Upcoming Courses

2123-001 Creative Writing (CW)
Susan Kates
TR 12:00-1:15PM
This is an introductory course in creative writing:  Poetry, literary non-fiction, and fiction genres. No previous experience is required. In this course, short spontaneous exercises and longer assignments combine to motivate and refine students ́ writing, both about the chronicler’s main subjects (places, people, and objects). Whether we are discussing poetry, non-fiction, or fiction, all writing is discussed via criteria pertinent to literary work. Learning to analyze a piece of writing critically is a key component of the course. Guidelines/criteria will be provided. Students are encouraged to apply them as well as to improvise, as long as opinions are always grounded in evidence from the relevant text. 

2123-002 Creative Writing (CW)
Todd Fuller
TBA
Introduction to imaginative writing, especially short stories and poems; some analysis of literary models, but major emphasis is on student writing. (F, Sp)

2273 Literary and Cultural Analysis (CC)
Amanda Klinger 
TR 3:00-4:15PM 
ENGL 2273 is an introduction to literary and cultural analysis focusing on textual explication, interpretation, and critique. Our course will focus on analyzing depictions of pirates in a variety of genres: poetry, short stories, essays, novels, film adaptations, historical documents, plays, songs, and other media. Pirates offer us a rich topic to explore because of the various ways these historical and fictional figures engaged in (and often disrupted) trade, commerce, and government; traveled through many different types of spaces; and encompassed shifting ideologies and identities. Vacillating between criminal, hero, and anti-hero, the cultural pirate figure continues to fascinate us and engage our imagination even though the characteristic eighteenth-century pirate no longer exists. Among the variety of topics we may explore in relation to representations of piracy are: capitalism, imperialism, trade, commerce, commodity culture, labor, social class, isolation, gender and sexuality, chivalry, the abject and liminal, leadership, power dynamics, humor, and fantasy/the absurd. The course generally emphasizes writing analytically about literature and culture so we will also discuss poetic form, narrative techniques, genre, and basic literary terms.

2283 Critical Methods (CC)
Jordan Lavender-Smith 
TR 3:00-4:15PM 
This course examines literary and cultural texts in conjunction with texts of theory, criticism or history. The course explores how to read literary texts within relevant frameworks, whether they be historical or other contexts such as gender, race, or colonialism. For spring 2023, the coursework will be divided into three units: sampling, narrative theory, and students’ choice. We will begin with an assortment of critical methods and texts (a few key writers include Ursula K. Le Guin, Mark McGurl, Toni Morrison, Timothy Morton, and Viktor Shklovsky). Next, we will look closely at and apply to creative works some of the key concepts within the fields of narrative theory, film, and digital media studies (Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Gérard Genette, Marie-Laure Ryan, Steven Shaviro, et al.). Finally, students will produce a critical application of theory to a text of their choosing (film, novel, short story, tv show, videogame, etc.). All shared course readings and materials will be made available in class or on Canvas, except for When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (available at the OU bookstore).

2413 Intro to Literature (ME)
Kayla Ciardi
TR 10:30-11:45AM
Concentrates on close readings of masterpieces in fiction, drama, and poetry. The readings are drawn from periods ancient to modern and may be American, British or Continental. (Irreg.) [IV-AF] 
 

2443 World Literature, 1700 to Present; Survey II (CC)
Chris Carter 
MW 3:00-4:15PM 
This course will survey broadly masterpieces from the last three centuries of world literature.  Authors will range from Jean-Baptiste Moliere and Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire to Toni Morrison, Hanan Al-Shaykh, and Isabel Allende.  Along the way we will read classics by Anton Chekhov, Rabindranath Tagore, James Joyce, Kawabata Yusanari, William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, James Baldwin, Clarice Lispector, Chinua Achebe, Doris Lessing, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jamaica Kincaid, Nawal El Saadawi, and others.  

This period has been one of cataclysmic change, much of it driven by science and technology.  We will pick up our story in the mid-17th century when new discoveries in mathematics, physics, and astronomy are impacting all forms of culture in the West and equally powerful advances in science and the narrative arts are spreading in the East.  On both sides of the globe, the printing press and subsequent inventions in information technology (transoceanic cables, radio, cinema, television, and the internet) involve all humans in constant, pervasive change right up to the present.  We will close our semester-long study at the dawn of our own 21st century.  

