Semester I, 2009

GLE Courses:
English 206: African Literature

All English Courses:
English 150: Fundamentals of Creative Writing
English 185: Literary Studies
English 200: Topics in Cross-cultural Studies - Passing (Cross Cultural)
English 205: American Racial and Multicultural Literature (Cross Cultural)
English 206: African Literature (Cross Cultural)
English 220: Topics in Literary History: British Modern/Postmodern (1890-2009) (Literary History)
English 221: Literatures in English to 1650 (Literary History)
English 222: Literatures in English 1650-1850 (Literary History)
English 253: Authors in English (Elective)
English 260: Topics in Cross-disciplinary Studies: Cutting the Eye: Surrealist Poetry and Poetics (Cross Disciplinary)
English 276: Literature and the Environment (Cross Disciplinary)
English 280: Topics in Genre: Drama to 1642 (Genre)
English 289: Journalistic Writing (Genre)
English 291: Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing (Genre)
English 292: intermediate Poetry Writing (Genre)
English 345: Topics: American Racial and Multicultural Literature - Cultures of Desire
English 360: Literary Criticism and Theory
English 372: Advanced Fiction Writing Workshop
English 395: Chaucer and Ethics [EIN]
English 399: Major Seminar: Money and Virtue


English 150: Fundamentals of Creative Writing (Jenny Dunning)
xxxxThrough reading, discussion, and writing exercises, students will develop a broad foundation of strategies in creative writing and a general understanding of craft across genres--fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Risk-taking, experimentation and play will be encouraged. The course is open to all students who have taken or are currently taking GE 111 or equivalent. After 2009-10, this course will be a prerequisite for 200- and 300-level creative writing courses. Top of Page

English 185: Literary Studies
xxxxx English 185 is the foundation of the St. Olaf English major, introducing students to the strategies of critical interpretation they will use in later courses and to enduring questions about literature and its role in a culture. Students are encouraged to ask, "Why do we read?" "What constitutes literature?" "How is meaning made, and what is possible to say about a literary work?" In addition, the course introduces students to the variety of literatures in English produced around the world. In formulating their responses to literary works and literary questions, students practice and develop skills in both writing and oral communication. (ALS-L, ORC, WRI)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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           185-A: Literary Studies (Carol Holly)
           185-B: Literary Studies (Mark Allister)
           185-C: Literary Studies (Mary Titus)

English 200: Topics in Cross-cultural Studies: Passing (Cross Cultural)
(Jeff Solomon)
To “pass,” a member of one group must have the ability to be taken as a member of another.  Passing may be actively sought or an inadvertent misrecognition, and its effects may range from the amusing to the profound.  As the term is most commonly used, someone who passes seeks to be mistaken for a member of group with superior status.  Though passing in the United States is primarily associated with race, passing may also be provoked by categories such as disability, education, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and social class.  In all cases, “superior” and “inferior” status is not always easily determined; members in both groups may wish to pass as members of the other.  Our class will investigate various experiences of passing as reflected in literature and film created since 1900 in the United States.  We will consider both texts that directly address passing as well as texts and authors that themselves pass: for instance, cinematic adaptations of books that change the sexual orientation, gender, race, or ethnicity of a book’s characters to make the film more successful, and authors who claim a different identity to promote a false “memoir.”  Texts include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Nella Larsen’s Passing, Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly.  Films include Imitation of Life, Six Degrees of Separation, and Boys Don’t Cry.
