UCCS Learning Objectives for Literature and Performing Arts (LPA)

Upon completing these courses, students will be able to:

(1) Produce oral and written assessments of literary and cultural texts and/or performances using the language and concepts of the discipline of literary studies.
(2) Articulate how literary and cultural texts can transform one’s understanding of self, others, and communities.
(3) Apply the methodologies of literary criticism to representative works of literature.

ENGL 2420 —Introduction to Global Literature

• Professor Colleen Willenbring 

• 101     MWF    9:00      

ENGL 2420 —Introduction to British Literature 2

General Description: Continuation of ENGL 2410, following the development of British literature from the late 18th century to the present. Approaches vary with instructor; authors studied are likely to include Austen, the Brontës, G. Eliot, Joyce, Shaw, the Shelleys, Tennyson, Woolf, and Wordsworth.
Typically offered spring term.
Prereq: ENGL 1 or equiv. and ENGL 2 or equivalent

• Professor Julia Chavez  

• Choose one of two sections:
• 101     MWF    12:00      
• 102     MWF    1:00      

• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic Title:  Travelers, Homebodies, and Literary Wanderers

Course description: British literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reflects the centrality of travel and migration to the cultural experiences of those living in (and after) Britain’s “Age of Empire.”  In this course, we will examine representations of travelers and homebodies in works of British poetry and fiction from the late eighteenth century to the present. Examining the trope of travel in a variety of forms—temporal, spatial, cultural, aesthetic, imaginative—we will consider the following questions: What attitudes about travel and migration do Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern texts embody? What role does travel play in the cultural imagination of each period?What role does home play? How do the texts of each period migrate away from established literary conventions?

Required reading: Selections from the Broadview Anthology of British Literature (Concise Edition, Volume B) and The Lifted Veil by George Eliot.

Assignments: Two papers; two exams; one oral presentation; informal online responses; active class participation.

• Professor Donna Foran      

• 103    MWF    2:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: The course will begin with William Blake's poetry and touch on the novelists, dramatists, essayists, short story writers, and poets that provide an overview of romanticism, realism, modernism, and post-modernism from Blake's time until the present.

Readings: include The Norton Anthology of English Literature, eighth edition, volumes D, E, and F, Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Pat Barker's Regeneration, and Ian McEwan's Saturday. The material represents the historical and cultural progression of the literature of Great Britain that parallels the beginning of America's rebellion against England and extends into the current worldwide fear of terrorism.

Requirements: four tests (including the final), two papers of approximately 5-7 pages with MLA style required, and 10 casual reaction papers (about a page typed) meant for students' opinions and questions about the works, not for plot summaries. Five of these are due before the mid and five afterward. Occasional group work will be assigned that will not require any meetings outside of class and will consist of casual (or perhaps creative?) presentations on the times, authors, or explorations of the texts themselves.

• Professor Leah Flack

• 104     TUTH     12:30-1:45
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic title: Perception and Misperception in British Literature

Description: This course will cover major works and authors from the early nineteenth century through the first decade of the twenty-first century and will include works by the Romantic poets, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, and others. In our study of a range of literary works, we will be interested in how writers represent the ways the human mind interprets and misinterprets its surroundings.  We will examine the ways that literature asks how culture, nationality, gender, and class shape the ways human beings understand and misunderstand themselves and others. We will be attentive in our readings to both literary style and to the historical contexts of the works we read. Active, informed participation will be required of all members of the class.

Readings: may include a selection of Romantic poems; Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson; The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins; The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde; Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad; Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf; The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro; Atonement, Ian McEwan.

Assignments: Regular, informed participation in class discussions; 3 papers; 2 exams; weekly posts to D2L; reading quizzes

• Professor Tyler Farrell

• 105     TUTH    2:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic Title: Faith and Doubt

Description: This section of British Literature 2 focuses on the large number of writers from late 18^th through 20^th Centuries that use religion, spirituality, devotion, faith and doubt as a way to explore aspects of self and society. We will look at the Romantics who tended to view nature and the pastoral as a form of religion or spirituality. We will examine the Victorian age which began to question conventional and traditional wisdom about organized religion and issues including: creation, divinity of Christ, and the Established Church. In contrast, writers like Hopkins were quite devoted to specific tenants of Christianity. Similarly, the Modern era looked closely at a broad view of religion, but also gave us writers like Yeats, Eliot, and Joyce who used religion and faith to inform their writing. Other modern writers looked to past religious beliefs and ideas outside of Western Christianity in order to examine a more global view of religion and the changing way an individual may experience a personal belief system. We will also read Beckett and Greene who often examined the two-sides to religion; the blessing and the curse. In these three eras the representation of faith and doubt in poetry, fiction and drama allows for analysis of all texts for literary style and historical/religious context as well as the impact of certain works on the history of British Literature.

Readings: Selected readings from The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Edition, Volume B. Including, Romantics: Blake, Burns, Byron, Keats, Wollstonecraft, Shelley, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and short essays. Victorians: Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, Eliot, Arnold, Rossetti, Hopkins, Wilde, Kipling. 20^th Century: Yeats, Woolf, Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Auden, Larkin, Hughes, Heaney. Also, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

Assignments: 3 papers, 2 essay exams, Class Participation and Discussion, Group Presentation, Weekly Reflection papers.

ENGL 2520 —Introduction to American Literature 2

General Description: Continuation of ENGL 2510, following the development of American literature from the Civil War to the present. Approaches vary with instructor; authors studied are likely to include Bishop, Cather, Chopin, T.S. Eliot, Ellison, Erdrich, Faulkner, Freeman, Frost, Gilman, Hemingway, Hughes, Hurston, James, Jewett, Morrison, O’Connor, Pound, Stein, Twain, Wharton, and Wright.
Typically offered spring term.
Prereq: ENGL 1 or equiv. and ENGL 2 or equiv.

• Professor Dana Prodoehl

• 101     MWF     11:00               
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic title: "The ‘Challenge’ of Literature, in Post-Civil War America”

Course Description: The thematic focus of this class will be challenge, through literary works. The authors we will be reading and discussing use various literary forms in order to challenge the world around them: they challenge societal values, they challenge tradition, they challenge previous literary forms, and they challenge each other. And, in doing so, they ask that we challenge the works, each others’ interpretations, and, hopefully, ourselves.

