ENGL 2123, Creative Writing with Professor Honoree Jeffers
This course is an introductory course to creative writing (fiction and poetry) and is a prerequisite for 3000 and 4000 creative writing courses within the English Department. This course will not include genre writing (i.e., sci fi, fantasy, romance, mystery, etc.) and since this course is considered “writing intensive,” frequent written assignments will be required of each student throughout the semester.
ENGL 2133, Autobiographical Writing with Professor Susan Kates
Students will be writing essays from personal experience; use of reading and analysis of journals, diaries, letters and autobiographies as models for writing.
ENGL 2243, Film Narrative with Professor Joanna Rapf.
The primary aim of this course is to learn how "to read" a film, to understand the special ways this medium is structured, and how it helps to structure our world. It has been said that film and media history "allows us to re-evaluate the past, cut across the old divisions between the arts and in the process, create a criticism that ignores the academic compartmentalization of the arts and sciences." This course examines how a film is made, looking at that process from script to screen. We go through the basic steps involved in the creation of motion pictures, including the work of the director, screenwriter, cinematographer, art director, editor, and composer. The course begins with an overview of film history, and includes an in-depth study of the landmark film, Citizen Kane. In addition to regularly scheduled classes, "Film Narrative" requires an evening screening.
ENGL 2313, Introduction to Critical Reading and Writing with Professor Daniela Garofalo.
We will read poetry and drama and possibly other literary genres. The course will focus on library research, on bringing together critical commentary with close readings of primary texts. We will also learn some key terms and techniques of literary analysis. Throughout the semester we will focus on revisions of paper assignments, on close readings, and on historical/critical contexts of the works we read.
ENGL 2313, Introduction to Critical Reading and
Writing with Professor Alexander Bain.
English 2313 focuses on the development of close reading skills, and
introduces majors to some of the main terms, concepts, and interpretive
models for the study of literature. We will concentrate on a fairly
small body of fiction, drama, poetry, and critical writings on literary
issues and techniques; we will be paying attention not just to what
is happening in a text but also to how works of literature do the
things they do—and why they do so. Through class discussions
and a
series of papers, this course will help you to hone the critical
reading, thinking, and writing skills that will aid you in the major...
and beyond.
ENGL 2433, World Literature to 1700 with
Professor James Yoch.
Class readings will include a Greek and a Roman play, Lady
Murasaki's Tale of Genji, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Haddawy's The
Aravian Nights. With a view to enjoying merry stories, we will read
entire texts, not excerpts. The books range over countries that include
Greece, Italy, Africa, Japan, Arabia and India, social classes from
peasant to aristocratic, as well as scenes from countrysides and cities.
ENGL 2543, World Literature from 1375 to1700
with
Professor Kenneth Hodges.
In this course we will begin with Anglo-Saxon riddles, continues with
the poetry of Beowulf, and study sonnets and other works by
writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, and Milton. There
will be other writers and works in addition to these. With each reading
we'll be answering various questions (i.e., Beowulf: What
separates heroic violence from villainous violence? Faustus:
Why does Faust decide to sell his work in a religions context?)
Regular
attendance, reading and participation in
discussion is
required. There will be three 5-6 page papers plus a midterm and final
exam.
ENGL 2543,
World Literature from 1375 to1700
with
Professor Su Fang Ng.
What are the writers, texts, genres, and literary developments
important to British literary history? Reading for both continuity and
change, our goal is to begin to construct a narrative of literary
history, while being aware at the same time that such a history is also
contingent and open to revision. We will think about the changing
conceptions of the self and the formation of English identity. In
particular, we will examine ideas of the national self and the national
author. We will be concerned with putting literary texts within their
historical contexts, whether social, political, or religious. Reading
texts closely, we will also pay considerable attention to form,
structure, and language. From Middle English texts with their diversity
of dialects, regional allegiances, and new vernacular audiences to
early modern works influenced by humanism and the Reformation as well
as travel to the new world, our readings will provide us with ample
material for discussion and for writing.
