ENGH 301: The Fields of English

ENGH 301-001: The Fields of English
(Spring 2016)

04:30 PM to 07:10 PM T

Enterprise Hall 178

Section Information for Spring 2016

The Fields of English is the gateway course to the English major at George Mason: your introduction to the varieties of English studies offered in our department (Literature, Linguistics, Creative Writing, Professional Writing and Rhetoric, Folklore, Film and Media Studies and Cultural studies). Focusing on how scholars in each of these disciplines read texts, we will combine close examination of a selection of texts with lectures from faculty representing some of these different sub-disciplines within English.

It has become commonplace for literary and cultural critics to refer to an object of study as a “text” rather than as a “work.” You may have noticed that I used the word twice in the preceding paragraph. The word "text" comes from a Latin word meaning "woven," and its appearance in literary and cultural criticism signals our increasing understanding that cultural artifacts are not works complete unto themselves, but are rather texts woven together of many strands. The history of ideas, of cultural and aesthetic forms, of politics, economics, and of the organization of social life, is woven into any text, producing what we recognize as its form and meanings. All of the different fields of English listed above can help us to trace these strands.

This semester, many of the texts we examine are connected in some way or other with the theme of memory: We will look at stories and poems about childhood, stories of nostalgia, narratives about the redemptive or traumatic powers of memory. We will use this shared thread as a way to anchor our readings of these texts—a commonality that allows us to explore interesting and significant differences in structure, point of view, and language.

Course Information from the University Catalog