Courses under this concentration explore the creation, interpretation, and analysis of texts, which may include literary and other written works, built structures, works of art, film, and other forms.
GLAS 215 – Rhetorical Genre in Theory and Practice
6 ECTS
Genre is core concept for understanding the interplay between texts and contexts in any medium. This course offers students a theoretical basis for exploring how texts participate in and are shaped by the contexts in which they are used. Genres play an important role in constructing institutions, disciplines, and social interactions, and the forms genres take are shaped by these roles. The course focuses on introducing students to rhetorical genre theory, which aims to understand the interplay between genres and contexts: what kind of work a text does, what ideologies it embodies, and what social relationships it engenders. Prerequisite: ENGL 101.
GLAS 221 – Copyright Culture
6 ECTS
The aim of this course is to explore questions related to authorship, originality, and textual ownership through theoretical, historical, and practical perspectives, including the many issues related to intellectual property and copyright that have accompanied emerging technologies.
GLAS 222 – Writing and Writing Systems
6 ECTS
Writing is one of the most important technologies that has shaped human history and society. The course will survey major types of writing systems in the world and their digital descendants, and will raise awareness about issues and questions associated with writing.
GLAS 224 – Life Writing
6 ECTS
Different iterations of this course may study different primary texts from a different historical period or cultural context—to be indicated by course code A, B, C, etc.
GLAS 224A – Life Writing: Classical Antiquity
6 ECTS
This course will explore a range of biographies and life writings by different authors of classical antiquity. It will help you to develop an appreciation of the issues involved in handling and interpreting biographies and life writings from the ancient world in a wide variety of genres, from more historical to more literary and fictionalizing ones. By placing these biographies within their historical context and comparing them with other evidence from the same period, you’ll learn to distinguish different authors’ aims, genres, and techniques in writing about individual lives, and to critically reflect on the implications of such factors for our understanding of the texts and the figures they portray.
GLAS 230 – Seminar in Art, Power, and Society
6 ECTS
This course uncovers the ways in which power, ideology, hegemony and legitimacy circulate through contemporary art institutions, like museums and cultural spaces, the processes of the making of art and the experience of encountering art in diverse sites.
GLAS 231 – Contemporary Art and Theory
6 ECTS
The course explores themes and key debates in global artistic practice and theory since 1950. It adopts a thematic approach to viewing and contextualizing works of contemporary art. The discussions may include (but are not limited to) topics such as originality and questioning originality; appropriation and art; Earth and ecology; artists in dialogue with canons of art; memory and memorialization; social protest and activism; art galleries and art markets; artist autobiographies; and artistic mediums.
GLAS 240 – Special Topics in Texts, Contexts, and Concepts
6 ECTS
New iterations of courses on the theme of texts, contexts, and concepts create a space for faculty members to introduce new research and visiting scholars to contribute to the curriculum.
ENGL 217 – Literary Genres
6 ECTS
Different iterations of this course may study different genres, such as ode, epic poetry, tragedy, etc. – all will be indicated by course code A, B, C, etc.
ENGL 217A – Literary Genres: The Novel
6 ECTS
The course aims at introducing students to the novel, to theories of the novel as well as to a range of literary practices that are usually defined as novels.
ENGL 219 – Film as Text
6 ECTS
In this course, we will develop a critical language that will enable us to read the aspects that come together to create both a cinematic narrative and an aesthetic style: mise-en-scène, editing, cinematography, sound design, generic conventions, stars/actors/auteurs. Taking all these ‘disparate aspects’ together (after working through them one by one, section by section) we will attempt to determine what film form is and how style & narrative interact to produce the fascination of the cinematic gaze.
ENGL 220 – Technology and the Environment
6 ECTS
Two of the most significant developments in the last few decades have been the increased role of technology in our lives and the growing realization of environmental crises. Not only do these phenomena affect the material world that we live in, but they also shape literature and the way we represent the world. In turn, literature shapes the way that we think about these topics and how we act in regards to them. Technology has changed not only the way humans interact, but also the way we move and the way we move ideas and texts. We communicate instantly and seemingly seamlessly but are there costs to this new easy communication and movement? Similarly, the globe has developed an obsession with “green” movements. Do these movements work or are they feel-good cover for short-sighted capitalism? We must also ask what role technology has on the environment. While one can certainly use technology to better manage global warming, pollution and other dangers, these same phenomena seem to exist in large part because we rely so heavily on technology. We will explore these questions and many others in this course to get a handle on the dynamic interplay of these topics. Prerequisite: ENGL 101.
ENGL 243 – Postcolonial Literature
6 ECTS
The purpose of the course is to learn about how postcolonial texts and literatures have been theorized over time and to engage meaningfully with historical documents and literary works related to postcolonial contexts. Prerequisite: ENGL 101.
ENGL 262 – Topics in Translation
6 ECTS
This course examines in depth a specific topic of translation, using texts and materials of specific cultural and stylistic values. Texts and readings vary each semester depending on the choice of topic; however, the sessions employ texts in Arabic and English (L1 and L2) for methods of translation, with consideration of translation theories. Students in this course deal with poems in Arabic and English that represent temporal, regional, cultural, and stylistic specificities. Classical, contemporary, and modern texts comprise the source texts. Close reading, paraphrasing, and analysis of the source texts mainly take place in a workshop situation in preparation for analyzing different versions of the resulting translated poems. The corpus of such translated poems is evaluated in student conferences after theoretical tenets are applied to the method of translation therein. Analogous experiences in the same or different genre of poetry are discussed and applied. Migration of texts through cultures, ages, or linguistic backgrounds is studied to hone the students’ translation and critical abilities.
HIST 224 – Historical Writing and Interpretation
6 ECTS
This is an applied library course focusing on the conduct of historical research and writing. Emphasis centers on historical methodology in the identification and utilization of sources, analysis, synthesis, and exposition. Prerequisite: ENGL 100.
MCOM 206 – Introduction to Cinema
6 ECTS
This course is designed to introduce students to the study of cinema. Three major areas of study will be emphasized: cinema history, film analysis, and global industries.
MCOM 218 – Media Activism
6 ECTS
This class provides an introduction to the politics, aesthetics, and tactics underlying various types of media activism.
MCOM 220 – Popular Culture
6 ECTS
In this course, we aim to use our understanding of what is popular to strengthen our understanding of the world we live in. From Hollywood, Netflix, and K-pop to advertisements, reality TV, and YouTube, popular culture encompasses a wide range of industries, texts, practices, and artifacts that pervade everyday life.
MCOM 221 – War and Media
6 ECTS
This undergraduate seminar asks ‘what is a visual culture of war?” as it expands across an array of media platforms, technologies, and aesthetic conventions. In addition to an examination of key theoretical readings that will guide us in building a more precise analytic language for understanding war not simply as an ‘event’ but as a discursive production, we will also explore and unpack prominent images and tropes that circulated in global media to reveal the gendered logics of war. Prerequisite: ENGL 100.
MCOM 222 – Introduction to Visual Culture
6 ECTS
How are images produced? And how do they communicate? By introducing you to the analysis and interpretation of images, this course will help you develop the visual literacy and critical skills needed to decode meaning in a visually saturated world. But the study of visual culture goes beyond images into processes and practices of seeing and looking. How does vision determine what and how we know? What role does power play in determining what we see and what we don’t see? These questions will guide our inquiry into the visual as a site of power, struggle, order, and change. Prerequisite: ENGL 100.