     To see how authors use the device of challenge, we will be reading and discussing a broad range of genres: short stories, essays, poetry, drama and excerpts of novels.  We will be reading a diverse range of authors including those from the mainstream as well as the periphery.  My hope is that you come to understand the complexity of American literature, and how (good) literature is alive, in conversation with the world around it.

• Professor Amy Blair

• 102     MWF     1:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

• Professor Ronald Bieganowski, SJ

• 103    MW    2:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic title: “What does it mean to be American?”

Course Description: This course will trace the outlines of the continuing story of what it means to be American as told in fiction, drama, and poetry by Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Henry James, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, and Bernard Malamud, along with others such as Denise Levertov, T. S. Eliot, and August Wilson. The diverse range of action, characters, setting, narrative perspective, irony, and imagery — all help tell the story.
Readings: Readings will include Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Daisy Miller,” The Hairy Ape, “Neighbour Rosicky,” “The Bear,” “Big Two-Hearted River,” Fences, and “Sonny’s Blues.”
Assignments: Two papers (4-5 pp.), several “Reflections” (1 p. each), a few quizzes, and final exam (essay) will be required. Class will be primarily discussion format because “it takes a whole class to get at what stories are about.”

• Professor Natalie Zavadski

• Choose one of two sections:
• 104    TTH     8:00
• 105    TTH     9:30

• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: Introduction to American Literature II is designed to provide an overview of the literary traditon in America from the Civil War to the present. As such, course focus will be towards critical analysis of the major texts of this historical period to the development of American Literature.

Course Goals: To read, discuss, and analyze a variety of American texts from the Civil War to the present. Emphasis will be given to the historical import of each work as it relates to the development of the United States. Particular attention to thematic influences, predominant cultural values, and prevailing social mores of each time period will be addressed.

Required Text: The Norton Anthology of American Literature ( Package Two, Volumes C, D, & E).

• Professor Jodi Melamed

• 106     TUTH     11:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description:: In this course, we will examine “American literature” not as an object you can simply acquire or learn (like a math equation), but a set of questions that require persistent engagement.  These questions include:  What has it meant, since 1865, to label something or someone “American”?  What ideals, contradictions, ruses, and powers have been attached to that category? What functions does the definition of an “American literary canon” serve and on what basis do we include and exclude works from this canon?  We will work chronologically thorough a series of juxtaposed carefully selected to bring out the tensions and resonances between the literature of different social groups, historical periods, and literary styles. In doing so, we will consider how different genres lend themselves to different expressive possibilities. We will return repeatedly to a series of concepts central to the category of American literature, including democracy, supremacy, community, status, religion, civility, race, gender, nation, and empire. Above all, we will learn the fundamentals of literary analysis; our focus will be on producing careful “close readings” that are as attentive to the rhetorical power of literary works as to their themes and their historical and cultural contexts.

Readings: The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volumes C,D, and E Sixth Edition, Henry James, Daisy Miller, Toni Morrison, Beloved, and Sherman Alexie, Flight

ENGL 2710: Introduction to Literature; Fiction

General Description: An introduction to various types of fiction (e.g., fable, short story, novel) representing a range of cultural perspectives with emphasis on techniques for analyzing the conventions, structure and style of fiction.

Offered every term.

Prereq: English 1 or equiv. and English 2 or equiv.

• Professor Vida Muse

• 101     MWF     8:00-8:50                       
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: The premise of this course is that we read fiction to make sense of our world. Based in the imagination,  envisioning what could happen and what might have happened, fiction offers us original paths to insight  and wisdom.  In this course we will study modern short stories and several short novels that aim at nothing less than transforming  our consciousness. 

Readings: Authors to be studied include Kafka, Conrad, Faulkner, Pynchon, and Morrison.

Assignments: Participation in class is expected, and frequent quizzes will be given. Writing assignments will include both essay exams and papers.

• Professor Ryan Jerving

• Choose one of two sections:
• 102 MWF   9:00
• 104 MWF 11:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic Title: The Work of Fiction

Course Description: Our introduction to the work of fiction considers what purposes - cultural, economic, biological - are served by the social acts of oral storytelling and the print publication of stories and novels. And it asks how those purposes might be shifting under the tectonic pressures of our online age.
Through a comparative case study of two 19th-century novelists writing about the outer limits of human experience, we'll analyze the role that writing style can play in exploring and exploding the social fictions of identity, family, community, and mystery. Through looking at some very durable narrative structures and conventions, we'll examine how the age-old folk process behind fables and fairytales has been translated into 21st-century forms such as wordless comics, fan fiction, and the cell phone novel. And we'll turn to the global uses of contemporary fiction in illuminating the realities of life during wartime and constructing virtual counter-realities to that life.
Readings: Among others, we will read stories, novels, and comics by writers like Rebecca Harding Davis, Herman Melville, Zora Neale Hurston, Mark Millar, Aesop, and Orhan Pamuk.
Assignments: One major research project, two mid-sized analytic papers, a final exam, weekly online discussion, regular in-class writing, and a class-authored wiki novella.

• Professor Amara Graf

• Choose one of two sections:
• 103     MWF     10:00
• 105     MWF     12:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic title: Latina/o Coming of Age Narratives

Course Description: This course examines the coming of age narratives of Latina/o authors and explores how they adapt the traditional bildüngsroman genre to reflect their specific socio-cultural contexts often blurring the lines between memoir/autobiography and testimonio in their fictional narratives. We will look at the cultural and historical forces that have both constrained and enabled the creative expression of self and communal identity among Latina/o authors. The texts will ask us to consider carefully several themes and narrative strategies; we will examine how authors address issues of nationality, migration, Diaspora, violence, loss, assimilation, language, and religion. We will also discuss how ethnicity and race along with other categories of difference, including class, gender, and sexual orientation influence identity formation. By paying proper attention to close textual readings, as well as the historical moments in which these works are occurring, we will develop a sense of the aesthetic and political stakes of Latina/o literary production.

Readings: We will read short stories and novels by Latina/o authors such as Rudolfo Anaya, Helena María Viramontes, Junot Díaz, Edwidge Danticat, Piri Thomas, and Esmeralda Santiago.