Texts include (list not exhaustive):
Beowulf,
Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from The Canterbury
Tales,
Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night,
Webster’s Duchess of
Malfi, selected poetry by Sidney, Spenser, Wroth, Donne, Marvell,
and
selections from Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Required Text:
Abrams, M. H.
and Stephen Greenblatt, eds. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. 8th edition. Vol. 1. New York and London: W. W.
Norton &
Co.,
2005.
Requirements:
2 interpretive
papers, midterm examination and final examination; attendance and
active participation; and unannounced quizzes.
ENGL 2713, Introduction to Black Literature in
the United States with Professor Catherine John.
This course is an introduction to Black writing produced in the United
States. Its aim is to introduce students to important texts and their
major concerns. We will pay specific attention to the struggle in this
literature between writing which criticizes racial injustice on the one
hand, and writing focused on celebration of Black cultural identity on
the other. With this as the guiding principle we will explore how this
literature treats the cultural, political, and national territory
described by some as the United States and by others as "America." We
will view three films and three documentaries on subjects connected to
the course material. We will read poetry, short stories, sociological
and historical essays, non-fiction, dramatic fiction, and an
autobiography. The literature we will read was written as early as the
1700's to as recently as the present. We will emphasize some of the
literature produced out of the political climate of the late 60's and
early 70's and occasionally we will listen to some music.
REQUIRED TEXTS
The Course Reader contains the require reading materials for
the
majority of this class. It is available for purchase from Crimson
&
Cream Copy Center in the Student Union [Rm. 126. 325-4294 (beside
the
Post Office)].
The other require texts are:
The Blacker the Berry – by Wallace Thurman (at Bookstore)
Assata: An Autobiography – by Assata Shakur (at Bookstore)
ENGL 2733, American Indian Literature: Early
and Traditional with Professor Geary Hobson
The course is an introduction to American Indian, or Native American,
literature, and it is designed so that the student might study some of
the earliest forms of Native American expressions&mdashlegends,
poetry,
songs, stories, and personal testament in the form of autobiography.
Special attention will be devoted to programs of translation from
Indian languages into English and other European languages.
Books: The Sky Clears by A. Grove Day, A Son of the Forest
by William
Apess, Black Elk Speaks by John G Neihardt, The Middle Five
by Francis
LaFlesche, Runner in the Sun by D'Arcy McNickle, and Waterlily
by Ella
Deloria.
ENGL 2773, American Literature with Professor
Jim Zeigler
This survey examines significant writings of the Americas from 1492 to
the U.S. Civil War. To confront such a lengthy, long-ago history, our
strategy will be to identify how our readings contend with the novelty
and tumult that surround two events: the European colonization of the
Americas and the emergence of the United States as a constitutional
republic. We will appreciate with particular acuity in this course that
to name these two remarkable events without reference to genocide and
slavery would diminish the complexity of what happened and elide a
stunning human toll. While we will investigate key historical events of
the period in as much complexity as possible, as students of literature
we will be most attentive to how textual form shapes historical
understanding. Students will prepare two essays of four to six pages,
midterm and final examinations, and a group presentation in defense of
one of the witches executed in Salem in 1692.
ENGL 3033, 18th and 19th Century British Women Writers with Professor Daniela Garofalo.
This course will focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth-century presence of women in the literary market in greater numbers than ever before. We will study a variety of genres- drama, novels, poems, and essays, examining the works of writers who emphasized the plight of women in patriarchal culture, who witnessed the French Revolution, the beginnings of industrialization and commercial culture in Britain, who fought to end slavery and class inequality and who examined the role of women in the public and private spheres as well as women’s role in the formation of national identity. Some authors we may study are: Frances Burney, Joanna Baillie, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Hays, Dorothy Wordsworth, Felicia Hemans, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Christina Rossetti.
ENGL 3103, Topics in Advanced Composition: Writing about Nature/Environment/Science and Technology with Professor Catherine Hobbs.
