Spring 2010 Undergraduate Courses
Return to current courses and course archives.
Download the Spring_Undergraduate_Course_Booklet_for_2010.pdf
Note that the courses listed here represent many but not all the courses taught during this particular quarter. Those courses taught by graduate students and part-time instructors are not listed.
Eng 151 - Writing & Rhetoric I
Professor: David Sharpe
Description:
In this class, you will practice and experiment with clarity, structure, fluency, and rhetorical control as we compose, critique, and revise expository essays. By looking carefully at style, you will improve your writing in ways that will help the rest of your university career. To do so, we will blend traditional classroom discussion and exercises with computer-based writing, interaction, and rewriting. You will be learning some valuable computer skills, but only as a bonus. Your abilities at the computer will not be graded! For a colorful, energetic source of ideas and content, we will turn to movies. Movies are not only a treasured part of our culture, but they are also a native language that has a special appeal to our ideas and emotions. As we uncover the ways in which film affects us, we will discover that they are often the same methods that writing uses to move and influence a reader. As a result, we can use this familiar art to illuminate and improve our writing skills. At all times, the discussion and treatment of movies will be a means to a greater end - the ability to express yourself well in writing as your ideas become deeper and richer.
Course Readings:
The Everyday Writer, Andrea Lunsford, Cion, Zakes Mda, Film Art: An Introduction, David Bordwell [or] Looking at Movies, Richard Barsam
Course Exams and Assignments
During the quarter, you will produce twenty pages of strong, clear, polished writing in four formal projects and several in-class activities. Rewriting of each project is expected, though formal grading of those rewrites won't take place until the end of the quarter. In addition, you'll be writing short memos, and adding suggestions to papers by other students in the class. A final rewrite takes the place of a final exam.
Eng 200: Introduction to Literature
Professor: Robert Kinsley
Description:
This course is designed to help students better understand, discuss, analyze, and then write about fiction, poetry and drama..
Readings:
The Norton Introduction to Literature, the Portable Edition: In Our Time by Hemingway; High Fidelity by Hornby; Assorted hand-outs in poetry.
Exams/Papers:
Two in-class exams, one short paper, and assigned class participation..
Eng 201 - Critical Approach To Fiction
Professor: Jack Matthews
Description:
Being a literature course in fiction, this is also a course in language, and we will begin with a brief study of how language works.
Readings:
My text, THE WORLD IS A WORD, plus approximately 6 books of recently published books of fiction, whether recently written or older classics, depending upon what titles are available at that time. All of these will be remaindered copies, costing only a fraction of their publication price. I am concerned with keeping the cost for texts within reason.
Assignments/Exams:
Weekly papers of one page, plus a mid-term and final exam. Unannounced spot exams are a possibility. Attendance required--3 absences allowed without affecting the final grade.
Eng 201 - Critical Approach To Fiction
Professor: Michael Drew
Description:
This course presents a close textual analysis of short fiction through the development of a critical vocabulary and exposure to current methods of responding to literature. We will spend the quarter reading and responding to the works from The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Drown by Junot D Í az, and several works selected by me and posted on Blackboard which you will be required to read, download, and print (they will be short). Our focus will be centered on discussions and written response to these works.
Eng 202 - Critical Approach To Poetry
Professor: Matthew Stallard
Description:
We will examine the critical foundations of poetry and perform close textual analysis of several exemplary works of poetry. We will pay special attention to what each poem is doing and the how of poetry production. Our goals for class include developing the critical skills necessary to read and write about the many genres of poetry, acquiring a critical vocabulary for dis-cussing the elements of poetic works, learning and practicing various techniques for literary analysis, and exploring a number of critical approaches used to understand and interpret poetry.
Assignments:
Robust class discussions, two analytical papers, reading quizzes.
Eng 203 - Critical Approach To Drama
Professor: Michael Drew
Description:
We will read five plays from Shakespeare to Sam Shepard. One play approximately every two weeks. Our focus will be centered on discussions and written responses to these works within the context of various current critical perspectives which we will discuss in class. You will be required to respond to these critical analyses of the plays and to develop your own critical perceptions.
