Winter 2003 Graduate Courses
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- English 537: History of Criticism: Contemporary Feminist Theory
- 570A/770B: Medieval Language and Literature—Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde
- 512/773B: 19th Century Novel
- 570N/774B: Going Native: Ethnographic Modernism
- 570Q/775B: African American Literature: African American Responses to William Faulkner
- 592D: The Rhetorical Tradition and the Teaching of Writing
- 691: Creative Writing Seminar: Poetry
- 691: Creative Writing Seminar: Fiction
- 765: Theory of Literature: Nonfiction
- 777: Doctoral Colloquium
- 791: Professional Issues in Teaching College English
English 537: History of Criticism: Contemporary Feminist Theory
Instructor: Kasia Marciniak
Description:
In 1975, Helene Cixous, an influential French feminist theoretician, claimed in The Newly Born Woman that "we are living in an age where the conceptual foundation of an ancient culture is in the process of being undermined." Cixous's writing brings into the contemporary philosophical discussions an intriguing argument about gendered identity, discursive transgressions, rebellions and resistance; about the place of women's writing in the patriarchal sexual, social, and linguistic order; and, ultimately, about the need to dispute Western phallogocentric discourse that has historically excluded the female subject from discursive productions. Asking poignantly about the place of women within philosophical and literary history, "Where is she?" Cixous claims, "Either woman is passive or she does not exist. What is left of her is unthinkable, unthought." And later on, she adds, "Philosophy is constructed on the premise of woman's abasement." Cixous's project, thus, points to the violence of hierarchical, binaristic oppositions that historically construct and bind ways of Western thought—that is, dismantling the privileged logical system that denies women's agency and the possibility of self-representation in diverse ways. Guided by Cixous's question, "Where is she?" this seminar will examine the realm of contemporary feminist theory in a global context. The course is framed in terms of the questions involving language, human subject, the politics of representation, and ideology. Some of the concerns that will guide our discussions are: What is the connection between language, gendered identity and feminist politics? Via what means is meaning ideologically motivated? What might be a feminist politics of representation? What are the strategies of resistance that women writers, artists, philosophers, and filmmakers have historically pursued to interrogate patriarchal violence, homophobic interpellation, Eurocentric traditions, and racist logic? What does it mean to claim the space of feminist aesthetics and politics? Grounding our reflections in these questions, this seminar will explore various discourses of contemporary feminist theory—specifically postmodern, transnational, postcolonial, and queer theory—in a larger context of current feminist politics and aesthetics. Some of the important notions we will study are: polycentric multiculturalism, the logic of difference, feminist deasthetic, transnational feminist practices, dominant phallic economy, cinematic racism, phallocentric politics of spectatorship, the logic of cultural and racial purity, and discursive colonization.
Readings:
Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Butler, Mary Douglas, Heather Findlay, Guerrilla Girls, Inderpal Grewal, bell hooks, Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Grace Lau, Annie Leclerc, Julia Lesage, Teresa de Lauretis, Maria Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman, Chandra Mohanty, Nawal El Saadawi, Ella Shohat, Trinh Minh-ha, Monique Wittig.
Assignments:
Several explication responses, one formal project.
570A/770B: Medieval Language and Literature—Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde
Instructor: Marsha Dutton
Description:
Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) is one of the greatest of English authors, and his Canterbury Tales, a lengthy framed narrative, is not only one of the greatest of English books but one of the funniest, most complex, and most consistently engaging. Among his shorter works, Troilus and Criseyde has an enduring impact as a narrative of passionate and eventually faithless love. The first half of this course will respond to the dramatic potential of the Canterbury Tales, with students acting out the pilgrims' Tales and considering the relationship between the pilgrims and their tales; the second half of the course will explore Troilus and Criseyde as a narrative exemplifying the popular medieval doctrine of courtly love, a romance set in Troy during the Trojan War, with two courtly lovers and the intimately concerned matchmaker who brings them together in Troilus and Criseyde. We will read both works in Middle English, but it is not necessary to have read Middle English before; we will begin by reading together.
Readings:
Benson, Larry D. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mufflin, 1989. de Rougemont, Denis. Love in the Western World. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.
Assignments:
A class presentation Two 3-5 page papers and one 15-20 page final paper.
512/773B: 19th Century Novel
Instructor: Joseph McLaughlin
Description:
This course will focus on two long Victorian novels of London life, Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, that were published simultaneously during 1864 and 1865. Our goals will be 1) to read the two novels slowly and side-by-side, watching them unfold as serial publications; 2) to use the novels and major Victorian periodicals (such as the Illustrated London News) to reconstruct the social and historical milieu in which the novels were written and read; and 3) to compare two prominent, but distinct, artistic representations of that time and place. The range of possible topics to be covered are limited only by the comprehensive nature of the works themselves and the interests brought to the table by students and instructor.
Readings:
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend; Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?; weekly readings in periodicals located in Alden Library.
Assignments:
One presentation based on research in primary periodical resources; one seminar paper (15-20pp.); a reading journal.
570N/774B: Going Native: Ethnographic Modernism
Instructor: Carey Snyder
Description:
A central trope of modernism is the collision between ostensibly "modern" and "primitive" cultures. This can be seen in central texts like The Waste Land and Heart of Darkness as well as in other art forms ranging from Josephine Baker's danse sauvage to Picasso's Les Demoiselle D'Avignon, the cubist painting inspired by African masks. Modernism's ambivalent fascination with cultures coded as "primitive" or "exotic" took a variety of forms and may have satisfied a variety of (overlapping) impulses—ethnographic, escapist, aesthetic, iconoclastic. In this course, we will explore modernism's various encounters with "the primitive" or "the exotic," with a focus on British fiction from the 1890s-1960s, but also including ethnographic writings by Kingsley, Stanley, and Malinowski; paintings by Gaugin and Picasso; and films of Josephine Baker. That is, we will situate these fictional representations of "ethnographic encounters" in a broader cultural context that includes the formation of modern anthropology, anxiety about the crumbling of the British Empire, and the vogue of primitivism. Theoretical writings will include selections by Edward Said, Mary Louise Pratt, Michael North, Mariana Torgovnic, James Clifford, and Trinh T Minh-ha.
