CURRENT GRADUATE COURSES (Fall 2002, Spring 2003)

English 956: Historicizing Shakespeare/Shakespeare Historicizing
Dubrow (Fall 2002)

We will read about ten of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as some of the non-dramatic works, a list that will include selections from all of the genres. Our discussions will frequently focus on why and how these texts engage with history (e.g., in what senses is Cymbeline a history play, and how does its negotiation of history interact with the norms and forms of romance and the pressures of gender?), as well as on the potentialities and problems of interpreting texts historically ourselves. The course will include some hands-on experience with archival documents. As the example from Cymbeline suggests, however, history is only one of several issues we will explore—performance theory and history, gender, genre, and many other questions will also recur throughout the semester. Like all my courses, this class aims to introduce students to the profession; in our “professionalizing” sessions we will talk about practical challenges like beginning to publish, and in lieu of seminar presentations the group will have a mini-conference on the model of scholarly conferences, with its members delivering presentations to each other. The course is designed both for advanced graduate students specializing in the early modern period and for entering M.A.s desiring more knowledge of the Renaissance (the requirements will differ somewhat for students with different levels of preparation, and students will have the opportunity to tailor some of the assignments to their own interests and needs).

English 763: Literature and Politics in Early Modern England
Loewenstein (Spring 2003)

The aim of this graduate course is to examine one of the most notable recent topics in early modern literary studies: the interconnections between literature and politics. We will also consider (unlike some newer historical work in early modern literary studies) the role of religious beliefs and ideology. We will study this interplay between early modern texts and their political and religious contexts by looking at a series of works between the reign of Henry VIII and early Stuart England. In addition, we will read important political texts alongside major literary works, so that we can think rigorously about their interconnections. When we get to the early Stuart period, we will read major selections from the writings of James I (using the recent edition by J. P. Sommerville) and then study Shakespeare's Macbeth, the politics of Jonson's poetry, and the representation of Stuart power in selected court masques (including several by Jonson and Inigo Jones). At times I will supplement our principal readings with selected readings from additional primary texts (in the Cressy and Ferrell volume below) and from a range of prominent newer historical studies so that we can reflect more critically on what it means to read English Renaissance texts in terms of the contingencies of history.

We will begin our course with a look at the treacherous court politics of Henry VIII in relation to the political vision and tensions of Thomas More's Utopia before turning to Wyatt's courtly lyrics and epistolary satires. We will then study the Examinations of Anne Askew to see how issues of politics, heresy, religious persecution, and literary narrative intersected in the mid-1540s, a critical moment when the Protestant Reformation met conservative resistance in Renaissance England. The Examinations of Askew will also provide a strikingly vivid illustration of the role gender played in relation to the politics of heresy and religious self-representation during the English Reformation. We will next study interconnections between literature and Protestant religious politics in Elizabethan England by reading significant selections form The Faerie Queene and all of Sidney's Old Arcadia. After studying the Jacobean texts mentioned above, we will consider the most lavish and ideological of the Caroline masques, Thomas Carew's Coelum Britannicum (1634). We will conclude our course by looking at one of the great political poems in our language: Marvell's Horatian Ode. The poem will enable us to consider, at the end of our historical period, how the traumatic political events of the English Revolution deeply challenged the "ancient rights" of royal power and authority in early modern England.

Spanish 755: Seminar in Golden Age Poetry
Hildner

Examination of selected works by major Renaissance and Baroque poets of Spain. Emphasis on the problem of "poetic" language, both as defined in Early Modern Spain and in the light of twentieth-century theorists. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between lyric poetry and the following areas of imperial Spanish life: knowledge and science, political and military life, the life of affect and desire, the sacred, the graphic and plastic arts.

German 702 Humanismus-Barock (Fall 2002)
Mödersheim

http://palimpsest.lss.wisc.edu/~moeders/gr702/