Fall 2001 Undergraduate Courses
Return to the archived courses or to the current course search page.
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: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric (requires the use of computers)
Instructor: Marnie Ellis
Description:
This English 151 is linked with Biological Sciences to help build a stronger learning community among students. We will be reading articles from popular science magazines and examining the ways in which biological discoveries are relayed to the general public. We will also be examining how scientific advances affect the larger community of peoples, the environment, and the way we perceive science in general. We will also measure how media descriptions of these advances affect the perception of their successes.
Readings:
Articles from Scientific American, Discovery, Nature, etc. Excerpts from Stephen Pinker's How the Mind Works, Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, etc.
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric (requires use of computers)
Instructor: Tony Viola
Description:
This section of English 151 is linked with University College 115 with the intent of creating a learning community among students.
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor: Jane Denbow
Description:
This section of English 151 is linked with Economics 103 with the intent of creating a learning community among students.
Readings:
The Wall Street Journal (students will sign up for a reduced rate, 10 week subscription on the first day of class)
Exams/Papers:
Five papers ranging from 1-4 pages (two related to economics; all will go through several drafts); journal based on The Wall Street Journal
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor: John Pruitt
Description:
This section of English 151 is linked with Anthropology 101 with the intent of creating a learning community among students. This course is designed to help first-year students develop a process for creating, organizing, and effectively communicating ideas through writing and speaking while emphasizing the significant contributions that anthropologists make to understanding and improving the present day human condition. Topics will include cultural applications to issues of race, gender, social class, communication, economy and business, politics and law, warfare, rituals, and social change.
Readings:
Classic and contemporary readings that demonstrate these contributions to the field; reader to be determined
Exams/Papers:
Individual and collaborative formal papers including an on-line research project; Short informal writings; Dialogue Journal; Group Debates
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor: Candace Stewart
Description:
This section of English 151 is linked with Anthropology 101 with the intent of creating a learning community among students. This course will introduce you to college writing through a variety of writing strategies and processes designed to help you discover and develop your writing strengths. At the same time, this course will offer you a different way of working with these strategies and processes through the course's connection with Anthropology 101. Many of your readings and writing in this class will focus on anthropological ideas, theories, and concepts as a way of understanding how writers and researchers in the discipline of anthropology use writing to communicate their ideas and to create knowledge.
Readings:
Coursepack
Exams/Papers:
Four essays, some informal writing projects.
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor: Katherine Furler
Description:
This section of English 151 is linked with Psychology 101 with the intent of creating a learning community among students.
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric (requires the use of computers)
Instructor: Micah Robertson
Description:
This section of 151 is linked with a section of Sociology 101 with the intent of creating a learning community among students.
Eng 151: Freshman Composition: Writing and Rhetoric (requires the use of computers)
Instructor: Christina Parsons
Description:
This section of 151 is linked with a section of Telecommunications 110 with the intent of creating a learning community among students.
Eng 152: Freshman Composition: Writing and Reading
Professor: Joan Connor
Description:
Using a variety of approaches from the personal essay to argumentation, we will analyze, write, and revise with an eye to developing as writers, critics, and self-editors.
Readings:
Text: Minding the Body
Text: Fields of Writing: Readings Across the Disciplines.
Reference: The Little Brown Compact Handbook.
Exams/Papers:
Weekly essays, revisions, individual and group presentations, final portfolios.
Eng 153: Freshman Composition: Special Topics (requires use of computers)
Professor: David Bergdahl
Description:
We will 'do' two sections of a thematic reader: "The Unconscious: How Can We Understand Ourselves" featuring Freud's Dora and essays by Foucault, Carol Gilligan, Casrolyn Steadman & Janet Malcolm and "Gender: Is One Born A Woman" featuring Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and essays by Bell Hooks, Audre Lorde, Patricia Williams, Monique Wittig and Eve Sedgwick.
Readings:
Dilks, Hansen & Parfitt, Cultural Conversations: The Presence of the Past (Boston 2001)
Exams/Papers:
A portfolio of drafts, papers & revisions plus participation in our class's electronic journal.
Eng 153: Freshman Composition: Special Topics
Professor: Sam Crowl
Description:
We will read, discuss, and write about five representative Shakespeare plays with an eye on such protean topics as love, death, revolt, subversion, transformation, self-awareness, and the pull of divided loyalties between self and society. We will watch and write about at least three recent film versions of these plays to see what performance can teach us about reading and interpretation.
Readings:
Henry IV, Part One, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing.
Exams/Papers:
Five 3-5 page papers.
Eng 200: Introduction to Literature
Professor: Susan Crowl
Description:
To be announced.
Eng 201: Critical Approaches to Fiction
Professor: Jack Matthews
Description:
This course deals with fictional works as sub-sets of the game of language. Thus, it involves a study of language itself, with a focus upon such general semantic principles as "indexing" and "dating."
Readings:
Remainder copies of novels and/or short story collections by predominantly modern authors. ("Remainder copies" are copies discounted by the publisher; this generally enables students to buy them for less than half their new, retail price.) Approximately one book per week will be assigned.
Exams/Papers:
Generally, short outside papers will be assigned weekly, along with frequent INCA assignments (INCA="In Class Answers") to be gathered in a portfolio and handed in at the end of the quarter. A mid-term, final exam and other tests may be assigned.
