Semester I, 2013

General Education/Writing 111 or its equivalent is a prerequisite for all courses in the English department except some Level I Interim courses. While a few courses have additional prerequisities, most Level I and Level II courses are open to all -- majors and non-majors alike -- after General Education/Writing 111. Level III courses (numbered 300 or higher) are primarily for English majors and ordinarily build upon prior work. All Level III courses require as a prerequisite English 185 and at least one Level II course in an area of relevant background as confirmed by the instructor or the department. Any course offered in the English department can count as an elective in the major.


All English Courses:
English 150: Fundamentals of Creative Writing
English 185: Literary Studies
English 203: Asian American Literature (Cross Cultural, Post-1800)
English 205: American Racial and Multicultural Literature (Cross Cultural, Post-1800)
 English 220: Topic: Declarations of Independence in 19th Century American Literature (Literary History, Post-1800)
English 221: Literature in English to 1650 (Literary History, Pre-1800)
English 229: Twentieth Century British and Irish Literature (Literary History, Post-1800)
English 251: Topic: Chicano and Chiacana Authors (Cross Cultural, Post-1800)
English 258: Folklore (Cross Cultural, Post-1800)
English 260: Topic: Global Shakespeare (Cross Disciplinary, Pre-1800)
English 268: Literature and Modern Philosophy (Cross Disciplinary, Post-1800)
English 285: Digital Rhetorics and New Media Literacies (Genre, Posts-1800)
English 291: Intermediate Creative Writing: NonFiction (Genre)
English 292: Intermediate Poetry Writing (Genre)
English 293: Intermediate Fiction Writing (Genre)
 English 296: Screenwriting (Genre)
English 391: Seminar: Austen, Eliot, Woolf
English 395: Chaucer and Ethics
English 399: Seminar: Why Poetry?

English 150: Fundamentals of Creative Writing (Jennifer Kwon Dobbs)
xxxxx Through 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. (WRI)

English 185: Literary Studies
xxxxxThe foundation course of the English major, English 185 introduces students to poetic and dramatic form, narrative structure, and critical theory.  In addition, students engage with literature as a living practice and address its role in a culture by attending dramatic performance and readings by visiting writers and critics.  Although texts vary with the instructor, all sections explore the contemporary vitality of literatures in English and their strong connections to the past. (ALS-L, WRI)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent.

           185-A: Literary Studies (Colin Wells)
           185-B: Literary Studies (Joan Hepburn)
           185-C: Literary Studies (Diana Postlethwaite)

English 203: Asian American Literature (Cross Cultural, Post-1800) (Jennifer Kwon Dobbs)
xxxxxIn the Yellow Peril smack down, both the evil Asian and the good Asian strike exotic poses: Tokyo Rose - beautiful turncoat who lures U.S. soldiers to their deaths - versus Suzie Wong - Hong Kong hooker with a heart of gold, which she's eager to give away to white male tourists. These U.S. cultural scripts along with Kato v. Fu Manchu, model minority v. unassimilable alien, among others imagine Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in violent ways that have supported U.S. policies such as the exclusionary acts, Japanese internment, Cold War orphan rescue and adoption, and post-9/11 racial profiling. This course introduces a cross-genre selection of writers whose artistry disrupts these stereotypes while raising significant questions about colonization, gender and sexuality, globalization, war and transnationalism. Ancillary readings in critical theory will enhance our discussions of Edith Maud Eaton, Carlos Bulosan, John Okada, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Sun Yung Shin, among other writers as well as some possible films. Students will make presentations, write essays, and take a midterm and final exam. (ALS-L, MCD)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 205: American Racial and Multicultural Literature (Cross Cultural, Post-1800) (Joan Hepburn)
xxxxxThis course explores the experiences of an array of citizens in the U.S.: Native Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans. Our study covers such themes as their double consciousness, alienation, survival strategies, Americanization, and especially their unique stories and cultural traditions. In addition multicultural writers understandably express a concern with voice, and many of their protagonists' desire to be heard and understood, at times around issues of gender, beauty, and violence. Linked to this issue of personal voice is protagonists' search for an identity, a quest prompting them to embrace their ancestral pasts, only they cast the customs they come to value in the English language. Attention is given then to ways in which they mold the English language around their ethnocentric world views and narrative structures, separate at times from those of mainstream white Americans. Aspects of culture differ within groups, as well. Of interest, too, are diverse images of mainstream identity and cultural practices, especially as they are projected in the media. In any case, our approach is literary.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L, MCD)

