INSTRUCTOR: SHARPE, JAE
Focused on literary texts in their critical and theoretical contexts, ENGL 100 is a course in academic writing that fulfills the first-year component of the Faculty of Arts Writing Requirement.
This course offers an introduction to literary studies and the disciplines of academic reading and writing. In additional to the assigned texts, we will be reading essays and scholarly articles in order to introduce students to different critical approaches. This section’s theme is about American literature of the late 20th century (from approximately 1950 to 2001), and we will consider how various texts attempted to grapple with such historical events as the aftermath of World War II, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, and the development of nuclear weapons.
Texts are likely to include Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son,Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, and selections from Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Franz Wright’s Ill Lit, and Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.