Class Archive

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Song

W 2-3 pm

(read more)

24/1

Freshman Sophomore Seminar Program:
World Art Cinema: Some Parables of Repetition

W 1-3

We will watch and discuss three masterworks of world art cinema: Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (Japan, 1950), Pier-Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (Italy, 1968), and Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherr...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

W 2-3

We will be reading and discussing extraordinary poems by E...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

Monday 9-10

We will be reading and discussing extraordinary poems by E...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Some Essays by Emerson

Wednesday 4-5

A close reading and open discussion of a few of Ralph Waldo E...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Monsters and Robots: Boundaries of the Human

Monday 2-3

From the time of its publication, Mary Shelley’s Franke...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Cults in Popular Culture

Tuesday 1-2

We are fascinated by cults. What is it about communities a...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Some Essays by Emerson

Wednesdays 4-5

A close reading and open discussion of a few of Ralph Waldo Emerson's most interesting and puzzling essays. The instructor will post PDFs of all reading assignments. The students will post brief comments on the assigned reading in bCourses and ...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

Tuesdays 1-2

We will read and discuss extraordinary poems by Emily Dickinson.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Nineteenth Century Fiction and the Boundaries of the Human

Mondays 2-3

Dramatic advances in science in the 19th century transformed English understanding of the nature of man and his place in the universe. Theories of evolution, discoveries in the fossil record, advances in electrochemistry, new theories of the mind a...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Cults in Popular Culture

Tuesdays 4-5

We are fascinated by cults. What is it about communities and groups that promise total belief and total enthrallment that so captures the imagination? This course will look at a range of representations of cults in popular culture—from the do...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar

This section of English 24 has been canceled (8/3/20).

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

W 4-5

As close and careful a reading of Thoreau's dense and enigmatic work as we can manage in the time we have. Regular atttendance and participation and five pages of writing will be required.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one ...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

Thurs. 2-3

We will read and discuss extraordinary poems by Emily Dickinson.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
English Sonneteers: Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne

M 12-1

The finest practioners of the English sonnet tradition were, in death-date order, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Donne. After brief biographical surveys, this seminar will consider sonnet types (Italian, English), ...(read more)

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets: Voice, Argument ,Character, and Plot

W 10-11

Shakespeares' sonnets are arguments—addressed to himself, a male friend, and a mysteriously alluring woman—and most of them concern love. We're going to read them all in the course of the semester, and at each meeting read sever...(read more)

24/6

Freshman Seminar:
Frankenstein and Its Rewritings

M 2-3

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein has so much cultural resonance that Frankenstein itself has become a word. Reflecting a slippage between the scientist and the being he creates, Frankenstein has come to mean a monstrous creation ...(read more)

39A/1

Freshman and Sophomore Seminar:
Reading Marx Now

W 2-5

Marx is being seriously and widely read again since the financial crisis of 2008, and Capital Vol. 1 in particular is considered his work most appropriate to our times. Reading Capital today, we’ll see why 20^th- a...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

W 4-5

We will be reading and discussing extraordinary poems by Emily Dickinson.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Cults in Popular Culture

Tuesdays 2-3

We are fascinated by cults. What is it about communities and groups that promise total belief and total enthrallment that so captures the imagination? This course will look at a range of representations of cults in popular culture—from the do...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Walt Whitman

Tues. 2-3

We will read and discuss extraordinary poems by Walt Whitman.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Here Here in Tommy Orange's There There

Tues. 12:30-1:30

Tommy Orange's story cycle, There There, depicts the lives of contemporary indigenous people in Oakland, California. Shaped by a transgenerational trauma, Orange's characters nonetheless survive. Countering romantic stereotype...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

M 1-2

We will read and discuss extraordinary poems by Emily Dickinson.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Emily Dickinson

Tues. 3:30-4:30

We will read and discuss extraordinary poems by Emily Dickinson.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
The Films of Alfred Hitchcock

W 2-3

We will watch and discuss films that span the length of Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic career, with a special focus on "Vertigo," "Rear Window," "Psycho" and other masterpieces from the decades after World War Two. I...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Graphic Journalism: Reading Joe Sacco’s Palestine

Note new time: Tues. 2-4 on the following dates: August 28, September, 4, 11, 18, 25, October 9, 16

“The landmark work of comics journalism,” Joe Sacco’s Palestine is “a political and aesthetic work of extraordinary originality.”  In this seminar, we will devote ourselves to a close reading of Pales...(read more)