English 220: Topics in Literary History: Declarations of Independence in 19th Century American Literature (Literary History, Post-1800) (Carol Holly)
xxxxxThis course examines the history of nineteenth-century American literature by focusing on the topic of freedom. Writing in the decades before the Civil War, many writers embraced the idea of literary independence for American writers, spiritual liberation from the religious institutions of the past, and the opportunity for unlimited development of the self. Others were concerned with the possibilities of freedom from slavery, from marriage, or from economic oppression. As they attempted to create more realistic and regional representations of American life after the war, writers continued the effort to liberate their writing from the constraints of the past and to dramatize the possibility of (or limits to) freedom in post-war America.  Developments in a variety of genres--the novel, the short story, the autobiographical narrative, and poetry—will be considered. Among the writers we may consider: Irving, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Fern,  Fuller, Stowe, Douglass, Dickinson, Twain, James, Freeman, Crane, Chopin. (WRI, ALS-L)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 221: Literature in English in 1650 (Literary History, Pre-1800) (Karen Marsalek)
xxxxxThis course traces the early development of the English language and its literatures, offering a journey through a thousand years of our literary heritage through poetry, prose and drama.  We will begin with the heroic Old English poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, including the monster-slayers Beowulf and Judith and then move to Middle English narratives of knightly courtesy and spiritual adventure,  In the second part of the semester, we’ll explore how early modern writers like Shakespeare, Spenser and Lady Mary Wroth celebrate and criticize Petrarchan ideals, humanist learning, nationalist identity, and finally we will follow the voyage of English from Britain to the Americas.   We’ll consider how our language has changed from Anglo-Saxon, the tongue of conquering tribes coming to the British Islands; through Middle English, the stage of the language under the influence of invaders from France; to early modern English, a stage ushered in by the invention of printing.  English 221 counts as a Literary History course and a pre-1800 course in the English major requirements. 
Prerequisite: WRI 111 or its equivalent.

English 225: Neoclassical and Romantic Literature (Literary History, Pre-1800) (Colin Wells)
xxxxxNo two successive periods of English and American literature contrast more starkly than the Neoclassical and Romantic periods. The Neoclassical period (1680-1790), which coincided with the Enlightenment and the lead-up to the American Revolution, emphasized reason and moderation and focused on representing and improving the world as it is; the Romantic period (1790-1840), arising against the backdrop of the French Revolution, celebrated imaginative excess and the prospect of escaping the world as it is for one far stranger and more exciting. In this course we will read important works from both periods, from England, Ireland and America, and we'll examine them stylistically, thematically and as social and historical commentary. Are you a Romantic or Neoclassical at heart? Take the course and find out. This course offers ALS-L credit for General Education, and counts toward the Literary History and pre-1800 requirements of the English major. (ALS-L)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 229: Twentieth Century British and Irish Literature (Literary History, Post-1800) (Jonathan Naito)
xxxxx Twentieth-century British and Irish literature has long been identified with experimentation, particularly in its early, "modernist" phase. In this course, we will spend the bulk of our time considering the work of innovative poets, playwrights, and writers of fiction active during the first half of the century, including W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and T.S. Eliot. However, we will also examine postwar writing and the challenges that it offered to the theories and practices of modernism. Throughout the course, we will read each text in its historical, social, and cultural context. Among other issues, we will discuss the relationship between literature and the other arts, the impact of the two world wars, the relationship between Britain and Ireland, the demise of the British Empire, the rise of youth culture, and the changing attitudes toward gender, sexuality, and race. (ALS-L, WRI) Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 251: Major Chicano and Chicana Authors (Cross Cultural, Post-1800) (Carlos Gallego)
xxxxxChicano/a identity is perhaps one of the most misunderstood racial/ethnic subjectivities in the United States. It encompasses many possible identities--such as Latino, Hispanic, and Mexican-American--while remaining politically and culturally distinct in its intended signification. Among all the racial and ethnic identities in the United States, it is perhaps the most politicized subject position, and intentionally so. The history of the term "Chicano/a" is itself defined by cultural tension, historical strife, and heated political debate. It is a term that many people, even those who technically qualify as Chicano or Chicana, feel uncomfortable with.
xxxxx The main purpose of this course is to explore constructions of Chicano/a identity as expressed through the literature produced after the Civil Rights Movement (post-1964), with the intention of demystifying the contentious history underlying this subjectivity. By focusing primarily on the formation of Chicano/a identity in the U.S., the course aims at investigating the various discourses that influence the development of racial subjectivity in general. We will pay particular attention to theories that have influenced modern notions of agency, citizenship, and identity, specifically those intellectual traditions that adopt and modify Enlightenment principles of democratic equality and social justice, such as Marxism, existentialism, and psychoanalysis. Although the literary readings will focus specifically on Chicano/a texts, a comparative analysis with other racial identities is encouraged for discussion and research. Students are also encouraged to explore the intersections of the literary texts with the theoretical readings, examining how one medium accommodates, challenges, and even transforms the other.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 258: Folklore (Cross Cultural) (Joseph Mbele)
xxxxx Focuses on verbal folklore: narratives, songs and shorter forms such as proverbs. Explores the intrinsic qualities of each as literary creations and also the ways in which they operate together when combined or in dialogic relationship. The folktale or the epic, for example, incorporates a variety of these forms, such as the proverb, the song, or the riddle, to form a complex whole. (ALS-L, MCS-G)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 260: Topic: Global Shakespeare (Cross Disciplinary, Pre-1800) (Karen Marsalek)
xxxxxWhen Shakespeare first penned, "All the world's a stage" near the end of the sixteenth century, his plays were being performed on the stage of the Globe Theater in London. Over the last 400 years, the entire globe has become a stage for Shakespeare's plays, and this course will chart some of those journeys through space and time. We will study five or six of Shakespeare's plays from several genres (comedy, tragedy, history, or romance), first placing them in their initial historical context, and then examining how these works have been adapted, appropriated, revised and represented in performances around the world. Examples of such global responses may include Sulayman Al Bassam's The Al-Hamlet Summit, set in a contemporary Middle Eastern state in political upheaval, Othello as performed in South Africa and also in contemporary adaptations by Canadian and American women playwrights Ann-Marie Macdonald and Paula Vogel, and A Midsummer Night's Dream as performed by Korean and Chinese companies. Our "texts" will thus include dramatic scripts, films and videos of productions (as well as live performance if possible), reviews, literary criticism and contextual documents to assist our entry into the particular cultural framework of each adaptation. Students should be ready to dig into the material through class discussion, critical and creative writing, a researched presentation and a performance project. "Global Shakespeare" carries ALS-L credit, and counts as a pre-1800 course and a Cross Disciplinary course for the English major.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 268: Literature and Modern Philosophy (Cross Disciplinary, Post-1800) (Carlos Gallego)
xxxxx The primary aim of this course is to introduce students to the "dialectic of modernity" initiated by Hegel's views concerning the development of History as Self-Consciousness. We will study Hegel's theory of the master-slave dialectic, and how this model of human consciousness has been developed and modified throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some of the theorists that will be covered include Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Adorno, Sartre, Lacan, Foucault, and Badiou. We will also discuss the impact of modernity on individual consciousness, paying particular attention to the issues of madness, criminality, and political oppression, as well as the more traditional analytic categories of race, gender and class. In order to facilitate our discussion of these abstract issues, we will do "close readings" of American texts that address these concerns. The writers we will read include Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon, Delillo, and Pineda. (ALS-L)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 285: Digital Rhetoric's and New Media Literacies (Genre, Post-1800) (Rebecca Richards)
xxxxxThis course examines what it means to be "literate" in an age of new media reading, writing, and publishing practices. Students will explore how we read, interpret, and learn from a video game (a meme or a wiki) in (dis) similar ways from a book, a poem, or a play. In particular, this class examines how "participatory culture" shapes our changing literacy habits and proficiencies. This class will use, as primary texts, multi-modal sources such as mashups; digital fan fiction; video games; Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook, VOIP-technologies; and IM--just to name a few. In the examination of these texts, students will read the emerging critical scholarship about new media literacies from henry Jenkins, Sherry Turkle, Naomi Baron, Laura Gurak, Lisa Nakamura. Students will produce a digital humanities project as a capstone to the course, examining the social good of making humanities scholarship more "public" and the drawbacks of such expectations. No specific computer proficiencies will be necessary for taking this course beyond a cursory understanding of word processing, social media, and digital presentation software.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent

English 291: Intermediate Nonfiction Writing (Genre) (Ben Percy)
xxxxxCreative 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: GE/WRI 111 and sophomore standing or English 150

English 292: Intermediate Poetry Writing (Genre) (Kaethe Schwehn)
xxxxx This course provides a general overview of the craft of poetry with attention to contemporary prosody. In addition to learning a portable craft vocabulary, students will read established and emerging 20th-21st Century poets for aesthetic models to inform their artistic processes and to develop their literary sensibilities. Through discussion in seminar and workshop settings, students will strengthen their knowledge of contemporary poetry's possibilities and apply them to their own creative work. Course assignments will consist of workshop responses, class presentations, short papers, and a portfolio of original writing. (WRI)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 and sophomore standing or English 150

