writing above the first-year level. Reading and writing various types of essays to develop one's natural writing voice and craft thoughtful, sophisticated and personal essays. 

Summer 2022 course description: The Art of the Essay is a writing workshop designed to help you contribute meaningfully in public discourse about the issues that matter most to you. You will write three types of essays in this class, all of which will center personal experience as valuable evidence of larger phenomena or patterns. Your essays will build in complexity, as you introduce more types of sources into conversation about your topics as the semester goes on. You will hone your skills of observing, describing, questioning, analyzing, and persuading. You will be challenged to confront complications and to craft nuanced explorations of your topics. We will also regularly read and discuss the work of contemporary published essayists, identifying key writerly moves that you may adapt as you attempt your own essays.  You will have many opportunities throughout the semester to brainstorm ideas, receive feedback from me and your peers, and develop and revise your drafts. At the end of the semester, you will choose a publication to which to submit or pitch one or more of your essays.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• M 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• W 12:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
• Instructor: Wendy C Schor-Haim
  CULPA: 11 Info
• Instructor: Vrinda Condillac
  CULPA: 28 Info
• Instructor: Nina Sharma
  CULPA: 5 Info
• Instructor: Ross T Hamilton
  CULPA: 25 Info
• 3 points

FICTION & PERSONAL NARRATIVE

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here: 
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
. Short stories and other imaginative and personal writing.

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Elif Batuman
  Info
• 3 points

INTRODUCTION TO FICTION WRITING

INTRO TO FICTION WRITING

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
. Practice in writing short stories and other forms of fiction with discussion and close analysis in a workshop setting.

• R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Zaina F Arafat
  Info
• 3 points

INTRODUCTION TO POETRY WRITING

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
.

Varied assignments designed to confront the difficulties and explore the resources of language through imitation, allusion, free association, revision, and other techniques.

• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Brionne Janae
  Info
• Instructor: Miranda Field
  Info
• 3 points

PLAYWRITING I

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
.

The class will explore a broad range of approaches to playwriting in a workshop setting. Each week, students will write in response to prompts that are designed to explicate different elements and principles of the form. The work will culminate at the end of the semester with the writing of a one act play. Classes will largely be spent reading and discussing students’ work but students will also be choosing from a wide selection of plays to read two each week.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Ellen McLaughlin
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

STORY WRITING

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
.
 
A workshop in writing, with emphasis on the short story.

• R 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Nellie G Hermann
  Info
• 3 points

FICTION WRITING

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
. 

Assignments designed to examine form and structure in fiction.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Weike Wang
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 3 points

ADVANCED POETRY WRITING

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
. Weekly workshops designed to generate and critique new poetry. Each participant works toward the development of a cohesive collection of poems. Readings in traditional and contemporary poetry will also be included.

• T 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Patricia S Jones
  Info
• 3 points

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Open only to undergraduates. 


This course will introduce you to principles of effective public speaking and debate, and provide practical opportunities to use these principles in structured speaking situations. You will craft and deliver speeches, engage in debates and panel discussions, analyze historical and contemporary speakers, and reflect on your own speeches and those of your classmates. You will explore and practice different rhetorical strategies with an emphasis on information, persuasion and argumentation. For each speaking assignment, you will go through the speech-making process, from audience analysis, purpose and organization, to considerations of style and delivery. The key criteria in this course are content, organization, and adaptation to the audience and purpose. While this is primarily a performance course, you will be expected to participate extensively as a listener and critic, as well as a speaker.

• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Daniela Kempf
  Info
• 3 points

RHETORICAL CHOICES: PUBLIC SPEAKING

RHETORICAL CHOICES:PBLC S

Enrollment restricted to Barnard students. Application process and instructor permission required:
https://speaking.barnard.edu/become-speaking-fellow
. Speaking involves a series of rhetorical choices regarding vocal presentation, argument construction, and physical affect that, whether made consciously or by default, project information about the identity of the speaker. In this course students will relate theory to practice: to learn principles of public speaking and speech criticism for the purpose of applying these principles as peer tutors in the Speaking Fellow Program.
Note: This course now counts as an elective for the English major.

• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• 4 points

THE AMERICAN COWBOY AND THE ICONOGRAPHY

AMER COWBOY/ICONOG OF WES

This upper-level research-oriented seminar will study the all-American icon of the cowboy, with its signature embrace of masculinity, stoicism, elegiac music, and love of nature. We will read Cormac McCarthy’s
The Border Trilogy
and other works that emerge from this icon, watch a curated series of cowboy movies, and write critical essays.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Victor Zarour Zarzar
  Info
• 4 points

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
.

In this class, you'll write two personal essays, about fifteen pages each. We'll spend each class discussing two student essays and one published essay. My goal in this class--besides building a community of people to talk about writing together--is for each student to figure out what drives them to write, what they're most driven to write about, and how their mind works. I like to find and bring out each student's strengths as a writer, storyteller, thinker. 

I'm a comics artist (long-form) and cartoonist (short-form), and I encourage anyone with an interest in making comics or other kinds of visual narratives to do so. I can offer help with very nuts and bolts things like materials and computer programs, as well as help telling a clear story in a sometimes complicated medium. 

I don't think there are clear, universal boundaries between non-fiction and fiction, personal essay and journalistic essay, fact and story (in a creative writing context, I mean!), long-form and short-form, written word and other modes of communication - and I like for students to start to figure out their own personal differentiations and definitions. 

Homework for this class is mostly reading. There's also a quick weekly writing assignment, graded pass/fail, just to keep you writing regularly. In our workshops, we go over the essays in draft form. I don't grade the essays until they're officially turned in at the end of the semester.

• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Liana Finck
  CULPA: 3 Info
• 3 points

THE CANTERBURY TALES

Chaucer as inheritor of late-antique and medieval conventions and founder of early modern literature and the fiction of character.  Selections from related medieval texts.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Christopher C Baswell
  CULPA: 8 Info
• 3 points

THE ENGLISH COLLOQUIUM

Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to Barnard English majors. In the Renaissance colloquium we will examine English and European imaginative and intellectual life from the sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. Defined by humanism, the Protestant Reformation, and revolution, this was a period of ideological struggle on many levels. Long-held ways of ordering the world came under increasing strain-and sometimes ruptured irreparably. Writers discussed and debated the aims of human knowledge, retooled old literary forms for new purposes, scrambled to take account of an expanded awareness of the globe, and probed the tension between belief and doubt. Throughout this process, they experimented with new literary styles to express their rapidly changing worldviews. This is an intensive course in which we will take multiple approaches to a variety of authors that may include Petrarch, Erasmus, Machiavelli, Castiglione, More, Rabelais, Luther, Calvin, Montaigne, Spenser, Bacon, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, and Behn, among others.

• R 9 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Ross T Hamilton
  CULPA: 25 Info
• Instructor: Rachel Eisendrath
  CULPA: 6 Info
• Instructor: Atefeh Akbari Shahmirzadi
  Info
• Instructor: Eugene A Petracca
  Info
• 4 points

DONNE, THE METAPHYSICALS, AND HIS LEGACY

JOHN DONNE & THE METAPHYS

John Donne is the most famous “Metaphysical Poet” of the 17th century.  The term “metaphysical” to refer to his poetry was first used by Samuel Johnson in the 18th century. It was popularized in the 20th century by T. S. Eliot, who lamented what he called a “dissociation of sensibility” that set in during the 17th century, whereas (Eliot said) “a thought to Donne was an experience,” as if mind was not simply a separate thing from embodied experience. Donne’s poetry has long been admired, indeed loved, embraced by later readers, writers, and artists—not just in England and America but in different parts of the world. He has left a rich legacy, and what Judith Scherer Herz calls his “voiceprint” on diverse later writers. In my experience, students always want to spend more time on Donne. In this course, we will do that, reading his poetry with attention but also his prose
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
, written in 1623 during the plague when he came close to dying. The
Devotions
found a new life during the AIDs crisis, and then again during our Covid pandemic. The line from the
Devotions
that begins “No man is an island” has been part of our culture for a century, though many have no idea where it comes from. In this course, we will engage in “attentive,” patient reading of his texts, entering in them, trying to figuring them out, much as Donne sought to figure out lived experience in richly metaphorical writing.