Assignments: Several short position papers, quizzes, two medium length papers, an oral presentation and final essay exam.

• Professor Barbara Glore

•   106     TUTH     8:00 AM                          
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic title: Constructing and Reconstructing the Self:  The Importance of Memory and Place

Course Description: In this class, we will engage in a shared inquiry of literary works that are focused on characters in the process of self-discovery and the search for identity, characters who ask classic and age-old questions: "Who am I and of what significance am I in the world?  How have my origins impacted who I am or who I will become? How do I make my voice heard in ways that matter?"  Most times, these characters struggle with journeying and acclimating to new and unfamiliar settings, but sometimes they struggle in a place called home.  As we read and share ideas, we will be attentive to cultural differences of race, gender, and ethnicity and how these differences can add to characters' struggles, struggles frequently made difficult by the burdens of their past.   Writer John Gardner states, "A true work of fiction is a wonderfully simple thing . . . [which, upon examination, is also] a shining performance," so to this end, we will focus on the sometimes "wonderfully simple" things of a true work of fiction (plot, character, point of view, style, and theme).  At the same time, we will also focus on basic literary theories so as to approach these works from different perspectives and to reveal the author's "shining performance." In the end, as English critic Terry Eagleton observes, the task of constructing identity can help people cope with the world around them, and oftentimes, the coping skills required of fictional characters are the same required of us as readers when dealing with everyday life. In this way, as we explore the struggles and conflicts of characters, we will strive to find meaning in the text so that we can learn more about ourselves, about others, and about the intersection of the two in the world.

Readings: Kafka, Hemingway, Carver, Alexie, Lahiri, and others.

Assignments: Class participation; ten short critical responses; two five-page papers; one panel presentation; final essay exam.

• Professor Erik Ankenberg

•   107     TUTH     2:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

• Professor Carol Klees-Stark

•   108     TUTH     3:30
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

ENGL 2720: Introduction to Literature; Drama

General Description: An introduction to the forms and principles of drama, often surveying its development from its origins in ancient Greece to the contemporary theater, with emphasis on techniques for analyzing the conventions, structures and styles of dramatic literature.  Class will typically read works from a number of centuries and study authors from continental, British and American traditions.  Classes usually include at least one play by Shakespeare.

Offered every term.

Prereq: English 1 or equiv. and English 2 or equiv.

• Professor Rebecca Nowacek

• Choose one of two sections:
• 101    MWF     9:00

• 102     MWF   12:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: This course is designed to help you develop your appreciation for drama as a written genre and a living art form, as well as your ability to analyze and make an argument about a play.  Towards that end, we will read a series of plays representing the development of the genre.  For each play, we will identify and discuss various “problems of interpretation”—that is, questions or puzzles that intelligent readers of good will could legitimately disagree about, making arguments grounded in the text or staging of the play.  Viewing and discussing actual performances of these plays will be a key element of our work in this course; there will be required viewings of movies, attendance at local theatrical productions, and some in-class dramatic interpretation.

Readings: We will read and discuss at least five plays; I have not made final selections, but the plays will likely include Bertholt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. 

Viewings: Film versions of all these plays will be shown on Friday afternoons.  Viewing the films is required, but attendance at the Friday screenings is entirely optional since copies of the films may also be obtained through the library or Netflix.

• Professor Mary Beth Tallon

• Choose one of two sections:
• 103     TUTH     9:30-10:45
• 104     TUTH    11:00-12:15
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: “The Play's the Thing…”
……that catches our consciousness, drawing us to question not only the
characters in the “world of the play” but ourselves as well. We will use the
template of Aristotle’s Poetics to probe the secrets of plays that span the
great ages of theatre, from Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex to Mamet's Oleanna.
We will test Aristotle’s idea of “catharsis” — do we cry? do we laugh? — by
attending, as a class, four productions: The Laramie Project, Moisés
Kaufman's contemporary drama based on an infamous hate crime,
performed at Marquette’s own Helfaer Theatre (including a tour of the
theatre facility and a conversation with students involved in the production);
The Lion in Winter, James Goldman's blackly comedic treatment of the
domestic battles of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, co-produced by the
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre and Marquette's theatre department; Death of
a Salesman, a landmark production of Arthur Miller's great American classic,
staged by the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre (our evening there includes “Rep
in Depth” and a backstage tour); and the Lawrence Fishburne/Kevin Branagh
film of Shakespeare’s Othello. Having focused on Aristotle’s study of plot, we
will also look at the importance of character development in modern drama:
we will invite characters from Ibsen's Hedda Gabbler to tell us their back
stories and do a Keirsey analysis of the personalities in Wilson's Fences. Our
semester will include a class at MU's Haggerty Art Museum, where we will
compare themes in dramatic and visual arts.

Assignments: Assessment is based on twelve five-minute quizzes; two exams; two critiques; a text/production comparison analysis; and on class participation. There will be several possibilities for extra credit across the semester.

ENGL 2730: Introduction to Literature; Poetry

General Description: An introduction to poetry from variety of traditions.  Emphasis on close reading of poems to learn how formal techniques of verse (e.g., symbolism, metaphor, simile, imagery, persona, meter, rhythm) combine for poetic effect.

Offered every term.

Prereq: English 1 or equiv. and English 2 or equiv.

• Professor Daniel Khalastchi

• Choose one of two sections:
• 101    MWF     11:00
• 102    MWF    2:00
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Thematic title: Young Americans.

Description: If you’ve ever felt confused, put-off, or even frightened by the idea of reading a poem, this is the course for you. In this introductory survey we will conquer our fear of verse by developing our strengths as critical readers of poetry while also gaining the tools necessary to become better thinkers across genres and disciplines. Through careful reading and analysis of selected poems, essays, and engaging new collections, this class will acquaint you with historical and contemporary poetic trends to promote an informed understanding and appreciation of the art. In this class we will look at work from a variety of authors in an attempt to arm you with the skills to confidently examine elements of the human condition you may not have considered before. We will focus much of our attention on a booklist comprised mainly of young American poets—I’m looking forward to sharing this work with you.