Topics will include rationalism, romanticism, realism, high modernism, post-1950 new directions, and contemporary classics-in-the-making.  Materials are weighted slightly to favor the 20th century over the 18th and 19th.  In other words, this will not be one of those survey courses that never makes it to our own time.  International in scope, non-dogmatic in approach, balanced in gender, open to class participation, and with readings of manageable length--we will learn together.
 

2653 English Literature - 1700 to Present; Survey II (CC)
Justin Sider
MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM
A survey of major writers and literary movements from Pope to the present. (Sp) [IV-WC]


2743 American Indian Lit - Modern/Contemporary; Survey II (CC, Post-1700)
Jake Skeets
TR 1:30-2:45PM
Prerequisite: 1113, 1213 and one course in American literature or history. We will examine various modes of Native literature and storytelling with the book Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko acting as a kind of framework: How do Native authors transform conventional definitions of “literature” into hybrid or textured modes of storytelling? We will examine the way Native authors interrogate and incorporate forms and mediums beyond written text in their storytelling. 
 

2883 American Literature; Survey II (CC)
Melissa Antonucci
MW 1:30-2:45PM
In this survey course of American literature and literary history, students will examine works that depict urbanization, immigration, class conflicts, racial injustice and uplift, and other social/cultural changes from the late-19th century to the present. Beginning with Walt Whitman, our readings will span historical moments such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Harlem Renaissance, both World Wars, the Civil Rights movement, and the social experimentations of the 60s and 70s. As we make our way into the present, we will read selections from Joy Harjo and Louise Erdrich; speculative fiction by Ken Liu and N. K. Jemisin; Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower; and selections from banned books The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. The texts chosen for class, which include poetry, drama, novels, short stories, prose, and non-fiction, will also highlight major periods of American literature: romanticism, realism, naturalism, modernism, and postmodernism. Our goal is to understand the forces and people at work in shaping perceptions of what it means to be not only an American, but human as well. As we zoom in closely on the struggles of survival and identity, we will also explore the range and limitations of literature as an agent of social change. 

3103-001 Write, Edit, Publish (RWS, ME)
Kimberly Wieser and Brian Daffron 
MW 1:30-2:45 PM 
Do you like to write? Do you want to improve your writing while learning more about editing and the publishing process?  Would you like to have a piece of your writing accepted for publication this semester, guaranteed?  If you’re nodding ‘yes’ enthusiastically, then Write, Edit, Publish is the class for you.  This semester’s course is a practicum for academic writing and publishing. 

We’ll learn the intricacies of English grammar and punctuation from OU’s very own “Grammar Queen,” Dr. Kimberly Wieser. You’ll even learn the one use of the subjunctive in English and as well as when to use ‘which’ and when to use ‘that.’ You’ll be able to engage in lively debate regarding the use of the Oxford comma at next party you attend. Your knowledge will astound your friends! Each student will write at least one entry that will be accepted for publication for the American Indian Literature: An Encyclopedia for Students, currently being edited by Dr. Wieser and Mr. Daffron. We will learn about writing for and working as an editor for academic journals, as well as about acting as an editor for a special issue. Finally, we will work on more real world projects, practicing giving responses to authors, working with authors on revisions, copyediting, and even doing layout for books. We will partner with OU faculty and students as well as with That Painted Horse Press on projects, giving students exposure to advanced academic and creative publishing. 
 

3103-002 Writing Ecologies (CW/RWS)
Rachel Jackson
TR 1:30-2:45PM
This course explores intersections of environmentalism and composition by looking closely at the works of authors who treat the natural world in their writing via their own relationship to places and the peoples, animals, plants, and elements who inhabit them.   Our readings will combine eco-composition theory with four primary texts: Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003) by Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (2021) by Suzanne Simard, and Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit (2021) by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, and The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (2016).  Throughout the course, students will adapt and apply the examples and methods emerging from theory and these central books to their own writing about place, nature, and the interpersonal connections they experience in relation with them.

3123 Fiction Writing
Eddie Malone
TBA

3143-002 Studies in Literacy & Rhetoric: Intro to Memory Studies (RWS, ME)
Will Kurlinkus 
MW 1:30-2:45PM
From OU campus statues to Confederate Civil memorials to hip-hop’s old school to Facebook’s On This Day, in this course students will learn to study cultures of memory by asking, who wants whom to remember what, why, and to which ends. We’ll be paying particularly close attention to how shared memories structure communities (e.g. slow food activists, Garth Brook’s country music fandom, and online conspiracy groups), how memory and nostalgia structure popular media (e.g, film and TV reboots and nostalgia shows like Stranger Things and The Goldberg’s) and what role technologies of memory (e.g. photos, social media, and museums) play in all of this. Assignments include a midterm analysis of a community of memory and final analysis of a memory trend in pop culture. 

3143-001 Studies in Literacy & Rhetoric: Women’s Rhetorics & Writing (RWS, ME)
Sandra Tarabochia 
MWF 10:30-11:20AM
In this course, we will investigate women’s discursive practices and their relationship to the rhetorical tradition, asking: What is rhetoric? What are women’s rhetorics and (how) do they differ from other rhetorics?  We will study the historical, social, and political contexts in which women’s communicative acts have been suppressed and how non-traditional rhetors (including speakers, writers, activists, politicians, artists, bloggers, and every day social media users) have used imaginative, “transgressive,” strategies and genres to reach their audiences. We will consider how our own gendered histories and contexts influence how we use writing and rhetoric to act in the world and how examining various rhetorical texts might shape our thinking and writing for particular purposes, audiences and contexts.  We will engage imaginatively by using a variety of available means to express our ideas throughout the semester as we take up issues of power and privilege, protest and resistance, education, work and labor, civic engagement, and embodied identities (racial, ethnic, physical, sexual, etc.), along with interests and curiosities you bring to the table. Course texts will likely include: Available Means: An Anthology of Women’s Rhetoric(s), eds. Ritchie & Ronald 2001; Persuasive Acts: Women’s Rhetorics in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Stenberg & Hogg, 2020; and We Should All Be Feminists, Adichie, 2015.

3163 Digital Humanities (RWS, ME)
Bill Endres 
T/R 10:30-11:45AM
This course will explore two major aspects of the digital humanities: analysis & interpretation through making and analysis & interpretation through coding. For the first, we will generate 3D models, explore them in virtual reality, and investigate how their rhetorical power changes when 3D printed. As a guide, we will ask questions such as: what is the role of our body and its 22-33 senses (yes, we have many more than the Aristotelian five) in our thinking, interpretive practices, and transmission of knowledge? For the second, we will learn just enough of the programing language Python. I think you’ll be surprised how easy it is to learn. We will write code with it to cull and analyze text for you to interpret, amounts of text beyond a single human’s capacity.
 

3353 American Indian Nonfiction Writing (MC, ME)
Rachel Jackson
Native American authorship encompasses a wide-ranging spectrum of non-fiction genres that address historical and current topics. This course incorporates texts spanning from the last decade of the 19th century to the present and weaves together critical Indigenous theory, memoir, social criticism, and political and cultural analyses.  It begins with a look into recent decolonial theory to ground course content in current critical conversation.  We will then read Gertrude Bonnin’s archival text “Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes,” a riveting report written for the Indian Welfare Association in 1924. From there, we will read Angie Debo’s And Still the Waters Run, a seminal contribution to Native American studies written by a non-Native ally and censored by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1940.  We will next explore a central text from the Native American Renaissance with Vine Deloria, Jr.’s (Standing Rock Sioux) Custer Died For Your Sins (1969).  Thomas King’s (undocumented Cherokee) text, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (2003), will guide us in navigating the relationship between story and reality in Native American culture broadly.  We will study contemporary Native American women’s memoir by looking at Heart Berries (2018) by Terese Marie Mailhot (Seabird Island Band).  The course will end with David Truer’s (Leech Lake Ojibwe) The Heart of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present – an Indigenous historical accounting that will enable us to circle back to our conversations at the beginning of the course. Across this spectrum of texts, we will identify tropes of resilience in American Indian non-fiction that help us to confront the settler colonial past and imagine Indigenous futures.  Students will deliver a presentation related to one of the texts and write several short responses to the readings and a research paper related to course discussions.
 

3423 Film and Other Expressive Forms (MC, Post-1700, ME)
Julie Tolliver
TR 9:00-10:15AM - Synchronous (via Zoom)
Examines the relationship between film and other areas of creative expression such as literature, music, and art. This course will examine several influential linked works that have inspired artists in a variety of genres in the humanities. We’ll investigate how they change across the mediums of music, film, literature, and art, how different historical contexts change the works’ reception, and why their themes have found such staying power across different time periods and artistic modes. Examples of texts might include Aimé Césaire’s play A Season in the Congo and Raoul Peck’s film Lumumba; Mozart’s Requiem and Miloš Forman’s Amadeus; David Henry Hwang’s play M Butterfly and David Cronenburg’s film of the same title; Chloé Leriche’s film Before the Streets with music by Northern voice and artwork by Jacques Newashish; and Djibril Diop Mambety’s film The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun and the oral tale of Leuk the hare. These intermedial pairings (pairs across different mediums) will require flexibility and imagination on our part as we think through how to use what we know, and how to find out what we don’t, as we explore how new voices emerge from older ones

3463 American Fiction (Post-1700, ME) 
Henry McDonald 
TR 3:00-4:15PM 
Prerequisite: 1213. This course will survey American fiction, including short stories and novels, including authors Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Charles Chesnutt, W.E.B. Dubois, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Stephen Crane, James Weldon Johnson, Jack London, Susan Glaspell, Katherine Anne Porter, Nella Larsen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner.

4003 European Modernism & Beyond (Post-1700, ME)
Pamela Genova
TR 10:30-11:45AM
Taught in English, MLLL 4003/ENGL 4003 presents a variety of literary works indicative of some of the most influential European cultural movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Modernism, Surrealism, Existentialism, Post-Modernism, and beyond. Readings include poetry, theatrical texts, and prose from such celebrated writers as Virginia Woolf, Federico García Lorca, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, and Italo Calvino. (IV-WC)
 

4113 How to Edit & Publish a Literary Magazine (RWS, ME)
Daniel Simon 
 TR 1:30–2:45PM
English 4113 provides an introduction to the writing, editing, and publishing of literary magazines, both print and online. It is designed for students who are planning careers in writing, graduate literary studies, or the wider world of publishing. Students will learn about the place of literary magazines in humanities publishing generally and the larger contemporary landscape in which cultural magazines play a vital role. Topics include the history and present state of US magazine publishing, the status of periodicals in culture and the academy, the economics of the industry, current challenges, and future trends.

The internship component is an important feature of the course, offering students the opportunity to write for, edit, and produce an actual magazine: World Literature Today, OU’s award-winning bimonthly of international literature and culture. The course will also draw guest speakers from the pool of publishing experts scattered across the OU campus and in central Oklahoma, thus providing advice and networking opportunities for students interested in exploring professional careers in writing, editing, design, marketing, event planning, and digital media.

Service-Learning Option

• There is also a service-learning section of this course. For more information, email Dr. Simon.

For more information, contact Professor Simon at dsimon@ou.edu or 405-325-0317.

4593 Monsters and Heroes: Anglo-Saxon Lit. in Translation (Pre-1700, ME)  
Joyce Coleman 
MW 3:00-4:15PM 
Anglo-Saxon poetry is full of darkness: loss, exile, angst, monsters, death. As in Bede's famous simile, man is like a swallow flying in one door of a banqueting hall and out the other: from darkness into a brief moment of warmth and light, and out again into darkness. 

In service of this vision, the Anglo-Saxons produced a body of amazingly spare, imagistic verse that has lost none of its resonance over the centuries. The contemporary reader is both surprised by the seemingly modern sensibility and seduced by the many echoes of obscure and ancient legend. Indeed, through the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien--whose day job was teaching Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University--that ethos has fascinated millions of contemporary readers and viewers. 

The course will read the shorter poems and Beowulf, in translation, while simultaneously exploring the uniquely Anglo-Saxon mergers of paganism and Christianity, oral tradition and manuscript culture, history and legend. Scholarly essays, including a major chapter by Tolkien, will give depth and context to our discussions.  

4533 Shakespeare Tragedies (Pre-1700, ME)
Karen Feiner 
TR 12:00-1:15PM 
Shakespeare's Tragedies: Amidst the ghosts, regicide, suicide, and creepy familial relationships, perhaps one of the most haunting aspects of Shakespeare's tragedies are the very real and very relatable human experiences that lay the foundation. Let's delve into the humanity amongst the tragedy. We will be writing beyond the classroom and the grade and towards potential publication over the course of the semester.

