Susan Solomon
Susan L. Solomon has published articles on Joyce’s Ulysses, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Claire Goll’s Die Frauen Erwachen. She co-translated Primitive Thinking: Figuring Alterity in German Modernity (2022) by Nicola Gess and Flaubert Postsecular: Crossed Out Modernity (2015) by Barbara Vincken from the German and co-edited the critical edition of Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country, 1918–1919 (2014) by American Red Cross volunteer Margaret Hall.
She is presently interested in the narratives constructed and enabled by architectural designs and their visual records and in the retelling of literary narratives in the languages of visual art and music. She is beginning work on a book on repetition, reflection and relationship across the arts. Her article, Doug Aitken’s Secret ULYSSES Door and the Architecture of “Aeolus” (Joyce Studies Annual), and essay Calls from the End of the World—On Doug Aitken’s Wilderness (Providence Arts and Letters) are forthcoming later this year.
Prior to coming to RISD, Solomon taught across the humanities curriculum in English, humanities, writing, comparative literature and gender studies departments at the University of Connecticut, Brown University, Bogazici University (Istanbul) and Roger Williams University.
Courses
Fall 2023 Courses
LAS E101-11
FIRST-YEAR LITERATURE SEMINAR
SECTION DESCRIPTION
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 the designated section(s).
Major Requirement | BFA
LAS E101-12
FIRST-YEAR LITERATURE SEMINAR
SECTION DESCRIPTION
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 the designated section(s).
Major Requirement | BFA
LAS E212-01
ROMANTIC TO EDWARDIAN BRITISH LITERATURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Although it dovetails with LAS E211, usually offered in the fall, this discussion-based course can be taken by itself. It surveys major and minor works of British literature, mostly poetry and prose fiction, from the late 1700s to the early 20th century, with consideration of the way these works relate to broad social and cultural phenomena including philosophy, gender politics, aesthetics and visual arts. Regular homework exercises emphasize independent critical and investigative reading of complex texts and images; formal writing assignments develop your ability to combine your insights with those gained from research, open-book midterm and final exams allow you to demonstrate your ability to analyze unfamiliar works and place them in context with those we have studied. Readings include (mostly short) works by Charlotte Smith, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Percy and Mary Shelley ("Transformation"), Tennyson, Elizabeth B. and Robert Browning, Hopkins, Housman, Yeats, Stevenson ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"), Conrad ("The Secret Sharer"), and Lawrence.
Open to Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Graduate Students.
Elective
THAD H101-19
THAD I: GLOBAL MODERNISMS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.
Registration process: First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.
Transfer and sophomore and above students should register into the evening section offered in the fall.
For schedule conflicts during lecture times, please contact the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office. For issues with registration, contact the Registrar's office for assistance.
Major Requirement | BFA
Spring 2024 Courses
PHOTO 539G-01
GRADUATE PHOTO THESIS WRITING
SECTION DESCRIPTION
A Graduate Thesis is to be determined in consultation with faculty advisor by the beginning of the first semester of the second year.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Photography Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Photography
THAD H102-17
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design.
Required for graduation for all undergraduates.
First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division. Transfer and sophomore and above students should register into the evening section offered in the spring.
For schedule conflicts during lecture times, please contact the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office. For issues with registration, contact the Registrar's office for assistance.
Major Requirement | BFA