Courses

Over the centuries, readers have been drawn to accounts of “true” crime—violent narratives involving real people and real events. And yet, as with any literary object, the notion of “truth” is always unstable—stories and their tellings are always shaped by the motivations, values, and choices of those who tell them, often with an eye toward the audience that will consume them. Whether constructed in order to moralize, to enforce or critique social or political ideologies, or purely to sell copies, “true
crime” is a literary genre that reveals attitudes about gender, race, and class; that illustrates—and sometimes calls into question—cultural norms and mores; that calls on readers to reflect on their own morbid curiosity and assumptions and fears. In this class we will engage with a diverse selection of literary texts—spanning from the Middle Ages to the present day and from a range of genres, including pamphlets, plays, novels, and more—as well as contemporary films, a tv series, and a
podcast. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will examine the evolution of the “true crime” genre and the cultural and societal contexts that shape the portrayal of crime for popular consumption. We will explore the ways in which texts and authors sensationalize, moralize, and convey the complexities of crime. We will analyze point of view: who’s telling the story, whom we sympathize with, and what insights we get into the minds of those committing crimes as well as those who fall prey to them. We will consider justice and policing— the role played by the law and its enforcers in shaping narratives about crime and punishment, right and wrong. Finally, we will reflect on the ethical implications of representing real-life crimes in literature, and how “true crime” narratives shape social perceptions, fears, prejudices, and notions of justice and morality.

What is this course about? Well, it’s about witches…but what are witches about? Witches are about
gender, sexuality, morality, fear, and authority, among other things. For millennia, female spirituality
and female sexuality have been paired in ways that reveal deep-seated anxieties about the female
body and its power. From ancient Mesopotamian goddess worship to the frenzied witch hunts of
early modern Europe to the child-devouring crones of folk tales from cultures around the world,
we’ll delve into what the witch and those who name and pursue her reveal about deeply-held cultural
beliefs, desires, and anxieties. We’ll work together to analyze the figure of the witch across time and
space and develop our own ideas about why she is so constantly compelling. We’ll also look at our
own sociocultural moment and connect what we learn about witches to the world around us.

What is this course about? Well, it’s about witches…but what are witches about? Witches are about
gender, sexuality, morality, fear, and authority, among other things. For millennia, female spirituality
and female sexuality have been paired in ways that reveal deep-seated anxieties about the female
body and its power. From ancient Mesopotamian goddess worship to the frenzied witch hunts of
early modern Europe to the child-devouring crones of folk tales from cultures around the world,
we’ll delve into what the witch and those who name and pursue her reveal about deeply-held cultural
beliefs, desires, and anxieties. We’ll work together to analyze the figure of the witch across time and
space and develop our own ideas about why she is so constantly compelling. We’ll also look at our
own sociocultural moment and connect what we learn about witches to the world around us.

This course will introduce some of the most fascinating texts of the first eight hundred years of English literature, from the period of Anglo-Saxon rule through the Hundred Years’ War and beyond—roughly, 700–1500 CE. We’ll hit on some texts you’ve heard of – Beowulf and selections from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – while leaving time for some you may not have encountered – Marie de France’s Lais and Margery of Kempe’s Book. Along the way, we’ll also hone skills of reading, writing, and oral expression crucial to appreciating and discussing literature in nuanced, supple ways. 

If you take this course, you’ll discover how medieval literature is both a mirror and a foil to modern literature. You’ll explore the plurilingual and cross-cultural nature of medieval literary production and improve (or acquire!) your knowledge of Middle English. Plus, you’ll flex your writing muscles with two papers.

In contemporary American culture, legal practice and literary studies share a commitment to careful use of language, rigorous interpretation, and a deep and imaginative engagement with meaning. Scholars and practitioners have been debating for decades how the two practices can reinforce each other, improve each other, critique each other, and refute each other. (As this debate shows, both communities also love to argue.) In this course, we will read and discuss a classic set of literary texts that speak to certain preoccupations within the legal tradition. We will also look at certain debates and controversies within legal discourse to see how the tools and insights of literary and cultural analysis can change our perspective. We won’t be focusing on literary history nor legal doctrine – no previous knowledge of either is required. Instead, we will look at texts where shared concerns – about interpretation, about evidence, about empathy, and about justice and fairness – allow us to use both literary and legal thinking to advance our own understanding of these ongoing debates.

How should we write the literary history of the 1990s—the decade in which history briefly died, the Internet arrived, and everything became “global”? The central gamble of this class is that the 1990s are now far enough away from us in time that a new sort of cultural and historical perspective is becoming possible. What kind of critical judgments can we make about the literature of the 1990s and how confident can we be about our objectivity? Can we identify trends that emerged, or ended, in the period? What body of texts, or group of authors or forms, should we use in writing the literary history of the 1990s – and what criteria should we use for their selection?