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
The Handmaid's Tale on Stage, Page, and Screen

Tuesdays 1:30-3:30 (Aug. 28 to Oct. 9 only)

In concert with the selection of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for the campus's 2018 On the Same Page program, this seminar will offer a closer look at this award-winning 1985 novel and the ...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

M 12-2, 8/28 to 10/16 only

Walt Whitman self published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a collection of poems, in 1855.  For the rest of his life, he reworked, revised, and added to this collection. He produced at least six distinguishable editions. We wil...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Sonnets

W 12-1

Shakespeare's sonnets were first published in 1609, rather late in his career, with a second, curiously distorted edition in 1640. Although little is known about how they were first received by the reading public, the sonnets still cause p...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
African American Poetry

Tues. 4-5

We will read, discuss, and write about poems by African American authors including Phillis Wheatley, Frances Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, Na...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
The Arts and Literature at Berkeley and Beyond

W 4-5

In this seminar we will read the work of Berkeley poets; study the paintings, sculpture, and video installations in our own Berkeley Art Museum; attend musical and theatrical performances at Zellerbach Hall; see and discuss films at the Pacific Fi...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

Tues. 5-6

As close and careful a reading of Thoreau's dense and enigmatic work as we can manage in the time that we have. Regular attendance and participation and five pages of writing will be required.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as on...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Post-Apocalypse Now

Wed. 3-4

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories—are these really two different things?—have been told for centuries. But novels and movies that imagine the end of the world (and what comes after that) seem to have inundated us recently. In thi...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

W 4-5

As close and careful a reading of Thoreau's dense and enigmatic work as we can manage in the time that we have. Regular attendance and participation and five pages of writing will be required.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as on...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar

This section of English 24 has been canceled; it will be offered in Spring '17 instead.

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Graphic Journalism: Reading Joe Sacco's Palestine

Note new time: Tues. 9-11 (for seven weeks only)

"The landmark work of comics journalism," Joe Sacco's Palestine is "a political and aesthetic work of extraordinary originality." In this seminar, we will devote ourselves to a close reading of Palestine, ...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Masterpieces of World Cinema: Federico Fellini's La dolce vita

M 2-3

Though over 55 years old, La dolce vita (“The Sweet Life,”1960) is still trending, with its famous images circulating in visual media more widely than ever.  This continued ebullience is probably owing to two things.&nbsp...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Sonnets

M 12-1

Shakespeare's sonnets were first published in 1609. Although little is known about how they were first received by the reading public, they have caused puzzlement and delight since their second edition, published in 1640. Over the course of th...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
The Arts In and Around Berkeley

W 11-1 (January 21 to March 4 only)

In this seminar (that will meet the first seven Wednesdays of the semester from 11:00 to 1:00) we will explore the diverse practices of art in and around Berkeley. We will visit local galleries and artists’ studios as well as arts programs a...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Madame Bovary

Tues. 4-5

Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is widely regarded as one of the world’s classic novels, but that acclaim does not get at what’s uniquely weird about it.  Read the novel fast and you’ll find a compelling stor...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
The Arts and Culture at Berkeley and Beyond

W 4-5

In this seminar we will read the work of Berkeley poets; study the paintings, sculpture, and video installations in our own Berkeley Art Museum; attend musical and theatrical performances at Zellerbach Hall; see and discuss films at the Pacific Fi...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
California Detectives in Fiction and Film

W 10-11

For a variety of reasons, both San Francisco and Los Angeles have been great places for the work of crime and detection. Certain theorists of detective fiction have noted that such works of art are especially committed to the invocation and experi...(read more)

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
Campus Onomastics

F 2-3

"Onomastics," from the Greek onoma, 'name,'  is a minor branch of linguistics that studies proper names. In this course we will study the names of the buildings, spaces, institutions, scholarship funds and...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Art Spiegelman's MAUS

Tues. 2-4 (Sept. 2-Oct. 14 only)

Art Spiegelman has been called “one of our era’s foremost comics artists” and “perhaps the single most important comic creator working within the field.” In this seminar we will devote ourselves to a close reading of ...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Crime and Punishment

Mon. 3-5 (Sept. 8-Oct. 27 only)

In Crime and Punishment (1866), the main characters are two intelligent young men (temporarily college drop-outs because they cannot afford the tuition) and two remarkable young women, in St. Petersburg, Russia, about the time of the Amer...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
FSM

