Courses in Literature

REQUIRED & CORE COURSES IN LITERATURE

Lit 101 Introduction to Classical and Medieval Literature
Examines epic, lyric poetry, drama, and prose writing from these periods. texts may include homer’s The Odyssey, Virgil’s The Aeneid, Dante’s The Divine Comedy, as well as both classical and medieval dramas. Students will learn about literary genre and worldview, and begin to develop critical reading and essay writing skills.

Lit 200: Renaissance and Enlightenment Literature
Explores the phenomena of courtly love and metaphysical poetry; studies the development of christian humanism; examines English Renaissance drama; introduces the study of Renaissance political leadership; includes an introduction to early enlightenment writers. Authors may include Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Cervantes, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Milton, Swift, and Pope.

Lit 300 Romanticism, Realism, and Modernism
Explores a variety of literary works from c. 1800 to the present, studying movements such as romanticism, realism, and modernism. Authors may include Wordsworth, Keats, Hopkins, Dickens, Ibsen, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Camus, and Achebe.

ELECTIVE COURSES IN LITERATURE

Eng 101 introduction to Literature: Poetry and Short Stories
An introduction to literature through the study of short poems and stories. Students will be given instruction and practice in the writing of critical essays.

Lit 320 Minority voices: Narratives of Justice by Non-European Writers
Studies novels written by authors who are part of minorities in the West or who are living in developing countries. Deals with the struggle of individuals to voice the power inequities that they experience as members of minority groups. Authors may include Chinua Achebe, Beatrice Culleton, Arhundati Roy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Azar Nafisi, and Khaled Hosseini.

Lit 327 Environmental Literature
Exposes students to a wide variety of literature written about the environment, drawing largely from literary traditions. Ranging from the American transcendentalism of the early 19th century to the highly politicized contemporary writers of fiction and nonfiction, these texts are united by a focus on the natural world and our place in relationship to it. In response to per- sonal experience, contemporary issues, and a vast array of readings, students will be asked to explore creative nature writing, write analytical responses to texts, make presentations, lead class discussions, and finally write and present a review of an additional text or film, drawing a conclusion that focuses on human action in the face of a growing environmental crisis. Authors may include Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Dillard, Berry, Kingsolver, Abbey, and Atwood.

Lit 330 Literature of the American South
Explores literature written in and about the American South, concentrating on literature written from 1865 to the present. Includes Twain, Faulkner and Morrison and studies in detail the works of Flannery O’Connor. Focuses on discussions of the use of fiction to explore faith, culture, race and class; the use of the grotesque; and Christian aesthetics.

Lit 331 Early American Literature
This course will begin by seeking to trace the beginning strands – European, African, Native American - that will eventually be woven together into a “national” literature. The primary focus, however, will be on the literature of the 1800s through a selection of poetry, slave narratives, short fiction and a novel. As European settlement expands and becomes more permanent, and as the African community begins to experience slow emancipation, a distinctly American literary culture emerges. One of the themes will be the many ways that romanticism is manifested in American literature.

Lit 340 Shakespeare
Examines a selection of plays, varying according to choice of emphasis on either Shakespeare’s comic vision or tragic vision, or on Shakespeare as an interpreter of history.

Lit 345 Study of Poetry
Examines the art of poetry from its inception in oral culture to its written form in contemporary culture, ranging from early epics and lyrics to elaborate and highly formal literary traditions to recent experiments in music and the spoken word. Through creative writing experiments, seminars, reflective pieces and formal essays, students will study a variety of forms of human expression, tracing historical and artistic movements. Writers may include Sappho, Dante, Chaucer, Donne, Dickinson, Hopkins, Eliot, Clarke and Neruda.

Lit 355 20th C. New Mythologies
Explores literature of the 20th C which probes ancient themes, archetypes and the human condition through the creation of new mythologies. Investigates ways in which traditional narrative patterns come alive when juxtaposed with new theoretical contexts and contemporary relational issues.

Lit 361 Writing by Women
Studies the history of writing by women by exploring the historical, cultural and sociological place of women in a variety of eras and nations. Examines the roles of women and women’s self-perception as expressed in a selection of literary texts. Texts may include Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Lit 365 Global Short Fiction
Provides an overview of fictional short stories from various countries in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia; examines the current political, economic and cultural context of each country and how a piece of literature has influenced (and been influenced by) a particular period in world history. Through research- ing the current and historical situations of various countries, studying a sampling of the fictional literature created in these nations and discussing issues of gender, race, origin of birth, economic standing, etc., students will gain new insight into literature from around the globe.

Lit 370 Canadian Literature
Studies a variety of genres of post-Confederation Canadian literature: authors may include Roberts. Carman, Ross, Carrier, Atwood, Munro, Findley, MacLeod and Clarke.

Lit 375 Literary Theory
Designed as an overview of the historical developments in theoretical debates regarding literature, language, literariness and reading, this course begins with early forms of literary criticism in ancient Greece, briefly explores major theoretical positions throughout Western literary history, and spends considerable time exploring and evaluating the main literary theories and theoreticians that developed in the 20th century and dominate contemporary debates. Course objectives include achieving a comprehensive knowledge of the theories that have significantly shaped literary studies and achieving a greater understanding of the personal preferences, experiences, attitudes and ideologies that shape a student’s own reading.

Lit 390: European Myth and Legend: Contemporary Responses to Ancient Stories
Examines the foundations of mythology and legends of Western Europe, beginning with stories of ancient Greece and Rome through to the Arthurian legends of the middle ages, questions the role of mythology in culture and our understanding of meaning and human behaviour, and explores contemporary explorations of these issues through a revival and reinterpretation of classic narratives. Texts include Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth, Baricco’s An Iliad, Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and White’s The Once and Future King. Students will write essays, participate in a series of lectures and group discussions, and make cultural observations about the place of myth and story, prior to departure and continuing throughout the Europe travel-abroad semester.

Lit 440 Creative Writing Seminar
Acknowledging that musicians practice scales daily, that artists begin by imitating works of art that are universally recognized, apprentice writers agreed that a “habit” of writing is important. Students in this upper level creative writing seminar will become some of the tools that are available to writers and will practice a variety of writing forms so that they become familiar with the possibilities of expression.

Lit 455 Directed Reading
Selected topics.

Lit 460 Postmodernism
A seminar course that explores the intellectual and cultural transition named “postmodernism,” in philosophy, literature and film.

Lit 465 Seminar
Analyzes popular culture in North America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Begins with the study of theory and history, and then explores various areas of popular culture and particularly the way it is expressed in various forms of literature and media.

Lit 470 Scope and Methods Seminar
Familiarizes students with the process of research and writing theses. Fosters reflection on the various methods employed in academic research in view of the need for upper-level students to integrate their previous learning in the various disciplines as well as hone their skills for writing their theses.

Lit 490 Thesis Reading and Research
The research portion of the baccalaureate thesis project in Literature. By the end of the term, each student will submit to the instructor: (1) an annotated bibliography of the secondary material relevant to the thesis, (2) an 8- to 10-page paper related to some aspect of the material examined during the bibliographical search, and (3) a detailed outline of the thesis.

Lit 493 Baccalaureate Thesis
Following successful completion of Lit 490, a student may use the research to write a thesis of at least 15,000 words (exclusive of footnotes and bibliography). The thesis should demonstrate thoughtful appraisal and the ability to present a scholarly argument, and should reflect the ethos of SSU in a substantial way. At the conclusion of the term, students will be required to make oral presentations based on their theses.