Want to read comic books, listen to music, watch comedy, and learn to close read them to think about what they tell us about your culture or cultures unlike your own? Follow the “Cultural Studies” path.
If you want to follow this path, look for these courses next semester:
ENLS 203.01 Intro to Race & Lit: Racial Horror MW 3-4:20pm Jeremy Chow
“Racial Horror” addresses the connections among the Gothic, white supremacy, and the art of creators of color. We will seek to use this concept, largely borrowed from film and media studies, to explore its relationships to other fictional texts in our present moment and historically. Students will likewise reflect on how different artists of color (Black, Latine, Indigenous/Native, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.) employ this genre for different ends. ARHC FRST RPI W2
ENLS 205.01 Early American Lit MWF 10-10:50am Michael Drexler
Before there was the United States, there were stories trying to explain what America might become. This course explores the strange and dramatic beginnings of American culture, from the earliest encounters between Europeans and Indigenous peoples through the Revolution and into the turbulent decades leading to the Civil War. We will encounter explorers describing “marvelous” new lands, Puritans searching for a divine mission, captives navigating unfamiliar worlds, and writers struggling to define freedom in a rapidly changing society. Along the way we will read sermons, diaries, travel narratives, poems, and fiction while learning how cultural critics like Roland Barthes help us uncover the myths that societies tell about themselves. By the end of the semester, students will be writing their own cultural “mythologies,” revealing how early Americans invented ideas—about wilderness, religion, independence, and identity—that continue to shape the United States today. ARHC
ENLS 251.01 Sex & the Early Modern City MW 3-4:20pm Emily Loney
Artisans, con men, merchants, and women with money and sexual agency: early modern English city comedy explores the dynamics of a society that was rapidly urbanizing and untangles the hopes and anxieties of city life. In the space of the early modern city, you can’t fully trust that people are who they say they are, and perhaps you’ll lose everything to a con man, but perhaps you’ll also make your fortune, ascend to a higher social class, and marry the love of your life. In this course, we will read a variety of texts written in 16th– and 17th-century England that allow us to consider how the early modern city was imagined by its inhabitants, and how early modern literature of the city offered new avenues for writers to navigate topics related to gender, sex, and love. ARHC
ENLS 268.01 Jewish-American Lit & Film MW 1:30-2:50pm Or Rogovin
Jewish American writers and film makers have made tremendous contributions to American national culture. Their works have also defined and reconsidered Jewish identity in a democratic and secular society. Jewish texts not only explore the life experiences of Jews from the early immigrants who settled in the lower east side of New York to the present, but have become integral to American culture at large. The course will study these sometimes contrary ambitions as well as the internal tensions of Jewish identity through a wide selection of 20th century and contemporary literary and cinematic texts. AHLG ARHC DUSC FRST RPI
ENLS 290.01 Ethnic Show Business TR 10-11:20am Meenakshi Ponnuswami
When it comes to racism, there’s truly “no business like show business.” From medieval times to the present, the entertainment industry has eagerly capitalized on popular prejudices, fears, and voyeurism by creating sensational figures like Uncle Tom, the Hottentot Venus, Pocahontas, and more. Some of these figures have become intensely cherished icons (Babar the elephant); others have found their way into sports logos and team merch (the Washington Redskins mascot); all too many have played a role in justifying hatred and holocausts (Shylock). How have contemporary entertainment arts responded to this history? Do ugly old stereotypes ever actually disappear? Do they simply taken new forms, like Aunt Jemima’s image on the pancake box? Our course will explore the legacy of ethnic show business and consider the backlash that contemporary artists have faced as they’ve protested and reinvented this legacy. ARHC FRST
ENLS 311.01 Race, Romance and Historical Fiction TR 1-2:20pm Elena Machado
Foundational romances are national origin stories that depict an alliance between “ideal” patriotic citizens who embody whiteness, wealth, and heteronormativity. Contemporary writers of color in the US offer counter-narratives about marginalized subjects, love stories that challenge nation-state norms of belonging and attempt to envision other political futures. We’ll be reading excerpts from canonical romances, which may include Dixon’s The Clansman (1905) and DuBois’s Dark Princess (1928), alongside contemporary banned books like Ashley Hope Perez’s Out of Darkness (2015) and Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021). Our theorization of historical romance as a literary genre will be informed by the scholarship of Doris Sommer, David Scott, and others. ARHC, RPI, W2
ENLS 393.01 Theatre & Black Power TR 2:30-3:50pm Meenakshi Ponnuswami
What role do the arts play in the fight against injustice? Can theatre change the hearts and minds of people in power? Can it help people who have no power organize themselves into a force for change? Many such questions confronted idealistic young African Americans in the 1950s and 60s, a period of fiery political and social movement and immense creativity. Focusing on the theatre and performance arts of the era, as well as music, pop culture, and comedy, our course will introduce students to the history and politics of the Black Power movement. We will study the major events of the period, focusing on key players, concepts, and strategies, including Malcolm X, debates concerning non-violent resistance, the Black Panthers, and the Black Arts Movement. By exploring this history, we will examine how profound social and political change can begin to take shape. ARHC RPI
Other courses recently offered or expected to be offered in this path include:
- Comics, Comix, Graphic Novel (ENLS 101)
- Literature, Technology and AI (ENLS 101)
- Remix: Black Literature and Music (ENLS 101)
- Intro to LGBTQ+ Literature and Media (ENLS 128)
- Ethnic Comedy (ENLS 222)
- Gender and Sexuality in American (ENLS 228)
- Jewish American Comedy (ENLS 229)
- Shakespeare and Film (ENLS 255)
- Afrillachia: Regional Lit, Race, and Power (ENLS 290)
- Disability in Literature (ENLS 290)
- Seminar in Literary Theory (ENLS 300)
- US: Fever/Fantasy/Desire (ENLS 306)
- Banned Books and Latinx Literature (ENLS 311)
- Performing Disability in Early Modern England (ENLS 350)
- Ethnic Show Business (ENLS 393)
- Animal Studies (ENLS 395)
- American Harvest (UNIV 200)
- The Ends of Violence (UNIV 200)
- Students can count multiple Film/Media Studies courses in this path, such as Introduction to Film/Media Studies (ENFS 130), Monsters and Monstrosity (ENFS 238), or Evolution of Digital Media (ENFS 273)