LIT 201 (3) MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE I–GE

A survey of literary classics of the Ancient and Medieval periods including various genres and nations. Includes works by authors such as Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, and Dante.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 202 (3) MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE II–GE

A survey of the classics of the Renaissance, Neoclassical, and Romantic periods including various genres and nations. Includes authors such as Petrarch, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Racine, Voltaire, Goethe, Keats, and Whitman.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 203 (3) MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE III–GE

A survey of literary classics from Realism and Naturalism through the Modern period. Includes such authors as Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, Joyce, Lessing, Gide, Akhmatove, Kafka, Eliot, Duras, Faulkner, and Achebe.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 205 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: THE NOVEL–GE

An analysis and study of major representative examples of the novel; may include shorter works of fiction. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 206 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: DRAMA–GE

An analysis and study of major representative examples of drama. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 207 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: POETRY–GE

An analysis and study of major representative examples of poetry. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 208 (2) GREAT WORKS IN A LITERARY GENRE: SHORT STORY–GE

An analysis and study of major representative examples of the short story; may include longer works of fiction. Offered on a Quad basis.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 250 (3) INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

This course is designed with a threefold emphasis. One, it instructs students in the practice of close reading and literary analysis of all the major genres of literature: prose (fiction and nonfiction), poetry, and drama, giving special attention to close reading and literary analysis of poetry. Two, it requires the study and mastery of literary terms, their definitions and applications. Three, it introduces students to, and helps them to distinguish between, the major schools of literary criticism and their approaches to literary texts, which in turn should enhance students’ further study of primary texts in other upper division literary courses, and it will provide a rudimentary background for a more extensive study of literary criticism.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 254 (3) BRITISH WRITERS I

Discussion and analysis of major movements, genres, authors, and works from 700 to 1798. Includes Beowulf and such authors as Chaucer, Julian of Norwich, Spenser, Shakespeare, Swift, Milton, Behn, Pope, and Johnson.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 255 (3) BRITISH WRITERS II

Discussion and analysis of major movements, genres, authors, and works from 1798 to 1941. Includes works by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Arnold, C. Rossetti, Browning, Shaw, Eliot, Lessing, and others.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 256 (3) AMERICAN WRITERS I

A study of American Writers from the colonial period to he mid-19th century. Representative writers are Bradstreet, Taylor, Franklin, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Douglas, Hawthorne, Melville, Wheatley, Stowe, and Whitman.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 257 (3) AMERICAN WRITERS II

A study of American writers from the mid-19th century to the present. Representative writers are Clemens, Crane, Chopin, Frost, Eliot, Hurston, Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Connor, and Morrison.
Prerequisite: College Composition.

LIT 325 (3) CHILDREN’S LITERATURE–GE

Consideration of the major classics and modern works recommended for children, including folk and fairy tales, animal stories, limericks and poetry, fantasy, and realistic stories for older children.

LIT 344 (3) AMERICAN NOVEL

A study of selected novels of major writers of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, with emphasis on theme and narrative technique. Offered 2007-08.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 345 (3) AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

An advanced study of the African American literary tradition in its cultural context from its beginnings in African American vernacular culture, until the present.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 346 (3) MAJOR AUTHORS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

An advanced study of selected authors in American literature. The course will provide students the opportunity to study selected writers in depth. Offered 2007-08.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 347 (3) AMERICAN LITERARY MOVEMENTS

An advanced study of selected movements in the history of American literature. Such movements as Colonial American Literature, the American Renaissance, American Realism and Naturalism, American Modernisms, Asian American Literature, and American Meta-fiction will be considered.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 361 (3) WORLD DRAMA AND POETRY

An advanced study of selected dramatic (non-Shakespearean) and poetic works, from the ancient world through the present, focusing primarily on works in translation. The course will consider major developments in the genres of drama (including tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy) and lyric poetry.
Recommended: Literature 201 and 250.