This interdisciplinary advanced composition course offers students a chance to focus on reading and writing about the natural world, the environment, and science and technology. Centered on the mode of writing called “creative non-fiction,” students will write a spectrum of more autobiographical essays to more “objective” reportorial pieces about our topics. The course aims to develop students abilities in reading, writing, critical thinking, research, informed discussion, and creativity.
ENGL 3103, Topics in Advanced Composition: Writing and Audience with Professor Kathleen Welch
This course unfolds in a workshop format in which students compile their writing (and drafts) from the course in individual portfolios that contain the professor’s written comments. The course centers on the students’ writing in a variety of genres primarily through the medium of print. The course also considers the digital screens on which we draft writing and redraft it.
ENGL 3133, Poetry Writing with Professor Honoree Jeffers
This course has a prerequisite of ENGL 2123 Creative Writing and requires submission of a writing sample of 3-5 of your own poems. This course is considered “writing intensive” and as such, frequent written assignments will be required of each student throughout the semester.
ENGL 3163, Writing, Rhetoric & History of Technology with Professor Catherine Hobbs
This course focuses on the relationship between current and historical technological change and students' writing practices. The workshop format privileges student writing and redrafting while concurrently studying selected histories of Western rhetoric.
ENGL 3173, Histories of Writing, Rhetoric & Technology with Professor Chris Carter.
In this course, we study competing theories of the writing process that have emerged in the past few decades, looking especially at how expressivist, cognitivist, and postmodern schools of rhetoric focus on composition as a recursive series of events rather than solely as a finished product. We then tie our discussion of process theory to such ancient issues as the relationship between truth and politics, ideology and persuasion, power and eloquence, examining why these topics matter in an era suffused with screen(ed) rhetoric—much of which circulates via televisions, monitors, cell phones, and other gadgetry while exerting influence throughout the global economy.
ENGL 3273, Comic Theory and Comic Practice Through Film with Professor Joanna Rapf.
Comedy, which celebrates the human capacity to endure rather
than to aspire and suffer, is, as François Truffaut once said, "by far
the most difficult genre, the one that demands the most work, the most
talent, and also the most humility." It has been argued that all
genres can be conceived in terms of a dialectic between cultural and
counter-cultural drives where, in the end, the cultural drives must
triumph. But between the inevitable "fade in" and "fade out,"
comedy is free to work its complex and often subversive purpose,
revealing and commenting on the preoccupations, prejudices, and dreams
of the society that produces it. Tragedy is traditionally more
"respectable" than comedy, but essentially both the tragic and comic
responses to life come from the same source: our consciousness of the
gap between existence as it is and existence as it ought to be.
This course
focuses on a select group of
American comic films and filmmakers who may include Roscoe Arbuckle,
Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon,
Charlotte Greenwood, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Frank
Capra, Billy Wilder, Jerry Lewis, Eddie Murphy, Woody Allen, Jim
Carrey, and Robin Williams, among others. The theory and practice of
genre, the diverse and complex nature of film comedy, its development,
its moral and amoral perspectives, the treatment of women in comedy,
are some of the topics addressed. In addition to regularly scheduled
classes, the course requires an evening screening.
ENGL 3313, Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies with Professor Dan Cottom
This class is designed to introduce students to the vocabularies, theoretical understandings, and critical strategies that form the basis of contemporary cultural studies. The course will culminate in a sustained examination of a novel by Charles Dickens, but we will also be examining other sorts of cultural products, from both "high" and "low" culture, including photographs, advertisements, toys, artworks, and museums. (In addition, we will be discussing this very distinction between "high" and "low" things.) Our work will include the analysis of terms such as "language," "literature," "culture," "identity," "gender," "sexuality," "pornography," "race," "desire," "value," "pleasure," and "politics." In pursuing this analysis, we will delve into the history of literary and cultural studies, and we will discuss influential theoretical movements such as feminism, poststructuralism, and queer theory. As students in this course you won’t simply be learning about literary and cultural studies; through your work for this course, you will be doing.