Eng 201: Critical Approaches to Fiction
Professor: Albert Rouzie
Description:
We will read, write about and discuss American short fiction of the 20th century and screen a film. We will discuss and apply a number of critical approaches to interpreting fiction, including formalist, reader-response, feminist, and Marxist criticism. At times, you will bring some written responses to assigned questions to class for small group work, and many classes will be whole-class discussions.
Readings:
The Story and Its Writer, Compact 5th edition. Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin's, 1999. Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.
Exams/Papers:
There will be two short exams (some short-answer and some paragraph-length answers) at the fourth and seventh weeks. A paper on The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is due during the final exam period.
Eng 201: Critical Approaches to Fiction
Professor: Barry Roth
Description:
We'll read and discuss short fiction. Lots of irony.
Readings:
Chekhov, Joyce, O'Connor, Faulkner are possibilities.
Exams/Papers:
There will be exams and papers.
Eng 201: Critical Approaches to Fiction
Professor: Mara Holt
Description:
We will read, write about and discuss American short fiction of the 20th century and screen a film. We will discuss and apply a number of critical approaches to interpreting fiction, including formalist, reader-response, feminist, and Marxist criticism. At times, you will bring some written responses to assigned questions to class for small group work, and many classes will be whole-class discussions.
Readings:
The Story and Its Writer, Compact 5th edition. Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin's, 1999. Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.
Exams/Papers:
There will be two short exams (some short-answer and some paragraph-length answers) at the fourth and seventh weeks. A paper on The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is due during the final exam period.
Eng 202: Critical Approaches to Poetry
Professor: Beth Quitslund
Description:
The goal of this course is to develop the analytical tools necessary for understanding poetry. These include paraphrasing, recognizing formal structures, and nurturing an ear for the sound of words, and should, ideally, lead to close reading. Though the class is not a survey, we will read poems from a variety of schools, styles, and historical periods to explore how each privileges different aspects of poetic expression and expects different skills from its audience.
Readings:
TBA
Exams/Papers:
Short written exercises; paraphrase quizzes; at least two essays; a presentation; midterm.
Eng 202: Critical Approaches to Poetry
Professor: Joe McLaughlin
Description:
Close reading of poetry. Our focus will be developing our analytical skills, attending to the form of poetry and its relationship to content. Students will be expected to learn the critical terminology necessary for the study of literature.
Readings:
A poetry anthology (probably the Norton) and Paul Fussell's Poetic Meter and Poetic Form.
Exams/Papers:
Frequent informal response papers; a combination of quizzes, exams on terminology and analysis, and one medium length interpretive essay.
Eng 277T/Eng 297T: English Tutorial
Professor: Marsha Dutton
Description:
An introduction to the literature of England from the Middle Ages and Early Modern period.
Readings:
Beowulf, Romance of the Rose, The Canterbury Tales (selections), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Julian of Norwich's Showings, and The Faerie Queene, as well as selections from other works.
Exams/Papers:
Weekly short papers, an oral presentation, and three 8-10 page papers.
Eng 301: Shakespeare's Histories
Professor: Barry Roth
Description:
We will be reading and discussing 6 or 7 of William Shakespeare's history plays. New syllabus.
Exams/Papers:
Papers and quizzes. Discussion. Joie de Vivre.
Eng 302: Shakespeare's Comedies
Professor: Jeremy Webster
Description:
When William Shakespeare put quill to paper in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, he couldn't possibly have imagined that he was crafting literary masterpieces that would continue to speak to audiences some four hundred years later. Nevertheless, he now enjoys a reputation as the best playwright to have ever written in the English language. Using Shakespeare's comedies as the basis of our discussion, this class asks why his scripts are given such status in our culture. What function do they serve today? What do they have to offer us as audiences in the twenty-first century? To answer these questions, we will read several of Shakespeare's comedies, examine a range of cultural and theoretical issues concerning his plays, stage (in class) scenes from at least one of the plays we study, and watch and discuss film and television productions of the plays in order to see how these texts have been realized as dramatic works by various artists.
Readings:
Shakespeare's Comedies (Norton edition), An Anatomy of Drama by Martin Esslin, and How to Read a Play by Ronald Hayman.
Exams/Papers:
Midterm and final exams, two short papers (2- to 3-pp.)
Eng 303: Shakespeare's Tragedies
Professor: Sam Crowl
Description:
To be announced.
Eng 304: English Bible: Literature, Biography, History, Theology
Professor: Reid Huntley
Description:
To read selected writings by the best authors in the Hebrew and Christian traditions: i.e. the Bible (a.k.a. The Torah, the Law and the Prophets; the Holy Scriptures). This includes the Apocrypha (the Deutero-canonical Books written during the InterTestamental period).
As a focus, we will concentrate on the biographies of the great spiritual and religious men and women in these books.
By the end of the term, you will have a sense of the 1500 year sweep of Jewish-Christian history. You will be acquainted with the major personalities in the Bible: Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Job, Isaiah, Ruth, Esther...to Jesus, Mary, Peter, and Paul. You will have a good grasp of the major themes of God's dealings with his human creations: covenant, faith, sin, trust and belief, forgiveness, etc.
