Themed Sections of Literature and Academic Writing

001, 050

In this course, we will explore how speculative fiction challenges what our culture tells us about ourselves and others. Using texts drawn primarily from science fiction and weird fiction, but also incorporating examples of horror and fantasy into our discussion, we will examine how the philosophical and political assumptions of our culture structure our beliefs about gender and sexuality, about race and class, and about language and intelligence. While we have this discussion, we will also note how these speculative forms of literature, like science itself, encourage a habit of mind which demands that we always question commonly accepted “truths” about the world around us.

The past year's pandemic has been shocking to many of us, but living through plague is an experience shared by many throughout history. In this class we will read the literature of contagion - short stories, poems, and novels about living in a time of plague, from the Black Death to the zombie apocalypse. Fear of contagion - both literal and metaphorical - is a primal emotion that has spurred human conflict, as well as human connections, throughout the centuries. Move from the Middle Ages to the late 21st century in this class as we explore experiences of the plague and contemplate our own experiences as well.

Hope and Adaptation in the Face of the Climate and Biodiversity Emergencies

Much of the creative response to the global climate and biodiversity crises has taken the form of works set in parched or flooded post-apocalyptic and dystopian landscapes. In this course, however, we will focus on novels, short stories, and other creative works that present not only hope for addressing the political and social divisions that are inhibiting change, but also visions of a world where the crises are gradually addressed and humanity flourishes. Our reading will culminate in the study of Kim Stanley Robinson’s immensely hopeful near-future work of science fiction The Ministry for the Future (2020).

Coming of Age

In this course, we’ll explore the elements of fiction through the study of short stories and novels. We will begin with the development of the modern short story, starting with a 19^th-century horror tale from Edgar Allan Poe and concluding with 21^st-century stories, including Twitter fiction. In the second part of the course, we’ll turn to coming-of-age novels to explore how contemporary authors working within this subgenre have innovated upon it to explore a wide range of ideas and concerns, from the connections of storytelling, memory, and identity, to social issues and bioethics. 

003, 004

Gender and Violence

In this course, we will read both classic and contemporary short stories and three recent novels that explore the relationships between gender and violence. The depictions of violence range from the realistic to the darkly comic. What can we learn about violence and gender when we look beyond the typical roles of male aggressor and female victim? (We’ll see those too). How do these authors explore the causes of violence? How does violence work as a way to claim or resist power? What do the stories tell us about trauma, survival and resilience? Note: The reading in this course contains scenes of violence, including sexual assault. Please feel free to email me if you would like more detail to decide whether this course is right for you.

This section can count as a relevant course in an Associate of Arts Specialization in Gender, Sexualities, and Women's Studies.

Nate Szymanski

005, 006

This course focuses on a) the techniques of reading fiction, in b) a selection of texts about animals. The texts, showcasing a variety of genres from various historical periods, include letters written by foxes, debates about bears, and a man who wakes up to realize he has somehow transformed into a bug.

Wilhelm Emilsson

001, 002

In this course, our reading of poetry will range from William Shakespeare to Bob Dylan. We will study two major 20th century plays, one classic detective novel, and one classic postmodernist novel. We will combine an analysis of literary texts with an appreciation of their cultural significance and aesthetic power.

Trish Matson

001

From the zany rhymes of Shel Silverstein, through the mastery of Shakespeare’s sonnets or the lyricism of Sarah McLachlan, poetry is what poet Rita Dove has called “language at its most distilled.” This course is designed to enrich your appreciation and understanding of this language; that is, we will focus very closely on how to read poetry—how to interpret, unpack or decode its language, style and form. We will practice these skills by reading/ analyzing a selection of some of the most notable English-language poets and poems of the twentieth century, and will conclude by focusing on contemporary Indigenous poet Rosanna Deerchild’s Calling Down the Sky, a collection of poems about her mother’s residential school experience.

001

The theatre stages a face-to-face encounter between two groups of strangers – performers and audience. At the level of the medium, then, is an interest in how we come to recognize and let others in. Theatre’s answer to how we do this is always the same: by attending to and empathizing with a polyphony of different voices. Indeed, many scholars have linked the emergence of the theatre to the emergence of democratic citizenship. In this course, we will read and analyze plays from different historical backgrounds, examining dialogue, characterization, and stagecraft. We will look specifically at how these plays represent characters who are strangers in order to speak to broader questions about what the theatre as an art form asks us to consider: how we, for better or for worse, belong to one another.

Current Events

Urban Livability

Wilhelm Emilsson

Learning, Thinking, Acting

The Pursuit of Happiness

Noëlle Phillips

Conspiracy Theories and Critical Thinking

040, 054, 057

Knowledge, Language, Education

The Natural Environment

090

This online course guides you through almost 1000 years of early British literature. We’ll start by reading Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon epic poem from the 700s that tells the story of a hero who fights a monster, its mother, and then finally a dragon. We’ll end by reading sections from another epic poem, John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Published in 1667, Milton's poem tells the story of Satan’s rebellion against God, his subsequent banishment to Hell, and his later corruption of Adam and Eve as an act of revenge against God and his creation. Other texts in this course include the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and William Shakespeare’s "Scottish play," Macbeth.