ENG 2200: Introduction to English Studies
(73774)
M.W.F. 9:05 - 10:00 a.m.
Dr. Granville Ganter
This course is intended as a first course for English majors, a
practical introduction to the discipline of literary
interpretation. It will introduce students to the written
practices and theoretical means with which scholars create
meaning. We will begin the class by asking some important
questions about the nature of the "author," "literature," and the
"English department." The course will then turn to several
short works of prose, poetry, and drama that introduce students to
issues of genre, literary history, and basic theories of literary
interpretation. The course will offer practical training in
proposing, researching, and drafting papers for English
courses.
ENG 2200: Introduction to English Studies
(73773)
T.R. 10:45 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Jennifer Travis
This course is an introduction to the key terms and methodologies
of the English major, from the analysis of genre to literary
research and writing.
ENG 2300: Introduction to Literary
Criticism and Theory (71765)
T.R. 1:30 - 2:55 p.m.
Dr. John Lowney
This course is an introduction to literary theory and
criticism. It concentrates primarily on contemporary theories
of literary interpretation, from New Criticism and structuralism to
more recent poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist,
and postcolonialist theory. Through discussion of theoretical
essays and practical application of criticism to selected
literature, the course aims to both familiarize students with the
history of critical theory and to enhance their own critical
reading and writing skills.
ENG 2300: Introduction to Literary
Criticism and Theory (70808)
M.W.F. 1:25 - 2:20 p.m.
Prof. Lee Ann Brown
This course is designed to equip students with basic theoretical
tools for literary criticism and textual analysis. In addition to
understanding the history of English as a subject, and examining
recent developments in the field, we will read widely in
contemporary literary theory including Marxist, feminist and
post-colonial theories.
ENG 3110: Chaucer (72602)
M.W.F. 12:20 - 1:15 p.m.
Dr. Margaret Kim
In this course we will study the works of Chaucer, the most
widely-read and well-known medieval English poet. While we
will read Troilus and Criseyde and the majority of the tales in the
Canterbury Tales in modern English translation, we will consider
both the linguistic and cultural contexts of Chaucer's
works. Why does Chaucer's language sound so different from
ours and how is it related to ours as an "English" language? What
were the cultural, philosophical, and political ideas in the Middle
Ages that interested Chaucer? How do Chaucer's responses to
these ideas tell us about his attitudes towards social change and
cultural tradition? And from his discussion and treatment of
ideas, in what way can we say Chaucer is "modern" and in what way
can we connect with him? To better understand Chaucer's
language and our modern perspective on his culture, we will look at
some of the Canterbury Tales in the original, in what is called
Middle English (English spoken from the 12th through the 15th
century, before Shakespeare's time), and we will pay attention to
Chaucer's interest in political and cultural issues that are still
relevant for us today, such as gender relations, identity formation
and social class, and religious authority and reform.
ENG 3130: Shakespeare: Elizabethan Plays
(73659)
T.R. 10:45 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Leonora Brodwin
This course will cover the first half of Shakespeare's career,
whose end coincides with the death of Queen Elizabeth, a period in
which Shakespeare explores the various aspects of idealism with a
growing darkening of vision. Although largely concerned with
the genres of comedy and tragedy, the course begins with a study of
these genres in the context of political reality, in the history
play Henry IV, Part I. It then turns to the "dark" comedy of
The Merchant of Venice and the "golden" comedies of A Midsummer
Night's Dream and As You Like It the last two projecting a more
ideal world than that of restrictive society while the first deals
with deeper problems of gender and race. All three comedies
also project a new vision of woman and of her possibilities both
within and beyond marriage. The course culminates in study of
his Elizabethan tragedies, Romeo and Juliet, the greatest tragedy
of the ideal of Courtly Love, Julius Caesar, the greatest of
political tragedies, that of idealistic stoic revolutionaries, and
Hamlet, the greatest psychological tragedy, in which the central
cultural conflict of honor and religion is confronted in a manner
that destroys, while it redeems, this most tortures of
idealists.
