In this class we will examine early philosophies of nature and natural history from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, especially those that focused attention on the human being as a species and the question of its relationship to the environment, in order to analyze their impact on works of literature.

In this course we will explore the notion of style across fashion, film, and writing in order to grapple with what is at stake in a surface.

Under the regime of idleness, to kill the time, which

kills us second by second, there will be shows and

theatrical performances always and always.

—Paul Lafargue, “The Right to Be Lazy”

Was ever idleness like this?

—Emily Dickinson

The project of reading always involves assuming some authority on the part of the narrator from whose point of view the text unfolds. But just how far does that authority extend? In this course we will explore texts from a wide range of linguistic traditions and historical periods that have particularly complicated relationships with narrative authority and point of view. We will begin with straightforward examples of unreliable narrators who directly or deliberately mislead their readers.

Marriages in myths and fairy tales are rarely without extensive trials; folklore is full of lost and monstrous husbands, women’s journeys to retrieve them, and their efforts to flee them.  In this course we will read a core set of narratives about supernatural or otherwise strange relationships — such as Cupid and Psyche, Tam Lin, Beauty and the Beast, and Bluebeard — and think about what these tales do, and what subsequent authors do to them.

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.”

- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

Writing strategies and expectations vary among cultures. Spanish writers, for instance, may be surprised to discover that their thoughtful attempts at emphasizing an idea can be seen by English readers as unnecessary repetitions. They may also find themselves wondering why a general reflection, intended to highlight the argument’s complexity, can be perceived, instead, as a digression.

Popular culture today depends in part on a widespread agreement about what determines a “person,” or what constitutes an “identity”—the must-have elements of a biography. Nevertheless, these topics have recently generated intense controversies and public debates, which often involve literary and philosophical works. In this class, we will study how novels, poetry, essays, film, and other artistic and theoretical forms have dealt with the responsibility of representing persons, whether fictional or historical.