Welcome to the English Department’s prerequisite course in the college-level study of fiction, poetry and drama. Because of the organizing principle by which I chose the readings, I am calling this iteration of the course “Transfigurations of Experience.” As is conventional in an introductory course, our texts sample a range of periods, genres and styles. Each week I have recommended (and provided in the course reader) an accompanying piece of literary theory. With the help of these texts, we will study literary terms and examine disciplinary interpretive practices such as close and distant reading, current research skills, the development of digital archives, data mining and visualization tools, and how literary scholars focus on cultural contexts to understand how literary texts evolve, speak to each other and respond to their own historical moment and to ours. *Texts* Italo Calvino, *If on a winter’s night a traveler* *John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (free Kindle edition available)* J.M. Coetzee, *Waiting for the Barbarians* Course Reader, available at The Alternative Copy Shop (UCEN)** Once this course is full/closed, you can sign up to the wait list at: http://waitlist.UCSB.edu Students on the wait-list must still attend the first day of lecture/section to enroll in the course.