ENG 140 Reading Literature is a required foundation course in the English major that satisfies the General Education Cultural Interpretation requirement. It emphasizes close reading of texts from different historical periods and introduces students to literary conventions and terminology as well as to library and Internet resources available for research. It is a prerequisite for ENG 245 and all other 200-level and higher courses. This course does not count as credit toward the English major.
In this class, we’ll learn the mechanics of literary analysis through familiarization with library resources and deep close reading. To achieve these results, we’ll take a ghastly tour through some of literary history’s major revenge texts. Our tour begins with early canonical revenge plays by Seneca and Shakespeare. Then, we’ll proceed to the 19th century, exploring how authors including Shelley and Poe adapted elements of the revenge story to shape the Gothic. Finally, we’ll end with diverse 20th and 21st century texts that further adapt and amalgamate revenge tropes in various ways. By the end of class, you’ll understand that revenge narratives often interrogate systems of justice. Specifically, they depict instances of vigilantism to mark points of inequity and corruption perverting the system. We’ll explore this concept and its offshoots through work that prepares you for the English major, including note-taking exercises that set the foundation for three major essays. Be prepared to read . . . or else! Muahaha!
TEXTS: In addition to shorter works posted on Brightspace, course texts will include the Penguin Classics edition of Phaedra and Other Plays (edited by R. Scott Smith), the Penguin Classics edition of Five Revenge Tragedies (edited by Emma Smith), the Broadview edition of Shelley’s Frankenstein (edited by MacDonald and Scherf), and Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
ASSESSMENT: 3-4 essays of 5-8 pages and an end-of-semester multimedia presentation that combines design software with class reflection
This course will introduce students to a wide range of literary terminology, close reading skills, and the art of literary analysis and research. Reading texts from different historical periods, we will consider major concepts and questions, including the following: What is literature? Why do we read it? What is literary history? Why do we talk about literary “periods”? How are literature and history intertwined? How are film and literature related? We will focus on the treatment of the “supernatural” and “horror” in literature and film from the Renaissance to the present, with particular emphasis on ghosts, witches, and demons. Oral
participation is a must, including group work on a podcast that will be shared as work in progress as the semester progresses and as a final project by the end of the semester.
Texts will include the following: William Shakespeare, Macbeth (along with film adaptations); 19th century ghost stories (Henry James, Le Fanu, Edgar Allen Poe, etc.); stories by H.P. Lovecraft (TBD); over two dozen poems from classical antiquity to the present; Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House; Stanley Kubrick, The Shining (Stephen King’s novel recommended)
ASSESSMENT: class participation, two major essays, quizzes, and podcasts
This course is an introduction to the principles and practices of writing fiction and poetry; other genres may be added at the discretion of the instructor. Students will be exposed to a variety of writing modes through exercises and engagement with literary texts. Emphasis is on using imaginative and precise language, on developing critical skills through workshops, and on assembling a portfolio of revised student writing.
Fulfills Elective Requirement
Fulfills the General Education Creative Expression Requirement
NOTE: ENG 201 does not satisfy the English Major Writing Requirement.
| Professor | |||
| Bendzela | MW | 9:30 – 10:45 | Gorham |
| Bendzela | MW | 12:30 – 1:45 | Gorham |
| Cheung | TR | 11:00 – 12:15 | Gorham |
| Cheung | TR | 12:30 – 1:45 | Gorham |
| Kelly | Online | ||
| Menting | MW | 12:30-1:45 | Portland |
| Sruoginis | Online (2 sections) |
Fulfills Elective Requirement
Fulfills the General Education Engaged Learning Requirement
Foundation Course in Public and Professional Writing Minor/Certificate
NOTE: ENG 204 does not satisfy the English Major Writing Requirement.
Knowing how to write, revise, and shape sentences will help you negotiate the varied writing contexts you will encounter as a student and as a professional. You can use this knowledge to shape your style according to audience and genre, so that your sentences contribute to clear, effective communication. Being able to identify and manipulate sentence structures and types will prepare you for new writing situations that call for particular styles of writing.
TEXTS: In this participation-driven course, we will collaboratively examine the contexts for and rhetorical dimensions of a range of professional and technical documents. Some of these will be published examples assigned in class, while the others will be the work you produce throughout the semester. Additional readings and resources on technical and professional writing will also be assigned.
