Page 113 of Boston College 2005-2006 University Catalog by Boston College University

EN 457 Immigrant Narratives (Spring: 3) This course explores literature, non-fiction, and film that foreground the immigrant experience in the United States. We will look at narratives that establish the immigrant mythology (Bulosans, America is in the Heart), revise it (Godfather Part II), and challenge its foundations (Proulxs Accordion Crimes). We will watch Bollywood movies that present immigration from a homeland perspective and read a Indian novel about people who failed to become immigrants. We will also consider alternative models for understanding the transnational flow of people, including refugees (Fadimans The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down), diaspora (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and borderlands (Lone Star). Christina Klein EN 460 American Short Story (Spring: 3) Together we will read Books of short stories by three authors, Raymond Carver (Where Im Calling From), Alice Munro (Collected Stories), and David Foster Wallace (Oblivion), and The Best American Short Stories of the Century (eds. Kenison and Updike). The emphasis will be on the formal characteristics of the stories, how the craft of the writer interacts with the experience of reading. Paul Doherty EN 463 Religious Dimensions of the Modern Novel (Fall: 3) This course will study novelists writing from different religious and national traditions: American Protestantism (Faulkner), Continental Judaism (Kafka), English Roman Catholicism (Greene), and Russian Orthodoxy (Dostoevsky). It will consider how the nature of an artists work is influenced by his or her religious background, with some attention to the issue of the relationship between the religious imagination and the artistic imagination. J. Robert Barth, S.J. EN 466 Twain, Dreiser, Bellow (Spring: 3) George OHar EN 478 Poe and the Gothic (Spring: 3) Fulfills the pre-1900 requirement. Working with Poe as a central figure, this course examines the development of English and American Gothic fiction from The Castle of Otranto, The Yellow Wallpaper and beyond. In addition to Poe, we will read representative work by some of the following writers: Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, C.B. Brown, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Gilman, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Anne Rice. Paul Lewis EN 480 Convents, Covens, and Crusaders: Reading Groups of Women (Spring: 3) From the legendary Amazons and virgin martyrs to the witches of Macbeth, groups of women that populate a cultures stories can tell us a lot about that cultures mainstream beliefs. At their worst, these groups cast spells, kill men, and spread drunken gossip; at their best, they instruct and heal, bless and create. In this class, we will read a variety of texts from medieval and early modern periods, asking how different types of all-female groups are represented, exploring what larger issues are at work in their construction. Caroline Bicks EN 482 African American Writers (Fall: 3) Cross Listed with BK 410 Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement This course studies classic and non-canonical texts of African- American literature. Works by Terry, Wheatley, Dunbar, Chestnut, Toomer, Baldwin, Ellison, Wright, Walker, Morrison and others will be examined in their own right and in cross-cultural perspective. Short works by Faulkner, OConnor, Harris, and others may provide useful comparisons of the African-American and American literary traditions. Henry A. Blackwell EN 486 The Drama of Ethnic Renaissance: Theater and Society in Early Twentieth-Century Dublin and Harlem (Spring: 3) Satisfies Cultural Diversity Core Requirement An examination of two ethnic renaissances in English-language theater and culture: the Irish dramatic movement of Yeats, Gregory, etc., and the Harlem Renaissances dramatic wing, initiated by Du Bois. Problems to explore include the attempt to create a group identity, the dominant cultures exorcism of negative stage and media images, the rewriting of history, the place of dialect and folk material in dramas written for urban audiences, the relation of theaters to political movements, the friction with factions of the audience, and the divisive effect of plays of urban poverty. Philip T. OLeary EN 489 W. B. Yeats: Works, Thought, Context (Fall: 3) W. B. Yeats has often been called the most important poet of the twentieth century, and his career was enormously long, complex, and varied. This class will be primarily devoted to an intensive reading of Yeatss poetry, but we will examine some of his plays and prose as well. We will discuss Yeatss changing forms and techniques, his relation to his literary predecessors and to movements like symbolism and modernism, his revisions of his own work, and his poetic responses to the pressure of biographical and historical events. Marjorie Howes EN 495 Asian Cinema (Fall: 3) Cross Listed with FM 495 This class investigates recent films from China (mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, diaspora), South Korea, Japan, and India. These films will be approached through a variety of critical perspectives, including formalism, auteurism, historicism, and genre theory. We will watch art films, mainstream commercial films, and films that fall between these two categories. We will ask how these industries have been affected by globalization and how their relationship to Hollywood is changing. Films to be shown might include: Ang Lees Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hayao Miyazakes Spirited Away, Aditya Chopras Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Park Chan-wooks Oldboy, and Quentin Tarantinos Kill Bill. Christina Klein EN 496 Twentieth Century London (Fall: 3) Cross Listed with HS 277 See course description in the History Department. Rosemarie Bodenheimer Peter Weiler EN 502 Abbey Theatre Summer Workshop (Fall/Spring/Summer: 3) The Abbey Theatre Program, a six-week Summer Workshop in Dublin, consists of an intensive five weeks of classes, lectures, and demonstrations by members of the Abbey Theatre Company in acting, directing, production, and management, culminating in the staging of 110 The Boston College Catalog 2005-2006 ARTS AND SCIENCES

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