Dr. Goode 3 credits
Summer 2012

          This class will be taught fully online during the second 4-Week JMU Summer Session (June 11th-July 6th). Besides self-directed learning with our course textbook and the online materials that the instructor provides, the class will meet synchronously twice a week for 45 minutes each web meeting.  The meeting time will be decided based on discussion between the instructor and students. For the best quality of online meeting participation, headsets with a microphone are recommended.  The main purpose of this survey of British literature from the Middle Ages through the 18th century is to introduce you to major authors and texts of the period while encouraging you to recognize how these texts from the past hold relevance to our current exploration of the human condition.  The course is divided into three periods, with texts and authors representative of each period and literary movement: the medieval period, the Early Modern period  (16th and early 17th centuries), and the “long eighteenth century” (1660-1800).  We will focus pointedly on issues of class and gender and identity, but will do so through other venues such as politics, family, education, industrialization, religion, work, and sexuality to name a few.  We will pay close attention to the texts themselves as well as the historical contexts within which they were produced.  As with any survey course, many significant texts and authors have not been included. Those works and authors selected for our study, however, give significant voice stylistically and rhetorically to the concerns and issues of their times.  Course requirements include:  three 2-page critical essays; three exams; participation via scheduled web meetings, discussion board and/or blog postings; and reading quizzes. 

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