Dreaming a Course or Two

Dear Readers,

I follow up my teaching philosophy with something even more near and dear to my heart--my imaginary course descriptions.  I really love the process of developing a course, creating its narrative and formal patterns.  I have come up already with 5 different course ideas in my field.  Below are the two that I submitted for my pedagogy course.

The first is a full-year survey course (1st or 2nd year) for what in our department is paper one of the comprehensive exam (basically up to 1700).  My hope here was to give a general introduction to the broader field, but also giving it a frame or thesis to help focus discussions.  My model for this was Jeffrey Cohen's Myths of Britain course at GW.  I have also organized the papers so that they are somewhat progressive.  The students will write a lot and should get tons of feedback.  I end with Beowulf in hopes of at least mentioning Anglo-Saxon history since there is not enough time to take it on fully.

The second course is a 4th year, half-year seminar and is basically my dissertation.  I love it so much.  I want this course is to stretch the definition of what we might consider the literary, showing that even devotional texts are literary.  Besides, we get to read Julian of Norwich (and I love her so)!  I would hope it would run much like two seminars I had in my fourth year of undergrad - the undergraduate book history course at the Folger taught by Sarah Werner and a English honors seminar on time taught by Jonathan Gil Harris.  Both gave us tons of reading and really started to model something closer to a graduate seminar.

Clearly, GW has influenced my pedagogy more than I had assumed!

Obviously, these are imaginary courses, developed for an ideal world.  But still, your feedback is always wanted and appreciated.  Do they seem feasible? Any huge, glaring faults?  Could I actually get a department to let me teach these?

Your Humblest Author.

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Writing England: Nationalism and English Literature from The Canterbury Tales to Paradise Lost

In his The Regiment of Princes, Thomas Hoccleve calls Chaucer the “first finder of our fair language.” Hoccleve’s Chaucer is not just a good poet, but rather the source of English—an English that represents a language, a literature, and a nation. Hoccleve's reading of Chaucer refigures him as the father of English literature, an image that still is often maintained today. In this course, we will explore the establishment of an English literary canon from the late 14^th-century to through the English Restoration. We will focus our attention on how these three Englishes - the language, the literature, and the nation – function together in the texts we read. Particularly, we want to explore the role of literature in the development of an English nationalism.

The first half of the course will focus on the late medieval. We will look at Chaucer, Gower, and Langland and more specifically their own articulations of Englishness. We will follow this up with Lydgate and Hoccleve, who are Chaucer’s first literary descendents, asking how they formed a canon out of those who came before. Midway through the course, we will turn to the early modern period. Here we will see Wyatt, Sidney, and Spenser struggling with what they see as a very unfamiliar past. Chaucer becomes, for them, a literary father that makes them uncomfortable. Finally, we look at the later 16^th-century through the 17th. These authors, particularly Milton, will help us see what it means to deal with an extensive literary canon to help develop a nation. We will end the course with Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, hoping to open up these concerns of nationalism in a more contemporary context.

What is a nation? How is a literary tradition built and understood? These are just a few of the questions we will pursue in the course.

Students should gain from this course:

1. A familiarity with the "big hits" of medieval and early modern English literature through the Restoration

2. Improved writing skills through the drafting and workshopping of three majors papers

3. A vocabulary to discuss issues of nationalism and nation formation in medieval and early modern England.

Major Texts: Beowulf; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; Gower, Confessio Amantis; Langland, Piers Plowman; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Book Of John Mandeville; Book of Margery Kempe; Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes; Lydgate; Siege of Thebes; Wyatt, Selections; Sidney, Arcadia; Spenser, Faerie Queene, Book 1 and Ruines of Time; Shakespeare, Henry V; Donne, The Anniversaries; Milton, Paradise Lost; Marvell, Selections

Tutorial Participation – 20%

Paper 1 (5-7 pages) – 15 %

Paper 2 (8-10 pages) – 20%

Paper 3 (10-12 pages) – 25%

Final Exam – 20%

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On Loving God: English Vernacular Theology in the Late-Medieval Period

Did the English love God differently? Perhaps this seems an absurd question, considering the universal nature of the divine. However, in the late-medieval period, English writers started to imagine a relationship with God that was no longer written in the Latin of the Church, but rather in English. Looking at devotional and secular literary texts from this period, we will explore this process of making God English. While our approach will include concerns of nationalism and politics, we will focus primarily on the increase of texts written in English during this period. We will ask: is the rise of a uniquely English literary canon linked to a change in the way English people began to imagine their relationships with the divine?

We will explore conduct books for lay believers, such as The Ancrene Wisse, as well as texts written for clergy and other members of the Church, typified in Richard Rolle and Walter Hilton. Then we will move to texts written by the laity, such as Julian of Norwich’s account of her mystical experience with Christ. We will end the course with more secular or explicitly literary texts, such as Piers Plowman, to try to understand how this growing output of devotional texts influenced more secular works. We will end the course looking towards the early modern period and the Reformation. Here, Thomas More will be our guide, helping us discuss how the rise of an English devotion in the late-medieval period helps structure the Reformation.

Major Texts: Augustine, The Confessions; Ancrene Wisse; Richard Rolle, English Works; Walter Hilton, Scale of Perfection; Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Divine Love; Pearl; Cloud of Unknowing; Langland, Piers Plowman; Mankind; Croxton Play of the Sacrament; Assembly of the Gods; Thomas More, The Sadness of Christ

Informed Participation and Short Responses - 25%

Presentation – 25 %

Research Proposal and Bibliography - 10%

Research Paper (20-25 pgs) – 40%