ASSESSMENT will be based on weekly assignments, unit project portfolios, and contribution to in-class discussion and peer review.
Fulfills Elective Requirement
Foundation Course in Public and Professional Writing Minor/Certificate
Fulfills the General Education WRI 3 Requirement
NOTE: ENG 205 does not satisfy the English Major Writing Requirement.
Knowing how to write, revise, and shape sentences will help you negotiate the varied writing contexts you will encounter as a student and as a professional. You can use this knowledge to shape your style according to audience and genre, so that your sentences contribute to clear, effective communication. Being able to identify and manipulate sentence structures and types will prepare you for new writing situations that call for particular styles of writing.
TEXTS: Bacon, Nora, The Well-Crafted Sentence: A Writer’s Guide to Style, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013; Hacker, Diana, A Writer’s Reference, 10th Ed. New York and Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2021. [An earlier edition from College Writing or another course will serve for this class.] Other readings will be available on Brightspace.
ASSESSMENT: frequent quizzes, style imitation exercises, personal style reflection, genre exercises
ENG 220 World Masterpieces I is a required course in the English major that will cover the major works of Western and non-Western literature from the classical, medieval, and early modern eras and provide an historical foundation for subsequent coursework in literature and theory.
Fulfills Elective Requirement (Requirement Term Spring 2015 or prior)
Fulfills English Major Requirement (Requirement Term Fall 2015 or later)
In this course, we will read a selection of the most influential and interesting works of western writing from the ancient, classical, and medieval eras. Texts to be considered will be drawn from religious writing, epic and lyric poetry, short fiction and travel narrative. Readings will be drawn from ancient lyric poetry, the epic traditions of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey, religious writings from the Bible, St. Augustine’s Confessions, and the Qur’an, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The course will emphasize the continuity of these early figurative forms in literary history in the emergence of English literature.
TEXTS: Readings may include The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, The Canterbury Tales, and selections from the Bible and the Qur’an.
ASSESSMENT: four response papers (two to three pages) and two five-page essays
We will examine many of the genres associated with the ancient world—epic and lyrical poetry, tragedies and comedies—as well as some of the philosophical, spiritual, and critical texts from the period. Lectures and discussions will emphasize the cultural context in which the works of literature were produced with special emphasis placed on material culture—visual art and the built environment.
TEXTS: A Norton anthology and some supplemental works placed on electronic reserve.
ASSESSMENT: two exams; two papers; weekly reading quizzes
This course must be taken early in the major. It introduces students to the terminologies, methodologies, and writing strategies necessary to pursue a major in English. Through readings of both critical essays and literary works, we will study and compare a variety of critical and theoretical approaches to textual analysis and explore the relationships between literature and culture. There will be a strong emphasis on writing assignments that teach skills necessary both for effective critical thinking and for writing advanced literary analysis. The course also includes a research component. ENG 245 is a prerequisite or corequisite for all ENG 300- and 400-level courses except for ENG 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, and 308. Ideally, you should take this course with other 200-level major requirements, such as ENG 220 World Masterpieces.
This course introduces students to the practical methods and procedures of literary research and interpretation and the techniques of effective critical writing. It also familiarizes them with several significant theoretical and pedagogical approaches to literary and cultural studies and demonstrates how these critical approaches can be applied in literary interpretation. We will read and discuss a number of literary works from a variety of periods, but there will also be a strong emphasis on writing.
TEXTS: M.H. Abram’s A Glossary of Literary Terms; Stevens and Stewart’s A Guide to Literary Criticism and Research; Shelley’s Frankenstein (Bedford/St. Martin’s); and DiYanni’s Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay
ASSESSMENT: four short (2-3 pages) papers and two 5-page papers
This course teaches students advanced critical writing skills, guides them in learning sophisticated concepts of literary and cultural theory, and introduces them to the kinds of interpretative methods and practices they can expect to encounter in advanced 300-level English courses.
