Summer 2024 Courses
Shakespeare’s Late Romances
Instructor: Dr. Kara McCabe
Description. Sometimes, it can feel like everyone we encounter has read the same selection of Shakespeare’s plays. Students reliably encounter Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, and perhaps Othello or King Lear. With thirty-eight plays to his name, why are we so limited in our exposure to Shakespeare? In this reading group, we will explore four of Shakespeare’s late romances: The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Our goal will be to read and wonder together, with the aim of noticing what makes these plays so strange. Prior knowledge is not required, but you will be very welcome to consider other plays you’ve read and how they differ in structure and content to Shakespeare’s romances.
Meeting Times: Mondays, 5:30pm EST, June 3-24.
Course Schedule:
June 3 - 5:30 pm (Pericles)
June 10 - 5:30 pm (Cymbeline)
June 17 - 5:30 pm (The Winter’s Tale)
June 24 - 5:30 pm (The Tempest)
The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Instructor: Dr. Abigail Rawleigh
Description. Emily Dickinson only published ten poems in her lifetime, but we know her as one of nineteenth-century America’s most important and prolific poets. In this course, we’ll explore some of the enduring themes in Dickinson’s poetry, getting to know her work, historical context, all the while practicing a variety of strategies for reading poetry. Each class will begin with a short lecture on the theme for the day, but most of our time together will be spent in conversation and collaborative analysis.
Course Schedule. May 7 - June 25, 2024; Tuesdays 7:00-8:00 pm EST
Week 1: Introduction to Dickinson
Week 2: Dickinson and Nature
Week 3: Dickinson and Religion
Week 4: Dickinson and Death
Week 5: Dickinson and Science
Week 6: Dickinson at Home
Week 7: Dickinson in Print
Week 8: Digital Dickinson (and you!)
Primary Texts. Dr. Rawleigh will provide links and/or PDFs of assigned poems for each week, but if you’d like a hard copy, these are both good options:
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Reading Edition, edited by R.W. Franklin
Presentations will be uploaded weekly to our Lecture page.
Anyone—regardless of age, background, or education—will be warmly received. A basic competency in reading English is required.