ENG 3250: Victorian Literature
(72609)
T.R. 3:05 - 4:30 p.m.
Dr. Gregory Maertz
An examination of major sub-genres constituting the Victorian
novel, including science fiction, the realistic novel, the Gothic
novel, travel writing, detective fiction, and the novel of
adventure. Texts to include Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, George
Eliot, Middlemarch, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines, Bram Stoker, Dracula,
and Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness.
ENG 3330: African-American Literature to
1900 (73658)
M.W.F. ll:15 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Granville Ganter
This course will examine early U.S. African-American literature,
paying particular attention to the international dimensions of
black writing, a discursive and geographical domain currently known
as "the Black Atlantic." Stretching from African epic to
Chestnutt's The Marrow of Tradition, this course will study early
African-American writing in the context of European
imperialism. What kind of national or racial consciousness did
early African American artists have? What do we do with the
evidence, argued recently by Vincent Carretta, that the author of a
famous eighteenth-century slave narrative, Olaudah Equiano, may
have actually been born in South Carolina and "made up" his African
memories? In what way is the slave narrative, often taken to be the
ur-moment of African American writing, engaged with other
anglo-literary traditions? How does gender shape early
African-American literature? Principal readings will include
the Mali national epic, The Sundiata, Olaudah Equiano, Phillis
Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs/Linda Brent, Frances
Harper, and Charles Chesnutt.
ENG 3350: American Women Writers to 1900
(73662)
T.R. 3:05 - 4:30 p.m.
Dr. Jennifer Travis
This course will investigate the constructions as well as the
challenges to the "Cult of True Womanhood": the cult of purity,
piety, submissiveness, and domesticity that largely defined the
acceptable boundaries of female behavior from the nineteenth into
the early twentieth centuries. The sentimental novel, written
primarily by women in the mid-nineteenth century, sought to train
readers how to be good Christians; obedient daughters; selfless;
yet, self-reliant; as well as good consumers in a growing American
marketplace. Yet, domestic ideology and the literary conventions
that expressed that ideology often excluded working women and women
of color from the very definition of woman. We will begin with
the essayist Margaret Fuller who argues precisely this case in her
book Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): "Those who think the
physical circumstances of Woman would make a part in the affairs of
national government unsuitable are by no means those who think it
impossible for negresses to endure field work, even during
pregnancy." Fuller offers insights into the contradictions of
womanhood in antebellum America; we will carry the questions she
raises into our reading of the sentimental tradition as well as the
residual responses of several women writers of color through the
early twentieth century. The authors we will read include:
Zora Neal Hurston, Anzia Yezierska, Zitkala-Sa, Fanny Fern, Harriet
Wilson, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
ENG 3440: Contemporary Poetry
(73660)
T.R. 9:10 - 10:35 a.m.
Dr. John Lowney
This course is an introduction to important movements, trends, and
issues in postmodern poetry. Through intensive study of
selected North American and Caribbean writers, we will examine the
diversity of poetic traditions that have emerged in the second half
of the twentieth century. Beginning with the "New American
Poetry" of the 1950s and 60s and concluding with more recent
cross-cultural writing, this course will emphasize the interaction
of postmodern poetry with developments in the visual arts, music
and popular culture. Topics to be considered include the
relations of poetry to gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity,
politics and social protest, and history and autobiography.
ENG 3460: Contemporary Drama
(70812)
T.R. 1:30 - 2:55 p.m.
Dr. Angela Belli
An exploration of works by major dramatists in the contemporary
theater. The focus is on those playwrights who have so
transformed the stage as to enable it to transmit the culture of
our time. Playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco,
John Osborne, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard will be
studied. Dramatists whose works are currently being produced
on Broadway will be highlighted. Significant movements of the
time such as the Theater of the Absurd will receive particular
attention.
ENG 3500 (CLS 3500): Classical Literature
(71446)
M.W.F. 9:05 - 10:00 a.m.