Eng 250 - Textual Analysis
Professor: Ayesha Hardison
Description:
This course is designed to help students develop a common language and method to analyze texts. To help students expand their skill of interpretation, students will engage a diverse selection of works. In addition to reading a variety of literary genres such as novels, plays, and short stories, the course will include a few visual texts such as film and print art. During the quarter, students will become familiar with the terms and frameworks of literary theory in order to develop a critical vocabulary. Students will strengthen their ability for close reading and literary analysis as they determine the why, what, and how of approaching texts.
Eng 250 - Textual Analysis
Professor: Joan Connor
Description:
Looking at essays, stories, and poems we will generate a short paper each week, emphasizing the acquisition of a literary critical vocabulary and an exploration of the genres. The course will emphasize close reading of the works.
Texts:
poetry packet, In Brief, New Sudden Fiction, Exercises in Style, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms.
Eng 250 - Textual Analysis
Professor: Robert Miklitsch
Description:
In this rendition of 250, we will learn the fundamentals of "close reading" or textual analysis by focusing on the issue of form as it is embodied and performed in both literary and audiovisual material. In the literary arena, we will explore formal strategies such as plot, point of view, figurative language, etc. in the short story, the novel, and the play. We will also engage poetry both in its traditional and in one of its multifarious contemporary forms. In the audiovisual sphere, we will investigate the so-called syntax and semantics of the cinema (editing, composition, mise-en-sc è ne, etc.) via a number of exemplary films.
Readings:
Required texts will include a primer on literary terminology, a novel, a play, and a British Film Institute (BFI) volume.
Assignments
Regular quizzes will be given on the required reading. Attendance, as per usual in all my classes, will be mandatory and participation imperative. With respect to attendance, students will be allowed two absences. The third missed class will result in a 1/3 grade reduction, the fourth a 2/3 grade reduction, and a full grade thereafter for each missed class. Participation will account for a substantial part of your grade. With respect to written work, three short papers (3 pp.) will be assigned during the course of the class on each of the primary genres (poetry, fiction, film). A longer, more formal final paper (6-7 pp.) will be due at the end of the quarter.
Eng 250 - Textual Analysis
Professor: Jaime Cleland
Description:
Why do we read? What should we read? How do texts produce the effects they have on us? This course will approach these questions, and others, through close reading and explication of texts from several genres.
Requirements:
Regular short writing assignments, three essays, one exam, class participation. Readings may include several of the following: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy; Minor Characters, Joyce Johnson; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs; The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston; Fun Home, Alison Bechdel.
Eng 251 - English Lit Before 1688
Professor: Jill Ingram
Description:
English language and literature is a form of social behavior, made by people coming into contact with one another. In looking at English literature from Beowulf to Milton, we'll be looking at how our own speaking English got "made," so to speak. We'll focus on the topics of fame, glory, repentance, women and property rights, and satire of social types, among other things, as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from The Canterbury Tales, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Sonnets by Wyatt and Shakespeare, country-house poems by Ben Jonson and Aemilia Lanyer, and Paradise Lost. Quizzes, Reading Responses, Midterm and Final exam.
Eng 254 - Research and Writing in English Studies
Professor: Sherrie Gradin
Description:
Researching, writing, and reading are the keys to how one studies in, and becomes a member of, a discipline or field of study. This course is necessarily reading and writing intensive as its goal is to immerse you in (at least some of) the methodologies and ways of researching in your chosen field of English Studies. While literary interpretation will be central to our work, it will not be the only thing we consider. One of the first discussions we encounter together will be centered on the question "What is English Studies?" Our work in class will be critical to your success as our approach will be discussion and group oriented. There will also be in-class reading and writing through a "studio" approach. We will engage in writing on a regular basis, both formal (papers) and informal, writing to communicate and writing to learn.
Texts:
Writing Analytically, The English Studies Book, and Dracula.
