Readings in core texts of western literature produced by civilizations of the ancient world.. Representative texts include works by: Homer, Sophocles and Virgil, and readings in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Sections of this course may takes up great books of science such as Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture read in conjunction with Virgil's Aeneid.
HLI 114:Western Literature: Middle Ages to the Present
Readings in core texts of western literature from medieval times to the present. Representative authors include Chretien, Dante, Racine, Shakespeare, de Lafayette, and Kafka. Instruction in basic elements of rhetoric and composition is also emphasized. Group A, 100-level course.
HLI 314:19th Century English Literature: Victorians
A survey of poets and prose writers such as Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Stuart Mill, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and Christina Rossetti who in the days of Queen Victoria created texts that reflect our own concerns with religion and science, spirituality and materialism, labor and capital, gender and space, Christmas and goblins.
A study of the fiction of science and the science of fiction through the reading of authors from Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) to William Gibson (Neuromancer), the viewing of films such as Metropolis and Dune, and the writing of a piece of science fiction.
Selected plays by Shakespeare will be read and analyzed both as literary and performance texts. Students are required to attend a professional production of a Shakespearean play in New York City.
During the summer, Shakespeare is presented in parks and parking lots throughout New York City. In this course, we read and discuss plays and then go to see them. We view both traditional and experimental productions. Sometimes we see more than one production of a play, if a number of companies decide to do it.
HLI 341:19th Century English Literature: Romanticism
Consideration of texts by writers of the romantic movement in England: Blake, Coleridge, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley, Keats, and Byron.
A survey of theatrical innovation in modern and contemporary Europe and the United States. Students will analyze dramatic literature and create scenic designs for one or more plays studied in class. Group attendance at a theatrical performance in New York City outside of class time is required.
Readings from the novel's beginnings in England up to contemporary works. Selections include works such as Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Richardson's Pamela, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Dickens' Hard Times, and Woolf's To the Lighthouse.
Readings of plays from the dramatic productions of Aeschylus to modern works of theatre. Students attend professional productions in New York City and often have an opportunity to interact with those involved in bringing them to the stage.
A study of works produced during the British and European romantic movements by. PAINTERS such as David, Turner, Delacroix, Gericault; WRITERS such as Hugo, Goethe, Byron, Sand; COMPOSERS such as Berlioz, Wagner, Chopin. Students attend a professional concert or opera in New York City.
This course offers consideration of literary texts and their relationships to other art forms. Students will study works of literature and attend related cultural events in New York City. A typical semester may include attendance of "Hamlet" at the Metropolitan Opera, "Hard Times" at the Pearl Theater Company,or an exhibit on El Greco, Iconography, and the "Book of John" at the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.
School: College of Arts & Letters
Department: Literature
Research & Education
Education
B.A. Cornell University M.A. Columbia University Ph.D. Columbia University
Research
Nineteenth century poetry and prose; Theater of the Romantic Period; Women Composers and Their Work. [Poster]
Experience & Service
General Information
GREECE: Ancient Literary Legacy, Modern Entrepreneurial Technology
Begun in 2009 with support from the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, this project through classes, lectures, symposia, and conferences integrates the study of classical literature with Stevens' focus on technology, invention and entrepreneurship.
Institutional Service
PROGRAM DIRECTOR, AREA COORDINATOR, LITERATURE AND COMMUNICATIONS
Service on Institute P&T (3x), Faculty Council, Committee on Committees, Academic Standards
Organizer of Stevens' Annual V-DAY
Courses Developed and Taught
Western Literature: Iliad to Kafka
Analysis of Literary Forms
British Romanticism
Victorian Literature
Romanticism: Painting, Literature, Music
Survey of Dramatic Literature
Shakespeare Survey
Shakespeare in the City
Literature and the Arts
Survey of British Literature
Science Fiction
Achievements & Professional Societies
Honors & Awards
Graduated from Cornell Phi Beta Kappa, Magna cum Laude in English, General Distinction in all subjects American Association of University Women Fellowship NEH Summer Stipend 2 ACLS Fellowships (Grants in Aid) NEH Travel to Collections Grant New Jersey Governor's Fellowship New Jersey Council for the Humanities Grant Stevens research award--3 times Stevens Outstanding Teacher Award for the rank of full professor
Master of Engineering, Honoris Causa, Stevens Institute of Technology
Professional Societies
MODERN LANGUAGES ASSOCIATION; NORTH AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ROMANTICISM; ACTORS EQUITY ASSOCIATION
Selected Publications
Books
Susan M. Levin. Dorothy Wordsworth and Romanticism, Rutgers University Press, 1987.
Susan M. Levin. The Romantic Art of Confession, Camden House/Boydell Brewer, 1998.
Susan M. Levin. Longman Cultural Edition of Dorothy Wordsworth, Longman/Pearson, 2008.
Susan M. Levin. Dorothy Wordsworth and Romanticism, 2nd Revised Edition, McFarland, 2009.
Book Chapters
Susan M. Levin. "A Fourfold Vision: William Blake and Doris Lessing", Blake and the Moderns, SUNY Albany Press, 1982.
Susan M. Levin and Robert Ready. "Byron, Keats, and Shelley", Columbia History of British Poetry, Columbia University Press, 1993.
Susan M. Levin. "The Gipsy is a Jewess: Harriett Abrams and Feminine Romanticism", Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices, UPNE, 1995.
Susan M. Levin. "Vice, Ugly Vice: Memoirs of Mrs. Billington from her Birth ", Romantic Autobiography in England, Ashgate, 2009.
Journals
Susan M. Levin. "Articles on nineteenth-century texts, women composers, autobiography", Cornell Review, Prose Studies, Keats-Shelley Journal, Massachusetts Review, European Romantic Review, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Wordsworth Circle.
Generic
Susan M. Levin. "Encyclopedia Entries--Dorothy Wordsworth", Dictionary of Literary Biography, Blackwell Encyclopedia of Romantic Genre,.
