Occidental College

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


2008-2009 Course Catalog

English and Comparative Literary Studies

Professor Swift, Chair (Fall); Professor Montag, Chair (Spring)
Professors Fineman, Foreman, Near, Newhall, Ronk, Villa, Wyatt; Assistant Professors Neti, Stocking
On Special Appointment: Adjunct Assistant Professor Prebel; Remsen Bird Visiting Artist Senna; Adjunct Instructors Burgher, Daniels, Phillips, Tymoczko 

The Department’s objective is the close critical study of literature in English in an international and interdisciplinary context. Students in English and Comparative Literary Studies courses read works from British, American, and world literary traditions, including those of classical Greece and Rome. We ask our students to become knowledgeable both about well-known writers and about voices traditionally excluded from literary canons. In addition to providing an experience of intense reading and discussion of individual literary works, departmental courses strive to present those works in a rich historical context of human social, political, and psychological behavior. Students are strongly encouraged to become familiar with the various theories of literature and representation that have informed literary analysis since Aristotle.

All ECLS courses involve extensive work in close reading, critical thinking, and analytical writing. Most courses in the department are conducted as lecture/discussions or as seminars, with a strong emphasis on interaction and the collaborative construction of knowledge. In the required survey courses (ECLS 286-289) students learn the breadth and diversity of literary history; in required majors’ seminars in the sophomore, junior, and senior years they develop increasingly sophisticated skills in literary analysis, discussion, writing, research, and presentation.

MAJOR: A minimum of eleven courses (44 units).  These must include three historical survey courses (ECLS 286 or 287, ECLS 288, and ECLS 289) and three seminars for prospective majors and majors (ECLS 290, ECLS 390, and ECLS 490).  The remaining five courses must be chosen in consultation with the adviser from courses numbered 200 or above; of these, at least three must be chosen from courses numbered 300 or above.  We encourage prospective majors to have completed 286 or 287, 288, 289, and 290 by the end of the sophomore year.  (Students may substitute one of the first-year courses 186-189 for its counterpart in the 200-level historical survey series). 

Students considering going on to graduate work in literature are strongly encouraged to take additional ECLS courses (beyond the minimum of eleven) which will broaden and deepen their knowledge of literary history.  They should also take ECLS 370, Literary Criticism.  Most graduate programs also require proficiency in at least one foreign language. 

ACCEPTABLE COURSES FROM OTHER DEPARTMENTS:  Some literature courses in American Studies and several upper-division literature courses in Chinese, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Latin, Russian, and Spanish may be used to satisfy the major requirements. Contact the department chair for additional information.

WRITING EMPHASIS: Students majoring in English and Comparative Literary Studies may elect to take an additional number of courses in order to complete a Creative Writing Emphasis, a special track which provides a strong background in both literature and creative writing skills. Students choosing this emphasis must take a total of 13 courses, including ECLS 286 or 287; ECLS 288; ECLS 289; ECLS 290; ECLS 390; ECLS 490; two more ECLS electives chosen from ECLS 300-379 (one of these may be from ECLS 200-279); and five additional writing courses.  These five may include ECLS 380 (may be repeated for credit), ECLS 397 and/or 499; a variety of English Writing classes: 285, 286, 301, 401; Theater 380; French 343. Other opportunities for students interested in writing are listed in the catalog and/or available from the emphasis director, Professor Martha Ronk.  Students interested in pursuing the emphasis in writing should work out a careful program in consultation with Professor Ronk.

MINOR: Five courses (20 units), including ECLS 290; one course from 286-289 (a first-year course from 186-189 may substitute for one of these); and three other courses, two of which must be taken at the 300-level.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT POLICY: ECLS majors who before entering Occidental have completed the AP test in English with a score of 4 or 5 may, in consultation with the department chair, waive the requirement for either ECLS 288 or 289 and take in place of the waived course any ECLS course numbered 300-369.  Students choosing this option will still be required to take a total of at least 11 courses (44 units) toward the A.B. in ECLS.   All students must take either ECLS 286 or 287, regardless of AP scores.