English 293: Intermediate Fiction Writing (Genre) (Ben Percy)
xxxxxA course in the craft of contemporary fiction, this class involves intensive reading and writing of contemporary short fiction and exploration of craft issues. The writing process—that is drafting, developing, experimenting, revising—will be emphasized over product.. (WRI)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 and sophomore standing or English 150

English 296: Screenwriting (Genre) (Thomas Pope)
xxxxxWant to write a script for that short film that's living in your head? Do you dream of becoming a screenwriter and want to see where the rubber meets the road? Or do you just want to learn the fundamentals of screenwriting? This class will provide powerful tools to let the genie out of the bottle and help you understand why a movie works or doesn't work. Organized in a workshop structure, each week each student will write an assignment, starting with short exercises, progressing to a series of short movie scripts, and culminating in ten and then fifteen minute scripts. In learning through doing, students will come to understand the basics of structure, dialogue, character and dramatic situations. Each week each assignment will be read aloud in class and critiqued in an atmosphere which will be supportive, encouraging, and a lot of fun. (WRI)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 and sophomore standing or English 150

English 391: Seminar: Jane Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf (Diana Postlethwaite)
xxxxxThis course will provide the opportunity for in-depth exploration of three great British novelists, whose work spans three literary periods (the age of reason, the Victorian era, and the modernist revolution).  All three brilliantly explored and exploited the formal potential of this relative newcomer among literary genres, “the novel. “    We will read two or three works by each author (texts such as Austen’s Mansfield Park and Emma; Eliot’s Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch; Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway).  Our goals will be both to trace the continuity and development of themes within each writer, and to explore issues of literary influence (how does Eliot re-vision Austen?  How does Woolf both re-read and revise Austen and Eliot?).   In the course of the semester, we shall find ourselves tracing the dramatic evolution of a literary genre and the historical times which shaped it, from the late-l8th-century world of Austen to the early twentieth-century world of Woolf.
Prerequisite: Open to rising juniors and seniors who have completed English 185 and at least two level-II English courses or by permission of the instructor.

English 395: Chaucer and Ethics (Karen Cherewatuk)
xxxxxCourtier, 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 the Middle Ages. In this class we examine from a broadly cultural view these issues as reflected in his greatest works, the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. As we explore the medieval past, we simultaneously use readings in ethical theory to better understand moral questions, Chaucer's poetry, and ourselves--as interpreters of literature and moral agents. Readings in ethics range from Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, Kant, Nietzche, Marx, and de Beauvoir.
xxxxxBecause we read Chaucer in the original Middle English, majors should have completed the pre-1800 course at level II. Written and oral assignments will be both critical and creative and include one long research essay. Please note: This seminar meets at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and you have to be awake to earn that EIN credit. (EIN)
Prerequisite: Open to rising juniors and seniors who have completed English 185 and at least two level-II English courses or by permission of the instructor.

English 399: Seminar: Why Poetry? (Jonathan Naito)
xxxxxIn a short essay titled "Why Lyric?" (2008), Jonathan Culler draws attention to the imbalance between the status of poetry and the status of narrative in contemporary literary studies, and, indeed, in the broader culture. Narrative is seemingly everywhere, "narrative is treated not as one possible literary from but as the very condition of experience," while "poetry is alive in our culture, but in its own world." This seminar shall take Culler's observation as an invitation to turn--or return-- to poetry and its place in literary studies. What is this world of poetry, and how distinct is it from its cultural context(s)? How has it varied over time, and how does it vary from one cultural context to another? How might we attend to the unique qualities of poetry while also making use of the varied methodologies of twenty-first century literary and cultural studies, methodologies that have been concerned first and foremost with narrative? These will be our central questions.
xxxxxEnglish 399 is an unusual, hybrid course; it is both an advanced, discussion-based seminar and a writing workshop that centers upon the production of a 15- to 20-page term paper. As is standard for English 399, the focus of the seminar will shift at the midpoint of the semester. The first half of the semester will be devoted to three tasks: establishing a common foundation for the study of poetry, developing a working knowledge of the history of the poetry in theory and practice, and becoming acquainted with contemporary scholarship on the poetry in various periods, cultural contexts, and modes. In the second half of the semester, each student will produce a term paper on an original topic related to our theme, and many class sessions will be devoted to writing workshops and individual paper conferences. For the term paper, students may choose to focus on English-language poetry from any historical period. Prerequisite: Open to rising juniors and seniors who have completed English 185 and at least two level-II English courses or by permission of the instructor.