Rutgers-Camden: Graduate Program in Liberal Studies

Classical Mythology
MALS Seminar
56:606:501:01
Cross-listed: 56:350:527:01
M 6:00 - 8:40PM
Professor Marie Cornelia
cornelia@camden.rutgers.edu

Classical mythology permeates the literature and art of western culture. This course will examine some of the major myths of the ancient world in an effort to understand their impact upon that world and our own. Using primarily the dramatic texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, as well as Homer's Odyssey and Ovid's Metamorphoses, we will study the Greek pantheon, heroes such as Odysseus, Agamemnon and Oedipus, and heroines such as Antigone, Iphigenia and Alcestis. We will also examine the way in which more modern writers such as Tennyson, Yeats and Auden have incorporated and transformed these myths in their poetry. A class presentation and a research paper are required.

The course introduces the students to the Ancient Egyptian civilization from the early Stone Age to their conquest by the Persians and Greeks. It gives a comprehensive historical account on the rise and fall of the Egyptian dynasties, analyzes archaeological and anthropological evidence, discusses religious, cultural and social patterns, and examines the earliest masterpieces of art and architecture in the Egyptian world. Credit by arrangement: 3 for just the course; 4.5 for the course plus trip.

This course covers the poetry and prose of England during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Our thematic focus will be on writers’ attempts to redefine the role of literature and the intellectual life during the first half century of industrialism. During this time, rapid shifts in England’s social structure and the nation’s quest for material gains prompted reassessments of the values that had previously formed the foundations of literary culture. In attempting to understand the nature and impact of these social and ideological reformations, we will explore the dialogues and arguments between and among poets and cultural critics, liberals and conservatives, scientists and humanists, men and women. Our authors include Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Ruskin, Mill, Emily Brontë, Harriet Martineau, Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, Hardy, and Yeats. Course requirements include an oral presentation, several short assignments, a mid-term paper, and a final research paper.

This course will address the growth and structure of the English language from its origins to the present, with attention to methods of linguistic description. In addition to more traditional historical linguistics (i.e. the effect of language change on the phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax of the language), we will devote considerable attention to socio-historical influences on the development of English, addressing, in particular, questions relating to authority in language: Standard vs. non-standard dialects of English, the rise of dictionary making, spelling reform movements, etc.
Course requirements: Midterm exam and course paper.
NOTE: *Please have the course syllabus, reading list, and other introductory handouts with you at the first class session. They will ONLY be available through Electronic Reserves (along with all outside readings) THEY WILL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED IN CLASS, so please come prepared!

This course will introduce students to the rich variety of Irish literature of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries: first (in Camden), with readings in fiction, drama, and poetry of the period; then (in Ireland), with explorations of the historical and the cultural traditions out of which this literature grew. We will study works by Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, Synge, Liam O'Flaherty, and Seamus Heaney, among others, and we will visit such sites as the ancient burial grounds at Carrowmore and the medieval monastery at Clonmacnoise, as well as many cultural sites in and around Dublin: the James Joyce Centre, Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Kilmainham Gaol. The tour will be divided between the East and the West of Ireland: between cosmopolitan Dublin, with its theatres and museums, and romantic Galway, including an overnight visit to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. Two days in Sligo, Yeats's summer haunt in his youthful days, will give students a sense of life in the Irish towns. Six Mondays TBA 2:50-5:10.
Cost and payment schedule TBA

This course will feature the poetry, fiction, and non-fiction of some of the most prominent—and some not so prominent—Amercian expatriate writers living in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. We will read and discuss in Camden the work of such authors as Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Djuna Barnes, Ezra Pound, and E. E. Cummings. In May (May 13-23) we will travel to Paris and get to know the writing at street-level, going on walking tours of the city. We will sit in the café where Hemingway composed one of his most famous short stories; we will visit the sites of some of the most modish expatriate salons; and we will see where some of these writers lived (many in Montparnasse) and are buried (in the cemetery Père Lachaise). Of course, we will also take in the cultural landscape of Paris more generally as it intersects with the work of these artists: the Eiffel Tower; the cathedral of Notre Dame; the Louvre; the Latin Quarter; the Moulin Rouge close to Montmartre; and some incredible public gardens. A short paper, an oral presentation, a reading journal, a final exam.

This couse will allow writers to explore the way location and landscape make their way into creative work. We’ll read some great contemporary fiction and nonfiction dealing with Paris in particular, including Adam Gopnick’s PARIS TO THE MOON and Deborah Eisenberg’s short stories. Then we’ll use the trip as a way of exploring the foreign landscape as the inspiration for our own work, especially involving the creation of the non-tourist experience. (Want to get mugged? Go breakdancing in the suburbs?) Note MFA students may take either the literature or writing segment of the course for credit. Course fulfills craft or elective components of MFA degree requirements.

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COURSE TITLE

DESCRIPTION

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL ERAS

STUDIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

STUDIES OF IDEAS

ARTS AND LITERATURE

POLITICS AND SOCIETY

INTERNATIONAL STUDY ABROAD

RESEARCH IN LIBERAL STUDIES

MATRICULATION CONTINUED