Readings:

Zach Savich—Annulments

Dora Malech—Say So

Emily Pettit—Goat in the Snow

Nick Demske—Nick Demske

Michelle Taransky—Barn Burned, Then

Jericho Brown—Please

Srikanth Reddy—Facts for Visitors

Suzanne Buffam—The Irrationalist

Kiki Petrosino—Fort Red Border

*Additional texts will be provided by the instructor.

• Professor Mary Catherine Bodden   

• 103      MW     3:30

• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description:

This Introduction to Poetry course has four aims: 1) to acquaint you with the variety and range of poems by poets from broad perspectives of culture, history, race, gender and sexuality.   2) To become familiar with different forms of poetry: sonnet, blues stanza, ballad, lyric, free verse, terza rima, the villanelle, etc.  3) To develop the your knowledge of literary critical methods enabling you to read and to evaluate what makes good poetry, and  4) to develop skills of critical thinking through writing and close reading of these poems. Critical writing means, that along with analyzing forty-some poems in class, the students themselves undertake a project in which they develop a poem from its single theme and tone to incorporating more sophisticated internal elements (extended metaphor, meter, figures of speech, images, and if they wish, rhyme schemes) as a means of learning through writing. 

Assignments:Two essay-exams, quizzes, mid-term and final exams, and the poetry writing project.

• Professor Ed Block

• 104      TUTH     9:30-10:45
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: This survey course is an introduction to reading and understanding poetic genres; examples taken primarily form modern British and American literature.  A weekly feature on World Poetry (c. 500 B.C. to the present).  Frequent reading aloud.

Readings:Textbooks:  Kennedy & Gioia Introduction to Poetry, M. H. Abrams ed. Glossary of Literary Terms

Assignments:One response paper (1-2 pp.), two analytical papers (3-5, 4-7 pp.), one reflective paper (3-5 pp.). Seven quizzes, one oral presentation, a mid-term and a final.  There will also be extra credit poetry journal and memorization options.

ENGL 2740: Reading Film as Narrative

• Professor Stephanie Quade                         

• 101    TUTH     3:30
• 761    MON      6:00-8:30
• Fulfills UCCS LPA requirement

Course Description: Is film “truth 24 times per second” as Godard suggests or is Herzog right when he asserts that “Film is not the art of scholars, but illiterates”? From the silent era to the age of digital and computer-generated imagery, this survey covers the roughly 100 year history of film, with special attention to how film editing and other techniques inform narrative. Films studied include American classics (by Welles, Kazan and Hitchcock), lesser-known works, plus several international films, including an emphasis on the French New Wave. Readings and in-class discussion will focus on critical approaches to film studies, in part through a comparative study of how three works of fiction were translated into movies. Students will be challenged to consider the particular contributions film makes to our understanding of human nature.

Readings: essays from Braudy & Cohen Film Theory and Criticism, seventh edition; Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire; Macbeth; Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Assignments: 4 quizzes, two 5 - 7 page essays, mid-term, final.

ENGL 3210: Advanced Composition

• Professor Rebecca Nowacek

• 101    MWF   11:00

Course Description: This course is designed to help you develop your skills as a writer: to increase your control over the process of writing and to hone your awareness of how a sense of audience, persona, tone, and other elements of style can influence the ways that readers make sense of and respond to your writing. Ultimately, my goal is to help the writers enrolled in this course develop two qualities as authors: fluency and flexibility.  Toward that end, this course is designed around the workshop method—which means working in groups to share your own writing and respond thoughtfully to that of others—and on a deferred grading system that encourages significant revision throughout the semester. 

Readings: Although much of the work in this class will consist of your own writing and the reading and discussion of your classmates’ writing, we will also discuss Joseph Williams’ Style as well as essays on a variety of themes.

Assignments: Assignments include five major essays, a number of briefer writing assignments, style exercises, and active participation in a peer review workshop.

• Professor Virginia Chappell

• 102    TTH   2:00

Course Description: The goal of this advanced writing course is to develop your skills as a writer of non-fiction prose.  The class is designed to foster your flexibility and fluency with prose.  We will pay particular attention to style and persuasion, that is, to techniques for engaging readers and earning their assent.  Assignments will invite essays on both personal and public topics.  Within broad categories of purpose (e.g., narrative, reflection, analysis, interpretation, persuasion), the specific goals of each of your essays will be yours to determine and make clear to your readers.  As part of the mix, there will be a Service Learning option to provide a context for at least two of your essays.

Since writing well depends upon reading widely and carefully, we will spend a lot of class time discussing published essays as well as student work. 

Texts: current issues of The New Yorker, which I will order through a bulk subscription (probably < $10) and a style book (TBA). 

Requirements: five substantial essays, three ultra-short writings, revision of one longer essay for publication in a class magazine, style exercises, and active participation in both class discussion and peer review groups.

ENGL 3220: Writing for the Professions

• Professor Ryan Jerving

• 101    MWF   8:00 AM

Thematic Title: Technology and Communication
Course Description: Writing for the Professions teaches skills for communicating in the workplace, in student groups and other volunteer organizations, and in your role as a critically engaged consumer, citizen, and "man or woman for others." Professional communication takes place in concrete, four-dimensional time such that any particular act of writing, speaking, or posting is rarely the last (or the first) word. Therefore, the emphasis in this course is on developing a purpose-driven and reader-centered approach to writing that aims at both short-term practical results and long-term reputation and relationship building.
As we work through a series of professional writing genres and scenarios, we will concentrate our efforts around a particular focus on thinking critically about the role of technology - desktop publishing, personal mobile communication, asynchronous collaboration, social networking - in reshaping our writing/communication practices and in reshaping us. For examples of the kind of emerging issues to which you'll respond, see the current semester's course blog, Writing That Works, at http://writingthatworks.wordpress.com.
Readings: Our texts will include online readings concerning emerging issues in professional communication, full-length books and articles by thinkers on technology such as Lawrence Lessig, Michael Wesch, and Kevin Kelly, and a wide range of primary documents (memos, letters, updates, tweets, posts, reports, admissions essays, etc.) that you and your peers will play a large part in discovering and bringing to our attention. As a class, we will collaboratively produce our own online professional communication textbook.
Assignments: Group report and presentation on emerging professional communication technologies; individual project collecting and commenting on workplace documents; individual report on the communication technology as it is impacting your intended profession; individual job search portfolio; weekly blogging and online discussion; wiki-authored collaborative course textbook.