 
4833 Twentieth-Century American Poetry (Post-1700, ME)
T/R 4:30-5:45 
Henry McDonald 
This course surveys twentieth century American poetry, including authors Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Hart Crane, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Frank O’Hara, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Anne Stevenson, N. Scott Momaday, and Joy Harjo.

4853 Capstone: Plants in Fictional Narratives (CC)
Amit Baishya 
TR 10:30-11:45AM
This iteration of the capstone will introduce you to the exciting new field of the plant humanities through a focus on plants in fictional narratives (novels, short stories, comic books, cinema and television). We will begin with a dominant mode through which plants are represented in fiction—the register of horror. Texts we will possibly discuss include John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original 1950s version) and episodes from the smash Netflix series Stranger Things. We will then move to representations of plants in science fiction—representative texts may include Clifford Simak’s All Flesh is Grass, Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation and Sue Burke’s Semiosis. We will conclude with discussion of contemporary novels that consider the entanglement of humans and plants in the Anthropocene—the contested name for the geological epoch where the human species leaves its mark on the planetary system. Novels we may read include Richard Powers’ The Overstory and Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. We may occasionally dip into the work of writers, thinkers and cultural critics who have reflected on the role of plants like Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michael Marder, Luce Irigaray, Sumana Roy, Claudette Sartiliot, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Michael Pollan, Jeffrey Nealon, Natania Meeker and Antonia Szabari. Students are encouraged to bring their own interest in plants as they work on their capstone projects.
 

4853 Capstone: Writing Track (CC)
Will Kurlinkus
MW 3:00-4:15PM
In the writing track capstone, you will learn how to fine tune some of the professional and technical writing skills that employers look for in graduating English majors as well as how to apply for writing–centric jobs. To do so, we’ll first learn how to find and analyze job ads and write resumes and cover letters to match. We’ll then learn to write grants, instruction sets, and other key genres.
 

4933 Advanced Poetry Writing
Jake Skeets
T 4:30-7:20PM
Slashlisted with 4933. Prerequisite: graduate standing, six hours of creative writing, and departmental permission. May be repeated; maximum credit six hours. Students should expect to write and revise poems within a workshop environment. Students should also expect to read and explore poetry, including theory, to supplement our primary goal of composing poetry.  

5313 Liteary Criticism
Ronald Schleifer
R 1:30-4:20PM
Prerequisite: graduate standing and department permission. May be repeated with change of content; maximum credit nine hours. A comprehensive history of literary criticism, the study of a particular movement or related movements in literary criticism; or a study of a particular issue or related issues in literary criticism. (Sp)

5353 Native American Poetry 
Kimberly Wieser 
W 4:30-7:20PM
Native American Poetry will cover poetry by writers with ancestry Indigenous to the Americas, with a primary focus on poetry from the 21st century. Among the writers whose work we will study are Jake Skeets, Deborah Miranda, Natalie Diaz, dg okpik, Kim Shuck, Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Layli Long Solider, Lance Henson, Joseph Dandurand, Sherwin Bitsui, and ire’ne lara silva. This seminar will be contract-graded with your being able to satisfy the writing requirements for your grade through several means, one of which is the traditional seminar paper.  Other options are combinations of academic book reviews, academic reference work entries, conference papers, or other projects as approved by me. All students must write between 5000-6500 words total for the course, with all course work—including peer reviews and class discussions on Canvas—counting toward this total. Students will be expected to lead two discussions—one, a two-hour section of our seminar focused on the text for the week; and two, a discussion of an academic article about one of our course texts, for which you will write and post an abstract on a Canvas discussion board. Finally, students are expected to participate in four peer review sessions during the semester in the weeks in which we do not have an abstract discussion scheduled. 

Mostly, we are going to enjoy some incredible poetry.

5433 18^th-19^th Century Rhetorical Theory and History
Susan Kates
W 1:30-4:20PM
This course is an introduction to 18th-and 19th-century rhetorical theory and practice primarily in Britain and the U.S. We will sketch the transformations of rhetoric against the backdrop of the Scientific Revolution, the rise of professionalism, and other cultural shifts. We will explore Scottish moral philosophy, paying particular attention to the development of higher education and literacy in the U.S. in the 19th century. We will examine emergent rhetorical forms in specific excluded groups, primarily White, African-American, and Native American women whose rhetorical strategies and performances drew from an embrace of dress (via the temperance movement), technology (via the bicycle), and crafts (via home décor, cookbooks, and textiles).

