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Semester II, 2013

General Education 111/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 prerequisites, most Level I and Level II courses are open to all -- majors and non-majors alike -- after General Education 111/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.

These course are still in transition, there will be additions and changes over the next few months.

All English Courses:
English 150: Fundamentals of Creative Writing
English 185: Literary Studies
English 205: American Racial and Multicultural Literature (Cross Cultural/Post-1800)
English 206: Topics: African Literature (Cross Cultural/Post-1800)
English 220: Topics in Literary History: Corpse and Corpus in Early English Literature (Pre-1800/Literary History)
English 229: 20th Century British and Irish Literature (Literary History/Post-1800)
English 242: Children's Literature (Genre)
English 246: Women Writers Poetry (Genre)
English 255: Backgrounds to Literatures in English: Allusion, Influence, and Intertextuality (Elective)
English 256: Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Genre/Pre-1800)
English 264: Gender and Literature: Postcolonial approaches to Gender (Cross Disciplinary/Post-1800)
English 260: Topics: Art, Design and Literature 1950 (Cross Disciplinary/Post-1800)
English 275: Literature and Film: Crime, Madness, and Civilization (Cross Disciplinary/Post-1800)
English 280: Topics: 19th Century American Novel (Genre)
English 287: Professional and Business Writing (Genre)
English 289: Journalistic Writing (Genre)
English 293: Intermediate Creative Fiction Writing (Genre)
English 330: Topic: History of the Book
English 345: Topics: American Racial and Multicultural Literatures Topic: Voices in American Drama: Tradition, Play, and Agency
English 372: Advanced Fiction Writing
English 399: Seminar: Literature and History

English 150: Fundamentals of Creative Writing (Kathe Schwehn)
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) Top of page

English 185: Literary Studies
xxxxx The 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.
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185-A: Literary Studies (Carol Holly)
185-B: Literary Studies (Karen Marsalek)
185-C: Literary Studies (Jennifer Kwon Dobbs) a

English 205: American Racial and Multicultural Literature (Cross Cultural/Post-1800) (Joan Hepburn)
xxxxx This 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)x
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English 206: Topics: African Literature (Cross Cultural/Post 1800) (Joseph Mbele)
xxxxx African 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.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L, MCG)
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English 220: Topics in Literature: Corpse and Corpus in Early English Literature (Literary History/Pre-1800) (Karen Marsalek)