Our class meetings will feature extended discussion of significant literary works published in Britain and the US during the 1990s. Authors include major poets and novelists from the period: Thom Gunn, Harryette Mullen, Cormac McCarthy, Hanif Kureishi, Toni Morrison, W. G. Sebald, and Anne Carson. Literary discussion will be mixed with readings from criticism (academic and popular), literary theory, and literary sociology. Students will complete a variety of assignment types, including book reviews, short in-class essays, bibliographic projects, and creative options.

This seminar has two central goals: first, to teach you how to write a clear, indeed eloquent essay, a skill that will prove useful throughout your life.  Second, to read some of the greatest (or most interesting) examples of the literary genre of memoir, with the goal of creating at the end of the course a memoir (of some aspect of your life) that responds to the history of the genre (second goal) and is well written (the first).   

The seminar will read excerpts from Augustine, Cellini, Montaigne, Rousseau, Casanova, Wollstonecraft, Proust, Jacobs, Arenas, Erneaux, Lous, Knausgaard, Sebald, and Ferrante.   We will analyze the memoirs in terms of the creation, and transformation, of the genre of autobiography, and its relation to the novel form.   And as we shift from one assignment to other, more complex ones, we will emphasize clarity of expression as the beginning of a personal style.  

The idea of gender is a relatively recent formulation, often complicated by the ferocity division between the sexes found across history.  This course uses art objects, literary texts, philosophy, psychology and finally film and digital media to interrogate the ideas of sex and gender, to explore the violent ways in which female sexuality has been denied or constrained, that same-sex desire was erased or pathologized, and how transgenderism, even as it works to deny sexual difference, complicates the relations between both sex and gender.  

The goal of this course is to explore the transformations of notions of sex, and more recently gender, across history. We will engage in writing exercises designed to sharpen our interpretive and analytical abilities, and over the six weeks develop a research project of approximately 20 pages. Through our conversations, we hope that we will be able to understand the complex issues surrounding these explosive ideas – ideas that impact us in so many ways – and in so doing gain a powerful, intellectual voice. 

Writing sample required to apply to the course. Please send a writing sample of up to 5 pages of prose (double spaced) to awatson@barnard.edu. 

Spring 2026: Fiction and Personal Narrative: Crafting the Narrative "I"

In this workshop, we will practice taking creative risks, writing fiction and nonfiction. We will examine four key craft areas: voice, characterization, imagery, and arrangement, both in contemporary published writing and in the writing of the people in this class. In small and large group workshops, we will consider each writer’s work with care and attention to the writer’s vision. By discussing each work-in-progress on its own terms, we will help our fellow writers deepen the meaning and impact of their work. Through risk-taking, and building a creative community, we will also grow and deepen our personal relationships to craft. Model readings will be contemporary short stories or personal essays, mostly written in the first person, including work by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Tony Tulathimutte, K-Ming Chang, Cleyvis Natera, Melissa Febos, Ling Ma, and Deesha Philyaw.

Writing sample required to apply to the course. Please send a writing sample of up to 5 pages of prose (double spaced) to awatson@barnard.edu. 

Spring 2026: Fiction and Personal Narrative: Crafting the Narrative "I"

In this workshop, we will practice taking creative risks, writing fiction and nonfiction. We will examine four key craft areas: voice, characterization, imagery, and arrangement, both in contemporary published writing and in the writing of the people in this class. In small and large group workshops, we will consider each writer’s work with care and attention to the writer’s vision. By discussing each work-in-progress on its own terms, we will help our fellow writers deepen the meaning and impact of their work. Through risk-taking, and building a creative community, we will also grow and deepen our personal relationships to craft. Model readings will be contemporary short stories or personal essays, mostly written in the first person, including work by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Tony Tulathimutte, K-Ming Chang, Cleyvis Natera, Melissa Febos, Ling Ma, and Deesha Philyaw.

Long before Aristotle’s Rhetoric and far from Athens and Rome, rhetoricians were teaching people how to communicate powerfully in politics, the law, and the street. This course surveys the ancient rhetorics of Egypt, China, the Americas, and the Arab world. We will examine a body of primary texts from 2,300 B.C.E. to 1,500 C.E. that teach people to wield language effectively.

This course provides an introduction to Shakespeare through a combination of reading his plays and viewing them in performance. On the one hand, we approach each play as a written, published text: our in-class conversation consist primarily in close analysis of key passages, and, in one class period, we visit Rare Books to examine the earliest printed versions of the plays in light of English Renaissance print technology. On the other hand, we view performances of each assigned play, including the attendance as a group of at least one Shakespeare production on an NYC stage. Our semester’s through line is to trace, from his earliest plays to Hamlet, Shakespeare’s remarkable development of the techniques of characterization that have made generations of both playgoers and readers feel that his dramatis personae are so modern, real, human. We will also devote attention to exploring the value of each play in our present moment and on our local stages. We read 8 plays in all, including Titus Andronicus, Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet.