LIT 374-01 American Literature to 1800
Dr. Michele Tarter
May 26-June 10, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
There was so much happening in early America, and yet so very few people know about it. In the last few decades, scholars have unearthed tomes of manuscripts dating back to colonial times, and what they’ve found is both fascinating and disturbing. Join us as we look at life and culture in the colonies. We’ll begin with cross-cultural encounters, particularly when the Native American Indians welcomed European explorers and Puritan settlers to what is controversially called “The New World.” We’ll then turn to all forms of dissent literature evolving from this multicultural time period: Indian captivity narratives; witchcraft trial records; slave narratives; Quakers’ travel logs; women’s manuscript diaries and commonplace books; and female seduction novels at the heart of Revolutionary America. This body of material forms the foundation of any study on American culture, thought, and identity formation.
As a online learning course, we will utilize many of the newly digitized manuscripts and primary resources from research libraries around the world.
.
LIT 316-01 Global Women Writers
Professor Laura Neuman
June 15-July 16 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
This course will explore various literatures from around the world, encouraging students to examine the politics of gender, culture, and nation as well as the intersections of those systems of power. In exploring everything from arranged marriages to women in war, Global Women Writers will provide students – especially those students who have spent much of their lives within the borders of the U.S. – with one of the most challenging and rewarding courses of their college career. Common themes include feminist politics, post- and neo-colonialisms, reproductive rights, translation, globalization, and activism.
LIT 499-01 Seminar in Research and Theory: Narrative Theory
Dr. Felicia Jean Steele
June 15-August 6, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
*Please note this course meets for an extended semester*
This section will examine novels and post-novels that exemplify, complicate, or challenge two of Mikhail Bakhtin’s central contributions to narrative theory: heteroglossia and the chronotope. In addition to seminal texts in narrative theory, we will read novels (and texts that resist that label) that often manipulate dialects, narrative voices, perspectives, genres, or media. Our readings may include: Henry Roth, Call it Sleep; Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace; David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas; Alan Moore, Watchmen; Toni Morrison, Home; and Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad.
LIT 499-02 Seminar in Research and Theory: Utopia/Dystopia
Dr. Jean Graham
May 26-July 17, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
*Please note this course meets for an extended semester*
This seminar focuses on dystopian and utopian literature, including young adult (YA) novels. As dystopian and utopian literature both critique society, this focus will enable us to concentrate on cultural approaches to literature (e.g., gender, Marxist, critical race studies). With texts by Margaret Atwood and George Orwell (as well as young adult literature), this course is great for future teachers and any critical thinker in these precarious times.
Course syllabus: https://jeangraham.pages.tcnj.edu/lit-499-dystopia-and-utopia-summer-2020/
Graduate Level Summer Courses
ENGL 650 Early American Literature: American Literature to 1800
Dr. Michele Tarter
May 26-June 12, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format and is cross listed with LIT 374-01
ENGL 552 Thornton Wilder vs. Realism
Dr. Lincoln Konkle
June 15-July 16, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
In this seminar we will study Wilder’s full-length and short plays as part of the revolt against 19th- and early 20th-century realism on the stage. The goal is to write a research essay that could be submitted to the new Thornton Wilder Journal published by Penn State University Press. (The instructor is one of the journal editors and is willing to mentor interested students beyond the course through revision to publication.)
ENGL 670-01 Studies in Literature: Seminar in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Dr. Emily Meixner
June 15-July 16, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
This course will examine trends in the growing body of scholarship about children’s and young adult literature. From close readings to popular “radical histories” to theoretical explorations of “the dark fantastic,” students will have a chance to survey the current scholarly landscape — and contribute to it. Although we will be reading a few middle grade and young adult exemplars, our primary focus will be the scholarship itself: its subjects, its methods, its politics, and its impact.
ENGL 670-02 Studies in Literature: Ecofeminism and the Contemporary Novel
Dr. Jo Carney
July 20-August 21, 2020
This class meets in the online learning format.
The theoretical grounding for this seminar is ecofeminism, an approach that asks us to explore the intersection between environmentalism and gender criticism. Through this lens, we will read several recent novels that highlight these connections, including Kristen Arnett’s Mostly Dead Things; Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer; Han Kang’s The Vegetarian; Sophie Mackinstosh’s The Water Cure; and Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall,along with recent works of short fiction, poetry, and essays.