xxxxxThis course focuses on afterlives in and of literature from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The “corpse” of the title refers to the human bodies in the texts we will study —bodies that may experience pleasure, suffer pain and even martyrdom, and ultimately decay, as the spirit experiences some kind of afterlife. However, despite conceptions of the afterlife, the dead remained an important presence for the living, as intercessors, apparitions, ghosts and saints. The “corpus” is the body of a text—a story that is revisited by authors over time, in an afterlife of its own, as the death of Lucretia is told and retold from classical authors through Chaucer, Shakespeare and Middleton.  
            Texts may include medieval saints lives and ghost stories, selections from Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, The Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales, medieval biblical drama and Everyman, Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece, Hamlet, and The Winter’s Tale, Thomas Middleton’s Ghost of Lucrece and The Lady’s Tragedy, and poetry and prose by John Donne.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L)
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English 229: 20th Century British and Irish Literature (Literary History/Post-1800) (Jonathan Naito)
xxxxxTwentieth-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 major poets, playwrites, 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. Likely authors for this part or our syllabus include Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill, and Hanif Kureishi. 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 Britian and Ireland, the demise of the British Empire, the rise of British youth culture, and changing atitudes toward gender, sexuality, and race. (ALS-L, WRI)
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent.
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English 242: Children's Literature (Genre) (Jan Hill)
xxxxxWe'll begin by looking briefly at some traditional children's literature: fairy tales; books of manners;  chapbooks filled with myths, classical romances, and hero tales; cautionary or didactic religious stories meant to keep children on a righteous path. We’ll study classic and contemporary picture books, then turn to chapter books for children and novels for young adults. Students will read a range of fantasy, science fiction, young adult realism and, at the end of the semester, a sampling of wonderful children's poetry.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L)
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English 246: Women Writers Poetry (Genre) (Mary Titus)
xxxxxIn this class we will read works by American women poets from Anne Bradstreet to the present. The class will begin with a brief review of poetic form and then move chronologically from colonial to contemporary women poets.   Texts for the class might include some of the following: Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook; Cheryl Walker, ed. American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century; Florence Howe, ed. No More Masks!; Erlene Stetson, ed. Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980; Emily Dickinson, Complete Poems; Rita Dove, Selected Poems; Adrienne Rich, The Facts of a Doorframe. At the end of the semester, women poets from the St. Olaf and Northfield community will read from their work in our class.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L, WRI)
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English 255: Backgrounds to Literatures in English: Allusion, Influence, and Intertextuality (Elective)
(Karen Cherewatuk)
xxxxx This course introduces students to canonical texts (for example, the epics of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante and medieval romance) and explores their influence on various authors writing in English (for example, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Aphra Behn, T.S. Eliot, H.D., William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Sam Selvon).  Rather than study classic works as isolated masterpiece, students explore how and why later writers and artists use these texts to shape their vision of the human experience. We examine the difference between author's use of allusion and influence and explore theories of intertextuality. Attention given to visual as well as textual uses of influence.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L and ORC)
Please note: Students who have completed or are enrolled in the Great Conversation program should not register for this course since it duplicates works you have already studied.
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English 256: Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Genre/Pre-1800) (Mary Trull)
xxxxxStudents examine a limited number of plays (eight or nine) in order to concentrate on how to read the plays well and how to respond fully to both text and performance. Students attend live performances when possible and view productions on video. The course, designed especially for non-majors, includes some consideration of historical context and background as well as practice in how to write about the plays.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L)
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English 260: Topics: Art, Design and Literature 1950 (Cross Disciplinary/Post-1800) (Jonathan Naito)
xxxxxAfter playing a central role in the Industrial Revolution and ruling over one of the largest of Europe’s modern empires, by the end of the Second World War Britain found itself in the considerable shadow of the United States in economic, geopolitical, and cultural terms. Nonetheless, as the austerity of the 1940s gave way to a postwar economic boom, Britain emerged as a major force in a number of creative fields, from music to fashion, product design to architecture. This course will trace the flourishing of British creativity in art, design, and literature during this fascinating period. For our purposes, all three of these fields will be defined broadly. Literary texts will include short fiction, drama, poetry, and film. In terms of art, the course will cover prominent figures (such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Chris Ofili, and Tracey Emin) and major movements (such as Pop Art and the Young British Artists), and it will necessarily cut across a wide array of media. The design component of the course will take its lead from “British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age,” a recent exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Students will be asked to consider work in the design fields referenced above as well as other objects and images produced by British designers. More information about the “British Design 1948-2012” exhibition can be found on the V & A website.
Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L)
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English 264: Gender and Literature: Postcolonial approaches to Gender (Cross Disciplinary/Post-1800)
(Sarah Stein)
xxxxxThis section of Gender and Literature will focus on colonial and postcolonial approaches to gender. How have attitudes toward colonialism and postcolonialism been shaped by attitudes about gender and the role of women in society? Throughout the history of British colonialism how have women from both the culture of colonization and the culture of the colonized viewed their own roles? We will begin by looking at British attitudes toward colonization and gender in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and then turn to the twentieth-century postcolonial narratives of women in the former British colonies.
xxxxxTexts may include: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters from Turkey, poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Moore, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oscar Wilde's Salomé,Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, stories from Ama Ata Aidoo, Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day, and supplemental readings from postcolonial theorists Edward Said and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. (ALS-L)

English 275: Literature and Film: Crime, Madness, and Civilization (Cross Disciplinary/Post-1800) (Carlos Gallego)
xxxxxThe ways in which a given community defines and manages issues of justice, criminality, and punishment have served as a standard for evaluating that community’s status as either civilized or cruel, enlightened or barbaric, progressive or regressive. As philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault have argued, such binaries oversimplify what always proves to be a much more complicated set of problems. Thus, what may appear to be a more civilized or humane manner of punishment may actually mask a more sinister approach to disciplining entire populations into submission or uncritical obedience.
xxxxxThis class will examine literary and cinematic representations of crime and madness within the context of twentieth and early twenty-first century American civilization. We will explore questions of historical progress, ethical conduct, and morality as they relate to the establishment and maintenance of the nation-state.  Some authors and filmmakers that we will study include Dreiser, Capote, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Nolan, Scorsese, Lynch, Coppola, Thomas Anderson, and the Cohen brothers.
Prerequisite: Writing 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L)
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English 280: Topics: 19th Century American Novel (Genre) (Carol Holly)
xxxxxThis course will explore the rich and varied tradition of the American novel from the historical romance of the early 1800s to the realistic novel of the late nineteenth century. Attention will be paid not only to the ways in which writers adapted the highly flexible novel form to their own uses, attempting in the process to represent and/or critique American life, but also to the development of the novel form throughout the century. Some of the traditionally defined “classics” will be taught alongside novels that, though less familiar to many readers, are central to our understanding of the American novel and its the tradition(s).

