DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND CULTURE
COURSES 2013-14
Fall semester
ENGLISH FICTION—1st semester
This course aims at presenting a variety of genres, indicative of the artistic movements
oftheir era, in diachronic succession and in relation to their historical and
culturalparameters. Introductory lectures will include references to the timeline of the
birth of thenovel as well as excerpts from 18th-century prose by authors such as Defoe
and Swift.The rest of the syllabus will include a 19th-century novel, representative of
realism, byCharles Dickens or George Eliot, as well as short stories (or even a novel)
from the 20thvcnturyby authors such as Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, and Forster.
ENGLISH POETRY—3rd semester
This course has a twofold purpose. First, to familiarize students with the elements
ofpoetry, such as imagery, figures of speech, rhythm, symbol, and other conventions
thatwill help them read, analyze, and understand poetry. Second, to offer students a
historicaloverview of British poetry, examining the ways in which authors have used the
aboveelements to express ideas and emotions throughout the centuries.The course is
offered in the form of a series of lectures, always in dialogue withthe students. Texts are
taken from a main anthology and leaflets (provided). For theevaluation of knowledge
gained, there will be a final exam, as well as the opportunity foroptional extra-credit
research papers. Students evaluate the course anonymously througha final questionnaire.
CONTEMPORARY ANGLOPHONE THEATRE—3rd semester
This introductory course examines contemporary anglophone plays through the
sociohistoricalcultural context of the 20th and 21st centuries. We analyze representative
texts ofvarious theatrical genres representing realism, expressionism, the epic, the theatre
of theabsurd, etc. The course aims at sensitizing students to the particularities of the
dramaticform, as well as at the development of critical thinking.There are weekly classes
with lectures and dialogue. Course material includesplays, lectures from invited speakers,
a photocopy pack with study questions andbibliographical lists. Students are encouraged
to conduct further research on their own.The evaluation of knowledge gained is based on
a final exam (80% of the grade) and onshort critical essays (20%) written in the context
of the critical essay workshop conductedseparately as part of this course. The course will
be evaluated through a questionnairefilled by the students at the end of the semester
anonymously.
THEORY OF CULTURE—5th semester
The aim of this course is the definition of the concept of culture and the understanding
ofthe ways in which creative activities contribute to the quality of human life.
Issuesconcerning the relationship of culture and society, “higher” and “popular” culture,
as wellas the relations between sciences and the arts are investigated, while questions
pertainingto the goals of cultural activities and the interaction among them are put forth
and explored.
AMERICAN LEGENDS—5th semester
If myths and legends are the synecdoche for, and condensation of, the defining character
of a nation, this course, through its detailed examination of American-born legends and
myths created from the 15th to the 19th century will attempt to elucidate the defining
traits of the nascent culture of the United States and use them in consequent evaluations
of the native literature and cultural phenomena. Following the theoretical approach of
American Cultural Studies critic Stephen Greenblatt, who sees culture and text as
interacting through the manipulation of communicational “codes,” the myths and legends
will be examined both as literary (or oratory) statements and as negotiators of cultural
norms. Students will be called upon, through journals, class discussions, papers and
presentations, to evaluate and comment on the overt and clandestine meanings of the
stories of Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, Calamity Jane, Pecos Bill, Davy Crockett,
Raggedy Dick, La Llorona, and a number of First Peoples’ texts ranging from world
creation myths to popular press renditions of Native figures in the 1800s.
TONI MORRISON AND EDWARD SAID: HISTORY, FICTION AND THE
ROLEOF SECULAR CRITICISM—5th semester
Toni Morrison and Edward Said are two widely-acclaimed authors whose
textshavetransformed the narration and interpretation of colonial modernity,probed the
relationshipbetween culture and imperialism, reconfigured andreinterpreted the ways by
which textsrelate to the world. This coursewill focus on several critical essays by Said
and Morrisonand study theliterary and theoretical responses their respective works give
toquestionsconcerning the relation between history and fiction in latemodernity and in the
wake ofpoststructuralist and postmodernistdiscourses. Students will engage Edward
Said’smethod of secular criticismand examine some of the early and late novels of
ToniMorrison who hasdeveloped her own literary and theoretical articulation of the
conceptsofmemory and community in a manner that transcends the literary and
culturalboundariesof African-American literature. The themes of culture andcolonization,
slavery, racism,transatlantic modernity, Americanexceptionalism and the concepts of
memory andcommunity will be some ofthe prevalent themes of the course.The class will
take the form of a seminar. Students will be encouragedtoparticipate, give presentations
and deliver short oral reports. Studentswill be evaluatedon the basis of oral presentations
and reports, shortresponse papers, and a final paper orfinal exam. Course evaluations
aresubmitted at the end of the semester.