Though Donne is at the center of the course, we will also read a selection of poems by other 17th-century Metaphysical poets—George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Katherine Philips, Andrew Marvell—and Sir Thomas Browne’s prose
Hydriotaphia: Or Urn Burial
, occasioned by the excavation of ancient burial urns discovered in Norwich. Browne tries to figure out the identity of these urns, then moves to a fascinating survey of the burial practices of different cultures over a long period of time, and then concludes with a profound meditation on memory, legacy, and our desire for immortality, perpetuating our earthly connections. Donne left an impression on so many writers such as Yeats, Dylan Thomas, and Seamus Heaney; Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Adrienne Rich; Djuna Barnes (her novel
Nightwood
, a lesbian classic), Robert Lowell and Anthony Hecht, the Bengali Rabinadrath Tagore; Joseph Brodsky, Yehudah Amichai and Leonard Cohen; Linda

• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Achsah Guibbory
  CULPA: 17 Info
• 3 points

SHAKESPEARE I

A critical and historical introduction to Shakespeares comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances. Please note that you do not need to take ENGL BC3163: Shakespeare I and ENGL BC3164: Shakespeare II in sequence; you may take them in any order.

• TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Rachel Eisendrath
  CULPA: 6 Info
• 3 points

MILTON

How and why might we read Milton now? And how do his writings and thinking intersect with issues in our present moment? We will read his influential epic
Paradise Lost
after reading selections of Milton's earlier poetry and prose (attack against censorship, defenses of divorce, individual conscience, toleration, complicated issues of political and religious liberty). He wrote about these matters as he was involved in the English Civil war, an advocate of liberty (we will consider what kind, for whom?) and revolution, which Americans would embrace as inspiration and to justify the American Revolution. We will critically read Milton’s literary and political texts within the contexts of religious, political, and cultural history of early modern England and Europe but also colonial and revolutionary America—asking difficult questions, and with a sense of how Milton’s writing connects to present issues of our time.

• MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Achsah Guibbory
  CULPA: 17 Info
• 3 points

VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE

“We have become a novel-reading people,” wrote Anthony Trollope in 1870. “Novels are in the hands of us all; from the Prime Minister down to the last-appointed scullery maid.” This course will consider why the novel was so important to Victorian culture and society. What made the Victorian novel such a fertile form for grappling with the unprecedented cultural changes of the nineteenth century? To address this question, we will explore how Victorian novels both responded to, and participated in, major social and cultural shifts of the period, including industrialism and urbanization; colonialism and empire; the changing status of women, sexuality, and marriage; the emergence of Darwinism; class conflict and social reform; and the expansion of education and literacy. This course will also consider more broadly what novels are for, and what the Victorians thought they were for. Do novels represent the world as it really is, or do they imagine it as it ought to be? What kinds of solutions to social and political problems can novels offer? Can novels ethically improve (or corrupt) their readers? We will consider these issues in the context of realism, Victorian literature’s trademark genre, but we’ll also explore an array of other genres, such as the industrial novel, the Bildungsroman, the sensation novel, detective fiction, and gothic fiction. Authors include Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, and others.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Jayne Hildebrand
  CULPA: 3 Info
• 3 points

AMERICAN LITERATURE TO 1800

This course surveys American literature written before 1800. While we will devote some attention to the literary traditions that preceded British colonization, most of our readings will be of texts written in English between 1620 and 1800. These texts--histories, autobiographies, poems, plays, and novels--illuminate the complexity of this period of American culture. They tell stories of pilgrimage, colonization, and genocide; private piety and public life; manuscript and print publication; the growth of national identity (political, cultural, and literary); Puritanism, Quakerism, and Deism; race and gender; slavery and the beginnings of a movement towards its abolition. We will consider, as we read, the ways that these stories overlap and interconnect, and the ways that they shape texts of different periods and genres.

• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Lisa Gordis
  CULPA: 15 Info
• 3 points

AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1945

In the wake of World War II, the so-called American Century rises out of the ashes of fascism, haunted by the specter of bombs blurring the boundary between victory and defeat. An ideological civil war ensues, punctuated by literary resistance to grand narratives and their discontents. Authors include Ellison, O’Connor, Ginsberg, Bishop, Pynchon, Robinson, Merrill, Morrison, Didion, and Wallace.

• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Maura L Spiegel
  CULPA: 40 Info
• 3 points

THE MODERN NOVEL

This course will pay close attention to the novel form through the transition from nineteenth-century realism to modernist innovations in narrative voice and perspective, representation of consciousness, etc. Important social and historical contexts include World War I, urbanization, sexuality and the family, empire and colonialism. Authors may include Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, E. M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce..

• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Mary E Cregan
  CULPA: 12 Info
• 3 points

CRITICAL WRITING

(Formerly called Literary Criticism - Theory.) Provides experience in the reading and analysis of literary texts and some knowledge of conspicuous works of literary criticism. Frequent short papers. Required of all English majors before the end of the junior year. Sophomores are encouraged to take it in the spring semester even before officially declaring their major. Transfer students should plan to take it in the fall semester.

• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• MW 5:40 p.m.-6:55 p.m.
• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Kristi-Lynn Cassaro
  Info
• Instructor: Monica F Cohen
  CULPA: 8 Info
• Instructor: Eugene A Petracca
  Info
• Instructor: Jayne Hildebrand
  CULPA: 3 Info
• 4 points

MODERNISM

A deeply ambivalent, transatlantic movement, Modernism grapples with revolutionary forces that defy traditional structures: the 19th-century Darwinian inversion to the old idea of order, the advent of psychoanalysis, the crisis of world war, and the anxiety and exuberance of shifting gender paradigms. The ensuing cultural upheaval dis-orders not only the content but also the literary forms of Modernism, giving rise to abstraction, fragmented narrative structures, stream-of-consciousness prose and the extreme erudition T.S. Eliot “shored against the ruins” of so-called civilization in “The Waste Land.”  Special attention will be devoted to how seminal manifestos, most notably "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and 
A Room of One's Own,
 frame the movement's embattled aesthetics.  Works by Djuna Barnes, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner,  Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Muriel Rukeyser, Jean Toomer, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Virginia Woolf, and W.B. Yeats.

• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Kristi-Lynn Cassaro
  Info
• 3 points

WORLD LITERATURE REVISITED

As a discipline, World Literature dates back to the early 19 th century and Goethe’s concept of weltliteratur. Yet, despite the fact that Goethe was well-versed in the literature of the “Orient” and emphasized their centrality in weltliteratur, the languages that he spoke of and underlined within the formation of this literature were mostly German and Romance languages. Institutionally speaking, not much has changed over the past couple of centuries. More often than not, studying the literature of locations such as the Middle East, Africa, and East and Southeast Asia takes place in Area Studies departments, and offerings of these areas’ literatures even in Comparative Literature departments are few and far in between.

This course looks at a sample of texts that might be studied within the rubric of World Literature in an English department. We will examine foundational genres in English literary studies, such as epic and lyric poetry and free verse, dramatic literature, and the novel, and study variations of these genres in other literary traditions. Given that we’re reading many of the texts in translation, the issue of translating literary texts into English is a central component of our discussion. Specifically, we will think about the role that translation plays in the production and politics of World Literature and how the issue of translation differentiates between the disciplines of Comparative Literature and World Literature. We will also study adaptations of and artistic responses to canonical works. Some questions we will tackle include: What/where/whom constitutes the world in World Literature? Traditionally, why have some types of writing and inscription been privileged over others when determining the category of literature? How do we read similarities and differences in the texts while placing them in their particular contexts and histories?

• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Atefeh Akbari Shahmirzadi
  Info
• 3 points

WHAT'S YOUR STORY ANYWAY? - TRAUMA RESIS

CREATIVE WRITING ON TRAUM

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses
.
 
In this class we will explore the process of healing from trauma through the art of storytelling. We will ground ourselves in the writing of Latina authors whose work demonstrates the resistance from erasure in the United States. The goal of the class is to understand the connection between trauma and healing, through storytelling and creative writing. Moreover, we will develop three pieces of creative non-fiction that will encompass this relationship over the three different lenses of place, person and personal experience.