Readings:
The New Oxford Annotated Bible, with the Apocrypha (New Revised Standard Version) 1991. Oxford University Press.
Exams/Papers:
Regular faithful attendance. Approximately 20-40 pp. of heavy reading per two-hour class period. Two tests, occasional quizzes. One report/presentation to class. One 3-5 page paper.
Eng 307J: Writing and Research in English Studies (requires use of computers)
Professor: Albert Rouzie
Description:
In this class, students will become familiar with the methods used for advanced research and academic writing in their discipline. We will discuss the use of the library and its databases for scholarship in English; review the appropriate ways of employing research in the selection and investigation of a topic; and experiment with the kinds of writing most pertinent to English studies.
Readings:
To be announced.
Exams/Papers:
Paper proposal; annotated bibliography; research essay; book review.
Eng 307J: Writing Research in English Studies
Professor: Betty Pytlik
Description:
To introduce you to several critical methods of interpreting literature, we will discuss and apply several theories to texts read by the entire class. We will depend on the Lynn book for those readings and discussions. To involve you in a range of research processes useful in reading and writing about literature, you will sharpen your writing skills through frequent brief writing assignments and three major writing projects. To provide practice in working with library sources and electronic databases, we will become more sophisticated in using sources, working with electronic resources and other library sources to discover paper topics and help with developing theses. As a class, we will meet twice in Alden with a reference librarian to practice finding sources on databases.
Readings:
Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing about Literature with Critical Theory. 3rd ed. NY: Longman, 1998. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research papers. 5th ed. Ed. Joseph Gibaldi. NY: MLA, 1995. James Still's River on Earth, Lee Smith's Oral History, Robert Morgan's Gap Creek, Selections from Gurney Norman's Kinfolks, Elaine Fowler Palencia's Brier Country, and Joyce Dwyer's Bloodroot. (The selections are on standard and electronic reserve. The books are at Little Professors and on reserve.)
Exams/Papers:
Class Participation and Engagement in Classwork. (5 Points) Short Papers. Two short essays or summaries on daily reading and discussions. Sample topic: Based on your reading of Lynn's "Gendering the Text," discuss Elaine Palancia's views on women, religion, or community in "Salvation on Calfkiller." (10 points) Paper 1 due fourth week of class. Topic selections will be discussed in class and in conference with the instructor. Using New Critical strategies, provide your own original close reading of one aspect of James Still's River of Earth. Comment on at least two other readings published in scholarly journals or books, including collections of essays. (20 points) Paper 2 due sixth week of class. Develop an essay in which you show how biographical information about Robert Morgan or historical information about Appalachia informs some aspect of Gap Creek. (20 points) Paper 3 due the ninth week of class. Using suggestions from Lynn's "Gendering the Text," discuss one aspect of Lee Smith's Oral History from a feminist perspective. (25 points) Paper 4 due at the time of Scheduled Final Exam. Develop a critique of an assigned short story through a reader-response approach. (20 points) Your attendance in class is essential to make meetings as productive and interesting as possible. Therefore, you will have four hours of absences, for any reasons. No questions asked, so long as you make up the work by contacting me or your classmates and are ready for class when you return. On the occasion of your fifth hour of absence, your grade—which will already reflect your absences due to your having missed valuable peer and instructor evaluations of your work—will be lowered one third of a letter grade for each subsequent hour of absences after four. We will have group or individual conferences on each essay. See MLA Handbook for a discussion of plagiarism. Unacknowledged use of others' ideas and words will result in an F on an assignment.
Eng 307J: Writing Research in English Studies
Professor: Linda Zionkowski
Description:
This class will emphasize the techniques and skills necessary to pursue scholarship in English: we will focus on sharpening our analytical writing; locating, using, and evaluating research materials (in print and online); and familiarizing ourselves with some theoretical concepts and methodologies.
Readings:
To be announced.
Exams/Papers:
Analytical essay; annotated bibliography; paper proposal; research essay; article review.
Eng 308J: Writing and Rhetoric II
Profesor: Carey Snyder
Description:
This course is designed to help you become a better writer through reading and critiquing the essays of others and carefully revising and editing your own work. It is specifically geared toward academic writing, rather than fiction or professional writing (we won't be writing poetry or resumes). We will discuss the formal conventions, expressive techniques, and intellectual issues raised in a wide range of essays from across the disciplines—from the humanities to the social and natural sciences. Hopefully, students will contribute insight and knowledge from their respective academic majors to class discussions of these readings. The end goal of such discussions, however, will not be to learn about these specific areas of academic inquiry; instead, we will read essays with an eye to imitating their persuasive or rhetorical effects, and with the intent of learning how to intellectually engage them in writing.
Readings:
Required Texts: Writing in the Disciplines, Kennedy, Kennedy, and Smith. (Prentice Hall). Any grammar handbook, such as A Writer's Reference, Diana Hacker.
Exams/Papers:
Course Requirements and Grade Break-down:
Participation and Attendance 10%. Because this is a workshop class, your attendance is required—both in class and in the three individual conferences that will be scheduled during the quarter. Missing more than two class sessions will jeopardize your chances to receive a satisfactory grade for the course. The participation grade includes in-class assignments, peer-critique, and contributions to class discussion and to small group workshops.
