| FYS I:The Rocky Childhood |
Liberal Arts |
1001 (033) |
Fall 2024 |
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Description
In this writing-intensive course, we'll read coming-of-age novels and memoirs from influential contemporary writers. Students will engage in close readings of texts that interrogate concepts of resilience, racism, and economic and class oppression as childhood struggles. Writers will include Jeannette Walls, Allison Bechdel, and Kiese Laymon. CONTENT WARNING: The content and discussion in this course will necessarily sometimes engage with issues of human suffering, including physical and sexual abuse. Students will write 15 to 20 pages of formal, revisable writing. In-class activities include peer review, workshopping, and free writing to generate paper topics, including a formal, argument-driven paper.
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Class Number
1467
Credits
3
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| FYS I:Irish Literature |
Liberal Arts |
1001 (041) |
Fall 2024 |
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Description
This course first explores the myths and folktales of pre-Christian Ireland. We read about dolmen and druids, Maeve, Queen of Connacht, Finn MacCool, Deirdre, and Cuichulain. How do battle-hungry, sexually-charged Celts compare to characters in James Joyce's Dubliners' Historical texts (including How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill) examine how the status of women changed after the arrival of Roman (vs. Celtic) Catholicism, the Book of Kells, and the long-term effects of the Great Famine on the Irish character. Contemporary fiction writers studied include, W.B. Yeats, Eavan Boland, Rosemary Mahoney, and postmodern favorite Flann O'Brien, among others, with a focus on the influence of Celtic myths on contemporary Irish life and writing.
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Class Number
1482
Credits
3
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| FYS II: Irish Rebels: 20th-21st century |
Liberal Arts |
1005 (019) |
Spring 2024 |
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Description
FYS II is the follow-up course to FYS I, where students develop their writing skills to include research and argumentation. In this class we’ll look at how the Irish fought to overthrow colonial rule in 1916-1922 and win the Irish War for Independence. We’ll learn about the Old I.R.A. as well as the Cumann na Ban, the women’s paramilitary that aided the guerilla fighters. In the second part of the course, we’ll examine the partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. With a deep dive into The Troubles, we’ll interrogate the weapons of terrorism as well as the nonviolent resistance of hunger strikes. We’ll examine all sides of the issues by reviewing poetry (Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland), political commentary and research (Fintan O’Toole and Patrick Radden Keefe), and contemporary short stories and creative nonfiction (Clare Keegan, Dioreen ni Grioffa). We’ll also unpack how current politics, especially Brexit and demographic changes, threaten to destabilize Northern Ireland. Through in-class writing exercises, drafting of papers, and mindful writing workshops, students will develop their writing and researching skills, with the creation of 20-25 pages of academic writing.
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Class Number
1571
Credits
3
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| FYS II: British Feminist Writers |
Liberal Arts |
1005 (021) |
Spring 2024 |
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Description
FYS II are theme-based writing courses designed for first-year students, with an emphasis on further developing the foundational writing skills students learned in FYS I. Students will continue to hone the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. While faculty have autonomy in determining course theme, the theme is an accessory to the writing; the balance in these classes is weighed toward explicit writing instruction and workshopping of student writing, not content. This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and argumentative essays, and must include the research paper. It is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which may involve searching for sources in a library or online, learning to make citations, and preparing an annotated bibliography. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing, and more sophisticated methods of argumentation and use of evidence and developing independent claims and ideas are explored. Students should expect to write 20-25 pages of formal, revisable writing across the course of the semester. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. In-class writing, short homework exercises, and workshopping of student work may be included. Individual meetings to discuss each student's papers should be expected.
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Class Number
1572
Credits
3
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| Cont Narr:Love Art/Hate Artist |
Liberal Arts |
3105 (001) |
Spring 2024 |
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Description
How do the biographical details of an artist's life influence our attitude toward their work? Should an artist's politics?both personal and public?influence our aesthetic response to the artwork itself? Or does a work of art become its own entity, detached from its creator? Perhaps, as the deconstructionists advocate, a text or image only bears an accidental relationship to the author's conscious intentions, and thus the creator is superfluous to the work itself. In this class, we study the lives and works of such artists as Chester Himes, J.D. Salinger, Patricia Highsmith, and Sylvia Plath, to examine why we tolerate some behaviors and abhor others. By reviewing biographies, journals, films, and the primary text or artwork itself, we wrestle with the question, is it possible to love the art when you hate/disapprove of/dislike the life the artist led? Students will write shared discussion pieces, a 8-10-page research paper on an artist of their choice, and participate in team debates. CONTENT WARNING: The content and discussion in this course will necessarily sometimes engage with issues of human suffering. Much of it will be emotionally and intellectually challenging to engage with, including graphic or intense content that discusses or represents racism, mental illness, and sexual or physical violence.
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Class Number
1579
Credits
3
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| LH:The Personal Essay |
Liberal Arts |
3190 (001) |
Fall 2024 |
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Description
Personal essayists, according to Philip Lopate, 'are adept at interrogating their own ignorance. Just as often as they tell us what they know, they ask at the beginning of an exploration of a problem what it is they don't know--and why.' In this course, we'll read many essays, including work from 10th-century Japan (Sei Shonagon), 16th-century France (Montaigne), and 21st-century America (Kiese Laymon). We'll explore the many forms a personal essay can take--lists, letters, traditional narrative--to see how writers explore topics that range from trauma to the quotidian concerns of meal prep. We'll discuss how nonfiction functions as an artform distinct from academic scholarship, yet how research elements can be integrated into the personal essay to add depth to a topic.
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Class Number
1656
Credits
3
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