Classes

[icepixie]

Class descriptions for next semester are out. (Everything here starts so freaking early.) I have to take the pedagogy course, so I only have two slots to fill. I'm thinking the 500-level Victorian Readings course (it's taught by a professor who's studying the exact same "one text, two interrelated stories in different timelines" topic I'm interested in, plus the readings include Vanity Fair and Jude the Obscure...and, sadly, lots of George Eliot, but, eh) and a 400-level seminar on James Joyce. (I kind of feel obligated to take that one, seeing as it's pretty much the only Irish Lit course here that doesn't involve an independent study--which I'll probably do next year, concurrent with my thesis. There's a doctoral student here doing contemporary Irish poetry for her dissertation, and she gave me a couple names of people to bug to do something with that. One of them is someone Matz said I should take a class from, so I will take that as A Sign. Anyway, the Joyce class should be fun--it's doing Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses. If the syllabus involved Finnegan's Wake, I don't think I could do it, but I'm pretty sure I can handle Ulysses.)

Wow, that was a lot of parenthetical remarks.

Anyway. It doesn't give me the same glorious schedule I had this semester--I'll be staying on campus twice a week through lunch and I have an afternoon class on two other days, boo--but if my 102 class doesn't meet then, I might have Fridays off, which would be nice.

In other news, Greekfest Friday! This one seems to be huge and full of stuff. I know I'm excited.

Comments

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

Personally, I used to be at best indifferent to James Joyce, but I would definitely encourage you to take the course on Victorian literature. You'll love it, I suppose.

Just out of random curiosity: Would there be any alternatives to the classes you describe above?

[icepixie]

Personally, I used to be at best indifferent to James Joyce

Oh, I've read Dubliners and Portrait before in an Irish Lit class. I like them quite a lot. I've read some of Ulysses--we had a marathon group reading in my sophomore year, quite fun--but I know it's...hard to get through, shall we say. I think I'll enjoy it, though; the prof sounds awesome.

Just out of random curiosity: Would there be any alternatives to the classes you describe above?

There are several others that look interesting. There's one on the Gothic novel, something about rhetoric and historiography (this school is really big on rhetoric, for some reason), a course on American Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and courses on Feminist and Modernist Theory. I don't know that I could hack a class entirely on theory, though. I chickened out of the theory reading group after the first set of readings, which all went whooshing past my head. Had I all the time in the world, I'd take all of them, but...

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

All right, if you like the lecturer, I won't even try to talk you out of taking the class on Joyce, despite my own irrational prejudices against the guy. ;) I read some extracts on Ulysses in a reading course, where the teacher was such an enthusiastic woman who clearly loved the pieces of writings she discussed with us. It was infectious. I almost ended up liking James J.

The class on the Gothic novel sounds quite interesting as well, although it probably depends on which approach the prof prefers. I very vaguely remember that there's quite a lot of psychoanalytical criticism on the Gothic novel (which I hated), but there are probably other interpretations who put it in the context of European romanticism, political debates and the emerging of a British national identity.

And I'll stop blathering and playing the EngLit dilettante right now.

[icepixie]

my own irrational prejudices against the guy

So he's really just misunderstood... ;)

The Gothic novel course is my runner-up if either of the two others don't work out. Too bad the pedagogy course has to be this semester...

[sleepingcbw.livejournal.com]

Joyce! Joyce! Joyce! Joyce! Woo!

I've always meant to come back to Jude the Obscure. I wonder if it's gotten any better in the ten years (!) since I first read it.

[icepixie]

Joyce! Joyce! Joyce! Joyce! Woo!

The more I think about this class, the more excited I am about it.

I've always meant to come back to Jude the Obscure. I wonder if it's gotten any better in the ten years (!) since I first read it.

Hmmm. Couldn't tell you. I myself have meant to finish Tess of the D'Urbervilles for going on six years now, but never got around to it. Not because it was bad; there just always seemed to be something better waiting. I did quite enjoy Mayor of Casterbridge, though.