Readings:
Henry Stanley, from In Darkest Africa; Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Bronislaw Malinowski, Diary in the Strictest Sense of the Term; Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out; T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land; D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent; E. M. Forster, A Passage to India; Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture; Mariana Torgovnic, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives; Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman Native Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism.
570Q/775B: African American Literature: African American Responses to William Faulkner
Instructor: Crystal Anderson
Description:
In Playing the Changes: From Afro-Modernism to the Jazz Impulse, Craig Werner observes that "[William] Faulkner's voice sometimes harmonizes with, sometimes sounds dissonant notes in, on occasion runs counterpoint to the Afro-American melody." African American writers reflect this continuum of responses with fiction that ranges from a positive spin on Faulkner to extremely critical treatments of the writer's fiction. This course will explore the dialogue between African American writers and Faulkner and explore the ramifications of that literary conversation for American, Southern and African American literature.
Readings:
- Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses; Absalom, Absalom
- Baldwin, James. Just Above My Head
- Bradley, David. The Chaneysville Incident
- Jones, Gayl. Corregidora
- Forrest, Leon. There Is a Tree More Ancient than Eden
- Kelley, Melvin. A Different Drummer
- Naylor, Gloria. Linden Hills
Assignments:
2 critical article reviews, annotated bibliography, 10 page critical paper
592D: The Rhetorical Tradition and the Teaching of Writing
Instructor: Sherrie Gradin
Description:
In this course we will study the major theorists and practitioners of rhetoric, primarily from antiquity. Throughout our investigation we will consider social, cultural, and political activities that have shaped rhetoric's history. We will ask questions such as: What is rhetoric? Who has defined it and how has it been defined? How have rhetoricians constructed rhetoric as theory and as practical action? Does it matter if rhetoric is thought of as primarily oral or written? What is the relationship between rhetoric and epistemology? Why was the study of rhetoric at or near the center of liberal education for 2300 years, only to fall out of favor suddenly during the 19th Century? And finally, of what use is the study of rhetoric to the writer? To the writing teacher?
Course requirements:
At the heart of this course will be dialogue and discussion and informal writing; your active participation is expected. You will be required to give an oral presentation and to submit an article-length paper.
Texts:
While I have not chosen specific texts yet, we will examine primary texts, revisionist histories, and the current debates surrounding rhetoric and writing theory.
691: Creative Writing Seminar: Poetry
Instructor: Erin Belieu
Description:
This class will be conducted as a traditional workshop: most of class time will be spent discussing new poems brought in by the students. Some of these poems should be responses to assigned exercises. Students will be responsible for preparing written comments on peers' poems. These typed responses will be handed back to the author the week following their work's in-class critique.
Assignments:
A series of exercises designed to address general craft issues. The final project will be two-part: a portfolio of 6 poems revised to their most finished state by the end of the quarter, and a presentation of a single contemporary poet's work. This presentation may include an informal interview with the author (depending on their availability). The presentation should be approx. 15-30 minutes in length and will account for 25% of the student's grade.
Texts:
Professor will provide copy of all assigned readings.
691: Creative Writing Seminar: Fiction
Instructor: Jack Matthews
Description:
To study the arts of narrative primarily through language, as acts of language, with special attention to textual matters. If the text is an extended sentence, then the sentence is a miniature text and deserves our closest scrutiny. Such scrutiny can reveal marvels of intricacy and order, which is to say, a universe of universes, a world of worlds. Of course, none of this is meant to suggest that such values as theme, conception, character and symbol will be ignored. In a good story, there's a lot to be understood, and this course is designed to help you write good stories.
Exam/Papers:
A portfolio due at the quarter's end.
765: Theory of Literature: Nonfiction
Instructor: David Lazar
Description:
This course will focus on forms and theories of nonfiction, paying special notice to works slightly out of the mainstream, or more significantly fringed. Among possible works: Marcel Benabou's Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books (and other works of Oulipo: Calvino, Perec, Matthews, Queneau...), Andre Lourde's Zami, Kafka's Diaries, Jackson Mac Low's Pieces O'Six, Art Spiegelman's Maus, Mary Daly's Outercourse, Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Susan Griffin's What Her Body Thought, video pieces by Bill Viola, essayist Seymour Krim, Jane Gallop's Feminist Accused of Sexual Harrassment, Phillip Roth's Operation Shylock, Helene Cixous' Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing, Erroll Morris's film Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, Genet's Thief's Journal, Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, Monique Wittig's The Straight Mind, etc. . . If most of these names are unfamiliar, you have a charmingly ready rationalization for taking the course; if they are not: come and talk to me immediately!
Readings:
A book a week.
Exams/Papers:
Students will be required to write a couple of really interesting papers/essays.
777: Doctoral Colloquium
Instructor: Susan Crowl
Description:
This colloquium prepares doctoral students in English for the profession of college teaching and research. It discusses professional matters which are not usually addressed in more traditional, subject-matter centered courses. These concerns may be practical or theoretical. Specific topics will be suggested by contemporary conditions within the profession and they will vary from year to year.
791: Professional Issues in Teaching College English
Instructor: Jennie Nelson
Description:
Colloquium for apprentice teachers designed to explore alternative approaches to classroom planning and presentation and to discuss professional issues in the discipline.