Eng 254 - Research and Writing in English Studies
Professor: Jaime Cleland
Description:
Focusing on Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, this course will allow you to: Explore different types of sources, and ways to find and use them; Understand when, how, and why to cite sources; Use research to develop an original argument; Participate in a community of writers; Enter into the larger critical conversation about the novel.
Requirements:
Three essays, annotated bibliography, midterm exam, presentation, writing workshops, active participation.
Eng 301 - Shakespeare’s Histories
Professor: Loreen Giese
Title:
Producing and Dramatizing History: Dirty Harries and Tricky Dick
Description:
This course is a study of four Shakespearean histories: Richard II, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. We will analyze these rich and provocative plays in terms of their structure, characterization, action, language, and the like. We will pay special attention to Shakespeare's reproduction and production of the identity of the king and the dynamics and forms of power of kingship not only in the plays themselves, but also by contextualizing these plays within the contemporary political texts and contexts.
Assignments:
in-class examination, short paper, and final paper.
Eng 304 - English Bible
Professor: Matthew Stallard
Description:
In this course we will read carefully, discuss, and write about one of the most influential books in the Western world: the English Bible. As the Bible is a deliberate compilation of disparate materials spanning several centuries of history, we will focus not only upon the main biblical meta-narrative, the "big story" that holds the book together, but also pay close attention to the independent themes of each Biblical book we consider. We will also highlight the historical context of the production and the reception of the Bible by the English reading public from medieval to modern times.
Assignments:
response papers, quizzes, midterm exam, final paper.
Texts:
Selections from Anglo-Saxon Biblical texts, Wycliffe, Tyndale, The 1560 Geneva Bible, and the 1611 Authorized Version (King James Version)
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Christine Freeman
Description:
This course is, first and foremost, a writing course. It is designed to help students practice and improve their writing skills by learning to develop content, to write clearly and concisely, to make conscious decisions about revising content and style, and to become their own best editors by the end of the quarter. Stories and poems written by women and about women will serve as the basis for class discussions and paper topics.
Readings:
Short stories and poems by women writers, including Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Alice Munro, Flannery O’Connor, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, Eavan Boland, and Louise Gluck.
Exams/Papers:
Four papers, reading quizzes and writing exercises.
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Mara Holt
Description:
The goal of this course is threefold: (1) to train students in argumentative writing in a process that involves critical thinking; (2) to familiarize students with strategies of approaching visual and print texts critically; and (3) to study cultural impact of difference on relationships as represented in films and theoretical texts.
Writing Assignments:
3 Summaries—25%, 3 Explications—40%, 3 Peer Critiques—25%, 1 Final Reflective Essay—10%
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Jackie Glasgow
Description:
This course will investigate the field of gender in the Islamic countries through the genre of Memoir. The course will explore the role of gender socially, in religious practice, and law, and the societal relationships between cultural and religious attitudes toward gender. Reading memoirs will to take you on a journey through the principal concepts and issues facing Islamic women who are speaking and writing about their life experiences. At the end of this course every student will have an initial understanding of some of the complexities surrounding the issue of gender in Islamic countries, and manifestations of such complexity past and present in different parts of the Islamic world. The focus of the course is on the lives of contemporary Muslim women, the factors informing constructions of gender in the Islamic world, and the role played by questions of women's status in modern Islamic religion and society. In addition to reading and writing about the memoirs of Islamic woman, you will also be writing memoirs of your own.
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Talinn Phillips
Title:
Women Writing on Faith
Description:
The primary purpose of our course is to develop your ability to write with rhetorical awareness and effectiveness (thus also your ability to read deeply and think critically). We will work towards this goal in a number of ways: by writing a lot; by writing for many different purposes; by doing research; by connecting our lived experience to our writing; and by reading, viewing, & analyzing many different kinds of texts. More specifically, this course is titled "Women Writing on Faith" because we will be exploring texts written by women, considering what it means to write as a woman, and examining how women are enabled and constrained by their subject positions, especially that of religion. We’ll be reading essays and spiritual memoirs by women who use writing to explore their faith and/or incorporate faith as evidence in their arguments.