Short Written Assignments 20%. Unless otherwise stipulated, these short assignments must be typed, titled, and proofread just like your longer essays. The short written assignments will include a brief biography of a classmate in the first week, and focused drills such as summarizing an argument, integrating quotations properly, and experimenting with introductions and conclusions.
Trouble Spots Log/Grammar Exercises 10%. Each of you must keep a log of your own writing trouble spots, consisting of errors you frequently make in grammar, punctuation, syntax, and Standard English language usage, as well as difficulties with organization, paragraphing, thesis-formation, and so on. Some class time will be devoted to commonly made errors, but students are responsible for seeking help outside of class as well (from me, your other teachers, and/or tutors in the writing center) in order to help to remedy individual trouble spots. Each of you must demonstrate to me that you are taking an active role in eliminating your trouble spots in writing.
Essays 60%. You will write three essays for this class, including an "informal essay," an analysis of a text, and a researched argument. You will be required to revise each essay at least twice—once after receiving feedback from your peers in class, once after receiving feedback from me in an individual conference session. All essays must be typed (12 point font), double-spaced, carefully proofread, and titled. Margins should be 1", and citation should conform to MLA style. Lengths and grade percentages follow. Informal Essay (3-4 pages) 20%; Textual Analysis (4-5 pages) 25%; Researched Argument (4-5 pages) 30%.
Eng 308J: Writing and Rhetoric II
Professor: Jane Denbow
Description:
In this course students will develop their own ideas in relation to the ideas of others in reading, writing, and speaking. The course will strive to develop critical thinking and will emphasize the importance of critical reading.
Readings:
A selection of essays (to be determined); an examination of other types of media, specifically television and computers.
Exams/Papers:
Four papers ranging from 2-5 pages (all will go through several drafts); a dialogue journal based on readings and class discussion to be kept with a classmate; 20% of grade will be based on speaking assignments including group presentations on the readings.
Eng 311: English Literature to 1500
Professor: Beth Quitslund
Description:
A focused survey of literature in Middle English, drawing on material from the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. We'll explore a range of genres and concerns during this period of explosive growth in vernacular literature. Issues likely to arise include class, faith, the Church, the nature of late medieval political power, and the interplay between Continental literary influences and native traditions.
Readings:
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; Gawain and the Green Knight; Langland, Piers Plowman; The Book of Margery Kempe; and one or more supplementary readings.
Exams/Papers:
Two discussion papers, a group presentation, midterm exam, a longish (7-8 pp.) formal paper, and a final exam.
Eng 312: English Literature 1500-1660
Professor: Andrew Escobedo
Description:
This course surveys the major writers of the English Renaissance, from early Tudor Humanism to The Tragedy of Miriam. We read mostly poetry (much of which is rather difficult), since verse was the primary literary mode of the period. We will try to conceptualize the English Renaissance as both a cultural phenomenon and a collection of brilliant, immensely powerful literary works.
Readings:
More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Donne, Jonson, Cary.
Exams/Papers:
Quizzes, a paper, a class presentation, a midterm, and a final exam.
Eng 313: English Literature 1660-1800
Professor: Mark Rollins
Description:
Read and discuss Restoration and eighteenth-century literature in the context of early-modern English literary and social history and with reference to modern theories of literature. Students should be willing and prepared to discuss in class their reactions to the readings.
Readings:
Rochester, Behn, Dryden, Finch, Congreve, Prior, Swift, Pope, Montagu, Gay, Johnson, and Gray. Textbooks to be announced.
Exams/Papers:
Students will keep a journal recording their responses to readings; write four two-page papers, one due every two weeks, and a final research paper dealing with a topic agreed upon by the student and instructor. Frequent quizzes on the assigned readings. No in-class exams.
Eng 314: English Literature 1800-1900
Professor: Kenneth Daley
Description:
To be announced.
Eng 315: English Literature 1900-Present
Professor: Carey Snyder
Description:
This course will survey two major literary movements (modernism and postmodernism), three genres (poetry, drama, and fiction), and a wide range of authors of the twentieth century. We will place this literature in a variety of important social and historical contexts. We will begin by, figuratively speaking, "Burying Victoria"—for much of the creative energy of modernism originated in a flouting of the previous generation's tastes and values. Next we will consider the tremendous impact of World War I on modern writers, many of whom rejected the "old lies" of pre-war society and sought new aesthetic means of capturing the fragmentation of the inter-war period. Our discussion of modernism will also address experiments in character that were informed by the new psychology and new anthropology of the first half of the century. The second portion of the course will attend to some of the recent voices that comprise the increasingly elastic category of English literature, in the post-World War II era. These voices include post-colonial writers such as Derek Walcott and Chinua Achebe who write "out of" a British tradition, both in the sense of building on that tradition, and in the sense of defining themselves against it. Finally we will discuss the postmodern innovations of writers such as Samuel Beckett, John Fowles and Jeanette Winterson.
Readings:
Required Texts: The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2C: The Twentieth Century. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958). John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry (1989).
Exams/Papers:
Requirements and Grade Break-down: 40% Two papers (4-5 pages each); 20% Oral presentation and class participation; 25% Final exam; 15% Weekly quizzes.
