Spring
2008 Upper Division and Graduate Class Course Descriptions
*cross
listed class SOSC 198 TOPICS IN SOCIOLOGY: RACE AND BLACK BODIES
IN CONTEXT
PROFESSOR STEVEN FINLEY
1702 THURSDAY 5:45-8:25
Students must get a permission number from Kathy Hawkins
in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences - 414-288-6838
This course will examine race and the semiotics of the body in
five thematic areas:
Theoretical (anthropological and philosophical), Political, Social,
Erotic, and Religious. Where possible, the course will examine
the intersections of class, gender, and sexuality (also embodied
realities) with "race." In other words via the theories
and the texts we will read in class we will interrogate black
bodies in terms of comportment, ritualization of bodies, and discourses
of the body that signify these various realities: Pol., Soc.,
Ero., Rel. The class will make comparisons of black bodies in
these contexts as represented in the literature to those of popular
cultural conceptions (including our own stereotypes and preconceptions
that may exist)Students will be the discussion leaders regarding
the 6 texts we will read. This will be a critical thinking, reading,
and writing course. To that end, students will be required to
write a short reflection paper (3 pp) on each of the texts read
in class that gives the thesis of the text, a short summary, and
critique. I will probably ask students to trade reflections with
a peer and provide feedback and critique before I grade them.
As such, I believe this class will be relevant for students in
sociology, anthropology, religion, political science, english,
and ethnic studies. Open to Juniors and Seniors.
*ENGLISH
103: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
PROFESSOR
STEVEN HARTMAN KEISER
1001 MWF 10:00
The
objectives of this course are: To wow you with the wonder of language:
its complexity, systematicity, and diversity. To acquaint you
with the basic concepts, tools, and techniques for doing linguistic
analysis. To provide you with a framework for evaluating your
beliefs and attitudes about language and human beings as language
speakers. To provide you with an overview of the various subfields
of linguistics and to motivate and prepare you for further studies
in linguistics and related fields. Along the way we’ll deal
with questions such as: what is language? What properties do languages
have in common? What is a dialect? What is the relationship between
social factors (e.g., social status, ethnicity, gender) and language?
How does language change over time? How do infants acquire language?
ENGLISH 104: ADVANCED COMPOSITION
PROFESSOR AESHA ADAMS
1001 TUTH 9:35-10:50
1002
TUTH 11:00-12:15
According
to Jacqueline Jones Royster, the essay is “one type of literate
action.” In this workshop/discussion course, we will explore
the use of essays for sociopolitical action, examining in particular
how essayists engage the world around them, at times calling their
audiences to action, at times using their personal reflections
to challenge our beliefs and behaviors. Because African American
women essayists have an interesting and long-standing tradition
of using essays for sociopolitical action, we will focus our studies
on their essays. You will be asked to write your own essays on
topics you choose that range from personal reflection to political
advocacy and activism. Along the way we will sharpen our rhetorical
decision-making skills, learning how to employ language in ways
that will move audiences. Requirements include: 4 major essays,
a writing journal and participation in writing groups.
ENGLISH 105: WRITING FOR THE PROFESSIONS
PROFESSOR AESHA ADAMS
1001
TUTH 2:00-3:15
According
to Jacqueline Jones Royster, the essay is “one type of literate
action.” In this workshop/discussion course, we will explore
the use of essays for sociopolitical action, examining in particular
how essayists engage the world around them, at times calling their
audiences to action, at times using their personal reflections
to challenge our beliefs and behaviors. Because African American
women essayists have an interesting and long-standing tradition
of using essays for sociopolitical action, we will focus our studies
on their essays. You will be asked to write your own essays on
topics you choose that range from personal reflection to political
advocacy and activism. Along the way we will sharpen our rhetorical
decision-making skills, learning how to employ language in ways
that will move audiences. Requirements include: 4 major essays,
a writing journal and participation in writing groups.
*ENGLISH
106: THE ART OF RHETORIC: THEORY AND APPLICATION
PROFESSOR
KRISTA RATCLIFFE
1001 TUTH 11:00-12:15
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 “to critique”
texts, people, and culture as well as “to write”?
We will begin by reading Virginia Woolf’s “A Room
of One’s Own” to identify rhetorical concepts and
tactics. The majority of the class will be spent reading classical
rhetorical theories (Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero &
Quintilian) and contemporary rhetorical theories (Kenneth Burke,
James Berlin, Jackie Royster, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldùa),
debating their usefulness for reading authors as diverse as Shakespeare,
William Butler Yeats and Louise Erdrich as well as for analyzing
contemporary cultural events. Assignments: 3 one-page position
papers; 2 essays; and 1 collaborative project. By the end of the
class, students will be able to: (1) define rhetoric in multiple
ways; (2) identify rhetorical concepts and tactics; (3) employ
these concepts and tactics to analyze people, texts, and culture;
and (4) employ these concepts and tactics in their own writing.
*ENGLISH
115: BRITISH LITERATURE FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO 1500
PROFESSOR MARY CATHERINE BODDEN
1701 MW 5:45-7:00
The course will provide
a brief introduction to Old English literature: Beowulf, “The
Wife’s Lament,”and “The Wanderer.” Middle
English literature includes Dante’s Purgatorio (portions
of it), Pearl Anonymous, Tristan and Iseult, Gawain and the Green
Knight, Malory’s Morte Darthur and a Sundance Festival award
winning film encoded with medieval themes, especially the figure
of the Intruder Hero. We’ll begin by looking at the poetic
techniques of Old English poetry, the concept of kingship, the
nature of the Intruder Hero, the theory of knowledge, the nature
of obsessive love, comedic love, and courtly love. In the second
half of the course, we’ll examine the way that both men
and women contested the inherited social, political and sexual
codes which shaped their identities. Pearl Anonymous will be read
in bi-lingual edition of Middle English and Modern English.
*ENGLISH
119: MILTON
PROFESSOR JOHN CURRAN
1001 MWF 10:00
An examination
of Milton’s life, times, art and thought, this course concentrates
heavily on Paradise Lost. While we will work with specimens of
the minor poetry and prose and with Paradise Regained and Samson
Agonistes, our primary task is to wrestle with the problems and
questions emanating from Milton’s great epic. Requirements
will include three papers and a final exam.
*ENGLISH
156: THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD IN AMERICAN LITERATURE:
1945
- PRESENT
PROFESSOR
CLIFF SPARGO
1001
TUTH 2:00-3:15
This course will focus on American fiction and poetry since World
War II with special attention given to post-1980 literature. We’ll
consider the way competing formalistic movements such as minimalism
or postmodernism, as well as ideological movements such as feminism,
Marxism, or multiculturalism, are adapted, rejected, or revised
by a widely divergent group of writers. But we’ll also consider
the cultural rubric of “America” from an internationalist
perspective in a special unit on the “idea of Latin America”
in literature written from the United States. Emphasis will be
placed on the contemporary novel, but we will also study a number
of poets and short story writers. Among the writers likely to
considered are Walter Abish, John Ashbery, Saul Bellow, Gina Berriault,
Harold Brodkey, Sandra Cisneros, Ariel Dorfman, Richard Ford,
Jorie Graham, Toni Morrison, Thylias Moss, Cynthia Ozick, Philip
Roth, Robert Stone, John Updike, Alice Walker, and Edmund White.
*ENGLISH 160: SHAKESPEARE’S
MAJOR PLAYS
PROFESSOR ED DUFFY
1001
MWF 10:00
We will
read ten plays that span both the length of Shakespeare’s
career and the variety of the dramatic forms he worked in: comedy,
history, tragedy, romance. Emphasis in class will be on the language
of the plays, on their variety of forms and interests, and on
the simultaneous coherence and richness of the “myriad-minded”
imagination that has authored all this The plays we will read
will be A Mididsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II, Henry IV,
Part One, As you Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Othello, Lear,
Antony and Cleopatra, A Winter’s Tale. The work of the course
will be two short papers, a final and two exams during the term.
*ENGLISH
160: SHAKESPEARE’S MAJOR PLAYS
PROFESSOR JOHN CURRAN
1001 MWF 11:00
This
course is an introduction to Shakespeare’s art and some
of its major themes. The course will include representatives of
Shakespeare’ four major dramatic genres, comedy, romance,
history, and tragedy: A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,
Measure for Measure, As You Like It, The Tempest, Richard II,
1 Henry IV, Macbeth, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and
King Lear. Students will be expected to come prepared to discuss
specific problems they discern in the plays, read passages aloud
in class, and serve as discussion leaders on at least three occasions.
Further assignments will include three analytic papers (5 pages
each) and a final exam.
*ENGLISH
160: SHAKESPEARE’S MAJOR PLAYS
PROFESSOR
AMELIA ZURCHER
1003 TUTH 12:35-1:50
In
this course we will read plays representative of each of the four
genres (comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. We will pay particular
attention to the plays’ cultural and historic context and
to Shakespeare’s notions of genre.
Requirements: Two 7-page essays, a mid-term exam, and a final
examination.
*ENGLISH
165: INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR: MARLOWE
AND JONSON - MASTERS
OF RENAISSANCE DRAMA
PROFESSOR JOHN CURRAN
1001 MWF 12:00
Contrary
to what Shakespeare’s ubiquity might cause us to think,
the excellence of Elizabethan and Jacobean playwriting owes not
to him alone. This course examines the work of two of the brightest
stars Shakespeare has eclipsed: the Elizabethan pioneer and provocateur
Christopher Marlowe and the Jacobean self-crowned laureate Ben
Jonson. In briefly sampling their lyric poetry and looking closely
at their major plays, we will gain an appreciation for their distinctive
virtues—Marlowe’s sublimity and Jonson’s wit—as
well as consider the ideas and problems they struggled with, including
the office of poetry and its relationship with the powers that
be. Requirements will include two seven-page papers, one on each
author and each with some research involved, a presentation, and
a final exam.
*ENGLISH
165: INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR: MELVILLE
PROFESSOR SARAH WADSWORTH
1002 TUTH 11:00-12:15
This
course offers an in-depth study of one of America’s most
highly regarded writers, Herman Melville. Our primary focus will
be on Melville’s fiction, although we will also investigate
his wide-ranging (and largely undervalued) poetry. A substantial
unit will be devoted to an exploration of the complete text of
Moby-Dick. In addition to the text of this novel, we will examine
its initial reception, its place in Melville’s life and
career, and the evolution of critical opinion on the novel. Other
readings range over the course of Melville’s career and
include the novels Typee, Redburn , and The Confidence Man, short
stories from The Piazza Tales, the posthumously published novella
Billy Budd, Civil War poems, and other poetic works. The course
will be conducted as a seminar, with a strong emphasis on class
discussion. In addition to participating regularly in class discussion,
each student will complete several brief response papers and a
research paper.
*ENGLISH 170: STUDIES IN LANGUAGE: LANGUAGE
IN THE CITY
PROFESSOR STEVE HARTMANN KEISER
1001 MWF 11:00
Language is a key component
of the social geography of the Milwaukee area from before the
arrival of Europeans to the present. We will consider the history
and current status of:
- Heritage languages such as Menominee, Potawatomi, German, Italian,
and Polish
- Recent immigrant languages such as Spanish, Hmong, and Arabic,
- Anglo- and African-American English
- Deaf culture and ASL
- Legislation related to language use
Among our guiding questions are: What role do language differences
play in the creation of social stereotypes, and what are their
implications for social advantage or disadvantage?
*ENGLISH 171:STUDIES IN LITERATURE
AND CULTURE: SENIOR EXPERIENCE - NARRATIVE COMPLEXITY AND
THE MODERN NOVEL
PROFESSOR PAULA GILLESPIE
1001
MWF 12:00
Even
the simplest of narrative forms can be intensely complex, but
we all recognize that some novels are more complex than others.
In this course we will investigate and analyze some of the most
complex novels. What makes them complex? What function does complexity
play in the experience of reading them? Among the likely authors
we will read are James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, Henry
James, and Toni Morrison. A short and a long paper along with
class presentations will be required.
*ENGLISH
173: STUDIES IN GENRE: SENIOR EXPERIENCE - THE DYSTOPIAN
NOVEL
PROFESSOR JOHN BOLY
1001
MW 2:25-3:40
During
the last decade, a considerable amount of information has run
out its official secrets clock and been declassified. Much of
it is, frankly, horrifying. A few examples. It turns out that
President Roosevelt had ample warning before Pearl Harbor, but
let the Japanese attack happen because his financial backers wanted
a money-making war. Then there is the origin of the Bush family
fortune, which came from the proceeds of Prescott Bush’s
(grandfather of the incumbent) money-laundering for the Nazis
both before and during the war. A few decades later in the sixties,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff cooked up an “Operation Northwoods,”
which was a plan to shoot down an American passenger jet, blame
it on Castro, and use this “false flag terrorism”
as justification for an invasion of Cuba. President John F. Kennedy
rejected the idea and planned to phase out American involvement
in Vietnam, but paid a price for disobeying the militarists. The
Assassination Records Review Board has uncovered thousands of
documents which disclose that JFK was not killed by a lone gunman,
but was the victim of an elaborate plot involving highly placed
officials in multiple branches of government.