LIT 436 (3) NON-WESTERN LITERATURE

An advanced study of literature from non- European and non-American countries, covering primarily African and Asian writings. Includes a variety of eras and genres, placing the works within their cultural contexts.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 437 (3) WOMEN WRITERS–WS

Considers women writers from a specific chronological period from the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century. The time period, themes and genres considered vary from year to year. The course focuses on questions related to gender, class, and race. Offered 2007-08.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 438 (3) READINGS: CONTINENTAL AUTHORS

Some of the most significant writers from the Continent of the modern era, including such authors as Dostoevsky, Zamyatin, Hesse, Frisch, Durrenmatt, Brecht, Ibsen, and Solzhenitsyn.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 439 (3) LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1910

A study of the Latin American narrative from the Mexican Revolution to the present. Offered 2007-08.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 444 (3) MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

A study of British Literature from 1100 through 1500, including Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Julian of Norwich, and Mallory, and covering medieval drama, poetry, prose, romance, and tale. Offered 2007-08.
Prerequisites: Literature 254.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 445 (3) 17TH CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE

A study of the non-dramatic poetry and prose of the period, with emphasis on the metaphysicals and Milton.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 446 (3) ROMANTIC LITERATURE

This course presents a broad overview of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction prose written during the years commonly referred to as the Romantic Age (1780-1830). Taking a cultural studies approach to these authors and their texts, the course examines literature's function in representing and reinforcing cultural ideologies and in forming subjectivity. The course focuses on specific social and cultural controversies during the era as they appear and are treated in the literature. In tracing changing responses to these controversies, the course explores the Romantic Age as a dynamic, multi-voiced era of ideological struggle and social change.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 447 (3) VICTORIAN LITERATURE

This course presents a broad overview of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction prose written during the years commonly referred to as the Victorian Age (1837-1901). Taking a cultural studies approach to these authors and their texts, the course examines literature's function in representing and reinforcing cultural ideologies and in forming subjectivity. The course focuses on specific social and cultural controversies during the era as they appear and are treated in the literature. In tracing changing responses to questions of self-definition, gender, sexuality, religion, class, and artistic creation, the course explores the Victorian Age as a dynamic, multivoiced era of ideological struggle and social change, rather than one of static prudishness. Offered 2007-08.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 448 (3) POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE

An advanced study of selected post-colonial literature and perhaps some post-colonial theory from the turn of the 19th century through 21st century. Class inquiry will focus on the effects of empire, colonization, neocolonialism, and decolonization presented in these texts and will examine the ways in which these texts respond to or resist dominant colonialist and imperialist paradigms of power, identity, gender and the other. Offered 2007-08.
Recommended: Literature 250, 203 or 255.

LIT 449 (3) ENGLISH NOVEL

A study of the development of the novel from Defoe to the present, with attention given to background ideas, central themes, and styles of representative novelists.
Recommended: Literature 250.

LIT 459 (3) METHODS OF TEACHING ENGLISH

Both traditional and current research-based methodologies are studied, and many are demonstrated and practiced. The teaching of writing and the integration of the language arts and the California English Language Arts Framework are emphasized. Offered on a Quad basis.

LIT 460 (3) THE HUMAN CHALLENGE

To provide an upper-division course that engages students in a systematic interdisciplinary reflection on some of the challenges of an “examined” and well lived life. It poses three human challenges for interdisciplinary (literal, philosophical, psychological, and Wesleyan theological) perspective dialogue: 1)the challenge of evolving a “philosophical faith” (being wise); 2) the challenge of enlarging ones capacity to love (being loving); and 3) the challenge of broadening ones personal identity and vision of meaningful, creative work (being generative). Students read literacy works that embody these developmental themes as well as selective articles from philosophy and psychology.
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

LIT 461 (3) SHAKESPEARE

A study of the art and thought of England’s foremost playwright as seen in representative comedies, histories, and tragedies.
Recommended: Completion of the general education literature requirement and Literature 250.

LIT 490 (1-3) SPECIAL STUDIES IN LITERATURE

An intensive study of a selected problem by an individual or group under the direction of a member of the faculty. May be repeated to a total of six units.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor and department chair.

LIT 495 (3) LITERARY THEORY AND SCHOLARSHIP

This capstone course provides an in-depth study of contemporary critical trends such as Structuralism, New Historicism, Feminism, Deconstruction, Gender Studies, Reader- Response and Psychoanalytic criticism. Students also familiarize themselves with the critical commonplaces to which these new approaches are a response as well as with a traditional overview of trends and styles from medieval through modern literature. Students are expected to engage in some research and in written critical work. Preparation of a portfolio and summative evaluation is an important part of this class.
Prerequisites: Literature 250 and Senior standing.

LIT 499 (1-3) RESEARCH IN ENGLISH

Independent research under the guidance of a faculty member. Open to seniors only.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor and department chair.