The Faculty
IN KEEPING with our previously announced plan of reporting the significant changes in the Dartmouth curriculum as the College prepares to move into the new three-term, three-course year, we present this month a description of the new program in English.
The new English curriculum emphasizes literature as a vital tradition and as a fine art. More challenging and rigorous than the former program, the new major gives increased emphasis to pre-nine-teenth century material in an effort to reassert the continuing values of English literature. A new course, English 30, Introduction to Literary Study, will offer training in how to study literature on an advanced level. Required of all prospective majors, this course will treat literature as a fine art and the study of it as a truly rigorous intellectual experience. Directed by Professor John Stewart and a staff of five instructors, the course will examine the distinguishing characteristics of the great periods of English literature, explore the problems of style and form, and consider such questions as the relationship between literature and other disciplines.
Other important changes in the major include the offering of two courses in Shakespeare, each with different works so that both may be elected by any student, and the annual offering of a course in Chaucer. The creation of four courses The English Renaissance, The Age ofMilton, The Neo-Classic Period, and TheAge of Johnson - offers study of material formerly covered by two period courses. Study of play production has been revised so that English 81 treats the physical theatre, and in English 82-83, which now becomes an indivisible double course, the student writes and plans the production of an original play. The independent reading program includes works from Beowulf to the present. A Junior Departmental Examination tests the student on the first part of the list. The Comprehensive Examination will pose questions more central to the major as a whole and be less course-oriented.
Significant changes have been made in the Freshman English program. English 1 will continue to study readings from the Old Testament and Shakespeare, but more emphasis will be placed on composition. Exemptions from English I will be given to the top quarter of the entering class, who will go directly into English 2. This course is a seminar of groups of eight to ten students meeting about once a week. In English 2 a real effort is made to create a sense of personal responsibility for one's own education. Each seminar will have a topic in the light of which extensive reading and a long paper are done. The English Department is anxious to break away from the high school procedure of parceling out assignments of so many pages per day and to encourage the students to pursue their studies maturely and, so far as possible, independently. A sample topic might be "Freedom or Determinism," in which case the reading could consist of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, The Book of Job, and Milton's ParadiseLost. A student would study these works and related background materials. In consultation with his instructor he would choose a topic for his long paper. The Department hopes that the net result of such a course will be the molding of a real student who has familiarized himself with the library and who has begun to think responsibly and independently.
English 10 replaces 19-20 as an Intermediate Course in Writing, intended primarily for sophomores and freshmen exempted from Freshman English. Chairman of the course, Associate Professor Harry T. Schultz '37, anticipates more intensive creative writing in English 10. English 80, Advanced Course in Writing, consists of a prose division, taught by Professor Arthur Dewing '25, and a poetry division, given by Professor Richard Eberhart '26. Only juniors and seniors may take the course, but the poetry section is open to sophomores. English 80, like English 10, is offered all three terms and may be reelected with the consent of the staff.
Other courses offered by the Department, courses in the history of the drama, in American literature, and in English literature since 1900, remain substantially unchanged. The honors program, which has been extensively revised, will be discussed in a later issue.
PROFESSOR Laurence I. Radway of the Department of Government has been appointed Director of the Summer Seminar on National Security Policy Research sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. The seminar will be held at Dartmouth in July and August of the year, and ten scholars from as many co! leges and universities have been invited to participate. Professor Radway's particular investigations will concern the De fense College as a manifestation of the NATO coalition and the role of American officers in combined military headquarters.
Other participants in the seminar are Lewis J. Edinger (Michigan State University), Martin R. Goldman (Air Force University), Fred Green (Williams College; National War College), Captain Abbot Greenleaf (United States Military Academy), Paul Y. Hammond (Yale University), Samuel P. Huntington (Harvard University), Louis Morton (Office of Chief of Military History, U.S. Army), Robert E. Osgood (University of Chicago), and Glenn Snyder (Columbia University). Professor Radway has been appointed also to the Board of Advisers of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR LOU B. Noll of the . English Department has been invited to spend two months this summer at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Yaddo is a working community for artists and writers endowed by Spencer and Katrina Trask. Professor Noll, who has already published a number of poems, will work on some longer pieces during his stay.
