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CS92PROD
Why Literary History?
CHUM 317
Fall 2022
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: ENGL 354

Why should poems, novels and plays written centuries ago engage our attention? Why should we care? And how have answers to these questions themselves changed over the course of literary history? We will dwell, in particular, on two key historical turning points: eighteenth-century Britain, when influential canonizing projects in print worked to define a native "English" tradition at the same time as the country pursued imperial expansion, and mid-twentieth-century America, when New Criticism institutionalized certain modes of reading historical literature just as English as a discipline was taking something like its modern shape. And, of course, we will grapple with the purposes, the pleasures, and the possibilities of literary history now. Throughout, we will also be attending to the practical work of doing literary history - students will work in Special Collections to produce their own edition of a historical text.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA CHUM
Course Format: DiscussionGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ENGL)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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