Readings:
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner, And shorter pieces by Elizabeth Andrews, Suzanne Clores, Cinthia Gannett, bell hooks, Kathleen Norris, & Mary Rose O’Reilly
Assignments:
Weekly Informal Writing (journals, reading responses), Spiritual Memoir, Collaborative Biography of a Female Rhetorician, Critique of a Spiritual Memoir.
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Marilyn Atlas
Description:
This course will focus on women’s memoirs, transforming rough material into art, and analyzing texts. We will begin with creative and prewriting exercises, explore the elements necessary for writing effective memoirs and critical essays and end the class, hopefully, with a better understanding of "good writing." Readings will be used to illustrate effective writing and to provoke us to a reexamination of our writing styles, our own personal experiences, and our assumptions about women’s lives, writing, and the world.
Readings:
(subject to change) The Decisive Writer, Kathryn Rosser Raign, 2006. Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life, Patricia Hampl and Elaine Ty-ler, Eds., 2000. Zami, A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde, 1982. In My Place, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, 1992. The Florist’s Daughter, Patricia Hampl, 2007.
Essays/Papers:
There will be four major assignments: memoirs and critical essays (3-4 pages each), three will be duplicated for group critiquing; some in class and some out of class writing exercises, oral reports and unannounced reading quizzes. Attendance is required.
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Valorie Worthy
Description:
As a junior/senior composition course this class will emphasize writing and meet in the computer lab. In addition to self expression and persuasion there will be a strong research component to this class and the lab provides us with the opportunity to pursue this.
Readings:
Women's Lives by Phyllis Rose (Norton) will be available from Little Professor book store or you may buy a used copy from Amazon or Alibris.
Assignments:
There will be group work and individual work, oral and written Midterm response essay (25%), Presentation and critical essay response, brief annotated bibliography (25%), Resume and Cover letter (25% revisable). A final style essay (25%), is due during finals' week. Attendance is required but 2 cuts will permitted for university sanctioned reasons or personal issues. I hope you will enjoy this class and find yourself enriched by it.
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Jaime Cleland
Description:
What does it mean to write and read women's lives? How are women's life stories affected by interpersonal relationships, sexuality, the female body, societal expectations? We will consider these questions along with issues such as the relationship between fiction and fact and the numerous different forms autobiography may take. During this course, you will become familiar with key issues in gender and autobiography theory, create 20-24 pages of formal writing in creative and critical forms, and participate as a member of a community of writers.
Readings:
May include several of the following: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy; Minor Characters, Joyce Johnson; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs; The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston; Fun Home, Alison Bechdel.
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Kasia Marciniak
Description:
This course introduces students to argumentative writing through the exploration of feminist media studies. Considering a wide range of visual texts—feature films, documentaries, experimental videos, educational texts, animation, web games, shopping magazines, and travel catalogues—we will probe constructions of gender and a visual politics of representation. Expect readings in queer theory, in ethnic, gender, and racial studies, and in feminist philosophy. Sample Readings: "How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay" (Eve Sedgwick), "Thinking Sex" (Gayle Rubin), "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" (Audre Lorde), "The Straight Mind" (Monique Wittig), "Oh Bond-age Up Yours!: Female Masculinity and the Tomboy," (Judith Halberstam).
Eng 306J - Women and Writing
Professor: Christine Freeman
Description:
This course is, first and foremost, a writing course. It is designed to help students practice and improve their writing skills by learning to develop content, to write clearly and concisely, to make conscious decisions about revising content and style, and to become their own best editors by the end of the quarter. Stories and poems written by women and about women will serve as the basis for class discussions and paper topics.
Readings:
Short stories and poems by women writers, including Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Alice Munro, Flannery O’Connor, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, Eavan Boland, and Louise Gluck.
Exams/Assignments:
4 papers, reading quizzes, and writing exercises.