ENGL 4120/5120: Structure of the English Language

• Professor Steve Hartman Keiser

• 101    MWF   10:00

Thematic Title:  The Anatomy of English (and the place of English Cosmetology)

Course Description:  In this course we will look closely at (and be wowed by) the structure of the sounds, words, and sentences of American English.  We will apply our analytical skills to develop a working model for representing the knowledge we each have as speakers of English—this will also require a certain amount of memorization of the terms needed to describe language structure.  We will consider how some of the conventions of standard edited English are or are not motivated by our model as we work to establish a basis for making informed decisions about style, usage, and grammar pedagogy.  Upon completion of this course you will be able to:

1. Analyze the structure of sounds, words, and sentences in English by describing the relationships between the units that compose them.
2. Critique prescriptive/evaluative statements about style, usage, and grammar pedagogy.

Readings: Curzan and Adams 2008. How English Works: a Linguistic Introduction (2nd ed.) Nunberg, Geoffrey.  2001. The way we talk now. Gilman, E. Ward (ed.). 1989. Webster's dictionary of English usage.

Assignments:  Analytical exercises and quizzes: weekly.  Two analysis papers.  Two exams.

ENGL 4130/5130: History of the English Language

• Professor Tim Machan

• 101    MWF   8:00

Course Description:This course examines the history and diversity of the English language. After an introduction to the methods of historical and comparative linguistics, the development of English will be chronologically considered. Much of the course will concentrate on specific historical topics, such as the introduction of writing, the influence of writing and printing on the standardization of English, the spread of English outside England itself, the diversity of English, and the status of English as a world language today.

Readings: : Barber, The English Language; Julie S. Amberg and Deborah J. Vause, American English: History, Structure, and Usage; Crystal, English as a Global Language.

Assignments: 3 tests, research paper

ENGL 4170/5170: Studies in Language

• Professor Steve Hartman Keiser

• 101    MWF   12:00

Thematic Title: Rebuilding Babel: English as World Language

Course Description: We will consider the political, economic, and social contexts that have led English to become the world’s lingua franca (500 million speakers and growing!).  We will study the variation in the linguistic structure and social functions of English dialects world-wide including American English, Scots-Irish, Caribbean creoles, South Africa, Australia, and India.

Assignments: Mini-paper and presentation of sociolinguistic profile of country, major research paper, midterm, final.

• Professor Mary Catherine Bodden        

• 701    MW   5:30

Thematic Title: Language, Gender and Power

Course Description: This course is an introduction to the study of language, gender, and the ways that differences in women's and men’s speech reflect and promote dissimilar access to power in their shared culture. The range of  linguistic issues in the course draws upon the fact that gender as a construct is related to our various identities (ethnic, age-related, sexual, etc.), to our social stances (competition, friendship) and to emotions (politeness, aggression, etc.). Some grounding in linguistic principles will be our first concern. Chiefly, however, we will examine certain theoretical perspectives on the issues of language and gender and power, e.g., manufacturing identity through language in the media; language and corporate advertising; linguistic constructs of masculinity; girl-talk; “policing male heterosexuality through language”; race/gender/language; establishing status through language; gender strategies in story-telling, etc.
Assignments: Coursework includes four fieldwork exercises which involve taping, analyzing and interpreting naturally-occurring conversational data gathered from conversations between peers, between friends, professionals, and between children arguing. Included, also are bi-weekly single-page commentaries on readings, and a final essay-exam. This course meets the linguistics course requirement.

ENGL 4220: Art of Rhetoric

• Professor Kris Ratcliffe                        Literary, Cultural, Political,

• 101    TUTH     11:00-12:15                  Visual, & Pedagogical Rhetorics

Course Description: This semester we will explore the Greek goddess of persuasion, Peitho (translated, “I believe”). Two questions will drive our discussions: (1) What is rhetoric? and (2) How does knowledge of rhetorical theory enhance our abilities both to analyze/interpret texts, people, and culture as well as to compose texts? We will begin by reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own to identify and define rhetorical concepts and tactics. The remainder of the class will be divided into 5 units: Political Rhetorics, Cultural Rhetorics, Literary Rhetorics, Visual Rhetorics, and Pedagogical Rhetorics. In these units, we will read and discuss classical rhetorical theories (the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, & Quintilian) and contemporary rhetorical theories (Kenneth Burke, James Berlin, Jackie Royster, Gloria Anzaldùa) in terms of their usefulness (1) for analyzing authors as diverse as William Shakespeare, William Butler Yeats, and Louise Erdrich as well as contemporary cultural artifacts/events (we’ll see what’s in the news) and (2) for composing our own texts.

Readings: Rhetorical theories (on D2L or library reserve); Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own; Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis.

Assignments: 3 informal position papers; 2 formal essays, 1 collaborative oral presentation with visuals, and 1 final exam.

ENGL 4250/5250: Creative Writing:  FICTION

• Professor Cliff Spargo

• 701     TUTH    5:30

Course Description:

ENGL 4260/5260: Creative Writing:  POETRY

• Professor Daniel Khalastchi

• 101    MWF     1:00

Thematic title: The Thunder and the Music
Course Description: Being a poet puts you in control of the storm—you get to decide if/when to flood the city, and you also get to decide how to handle the aftermath. Although it's freeing to recognize such limitless possibilities, good writing is most importantly about balance—knowing when/how to give and take, and learning to understand what Faulkner meant when he said that in writing, "the thunder and the music take place in silence." In this poetry writing workshop, we will work on how to control our personal weather patterns by discussing the fundamental principles of strong, successful writing.  Although we will spend time reading and discussing the work of established writers like James Wright, John Berryman, Gertrude Stein, Robyn Schiff, James Galvin, Srikanth Reddy, Emily Dickinson, and others, the majority of each class will be devoted to your own writing.  As we draft and create new pieces weekly, we will learn to share our creative output with our peers in a traditional workshop setting, gaining constructive criticism and ideas for revisions from the very people we hope to have as our audience. At the end of the term, along with a final portfolio, we will discuss the possibility of creating a class magazine/chapbook to highlight the wonderful work I know we will create.

