Spring Quarter in London 2023

ENGL 444/ENGL 344 London's Contemporary Theater (5 credits) A&H

London is one of the most vibrant theatre capitals of the world. This course introduces you to its magic and its history. We’ll take advantage of London’s world-renowned theater scene to learn how to analyze and appreciate live performance. We will see a variety of plays in a diverse array of venues, from the Globe Theater, where Shakespeare’s plays are routinely performed; to the small "fringe" theaters where emerging playwrights often stage new works. In addition to reading and watching one play each week--once, as a "groundling," as in Shakespeare's day--we may tour backstage at Shakespeare's Globe, and the National Theater. We'll have an overnight trip to Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, and watch the Royal Shakespeare Company in action. Together, these activities will help us consider how the various elements of a performance—lighting, costume, sound, and staging—make watching a performance different from reading a play. Course requirements will include weekly reading assignments, writing your own theatre reviews, and a final group performance project.

For English majors: If taken as ENGL 344, this course counts as a Forms and Genres; If taken as ENGL 444, this course counts as a senior capstone. For non-English majors, this course counts as a VLPA. No pre-requisites, but you might start practicing taking notes in the dark. (There's ice cream in the intermissions, but they turn out the lights during the performance.)

Learning goals include:

In addition to engaging the issue of diversity in theatre, with debates and practices surrounding for instance "color-blind" and "gender-fluid" casting, the student will emerge versed in critical spectatorship—watching carefully, as well as reading critically. You will also emerge with (1) a widened repertoire of the different forms and histories of theatre, and understand what it takes to make a play; (2) collaborative experience; and (3) improved writing skills. Finally, (4) writing on deadline, as do journalists for theater reviews, is a skill and experience that serves the student well. Ah, and since all the world's a stage, it will (5) change how you see your own "role" in life.

ENGL 363 Art, Architecture, and Society in London (5 credits) A&H*

This course is interdisciplinary. The material is London itself. The course is taught entirely on the streets and in buildings, ranging from medieval, Elizabethan and Jacobean to Victorian, modern and post-modern. As well as equipping students to look more carefully at buildings, pictures, and sculpture, the course encourages them to consider what it might have been like to live at different times in the past, as a member of different social classes.

The course is taught in the British University style, culminating with a final examination and student project, as well as weekly journal entries for sites visited. Site visits and walks are on-the-go class lectures; students are encouraged to take notes and ask questions along the way. The final project is a creative one, with students building a portfolio based entirely on their own sense of what constitutes an interesting and pervasive urban or peri-urban phenomenon.

Learning goals include:

The course creates close readers of space, spatial objects, and time, equipping students to look carefully at buildings, pictures and sculpture, with the final exam asking the student to identify building and details based on detail. Imaginative re-creation--considering what it might have been like to have lived at different times in the past as a member of different social classes--encourages both a sense of identification with different and diverse populations, as well as widening the students' sense of history as based on the present: that is, it demands that the student think in terms of other cultures and values, contra present-ism. The site visits and walks build active participation, and the experience of on-the-go class lectures; students are encouraged to take notes and ask questions along the way.

HSTEU 490 Contemporary Britain (5 credits) SSc

This course introduces students to various aspects of life in Britain, from royalty to the homeless, from politics to sport. There is a major emphasis on direct contact with the people and institutions of contemporary Britain, including meetings with homeless people and politicians, visits to Parliament, engagement with media, and individual research projects which encourage students to follow up their own interests. The course also looks at issues such as race, politics, the family, and the problems (and delights) of being young in Britain today. The course enables students to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary Britain and equips them better to understand their own society. Students will be assessed based on participation, a mid-term exam, a final exam, and individual projects.

Learning goals include:

Direct contact with the people and institutions of contemporary Britain provides students with knowledge about the complex, specific interrelations of an individual's place in society. Active engagement alongside exams allows focus and exposure to the history of the present moment, and individual projects foster a creative and grounded approach to education.

ENGL 384/484/395 Creative Writing in London (5 credits) A&H

This course takes place—the place we are (London) and the places we’ve been—as the
inspiration for creative writing. As an artist may sketch or paint “en plein air” (in the open air),
we will wander through London’s parks, markets, squares, streets, and museums making notes
and jotting down ideas. Then we will spend some quiet time fashioning those notes into poems,
stories, and essays through a variety of writing prompts before sharing them with each other.
We’ll also spend some time writing about home or other places we can only access through
memory and imagination, and along the way will read selections of classical and contemporary
texts set in London for further inspiration.

Sites we explore may include Sir John Soane’s Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum,
Brick Lane, Borough Market, Portobello Market, The Tower of London, Hampstead Heath,
Bloomsbury Square, and on and on. You’ll be keeping a writing journal, drafting several pieces
of creative writing, and revising one of those towards the end of the quarter. No tests or big final
project. Assignments will be adapted so that those with no creative writing experience and those
with lots of creative writing experience will feel equally supported and challenged. No previous
experience in creative writing is required.

Learning goals include:

Students will improve their critical thinking and writing skills, gain exposure to other writers' techniques, increase their capacity for paying attention to detail, and develop the ability to transform notes, dreams, and memories into poems, stories, and essays.