Quizzes: There is a lot of reading in this course, and to succeed, it is imperative that you stay on top of it. The weekly quizzes (given on either Tuesday or Thursday, unannounced) are intended to insure that you are keeping up and grasping what you read. Also, the short answer format of the quizzes will provide practice for the short answer segment of the final exam.
Oral Presentation, Outline, and Bibliography of Secondary Sources: Once during the course of the quarter, you will be required to give a 10-20 minute presentation that will stimulate discussion of the text assigned for that day. You will be required to read at least 3-4 secondary sources about the author and text, and to turn in a bibliography of these sources. Your presentation should focus on a particular topic, theme, or question-keeping in mind that an audience can only absorb 2-3 key ideas from a speaker. These key points should be clearly presented in an outline that you must photocopy and distribute to the entire class. Each presenter is required to meet with me at least one class session in advance of presenting.
Papers: Each paper must perform a critical analysis of a selected text, with no outside research. As with most academic essays, it must have a strong central argument (a thesis) that is systematically supported in the body of the paper, drawing on textual evidence and careful interpretation. The essay should be organized around your argument rather than around a summary of the plot. Topics will be suggested, but you are encouraged to pursue your own topic, as long as you clear it with me in advance. You should allow yourself enough time to write and revise the paper.
Eng 321: American Literature to 1865
Professor: Tom Scanlan
Description:
In this class, we will begin by reading early colonial narratives and end with the stunning poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. In between we will examine the work of writers like Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Hannah Foster, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Exams/Papers:
2 Short Response Papers (1 page each); 1 Essay (6-8 pp.); 1 Midterm; 1 Final Exam.
Eng 322: American Literature: 1865-1918
Professor: Reid Huntley
Aims:
To read selected writings by the best of American authors from the Civil War to WWI. Includes stories, novels, poems, and essays (where possible: a film version).
To gain a sense of the historical development of American literature.
To get a firm grasp of the 2nd flowering of world-class literature by American authors, 1860-1918, and of the two major movements: realism and naturalism.
Methods:
Lectures by the professor, discussions. Either a 4-5 minute report or a paper (on a topic you become interested in). Basic approaches: formalist (close analysis of short passages of text); archetypal (seeing the universal implications in the concrete images and patterns. An archetype is a universal symbol: true for all times and places.); historical (seeing a work in its historical milieu: time and place); cultural and artistic (seeing the work as a product of a culture, and similar to other forms of art in its day); biographical and psychological (understanding how an author's own personal experiences helped shape the work. How and why characters behave as they do).
Texts:
Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson: Selections from Norton Anthology of American Literature (4th ed.). The Portable Henry James, ed. Morton Dauwen Zabel (Viking Press). Selected shorter writings of Mark Twain, ed. Walter Blair (Riverside). Stephen Crane. The Red Badge of Courage and Other Writings (Riverside). A Kinko's packet of 10 short stories by other writers of the period.
Exams/Papers:
Approximately 40-80 pages of reading per 2-hour class meeting (A rule of thumb is that students should spend up to two hours outside of class preparing for each hour in class. In a 4-hour class your should be willing to spend 8 hours/week reading, working on your report or paper, reviewing for tests, etc. With a 16-hour class load, this mean a 48 hour work-week.).
Assignments are to be read BEFORE the day we discuss that piece of writing. (If necessary, I may have to give an occasional brief quiz to assure this. I hope and trust this practice will not often be necessary).
Regular faithful attendance: by being in class each meeting both in body and mind.
Two tests—mid-term and final.
Five-minute report/presentation to the class, or a 3-5 page paper.
Eng 325: Women and Literature
Professor: Marilyn Atlas
Description:
This class will survey the work of significant women writers, the forms they have used and the ideas that have interested them. As we move through the centuries of women writers, we will discuss how they write to one another through the centuries and how they fit into the classical canon of literature.
Readings:
Sandra N. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, eds., The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, second edition.
Exams/Papers:
Three essays (two single text essays 3-4 pages; one comparative essay 5-7 pages). Oral reports. Random reading quizzes may be given.
Eng 326: Lesbian and Gay Literature
Professor: Jeremy Webster
Description:
To paraphrase Timothy Buttercup, a contemporary poet, this course samples literature about men loving men, women loving women, the exploration of possibilities, especially the possibilities of our hearts and souls, drag queens at Stonewall, fairies and leather, nature and magic, reveling in pleasure, acceptance and love, truth and healing, AIDS, queer self-expression, questioning the status quo, breaking the ties that bind us and giving back, taking what's rightfully ours and never selling out, what it means to be gay and black in America, and making queer love. We will study literature by and/or about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people with particular emphasis on the ways in which GLBT identities and experiences have been represented in post-1900 literary discourse. To this end, we will read three novels, a short story collection, a couple of plays, and an occasional poem or two. The only prerequisites for this course are the successful completion of Freshman Composition and a willingness to read and discuss literary texts that feature frank examinations of grown up issues and situations. Students who have already taken ENG 271H may also enroll in and receive credit for this course.
Readings:
Bertram Cope's Year by Henry Blake Fuller. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan. The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by Paul Rudnick. Clit Notes by Holly Hughes.