THE ΤRANSFORMATION OF THE POETIC SUBJECT IN WALT WHITMAN’
SAND EMILY DICKINSON’ S POETRY—5th semester
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are the founding figures of American poetry;
theyboth lived in the 19th century, their authenticity, however, comes from
differentiation.Through the analysis of the style and the ideas of various poems, the
course examines thepoets’ search for authenticity in form and theme, and focuses on their
use of language —at once individual and universal, personal (lyric) and vernacular (epic)
— and on theircontinuous transformation of their poetic subject as an expansion of the
self into theconceptual space of America.Student evaluation consists of the final exam
grade, the optional essays and theirpresentation in class. For the evaluation of the class,
the students will complete aquestionnaire anonymously.
DARK ROMANTICISMS IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN WRITING—
5thsemester
The era that saw the consolidation of an American national identity was an era that
wasmarked not only by faith in progress, but also social unrest, racial conflict, the
movementfor women’s rights and the movement for the abolition of slavery. The course
revisitshow Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville Herman and Edgar Allan Poe probed into
theantinomies of a period of expansion, as the optimism of the early nineteenth-century
gaveway to disillusionment before the failed promise of the American democracy. Both
theaffirmative impulse of American Transcendentalism and the darker, more pessimist
grainof Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe revolve the ethics, the politics and the aesthetics of
theEuropean romantic tradition, and raise crucial questions about the emerging
Americancultural identity, the conflict between the individual and the collective, issues of
race andgender, freedom and bondage, authority and transgression, savagery
andcivilisation.
DRAMATIC THEORY—5th semester
This course introduces students to dramatic theory and criticism, exploring the major
theoretical trends and writings that have influenced the history of theatre and drama from
ancient Greece to the postmodern period. Its objectives are: to examine how ideas about
the drama and its making have contributed to western culture; to acquaint students with
the major types of dramatic theory, showing how these theories elucidate the drama of
representative periods; to develop the students’ own perspectives of the theatre, providing
the necessary tools for discussion and expression. The course depends on student
participation and students should be prepared to discuss the essays assigned for each
session. Although the study of theatre in this course is largely theoretical and conceptual,
class outings to plays and performances will also be organized, aiming at the direct
experiencing of drama, and the connection between theory and practice. The class has
also a writing component and the students’ written papers will account for the 20% of the
final grade.
POETRY AND THE VISUAL ARTS IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICA:
FROMMODERNISM TO POSTMODERNISM—5th semester
This course maps significant developments in American art and poetry and examines
therelationship between poetry and the visual arts, from the emergence of modernism in
theearly 20th century to the postmodernism of the 1960s and 1970s. We will
exploreinteractions of poets and visual artists, and examine how American poets found
sources inthe visual arts.We will study a variety of sources and documents, including
poems and works ofart, as well as artists’ and poets’ writings, interviews, videos and
performances. Teachingconsists in lectures, as well as seminar activities and discussions
developing connectionsacross poetry and the visual arts. Course material includes a
reader with set texts anddocuments. Additional visual material will be available on the eclass, and on reserve atthe departmental library. This course is assessed by a final exam,
worth 80 percent of thefinal mark, and by submission of a research paper and in-class
assignments, worth 20percent of the final mark.
SUBJECTIVITY
IN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
WOMEN’SPOETRY—7th semester
LABORING-CLASS
The course examines representative texts of eighteenth-century British laboringclasswomen poets in conjunction to the social, economic, and political changes that took
placein Britain at that time. Based on contemporary theories of subjectivity, the course
willanalyze the ways in which eighteenth-century British laboring-class women
poetsstruggled to articulate their identity as regards social class, gender, sexuality,
nationality,and religion. Through an analysis of representative poems by Mary Collier,
Mary Leapor,Ann Yearsley, Elizabeth Hands, Janet Little, etc., the course will shed light
on the effortmade by these poets to emulate their contemporary (male) literary tradition
as well asstrongly subvert it.