ENGL 3313, Introduction
to Literary and Cultural Studies with Professor Tim Murphy
This course follow English 2313, Introduction to Critical Reading and
Writing, in the sequence of core methodology requirements for the
English major. English 2313 introduces fundamental concepts of literary
study like genre and basic methods of literary analysis like close
reading, while English 3133 introduces more complex and systematic
theories of literary criticism and cultural studies including
formalism, dialectic criticism, historicism, psychoanalysis, gender
and ethnicity studies, structuralism and deconstruction. These
approaches are studied through primary readings in criticism; these
readings are also applied to selected literary works to show how
different modes oc criticism produce distinct ways of understanding
texts and related art forms like film.
Graded elements: Midterm exam (20%),
Final
exam (30%), Two 5-110 page papers (20% each), regular attendance and
participation (10%)
Required Text:
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
William Blake, Songs of Innocence & Songs of
Experience
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Live of
Frederick Douglass
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
plus films, to be screened outside of class time
ENGL 3343, Literature
of the Empire with Professor Yianna Liatsos
In this class we will examine colonial discourse, primarily of the
British but also of the French Empire, through a series of colonial and
postcolonial literary and theoretical readings. More specifically, we
will review the fundamental dichotomies of colonial discourse—master/
slave, center/margins, enlightenment/barbarism, authenticity/hybridity,
secular modernity/ religious conservatism, nation/nativism—and will
proceed to read articles and 20th century novels (from India, Africa
and the Caribbean) that both address and attempt to reconfigure the
colonial experience from a variety of perspectives. Please note that
this course requires substantial reading, writing and reflection.
Active participation is an integral component of this course, and for
this reason students will be required to attend class regularly.
Attendance will be taken at each class meeting. Students will be
allowed a total of 3 absences before their overall grade suffers a
reduction (a three point deduction of the final grade for each
absence). NOTE: a) ILLNESSES AND FAMILY EMERGENCIES ARE NOT EXCUSED; b)
the only absences OU requires instructors to excuse pertain to
religious observances. Specifically, the Provost asks that the
following notice be included in syllabi: “It is the policy of the
University to excuse absences of students that result from religious
observances and to provide without penalty for rescheduling of
examinations and additional required classwork that may fall on
religious holidays.” Notify me in advance for any absences you may
incur vis-à-vis your religious observances. ALSO NOTE: Chronic
tardiness, sleeping in class and other such behavior, will count as
absence.
ENGL 3363, Films
and Context with Professor Catherine John
The aim of this course is to look at black films from various parts of
the African dispora and see how different directors use different film
techniques and storytelling motifs to address issues of communal
identity, cultural pride, resistance of oppression, and societal
transformation. In order to assist us in this goal we will read
critical essays and listen to some music that will provide us with a
cultural, social and political context for understanding the films we
see. Also, in order to help the sudents gain a fuller understanding of
the social and historical context for some of the films from the U.S.
we will watch in class three episodes of the famous social documentary
about the Civil Rights Movement, Eyes on the Prize produced by
Henry
Hampton of Blackside, Inc. We will also read literature and engage in
rigorous discussions about the relationship between form and content in
these films. We will pay attention to how these films speak to various
audiences in different ways and we will observe and discuss how certain
film techniques reinforce particular ideological perspectives. We will
explore the notion of a Black or African-influenced aesthetic and we
will discuss the extent to which these ideas are addressed in the work
of Black filmmakers. We will examine how casting and soundtrack impacts
the representational authenticity of 'the feeling of realness' in
various films.
ENGL 3403, Graphic
Novel with Professor Jim Zeigler
The books for this class have a lot pictures, but reading them won’t be
easy. This course — Graphic Narratives, Comic History — seeks
first
to develop and test a narrative theory suited for works of sequential
art. Our further attention to the history of comic books will
concentrate on the recent emergence of a “canon” of works of literary
esteem. The comic artists most likely to appear on the syllabus include
Jessica Abel, Alison Bechdel, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Los Bros
Hernandez, Joe Sacco, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware.