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English 205: American Racial/Multicultural Literature (Cross Cultural)
(Joan Hepburn)
xxxxx Through the reading of literature by an array of multicultural authors in the United States, students explore the histories, cultural patterns, religious practices, key institutions, gender issues, narrative styles, and significant contributions to our nation of marginal groups. Such diverse writers as Toni Morrison, Chaim Potok, Leslie Silko, and Amy Tan, raise questions about voice and identity, both individual and collective.(ALS-L, MCS-D)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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English 206: Topic: African Literature (Cross Cultural) (GLE) (Joseph Mbele)
xxxxxAfrican literature draws from several main sources, including indigenous oral traditions such as the folktale and the epic, and foreign—especially western--literatures. This course focuses on South African literature as it evolves from an oral tradition into fiction, poetry, drama, and film. Students explore the role of both the oral tradition and western writers on South African literature. They explore the influence of Hamlet and Richard Wright’s Native Son on Alex La Guma, the influence of Pilgrim’s Progress and the Faust story on Mofolo’s Chaka, the influence of Robinson Crusoe on Coetzee’s Foe, and the influence of Brecht on Ngema’s Woza Albert. Still, students learn that this is an African literature, helped on this journey by South African critics such as Mazisi Kunene, Daniel Kunene, Lewis Nkosi, and David Atwell. Students make class presentations, write two essays, and take two exams. (GLE)
(ALS-L, MCS-G/MSG)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent.
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English 220: Topics in Literary History: British Modern/Postmodern Literature (1890-2009) (Literary History) (Molly Westerman)
xxxxx This course explores modernism and postmodernism, two vital developments within twentieth-century British literature. Both movements are characterized by a formal and stylistic experimentalism that foregrounds language itself, rather than treating language as a transparent medium for the telling of tales. From different angles, both ask questions about the nature and meaning of the self, gender and sexuality, science and technology, literature and the other arts, memory, and historical knowledge. Because modernism, postmodernism, and the relationship between the two are notoriously difficult to define, we will approach these terms as open questions, always asking why a given text is labeled “modernist” or “postmodernist” and whether such labels are helpful in the first place. Texts include novels, plays, poems, and essays by Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Tom Stoppard, Caryl Churchill, Graham Swift, Julian Barnes, and Jeanette Winterson.
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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English 221: Literatures in English to 1650 (Literary History) (Karen Marsalek)
xxxxx Students explore poetry and prose from the earliest periods in the development of the English language and literature -- by Caedmon, the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, Julian of Norwich, Malory, Spenser, Shakespeare, Lady Mary Wroth, Donne, Milton -- and investigate how literary conventions and social history interact. From sermons to sonnets, students examine 1000 years of literary history and ultimately follow the voyage of English from Britain to the Americas.(WRI)
Prerequisite FYW or equivalent. English 185 recommended.
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English 222: Literatures in English 1650 to 1850 (Literary History)
 (Richard DuRocher)
xxxxx Students study literary developments from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries. Topics examined include the influence of the Puritan Revolution on literature; satiric modes practiced by Dryden, Pope, and Swift; the rise of the novel; the Romantic movement; Transcendentalism; and the development of American identity in writers such as Franklin, Fuller, and Douglass. (WRI)
Prerequisite FYW or equivalent. English 185 and 221 recommended.
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English 253: Authors in English (Elective) (Richard Buckstead)
xxxxx Three Indian novels by postcolonial writers in English: Kushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan, Indira Mahindra's The End Play, and Kamala Markandaya's Nectar In a Sieve; and works by American authors: "Tomorrow" by William Faulkner, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, and Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. Films of Train to Pakistan, "Tomorrow," and Of Mice and Men. One or two Bollywood productions. (ALS-L)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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English 260: Topics in Cross-disciplinary Studies: Cutting the Eye: Surrealist Poetry and Poetics (Cross Disciplinary) (Jennifer Kwon Dobbs)
xxxxx In one of the most provocative images in cinematic history, André Breton slices an actor's eye in Luis Buñel and Salvador Dali's classic film, Un Chien Andalou, to argue against an aesthetic motivated by logic and sight. Influenced by Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, Breton and his international collaborators developed a revolutionary and interdisciplinary movement that continues to this day to resonate with poets for whom imitating real life does not suffice.