BODILY FICTIONS—7th semester
This course will explore, through the critical examination of various works of 20th
century U.S. literature, the ways in which contemporary authors have expressed their
view of, revision of, and relation to, the human body in all its variables. Given the
anthropological view that culture (and therefore art) emerges as a reaction to natural
stimuli, the body, being an all-pervasive presence in human affairs and the source of
many existential parameters (including pleasure, pain, identity, procreation and
mortality), features large in canonical literature worldwide, especially in the western
world where feminism has reinscribed the importance of the body in all aspects of private
and public discourse, and most markedly in the U.S., where, according to Jean
Baudrillard in America, the cult of the body has been in full effect for several decades as
a constituent element of American culture. The tribulations and the transformations
bodies undergo within the endless realms of fiction em-body metaphorically and
metonymically the myriad questions of theme, form, philosophy and function in the said
art form, as a subject as well as a tool (from Plato’s idea of “engendered” textuality in the
Symposium to Hélène Cixous’s theory of “writing the body” and Donna Haraway’s
“Cyborg Manifesto”).
AMERICAN LITERATURE AND AESTHETICS: FROM MODERNISM TO
POSTMODERNISM—7th semester
This course examines the transition from modernism to postmodernism in American
literaturefrom the late 19th century until the present, focusing on the aesthetic dimension
of the literary movements. Without neglecting matters of society, history, ideology,
politics, and power, the course explores the aesthetic considerations of each movement
and seeks a return toforms of aesthetic engagement. In order to do so, it draws on a
variety of areas (the novel, poetry, painting, architecture, critical theory, aesthetic theory
and philosophy).
IDENTITY,
HISTORY,
AND
THE
NATION
ANGLOPHONEPLAYWRIGHTS—7th semester
IN
PLAYS
BY
The course investigates the ways by which representative Englishspeakingplaywrightsdeal with the issue of cultural identity in plays written during the
20th century.Discussing plays by W.B.Yeats, Brian Friel, Amiri Baraka, SamuelBeckett,
CarylChurchill and others, we investigate the role played by language,history, nation,
genderand race in the construction of identity. The dramatic styleeach writer adopts will
also beanalysed as well as the politics the plays support.
MODERNISM: THEMES AND STYLE—7th semester
This course offers a study of English Modernism considered within the historical,
cultural, and social framework of the first part of the twentieth century. This period is
generally thought to contain a particularly dense concentration of experimentation and
innovation in literary form and theme as writers struggled to come to terms with drastic
changes before and after World War I. Texts to be studied include novels by Joseph
Conrad, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, poetry and literary criticism by T. S. Eliot, as
well as important critical essays on literary form and social developments.
THE CITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Unlike early 20th century images that depict that city as a result of rational planning and a
topos of hierarchy and homogeneity, later representations of the city emphasize its plastic
nature as well as its empowerment of subjective individualism. The aim of this course is
to examine the changing faces of the city and their impact on the life of the individual.
Though emphasis is given on the literary-critical perspectives on contemporary city,
sociology, social and political geography, architectural theory as well as different types of
cultural studies like film theory, gender studies, ethnic and postcolonial studies are taken
into consideration, all of which revealing the interdisciplinary character of the field of
urban studies.
REWRITING BIBLICAL MYTH IN ENGLISH LITERATURE—7th semester
The course deals with texts (poems, fiction, and drama) selected from across thespectrum
of English literature: 15th century to the present and aims at underscoring thereasons that
prompted writers to rewrite biblical myths. The analysis of particular biblicalmyths in the
works under review will show that both religious conformity as well asdissent played an
important role in English politics and provided alternative solutions topolitical
deadlocked situations throughout the ages. The myths were also employed inorder to
convey social, political, and religious ideas, expose social tensions, point outpolitical
instability, analyze religious controversies, and explain wars. Finally, the coursewill
study the literary techniques writers used in their attempt to fuse biblical myths withtheir
artistic vision.
Spring semester
AMERICAN FICTION—2nd semester
The course deals with American fiction from its first period of development through
the19th-century classics and onwards towards the postmodern and multi-cultural authors
oftoday. The historical and cultural parameters of fiction are examined in conjunction
withstylistic differences as these were expressed via the various literary movements, that
isrealism, symbolism, modernism and postmodernism. The course also aims to develop
thestudents’ capacity for critical analysis of texts as cultural products and carriers
ofideological and socio-cultural debates within the larger context of the era that
producedthem.
THEORY AND CRITICISM OF LITERATURE—4th semester
The course examines the most important developments in 20th-century literary theoryand
criticism, from Russian formalism to New Historicism and Post-colonial theory. Itfocuses
on select representative approaches to literature but also introduces students to awide
spectrum of schools and movements such as formalism, structuralism,psychoanalysis,
deconstruction, feminism, cultural studies and so on. Emphasis is givento the reading of
well-known texts by theoreticians and literary critics, as well as theapplication of those
theories on literary text analysis.
