Respecting Auctoritas

2013 is creeping up quickly. In anticipation, I’m leaving my grad students clues about the research that lies ahead: 

http://www.respectingauctoritas.wordpress.com

Courses for Spring 2013

Even though we’ve just begun acclimating to Fall 2012, spring schedules are now available! I’ve listed mine below, for anyone planning this far in advance:

English 260: Courtship & Rivalry in Early British Literature (MWF)

English 490: Men & Women Behaving Badly: Gender in Literature (MWF)

English 661, graduate: Respecting “Auctoritas” in Medieval Literature and Scholarship(M)

Now on Twitter!

Follow my work on Twitter with @PerformHumanity or at http://www.performinghumanity.wordpress.com.

Blog Feature at BSU

On June 4, the BSU English Department will feature “Performing Humanity” on its blog.  For more details, click the link to “Performing Humanity.”

Going Live!

On May 4, at noon, the student-driven website Performing Humanity in the Renaissance will go live!  Throughout the summer, be on the lookout for regular posts that address issues regarding early modern perceptions on the human-animal divide.  This project is the culmination of a semester’s worth of research and seminar discussions — a product of which I’m incredibly proud.

Performing Humanity

It’s exciting to announce that, as the students in my Performing Humanity in the Renaissance course continue in their semester- long projects, they will be collaborating with me to set up an informational blog.  Inspired by the impressive Wonders and Marvels, we will build Performing Humanity.

The site will be debut new material beginning in April, and it will explore the difficulty of defining and categorizing humans and animals by exploring those categories’ representation in  a variety of legal, social, scientific, artistic, and literary documents from the early modern period.

Spring 2012 Courses

English 260: Narratives and Power in Early British Literature (MWF 10:00)

This course will introduce students to major British writers and texts before 1700.  As we examine canonical texts by authors such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wroth, and Milton, we will engage in debate about the role of narrative in early literature.  Among the questions we will consider are:

• What constitutes narrative and its role in literature across time?
• To what degree did writers share anxieties or concerns about the creation and use of narratives?  How did such concerns shift over time?

• Who or what controls narratives—whether they are individual, familial, political, or gendered?
• In what way does narrative bestow power or authority? How might it disempower?

• How might we, as active writers and readers of social narrative, attempt to create our own narratives?

English 363: Performing Humanity in the Renaissance (MWF 1:00)

What is invested in the distinction between “human” and “animal”?  How do the definitions of these terms affect individual and social identities or legal and social behaviors?  This course will take up such questions, encouraging students to consider how early modern literary texts represent and engage in the debates and definitions regarding human and animal nature.  By bringing a range of philosophical, social, and legal documents into conversation with contemporary drama and poetry, this course will further urge students to explore how early modern vocabularies about humanity shape similar concerns in our own lives.

English 464: Shakespeare in Conversation (MWF 11:00)

Shakespeare is a major literary figure whose name and works shape most students’ perceptions of the early modern period. Yet Shakespeare’s texts did not exist in isolation; their importance grew out of the complex cultural conversations that they engaged.  By encouraging the reading of Shakespeare’s plays within their historical context, this course will familiarize students with a number of those key debates and invite them to locate continuing dialogues about Shakespeare’s work.