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: Thomas Mantey
Description:
Our 308J assignments will focus on creating documents with pertinent, interesting and accurate content, clear, properly emphatic and varied styles, and helpful organization and page format using appropriate guidelines. Many of the principles of effective, written communication are ones you are already in using in writing applications in your own subject areas in your majors, or fields. Our most important work will focus on writing skills needed to INFORM, to PERSUADE, to "ARGUE" and to INSTRUCT. Because readers LOOK AT what we write, to read what we have to say, VISUAL aspects of the page are another part of what we will study. Because professional documents, and academic research methods, are not always familiar ones to many students, work may sometimes be "practiced" in trial drafts, or revisable for improved drafts. Documents are assigned in a sequence to build from familiar to new, from simple to complex. As writing peers, students assist each other as editors, and sometimes collaborate on group projects. The course emphasizes primary research, not "looking things up". Some work includes graphics, which we will learn to produce.
Exams:
There are no examinations (reading quizzes may be needed).
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: Mimi Hart
"Rhetoric is the art of adapting discourse, in harmony with its subject and occasion, to the requirements of a reader or hearer." (John F. Genung, The Working Principles of Rhetoric; 1902)
Description:
This course will focus on persuasive writing, using the New York Times as the primary text. We will supplement this reading with articles from your own fields' scholarly and trade journals as well, in an attempt to define the kinds of writing your profession requires. We will consider audience and purpose, looking for differences between writing for other professionals and writing for general readers. Peer review and research will be integral components. We will write in class daily; we will also compose a midterm and final, based on our New York Times readings, as well as a research project, a resume and cover letter.
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: Jane Denbow
Description:
This service-learning section focuses on writing in early childhood education. For the final project, students will apply their writing skills to developing documents that will be used by one of the partnerships or one of the schools affiliated with them. Permission is required and the class is open only to early childhood educations majors participating in one of the Partnerships.
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: Jane Denbow
Description:
This course will focus on improving your writing skills and learning to apply those skills in different situations and for various types of audiences. Since all writing is persuasive to some extent, we’ll study persuasive techniques throughout the quarter. You will begin by writing to a general audience on a topic of concern to you. Next, you’ll do some typical academic writing. Finally, you’ll apply your skills to examining and writing about workplace issues. Class will also analyze the relationship between writing and speaking. Oral presentations, both formal and informal, will be an integral part of class.
Assignments
Three 4-5 page papers. A final paper, requiring research, due the day the final is scheduled. A journal, which focuses on techniques demonstrated in the readings, and a group oral presentation.
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: David Bruce
Description:
ENG 308J is Advanced Rhetoric and Composition; therefore, it should not be merely a rehash of ENG 151 (although it can cover some of the same material), but should instead introduce new kinds and topics of writing. Of course, our emphases are on informing, persuading, and (sometimes) entertaining the reader. All students are expected to write their own papers. Plagiarism or other academic misconduct may result in a failing grade for the course plus referral to OU Judiciaries.
Readings:
The main textbook is my Student Study Guide to ENG 308J, which will be available at Copy Catz on West Union Street.
Exams/Papers:
No exams. You will do many kinds of writing, including a few kinds of practical writing (for example, you will write a problem-solving letter to a person with the power to accept a recommendation that you make) and personal writing (you will write an autobiographical essay). One long 10- to 20-page Final Project. Class Participation includes Peer Review Sessions and Short Homework Assignments.
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: John Bullock
Description:
This class will explore the major cultural myths of American life from a rhetorical perspective. Students will refine their critical thinking skills through close examination of such topics as family, education, individual opportunity, gender and race. The aim of the class is for students to improve their writing and reading skills and to gain a deeper understanding of the shaping forces in American cultural life.
Readings:
Primary text: Rereading America. 7th edition, Documentaries, movie clips and newspaper/magazine articles will also be used to explore key issues.
Assignments:
Three main research papers; several reading responses; regular journal-keeping small-group presentations; group-led discussions.
Eng 308J - Writing & Rhetoric II
Professor: Lowell Ver Heul
Description:
This composition course emphasizes strategies and contexts in persuasive writing, with a special segment devoted to the workplace context. Readings, shorter and longer papers, and class discussion will all be evaluated.
Eng 309J - Writing in the Sciences
Professor: Christine Freeman
Description:
The primary purpose of this course is to provide students in the sciences with an opportunity to practice writing within their majors. Students are expected to have a knowledge base within the physical sciences since most examples used in class require more than a layperson's understanding of the field. The course focuses on how to review prior research, how to propose research projects, how to incorporate research results into final reports - and how to write clearly and concisely.
Readings:
A course pack and several research articles about nanotechnology.
Exams/Assignments:
Papers – abstract, proposal, literature review, and poster presentation. Tests – two exams and several reading quizzes.
Eng 312 - English Lit 1500-1660
Professor: Jill Ingram
Description:
Why did men aspire to be servants for women to whom they wrote during the Elizabethan sonnet craze? Why did Queen Elizabeth refuse to marry but carry on extended affairs with her courtiers? Why did men play all the female roles in English Renaissance drama? And why was the metaphor of the cuckold so prevalent at the time? We will examine these and other questions in reading poems, plays, and prose of the 16th and early 17th centuries. We’ll read poems and a play by Shakespeare, poems by Queen Elizabeth, Isabella Whitney, Wyatt, and Spenser, and the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. We will look at aspects of popular culture, such as pamphlets and jest books, examining modes of Renaissance humor. We will also view films in class. Five reading responses, journal entries, 5 quizzes, a midterm, and a final.
Eng 321 - Amer Lit to 1865
Professor: Elizabeth Thompson
Description:
In this class we'll read a captivity narrative, travel narrative, slave narrative, a number of novels, and a selection of poems written in colonial America and the United States between the years 1682 and 1851. Because this is a survey course, a course that surveys the history of American literature, we will read these texts with an awareness of how they exemplify historical periods, political trends, religious sentiments, or aesthetic movements. At the same time, we will look for ways these texts make it difficult to generalize about history, politics, religion, aesthetics, and other categories that often are used to organize literature. We will pay special attention to the ongoing attempts these texts make to build an American identity. Just as important, or maybe even more so, will be our study of how and why these texts sometimes fail to create the unambiguous national, religious, or cultural identity they idealize.
Readings:
Rowlandson, Sovereignty & Goodness of God; Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly; Cooper, Last of the Mohicans; Sedgwick, Hope Leslie; Fuller, Summer on the Lakes; Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; Nathaniel Hawthorne, House of The Seven Gables
Eng 326 - Lesbian & Gay Literature
Professor: Sherrie Gradin
Description:
This is a discussion heavy course. Your participation is expected. It also requires writing. Assignments will vary along a continuum of informal to formal writing. As we read we will examine issues around identity and texts, tropes such as the coming out narrative, queered plots and points of view, contested labels, writing against and with heteronormativity and so on. The reading list is under construction, but some texts currently under consideration (meaning maybe some of these will be on the syllabus, maybe not) include: Orlando, Fun Home, Ruby Fruit Jungle, Dream Snake, Angels in America, Dracula.
Eng 334 - Israeli Literature
Professor: Marilyn Atlas
Description:
Efraim Kishon, an Israeli humorist writes: "Israel is the only country in the world where people read English, write Hebrew, and joke in Yid-dish." In this course we will try to understand how history, memory, ethics, ethnicities, linguistics, humor and aesthetics function in Israeli literature. We will begin the class taking a look at a contemporary film, Jellyfish, by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen and then at a memoir steeped in Jewish history and Israeli political thought. We will then study several pieces of creative writing - -novels, stories and poems - - and explore how Israeli literary artists use their multi-ethnic inheritance to creative world-renowned literature.
Readings:
(subject to change) Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Miriyam Glazer, Dreaming the Actual: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry by Israeli Women Writers. Aharon Megged, Foiglman. Zeruya Shalev, Love Life. Etgar Keret, The Nimrod Flipout.
