ENGL 110
American Love Stories Fall 2014
Division I Writing Skills
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

It’s been argued that American writers don’t know how to tell a happy love story. We have no Jane Austen; instead of ending a tale with the payoff of a wedding, or writing about the joys of family life, our best authors obsess over loneliness, death, and escape from civilization. In this class, we will collectively test and revamp that thesis, constructing both an informal history and a taxonomy of passions and attachments across nearly two centuries of American imaginings. Some of the ground we are likely to cover may be familiar (The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter); some may be new (Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle,” Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun”). We will consider some film narratives, too, like The Philadelphia Story, Annie Hall, or (projecting the future of love) Her. Across them all, we’ll ask if there is anything peculiarly American about these visions of love, whether it’s love gone wrong or, in some unpredictable ways, gone right.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 1404
Grading: OPG
Requirements/Evaluation: about 20 pages of writing total, split into 4 or 5 shorter essays
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: first-year students who have not taken or placed out of a 100-level English course
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills

Class Grid

Course Catalog Archive Search

TERM/YEAR
TEACHING MODE
SUBJECT
DIVISION



DISTRIBUTION



ENROLLMENT LIMIT
COURSE TYPE
Start Time
End Time
Day(s)