xxxxx Our course will explore the surrealist impulse in poetry by reading selections from André Breton, Suzanne Césaire, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, The Surrealist Book of Games, and a sampling of contemporary poetry. In addition, for context we will read excerpts from Sigmund Freud, screen Buñel and Dali's film, and review a cross-section of major Surrealist art by Joan Miró and Man Ray, among others. (ALS-L)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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English 276: Literature and the Environment (Cross Disciplinary) (Mark Allister) xxxx
xxxxx In this course we will read nonfiction, fiction, and poetry that will help us explore the complex relationships between humans and "nature.” We will consider questions such as the following: What is a sense of place, and how does that influence our sense of "home"? How is character shaped by landscape? What are the relations between geography and spirituality? Do men and women experience wilderness differently, and if so, for what reasons? What, historically, have been the dominant American attitudes toward landscape? How are issues of environmental justice fashioned into literary texts? As we address such issues, we'll also reflect about how we (and the writers we're reading) put landscape and experiences into language, how terrain becomes text. Writers may include Jon Krakauer, Barbara Kingsolver, Gretel Ehrlich, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Oliver, Scott Russell Sanders, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard, Wallace Stegner, and Margaret Atwood.(ALS-L)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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English 280: Topics in Genre: Early English Drama (Genre) (Karen Marsalek)
xxxxx This course will focus on the development of two genres—comedy and tragedy—in English drama from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Our examination will take us from the black humor of medieval Crucifixion plays through a knock-down, drag-out, vulgar farce first performed by students at Cambridge University and on into a romantic comedy of Shakespeare and satirical city comedy of Ben Jonson. As we work together to define “tragedy,” we’ll consider biblical plays and moral interludes as well as the treatment of human aspiration in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, justice and vengeance in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, and domestic violence in Arden of Faversham, a play “ripped from the headlines” of Renaissance England. In our examination of how drama is constructed, we will also analyze the stagecraft of the plays, wit and wordplay, and the cultural forces that shaped these works. We’ll consider what qualities help us identify tragedy and comedy, including (but not limited to) the classical descriptions offered by Aristotle. Videos will allow us to see some plays in performance, and assignments will include critical and creative writing as well as performance of one scene for our class.(ALS-L)
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent
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English 289: Journalistic Writing (Genre) (Jan Hill)
xxxxx This class will cover the basics of news and public affairs writing. You will learn how to find a good story, interview, research, write, and ultimately edit your own stories. And because print news heads the twenty-first century endangered-industry list and several iconic newspapers have recently shut down in this country, we will confront squarely the question of where news writing—and the field of journalism itself—is heading. You will learn to write for online news sources and to design and write your own news blog—and maybe even write a twitter or two.
Prerequisite: FYW or equivalent (WRI)
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English 291: Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing (Genre) (Jan Hill)
xxxxx Creative Nonfiction is a name given to the modern essay, distinguishing it from fiction but acknowledging its use of fictional techniques and its starting point in the creative imagination. In this course you will practice writing a variety of nonfiction pieces that might include a focused memoir, a reflection, a collage, cultural criticism, and literary journalism. (WRI)
Prerequisite: English 150 or previous college-level creative writing course with instructor's permission. For the academic year 2009-10, the prerequisities are FYW and sophomore standing.
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English 292: Intermediate Poetry Writing (Genre) (Jennifer Kwon Dobbs)
xxxxxA course in the craft of contemporary poetry, this course involves intensive reading and writing of contemporary poetry and an exploration of craft issues. The course is taught as a workshop. (WRI)
Prerequisite: English 150 or previous college-level creative writing course with instructor's permission. For the academic year 2009-10, the prerequisities are FYW and sophomore standing.
