Literature & Creative Writing   

Shakespeare’s 10 history plays chronicle the history of England for the 200 years before Shakespeare’s own time. By looking at the plays in historical order we can get a sense of what Shakespeare and his contemporaries saw as the key elements of English history and development (which is rather different than how we view it today) as well as developing an appreciation for some of Shakespeare’s most beloved, and most obscure, plays. No prior knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays or of English history is needed for this class.

"Those concerned with justice and liberation must always persuade the mass of people that a better world is possible," states author Jeff Chang. As we face the reality of deep repression and corporate control and watch helplessly as our free speech and the rule of law are rapidly eroding, the visionary, speculative fiction we will read and discuss in this course will present imaginary alternatives to this reality. Through a novel and a wonderful collection of short stories, we will discuss questions that challenge what is possible for the human community, how we resist dystopian visions, and how imaginary visionary fiction serves to nourish us.

As their feminist sisters in the 1970s did with American women’s writing, so Jewish feminists in the 1990s recovered the stories of forgotten Yiddish women writers. Among them was Shira Gorshman, a dynamo who moved from a Lithuanian shtetl to the central Asian hinterlands during the war, to privation of the city and the hard life of communes in Palestine and Crimea. Following this trajectory, her characters in Meant To Be and Other Stories survive fear, loss, poverty, arduous work, and challenges of daily life in the Soviet world. The stories show how these women endure and build relationships in the face of hardship.

Recommended book: Meant to Be and Other Stories, by Shira Gorsham.