Spring registration will open on Wednesday November 6. It usually goes active at around 9am eastern time when the Registrar arrives to begin work that day. Some classes fill up rather quickly, and most of the classes eventually reach max capacity, so the only way to ensure you get your first-pick of courses each semester is to register as soon as possible once registration begins. If anyone has any questions about course selections I can help at cloots@mercy.edu. You can see the courses we’re running in the post directly below this one.

Below are descriptions of the six spring 2020 courses. Fuller descriptions for some of these will be provided as they are submitted by the various professors.

• ENGL 506: History of Poetic Forms (Dr. Fritz)

The course will study the major forms and conventions of poetry that have developed in literature from classical models to the present. Wherever possible, particular poems from different historical contexts will be compared and analyzed to demonstrate how these forms and conventions have developed and been adapted to specific personal, ideological, or cultural pressures. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms group requirement or an elective.

• 514: Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Manuel Puig (Dr. Vasile)

This course examines the major contributions that the Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Manuel Puig have made to world literature. Argentina was not only the first country in Latin America with an urban culture but also the place where European modernity had a significant impact. Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Manuel Puig echoed and continued the experiments of modern European literature but gave to that tradition a particularly South American perspective. Issues such as politics and censorship, the fantastic in literature, and urban and rural conflicts will be examined through some of the major works of these writers. Fulfills an elective.

• 524: Reason & Imagination (Dr. Sax)

This study of English literature between 1650 and 1850 examines Neoclassicism and Romanticism as two opposed aesthetic and philosophical stances. It traces the political, ideological, and literary roots of Neoclassicism in the English “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, the late seventeenth-century growth of rationalism and empirical science, followed by the flowering of Neoclassicism and then the shift in sensibility that led to the emergence of Romanticism. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.

• 525: Victorian Age in Lit (Dr. Dugan)

If one were asked to define the timeline of Victorian literature, one might be hard-pressed to do so. As literary genres are fluid, it is hard to determine when the Romantic Period ends and the Victorian Period begins, and when the Victorian Period ends and Modernism begins. Whatever the dates, a defining characteristic of Victorian England would be change, change matched with a belief in progress: societal, religious, economic, and artistic. While some benefited from these changes, others did not. The semester we will look closely at issues that challenge the notions of change and progress, notably the role of women, industrialism, gender roles, and poverty as shown in fiction, poetry, and drama of the Victorian age. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.

• 544: Frontiers of Lit: Cyberpunk, Tech-Noir, & Technoculture (Dr. Loots)

Each instance of ENGL 544 explores different “frontiers” depending on professor specialty. This instance of the course will focus on literature and media that tend to the frontiers of humanity and identity in the age of technoculture (the culture of our internet-era). Readings will include “cyberpunk” and other speculative fiction from the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s (e.g. writings of William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, and Neal Stephenson); and contemporary writings such as Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror and Dave Eggers’ The Circle. Visual media might include episodes of Black Mirror or Mr. Robot; TED talks; and films such as Ingrid Goes West, Blade Runner, or Ex-Machina. Altogether we will consider, through fiction and essay and film, the implications of humanity’s increasing interweave with computer technology, social media, artificial intelligence, and online/virtual realities — with the way that humanity is becoming posthuman or cyborg. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.

• 560: Toni Morrison (Dr. Morales)

Toni Morrison passed away on August 5, 2019, thus this course will examine her legacy and place in American letters [Jefferson Letters, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize awards]. It will look at several of her fictional works including Song of Solomon [National Book Critics Circle Award] Beloved [Pulitzer Prize], Jazz [Second in a trilogy about love] and A Mercy. We will also survey her non-fictional works, Playing in the Dark, The Source of Self Regard, her numerous lectures. Finally we will explore her expansion into other media: opera [Margaret Garner, Desdemona], film [Beloved, The Pieces I Am] and ode to music in general and jazz in particular Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.