TEXTS: Shakespeare, Macbeth; and several selected short stories and essays dealing with such topics as apartheid and South African fiction
ASSESSMENT: a combination of quizzes, short and long papers, and exams
Prerequisite: ENG 201
Fulfills Writing Requirement
Fulfills the General Education Creative Expression Requirement
Using the work of recognized masters as a guide, we will apprentice ourselves to the craft of fiction writing. In small groups and as a class, we will complete writing exercises and share the results. Finally, we will use the workshopping process to evaluate our own short story drafts, to guide revisions, and to further hone our analytic abilities. Lectures will address writing process, revision, and fiction theory.
TEXT: The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners, edited by Amor Towles
ASSESSMENT:
(1) Weekly writing assignments (2-3 pages)
(2) We will workshop two significant (at least 14-page) story drafts.
(3) Students will write a 1-page letter to their peers in response to each workshopped piece.
(4) A final portfolio containing revisions of one workshopped piece as well as one shorter assignment.
(5) Class participation
Prerequisite: ENG 201
Fulfills Writing Requirement
Fulfills the General Education Creative Expression Requirement
This course is designed to acquaint students with the basic elements of poetry writing. We will function as a workshop in which each student submits poems to the class as a whole for comment and critique. Emphasis will be on the imitation of contemporary writers, exercises that stress the elements of poetry, and the development of personal approaches.
TEXTS: Behn and Twichell, eds., The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach; Ramazani, Ellman, and O’Clair, eds., The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Vol. 2; handouts on poetics
ASSESSMENT: comments/critiques of classmates’ poems, class participation, exercises, final portfolio
Prerequisite: ENG 300 or instructor’s permission
Fulfills Writing Requirement
Fulfills the General Education Creative Expression Requirement
This is a writing intensive workshop class for fiction students. In addition to reading and discussing published stories, students will be writing and revising two longer works of their own. Over the course of the semester, students can expect to write and revise more than thirty pages of fiction.
TEXT: handouts provided by the instructor
ASSESSMENT: class attendance, participation, peer critiques, writing assignments and subsequent revisions
Fulfills Writing Requirement (Requirement Term Summer 2021 or earlier)
Fulfills NEW ENG 305 Requirement (Requirement Term Fall 2021 or later)
Fulfills the General Education WRI 3 Requirement
This course enables students to strengthen writing skills at the sentence-level and to develop a theoretical grasp of rhetoric, syntax, and style as a basis for editing and revision. We will focus on sentence-level writing as a specific skill and as the foundation for larger structures, developing knowledge of theory and style as well as expertise in editing. This course aims to conceptualize writing as form, skill, and convention as well as an iterative process. Specifically we will work on the following objectives: 1) to understand syntax as rhetoric, that is, to see grammar and sentence-level writing as central to meaning rather than as arbitrary rules, 2) to develop an understanding of grammar and syntax as a range of choices to cultivate style, 3) to understand these choices as possibilities for meaning rather than as a way of avoiding error, and 4) to use these skills to write rhetorically effective prose.
TEXTS: Virginia Tufte, Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Graphics Press); Aristotle, The Rhetoric and Poetics of Aristotle (Modern Library); Plato, Gorgias (Oxford World’s Classics); Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference (any edition); additional readings to be uploaded to Brightspace
ASSESSMENT: short assignments, quizzes, class participation, and three essays
Fulfills Elective Requirement
The Anglo-American ghost story emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19th century and reached its zenith in the Victorian era, where it became one of the (if not the) most popular literary forms in the period. Our topics will include the development of the ghost story as a distinct genre; ghost stories and the representation of gender; women writers and the ghost story; literary ghosts and cultural ideals of male friendship (especially as those ideals are defined in relation to the social institutions of work, business, and empire).
TEXTS: Novels and short stories by, among others, Scott, Gaskell, Le Fanu, Dickens, Bierce, James, Kipling, Wharton, and Jackson.
ASSESSMENT: a combination of in-class writing, quizzes, short and long papers, and exams
Fulfills Criticism and Theory Requirement
Fulfills General Education Culture, Power, & Equity/Diversity Requirement
This course introduces you to major schools of literary criticism and theory spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. They include structuralism, psychoanalytic theory, deconstruction, feminist theory, Marxist criticism, cultural criticism, posthumanism, and the digital humanities. By studying the differences between criticism and theory, we can develop theory-informed criticism and theoretical analyses of socio-cultural formations that influence ideas and attitudes towards taste, aesthetic judgement, and cultural critique.
