An introduction to literary study that helps students develop the skills necessary for college-level reading, writing, research and critical thinking. Through exposure to a variety of literary forms and genres, historical periods and critical approaches, students are taught how to read closely, argue effectively and develop a strong writing voice. The course is reading and writing intensive and organized around weekly assignments. There are no waivers for LAS-E101 except for transfer students who have taken an equivalent college course.

First-year Students are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Transfer Students register into designated section(s).

Major Requirement | BFA

An introduction to literary study that helps students develop the skills necessary for college-level reading, writing, research and critical thinking. Through exposure to a variety of literary forms and genres, historical periods and critical approaches, students are taught how to read closely, argue effectively and develop a strong writing voice. The course is reading and writing intensive and organized around weekly assignments. There are no waivers for LAS-E101 except for transfer students who have taken an equivalent college course.

First-year Students are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Transfer Students register into designated section(s).

Major Requirement | BFA

Photography and Literature are often seen as separate, yet kindred, disciplines, each working to depict, contest, alter, and reframe that which we think of as reality. This course will explore various ideas about the melding of photography and literature by looking at texts that work to create dialogue between the two mediums, as well as theoretical writings that offer ways of contemplating such fusions. We will study texts by writers/photographers such as: Walker Evans, James Agee, W.G. Sebald, Sigmund Freud, Roland Barthes, Teju Cole, John Berger, Sophie Calle, Paul Auster, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Lance Olsen. Students will write several short essays about the readings, as well as a longer project, which will combine photography and writing.

Elective

This course will deal with graphic narrative in many of its forms: fiction, memoir, historical (auto)biography, journalistic investigation.  We will be reading graphic narratives that helped create the genre of Comics Studies, as well as more contemporary narratives that are re-imagining and re-shaping the possibilities within the genre.  We will also be reading scholarship that deepens our understanding of some of the ways these texts can be understood within a larger critical context.  Students will have the opportunity to frame their responses to the readings in both traditional and visual modes.  We will be reading such authors as:  Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, Jean Yuen Yang, Marjane Satrapi, Joe Sacco, Lynda Barry, Ron Wimberly.

Elective