Fridays 10-12 (Sept. 19 to Nov. 7 only; no meeting Oct. 24)

Every fall semester, The College of Letters and Scie...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Seeking Justice: The Art of Argument

W 2-4 (1/29-3/12 only)

This course, like its title, has both a subject and an object. Its subject is argument; its object is to study how arguments are constructed, what the rhetoric of persuasion consists of, what constitutes evidence, how to identify good logic and we...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Mark Twain's Boys

W 12-1

Mark Twain became immensely popular with his stories about boys like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, as well as his prince and pauper.  In the post-Civil War era, 1865-1910, writers like Horatio Alger, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and others (eve...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Alfred Hitchcock

W 2-3

For more information on this course, please contact Professor Goble at mgoble@berkeley.edu.

This 1-unit course may not be counted as one of the twelve courses required to complete the English major.

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

W 12-1

This seminar will investigate the nature of Shakespearean comedy in Twelfth Night, which involves disguise, cross-dressing, gender-bending, mistaken identities, and misdirected affections. The seminar will read the entire play thorough in...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Hamlet

Tues. 3-5 (Sept. 3 to Oct. 15 only)

Hamlet is perhaps the greatest, the most challenging, and at times the most frustrating play in the English language. In this course we will concentrate intensively on the text (which will be the only assigned reading). We’ll consid...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Art Spiegelman's Maus I & II

Tues. 11-1 (Sept. 3 to Oct. 15 only)

Art Speigelman has been called "one of our era's foremost comics artists" and "perhaps the single most important comic creator working within the field." In this seminar we will devote ourselves to a close reading of his Pu...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Art Spiegelman's Maus I & II

W 3-5 (8/29-10/10 only)

This seminar will meet for seven weeks on the following dates: August 29, September 5, September 12, September 19, September 26, October 3, and October 10.

Art Spiegelman has been called "one of our era's foremost comics artists&qu...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Margaret Atwood’s Dystopian Fictions

Tues. 10-11

<!--{cke_protected}{C}%3C!%2D%2D%0A%20%2F*%20Font%20Definitions%20*%2F%0A%40font-face%0A%09%7Bfont-family%3ACambria%3B%0A%09panose-1%3A2%204%205%203%205%204%206%203%202%204%3B%0A%09mso-font-ch...<a href="/courses/3631" target="_blank">(read more)</a>

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
The Arts at Berkeley and Beyond

W 2-3

In this seminar we will attend literary, art, and musical performances in and around Berkeley to introduce first-year students to the astonishing range of cultural production on the campus and in the Bay Area. We will visit the Berkeley Art Museum...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Bullets Across the Bay--Detective Narratives Set in San Francisco

W 9-10

Why are detective novels set in a place?  San Francisco has provided a favorite setting for the detective story since the work of Dashiell Hammett, especially with the publication of The Maltese Falcon (1930).  Of course, San Fr...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

M 2-3

As close and careful a reading of Thoreau's dense and enigmatic work as we can manage in the time that we have. Regular attendance and participation and five pages of writing will be required.

This 1-unit course may not be counted a...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

Tues. 2-3

We will read Thoreau's Walden in small chunks, probably about thirty pages per week. This will allow us time to dwell upon the complexities of a book that is much more mysterious than those who have read the book casually, or those wh...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Procrastination: Theory and Practice

Tues. 10-11

Why do we procrastinate? What can we do to stop it? This course explores procrastination both as a practical problem and as a springboard for theoretical inquiry into questions of choice, will, agency, rationality and morality. We'll read (slo...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Two Novels by Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility and Emma

Tues. 2-4 (9/6 - 10/25 only)

This seminar is meant to be an interesting and pleasant introduction to the study of a great novelist: Jane Austen. We'll read and discuss two novels: Sense and Sensibility and Emma. We'll approach the novels from a numbe...(read more)

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
David Copperfield

M 3-5 (9/12 - 10/31 only)

In David Copperfield (1849-50), Charles Dickens writes a novel about a novelist named David Copperfield who writes a novel about Charles Dickens--for many of David's adventures and ordeals mirror Dickens's own experiences that pre...(read more)

24/5

Freshman Seminar

W 3-4

T. B. A.

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
The Arts at Berkeley

W 11-12

The goal of the course is to help students to feel confident in talking about the arts and to take pleasure in that confidence, as well as to feel at home in the various venues that exhibit art and performance at Berkeley. We will discuss how best...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

