Kathleen A. Fernando

Altered States, Literary Trips: The Practice of Comparative Literature

CWL 220

This is a methods course that trains students to think and write like a comparativist. Where CWL 120 is an introduction to World Literature as methodology, CWL 220 builds on that foundation by situating world literatures within the broader discipline of Comparative Literature. This is a theoretically-focused course that integrates the study of literary texts with the founding and dominant theoretical movements of the 20th century. Building upon the close reading skills that students will have developed in their first-year core course, students will learn specific strategies of reading literature, including contrapuntal reading, distant reading, and surface reading. Course readings may include Kalidasa’s “Shakuntala, Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” Jorge Luis Borges’s “Labyrinths,” Sophocles’ “Antigone” and Kamila Shamsie’s “Home Fire”. The theme and texts taught in the course will vary each year and students are encouraged to contact the course instructor to find out the specific reading list for a given year. This counts toward the core course requirement for the concentration. Permission of instructor required.This course paired with any CWL course counts towards the Humanities diversification requirement. These courses must be taken at Kenyon. Prerequisite: CWL 120 or select, cross-listed sections of ENGL 103/104 or MLL 100- or 200-level courses (in translation) or CLAS 130 or 225. Offered every spring.

Introduction to Literature and Language

ENGL 103

Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors will assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of the department chair. Offered every year.

Introduction to Literature and Language

ENGL 104

Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors will assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of department chair. Offered every year.

ST: In Transit

ENGL 191

In Transit

ENGL 264

An expression commonly used in relation to travel, the phrase “in transit” is defined as the passage or journey from one place, or point, to another. In this course, we will read and analyze a diversity of literary texts that deal with the theme of being “in transit.” Through the exploration of short stories, novels and film, we will grapple with the following questions: What does being in transit mean for the individual as well as for the community? How do writers imagine the transitions, (trans)formations, and intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality that take place during such crossings? What are the geopolitical implications of travel? Are ‘breaks’ in the journey imagined as disruptions or continuities with the places/spaces of departure/arrival? How do writers imagine ‘becoming stuck’ in a place previously imagined to be transitory and fluid, moving towards a clear destination? What are the gamut of affective or emotional experiences that accompany the process of being in transit? We will read the following texts: Charles Dickens’, "Great Expectations," Earl Lovelace’s, "The Dragon Can’t Dance," Tayari Jones’, "An American Marriage," Laila Lalami’s, "Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits," Edwidge Danticat’s, "Claire of the Sea Light," Rokhey Sakhawat Hossain’s, “Sultana’s Dream." This course is taught at the Richland Correctional Institution. Transportation will be provided. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Permission of instructor required. No prerequisite.

Violence and the Body: Narrative Insurgency

ENGL 266

In his "Critique of Violence," the German philosopher Walter Benjamin raises the question: "Is any nonviolent resolution of conflict possible?" In this course, we will investigate this question through an exploration of literary and theoretical writings that shed light on the historical experience of decolonization. Decolonization was often imagined as a "new day," free from oppression and strife. In reality, however, independence from the colonizer was almost always marked by many manifestations of violence. Why was decolonization such a violent phenomenon? How did violence express itself in response to race, class, gender, and religious and linguistic difference? How did the various anticolonial nationalisms imagine everyday life after independence? How was literature -- novels, poems, short stories, plays and film -- shaped by the struggles of anticolonial resistance and decolonization? And finally, how do fictional texts represent everyday life after decolonization? These are some of the questions that we will explore in this course. We will begin with an exploration of a few critical writings on violence: Frantz Fanon's "Concerning Violence," Walter Benjamin's "Critique of Violence," Mohandas K. Gandhi's "Hindu Swaraj", Hannah Arendt's "Reflections on Violence" and excerpts from Edward Said's "Culture and Imperialism". We will use the questions and responses that we generate from our discussion of these theoretical texts to frame our subsequent analyses of literary texts. Our literary texts will include writing from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Trinidad, Jamaica and Zimbabwe. Rabindranath Tagore's "The Home and the World", Earl Lovelace's "The Dragon Can't Dance", Shyam Selvadurai's "Funny Boy", Michael Ondaatje's "Anil's Ghost", Tsitsi Dangarembga's "Nervous Conditions" and Baburao Bagul's "Mother" are some of the works that we will read in the context of the course. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104.

ST: Intro Caribbean Literature

ENGL 291

ST: Intro Caribbean Lit

ENGL 291

Departures and Arrivals

ENGL 368

Exile, Edward Said writes, is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. What is it about leaving one’s native home that evokes this essential sadness? Is a native place always a true home? What are the social, cultural, emotional, and political challenges that accompany leaving home as well as arriving in a new country? What does it mean to return home as a member of the diasporic community abroad? How do we distinguish between the various types of migrations -- exile, refugee, expatriate, and &eacutemigr&eacute? How do writers imagine the various hybridity -- linguistic, cultural, religious, gender, and sexual -- that result from these complicated crossings? We will interrogate these questions related to diasporic living, through an examination of an array of literary and theoretical writings. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: junior standing or ENGL 210-291 or permission of instructor.

Transnational South Asia

ENGL 370

The course offers an exploration of literary texts from writers based in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh and/or the South Asian diaspora. It examines how South Asia as a category is imagined and evoked, as well as how the literary classification changes the way we approach and read the text. To what extent is a reading of a text bound with the national literary canon? In what ways are literary texts informed by the social, historical and political conditions while also participating in the transformation of the public sphere? What are the ways in which South Asian writers articulate a specifically postcolonial imaginary within a global discourse? What, indeed, counts as a South Asian text? In addition to poems, plays, short stories, and novels, we will read critical and nonfiction works. Topics to be examined in the course may include borders and locations, traumas and triumphs of decolonization, formation of the national canon and articulation of identity within and outside the nation. The thematic focus of the course may vary from year to year students should contact the instructor to ascertain the specific focus and texts that will be adopted. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: junior standing or ENGL 210-291 or permission of instructor.

Individual Study

ENGL 493

Individual study in English is a privilege reserved for senior majors who want to pursue a course of reading or complete a writing project on a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum. Because individual study is one option in a rich and varied English curriculum, it is intended to supplement, not take the place of, coursework, and it cannot normally be used to fulfill requirements for the major. An IS will earn the student 0.5 units of credit, although in special cases it may be designed to earn 0.25 units. To qualify to enroll in an individual study, a student must identify a member of the English department willing to direct the project. In consultation with that faculty member, the student must write a one-to two page proposal for the IS that the department chair must approve before the IS can go forward. The chair’s approval is required to ensure that no single faculty member becomes overburdened by directing too many IS courses. In the proposal, the student should provide a preliminary bibliography (and/or set of specific problems, goals and tasks) for the course, outline a specific schedule of reading and/or writing assignments, and describe in some detail the methods of assessment (e.g., a short story to be submitted for evaluation biweekly; a thirty-page research paper submitted at course’s end, with rough drafts due at given intervals). Students should also briefly describe any prior coursework that particularly qualifies them for their proposed individual studies. The department expects IS students to meet regularly with their instructors for at least one hour per week, or the equivalent, at the discretion of the instructor. The amount of work submitted for a grade in an IS should approximate at least that required, on average, in 400-level English courses. In the case of group individual studies, a single proposal may be submitted, assuming that all group members will follow the same protocols. Because students must enroll for individual studies by the seventh class day of each semester, they should begin discussion of their proposed individual study well in advance, preferably the semester before, so that there is time to devise the proposal and seek departmental approval before the established deadline.