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Maria D Hinojosa
  Info
• 3 points

LATINX AND THE ICE/PRISON INDUSTRIAL COM

JOURNALISM: LATINX&ICE/PR

This course encompasses themes of race, ethnicity, mass incarceration, and immigration in the modern United States, with special attention to the stories of Latinx people. We will consider the roles of journalistic writing, documentaries, and personal narratives in shaping public policy and attitudes towards lives behind bars. Guest speakers will also provide personal experiences to help reframe our own narratives and perspectives on these issues. The course’s primary goal is to challenge the process of how stories of race, immigration, and mass incarceration are written, by developing scholarly pieces.

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Maria D Hinojosa
  Info
• 4 points

ABSENT MOTHERS, WICKED STEPMOTHERS

ABSENT MOTHERS:FOLK&FAIRY

Why are stepmothers and stepdaughters inevitable enemies in folk and fairy tales? Why are fathers blameless and biological mothers absent (and usually dead)? And how do these narratives, so deeply woven into our own media and language, affect our sense of our own lived reality? In this course, we’ll untangle the complicated web of relationships between mothers, daughters, and stepmothers in folk and fairy tales, from ancient Rome to current cinema. We’ll read analytic psychology, feminist literary theory, cultural history, and other critical perspectives to help us analyze the absent mother, virginal daughter, hapless father, and evil stepmother tropes across time and space, so we can defamiliarize these familiar figures and develop a deeper understanding of how and why they dominate the popular imagination. This is an upper-level course, with priority for juniors and seniors.

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Wendy C Schor-Haim
  CULPA: 11 Info
• 4 points

THE MARRIAGE PLOT

This upper-level research-oriented seminar will engage with literary expressions of the universally interesting topic of marriage. Tony Tanner in his famous
Adultery in the Novel
characterizes marriage as “the structure which supports all structure.” Contemporary critics have seen marriage as essential to maintaining the “family values” of the bourgeoisie; feminists and Marxists have challenged the economic assumptions of patriarchally-defined marriage. Folklorists have treated marriage as the endpoint of the search for a safe domestic space.

Starting in ancient times with classic fairy tales and the Hebrew Bible, moving on to a famous medieval poem, a medieval memoir, and three nineteenth-century novels, we will encounter cultural expressions which address intimate partnerships with an emphasis on marriage as a defining condition.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Daphne Miriam Merkin
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

EXOPHONIC WOMEN

Language is the writer’s instrument; what happens when there is more than one language to choose from, or when a dominant or initial language is replaced by another? What inspires, or necessitates, a writer to practice exophony: to migrate into “foreign” linguistic territory? And in the case of bilingual or plurilingual writers, what factors determine the language(s) chosen for creative expression, and what might cause that choice to shift over time? To what degree do exophonic writers create a third, hybrid language? And how might their works underscore the mutability and instability of language itself? This seminar will focus on a series of women who, either for political or personal reasons, have reshaped and revised their linguistic points of reference, radically questioning—and perhaps willfully subverting—notions of nationality, identity, linguistic normativity, and a “mother tongue”. Special attention will be paid to the reception of exophonic writers, to feminist narratives of separation and self-fashioning, to mother-daughter dyads, to cases of self-translation, to colonialist and post-colonialist frameworks, and to how the phenomenon of exophony further complicates, but also enriches, the translator’s task. Readings will combine literary texts with essays, interviews, and theoretical writings by and about exophonic writers. In addition to analytical papers, students will have the opportunity to experiment writing in another language and translating themselves into English. All readings will be in English; advanced reading knowledge of a foreign language is recommended but not required.

• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Jhumpa Lahiri
  Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

DESIRE AND METAMORPHOSIS

Change is fundamental to our experience as human beings, and the experience of change lies at the heart of most great stories. Sometimes this is a transition that the heroine has desired; other times, alteration and transformation arise from sources mysterious and unknown, or as a result of the journey the story has brought them. This course examines the element of change in a wide range of literature, from Ovid to Maggie Nelson, from Shakespeare to Roxane Gay—but it also provides an opportunity for students to consider the ways in which they, too have been changed—by joy, by trauma, by time. In addition to writing critically about the works we will read together, students will also write a personal essay about their experience of metamorphosis; this essay will be examined in a modified workshop format. At semester’s end, students will re-write and change that same essay, in hopes of seeing how revision on the page might provide a model for understanding the metamorphoses we experience as human beings on this earth. Authors will likely include Ovid, Kafka, Robert Louis Stevenson, Borges, Shaun Tan, Roxane Gay, George Saunders, Arthur C. Clarke, Shakespeare, and Maggie Nelson. There will be a final exam and a critical paper, as well as the personal essay, in two drafts.

• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer F Boylan
  Info
• 3 points

SENIOR PROJECT IN CREATIVE WRITING

SENIOR PROJ: CREATIVE WRI

Enrollment limited to Barnard senior English majors with a concentration in creative writing.

This creative writing workshop represents an opportunity for creative writing concentrators to focus on one large project that will serve as a capstone senior project. As in a typical writing workshop, much of the focus will be on sharing and critiquing student work. Unlike other workshops, in this class students will focus on building out a longer project—such as a more ambitious full-length story for fiction and creative nonfiction writers and a chapbook for poets. This means students will discuss work by writers who may not share their own genre. We will focus on generating new work, developing your writing process, and creating new possibilities and momentum for your piece, as well as trying to create a sense of community among the concentrators. We will also conduct in-class writing exercises in response to short reading assignments and class lectures. Students should be aware of two important notes: (1) This class is limited to senior English majors who have already been approved to be creative writing concentrators; and (2) this course fulfills the requirement for concentrators to finish a senior project, but not the academic senior seminar requirement. This class is about your own writing and that of your classmates. This class will be what you make of it!

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer F Boylan
  Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR IN ENGLISH

SR: SEM: HISTORIESOFBODY

Enrollment limited to Barnard senior English majors. To see the current course description for each section, visit the English Department website:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/senior-seminars

• R 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Ross T Hamilton
  CULPA: 25 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR IN ENGLISH

SR SEM: VICTORIAN&MODERN DRAMA

Enrollment limited to Barnard senior English majors. To see the current course description for each section, visit the English Department website:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/senior-seminars

• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Patricia D Denison
  CULPA: 10 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR IN ENGLISH

SR SEM:BLACK LIVES ENLGHT

Enrollment limited to Barnard senior English majors. To see the current course description for each section, visit the English Department website:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/senior-seminars

• R 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: James G Basker
  CULPA: 7 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR IN ENGLISH

SR SEM: 19TH-C AMER WOMEN WRIT

Enrollment limited to Barnard senior English majors. To see the current course description for each section, visit the English Department website:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/senior-seminars

• M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Lisa Gordis
  CULPA: 15 Info
• 4 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

INDEPENDENT STUDY: CREAT WRIT

Application required:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/independent-studies
. Senior majors who wish to substitute Independent Study for one of the two required senior seminars should consult the chair. Permission is given rarely and only to students who present a clear and well-defined topic of study, who have a department sponsor, and who submit their proposals well in advance of the semester in which they will register. There is no independent study for screenwriting or film production.

• Instructor: Vrinda Condillac
  CULPA: 28 Info
• 4 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

INDEPENDENT STUDY: ENGLISH

Application required:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/independent-studies
. Senior majors who wish to substitute Independent Study for one of the two required senior seminars should consult the chair. Permission is given rarely and only to students who present a clear and well-defined topic of study, who have a department sponsor, and who submit their proposals well in advance of the semester in which they will register. There is no independent study for screenwriting or film production.

• Instructor: Jhumpa Lahiri
  Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Application required:
https://english.barnard.edu/english/independent-studies
. Senior majors who wish to substitute Independent Study for one of the two required senior seminars should consult the chair. Permission is given rarely and only to students who present a clear and well-defined topic of study, who have a department sponsor, and who submit their proposals well in advance of the semester in which they will register. There is no independent study for screenwriting or film production.

• Instructor: Christopher C Baswell
  CULPA: 8 Info
• Instructor: Patricia S Jones
  Info
• 1-4 points