Mar 28, 2024  
2015-2016 HillBook (Class of 2019) 
    
2015-2016 HillBook (Class of 2019) [ARCHIVED HILL BOOK]

ENG 100/131 - Extreme Makeovers: Transformative Texts (Core/First-Year Seminar)

Three or Four Credits
Spring Semester

What links the Greek myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Bram Stoker’s vampire novel Dracula, Rebecca West’s psychological war story Return of the Solider, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and Richard Linklater’s recent film Boyhood? All are fascinated by “extreme makeovers” of sorts. This first year seminar will examine the ongoing appeal of such transformations in literature through close readings of a diverse selection of fiction, poetry, and film. In particular, we will explore the following questions: How are these extreme makeovers shaped by views about gender, psychology, sexuality, and otherness at different cultural moments? What do they suggest about the boundaries between human and animal? What do they reveal about the process of growing up?  And does literature have the potential to transform us as readers, too?

Prerequisite(s): ENG 131 is a First-Year Seminar and open to First-Year Students only.
When offered as ENG 100, for 3-credits, fulfills the Literature Cornerstone Requirement.
When offered as ENG 131, for 4-credits, fulfills the First-Year Seminar and
Literature Cornerstone Requirements.