As a growing number of conspiracy theories prove to have a disturbing
basis in historical fact, Americans find themselves drifting towards
a hall of mirrors. A constantly spying state treats dissent as
high treason, the police and courts become instruments of oppression,
huge civilian detention camps are under construction, living conditions
grow more squalid, corruption is rampant, and endless wars are
hatched on fantastic lies to keep people terrified and submissive.
Fortunately, as Americans look to the future they need not rely
entirely on their imaginations to guess what is coming. For the
last century, creative writers have been warning about civilization’s
slide into totalitarian dystopias, nightmare worlds where a tiny
elite brutally herds the bewildered masses. In this course we
will survey the historical background, narrative techniques, and
ideological perspectives of some of these great fictional dystopias,
such as Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, Aldous Huxley’s Brave
New World, George Orwell’s 1984, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison
Bergeron,” Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Paul
Auster’s In the Country of Last Things, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s
Never Let Me Go. Three essays. No prerequisites but restricted
to juniors and seniors.
*ENGLISH
173: STUDIES IN GENRE: CONTEMPORARY LATINA/O LITERATURE AND CULTURE
PROFESSOR WILLIAM ORCHARD
1002
MW 3:40-5:05
This
course surveys recent literature and art produced by Latinas and
Latinos, emphasizing the transnational aspects of that cultural
experience. We'll consider the ways in which these cultural productions
both reflect and constitute the social, political, and economic
scenes from which they emerge. After an introductory unit in which
we examine the category "Latino" and think about the
kinds of affiliation beyond region and nationality that the term
suggests, we will examine aesthetic considerations of labor and
migration before turning to consider the ways in which race, sexuality,
and gender are often categories that are being redefined in Latina/o
cultural life. We'll read a wide variety of works, including novels
(Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Julia Alvarez's
In the Name of Salome, Francisco Goldman's The Ordinary Seaman,
Cristina Garcia's Monkey Hunting), performance (John Leguizamo's
Freak, Carmelita Tropicana's Milk of Amnesia), poetry (Rafael
Campo), film (Brincando el charco, Senorita Extraviada, and Mind
If I Call You Sir), nonfiction prose (Cherie Moraga's Loving In
the War Years and essays by Arlene Davila, Dan Kulick, and David
Harvey), and graphic novels (Jaime Hernandez's The Death of Speedy
and Jessica Abel's La Perdida).
*ENGLISH
173: STUDIES IN GENRE: TRADITION IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
PROFESSOR SARAH WADSWORTH
1003
TUTH 12:35-1:50
This
course is both a survey of the canon of English and American children’s
literature from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century
and an introduction to critical and theoretical approaches to
the analysis of children’s literature. Supplementing selected
classic works of fiction with literary-historical and critical
texts, our reading will be guided by the following questions:
How do the readings negotiate the divide between the desire to
instruct and entertain juvenile readers? Is there a distinct aesthetic
of juvenile literature? How do the texts respond to social issues
in Britain and the United States? How do the readings reflect
and accommodate changing notions of children and of childhood?
How do the texts construct gender, race, ethnicity, and class?
Participants in the course should expect to deliver at least one
oral report, write two essays of 7-8 pages each, and complete
frequent reading quizzes.
ENGLISH
177: STUDIES IN RACE AND/OR ETHNIC LITERATURE:
SUBTITLE
PENDING
PROFESSOR ROBERT STARK
1001 MW 1:00-2:15
What does it mean to be multicultural? Does this mean simply that
we live in a society that tolerates different cultures even if
they never interact? Or, does it suggest that each of us absorbs
elements of multiple cultures together? Or, does it direct us
to assume different roles in different contexts–to be cultural
chameleons who operate in one culture with their parents, another
with friends, and perhaps others yet with colleagues.
Whatever your definition of multiculturalism, it refers to a challenging
and often painful process of interacting with the unfamiliar.
But it also promises to give us new insights into the world. In
this course, we will explore how contemporary literature depicts
the interaction and frequent clash of cultures that has become
and increasingly common experience. Texts will be drawn from the
United States, Great Britain, Africa, and India.
ENGLISH
177: STUDIES IN RACE AND/OR ETHNIC LITERATURE: LEGACIES
OF BABEL, WORLD LITERATURE
PROFESSOR KIM ROSTAN
1001 TUTH 3:35-4:50
In the
Babel story, a collective group sharing a universal language is
punished for its ambition to build a “tower to heaven”;
their punishment divides them into many language groups. For our
purposes, we will consider how this popular allegory raises key
questions that emerge in world literature: what does it mean to
be multicultural and how do writers explore this idea in fiction?