Readings:

Michael Dumanis and Cate Marvin (ed.)—Legitimate Dangers

*Additional texts will be provided by the instructor.

Assignments: Critical reading/writing assignments, specifically: weekly readings/journal entries/peer critiques/poems, a group presentation, and a midterm/final portfolio.

• Professor Ed Block

• 102     TUTH    12:30-1:45

Course Description: After some initial readings about the writing of poetry -- to get our bearings -- this course will proceed as a “workshop” in the writing of various poetic genres.    Besides some opening exercises in perception and description, each week students will be required to bring a poem of theirs to class (haiku, tanka, sonnet, etc.), to be read aloud and commented upon “in workshop.”  Along with other assigned exercises (two to three per week), this will yield, by the end of the semester, a portfolio of draft, revised, and finished work.  The course will involve a good deal of reading aloud, and (perhaps) some memorization.  Because of the “workshop” format – in which everyone is required to participate -- a strict TWO ABSENCE (maximum) policy will be observed.

Required texts: Ted Kooser, The Poetry Home Repair Manual; Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook.  Other readings will be posted on D2L or be available as ARES reserves.

Assignments:  As above; weekly exercises and one poem draft to workshop.  Portfolios will be graded at the mid-term and at the final.  No mid-term or final examination.

ENGL 4310/5310: Studies in Global Literature

• Professor John Su        

• 101     MWF      1:00   

Thematic title: Literature of Migration and the Dream of Transnational Justice

Course Description: In this course, students will engage in a cross-cultural examination of literary texts published since the 1948 United Nations declaration on universal human rights.  We will explore the ways in which authors have represented the experiences of migrant workers, from refugee and asylum issues to experiences of incorporation and exclusion.  Particular attention will be paid to efforts to propose alternatives to systems of multiculturalism that have become the dominant mode of incorporating and/or concealing migrants within Western Europe and United States.

Readings:

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger

Monica Ali, Brick Lane

J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace

Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land

N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn

Assignments:

1.  Mathematical reasoning assignment (MRA)                      20% 

2.  Critical introduction/encyclopedia entry (4-6 pages)         25%

3.  Research essay (8-10 pages)                                         35% 

4.  Class participation                                                         20%

ENGL 4430/5430/4996: Renaissance 17th c.

SENIOR EXPERIENCE

• Professor Amelia Zurcher

• 101     TUTH     9:30-10:45

Thematic title: Literature in Crisis

Course Description: In 1649, after seven years of civil war, a group of English politicians executed their monarch, Charles I, and began an experiment with republicanism that ended eleven years later with the restoration of Charles’s son. During this extraordinary period the theaters were closed and public drama disabled, but other genres flourished – political theory, scientific writing, moral philosophy, narrative poetry, prose romance – as people struggled to navigate in uncharted political and ethical territory. In this course we will read a broad variety of seventeenth century writing, from both the revolutionary period and before, in order to explore both the fascinating history of seventeenth-century England also the power and potential of literary writing to bring ideas and practices into being.

ENGL 4470/5470: Victorian Literature

• Professor Christine Krueger

• 101     TUTH      2:00-3:15

Course Description: This course will investigate how key features of modernity emerged in Britain during the Victorian period (1832-1901). Students will learn to identify the narratives through which Victorians constructed three major features of modernity: liberal democracy, finance capitalism, and global interdependence. These narratives appear in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, as well as other arts, statistics, and technological developments. Through cumulative research projects, students will achieve a critical understanding of the dynamic between human innovation and material conditions in the Victorian period that continue to influence us today.

Assignments: Approximately 100 pgs reading/week. Three 5-page research assignments; 1 10-12-page research paper; 8 online reading analysis responses.   

ENGL 4490: Contemporary British Literature

• Professor John Boly

• 101     TUTH     9:30

Course Description: Fortunately, relatively few contemporary writers have had to contend with a fatwa, as did Salman Rushdie, calling for them to be exterminated by the pious. Even so, throughout the postwar era, writers of serious literature have faced a steadily increasing array of demands and pressures. Intense competition for dwindling audiences, the distraction of captivating media such as video games and ipods, the lure of a more labyrinthine Internet, and the rise of censorship from not only governments protecting "state secrets" but also professional monopolies stifling the knowledge that would put them out of business, have all worked to diminish the once eminent status of literature as a major cultural form. So what have the writers done to fight back? We will answer that question by studying the themes and strategies of authors such as D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Hugh MacDiarmid, Tony Harrison, Doris Lessing, Philip Larkin, Thom Gunn, Derek Walcott, Ted Hughes, Chinua Achebe, Geoffrey Hill, V.S. Naipaul, Eavon Boland, and Paul Muldoon.

Assignments: Two essays and two exams.

ENGL 4530/5530: American Literature from 1865-1914

• Professor Amy Blair

• 101     MWF 12:00

Course Description: The period between the end of the Civil War and the beginnings of WWI in Europe was one of profound social, technological, and political changes in the United States.  This course will look at a variety of ways American writers reflected and responded to the world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, addressing the waxing and waning popularity of sentimental literature, the elite enthusiasm for realist literature and the related growth of regional literature, the connection between fiction and the muckraking school of journalism, the explosion of literatures by and about immigrants, African American literary production in the eras of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and the growth of popular periodicals.  By reading works of American literary “realism” in their original contexts, and by reconsidering the boundaries between realism and romance, we will complicate the standard notion of this slice of American literary history, and come to a better understanding of the whole culture of the Gilded Age.

Readings: We will be reading short fiction, novels, and nonfiction pieces by authors such as William Dean Howells, Henry James, W. E. B. DuBois, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, Stephen Crane, Thorstein Veblen, and Mary Wilkins Freeman.

Assignments: 4 or 5 essays of varying lengths, including analysis of a contemporaneous periodical, analysis of textual variations in different editions of a novel, and some research-based papers.

