Tag: literature


The Intersection of Early British Literature Surveys and Anti-Racist Pedagogy

busy intersection

by H. Austin Whitver, Department of English Recent political and cultural movements anchored in ethnocentric ideological beliefs pose a grave, if sometimes overlooked, threat to the English literature classroom. In his opening chapter of Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Charles W. Mills writes, “Ethnocentrism is, of course, a negative cognitive tendency common to all peoples, not just Europeans. But with Europe’s gradual rise to global domination, the European variant becomes entrenched as an overarching, virtually unassailable framework, a conviction of […]

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Teaching Through Re-Reading

main web page view of mill marginalia online

by Albert D. Pionke, Department of English Although not specifically designed with the classroom in mind, Mill Marginalia Online offers instructors in philosophy, history, law, Classics, and English and European literature and culture the opportunity to incorporate Digital Humanities research results and methods into their courses. Each of these major subject areas is amply represented in nineteenth-century philosopher and liberal theorist John Stuart Mill’s personal library. Mill Marginalia Online seeks to digitize all of the handwritten marks and annotations found […]

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World Literature Class Awards Book Prize

Instructor: Emily Wittman Course: World Literature (EN 411) Audience: Undergraduates Making significant use of Web 2.0 technology, I run my English 411 course, a senior-level seminar in comparative & world literature, as a prize-granting panel, modeled loosely on the Nobel Prize committee. We read seven or eight critically acclaimed contemporary novels from across the globe, rank them according to criteria we come up with ourselves, and then vote collectively for a winner at the end of our course. What are […]

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“On the Road” with Jeff Melton

Jeff Melton

Instructor: Jeff Melton Course: On the Road (AMS 412) Audience: Undergraduates Part cultural history, part literature/film survey, “On the Road” examines the enduring narrative that emerges when Americans take to the open road behind the wheel of a car. Car culture is arguably the most definitive characteristic of late-20th century American social structure, and the cultural productions that emerge from it reveal the culture at large like no other component. What are your goals for this course?   My overall […]

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