Why do we associate literature with a nation of origin, and how
has this idea changed with the globalization of the English language?
How can we better understand the process of “translation”
that occurs between cultures and how are we involved in this process
ourselves as readers of literature? We will also focus on the
different hierarchies of power invested in Western notions of
multiculturalism.
Given that many of the great English writers of the 20th and 21st
centuries are not themselves English, this course will focus on
contemporary World literatures and the evolving English canon.
Our course readings are likely to include Salman Rushdie, Kazuo
Ishiguro, Zakes Mda, and Michael Ondaatje. In addition, our syllabus
will incorporate at least one film screening: Iñárritu’s
recent film Babel (2006), and possibly one other film.
*ENGLISH
191: CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION
PROFESSOR CJ HRIBAL
1001 MW 2:25-3:40
A course
in writing fiction, organized as a lecture/workshop. In addition
to numerous writing exercises covering the basics of craft, students
will produce 20 pages of fiction by the end of the semester. They
will also discuss each other's work and write critical annotations
of a number of short stories.
TEXT: On Writing Short Stories, Tom Bailey.
*ENGLISH 191: CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION
PROFESSOR LARRY WATSON
1002
TUTH 2:00-3:15
A course
in writing fiction, organized as a lecture/workshop. In addition
to writing exercises covering the basics of the craft, students
will produce 30-40 pages of fiction by the end of the semester.
They will also discuss each other’s works and write critical
responses to a number of short stories.
Text: Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway
*ENGLISH 194: NARRATIVE
IN FILM
PROFESSOR
MICHAEL PATRICK GILLESPIE
1701
TU 5:45-8:25
4001
TH 5:45-8:25
Course
objectives: English 194, Narrative in Contemporary Irish Films,
seeks to examine the thematic structure of recent works of the
Irish cinema. After addressing the fundamental question “what
is an Irish film (The Quiet Man),” we will go on to topical
analysis of works dealing with central issues in the Irish cinema:
politics (Michael Collins, The Crying Game, In the Name of the
Father,), urban life (The Snapper, The General), marriage (December
Bride, Waking Ned Devine, The Playboys), alienation (My Left Foot,
The Field, Lamb), and other topics as appropriate.
Course work: There will be a regular film viewing in LL 140 prior
to the discussion date assigned. Students will take turns running
the video. Anyone who misses this viewing must screen the film
on his/her own. Additionally, because we will generally discuss
two films a week, you will have to watch one film on your own.
The copies of the films are available at the Reserve Desk of the
Memorial Library. In addition to viewing all films outside of
class, students will read selected essays from works on reserve
at the Memorial Library.
Course Requirements: Two expository essays, a journal covering
the entire semester, a final exam, and regular class attendance.
All course assignments must be completed for a student to receive
academic credit.
*ENGLISH 196: UNDERGRADUATE
SEMINAR: ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING
PROFESSOR LARRY WATSON
1001 TUTH 3:35-4:50
This
workshop course will give students an opportunity to increase
their proficiency with the techniques and strategies first encountered
in English 191. In addition, they will examine narratives from
a critical and practical 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.
*ENGLISH
205: SEMINAR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, BEGINNING TO 1500: GENDER
AND CRIME
PROFESSOR
MARY CATHERINE BODDEN
1001
MW 2:25-3:40
What
sort of behavior was considered “criminal” behavior
that so large a proportion of people in medieval and early modern
England were at some stage in their lives accused of misdemeanors
and (less often) felonies? How does literature (including court
records, letters and the Newgate Calendar) represent the actions
that people took to deal with the inequities of class structure,
of the economy, the bias of the law, and domestic violence? How
did popular literature represent “the female crime wave,”
(mid-late 1600's) whereby more than half of the defendants brought
up on charges of theft were women? Topics examined in this course
will include homicide and the medieval household, taverns and
brawling, religion and ‘crime,’ treason by imagination,
rape, marital discord and crime, subversive women, cross-dressing,
and the “female crime wave” of the late 1600's. Texts
include: Canterbury Tales’ General Prologue, Wife of Bath’s
Prologue and Tale, The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale, The
Reeve’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, The Merchant’s
Tale, Morte Darthur, Tristan and Iseult, Book of Margery Kempe,
The Roaring Girl, tales from The Newgate Calendar.
