| | The main objective of this course is to introduce English majors to 20th century English literature through a comprehensive study of a variety of selected literary texts by the major writers of the period. In addition to enhancing the students' literary knowledge, the course aims at improving their language competence and widening their intellectual horizons. | 2013/2014, 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017 & 2018/2019 |
| | This course is primarily concerned with the function of stylistics in enhancing and facilitating literary response to a variety of literary texts. A broad selection of topics drawn from contemporary linguistics will be investigated and utilized as a major approach to literary analysis. Special attention is given to literary (in contrast with linguistic) stylistics, though the course will try to make a general survey of both types with a view to exploring the relation between style and literary function. | 2014/2015 |
| | This course looks at the nineteenth and twentieth century English novel in terms of historical context and literary technique. The novels have been selected, not only because they are among the greatest English novels of their time but also because they provide a coherent illustration of the development of the genre itself. Each novel will be subjected to close critical appraisal and analysis in its own right. As the course progresses, however, each novel will then be considered in relation to its predecessors. Through comparison and contrast students will become aware of different fictional techniques and styles, and will become involved in general consideration of the art and nature of narrative and the changes that the novel has undergone in the past three centuries or more. | 2014/2015 & 2018/2019 |
| | This course aims at introducing Shakespeare the dramatist to the students. Students are encouraged to investigate the historical context within which Shakespeare’s plays were produced. Moreover, class discussions will focus on contemporary approaches to reading Shakespeare’s plays. The course is also interested in Shakespeare’s interrogation of gender, colonialism, class and identity during the Early Modern period. The course briefly considers performance history and contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. | 2012/2013, 2013/2014, 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017 |
| | This course offers a detailed analysis of the works of the most prominent poets in the 20th century starting from Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Eliot, Pound and the poets of World War I. Poets of the 30's and 40's of the 20th century are next. The course ends up with the contemporary poets as Plath, Larkin, Heaney and others. The course also concentrates on the formal and linguistic aspects of poetry on the one hand, and its reflection of the social and ideological issues, on the other hand. | 2015/2016 |
| | The course explores in depth the works of a major writer in English. Featured authors are rotated and are chosen by the instructors. Examples included are Geoffrey Chaucer, Laurence Sterne, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Herman Mellville, Theodore Dreiser, James Joyce, John Fowles, and others. The course also deals with critical articles and books written on the said author and his/her works. This semester, Shakespeare will be the author to focus on. Students are encouraged to investigate the historical context within which Shakespeare’s plays were produced. Moreover, class discussions will focus on contemporary approaches to reading Shakespeare’s plays. The course is also interested in Shakespeare’s interrogation of gender, colonialism, class and identity during the Early Modern period. The course also considers performance history and contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. | 2016/2017 & 2018/2019 |
| | The scope of this course is flexible enough to allow for studies of influences or of comparisons between the canonical works of British and American authors on the one hand, and the Anglo-American authors and their counterparts in World Literature, on the other. Instructors may select their topics from such cases as Giovanni Boccaccio’s influence on Geoffrey Chaucer, or Sir Walter Scott’s influence on American and European masters like James Fenimore Cooper, Honoré de Balzac and Leo Tolstoy, and many other choices. During this semester, focus will be on the concepts of intertextuality, adaptations & appropriations and students will be encouraged to examine how contemporary Arab authors in diaspora have appropriated and adapted the works of British & American authors through a close reading of the selected texts. | 2016/2017 & 2018/2019 |
| | This is an introductory course to major literary theories and criticism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will introduce the students to each of the following theories and philosophical movements: New Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction/Post-structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Marxism, Historicism and Cultural studies, Postcolonial and Race studies, and Reader Response and Reception theories. The approach of the course is to examine the theories in the context of practice. Some of the questions we will address: Why does theory matter? How relevant is theory to our lives? How does it alter our political, social, and personal perceptions? | 2013/2014, 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017 |
| | The students in this course study selected texts from the works of some Arab writers whose works have been either written in or translated into English. The course also explores how the writings of Arab writers in diaspora reflect the socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural differences that permeate Arab communities in the US, Britain, Canada and Australia. | 2016/2017 |
| | This course explores in depth the literary works of the 19th century and investigates the concomitant sociopolitical contexts. The first part of the course focuses on the works of the main poets of the Romantic Movement while the latter part of the course focuses on their Victorian counterparts. | 2018/2019 |