Learning outcomes:
a) Develop strong familiarity with various schools of criticism and theory
b) Study literature as a work of art in itself and a cultural product using a range of methods and approaches c) Understanding the core assumptions about art and experience within each theory and the limitations and advantages vis-à-vis other theories
d) Analyze literary works and genres according to principles established in the theories studied
e) Demonstrate (in writing and class discussions) clarity, complexity, interpretive insight, and the ability to work with conflicting ideas to develop your own ideas
TEXTS: Julie Rivkin’s Literary Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies) 3rd edition; Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today, 3rd edition; Other selections will be available via Electronic Reserves or on Brightspace.
ASSESSMENT: two 5-page essays, final 7-8 page paper, weekly written responses to prompts, regular class discussion
Fulfills Criticism and Theory Requirement (Requirement Term Summer 2021 or earlier)
Fulfills NEW Interdisciplinary and Cultural Studies Requirement (Requirement Term Fall 2021 or later)
Students will read many of the major writers of the structuralist and post-structuralist movement from about 1960 to 1990, in addition to considering some of the European intellectual backgrounds that shaped them. We will approach this movement by thinking about language and textuality, subject formation and discursive practice, and consider the literary, ethical, and religious writing that emerged from it. The class will read selections from important works by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, René Girard, and Emmanuel Levinas. We will contextualize these theorists with older nineteenth and twentieth century sources (by Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Saussure, Durkheim, and Freud), and consider the important theories that emerged in their wake (from Deleuze, Kristeva, and Irigaray).
TEXTS: All reading will be available on Brightspace.
ASSESSMENT: four short (5-6 page) papers and one structured discussion lead assignment
Fulfills Interdisciplinary and Cultural Studies Requirement
What is the connection between place and culture? Is culture a purely mental construct? How does geography influence cultural formation? A country denotes a physical space, the nation an imagined community. How do nations and countries, culture and place, overlap?
In American Nations, Colin Woodard argues that American culture is not a homogenous whole, because its national culture is made up of eleven diverse cultures linked to geographies that cross national boundaries. What, then, makes American culture unique such that it appeals to millions around the world? How does a focus on place alter our understanding of American history and its global role today?
Taking its cues from Woodard, the course begins with two texts from the 19th century: one, a Norwegian novel about American frontier experience (O.E. Rølvaag’s Giants in the Earth); the other, a slave narrative about southern US culture (Harriet Jacobs’ Life of a Slave Girl). Shifting to the 20th century, we will read about the great migration from south to north at the turn of the century, and the emergence of the blues as a musical genre imbued with Black traditions in August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; we will consider Appalachian culture in J.D. Vance’s HillBilly Elegy. We will also learn, in Roberta Fernandez’s Intaglio: A Novel in Six Stories, about the enduring presence of Amerindian cultures in the US-Mexico borderlands, spaces that cross national borders. The course ends with a focus on digital culture’s influence on place, identity, and community in America.
This course teaches cultural criticism as a distinctive interdisciplinary study of human behavior, a study that draws on geography, literature, history, political science, and cultural studies.
Learning Goals:
o Understand culture as an analytical category and field of inquiry
o Learn the different approaches to cultural analysis in sociology, anthropology, history, and literature
o Study and apply the concept of cultural geography
o Critique rigid, homogenous racial codes to explain variable social and cultural behavior
o Understand how knowledge and power overlap, with subtle cultural gradations of influence, control, and domination
o Examine how digital technologies are changing communicative practices and cultural interaction
o Generate thesis-driven writing that incorporates research
o Engage in writing and content creation as revisionary, recursive practices
o Consistently use a documentation format and create a bibliography
TEXTS: Colin Woodard’s American Nations, O.E. Rølvaag’s Giants in the Earth, Harriet Jacobs’ Life of a Slave Girl, August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, J.D. Vance’s HillBilly Elegy, Roberta Fernandez’s Intaglio: A Novel in Six Stories. Other assigned readings will be available at Ares Electronic Reserves or at the course’s Brightspace site.