Exams/Papers:
Midterm and final exams, two short papers (2- to 3-pp.), and small group presentation.
Eng 327: African American Literature: Fiction
Professor: Crystal Anderson
Description:
African American fiction represents a rich, complex tradition where culture, history and creativity come together. This course will examine the genre of African American fiction through a study of major novels and short stories from the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will interrogate recurring themes in the narrative tradition such as: the changing nature and purpose of black literary production, the status of African Americans in American society, the impact of history, culture, class, gender, geography and generation on African American identity and the quest to articulate variations of the African American experience. Over the course of the quarter, this class will familiarize students with interpretative strategies, examine the literary dialogue not only among black writers, but between black writers and the larger American culture, and interrogate the changing literary priorities and aesthetics that form the foundation of the narrative literary tradition.
Readings:
Major, Clarence, ed. Calling the Wind: Twentieth Century African American Short Stories. Brown, William Wells. Clotel, or the President's Daughter. Harper, Frances E.W. Iola Leroy. Johnson, James Weldon. Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. Wideman, John Edgar. Sent For You Yesterday
Exams/Papers:
Requirement for this course will be three 1-2 page response papers, a 3-5 page reception history, a 3-5 page creative/cultural influence paper, a 6-8 page critical paper, a final exam and class participation.
Eng 328: African American Literature: Poetry
Professor: Crystal Anderson
Description:
As a part of the large literary tradition, African American poetry is one of the oldest forms of black expression. As such, it is a unique vehicle for the study of the development of a form of literary expression that depends upon verbal as well as literary aesthetics. After an introduction to the basic elements of the genre, students will examine African American poetry from the 18th century to the present, noting the changing movements as well as the impact of changing historical and cultural circumstances. The course will challenge students to interrogate the functions of poetry, from the purely aesthetic to the political, evaluate the effectiveness of various forms of poetry, explore the impact of music and other cultural phenomena and examine the negotiations between black poets and their predecessors, both black and white. This course on African American poetry seeks to make students purveyors, admirers and scholars of this literary form.
Exams/Papers:
Requirement for this course will be two 3-5 page papers, three 1-2 page response papers, a final 6-8 page paper, regular poetry recitation, regular participation in class and a final exam.
Eng 351: History of the English Language
Professor: Josephine Bloomfield
Description:
This course is a linguistic, historical, and literary exploration of the roots and sources of modern day Englishes. After a linguistic grounding in the phonetic alphabet and the major Indo-European sound laws, the course moves through Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and American English, investigating both the external historical events that have affected the development and structure of the language (kings, conquests, invasions, family feuds, etc.) and internal events (such as the Great Vowel Shift) that have affected the way we speak the language.
Readings:
Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language, Fourth Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993). Thomas Cable, A Companion to Baugh and Cable's History of the English Language, Second Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993).
Exams/Papers:
Homework, quizzes, essay exams, and a term paper.
Eng 353: The Structure of American English
Professor: David Bergdahl
Description:
Using Pinker's popular book, a cognitive approach to language focusing on regular and irregular verbs (among other things), we will explore the roles memorized form and grammar play in a description of contemporary American English.
Readings:
Steven Pinker, Words and Rules (NY 2000)
Exams/Papers:
Two papers during the quarter and a comprehensive final plus participation in our class's electronic journal.
Eng 356: Young Adult Literature
Professor: Jackie Glasgow
Description:
This course introduces students to selected types of literature that interest young adult readers in secondary schools. We will develop a profile of the adolescent reader and explore the role of literature in the adolescent's life. We attend to the current issues and trends in the field and focus on social justice issues in young adult literature.
Readings:
Common reading: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse and the text, Literature for Today's Yound Adults, 6th ed., by Nilsen and Donelson. Students will choose other honor books to read to meet course requirements.
Exams/Papers:
Students will keep a reader response log, do a class project, and take a final exam.
Eng 361: Creative Writing: Fiction
Professor: Joan Connor
Description:
In exercises we will develop aspects of the short story: dialogue, sensory description, setting, characterization, beginnings, and point of view. In assigned readings and student stories, we will focus on what makes a story tick.
Readings:
Packet, The Passionate Accurate Story, and The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.
Exams/Papers:
Two stories, a short-short, exercises, final portfolio.
Eng 363: Creative Writing: Nonfiction
Professor: David Lazar
Description:
An introduction to the writing of personal essays, or Return of the First Person. We will read widely in the form to start off, followed by presentations of three essays by each student in workshop over the course of the quarter. This class is a prerequisite for 395, the advanced nonfiction workshop, offered in the spring.
Eng 393: Creative Writing Workshop: Short Story
Professor: Jack Matthews
Description:
The advanced undergraduate workshop will be conducted in essentially the same way as its prerequisite, English 361, although the pace is intensified, with greater demands upon the quality of student work.
Readings:
The Worker's Writebook, by Jack Matthews, along with a short story collection to be decided upon.
Exams/Papers:
Mid-terms on the WWBk and the short story collection will be given. At the end of the quarter, you will hand in a portfolio consisting of three parts: 20 pages of original, completed and polished fiction, a journal consisting of daily entries (every day) from journals, diaries and notebooks of established writers, along with your response to each of the entries in the form of a brief notation; and all the notes, false starts, etc. that have accumulated during your quarter's work.