AMERICAN POETRY—4th semester
The course studies the tradition and development of American poetry from Bradstreet
toSnyder, with the aim of a detailed, comparative analysis of the work of major
Americanpoets who helped shape the cultural face of their era in their search for a
personal poeticstyle that would help them determine truths about themselves and express
its connectionswith the wider conceptual space that is “America.” The main schools of
thoughtinfluencing poetry, from Puritanism to Postmodernism, will be examined, along
withoverviews of the political and social developments that led to the formation and
constantre-formulation of literary movements. Finally, class analysis focuses on the
multiformnature of American poetry, that which created the “tradition of the new.”
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE—6th semester
The aim of the course is to introduce students to Shakespeare’s drama through
theanalysis of representative plays taking into consideration the historical, social
andtheatrical context of the Renaissance society. Emphasis is also placed on the ways
bywhich contemporary literary theories have affected the reading of his plays regarding
thetreatment of important issues such as gender, race, power relations.
LITERATURE AND SOCIETY OF THE VICTORIAN PERIOD—6th semester
This course examines some representative novels of the Victorian era by CharlotteBronte,
George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James in relation to the socioculturalframework, set by authors such as Dickens, J.S. Mill, Darwin, Wilde, which
shaped thethemes and styles of the fiction of that period. Romanticism, realism,
naturalism, andaestheticism will be discussed in relation to the themes of
industrialisation, religion, theposition of women, imperialism etc. that permeate the 19th
century English novel. Thefinal grade will be based on the students’ overall performance,
written and oralassignments, and their grade in the final exam.
VICTORIAN POETRY—6th semester
Victorian poetry is influenced by both Romanticism and Neo-Classicism, while
alsopaving the way for Modernism. Despite being more conservative than the 19th
CenturyEnglish novel due to its conventional form and didacticism, Victorian poetry
displayssome interesting innovations, such as a naturalistic evocation of scene and a
realisticrepresentation of emotion. The leading poets of the day, Alfred Lord Tennyson,
Elizabethand Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Gerald Manley Hopkins, and Christina
Rossettiare concerned with the same topical issues as the novelists such as the rapid pace
ofsocial change between 1837-1901 and the Empire, class and gender relations, and
thechallenge of scientific progress to religion and morality. However, there is also
atendency for these poets to sometimes take refuge in an idyllic nature or a mythical
pastthat appear less turbulent and conflictual than 19th Century Industrialized
England.Hence, this kind of poetry reflects certain typical responses of the period to
thechallenges of the modern world and lends itself particularly to cultural or
historicistanalysis.
JANE AUSTEN—6th semester
The aim of the course is to examine representative novels by Jane Austen in
theframework of the sociopolitical conditions prevailing at the beginning of the 19thcenturyin Britain. The characters of army and naval officers as well as those of
clergymen areexamined as well as the place of women in the upper-middle class of the
period. Thenovels Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Persuasion are examined.
AMERICAN DRAMA—6th semester
This course explores the aesthetic and ideological character of 20th -century
Americandrama through an analysis and discussion of representative plays by Arthur
Miller,Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Thornton Wilder and others.
CRISTOPHER MARLOWE—8th semester
This course examines four representative texts by Christopher Marlowe, three
plays,Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Edward II, and the erotic epyllionHero
andLeander. Students will read the texts closely and intensively, exploring
Marlowe'srelentless critique of the dominant discourse, involving state power, class
conflict andsexual desire. The course will also introduce students to the cultural and
political contextsof Marlowe's writings, as well as to contemporary critical approaches to
Marlowe, whichfocus on history and sexuality (New Historicism, Cultural Materialism,
Queer Theory,etc.) and raise a wide range of issues centering around Marlowe's life and
work, such asespionage, rebellion, political power, religion, gender relations and sexual
desire.
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE & FILM—8th semester
The aim of the course is to examine how film and fiction have represented
Americanidentity and life, in terms of form and thematic issues. Though the power of
imagesseems to have supplanted the power of the written word, the relationship between
the twomajor forms of artistic expression continues to evolve. This course will offer
acomparative look at American literary works and film in order to help
studentsexperience American culture critically. . The books (along with the films based
on them)examined in this course include Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Philip
Roth’s TheHuman Stain, and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.
CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH FICTION: DEVELOPMENTS IN THEME
ANDSTYLE—8th semester
Contemporary English literature is characterized by a striking pluralism which reflects,on
the one hand, various social developments in every aspect of life and, on the other,
themulticultural makeup of English society after World War II. The course focuses
onrepresentative novels and short stories by major authors of the late 20th century and
aimsat exploring and identifying key thematic and stylistic trends that marked the fiction
ofthe period. Works by Iris Murdoch, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson, Kazuo
Ishiguro,and others will be studied in detail from a theoretical and socio-historical
perspective, andtopics examined will include national identity, representations of history,
the postcolonialera, gender, sexuality, and art. The final grade will be based on the
students’overall performance, written and oral assignments, and their grade in the final
exam.