ENGL 4550: American Modernism

• Professor Heather Hathaway              

• 101     MWF 10:00

Course Description:  This course will provide you with a solid foundation in American literature written during the early decades of the twentieth century with particular attention to the historical context and formal literary experimentations framing modernism. Units will focus on fiction (short story and novel), high modernist and vernacular poetry, and cultural concentration on the Harlem Renaissance. Writers studied will likely include Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Toomer, Hurston (short story and novel); Stein, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Hughes, McKay, Brown (poetry); and Locke, DuBois, Mencken, Bourne, and Kallen (non-fiction).

ENGL 4610/5610: Individual Authors:

• Professor Heather Hathaway

• 101     MWF 11:00

Thematic title: Toni Morrison

Course Description: Toni Morrison has been a formidable force shaping 20the century American literary history. As an editor at Random House, she played a pivotal role in selecting contemporary fiction for publication. As a literary critic, she has worked toward transforming scholarly understanding of the role of race in American literature. As an educator, she has helped a generation of readers understand the changing nature of the American literary canon. Most importantly, as an author, she has produced an oeuvre of fiction, criticism, and cultural commentary that earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature. In this course we will study Morrison’s role in American literary history by examining selected works such as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Jazz, Beloved, Paradise, Love, A Mercy and Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.
Assignments: numerous short (2-3 pg) analytical essays; midterm; final; flawless attendance and class participation.

• Professor Al Rivero                               

• 102    TUTH   9:30-10:45 

Thematic title: Jane Austen

Course Description: We will read and discuss all of Jane Austen’s novels, from the epistolary Lady Susan to the unfinished Sanditon, in various historical and critical contexts.

Reading: Lady Susan, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Sanditon.

Assignments: One oral presentation; one or two essays (10-15 pp.); midterm examination; comprehensive final examination; class participation; and regular attendance.

ENGL 4620 Chaucer

• Professor MC Bodden

• 101   MW  2:00       

Course Description:

ENGL 4630 Shakespeare

• Professor Al Rivero

• 101   TTH  8:00 AM

Course Description: We will read and discuss nine of Shakespeare’s plays, in various historical and critical contexts.

Readings: Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, Macbeth,  King Lear, The Tempest.

Assignments:  One oral presentation; one or two essays (10-15 pp.); midterm examination; comprehensive final examination; class participation; and regular attendance.

• Professor Stephen Karian

• Choose one of two sections:
• 102   TTH  11:00
• 103 TTH  2:00      

Course Description:

This course will examine Shakespeare's most important tragedies, with an emphasis on the generic and cultural conventions of tragedy. We will also focus on the particular qualities of each play to emphasize the considerable diversity of tragedies that Shakespeare wrote. We will study these tragedies in pairs: tragedies of revenge (Titus Andronicus and Hamlet), tragedies of love (Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra), tragedies of ambition (Julius Caesar and Macbeth), and tragedies of the flawed hero (Othello and King Lear).

Readings: The eight plays listed above and selected secondary readings.

Assignments: Class discussion, regular D2L postings, one 4-6 page paper, one 7-8 page paper, and two exams.

ENGL 4800 101/5800 101/4996 102: Studies in Literature and Culture:

SENIOR EXPERIENCE

• Professor Tim Machan      Sr Experience       

• 101     MWF      9:00

Thematic Title: Legends, Gods, and Heroes

Course Description: Why did the Middle Ages produce so many legends, so many stories about gods, heroes, and fantastic events? What do the origins of these stories tell us about medieval European culture and the way it used both writing and the fantastic? What do the differences between different versions of the same story reveal about the stories’ audience and composition? Why do some of these stories still resonate powerfully today? These are the kinds of questions we will ask as we survey a range of medieval works representing a variety of literary traditions, including Anglo-Saxon, Norse, French, Italian, Welsh, Irish, and Finnish.

Readings: Beowulf; The Poetic Edda; The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki; The Song of Roland; Dante’s Inferno; The Mabinogion; The Tain; The Kalevala; The Hobbit.

ENGL 4820/5820:  Studies in Race and/or Ethnic Literature

• Professor Amara Graf        

• 101     MWF     9:00

Thematic Title: Narratives of the Borderlands

Course Description: In her seminal work, Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa states that “the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.” Using this as a jumping off point, we will examine how Chicana/o authors have broadened the definition of the border moving beyond the physical geo-political dividing line between the U.S./Mexico in their literature. We will examine the aesthetic styles of border narratives and interrogate the trope of the borderlands in contemporary Chicana/o literature exploring its advantages as well as potential limitations. We will also discuss how ethnicity and race along with other categories of difference, including class, gender, and sexual orientation influence literary production. By paying proper attention to the cultural and historical moments in which these border narratives are occurring, we will develop a sense of the aesthetic and political stakes of Chicana/o literature.

Readings: We will read fiction and critical essays by Chicana/o authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Cherrie Moraga, Chela Sandoval, Thomas Rivera, Richard Rodriguez, Ramon Saldivar, and Oscar Casares.

Assignments: Several Short Position Papers, Annotated Bibliography, Oral Presentation, Essay (8-10 pgs.), Final Exam

ENGL 4830:  African American Literature

• Professor Jodi Melamed

• 101    TTH    12:30

Thematic Title: Thinking Justice and Inequality Beyond the State and Citizenship

Course Description:“Now to talk to me about black studies as if it's something that [only] concerned black people is an utter denial. This is the history of Western Civilization. I can't see it otherwise.” - C.L.R. James, “Black Studies and the Contemporary Student”

While many African American literature surveys rely on an historical narrative we might summarize as a “quest for citizenship,” our survey will focus on the broad critical tradition within African American letters that questions whether the modern state and national citizenship actually can provide an adequate framework for securing life with justice, safety, and dignity for all human beings.  As the quote from C.L.R. James implies, African American racial formation has always been transnational and constitutive of (rather than a subset) of Western modernity. Our course will focus on a series of texts that familiarize us with critical intellectual movements in line with James’s thinking, from anti-slavery movements and Pan-Africanism to black feminism and queer of color critique. We will examine the relevance of this critical tradition in light of contemporary globalization, its crises, and the increasing importance of international law, international civil society, and global regulatory regimes.