Essays/Papers:
Unannounced reading quizzes, oral reports, three critical essays, 2 single text essays 3-4 pages each, and a final, comparative essay, 4-5 pages long. If you lack the prerequisites, but are interested in Israeli literature, please contact me for special permission to enroll in this class. Attendance is required.
Eng 338 - African-American Literature 1900-1950
Professor: Amrit Singh
Description:
By now there is a clear recognition within American literary circles that the first half of the 20th century recorded African American writing as a mature and diverse tradition. In this course, we will read short and long works by six major writers mentioned below to consider how they and other contem-poraries shaped their distinctive aesthetic responses in a variety of genres to the lived experience of racial stereotyping and warped projections of difference from white America. Beginning with W.E. B. Du Bois and Charles W. Chesnutt around the turn of the century, black American writers began to challenge and deconstruct the intricacies of "race" in the U.S. Harlem Renaissance (HR) writ-ers such as Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes embraced modernism on their own distinctive terms in exploring issues of identity and culture largely neglected in the work of high modernists. In his fictional and life writing, as well as in essays such as "Blueprint for Negro Writing" (1937), Richard Wright catapulted the issues surrounding African American life and aesthetic into national consciousness in ways that have had a lasting impact on literary theory and productivity. The course is aimed at introducing students to major developments in African American literature and thought in arguably three distinct literary periods: the pre-Harlem Renaissance years (1890-1919); the Harlem Renaissance (1919-1937); and a new era of realism and naturalism heralded in 1940 by the publication of Richard Wright’s Native Son.
Eng 351--History of the English Language
Professor: Josie Bloomfield
Description:
In this class we will explore the history and development of the English language from the 7th century to the present, studying both the internal and external history of the language and its cultures. Beginning with a linguistic foundation in phonetics and sound laws, the class moves forward into the invasions, conquests, and colonizations that affected and formed present-day Englishes, and includes practice in many of the major historical dialects of the language. Though the text in this class is an important source and background guide, much of the test material comes from lectures and discussions of material not covered in the text and from in-class exercises and practice with linguistic aspects of the course; this means regular class attendance is vital to success.
Texts:
Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language, Fifth Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993). Thomas Cable, A Companion to Baugh and Cable's History of the English Language, Third Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001).
Assignments:
1 quiz 10%, 3 essay exams (15% each) 45%, Name essay 10%, Term paper 15%, Final exam 20%.
Eng 353--Structure of American English
Professor: Marsha Dutton
Description:
This course focuses on the origins and varieties of American English, with particular attention to Appalachian English and African American English. Other subjects to be covered will include the idea and validity of Standard English, linguistic gender differences, and the teaching of American English in secondary schools. The grammar of American English and its variation in regional dialects will be an essential component of the course.
Texts:
Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes. American English, 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. The Princeton Review Board. Grammar Smart. 2nd ed. Princeton, 2001. Marsha L. Dutton. A Style Manual for Academic Writing. Athens, 2010. Joseph L. Trimmer. A Guide to MLA Documentation. 8th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010.
Assignments
3 papers (20 pages in all), a grammar test, a midterm, and a final.
Eng 361--Creative Writing: Fiction
Professor: Zakes Mda
Description:
The course is designed to guide you through the key aspects of the narrative. The focus is on short fiction – its form, theory and practice. We will examine its basic techniques and structure through an extensive analysis of student work and established models. The second half of the course assumes a workshop format and focuses on student work. You will be expected to do class presentations on the elements of fiction and on the model stories from our prescribed text. By the end of the course you should be able to write a conventional short story with round and flat characters, with adequate motivation and justification underlying their actions, and whose conflicts develop in a narrative arc to its climax. This means that this class is not interested in pieces that are sustained only by voice or in open-structure stories. Our focus is on the traditional narrative structure.
Eng 361--Creative Writing: Fiction
Professor: John Bullock
Description:
This class will focus on the art and craft of fiction writing. Be prepared for a lot of great reading and, hopefully, fun writing. We'll cover the basic mechanics of storytelling and apply what we've learned to a range of writing exercises. These exercises will culminate in students writing a fully developed story plus a revision. Anyone with a serious interest in storytelling is welcome. Expect to be active.