Several of the assigned readings will allow us to reflect on the
ethical stakes of representing history. All of the required readings
will instruct and reward our understanding of the popular culture of
the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Assignments will include three essays of
four to six pages, a group presentation, and a comprehensive final
examination.
This class will focus on border crossings and cultural contacts so that we can discuss ifeas of foreignness adn ways of defining community before the familiar colonial paradigms wers established. We will read some romances, such as the King of Tars and Bevis of Hampton; some travel narratives, such as Mandeville's Travels; and some drama, such as the Croxton Play of the Sacrament. Two six-page papers and one ten-page paper are required.
ENGL 3523,
Sixteenth-Century English Literature with Professor Su Fang Ng
The sixteenth century was a period of the consolidation of the English
state with Tudor rule. The Tudor dynasty began in 1485 when Henry Tudor
(Henry VII) emerged victorious from the civil wars of the
fifteenth-century known as the Wars of the Roses. It would end more
than a hundred years later with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. In
between those dates, England would attain a stronger central government
that led to the legal annexation of Wales to England (in the
mid-century Acts of Union) and to a military imposition of English
power in a second colonization of Ireland. England itself also
underwent significant transformations as the Protestant Reformation of
the early sixteenth century convulsed England in religious disputes.
Amidst these political and religious changes, the sixteenth century saw
the renaissance or rebirth of literary culture in England. Borrowing
the ideals, values, and techniques of humanist study of classical
literature developed in the Italian renaissance, English literary
culture combined such Italian influences with native themes and
traditions which revivified the vernacular. Authors such as Sidney,
Spenser, Marlowe and Shakespeare turned the English language from a
marginal language into a poetic one of the highest order. This course
will survey the development and flowering of English literary culture
in the context of both political changes as well as literary and
intellectual developments from the continent. We will also consider as
a third and important influence on English literature culture the rapid
globalization of the European culture as Europeans began exploring both
the new worlds of America and ancient trade routes of Asia.
The course
begins by surveying the development of lyric poetry in the works of
early translators and imitators of Italian poetry like Wyatt and
Surrey. We will consider texts like More’s Utopia as a response to both
humanism and to exploration. Besides reading short poetry and selected
prose, we will spend considerable time in this course focusing a few
key authors by reading extensively in their canon: the works of the
aristocratic Sir Philip Sidney, a prominent courtier in Elizabeth’s
court, particularly his sonnet sequence, Astropil and Stella; England’s
national poet Edmund Spenser’s great epic The Faerie Queene; and the
astoundingly original plays of Christopher Marlower, who made the
iambic pentameter the standard verse form for the theater, molding it
into powerful theatrical language. Thus we will get an extensive
experience with the works of these important authors who made English
into a significant literary language.
Texts include:
More, Utopia;
selected poetry by Wyatt, Surrey, Shakespeare; Sidney, Defence of
Poesy
and Astrophil and Stella; Spenser, Faerie Queene;
Marlowe, Dr. Fastus,
Tamburlaine I & II, Jew of Malta, Edward II.
Requirements:
3-4
interpretive papers; final examination; attendance and active
participation; and unannounced quizzes.
ENGL 3573,
Arthurian Legend and Literature (crosslisted with MLLL) with Professor
Sullivan
King Arthur, his valiant Round-Table Knights, Queen Guenevere, and the
beautiful and intelligent ladies of Arthur's court constitute one of
the central popular traditions of the Middle Ages. The mystique of the
Arthurian Legend, moreover, did not stop with the Middle Ages;
throughout
the subsequent centuries and up until today, artists, writers, and even
politicians have rediscovered Arthur and made his legend relevant to
their own times.
In this course, we will
concentrate on the birth of the traditions of the legend in the Middle
Ages by reading Arthurian romances from several of the great medieval
Arthurian traditions. Additionally we will consider the reception of
Arthurian legend in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with our
screenings two films, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(1975).
ENGL 3623, 20th Century English Literature with Professor Ronald Schleifer
ENGL 3623,
The Bible as Literature with Professor Alan Velie
We will read and discuss a selevtion of books from the Old and New
Testaments, plus background material and biblical criticism. You must
provide your own Bible (King James Version).