WRITING REQUIREMENT: Students majoring in English and Comparative Literary Studies will satisfy the final component of Occidental College’s college-wide writing requirement by successfully completing ECLS 390 in the junior year and receiving a notation of “Satisfactory” for its writing component.  (See the department chair for information concerning specific writing skills assessed for satisfaction of the requirement.)  Those students who, for legitimate reasons (study abroad, late entry into the major, etc.), cannot take ECLS 390 in the junior year will be required to submit a portfolio of written work (consisting of three papers written in ECLS courses) to the department chair for evaluation by a faculty committee, by the end of the junior year.   Students not achieving a “satisfactory” notation by either of these means will be required to undertake additional coursework in academic writing during the final two semesters of study. ECLS majors should acquire the full description of the departmental writing requirement at the time of declaring the major. See the Writing Program for additional information.

COMPREHENSIVE REQUIREMENT:  All majors must take ECLS 490 (Senior Seminar) in the fall of the senior year, where they will design, develop, and complete a significant project involving literary research and analysis.  The project will result in a substantial paper and a 20-minute formal oral presentation at the ECLS Senior Symposium held during the spring semester.  See the department chair for more details.

HONORS: Honors may be awarded to graduating seniors who demonstrate excellence in course work and in an honors thesis. To be eligible, students must have a 3.5 grade point average in courses taken toward the major and an overall 3.25 grade point average. Qualified students who want to pursue honors should consult with the department chair during the spring semester of the junior year and should submit a proposal for an honors thesis by the end of the first week of Fall semester. Students whose proposals are accepted will register for  ECLS 499 (Honors), usually for two units in both the fall and spring semesters, and they will write a thesis to be completed and orally defended before a faculty committee during the spring semester.  Honors candidates are required to take ECLS 370; if possible they should take it in the junior year. For further details, see the Honors Program and pick up a copy of the ECLS honors regulations in the department office.

GRADUATE PROGRAMS: In conjunction with the Education Department, ECLS offers a program leading to the Master of Arts in Teaching Literature. For admission information, please refer to the general college requirements for all M.A.T. candidates (see Graduate Study at Occidental). Applicants should also schedule a personal interview with the departmental graduate representative.

For the M.A.T. in Teaching Literature, students must complete the general college M.A.T. requirements and, in addition, take at least three five-unit courses in literature at the 500 level, selected in consultation with the graduate representative or ECLS advisor. These courses must be five-unit adaptations of 300-level ECLS courses. Students must also pass an oral examination in which they demonstrate their mastery of the literary canon.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Major for Teaching. A state approved major for teaching and Single Subject Credential Program are available to students in this department. Anyone considering a career in teaching should consult early with an Education Department advisor to obtain information about required courses and options.

 

 

ECLS courses numbered 186-189 are intensive seminars for first-year students with a serious interest in the ECLS major or literary study.  These courses may be used to satisfy the historical survey requirements in the ECLS major, as described below.

188. MODERN BRITISH LITERARY TRADITIONS.

This course will focus on British literary traditions since 1660, with references to other national literatures. It will emphasize the close reading of both poetry and prose.  Open only to first-year students.  ECLS 188 counts as the equivalent of ECLS 288 toward the ECLS major.  Students may not take both 188 and 288.

Montag
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 

189. AMERICAN EXPERIENCES.

A historical survey of the major literary genres from the colonial to the contemporary period, emphasizing the persistent thematics of the American experience from a cross-cultural perspective. This class is particularly suited for students interested in the ways in which well-known American authors are in conversation with African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos/as, and white women, who, until recently, had been left out of the literary canon. Open only to first-year students.  ECLS 189 counts as the equivalent of ECLS 289 toward the ECLS major.  Students may not take both 189 and 289.

Newhall, Villa
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 5  

ECLS courses numbered 200-284 are open to all Occidental students of any major who have completed the first-year fall CSP writing seminar.  No more than two may be counted toward the ECLS major. 