Eng 394: Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry
Professor: Robert Kinsley
Description:
We will attend to the craft of writing poems by looking carefully at the way others are writing poems as well as the way others are thinking about the craft of poetry. Part of each class will be spent in the discussion of poetics-part of each class will be spent in the discussion of the poems offered from members of the class. Hopefully over the quarter we will come to a better understanding of contemporary poetics, and ourselves as writers.
Readings:
To be determined.
Exams/Papers:
Weekly short essays, weekly poems, final portfolio of poems.
Eng 399: Literary Theory
Professor: Robert Miklitsch
Description:
This course will offer an introduction to literary theory and cultural studies. We will endeavor, as much as possible, to cover the extensive terrain of contemporary criticism, which includes not only historically important critical discourses such as Marxism and feminism, structuralism and psychoanalysis, but rather more recent, emergent perspectives such as gay/lesbian, African-American, and post-colonial theory.
Readings:
Texts will include one "secondary" overview (Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, John Storey), an anthology of "primary" material (xeroxes) as well as illustrative fictions (e.g., Ian Fleming's Dr. No).
Exams/Papers:
In addition to regular quizzes on the reading, there will be three papers: two shorter ones (3-5 pp.), which will be due during the course of the quarter, and a final longer one, which will be due at the end of the quarter (7-10 pp.). Attendance and participation are, as per usual, mandatory.
Eng 399: Literary Theory
Professor: Darrell Spencer
Description:
In this course in literary theory we'll encircle within critical theory a particular text, most likely a novel or collection of short stories; that is, we will interpret the work through various critical theories. Our goal will be three-fold: one, to learn to employ different critical approaches; two, to understand and acknowledge how those approaches invent and alter readings of texts; and three, to appreciate the complexity of the work we read.
Readings:
A primary text, novel or collection of stories; an anthology of critical theory.
Exams/Papers:
Discussion papers and responses; mid-term and final exams; and a final paper (your own short story and a critical reading of it).
Eng 451: Teaching Language and Composition
Professor: Jacqueline Glasgow
Description:
This course is designed to acquaint students with various materials, methods, and theories appropriate for teaching language and composition in middle schools and high schools based on the NCTE/IRA Standards for teaching English Language Arts.
Readings:
Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools by Maxwell and Meiser and The I-Search Paper by Ken Macrorie.
Exams/Papers:
Students will compose an "I-Search" Paper based on a current issue in the teaching of composition and language in secondary schools. They will also create a thematic unit appropriate for their future classrooms. Students who enroll for English 451 must also enroll in English 451L
Eng 451: Teaching Language and Composition
Instructor: Carolyn Tripp
Eng 451L: Field Experience in Secondary English Language and Composition
Professor: Jacqueline Glasgow
Description:
This is a field-based course operating concurrently with English 451 to provide a pre-student teaching experience. Students will observe and teach lessons in approved school settings as they work collaboratively with a classroom teacher and their university instructor.
Readings:
none
Exams/Papers:
Students will produce a teaching log of their field experience and use it to write a reflective paper about their field experience.
Eng 451L: Field Experience in Secondary English Language and Composition
Instructor: Carolyn Tripp
Eng 453: World Literature: Transnational Narratives/American Contexts
Professor: Kasia Marciniak
Description:
This course examines recent transnational narratives in the context of American literature. We will study literary texts whose narratives move across national boundaries, languages, cultures, and competing ideologies, and, in doing so, explore and question the notion of privileged Americanness. We will place our inquiries within the emerging field of Transnational Studies, generally defined as an area within English Studies that focuses on aesthetic productions foregrounding trans-cultural experiences of those who belong to more than one nation. Transnational narratives are often linked to the experience of exile, displacement, and dislocation. Hence, in our explorations we will accentuate such key terms as liminality, nationalism, hybridity, strangerhood, phobic citizenhood, and exilic selfhood. Our discussions will probe how transnational location can speak against nationalistic desires to define the self according to a phobic model of identity. Since this is a senior seminar, students who enter this course should expect to grapple with complex and often challenging literary and theoretical texts. Both class discussions and written assignments will ask the students to engage theoretical materials. Furthermore, because this is a Women's Studies cross-listed course, our analysis will highlight feminist investigations.
Readings:
Tentative Literary Texts: Julia Alvarez Yo!; Edwidge Danticat Breath, Eyes, Memory; Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Arranged Marriage; Loida Martiza Perez Geographies of Home; Alfredo Vea The Silver Cloud Cafe. Theoretical Readings: Zygmunt Bauman "The Making and Unmaking of Strangers"; Julia Kristeva Nations without Nationalism (excerpts); Dorothy Roberts "Who May Give Birth to Citizens?: Reproduction, Eugenics, and Immigration"; Edward Said "The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile"
Exams/Papers:
Explication Papers/Final Exam
Eng 460: Literary Topics: Popular and Elite Culture, Race, Class and Gender in the American Renaissance
Professor: Marilyn Atlas
Description:
In this class we will follow David Reynolds' lead by first reading parts of Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. We will discuss race, class, and gender as we examine some wonderful and diverse literature that will give us a taste of the popular and not so popular literature during this period.