ENGL 4003,
European Modernism (crosslisted with MLLL) with Professor Genova
Taught in English, this course presents a variety of literary works
indicative of some of the most influential European cultural movements
of the 20th century, including Modernism, Surrealism, Existentialism,
Post-Modernism, and beyond. Readings include poetry, theatrical texts,
and prose from such celebrated writers as Guillaume Apollinaire,
Virginia Woolf, Federico García Lorca, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel
Beckett, and Italo Calvino.
ENGL 4513, Chaucer with Professor Dan Ransom.
The course will be an intensive study of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in Middle English. We will look at the tales in their literary, historical, and cultural milieu and consider the degree to which Chaucer was a product of his environment both in affirming and in challenging the norms of his time and place.
ENGL 4523, Shakespeare Comedies with Professor
James Yoch
Explores plays on the ardent pursuit of love, money, rank and power.
Discussions and lectures relate Shakespeare’s theatre to its cultural
contexts and will include dramatic history and staging practices, as
well as competitive forces in the entertainment market reshaping
poetic, familial, national, and religious formulas. Among the readings:
The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of
Venice, Measure for Measure, The Winter’s Tale, 2 Henry IV, Henry V.
ENGL 4733, American Realism and Naturalism with
Professor Henry McDonald
Most definitions of literary realism depend on a small, often- repeated
group of terms, including "truth," "actuality," "accuracy," "reality,"
and "objectivity." Such characterizations are not terribly useful,
since they apply to good fiction of all traditions. A perhaps more
illuminating approach to distinguishing realistic and naturalistic
fiction from other types is to concentrate on style, presentation, and
narrative techniques. This approach orients critical attention to such
questions as: What distinction, if any, is made between the author and
narrator? What distinction is made between the narrator and the
protagonist or other characters? Is the narrator omniscient or assigned
a limited role in the unfolding of the story? How much access is the
reader allowed into the thoughts and feelings of the characters? Are
such thoughts and feelings dramatized or described?
These
questions, however, are interesting not so much for their own sake as
for what they reveal about the narrator culturally, historically,
politically and ethically. The style or mode of representation of any
fictional narrator is culturally significant; it is a response in one
way or another to social and historical forces, such as modernism,
industrialization, the changing role of women in society, the treatment
of minorities, etc. In this course, we will survey a range of authors
between 1865 and 1914, some of whom may be considered “realists” or
“naturalists,” but the vast majority of whom transcend such narrow
categories. We will proceed in our study on three levels at once: (1)
formalistically, identifying the various narrative techniques used by
our authors; (2) culturally, placing the texts we read in a social and
historical context; and (3) politically and ethically, using the work
of Emmanuel Levinas to shed light on the relation between self and
other reflected in fictional and poetic texts. Among the authors whose
work we will read are Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Bret
Harte, Ambrose Bierce, Emma Lazarus, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin,
Mary Wilkins Freeman, Henry James, Abraham Caham, Charlotte Perkins
Gilman, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, and Jack London.
The course
will stress the development of writing skills through eleven weekly
short papers and one long final paper. I have decided to structure the
course this way from my sense, supported by the input from students,
that the exam structure is not the ideal method for encouraging the
creative development of approaches to literary study. Having the
opportunity to read student papers on a weekly basis not only allows me
to work on an individual level with students on their writing; it also
acquaints me with their "way of thinking" and thereby puts me in a
better position to offer suggestions and advice.
However, there
is also a perhaps less attractive feature of this way of structuring a
course. Because there are no exams, your grade depends entirely on the
papers. What this means in practice is that there will be a heightened
importance given to class attendance. Since the papers are closely
linked to the lectures and discussions, it is very difficult to make
them up. The approaches and methods of reading which I encourage
cannot
generally be found on the internet or even in the library. The short
papers are in fact part of the on-going discussion and debate of the
classes; and it is obviously impossible for a student's paper to
reflect that discussion and debate if she/he hasn't attended class.
Moreover, because there are no exams, which the short papers substitute
for, it is inevitable in such cases that grades will suffer. Students
with demanding work schedules who are often forced to miss classes
should therefore think carefully before deciding to take this course.
ENGL 4833, 20th Century American Poetry: Ethics and the Nature of the Human with Professor Henry McDonald.
This course will survey modern American poetry from Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost to the present, with emphasis on major figures in the romantic, modern, and postmodern periods of American literature.
ENGL 4853, Capstone: Black Arts/Black Power with Professor Rita Keresztesi
This course examines the formation of the Black Arts and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Emerging from a matrix of Marxist and Black Nationalist ideologies and institutions African American and Afro-Caribbean artists and intellectuals coalesced to form new cultural and socio-political movements in the 1960s. In this course we will focus on the cultural exchanges and ideological engagements between the local struggles for civil rights and the larger global movements for decolonization in Africa and the Caribbean. In our studies we will read a variety of literary and critical texts and genres and engage with other forms of media, such as film and music produced by artists and intellectuals of the African Diaspora.
ENGL 4853, Capstone: Poems, Poets, Poetry with Professor Alan Velie.
This course will teach students to analyze and discuss poetry of all sorts--lyric, dramatic, and narrative. Reading list includes selections from Helen Vendler's anthology Poems, Poets and Poetry, and works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, Pushkin, Eliot, Donne, Stevens, Keats, Wordsworth, and others. Assignments will include a journal, short and long paper, and a final.
ENGL 4853, Capstone: British Literature and Popular Culture, 1945-Present with Professor Alex Bain
This course surveys the literary and cultural scene of the British Isles from the end of WWII to the age of “Cool Britannia” and the European Union. Examining fiction, poetry, film, drama, and political rhetoric, we will chart the efforts of artists, officials, and constituencies to come to grips with new dynamics of class, race, belonging, and with Britain’s role in a global economy marked by the unprecedented movement of people, ideas, and narratives across the geography of the former empire. Why were the “Young Angry Men” angry? Is “British” a civic identity or a cultural one? How have immigrant communities transformed not only life in Britain but the international reception of British politics and culture? These and other questions will guide us in figuring out the story of Britain’s transformation.
Course readings/viewings will be drawn from among the following:
Fiction: George Orwell, 1984; Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners; Alan Sillitoe, “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner”; Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners; Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange; Ian McEwan, Saturday; Monica Ali, Brick Lane; Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia; Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
Poetry: Philip Larkin; Seamus Heaney; Geoffrey Hill; Eavan Boland
Drama: John Osborne, Look Back in Anger; Caryl Churchill, Top Girls; Alan Bennett, The History Boys
Film: Handsworth Songs; My Beautiful Laundrette; Love, Actually
Political speeches by Enoch Powell; Margaret Thatcher; Tony Blair
Critical readings: selections from key works by George Orwell, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, Tom Nairn, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Patrick Wright
ENGL 5003, Seminar: History and Memory with
Professor Yianna Liatsos
Remembering is an integral aspect of a stable identity. As David
Lowenthal has suggested, “the sureness of ‘I was’ is a necessary
component of the sureness of ‘I am’.” Yet our understanding of the past
and our relation to it is continuously revised, depending on our
contemporary social context (cultural, political, religious, economic,
and so on). While memory is notoriously asthenic in retaining the past,
or perhaps precisely for this reason, it produces a perverse anxiety to
establish a historical record of what came before in order to
naturalize and control a constantly changing environment. It is in this
way that personal and collective identities achieve a sense of
coherence and meaning. Historiography and the modern archive have been
understood as identity anchors in precisely this way.
This course
will begin with the “memory crisis” that emerged along with historical
modernity and the creation of the modern nation-state, and will examine
several aspects of remembrance—the tension and affinities of the memory
and history discourses, among others. We will explore specific
narrative modes (autobiography and memoir, testimony, confession,
fiction, photography, film) and sites of remembrance (family and
national archives, museums, monuments, landscapes), while taking into
account their specific historical context (1st and 2nd World War,
genocide, colonialism, post-colonialism, international tribunals and
truth commissions) and geographical location (Europe, North America,
Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia).