205.  THE WAKE OF THE ANCIENT. 
The object of this course (as the three- or four-fold pun of its title implies) is not only to celebrate Ancient Literature on the occasion of its supposed passing, but also to highlight the ways in which Ancient Literature has informed the creation of--and might yet continue to re-inform our understanding of--many subsequent forms of literary expression.  The course will begin, therefore, with the close textual analysis of one or more ancient literary works, and proceed with a comparative study of a text (or texts) drawn from later literary traditions.  Stocking
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 3:  PRE-1800 

220.  SHAKESPEARE AND FILM. 
ECLS 220 is an introductory study of Shakespeare’s plays both as text and as performance.  We will investigate five plays in detail in an attempt to establish our own relationship with the Shakespearean text.  We will then view at least three films of each play and inquire into the ways in which these films seek to mediate our reception of the text, the influence this mediation has upon our view of the text, and the specific means by which each cinematic interpretation of Shakespeare is constructed.    
Near
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 3:  PRE-1800

 241.  RACE, LAW, AND LITERATURE. 
A study of the construction and representation of race in selected American literary works and law cases around the turn of the twentieth century. Fiction by authors such as Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, William Dean Howells, and Frances Harper will be read in the context of the legal history that led up to and built upon the famous 1896 "separate but equal" Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.  (This course has not been formally approved by the Academic Planning Committee, although we expect that it will be approved and open to students by the beginning of registration.) 
Daniels
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 5  

255.  U.S. LITERATURE IN THE MODERN WORLD. 
This course explores American literature in the 20th century, in the context of social and intellectual history. Topics may include cultural disillusionment and the "lost generation"; the "dream deferred" of African-American literature; constructions, deconstructions, and reconstructions of gender; the problems of homogeneous national identity in a heterogeneous world; postmodern challenges to individualist  traditions; etc. 
Prebel
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 5  

279.  LITERATURE AND POLITICS.  
Body/ Politics.
Linking literature and politics, the course offers an interdisciplinary analysis of gender, power and the body.  The theoretical center of the course will be Foucault’s work on biopower. We will also look at issues of class and the body (including Chopin’s The Awakening, Larsen’s Passing, and Atwood’s Bodily Harm); egalitarian law and the female body (Wendy Williams, Mary Poovey); science and gender (Emily Martin, Thomas Laqueur); and pornography (Catherine McKinnon, Laura Kipnis). Race and multiculturalism can also be viewed through this lens, and we will read Morrison’s Beloved. Judith Butler’s work offers yet another approach, questioning whether bodily differences determine sex or gender. Recent Latin American history of military rule and repression has emphasized the role of the body and memory in political change.   
Wyatt and Jaquette  

ECLS majors must take ECLS 286 or 287; ECLS 288; and ECLS 289 (or their equivalents at the 100-level).  These should be completed if possible during the sophomore year.  (Students scoring a 4 or 5 on the English AP exam may choose to substitute a 300-level course for either 288 or 289.)  These courses are open to all students of any major who have completed the first-year fall CSP writing seminar.

286. EUROPEAN LITERARY TRADITIONS.
This course will contrast the Mediterranean and Germanic literary traditions of ancient and medieval Europe and the ways in which these traditions reach an uneasy equipoise in the early modern period. Our discussions will involve us in considerations of oral and written poetic composition, the individual or communal construct of human identity, and the personal and social utility of such literary genres as myth, epic, saga, romance, fabliau, lyric, and drama.  Not advised for first-year students fall semester.
Near
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 

287. EARLY BRITISH LITERARY TRADITIONS.
One of the three introductory courses for the major designed to provide a broad historical background and covering texts from Beowulf through Paradise Lost. The course includes the various genres of epic, drama, and poetry, and demands both close reading and an understanding of how the texts are produced by particular cultural and historical periods.  Not advised for first-year students fall semester.
Tymoczko
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 • PRE-1800 

288. MODERN BRITISH LITERARY TRADITIONS.
One of the three introductory courses for the major, the course will focus on British literary traditions since 1660, with references to other national literatures. It will emphasize the close reading of both poetry and prose. Not advised for first-year students fall semester.
Montag
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 

