Close study of significant 20th-century poetry, drama, and prose works. Readings range from 1920s to the present.

Requisites: Restricted to students with 27-180 credits (Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors) only.
Additional Information:Arts Sci Core Curr: Literature and the Arts
Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities
Departmental Category: General Literature and Language

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Maymester

Surveys the major literary trends from 1900 to the present in the Anglo-American tradition of modern, postmodern, and contemporary literature.  It will provide a basic grounding in two important moments in literary history:  modernism and post-modernism. Quite a bit of the focus of the course will be on poetry—we will be looking at modernist poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and Hilda Dolittle (H.D.) to post-modernist poets (poets coming after modernist poets) like Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop to contemporary poets like Thom Gunn and Seamus Heaney. I will make every effort to make you fall in love with poems as well as equip you with tools to decipher and critically respond to them.

Taught by Ali Hasan ONLINE from May 11 - May 29, 2020.

A-term

Section 102 (ONLINE):

For an hour the procession of grotesques passed before the eyes of the old man, and then, although it was a painful thing to do, he crept out of bed and began to write.  Some one of the grotesques had made a deep impression on his mind and he wanted to describe it.” (Sherwood Anderson, “The Book of the Grotesque”)

Many American writers have been moved by the impulse that grips Anderson’s old man.  What is the grotesque and why has it dominated the work of so many twentieth and twenty-first-century writers?  In this course we will try to find out.  Our reading will include fiction and poetry by William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Jean Toomer, T.S. Eliot, Nathanael West, Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, Grace Paley, and Karen Russell.  Please contact me for further information (Jeremy.Green@Colorado.EDU).

Taught by Jeremy Green ONLINE during A-term (June 1 - July 2, 2020).

Section 120 (ONLINE):

Whether it’s the war on terrorism, global markets, tourism, or population diversity, we can’t escape the effects of globalization; they are indeed everywhere. This course will trace the rise of globalization as written about by early and late 20^th and 21^st century writers.  For writers in the so-called third world, globalization often means a very different experience from that represented in the U.S. and European media. This course will first explore how early twentieth-century writer Joseph Conrad saw empire and globalization and then how contemporary writers from the Caribbean, West Africa and South Asia negotiate between the lived effects of globalization and the failed dreams of liberation.  How are they reimagining history so as to create new possibilities and communities for an alternative future? What is our role in the first-world university as readers of these texts? What critical opportunities do they afford us? 

Novels include: Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness, Caryl Phillips Crossing the River, Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things, Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place, Chris Abani GraceLand, and Aravind Adiga White Tiger.   

Taught by Laura Winkiel ONLINE during A-term (June 1 - July 2, 2020).

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Close study of significant 20th-century poetry, drama, and prose works. Readings range from 1920s to the present.

Requisites: Restricted to students with 27-180 credits (Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors) only.
Additional Information:Arts Sci Core Curr: Literature and the Arts
Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities
Departmental Category: General Literature and Language

Off

Close study of significant 20th-century poetry, drama, and prose works. Readings range from 1920s to the present.

Off

Whether it’s the war on terrorism, global markets, tourism, or population diversity, we can’t escape the effects of globalization; they are indeed everywhere. This course will trace the rise of globalization as written about by early and late 20th and 21st century writers. For writers in the so-called third world, globalization often means a very different experience from that represented in the U.S. and European media. This course will first explore how early twentieth-century writer Joseph Conrad saw empire and globalization and then how contemporary writers from the Caribbean, West Africa and South Asia negotiate between the lived effects of globalization and the failed dreams of liberation. How are they reimagining history so as to create new possibilities and communities for an alternative future? What is our role in the first-world university as readers of these texts? What critical opportunities do they afford us?

Off

Whether it’s the war on terrorism, global markets, tourism, or population diversity, we can’t escape the effects of globalization; they are indeed everywhere. This course will trace the rise of globalization as written about by early and late 20th and 21st century writers. For writers in the so-called third world, globalization often means a very different experience from that represented in the U.S. and European media. This course will first explore how early twentieth-century writer Joseph Conrad saw empire and globalization and then how contemporary writers from the Caribbean, West Africa and South Asia negotiate between the lived effects of globalization and the failed dreams of liberation. How are they reimagining history so as to create new possibilities and communities for an alternative future? What is our role in the first-world university as readers of these texts? What critical opportunities do they afford us?

Off

Surveys the major literary trends from 1900 to the present in the Anglo-American tradition of modern, postmodern, and contemporary literature. It will provide a basic grounding in two important moments in literary history: modernism and post-modernism. Quite a bit of the focus of the course will be on poetry—we will be looking at modernist poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and Hilda Dolittle (H.D.) to post-modernist poets (poets coming after modernist poets) like Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop to contemporary poets like Thom Gunn and Seamus Heaney. I will make every effort to make you fall in love with poems as well as equip you with tools to decipher and critically respond to them.

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Since the publication of The Lord of the Rings in the United States in the mid-1960s, fantasy has become immensely popular. However, the fantasy that has become and remains popular tends to be that written in a mode very similar to Tolkien’s, involving quests, Dark Lords, battles between clearly distinguished good guys and bad guys. However, there are other traditions in fantasy beyond this one. In the last decade especially, fantasy writers have experimented with the sorts of stories the fantasy genre can tell. These stories are often deal with more mature subject matter and resist the temptation to end on a happy, consolatory note. Moreover, these stories are by far weirder than those we encounter in Tolkien and his imitators. The magic is less comprehensible, the denizens of the world less human. This class will study such fantasy paying particular attention to the ways they challenge our preconceptions about what the fantasy story is and can be.

Evaluation will be based on quizzes, essays, class participation, and group work.

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Close study of significant 20th-century poetry, drama, and prose works. Readings range from 1920s to the present.

Note: there are several sections of this course.

Off

Since the publication of The Lord of the Rings in the United States in the mid-1960s, fantasy has become immensely popular. However, the fantasy that has become and remains popular tends to be that written in a mode very similar to Tolkien’s, involving quests, Dark Lords, battles between clearly distinguished good guys and bad guys. However, there are other traditions in fantasy beyond this one. In the last decade especially, fantasy writers have experimented with the sorts of stories the fantasy genre can tell. These stories are often deal with more mature subject matter and resist the temptation to end on a happy, consolatory note. Moreover, these stories are by far weirder than those we encounter in Tolkien and his imitators. The magic is less comprehensible, the denizens of the world less human. This class will study such fantasy paying particular attention to the ways they challenge our preconceptions about what the fantasy story is and can be.

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