Readings:
(subject to change): David Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance; Margaret Fuller, Summer on the Lakes; Judith Fetterly, editor, Provisions: A Reader from 19th-Century American Women
Exams/Papers:
Three essays (two single text essays 3-4 pages; one comparative essay 5-7 pages). Oral reports. Random reading quizzes may be given.
Eng 464: Authors: English: Reading the Sexual Body in the Long Eighteenth Century
Professor: Linda Zionkowski
Description:
Eighteenth-century fiction, drama, and poetry abounds in representations of the body's sexual function, the ways and means of pleasure, as well as what writers considered sexual dysfunction (portrayals of impotence, "nymphomania," sodomy, incest, fetishes). We will investigate the rhetoric of these representations in order to analyze their role in the period's changing constructions of masculinity and femininity.
Readings:
These may include selections from Rochester, Behn, Haywood, Cleland (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure), Sterne (A Sentimental Journey), Austen.
Exams/Papers:
Three long (8-10 page) papers; in-class presentations
Eng 465: Authors: American
Professor: Tom Scanlan
Description:
In this course, our goal will be a relatively simple one, namely to achieve as complete an understanding as possible of the writings of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. After a brief survey of the writings of some of their American literary ancestors (e.g., Bryant, Whittier, Longfellow, Emerson), we will dive headlong into the poems and prose of Whitman and Dickinson. Among other things, we will explore our two writers' attitudes toward love, sex, death, politics, friendship, and religion.
Exams/Papers:
2 Oral Presentations; 4 Short Papers (2pp.); 2 Essays (8pp.).
Eng 482: Form and Theory: Poetry
Professor: Erin Belieu
Description:
In this class we will examine the elements of craft that go into the construction of various forms of poetry. Through lectures (focusing on the historical dimensions of form) and workshopping (in which we will try our hand at writing exercises in the forms discussed), we will encounter theories of meter, rhyme, line integrity, stanzaic structures and free and received verse. The latter will include the Petrarchan, Elizabethan and "curtal" sonnet, the villanelle, several Welsh syllabic forms and repeating structures such as the pantoum and the sestina. We will also invent our own "nonce" forms as a final project.
Readings:
Paul Fussell's Poetic Meter and Poetic Form; Lewis Turco's The Handbook of Poetic Forms
Hum 107: Great Books: Ancient
Professor: Duane Schneider
Description:
A sampling of some of the best of Greek classical literature, as represented in Homer's epic narrative, The Odyssey; an introduction to the philosophical thought of Socrates by way of Plato's dialogues; and dramas of Sophocles and Aeschylus. Some films will supplement the readings.
Readings:
Greek Tragedies, ed. Grene and Lattimore. Vol. 1, 2nd ed. Univ. of Chicago Press. Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles. Penguin. Plato, The Last Days of Socrates. Penguin. Sophocles, Electra and Other Plays. Penguin.
Exams/Papers:
Two exams and a final. Notes on readings to be submitted weekly.
Hum 307: Great Books: Ancient
Professor: Mark Rollins
Description:
Class consists of lecture, discussion and group work. Students should be prepared to discuss their ideas with others as well as make presentations to the class. The objectives of this course are: 1. Study some significant works of ancient literature. 2. Discuss the concept of ancient literature and its role in the human experience, especially the influence of some traditional ideas in modern life. 3. Gain an insight into the foundations of some literary, political, religious and philosophical traditions. 4. Learn to create an argument and express in prose ideas based on studying literature. 5. Understand better and learn to explain in discussion with peers why we think and live as we do.
Readings:
Bible (Old and New Testaments), Homer, Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato.
Exams/Papers:
This is a writing enriched course, and therefore students will devote substantial time in class to writing and collaborating with peers on revision. No exams per se, but occasional quizzes. Three short papers (2-4 pages) and one longer final paper.
T308 407B: The Autobiographical Quest
Professor: Susan Crowl
Description:
For the purposes of this course "the autobiographical quest" means the study of several "model" lives, and of the intersections between self and world narrativized in each of them. We will focus on the ways that differing perspectives are represented and integrated in the writing and reading of personal and cultural history, fiction, philosophy, and science, and we will invite and explore the interplay and synthesis represented in the variety of individual and disciplinary perspectives in the class.
Readings:
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography; Henry David Thoreau, Walden; Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
Exams/Papers:
In-class response exercises; final paper and final exam.
T308 407C: The Existential Vision: Philosophy, Literature, and Film
Professor: Dean McWilliams
Description:
This course will explore a unifying theme of European and American culture since World War II by focusing on the problems raised by the existential philosophers but confronted also by writers and film makers of the period. We will discuss these thinkers and artists thematically, examining characteristic themes such as the death of God, anxiety, absurdity, and the necessity of commitment. We will also, however, approach these figures formally, exploring the distinctive philosophical literary, and cinematic strategies that they employ in exploring these themes. Some of the philosophical essays we will read are difficult. Students who are unwilling to give these texts the time and patient attention they require should not take this course.
Readings:
Essays by Sartre, Camus, Nietzche, and Heidegger; plays and novels by Sartre, Camus, and Kafka; films by Bergman, Fellini, Godard, and others.