ASSESSMENT: three term papers, reflection papers, and class participation
Fulfills Historical Period Courses Before 1800 Requirement
In this course, we will discuss the language, dramatic forms, themes, and characters in plays and poems from different periods of Shakespeare’s career. We will attend to the historical context of his work and make use of a variety of critical theories that address issues of class, gender, sexuality, and race.
TEXTS: Richard III, Hamlet, As You Like It, King Lear, the Tempest, and a Shakespeare “companion” of some kind
ASSESSMENT: class participation, three essays, and a final exam
Fulfills Historical Period Courses Before 1800 Requirement
What is the New World? What historical events unfolded that led to the rise of the New World and changed the course of world history and culture? This course will study travel writing about the exploration and settlement of the New World. It re-imagines the New World as frontier zones of contact; in these zones, peoples and cultures meet, interact, collide, cross-pollinate, and engender new identities, histories, and habits of being. We will study the pictorial, graphic, and textual forms and narratives concerning the discovery of new worlds in the Americas. We will begin with the Viking Sagas of Erik the Red and Leif Erickson, which predate Columbus’ American journeys by several hundred years and set the critical and methodological framework to examine voyagers, including Columbus, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Jean de Léry, Bartolome de las Casas, and writers like Guaman Poma de Ayala and Olafur Egilson, and modern writers like Carlos Fuentes’s creative revisionary narratives about Old World-New World contact.
A unique and exciting feature of this course is multimodality: students will use digital tools to generate content that includes images, videos, text, etc. The focus will be on learning to think as writers and designers; we will do traditional humanities research while using digital tools creatively to enhance our work. We will learn essential concepts of multimodal theory and use digital tools like WordPress, Tumblr, Instagram, iMovie, and StoryMap, among others. No advanced skills necessary.
TEXTS: John Gillis’ The Human Shore; Christopher Columbus’ Letters; Hernan Cortes’ Letters; The Saga of the Greenlanders; Erik the Red’s Saga; Ari Þorgilson’s Íslendigabók; Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s The Conquest of New Spain; Jean de Léry’s Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Otherwise called America; Guaman Poma de Ayala’s New Chronicle and Good Government; Ólafur Egilson’s The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilson.
ASSESSMENT: several writing responses to the readings; active class participation; using digital tools to create projects; writing analytical, research-driven essays; using materials from the Osher Map Library on the Portland campus: learn about New World cartography and incorporate Osher library materials into multimodal class projects
Fulfills Historical Period Courses After 1800 Requirement
This course examines the profound influence Milton’s Paradise Lost had on Romantic writing, and how in turn Romantic writers reinterpret and revise Milton. In the era of the French Revolution, Romantic writers transform Milton’s conflicted epic of religious orthodoxy into a story of rebellion and resistance. In addition to Paradise Lost, the primary focus will be on various works by Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, and Percy Shelley, along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
TEXTS: Milton, Paradise Lost; The Longman Anthology of Romantic Writing; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
ASSESSMENT: a combination of quizzes, exams, short exercise papers, and longer papers
Fulfills Historical Period Courses After 1800 Requirement
This class will focus on the literature and culture at the close of the Victorian period. The core of the course will be an attempt to come to terms with the career of the era’s most famous and notorious personality, Oscar Wilde. We will look not only at the influences on Wilde himself—Pater’s The Renaissance and Huysmans’ Against Nature, for example—but also at Wilde’s attempt at a self-conscious transformation of Victorian ideals into the “decadent” or “mauve” atmosphere with which his century ends. We will cover all of Wilde’s major types of writing—critical dialogues, social comedies, fiction, and poetry. In addition to Wilde, we will also consider works that may have been written in response to Wilde’s infamous series of trials in 1895 for homosexuality such as Stoker’s Dracula and H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, as well as works published at the time of the trials that deal with some of the same issues of gender and class. We will end with a discussion of Wilde’s legacy in the 20th and 21st centuries.
TEXTS: Karl Beckson, ed., Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Bram Stoker, Dracula; Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Soul of Man; H.G. Wells, The Time Machine; R.L. Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; chapters, essays, and novel excerpts on reserve
ASSESSMENT: midterm and final exams; a research paper; and creating questions for a class discussion
Students work one-on-one with an advisor to complete a thesis comparable to an MFA application portfolio. Typically, students revise 10 to 15 poems or 25 to 40 pages of fiction. May be completed concurrently with second workshop course.