Possible texts: Lydia Maria Child’s Hobomok, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, Hannah Craft’s The Bondswoman’s Narrative, Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, Henry James’s The American, William Dean Howell’s The Rise of Silas Lapham, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and Charles Chesnutt’s House Behind the Cedars.
Prerequisite: Writing 111 or equivalent. (ALS-L)
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English 287: Professional and Business Writing (Genre) (Rebecca Richards)
xxxxxThis course gives students a hands-on opportunity to develop their use of writing strategies and technologies appropriate to workplaces. Course themes include: workplace practices, professional ethics, technology resources, promotional resources, and writing on behalf of an organization. Students create individual and collaborate projects including employment documents, proposals, brochures, memos, and other professional genres. Through case studies and client-based projects as part of a service-learning component, students analyze writing practices in a range of professional settings.
(WRI) Offered annually. Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent.
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English 289: Journalistic Writing (Genre) (Jan Hill)
xxxxxIn this class you will learn to write and edit what is broadly called “news,” covering newsworthy events, speeches, meetings, and the arts, and toward the end of the term you'll create your own news blog. To learn to craft stories, you will need to develop a critical ear for journalistic writing, so we will read and discuss current news media in class. You will also learn AP-style copy editing and substantive editing.
(WRI) Offered annually. Prerequisite: GE/WRI 111 or equivalent.
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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
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English 330: Topic: History of the Book (Mary Trull)
xxxxxThe book as we know it changed radically in the early modern period, which saw the invention of print, periodicals, the novel, and the practice of diary writing. This course will explore the material book and its impact on English literature from the invention of print to the beginnings of the modern novel. We will start with medieval books, and move to how print culture and manuscript culture shaped early modern poetry, how diaries and personal letters shaped the first English novels, and the beginnings of journalism and periodical literature. We will end by discussing how electronic media are now altering reading and literary production. Our reading will include literary works by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Aphra Behn, John Milton, and Daniel Defoe, as well as essays by Robert Darnton, Adrian Johns, and Joseph Loewenstein, and graphic nonfiction by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld. Writing assignments will include a couple of short papers and a longer research paper on a subject of each student’s choosing within the course topic.
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.
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English 345: Topics: American Racial and Multicultural Literatures Topic: Voices in American Drama: Tradition, Play, and Agency (Joan Hepburn)
xxxxxThis course explores drama in the United States, written by an array of writers from diverse cultures. We will, of course, examine elements of the drama such as plot, character, dialogue, and enactment; discuss key genres or kinds of plays; identify universal themes and important values, but also we will examine customs and aspects of everyday life in the context of several cultures. The course also raises questions about group representations, individual identity, and selected historical accounts. Many of the plays will fit into modern and postmodern perspectives or varied critical approaches, but in some ways the class will be cutting edge. For one thing we will read many of the required texts on line, and for another we will not only attend performances but students will get to choose the writers on whom they want to develop their graded projects. In other words, I have arranged the readings and performances to create a dialogue between dramas, but your own voice will figure prominently in our thinking about these plays.
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.
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English 372: Advanced Fiction Writing (Jenny Dunning)
xxxxxIn this course we will take part in the conversation that is contemporary fiction--as writers, as readers, as thinkers. Students will write and workshop two new stories during the semester, both of which will be further developed and revised. Readings of contemporary fiction and theoretical perspectives on the craft of fiction will inform our workshop.
Prerequisite: Open to students who have had the 200 level course in this genre or permission of the instructor.
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English 399: Seminar: Literature and History (Colin Wells)
xxxxxThe relationship between literature and history is one of the most fundamental issues in literary studies. Literary works represent history, but they also reflect and intervene in their own historical moments. This major seminar will examine these issues through both collective study of shared texts and individual research projects. In the first part of the course, we will read and discuss several literary and cultural works, from Shakespeare's Henry V to AMC's "Mad Men," and examine their connections to "history" from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. After this, students will pursue their own research projects on a relevant topic of their choice, and the course will morph into a workshop wherein students will teach and support each other through the research and writing process.
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.
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