Eng 362--Creative Writing: Poetry
Professor: Robert Kinsley
Description:
This course is designed in the traditional workshop format: students will bring original creative work based on a series of exercises to be discussed and critiques by everyone in the class. The first hour of each session will be devoted to a discussion of the assigned readings and poems in order to help better establish a critical set of guidelines for the discussion of contemporary poetics.
Eng 393--Creative Writing Workshop: Short Story
Professor: Joan Connor
Description:
Using exercises, published stories, and student work, we will focus on developing as authors and critics. The emphasis is on student participation. We will pay close attention to the co-active elements of fiction - setting, plot, character, theme, mood/tone, and, particularly, point-of-view.
Readings:
Writing Fiction, Janet Burroway; The Granta Book of the American Short Story, ed. Richard Ford
Exams/Papers
Two stories, one revision, one short-short, writing exercises, and a final portfolio.
Eng 394--Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry
Professor: Mark Halliday
Description:
We will discuss books of poems by Mary Ruefle and Tony Hoagland, while generating ideas for original poems each week. Students will write at least one poem per week, and there will be three sets of homework questions on our reading.
English 399--Literary Theory
Professor: Kasia Marciniak
Description:
This course introduces the work of cultural and film critics, philosophers, and theorists whose voices have been influential in contemporary literary and cultural theory. The course is framed primarily by questions involving language, human subject, ideology, practices of interpretation, and a politics of representation. We will explore the ways in which the study of critical theory helps us not only read specific literary texts, but also interpret the world and culture around us. Our goal is to become familiar with major critical concepts, specific arguments, and cultural-historical contexts within which these theoretical arguments are made. Weekly explication papers, midterm and final exam.
Readings:
Ferdinand de Saussure, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Louis Althusser, Edward Said, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Sigmund Freud, Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Laura Mulvey, Gayatri Spivak, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, bell hooks, Homi Bhabha.
Eng 465--Authors: American
Professor: Ayesha Hardison
Description:
This course will focus on twentieth century African American women’s writing by exploring narrative structures in selected texts. More specifically, the course will discuss how black female protagonists narrate their stories as well as examine how various textual themes are adapted in filmic texts. We might also consider how literary texts take up iconic film images. In teasing out written and visual narrative structures, the class will theorize black women’s relationship to writing and literacy, voice and creative expression, and social politics and cultural traditions. Writers will include Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Martha Southgate. Course work will include quizzes, papers, and presentations.
Eng 465--Authors: American
Professor: Mark Halliday
Description:
We will discuss two novels by Thomas Pynchon (THE CRYING OF LOT 49 and VINELAND) and two by Don DeLillo (LIBRA and COSMOPOLIS) to see how two of our smartest novelists have tried to reach an understanding of America's political and cultural conflicts and shifting definitions of our society since 1960. Insofar as time allows, we will also discuss some poems by David Wojahn and Tony Hoagland. There will be four or five sets of homework questions calling for detailed knowledge of the texts.
Hum 109/309 - Great Books: Modern
Professor: Valorie Worthy
Description:
This spring term we will read an array of works from the 19th and early 20th centuries centering on love and sex including: Turgenev's First Love, James' Daisy Miller, Ibsen's Doll's House, Chopin's The Awakening and a few of her short stories, and finally D.H. Lawrence's landmark novel, Lady Chatterly's Lover. OR James Joyce's The Dead, TBA. All of these texts will be available at The Little Professor Book store. YOU MAY BUY COPIES ON LINE BUT BE SURE TO GET THE EDITIONS REQUIRED FOR CLASS.
Evaluation:
Your grades will be assessed from a combination of evaluations of an in class midterm, take home final, numerous quizzes, a group project/presentation and class participation. Two absences will be excused for personal and/or university sanctioned absences. Please do not sign up for this class if you will not be able to attend regularly or keep up with the reading.