We'll be taking time in this seminar to look patiently and deeply into just three of Shakespeare's most complex plays, Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, paying close attention to their language, dramatic structure, and play of character, investigating as well their literary sources, the theatrical world in which they emerged, how they have been performed, and some of the multiplicity of critical interpretations that they've given rise to. Students will be encouraged to develop their own research projects in the course of the semester. Enrollment limit 16. Permission of the instructor required. Open to all interested students, but with preference given to junior and senior English literature majors, for whom an Advanced Seminar is a major requirement.
This course examines major critical issues surrounding the horror genre, through close study of Classical Hollywood, post-Classical, and international horror films, and readings in critical theory. Issues to be explored include boundary transgression and bodily abjection in the construction of the horror monster; gender, pregnancy, and the "monstrous feminine"; social Otherness (race, class, sexuality) as monstrosity; the figure of the serial killer and the shift from classic to modern horror; the grotesque and the blending of comedy and horror in the zombie film; international horror (especially Japan) and cross-cultural influences with Hollywood. As a research seminar, the course will involve the development of a substantial research project. Enrollment limited to junior and senior English and FMS Majors. Contact Instructor at jason.middleton@rochester.edu for registration permission.
In this course we will read poems, plays, essays, and novels by Dante, Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, Andrew Marvell, D. G. Rossetti, Henry James, Marianne Moore, and T. S. Eliot. Eliot will provide the connective tissue: he wrote influentially about every writer we're reading, thereby creating the taste by which his own poems were judged and also formulating terms that shaped the entire enterprise of twentieth-century literary study. Requirements: two tests, three essays, participation in class discussions.