*ENGLISH
210: STUDIES IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE: GENDER AND EARLY MODERN LITERATURE
PROFESSOR AMELIA ZURCHER
1001 TUTH
2:00-3:15
In this
course we will use an array of texts from the 16th , 17th , and
early 18th centuries as material for an exploration of gender’s
cultural function in early modern England. We will investigate
representations of femininity and masculinity in this period,
as well as gender’s role in the production and consumption
of what we now call literature. And, we will investigate current
methodologies in feminist and gender scholarship as they apply
to literary works. Authors read may include Askew, Behn, Cavendish,
Dryden, Haywood, Lovelace, Richardson, Shakespeare, Sidney, Suckling,
Webster and Whitney.
*ENGLISH
235: SEMINAR IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE: VICTORIAN
LITERATURE
PROFESSOR
CHRISTINE KRUEGER
1701 MON 5:45-8:25
The
goal of this course is to prepare students to teach one segment
of a standard undergraduate British literature survey course.
Students will come out of this course with their own sample syllabus,
several sample assignments they might give undergraduates, and
experience leading discussions of nineteenth-century texts. These
exercises will help students who are preparing for M.A. exams
in nineteenth-century British literature, and will provide all
graduate students with documents and experience they can present
to prospective employers. In addition, we will consider research
projects that might dovetail with teaching so that our graduates
will be able to perform as successful scholar-teachers in the
field of nineteenth-century British literature.
*ENGLISH 245: SEMINAR IN 20TH
CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE: IN SEARCH OF ADEQUATE MUSIC: THE
VERSE TECHNIQUES OF THOMAS HARDY, W.B. YEATS, W.H. AUDERN, AND
PHILIP LARKIN
PROFESSOR JOHN BOLY
1001 MW 1:00-2:15
While
many readers of poetry have a good enough grasp of versification
basics, the refinements of the craft, which transform leaden regularity
into a music adequate to both theme and purpose, remain a mystery
to most. This course aims to go well beyond the fundamentals of
rhythm, meter, and rhyme, and to develop a framework for integrating
the auditory qualities of poetry with its more complex expressive,
thematic, and representational functions. Rather than confining
sound to a confirmation of literal sense, we will explore how
versification can work with, or against, diction, tone, lineation,
and metaphor. Our goal will be to achieve a sense of the distinctive
verse practices of each of the poets studied, as well as to appreciate
the innovations which collectively distinguish modernism from
previous poetic eras. Students will periodically lead seminar
discussions and write three essays.
ENGLISH
255: SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO 1900:
LITERARY RESPONSES TO THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE
PROFESSOR MILTON BATES
1001 TUTH 11:00-12:15
The course will begin with an overview of writing about the American
landscape from early European contact to about 1900. Among the
authors considered will be Bartram, Audubon, Emerson, Thoreau,
Burroughs, Muir, Austin, and Olmsted. Moving on to the twentieth
century, we will consider works by Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey,
and Terry Tempest Williams. Theoretical essays will be read in
tandem with the primary texts. Course requirements will include
a class presentation, a short essay on an American landscape painting,
and a 10-15 page paper.
*ENGLISH
265: SEMINAR IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE: FITZGERALD AND
HIS CONTEMPORARIES
PROFESSOR CLIFF SPARGO
1701 TUTH 5:45-7:00
In this
course we will study United States literature of the 1920s and
1930s with F. Scott Fitzgerald as our central figure, exploring
the rise and decline of his reputation within this same period
and considering both his traditionalism and experimentalism as
a writer. We will examine his fiction as representative of the
1920s as an era of American excess but also expatriated internationalism,
and then study Fitzgerald’s writings as a cultural barometer
for the crash of 1929 and the subsequent Depression era. Among
the critics and writers influencing or influenced by Fitzgerald
and also to be considered in this course are Gertrude Stein, H.L.
Mencken, Edith Wharton, Edmund Wilson, John Peale Bishop, Ernest
Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, and Nathanael West.
*ENGLISH
281: INTRODUCTION TO MODERN CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE
PROFESSOR STEVE KARIAN
1001 TUTH 112:35-1:50
This
course is an introduction to literary research methods, bibliography
and textual studies, the principles and practices of literary
criticism, and literary theory. We will use and compare the important
electronic and print tools that are available. The primary emphasis
will be on acquiring portable research skills for literary study
in graduate school and beyond. Course readings will include: James
L. Harner, Literary Research Guide; William Proctor Williams and
Craig S. Abbott, An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual
Studies; and many readings on reserve.
Course requirements will include a variety of brief written exercises,
oral presentations, and a seminar-length essay.
IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS, DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL THE
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AT 414-288-7179.
HAVE A GREAT SPRING SEMESTER.