Readings: Course Reader, Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,

Lorraine Hansberry, Raisin in the Sun, Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, June Jordan, Directed by Desire, Jamaica Kincaid, In a Small Place, Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father

Assignments:  Weekly D2L postings, Summary and Critical Analysis of a Scholarly Essay, Final Exam, Final Research Paper (10-12 pages)

ENGL 4931: Topics in Literature

• Professor Marques Redd

• 101 TTH 11:00

Thematic Title: Introduction to Global Romanticisms

Course Description:  This course in Romantic poetry from the long 19th century will place a variety of European and American figures (Blake, Coleridge, Whitman, Dickinson, Goethe, Novalis, Hugo, Nerval) in conversation with other global Romanticisms (African-American spirituals, Navajo chants, Yosano Akiko, Rabindranath Tagore).  Our goal is to engage the most radical and experimental texts of the time from the most cosmopolitan frame possible.  We will focus on themes such as the quest for social, spiritual, and mental transformation; the intersection of literature with discourses of religion and science; and the representation of the development of consciousness. 

Readings: Poems for the Millennium, vol. 3, edited by Jerome Rothenberg

ENGL 4954/5954: Seminar in Writing: FICTION

• Professor Larry Watson    

• choose one of two sections:
• 101      MW      2:00-3:15

• 102      MW       3:30-4:45

Course Description: This workshop course will give students an opportunity to increase their proficiency with the techniques and strategies first encountered in English 4250.  In addition, they will examine narratives from a critical and technical point of view, with the goal of writing better narratives.  By the end of the semester, they will have written and revised 30-40 pages of prose fiction (along with brief critical responses to the readings).

Assignments: Exercises in fictional techniques, at least one complete short story, and critical responses to readings and workshop fiction.

ENGL 6220: Seminar in Shakespeare 

• Professor John Curran  

• 1001 MW 2:00-3:15

Thematic title: Shakespeare: His Contemporaries and Greatness

In this seminar we investigate the issue of greatness as it seems to be reflected in Shakespeare’s drama. The idea of individual human greatness has accounted for much of the attention Shakespeare’s characters have enjoyed, but more recently they have been deemed interesting to the extent he undermines or interrogates this concept. Does Shakespeare cast his characters as “great”? What is greatness? What theoretical, political, or theological implications does it carry? In considering these questions with regard to Shakespeare’s characters, we also consider his own greatness. What makes him stand apart in our minds from his fellow Renaissance dramatists? Does he capture greatness better than they? Or does he rise above them for complicating the idea in ways they cannot? We will concentrate on Shakespeare’s histories and tragedies, examining each play in tandem with an analogous selection from another dramatist. Selections will include plays by Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Chapman, Massinger, and Webster.

ENGL 6300: Studies in the Restoration and 18th Century Literature:

COUNTS FOR RESTORATION/18th C

• Professor Stephen Karian       

• 101 TTH 9:30

Thematic Title: English Verse Satire 1660-1750

Course Description:This course will explore the major verse satirists of the period 1660-1750: Dryden, Rochester, Swift, Pope, and Johnson. We will situate their major works in the context of the wide range of satiric poetry in this period, including the sub-genres of burlesque, lampoon, and imitation. To gain a broad understanding of satiric writing in this period, we will also read satires by lesser-known poets. We will read and discuss important secondary materials relevant to the verse satires of these authors and to satire generally. Doing so will provide students with critical and theoretical frameworks for the study of verse satire and will equip them to write academic papers about this material.

Readings: Major satires such as Dryden's "MacFlecknoe," Rochester's "Satyr Against Reason and Mankind," Swift's "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift," Pope's "Rape of the Lock" and "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes," other satires by these poets, and other satires by other poets of the period. Secondary readings will include influential critical essays about the theory of satire.

Assignments: Class discussion, oral presentations, a scholarly book review, and a seminar paper.

ENGL 6500: Studies in 20th Century British Literature:

COUNTS FOR 20th C BRITISH

• Professor John Boly

• 101 TTH 12:30

Thematic Title: W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, and Seamus Heaney: Dissolving, Diffusing, Dissipating in Order to Recreate?

Course Description: Is Coleridge right in his famous proclamation that the poetic imagination is an echo of the primary perceptual drama through which the mind transforms haphazard impressions into coherent meanings? And if so, then might there be a route back from Xanadu to Porlock, from the poetic imagination to that pragmatic, preposterous, pig of a world presuming to call itself reality? In this seminar we will study the varied efforts of three late romantic poets to investigate, or even make good, on early romanticism’s outrageous epistemological dare: W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, and Seamus Heaney.

Assignments: Two essays and two exams.

ENGL 6600: Studies in American Literature for the Beginnings to 1900:

COUNTS FOR 19th C AMERICAN

• Professor Amy Blair     

• 101   MWF    10

Course Description:

ENGL 6700: Studies in 20th Century Literature: Modernism and its Descendants

• Professor Heather Hathaway

• 101 MWF 1:00

Course Description: This course will investigate the relationship between “modernism” and “post-modernism,” both literarily and culturally, through a focus on two specific authors: William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. Morrison wrote her master’s thesis on Faulkner and identifies him as having “an enormous effect” on her, yet their relationship is highly vexed: as Morrison also insists, she is “not like Faulkner” in terms of simple literary derivation or in terms of her perspective on the racial, class, gender, regional, and cultural issues with which both writers engage. So rather than read Morrison through Faulkner in terms of a reductive notion of literary influence, we will spend as much time reading Faulkner through Morrison to discover the dynamic intertextuality of their works. In the process, we will also examine and test literary critical and historical understandings of “modernism,” “post-modernism,” and the relationship between the two. For the final project, students will be asked to pair and investigate two other “modern” and “post-modern” authors through the lens of concepts used in the course

ENGL 6820: Studies in Modern Critical Literature and Theory:

• Professor Jodi Melamed        

• 101   TTH 3:30

Course Description: This course is an introduction to literary research methods, the practice of literary criticism, critical and literary theory, and cultural and textual studies. The emphasis will be on acquiring portable research skills for literary study in graduate school and beyond. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to use essential research tools, understand the main schools of literary and critical theory, scrutinize problems related to the textual history of a work, investigate the history and present of the profession, write a grant proposal, and conduct a thorough review of scholarship for a research project in their defined area of study.

 Readings: The course readings will cover the history and theory of various approaches to literary studies.  Resources will include James Harner, Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies, The John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.