ENGL 5113: Teaching College Composition and
Literature with Professor David Mair
This course is restricted to new English graduate assistants who will
be teaching freshman composition sections for the department.
ENGL 5353: Native American Poetry with
Professor Geary Hobson
A graduate-level seminar in which the emphasis will be on a selected
number of Native American authors and literary trends, rather than
survey the entire are of the field. Students will be required to read
the assigned texts, but will be encouraged to pursue a specific
topic—either one or more closely-related writers or a
particular tribal focus—for their final projects
Books: Songs
From this Earth on Turtle's Back by Joseph Bruchac, Riding the
Earthboy 40 by James Welch and The Nature of Native American
Poetry by Norma C. Wilson. There will also be a considerable number
of handouts of copid materials.
ENGL 5463: Rhetoric and Technology with
Professor Christopher Carter
This course investigates the co-evolution of writing technology,
rhetorical theory, and communicative practice. Moving from the codex to
the World Wide Web, course participants study how communication
strategies change as their modes of delivery change, and how those
shifts influence ideas of identity, culture, and society. Key topics
include histories of globalization and surveillance, the conceptual
emergence of intellectual property, the persuasive power of film and
electronic games, and the renewed vitality of Classical rhetoric in the
digital age. As we address these topics we observe how technological
innovation alters definitions of literacy, providing marked advantage
to some groups while disempowering others. With such uneven benefits in
mind, we discuss how feminists, critical race scholars, queer
theorists, Marxists, and other political groups engage technology, at
once denouncing its worst effects and using it for their own ends.
ENGL 5523: Literature in and Around the Court of Richard II with Prof. Joyce Coleman
"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the deaths of kings." Shakespeare has emblazoned Richard II on our minds as the feckless youth who fumbled away a kingdom—but the great inheritor, and reader, of Chaucer neglected to mention that English literature was pretty much invented during the chaotic 22 years of Richard's reign.
This course will explore the interplay of creative ambition and cultural context over the course of Richard's turbulent reign—and in general, within a literary system based around personal patronage and courtly lifestyle. We'll read all the greats—Chaucer, the Gawain‑poet, Langland, Gower—but in a different context and not always their most famous works, and we'll also read less famous authors. Reflecting current scholarly trends, we will pay special attention to female patronage and to the trilingual matrix out of which English literature emerged (with the Latin and Anglo-French material read in translation).
ENGL 5713, Seminar: Philanthropy and Nineteenth-Century American Literature with Professor Francesca Sawaya.
In Sinclair Lewis’s 1925 Pulitzer award-winning novel Arrowsmith, a central character says, “The world has always been ruled by the Philanthropists: by the doctors that want to use therapeutic methods they do not understand, by the soldiers that want something to defend their country against, by the preachers that yearn to make everybody listen to them, by the kind manufacturers that love their workers, by the eloquent statesmen and soft-hearted authors—and see once what a fine mess of hell they ha[ve] made of the world!” Lewis’s novel crystallizes the modernist critique of nineteenth-century culture through its analysis of both the hypocrisy and deleterious consequences of a belief in “doing good.” Abolitionism, feminism, socialism, and the emergent system of corporate capitalism—all created narratives about the ways in which they were expressions of a disinterested “love of mankind.” Each was also criticized, in different ways, for its tainted motivations and problematic effects. This class explores the conflicting perspectives on nineteenth-century expressions of a “love of mankind.” Aiming to appeal to both students specializing in American literature and those working outside the field, the class will provide a broad survey of nineteenth century American literary culture while focusing on the complex debates about philanthropy. Among the authors we may read are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Rebecca Harding Davis, Albion Tourgee, Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Sarah Orne Jewett, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Zitkala-Sa, and Theodore Dreiser. Secondary texts will focus on the historical and cultural background that shaped nineteenth-century debates about philanthropy.