M 2-3

We will read Thoreau's Walden in small chunks, probably about thirty pages per week. This will allow us time to dwell upon the complexities of a book that is much more mysterious than those who have read the book casually, or those wh...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Hamlet

W 2-4 (9/1-10/20 only)

Hamlet is perhaps the greatest, the most challenging, and at times the most frustrating play in the English language. In this course we will concentrate intensively on the text (which will be the only assigned reading). We’ll consid...(read more)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

Thurs. 4-5

We will read Thoreau's Walden in small chunks, probably about thirty pages per week. This will allow us time to dwell upon the complexities of a book that is much more mysterious than those who have read the book casually, or those wh...(read more)

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
This section has been cancelled

24/1

Freshman Seminar: Reading Walden Carefully

Thurs. 2-3

We will read Thoreau's Walden in small chunks, probably about thirty pages per week.  This will allow us time to dwell upon the complexities of a book that is much more mysterious than those who have read the bo...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar: Shakespeare's Sonnets

M 12-1

24/2

Freshman Seminar: Hamlet

W 2-4 (Aug 26 to Oct. 14 only)

24/3

Freshman Seminar: Animal Rights and Disability Studies

M 5-6

24/4

Freshman Seminar: The Mystery of Edwin Drood

M 3-5 (Sept 14 to Nov. 2 only)

24/5

Freshman Seminar: California and Ethnicity -- Fiction and Film

Wed. 4-6 (Aug. 26 to Oct. 14 only)

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Ang Lee Films and James Schamus' screenplays

M 12-1

For this seminar, we will look at four of Ang Lee’s films and at two of the novels that are the sources of two of the films. Two of the screenplays were written by Lee’s producer and friend, James Schamus: The Wedding Banquet ...(read more)

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespearean Comedy: Twelfth Night

M 12-1

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
POSTPONED TILL SPRING 2009

Class description to come.

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Rethinking Hemingway

W 2-3

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
The Mystery of Edwin Drood

M 3-5 (September 15 through November 3 only)

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
The Monster in the Mirror: Frankenstein and Dracula

W 4-5

24/6

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

W 2-3

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Visual Culture and Autobiography

W 5-8 P.M.

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Visual Culture and Autobiography

Tues. 5-8

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

M 4-5

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Sonnets

W 12-1

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Gary Wills' Lincoln at Gettysburg : The U.S. and the Civil War Era

F 12-1

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
Contemporary Irish Theater: The Plays of Brian Friel

M 3-5

24/6

Freshman Seminar:
Three Novels by Jane Austen

Thurs. 1-2

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
The Arts at Berkeley

W 11-12

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

M 4-5

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Growing Up Chicano/a with Gary Soto and Sandra Cisneros

W 4-5

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
The Essays of Virginia Woolf

W 2-3

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Joyce�s Dubliners in Joyce�s Dubliners

M 3:30-5:30

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
Two Novels by Jane Austen

Tues. 3:30-5:30

24/6

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespearean Comedy: Twelfth Night

Tues. 9:00-11:00

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare?s Sonnets

M 12-1

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Pop Song Poetics

Tues. 2-3

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Boys and Girls in Mark Twain and Henry James

W 3-4

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Through Hell?Reading Dante?s Inferno

W 2-3

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Children, Families and Disability

Tues. 10-11

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Visual Culture and Autobiography

W 10-11

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Growing Up Chicano/Latino

W 4:30-5:30

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Two Novels by Jane Austen

Fri. 10-12

24/5

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Robert Frost

Mon. 4-5

24/6

Freshman Seminar:
Contemporary Irish Theater-The Plays of Brian Friel

Mon. 3:30-5:30

24/7

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

222 Wheeler

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
Representing Psychiatric Disability

M 12-1

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
Pleasure, Politics, and Public Fantasy in Bollywood Cinema

M 4-5

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
Shakespeare's Sonnets

W 12-1

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Reading Walden Carefully

Tues. 2-3

24/1

Freshman Seminar:
(topic unknown)

Tues. 3:30-5:30

24/2

Freshman Seminar:
William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience

W 2-4

24/3

Freshman Seminar:
British and American Poetry of the 19th Century

W 4-5

24/4

Freshman Seminar:
Joyce's Dubliners in Joyce's Dubliners

Mon. 3-5