REPRESENTATIONS OF LONDON—8th semester
The goal of the course is to investigate how the city of London was portrayed in a
varietyof texts (fiction, essays, poetry, drama, painting, travel-writing and film) produced
fromthe early 17th to the late 20th centuries. The course examines London in its
textual,historical and geographical manifestations, seeking to create a sense ofthe
developmentand constant transformation of London and to establish the place of the city
incontemporary social and political debate. Areasof exploration will include the impact
oftrade and immigration on the city; the marketplace and the rise of
consumerism;xenophobia andcosmopolitanism; city places and urban identities;
commodities and theurban subject; sex and the city and London as a world city.
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? ANTICOLONIAL THOUGHT IN THE 20TH AND 21ST
CENTURIES—8th semester
This course will trace the relations between Western genealogies and definitions of
democracy and the major works of anticolonial thinkers that dominate the field of critical
theory and postcolonial studies in the 20th and 21st centuries. Leela Gandhi’s argument in
Affective Communities founds the premise of this course: Western formations of
democracy are contrapuntally related with the anticolonial thought that disseminates with
the expansion of the struggles of independence and the forging of contrapuntal relations
and affective connections between radical discourses that counterwrite democracy. The
figure of the refugee and the concept of community as constitutive elements of the
question of democracy will be explored in a number of essays by Frantz Fanon, Sylvia
Wynter, Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, GayatriSpivak, Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben
and Jacques Derrida. Their essays will be examined together with the works of J .M.
Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Caryl Phillips, and the poetry of M.Nourbese Phillip and
Joan Anim-Addo.Students are expected to complete two research papers (a short
response paper and a long research paper), an oral presentation on one of the topics and
concepts of the course, participation and short oral reports. The aim of this course is to
help fourth-year students prepare a portfolio for graduate school and fully develop their
research, writing and oral skills. Student evaluations will be distributed at the end of the
semester. Students will be evaluated on their participation and portfolios that will
comprise the two papers, the outline or powerpoint file of their presentation and their
short oral reports.
FACT AND FICTION: THE SLIPPERINESS
RENAISSANCELITERATURE—8th semester
OF
“TRUTH”
IN
The course focuses on two important and related strategies of Renaissance literature:
theboundary between fact and fiction, and the slipperiness in any truth claim as concerns
theDivine, the material world, and the self. A variety of “literary” and “non-literary”
textswill be studied. An “anatomy” of Renaissance England (1500-1640) as regards
itspolitics, art, religion, and science will be conducted in relation to the abovementionedfoci.
CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY—8th semester
The course aims at familiarizing students with creative writing, sharpening their
criticalthought and developing their ability to enjoy reading. The various dimensions of
writingare revealed through the discussions of the students with distinguished Greek and
foreignauthors, publishers, and critics. The course produces a periodical called
Αφορμές,showcasing the best texts of the students annually. The examination of the
coursedepends on eight written assignments, their presentation in class, and the
students’contribution to the seminar. Course evaluations are done via completion of an
anonymousstudent evaluation form.
TERRORISM AND LITERARINESSIN 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY THOUGHT—
8th semester
This course studies the phenomenon and the different aspects of terrorism through the
examination of literary, philosophical and political texts as well as other art forms, like
film, from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will address the affinity between
literary/philosophical thought and the concept of terror and terrorism, also posing the
question of the interrelatedness between aesthetics and terrorism and the role of ethics in
this debate. Furthermore, the course will try to elucidate the problem of (terror)ism
through art and vice versa—art through terrorism. A number of novelists and other
thinkers will be discussed, such as George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, John Updike, Don
De Lillo, Alan Moore, in conjunction with philosophical and political texts by diverse
20th or 21st century thinkers like Lyotard, Baudrillard, Zizek, Bleiker, as well as major
18th century figures such as Kant or Burke. In addition, contemporary thought and
literature will be employed to cast light on, interpret and problematize real terrorist acts-acts of irrational, extreme violence--through human history.The course takes the form of
a seminar so that in-class dialogue and critical thinking are encouraged. Course material
includes literary and theoretical texts, various handouts and selected bibliography.
Student evaluation is based on the final exam, class participation, optional research
projects and/or oral presentations. At the end of the semester, students are given a
questionnaire through which they can evaluate the course.