Fall 2010 Book List

The book lists for my courses have become available and let me tell you, I feel like calling myself a “graceless grad student” is an understatement right now.  I am going to be reading, and writing, a heck of a lot in the coming four months as I stumble through my first real semester of graduate school.  I call it the first “real” semester because though I’ve taken nine hours (three courses) in all, it hasn’t been in one semester.  I took one class in Fall 2009, when I was still an undergraduate, and two classes during the Spring 2010 semester, but this will be the first semester when I attempt nine hours all at once.  Its also the first semester of my four semester graduate cycle.

I thought I’d share what’s to come, so you have a taste of what I have in store for me.

Course: Early Modern & Restoration Drama (Dr. Y)

• The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd)
• Dr. Faustus: With the English Faust Book (Christopher Marlowe)
• Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts (William Shakespeare)
• Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare)
• The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster)
• Bartholomew Fair (Ben Jonson)
• ‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore (John Ford)
• The Country Wife (William Wycherly)
• All for Love (John Dryden)
• The Rover (Aphra Behn)
• The Way of the World (William Congreve)

Course: Studies in Rhetoric (Dr. M)

• The Rhetorical Tradition, 2nd ed. (Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg)
• The Responsibilities of Rhetoric (Eds. Michelle Smith and Barbara Warnick)

Course: Problems Course: British History to 1603 (Dr. S)

• The Story of Britain (Norton)
• New Worlds, Lost Worlds: the Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603 (Susan Brigden)
• The English Renaissance: Identity and Representation in Elizabethan England (Alistair Fox)
• Intrigue and Treason: The Tudor Court, 1547 – 1558 (D.M. Loades)
• Pleasures & Pastimes in Tudor England (Alison Sim)
• The First Queen of England: the Myth of “Bloody Mary” (Linda Porter)

Let me add that up for you, that’s 19 books!!  In all fairness, I don’t have to read two of them from cover to cover, but the rest I do. Very much looking forward to jumping in and learning about all of these works. I’m absolutely giddy about the Early Modern & Restoration Drama class for several reasons.  First, my favorite professor is teaching the course.  She’s the head of my graduate committee and before that I took her every time I could as an undergrad which means I took her a lot.  Second, this topic applies directly to what I’m doing for my thesis.  As a matter of fact, all of my classes apply to my thesis in some relevant way. The first as a drama class, the second as a rhetoric which will study classical thought and the last for the same reason as the first. I simply cannot wait!  I’ve never been so excited about school starting!!

The books for that last class are subject to change, all except The Story of Britain which is the core book.  I chose the others, but haven’t gotten approval yet, so I’m not 100% certain those will be the ones I’ll be reading.  I’ll update this list if those aren’t the ones… which I suppose means they will be the ones, depending on when I update this.  Okay, that may not have made sense anywhere but in my head.

For now, I’m off to price books.  Good evening.