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English 345: Topics: American Racial and Multicultural Literature: Cultures of Desire (Jeff Solomon)
x Desire has a fraught relationship to cultural difference: who, how, and what we desire relates to issues of class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and sexual orientation in interesting, sometimes exciting, and sometimes unfortunate ways.  In this seminar, we will read literature and watch film produced in the United States after 1960 with an eye to how experiences, understandings, and representations of desire are differentiated by class, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation.  We will also consider how the dominant configurations of desire at this time and place affected the production, distribution, and reception of art—and so we will read early reviews of our texts, as well as journalism of relevant events.  As we explore and explode stereotypes such as the hyper-sexualized African-American; the Latin lover; the sexless Asian; the frigid, physically disassociated heiress; the down-to-earth working-class lover comfortable with his or her sexuality; the self-hating, promiscuous homosexual; and the repressed, alcoholic lesbian, we will trace various pressures on those who are viewed as culturally “different,” including the pressure to resist or fulfill the above stereotypes, the pressure to assimilate, and the pressure to adhere to the sexual standards of one’s subculture, which often differ both from the mainstream and the mainstream’s stereotypes of a subculture.  Texts include Junot Diaz, Drown; Joan Didion, Democracy; Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues; Jessica Hagedorn, Dogeaters; Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City; Toni Morrison, Sula; and Phillip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus, as well as some short stories, movies, and comics.n, Sula; and Phillip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus, as well as some short stories, movies, and comics.
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English 360: Literary Criticism and Theory (Molly Westerman)
xxxxx This class focuses on defining, classifying, analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and understanding literature. Students study both practical criticism (discussion of particular works or writers) and theoretical criticism (principles and criteria appropriate to literature generally). The course introduces a broad range of critical theories and provides an historical overview of the subject.
Prerequisite: English 185 plus one additional course of relevant background.
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English 372: Advanced Fiction Writing Workshop (Jenny Dunning)
xxxxx In this course we will take part in the conversation that is contemporary fiction--as writers, as readers, as thinkers. Students will write and workshop three stories during the semester, one of which will be substantially revised. Readings of contemporary fiction and theoretical perspectives on the craft of fiction wil inform our workshop.(WRI)
Prerequisite: English 150, English 257, or permission of instructor.
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English 395: Chaucer and Ethics [EIN] (Karen Cherewatuk)
xxxxxxCourtier, vintner's son, justice of the peace, amateur philosopher, and poet in his free time, Geoffrey Chaucer stood at the crossroads of the political, religious, and intellectual debates of his day. In this class we examine from a broadly cultural view these issues as reflected in his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. As we explore the medieval past, we simultaneously examine the Canterbury Tales through the lens of ethics, using readings in ethical theory to better understand moral questions, Chaucer's poetry, and ourselves--as interpreters of literature and moral agents.
xxxxx In class we will discuss the literature both in its historical and cultural context and in light of a variety of normative ethical perspectives drawn from the following: Aristolean, Kantian, Nietzchean, Marxist, Feminist and Christian perspectives (Augustinean, Boethian, Thomist)
xxxxxReadings from Chaucer will be done in the original Middle English, so students should have completed English 221 or have the instructor's permission; all should be willing to work with with the instructor on pronouncing the language. Written and oral assignments will be both critical and creative. (EIN)
Prerequisite: English 185 plus one additional course of relevant background.
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English 399: Major Seminar: Money and Virtue (Mary Titus)
xxxxx"Money often costs too much." --Ralph Waldo Emerson; "Virtue has never been as respectable as money." --Mark Twain; "The rich are different from you and me." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald; "Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't know where to shop." -- Gertrude Stein; "Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes." Oprah Winfrey.
xxxxxAmericans have always had mixed feelings about money. We want to do well, but we also want to do good--and we're not even sure if it is okay or even possible to do both of these at the same time. In this seminar we will read a wide variety of works by American writers that explore the relations (or lack thereof) between money making, wealth, and virtue. We will also explore the historical and cultural contexts of these works, seeking to identify contemporary discourses they engage. Finally, we will read some essays--theoretical, exhortatory, comic--about social class, affluence and identity, power and money. Seminar participants will write several short, informal, exploratory essays and one long research paper. Some literary works we might read include the following: Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography; essays by Ralph W. Emerson, Andrew Carnegie, Wendell Berry; Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie; Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country; Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities.
Prerequisite: English 185 plus one additional course of relevant background.
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