Ted Mason has been a member of the Department of English at Kenyon College since 1989. He held prior teaching positions at the University of Virginia, Trinity College, and Mount Holyoke College.
Professor Mason teaches courses in African-American literature and culture, modern literature and literary theory. He is also an active participant in the African Diaspora Studies Concentration, frequently acting as director of the program. From 1999-2003 he was Kenyon's John B. McCoy-Bank One Distinguished Teaching Professor.
Professor Mason's teaching interests coincide with his research interests. He is the author of several articles, reviews, and presentations on African-American literature, culture, and literary theory. During 2003, Professor Mason served as president of the International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. In 2008, he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Association of Departments of English (ADE), an organization sponsored by the Modern Language Association…
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Ted Mason has been a member of the Department of English at Kenyon College since 1989. He held prior teaching positions at the University of Virginia, Trinity College, and Mount Holyoke College.
Professor Mason teaches courses in African-American literature and culture, modern literature and literary theory. He is also an active participant in the African Diaspora Studies Concentration, frequently acting as director of the program. From 1999-2003 he was Kenyon's John B. McCoy-Bank One Distinguished Teaching Professor.
Professor Mason's teaching interests coincide with his research interests. He is the author of several articles, reviews, and presentations on African-American literature, culture, and literary theory. During 2003, Professor Mason served as president of the International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. In 2008, he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Association of Departments of English (ADE), an organization sponsored by the Modern Language Association. He served as ADE President in 2010. From 2012-2015 he will serve as a GLCA/Teagle Foundation Pedagogy Fellow.
Areas of Expertise
African-American literature and culture, narrative theory, literary and cultural theory.
Education
1979 — Doctor of Philosophy from Stanford University
1972 — Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University
Courses Recently Taught
ENGL 103
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.
ENGL 104
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.
ENGL 199
Writing for the Humanities
ENGL 199
ENGL 369
Canadian Literature and Culture
ENGL 369
In this course we will examine works of modern authors from English- and French-speaking (in translation) Canada, as well as works by native Canadian writers, some who choose to write in either of the two "official" languages. We will consider issues of national identity both within an officially bilingual, multicultural Canada, and within a North American context -- Canadians defining themselves in relation to a powerful neighbor to the south. We will thus begin by focusing on Canadian writers, filmmakers and musicians as they characterize that border or "medicine line" along which so many Canadians choose to live, against which so much of Canadian identity is defined, and over which they constantly trespass. In the process, we also will examine the many ways in which Canadians characterize the United States and Americans. We will concentrate on writers (Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro, Gabrielle Roy, Leonard Cohen) who have very self-consciously, and from very different perspectives, contributed to the task of defining what constitutes Canadian culture, the Canadian multicultural "mosaic." Some of Canada's most renowned poets also are musicians. We also will hear from them. And, as some of Canada's strongest representations of cultural difference have appeared in the form of films sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada and Telefilm Canada, we will view and study some of these in relation to the literary works we will be reading. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: junior standing or ENGL 210-291 or permission of instructor.
ENGL 378
Race in the 19th-Century Literary Imagination
ENGL 378
In this course, students will study the fashion in which the concept of race becomes a powerful influence on U.S. literature between 1800 and 1900. We will think extensively about the relation between the attempt to produce a national literature and the conundrum presented by race. Beginning with literary precursors in the 17th and 18th centuries (e.g., Puritan captivity narratives), we will work our way through authors such as Thomas Jefferson, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain and Charles Chesnutt among others. As we do this, students will study how national identity influences literary production and how that production forges national identity. As they study this reciprocal relation, students will also gain a familiarity with basic concepts in critical race theory. This counts toward the 1700-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: junior standing or ENGL 210-291 or permission of instructor.\n
ENGL 384
Imagining America in the Novel
ENGL 384
This course is a general introduction to major American novels from 1900 to 1955. Our central question will be: How is American national identity imagined and represented in fiction? We also will consider the relation between a general national identity and various regional identities in the South or the Midwestern prairie. Are these identities more in conflict or in concert? The course will investigate how national identity also can be connected with other forms of identity, such as race, class and gender. We also will interest ourselves in the craft of the authors under consideration including Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos and Ralph Ellison. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major and the American studies major/concentration. Prerequisite: junior standing or ENGL 210-291 or permission of instructor.
ENGL 493
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.
INDS 150
Doing the Work: Productivity in an Academic Environment
INDS 150
In this course, students will focus on the challenges facing academic knowledge workers (in management consultant Peter Drucker's famous phrase). We will consider concrete methods that allow us to do our coursework, research and writing more creatively, more productively and more efficiently. Achieving this goal will require us to familiarize ourselves with some of the leading ideas in the field of intellection, cognition, organization and human learning. Students should expect to be active participants in this course and be open not only to learning about the processes of learning itself, but also to developing strategies for becoming better learners. Although this course is open to all students, first-year and sophomore students especially are encouraged to enroll. No prerequisite.