Early Modern Litearture Courses
Shakespeare & the Tragic Tradition:
Confronting the Abyss
Spring 2025
Binghamton University
Why are we drawn to tragedy? What compels us to witness the downfall of great heroes and the depths of human suffering? This course plunges into the heart of dramatic tragedy, from ancient Greece to Shakespeare’s England. We begin with Aristotle’s Poetics to understand the foundations of this grimly captivating genre. Then, we confront the moral dilemmas of Sophocles’ Antigone and the horrific familial curse in Seneca’s Oedipus. The bulk of our journey takes us through Shakespeare’s most gripping tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. We’ll explore the raw human emotions, fatal flaws, cosmic injustice, and cathartic power that define these works. From star-crossed lovers to tormented princes and jealous generals to mad kings, we’ll examine how these plays depict love, hatred, ambition, despair, madness, and revenge. This heart-wrenching drama – its profound sorrow, moral complexity, and unflinching look at human nature – is our subject. Students will critically examine these plays from multiple perspectives while investigating the historical, philosophical, religious, rhetorical, and generic contexts that shaped them and continue to influence our understanding of tragedy today.
True Crime In Early Modern London
Online, Winter 2023, Summer 2024, Winter 2025
Binghamton University
Recently, there has been a revival of the true crime genre via wildly popular podcasts like Serial and Netflix shows such as Crime Scene: The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel. Which begs the question, why are we attracted to reading, watching, and listening to accounts of what are often gruesome true crimes in the first place? In this course, we will consider this question for our contemporary moment but primarily apply it to depictions of true crimes that occurred over four hundred years ago. Together we imagine what it might have been like to be in London at the end of the 16th and early 17th century and become investigators as we dive into archives to read true crime accounts across popular early modern media, such as prose pamphlets, broadside ballads, and dramas performed on stage. More extended readings include three full-length plays: Arden of Faversham, A Warning for Fair Women, and A Yorkshire Tragedy.
Early Modern Revenge Tragedy
Fall 2024
Binghamton University
This course studies the wildly popular and dark side of Elizabethan and Jacobean imagination: revenge tragedies. To set the stage, we begin with Aristotle’s Poetics, Seneca’s Thyestes, and early modern philosophical treatises by Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Bacon, and others on vengeance, forgiveness, and drama. We then turn to the over-the-top bloody violence, cannibalism, supernatural, and seemingly insane characters who sometimes talk to (and kiss) skulls of early modern revenge tragedies. We will read Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus & Hamlet, Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy, and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. This shocking drama — its madness, isolation, despair, and cyclical revenge — is our subject. Students will critically examine these plays from multiple perspectives while investigating the historical, philosophical, religious, rhetorical, and generic contexts.
Shakespeare Survey
Spring 2024
Binghamton University
In this course, students will experience a representative selection of Shakespeare’s plays across the major genres (comedy, history, tragedy, and tragicomedy). While participating in a variety of critical approaches, students will explore the historical context in which the plays were produced, such as the development of drama in England, the material history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, and the political and cultural place of theater in Shakespeare’s London. Readings will likely include the plays: Titus Andronicus, Richard III, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest. Keeping in mind that Shakespeare wrote for the stage, some class time will also be devoted to discussing the theatrical and performance history of the plays.
Composition and Rhetoric Courses
Rhetoric and Writing
Fall 2024 and Spring 2025
Siena College
WRIT 100 asks students to critique and analyze the methods and motives of other academic writers. Introducing students to basic rhetorical theories and concepts, this course is designed to help students to write effectively for the college academic community, which involves demonstrating critical reading, thinking, researching, and writing skills. The purpose of this course is to help students become familiar with the dominant conventions and expectations of academic argumentation and to assist them in writing persuasive academic prose.
Public Speaking Courses
Oral Communication
Fall 2024 and Spring 2025
Binghamton University
This course is designed to offer you a series of readings and practical exercises to help you improve your public speaking ability, your understanding of the various types of public speeches, your understanding of how to craft an argument orally, and your aural skills as an attentive audience member. Throughout the semester, you will read from a variety of sources on the theory of effective public speaking and make presentations. As an audience member, you will be responsible for providing constructive feedback to your colleagues through peer-review sheets, which will also form a part of your final grade.