Primary Inquiries:
*How did science change rhetoric and rhetorical theory in the eighteenth century?
*What aspects of rhetorical theory from Great Britain influenced rhetorical education in U.S. colleges and universities in the nineteenth century?
*How did those outside the academic realm (particularly women of various races and ethnicities) create and perform alternative rhetorics?

Seminar Texts:
Berlin, James. Writing Instruction in Nineteenth-Century American Colleges
Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg.  The Rhetorical Tradition:  Readings from Classical Times to the Present (Designated RT)
Enoch, Jessica. Domestic Occupations:  Spatial Rhetorics and Women’s Work.
Hallenbeck, Sarah. Claiming the Bicycle:  Women, Rhetoric, and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America (available on-line through library)
Mattingly, Carol. Appropriate(ing) Dress:  Women’s Rhetorical Style in Nineteenth-Century America 
Walden, Sarah,  Tasteful Domesticity: Women’s Rhetoric & the
American Cookbook 1790-1940
Handouts and readings posted on Canvas

5463: Rhetoric & Technology – Making in the Digital Humanities: 3D Printing 
Bill Endres & Bobby Reed 
T 1:30-4:20PM
In the digital humanities, making challenges traditional concepts of intellectual work. As an interpretive act, one expressed outside of words, making can remain just beyond the grasp of verbal understanding. Therefore, doing regularly represents the best path in. It is a knowing from the inside from which other expressions, such as language, can emerge. Thus, in this class, we will learn how to design and make 3D objects and print them. We will work in pairs to design a 3D object that solves a problem in the world, no matter how small the problem might be. This will provide leverage for our exploration of the interpretive and rhetorical arguments at the center of any 3D printed object. Finally, we will place our doing in conversation with a range of theorists, technologists, and artists from varied fields, generating a rich and dynamic conversation that will nudge our minds and bodies toward reverie.
 

5553 POST-COLONIAL THEORY AND WRITING
Amit Baishya 
R 4:30-7:20PM
This course in postcolonial studies has two major goals: 

i)    It aims to familiarize students with concepts and techniques of analysis that define this field of discourse. This will include an exploration of key concepts such as colonialism, imperialism, the subaltern, colonial discourse, nationalism, anticolonialism, decolonization and bio/necropolitics among others. 

ii)   Viewed from the standpoint of the production of knowledge-objects, this course will also map key historical “moments” in the field. We will trace the impact of the dominant ethico-political concerns of the particular historical “moment” on the continuing development and growth of postcolonial discourse. My own view on this question is that this field has passed through three distinct “moments,” none of which are mutually exclusive. The first is the “moment” of anticolonial thought and praxis, where the question of decolonization and liberation from colonial rule was paramount. The second “moment” is the period of “classical” postcolonial theory (the Said-Spivak-Bhabha axis), where the critique of representations was the foundational question. The post-“classical” moment of postcolonial theory—the one which is probably unfolding before us right now—seems to be shifting its focus to an analysis and critique of the disciplinary, tactile and visceral impact of the violence wrought by sovereign entities on the human body. We will discuss the strengths and limitations of this “structuralist” attempt at mapping this field of literary/critical discourse, and also assess the gains and losses that accrue when a particular theoretical optic becomes institutionalized as a “normal” mode of analysis. We will also consider some new developments in the field such as the emerging connections between postcolonialism and ecocriticism, postcolonialism and human-animal studies and postcolonialism and the Anthropocene.
 

G4933 Advanced Poetry Writing
Jake Skeets
T 4:30-7:20PM
Slashlisted with 4933. Prerequisite: graduate standing, six hours of creative writing, and departmental permission. May be repeated; maximum credit six hours. Students should expect to write and revise poems within a workshop environment. Students should also expect to read and explore poetry, including theory, to supplement our primary goal of composing poetry.  
 

6103-001 Research Methods in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy 
Sandra Tarabochia 
M 1:30-4:20PM
This course will orient you to scholarly research and introduce some common research methods in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy with a focus on qualitative methods. Together, we will consider how various critical theories inform research design and representation, how method enables and constrains what we learn from research, and how our choice of analytical lens makes certain insights available while obscuring others. We’ll examine major research trends in the history of the field and look at a range of research problems, contexts, and methodologies—including methodological interventions by feminists, theorists of race relations, and teacher-scholars working in transnational contexts.