289. AMERICAN EXPERIENCES.
A historical survey of the major literary genres from the colonial to the contemporary period, emphasizing the persistent thematics of the American experience from a cross-cultural perspective. This class is particularly suited for students interested in the ways in which well-known American authors are in conversation with African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos/as, and white women, who, until recently, had been left out of the literary canon.  Not advised for first-year students fall semester.
Villa, Prebel
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 5  

ECLS 290 is an introductory methods course required of all ECLS majors; it should be taken by the end of the sophomore year by students who have declared or are planning to declare the ECLS major.   It is open to all students who have successfully completed the first-year fall CSP Writing Seminar.

290. INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY analysis.
This course will introduce ECLS majors to the basic principles and techniques of literary study. Each section will look closely at narrative (both poetic and prose), lyric, and dramatic form and will investigate the analytical resources with which these forms are most commonly approached. The course will also look at the relationship between literary texts and literary theory. Students should expect ample practice in analytical writing.  It is intended principally for ECLS majors and satisfies no core requirement.
Fineman, Near

ECLS courses numbered 300-385 are designed primarily for ECLS majors and students from other majors with some experience in reading and writing about literature at an advanced level.  Successful completion of one 100-level or 200-level ECLS course, or junior or senior standing, is required for these courses.  In some cases individual instructors may require additional prerequisites, as listed below. 

318. CHAUCER.
An analysis of Chaucer’s major poetry and the insight it provides into the social, religious, philosophical, and psychological instability of the fourteenth century. We will place Chaucer’s texts in the context of both literary and intellectual history, and we will confront directly their relevance to an understanding of the most persistent idioms of Western culture. Prior completion of ECLS 287 is highly recommended.
Near
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 • PRE-1800 

320. SHAKESPEARE.
A study of Shakespeare's plays and of critical commentary on those plays with special emphasis on problems raised by his particular theater and boy actors, on problems raised by mixed genres, and on cultural anxieties concerning interiority, authority, race, colonialism, and religion.
Ronk
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 • PRE-1800 

332. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE: 1730-1800.
Problems of Sociability: We will examine the questions of sociability and individuality in the literature and philosophy of the period. We will read literary texts by Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Burney and Equiano, as well as works by Smith and Kant.
Montag
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 3 • PRE-1800 

341. RACE AND LITERATURE.
Slavery in the Americas: The Politics of Representation.
In this class we will examine slave narratives and anti-slavery novels from the United States and Cuba, where almost all of the nineteenth-century writings in Spanish originated. We will situate these works in their historical and literary contexts and explore the ways in which authors enter politically charged debates about slavery, gender and sexuality. We will be reading some of the most famous, important, influential, and sometimes infamous books of the era. Authors include the orator, editor, and statesman, Frederick Douglass, the enslaved poet Juan Manzano, the feisty narrator Esteban Montejo, Gertudis Gomez de Avellandeda, one of the most famous women writers of the Spanish speaking world in her era, and Martin Delany, the man known as the father of Black nationalism who also wrote a transnational novel. Spanish majors and speakers will be encouraged to read primary texts and criticism in Spanish.
Burgher
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 6

345. AMERICAN LITERATURE BEFORE 1900.
Dickinson.  
This class will undertake to read a very limited number of Dickinson’s poems with care as to their formal aspects and with regard to their philosophical interventions into the defaults of “common sense.”   Some context will come from relevant historical and ideological practices of the 19th century.  
Fineman
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 5  

351.  Twentieth Century British Fiction.
Readings in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Anglo/Irish fiction, with particular attention to the crises of masculine and imperial power that early modern writers encountered and reflected in their fiction.  Authors will include Conrad, Kipling, Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, and Forster.
Swift
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 3 

354. CHICANO LITERATURE.
A survey of major works and authors in the Chicano literary tradition, covering the genres of poetry, novel, short story and drama. Some attention will also be paid to the relationship of literature to forms of popular culture, such as video, film, graphic art, and music.
Villa
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 5 

365. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.
 The Anglophone Novel.
This course will focus on the global novel in English.  By 1914 the British Empire had colonized almost 85% of the world, bringing diverse cultural traditions under the encyclopedic gaze of Western modernity.  If part of the project of the colonial apparatus was to collect knowledge of the world in ways that bodies, cultures, and landscapes could be understood and ordered by the West, contemporary societies are now negotiating their own means of self-representation in the often violent space of postcolonial rupture.  Throughout the term, we will work with texts and visual images produced out of, and in response to, the history of the colonial encounter.  Drawing on a broad range of literary, filmic, and theoretical materials we will develop strategies for understanding the production and consumption of postcolonial representation, in both local and global contexts.  As consumers of these cultural products within the space of the Western academy, we will be attentive to the function of the stereotype as we consider representations of gender and sexuality, violence and terrorism, class structures, and migration.  Texts considered will include Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night, and Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North.
Neti
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 6 

368. POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE AND THEORY.
This course will provide an introduction to some of the critical issues (modernity, hybridity, nationalism, globalization, etc.) that link disparate national literatures under the sign of “postcoloniality.” While the major focus of the class will be on the theoretical texts produced in response to colonial occupation and the process of decolonization, we will also consider the ways in which postcolonial literature performs, and at times challenges, the paradigms of postcolonial theory. Through this engagement we will develop an understanding of the complex dialogue which emerges between literature and theory in the postcolonial context.  In addition, throughout the course, we will look at how the many stylistic techniques (e.g., the use of patois, magical realism, temporal experimentation) which are particular to this body of literature not only develop a new mode of expression, but also interrogate the conventions of the Western canon.  In this manner, our analysis of literature will be supplemented by a consideration of postcolonial theory in order to contextualize the literature within an understanding of the particular historical, political, and social discourses from which it emerges. Conversely, our study of theory will be anchored in a discussion of the ways in which it is materially practiced in its accompanying literary context.  This survey will include authors such as Aimé Cesaire, Arundhati Roy, as well as Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, and Edward Said.
Neti
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 6 

370. LITERARY CRITICISM.
 After a short introduction to Aristotle, this course will present the works of Marx, Freud, and Saussure as the basis for later 20th Century theory. We will then explore the structuralist and post-structuralist movements. This class is recommended to those contemplating graduate study in the humanities, and it is required for students pursuing Honors in ECLS.
Fineman 

372. MAJOR FIGURES IN LITERATURE.
Faulkner and Morrison.
Discussion of the major novels of William Faulkner and Toni Morrison.
Newhall
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: GROUP 5

Willa Cather.
An exploration of several of the major novels of the 1910s, 20s, and 30s.  Early in her career Cather adapted some of the conventions of late nineteenth-century American regional fiction to the realities of the twentieth century (the new immigration, nationalism, women’s rights, etc.) By the 1920s she had transformed herself into a high modernist author with significant formal/thematic similarities to Eliot, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner.  Toward the end of her life she powerfully and ambivalently explored the century’s fundamental questions of race, gender, and power.  The course will trace this paradigmatic trajectory against the general background of U.S. cultural history 1890-1940.  
Swift
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  GROUP 5 

Philip K. Dick and Philosopy.
This class will attempt to determine if the post-structuralist insights of 20th-century philosophy can provide a framework adequate to interpret that century’s greatest science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick. Students should be willing to encounter abstract theory, film, and dizzy fiction.
Fineman 

377. LITERATURE AND THE OTHER ARTS.
 Illuminated Manuscripts: From Comic Books to Graphic Novels.
This course will examine the 20th century evolution of extended literary-graphic narratives (as opposed to single panel cartoons or four panel comic strips) from their pulp origins in superhero and action comics to their contemporary development as a variant of "high" literary practice. The texts will be almost entirely American, but some consideration will be given to non-U.S narratives in translation. While primary interpretive attention will be paid to the specific interplay of word and image in the construction of fictional (and some documentary) narratives, we may also consider how "comics" generally compare as medium and genre to the related arts of print literature and cinema.
Villa 

