Sexuality, Festivity, and Animality in Early Modern Literature

Course Description and Rationale

Sexuality, Festivity, and Animality in Early Modern Literature surveys early modern texts to ask what roles sex and sexuality and celebrations and festivities play in constructing the concept of the animal (human and non-human)? This course will explore the strategies that early modern texts (poems and plays, religious and scientific tracts, works of political philosophy and household management) used to represent, categorize, know, and speak of and for animals (human and non-human).

In this course, we will attend closely to primary texts. It is important to be able to speak about a text—ideas it might have and may indeed continue to express, how it is structured, its relation to other texts within its genre or form, its relation to historical events, its material history—with precision and concision. We will engage with texts through weekly seminar discussions, short presentations, writing, and critical readings.

Scholarly essays, articles, book chapters, and the occasional book will invite us to consider how the early modern texts continue to live within works of history, theory, literary criticism, and popular culture. More particularly, we will investigate how critical writings form objects of study, such as sex and sexuality or ritual celebrations and festivities, through their engagement with the early modern texts we are reading.

Course Goals

The goals for the course are for you to develop:

• facility reading, interpreting, and analyzing early modern texts through a survey of Renaissance literature across multiple genres and disciplines.
• knowledge of early modern debates about sex and sex acts, festivity and celebrations, and animals and their roles in constructing conceptions of the human.
• the skills needed to read complex theoretical and critical essays, discern their key claims, assess their arguments, and position them in a larger scholarly dialogue.
• critical self-awareness, especially of the usually tacit methods and presuppositions that guide the way you read, write, and talk about literature.

Office Hours

By appointment and in class. I strongly urge you to make an appointment -- during office hours or otherwise -- to meet with me to discuss your projects for the course or any other aspects of the course.

Attendance

Attendance and class participation is mandatory. Since life is complicated, you may miss two meetings without penalty, for whatever reason (no doctor’s note necessary). A third absence will result in a decrease of a ½ letter grade, and a fifth in an additional decrease of a ½ letter grade. Please notify me of any anticipated absences as soon as possible. You are responsible for all reading and work even on days when you are not present.

Policies

Honor Code and Plagiarism: Plagiarism is taken extremely seriously, both by myself and by the University. Suffice it to say, the consequences for committing any form of plagiarism are considerable.

Counseling and Psychological Services: Your health and mental health must always be your top priority.

Accommodations: If you have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please let me know early in the semester so that I can help you meet your learning needs.         

Diversity: Students in this class are shaped by many different identities and contexts that are affected by race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, age, ability, sexuality, legal status, nationality, religion -- just to name a few. The diversity of our student body is an asset to learning. As such, I will expect you to be respectful of views, identities, and experiences that differ from your own, whether or not they are officially protected by law.

Laptop and phone policy: Only use your technology for class purposes. I reserve the right to ask if you are using technology for the purposes of class at any time.  

Required Texts

I will have all required texts in a digital format. If you would like to purchase paper versions, please find the following titles at a bookstore, library, or online:  

• The Tempest (Folger edition)
• The Renegado (Arden edition)

Assessments

Reading Responses and Quizzes: 30%

Early Modern Theater Project: 10%

Final Project: 30%

Class Participation and Presentation: 30%

Extra Credit equal to 5% points on an assignment of your choosing: Attend an early modern play (or adaptation of one. Write a 500-word review. The review must be proofread and follow the conventions of a play review.

Writing assignments

• Reading Responses: Each week you will read and submit writing in response to our reading. These exercises will consist of two types of assignments, primarily:

• Reading Summaries and Questions: To summarize a text or part of a text is an important skill. I will ask you to write a summary of our readings, articulate a question the reading invites, and answer the question by engaging with the text. This exercise will advance your work on the annotated bibliography assignment.
• Play Quizzes: Brief open-book quizzes on the plays we read.  
• Secondary Source Analysis: a brief (no more than 500 words) analysis of a secondary source—it’s primary claims and insights, questions it raises for the field of early modern studies, it’s relevance to your interests.

• Placing Characters in Festive Contexts: The Tempest: You will build upon your knowledge of The Tempest and deepen your understanding of early modern language by staging a group scene from the play. Using active close reading strategies, your team of 2-4 will study an assigned or chosen scene or speech, cut the scene (if necessary) into a script for performance, annotate the script to create a promptbook, and perform (or stage a reading of) your scene for an audience. Additionally, as a group, you will complete a Performance Report, in which you will summarize the scene, comment on its importance in the play, and justify your group’s performance choices with textual evidence. As an individual, you will complete a Personal Reflection, in which you will explain how performance has shaped your understanding of the text and inform your plans for your final research paper.
• Close Reading Annotations and Short Essays: More details on the assignment page.  
• Oxford English Dictionary Word: We will review the elements of an effective abstract after the midterm, but an abstract should concisely articulate an argument of a longer paper. Your annotated bibliography should consist of no less than six sources. Two of those sources may be primary texts. The others should be critical readings from our syllabus. The purpose of this assignment is to help you develop the skills of positioning your own argument within a wider intellectual conversation.   
• Digital Humanities Project Analysis: You will research an early modern digital humanities project, then you will present briefly on its merits, weaknesses, and potential research uses.
• Final Project: A close reading essay of no more than 8 pages, MLA-formatted, and references no more than one secondary source. This can (I recommend it is!) a revision of one of your close reading short essays. Or a timed open-book final.

Grading Policies

This course follows the grading policy, stated below:

Meeting Schedule and Agenda