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Syllabus
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English 2183.X1 – Fall 2006 – Shakespeare
Prof: Dr. Richard Cunningham
Office: BAC 431
Off. Phone: 1345
Office Hours: by appointment
Course Description:
In this class students will read examples of Shakespearean drama from
the tragic, comic, historical, and romance genres, and Shakespearean
poetry from his sonnets. Students will also read essays from Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield's
Political Shakespeare in order to write papers that
engage in dialogue with specific essays over what they have to say about
a given play, or to show how the argument of a given essay could be usefully extended
to another of Shakespeare’s works.
Goals:
You will:
1) read all the assigned plays, poetry, and essays in order to be
able legitimately to claim some familiarity with “Shakespeare”
as a literary and cultural concept after you have completed the
course.
2) demonstrate your ability to engage thoughtfully with an essay about
some aspect of Shakespeare’s work or his cultural status.
3) be regularly tested on the reading you are to have completed so that you can participate fully in class discussion.
Course Texts:
The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans et al. 2nd ed.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. ISBN: 0-3957-5490-9
Course Pack drawn from Dollimore, Jonathan & Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural
Materialism. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994. ISBN: 0-8014-8243-7
Greenblatt, Stephen. "Invisible Bullets." Dollimore, Jonathan & Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 18 - 47.
Requirements & Grading:
Reading Tests -40%
Reading tests will be administered in order to ensure every play and every essay is read prior to the class in which discussion of that play and / or essay starts.
Short papers
30% (15% each)
Twice during the term you will submit a very short paper the purpose
of which on both occasions will be twofold. First, it will give
you a chance to get some feedback on your writing, and second, it
will provide you an opportunity to practice constructing a useful
dialogue between an essay from Political Shakespeare, one or more
of Shakespeare’s works, and yourself.
Final Exam – 20%
The final exam will be comprehensive, and it will be developed out
of classroom discussion. Thus, the best way to study for the final
is to attend every class.
Class Contribution –10%
Ask not what the class can do for you, ask what you can do for the
class. When you are absent, or when you are silent, the rest of
the class suffers the want of your insight. I expect people to come
to class not because if they are absent they might miss something,
but because if they are absent or if they decline to speak up the
rest of the class misses an opportunity to hear a fresh perspective
or a new idea.
A (hopefully unnecessary) word about Plagiarism:
Don't do it. The open and honest exchange of ideas is the coin of
the academic realm. Anytime you offer someone else's ideas as your
own you are as guilty of a serious offence as if you'd counterfeited
dollar bills. Most academics, and I would certainly count myself among
them, would consider plagiarism to be a much worse offence than the
counterfeiting of mere money. So be warned: the wages of plagiarism
can be academic death. The penalties far outweigh any potential benefit
that might accrue from the act of plagiarizing, so just don't do it.
Click here
to read Acadia's Academic Calendar's section on plagiarism.
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