Must be completed for student to receive Creative Writing Minor.
Prerequisite: ENG 302, 303, 304, or 306
Requires: Permission of Advisor
Fulfills Elective Requirement
Fulfills the General Education Engaged Learning Requirement
Fulfills Public and Professional Writing Minor Elective
This internship is an opportunity for qualified English majors to gain experience in professional writing outside the classroom. Duties may include researching, drafting, and editing articles or press releases while learning other technical aspects of professional writing. Students have held internships with businesses, non-profits, and a wide variety of publishers, including Alice James Books, The Bangor Daily News, The Gorham Times, and many others.
PREREQUISITES: Serious interest in professional writing and an application filed with the Coordinator of Internships are required. Guidelines for the application are on the Department’s website or in hard copy in the English department office. The application should be submitted to the Coordinator during pre-registration, or, at the latest, before the end of the current semester.
ASSESSMENT: Completion of the semester’s work at internship site. An internship report supported by published work of the semester is required for a Pass/Fail grade. Guidelines for the final report are available from the Coordinator.
A seminar is a small class (limit of 15 students) designed to encourage independent thinking, intensive student participation, and in-depth research on topics of the student’s choice related to the seminar topic. Typically, seminars allow a professor to teach a focused subject of special interest, one on which the professor has done recent research and/or scholarly writing.
Fulfills Capstone Seminar or Historical Before 1800 Requirement
As new, fascinating research on animals has flooded the book market and altered scientific thinking in universities, scholars in the humanities have come to realize that we, too, need to rethink many of our basic assumptions. Interdisciplinary fields such as animal studies, ecocriticism, and posthumanism have presented us with new ways of thinking about nature and culture. This course will introduce students to recent work in critical animal theory and ecocriticism, asking them to consider how this current work might respond to, or potentially be transformed by, the culture of the Renaissance. Which animals do/did we care about the most? Why? How do/did we conceive of the connections among humans, plants, minerals, and the elements? How do/did we conceive of animal subjectivities? Animal Emotions? Animal suffering? The human/animal divide? Examining the representations of animals in a wide range of genres, we will consider the variety of ways we have tried to understand ourselves as animals and our successes and failures in trying to better understand the sentience of nonhuman animals. We will look at how humans’ view of animals has changed over the last six hundred years or so and how environmental and other ethical concerns in the present are being addressed and/or ignored in universities and popular culture. Every unit on the Renaissance will be paired with a major contemporary text from current work in animal studies and ecocriticism as we move back and forth between the past and present.
TEXTS: Authors covered will include the following: Erasmus, Shakespeare, Haraway, Coetzee, Marvell, Montaigne, Derrida, Cavendish, Donne, Descartes.
ASSESSMENT: class participation, major research essay, short essays, quizzes
Fulfills Capstone Seminar or Elective Requirement
Originally developed in German literature, the novel of self-development or Bildungsroman depicts the process of inner development of a young man from adolescence to adulthood through his quest to attain personal culture. This seminar will investigate the change the idea of Bildung underwent in the hands of two authors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in their adaptation of the original form. It will also include discussions about the difficulties women experienced in their own quest for development in the 19th century. The discussion will focus on Goethe’s original concept of Bildung as a unifying model of self-development for an upwardly-mobile middle class, and how that model becomes increasingly untenable by the end of the century. Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain has been referred to as an “anti-bildungsroman,” or a novel of self-education that represents the death of an essentially bourgeois Bildungsideal after World War I. In our discussions we will treat various aspects of human self-development—love, work, family life, social status—in relation to topics as diverse as initiation rites, physiognomy, secret and utopian societies, craftsmanship, popular culture, exteriority, and the human face. We will consider whether Goethe’s concept of culture and self-development can still be used as a critical lens through which readers can re-examine their own cultural assumptions and “rethink” the choices they have before them.
TEXTS: Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship; parts of Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years; and Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
ASSESSMENT: two 5-page papers, one annotated bibliography, and one 18-20 page research paper