This course examines the history of British involvement in the trade of enslaved Africans and the writing of some of the people most profoundly touched by that trade.

Austen reputedly fainted on hearing that her family would move to Bath in 1801. Scholars have argued about her reaction: was it joy or horror?

The 18th-century Gothic genre, which embraced the uncanny, the fantastic, the supernatural, and the liminal space between life and death, has enjoyed a prolific and expansive afterlife. This course traces the development of the genre from its 18th-century beginnings in Britain, with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), to its prodigious dissemination across literary traditions and artistic mediums throughout the 19th century and beyond.

“Where can we live but days?” Philip Larkin asks in his poem, Days. 

This course explores how artistic representation works within a single 24-hour limit. Do different genres offer artists a spectrum of opportunities to depict a day in the life? And what do writers have to say about the span of a day?

You have a great story in your head, and now you’re ready to turn it into a play. This playwriting workshop offers students the opportunity to explore both the technique and aesthetics of contemporary playwriting in a supportive environment.