Common Exam for Class of 2022
Ten Works (and the terms in which faculty expect to teach them)
- Chaucer, Canterbury Tales Andrew Cole (F 2020, F2021)
- William Shakespeare, King Lear Bradin Cormack (S 2021, S 2022)
- John Milton, Paradise Lost Nigel Smith, Russ Leo, and Jeff Dolven (F 2020, F 2021)
- Jane Austen, Emma Claudia Johnson (F 2020) and Jeff Nunokawa (S 2021)
- William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience Susan Stewart (S 2021) and Susan Wolfson (2021-22)
- Emily Dickinson, selected poetry Josh Kotin & Sarah Rivett (S 2021) and Lee Mitchell (2021-22)
- Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman Simon Gikandi (F 2020) and Bob Sandberg (S 2021)
- Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye Autumn Womack (F 2020) and Anne Cheng (S 2021)
- Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable Rob Nixon (S 2021, S 2022) and Paul Nadal (F 2021)
- Justin Torres, We the Animals Rebecca Rainof (F 2020) and Christina León (F 2020, S 2021)
The Long List. This is the original list of texts proposed by the faculty in the fall of 2019. It is provided here for informational purposes only; the list of ten was selected from these works by the Committee for Departmental Study.
pre-1700
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (S 2021)
- Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (F 2020)
- Francis Bacon, “Of Truth” (F 2020)
- William Shakespeare, King Lear (S 2020, S 2021, S 2022)
- William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (S 2020, S 2021, S 2022)
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (S 2020, S 2021, S 2022)
- William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (S 2020, S 2021, S 2022)
- William Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (S 2020,S 2021, S 2022)
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (S 2020, S 2021, S 2022)
- John Milton, Paradise Lost, (S 2021)
1700-1900
- William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Innocence and Experience (S 2021)
- Jane Austen, Emma (S 2020, S 2021)
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (S 2021)
- John Keats, Selected Poems and Letters (S 2021)
- Lord Byron, Don Juan “Book I” and “Dedication”(S 2021)
- Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
- Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson (S 2021)
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick (S 2021)
- Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (F 2020)
- Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense” (F 2020, S 2021)
post-1900
- Georg Lukács, Theory of the Novel, “Epic and the Novel” (F 2020) 1914-1915
- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India (S 2021)
- William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (F 2020)
- Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart (F 2020)
- Simone deBeauvoir, The Second Sex (F 2020)
- George Orwell, 1984 (F 2020)
- Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (F 2020, S 2021, F 2021, S 2022)
- Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo (F 2020)
- Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman (F 2020)
- Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (F 2020)
- Toni Morrison, Jazz (F 2020)
- Mike Leigh, Secrets and Lies (S 2021)