ENGL 62.02 The New Emily Dickinson: After the Digital Turn

This colloquium offers an in-depth study of the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a particular focus on how the tools of the digital humanities have renovated our views, including unsettling just what a Dickinson poem is. Since her death in 1886, rival editors have fought over Dickinson’s canon, producing their versions of her poetry. Likewise, biographers have romanticized her life, characterizing her as “The Belle of Amherst,” eccentric, reclusive and even a bit mad. This colloquium will introduce students to the “new” Dickinson that is emerging from the plethora of materialist, feminist, post-modernist, and cultural studies approaches. We will use digital archives to reread and reconsider Dickinson’s work and life. Finally, we will study the year 1862, an immensely productive time for Dickinson and the height of the Civil War, also the focus of an annual daily blog I am preparing. For their final projects, students will examine one week of poetry in this tumultuous year, producing research that will be vetted for inclusion on the blog.

Instructor

Not being offered in 2022-23

Prerequisite

Recommended: two completed English courses.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:LIT; WCult:W

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Department-Specific Course Categories

Junior Colloquium: Course Group II