378.  LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY.
The Bible as Literature and Philosophy.
We will read selections from the Old and New Testaments, together with Medieval and Modern commentaries by such figures as Rashi, Maimonides, Ibn Ezra, Spinoza, Badiou, Agamben and Taubes.  
Montag 

380. CREATIVE WRITING.
Emphasis on the writing of both poetry and fiction. Students will be required to read extensively and write reports on new works of poetry and fiction, to attend readings, to edit and revise work, to participate in class critiques of student work, and to complete a portfolio of 25 pages. The course is designed for students seriously interested in writing and in the relationship of their own writing to the study of literature. Not open to first-year students.
Ronk, Phillips
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: FINE ARTS 

382. ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING:  fiction.
 Students familiar with the elements of craft - setting, characterization, plot, dialogue, etc. - will produce several new stories and revise them, and will read and critique the works of their peers.  In-class writing exercises and outside readings will also be required.  Pre-requisite:   ECLS 380 or approval of a portfolio of writings; see department chair for details.
Senna
CORE REQUIREMENT MET:  FINE ARTS
 

390. JUNIOR SEMINAR.
The Junior Seminar is a small, discussion-oriented seminar required of all majors, emphasizing advanced critical approaches to a literary topic. Enrollment is limited and restricted to ECLS majors.

The Human and the Inhuman in Literature and Philosophy, 1500-1800.
We will take as our starting point Etienne Balibar’s assertion that every attempt to define what is essential to humanity involves a corresponding definition of the inhuman. We will examine a number of writers as they struggle to ascertain the characteristics of universal humanity and in doing so produce the category of the inhuman, a category laden with moral and political consequences. The course will begin with contemporary thinkers such as Agamben and Balibar and then move on to primary texts by Montaigne, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Defoe, Swift, Mandeville, and Smith.
 Montag

Objects of Beauty.
In her recent book, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry makes the claim that “At the moment we see something beautiful, we undergo a radical decentering.” Others might suggest that notions of beauty have been used precisely to center certain normative standards, often violently marginalizing those who do not adhere. Whether dismissed as frivolous, theorized as a philosophical category of inquiry, or politicized in the service of feminist or anti-racist discourse, beauty does many things: it captivates, it incites pleasure and desire, it oppresses and subjugates, and it excludes. Throughout the course of this term, we will evaluate Scarry’s claim, looking at texts dealing with both theoretical and practical aspects of aesthetic experience. Beginning with Aristotle, we will evaluate Western theorizations of beauty through the Enlightenment and into the contemporary era. In addition, we will look at how non-Western writers have responded to aesthetic norms imposed upon them. Texts such as Paula Black’s The Beauty Industry and Robert Young’s Colonial Desire will provide a framework for examining how politics of race, class, and gender shape questions of aesthetic value. Within this theoretical context, we will consider representations of beauty in print and visual culture, including popular cinema and literature.
Neti

Modern Literature and Art.
The course will address experimental modern fiction and poetry, and the crossover between literary and artistic endeavors in terms of collage, cubism, and intertextuality. Students will be asked to analyze paintings, photographs, and films in relation to literature. Texts will include such authors as Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Jean Toomer, Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce.
Ronk

 397. INDEPENDENT STUDY.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
2 or 4 units
Staff 

490. SENIOR SEMINAR: THE ECLS COMPREHENSIVE.
 In this required course, taken in the fall semester of senior year, ECLS majors will design and carry out advanced research projects in areas of their own interests.  Seminar meetings will be devoted to discussion of a core group of theoretical and/or historical texts (varying from year to year) and to practical issues of sophisticated literary critical work.  The course will result in a substantial critical paper, a version of which will be presented at the spring ECLS senior symposium in satisfaction of Occidental's comprehensive requirement.  Open only to senior ECLS majors.
Stocking, Swift

 499. HONORS.
Advanced research for the honors thesis.  May be taken for 4 units spring or fall, or for 2 units spring and fall.  Prerequisite: permission of department.
2 units (spring and fall) or 4 units (spring or fall)
Staff

 597. RESEARCH.
Independent study for qualified graduate students.
 Staff