Dr. Robert Forman
The course, as offered in Fall 2003, will analyze the nature of
power as the motif evolves in the literature of Greece and
Rome. Its organization, will be "diachronic" rather than
linear and pair works of Greece with those of Rome. Some of these
pairings will seem unlikely: for example, Homer's Odyssey (8th c.
B.C.) with Petronius's Menippean satire the Satyricon (1st c.
A.D.). Even so, Petronius was mindful of Odysseus's adventures when
he created his own hero Encolpius ("Crotch"). In both works
acquisition of material goods and what not having them implies is a
recurring element. The course will also consider how the ancient
world presented the theme of power in its art. Fine arts
majors, psychology majors, and classical civilization minors should
also find it interesting.
ENG 3690: Special Topics in Cultural
Studies: The Holocaust (73656)
T.R. 1:30 - 2:55 p.m.
Dr. Gregory Maertz
An introduction to some major works of fiction and memory that
recount the destruction of Jewish lives and property during the
Third Reich (1933-1945). Texts to include Tadeusz Borowski,
This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Primo Levi, Survival in
Auschwitz, Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness, Michel
Tournier, The Ogre, and Art Spiegelman, Maus I and
II. Films to include Europa, Europa, Au revoir les infants,
and Schindler's List.
ENG 3720: Introduction to Creative Writing
(73655)
M.W.F. 10:10 - 11:05 a.m.
Prof. Lee Ann Brown
Students will complete manuscripts in poetry, fiction drama and/or
cross-genre creative writing in conjunction with in-class group
critique. We will work from models to engage with both
traditional and experimental literary forms to create new work. An
articulation of writing aesthetics, public distribution of creative
work and attendance of public literary events is required
ENG 3730: Poetry Workshop
(73657)
M.W.F. 2:30 - 3:25 p.m.
Prof. Lee Ann Brown
Students will use methods such as group critique, revision, writing
from models, and engagement with traditional and experimental
poetic forms to develop a manuscript of poetry. An
articulation of poetics, public distribution of creative work and
attendance of public literary events is required.
ENG 3740: Creative Writing: Fiction
(73775)
W. 3:35 - 6:20 p.m.
Prof. Thomas Philipose
This fiction writing workshop will focus on your writing and your
thoughts. We will not rely on the thoughts/styles/critiques of
others to help us become careful readers and diligent
writers. An experimental and non-traditional approach will be
encouraged to help elicit fresh, unique work that reflects the
individual writers in our workshop. The majority of our
classwork will entail reading and discussing your stories. We will
use texts from various genres/media as guides for discovery of what
your voice/style can be.
ENG 4991: Seminar in British Literature:
The Cultural Poetics of Shipwreck (73661)
M.W.F. 11:15 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Steven Mentz
Why was the film "Titanic," despite bad acting, horrible dialogue,
and a tedious plot, the smash hit of 1997? Perhaps because the
star of the show was neither Leonardo di Caprio nor Kate Winslet,
but the ship itself, and the classical tale of her going down on
her maiden voyage. Shipwreck, this course asserts, has a
meaningful poetic structure that can be discovered by examining its
recurring appearances in Western culture. Readings will
include literary depictions of shipwreck from The Odyssey to The
Tempest to Conrad's Lord Jim and the 2002 Booker Prize-winning
novel, Life of Pi. We will compare these fictional accounts
with historical records, including the sixteenth-century shipwreck
tales collected as The Tragic History of the Sea and an oral
history of the Titanic, A Night to Remember. We will also
consider works that are largely fictional but have a basis in fact,
including Robinson Crusoe, Moby-Dick, and Don Juan Canto
II. By juxtaposing the rhetoric of fiction and history, and by
considering a series of explanations of shipwreck - from the wrath
of an angry god to human error in the engine room - we will explore
shipwreck's representations of the relationship between human
agency and mortality, the dependence of life on chance, and the
nature of risk and catastrophe.
ENG 4993: Seminar in Special Authors:
Dante and Pound (72611)
T.R. 10:45 - 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Stephen Sicari
Dante's Commedia - the great medieval Italian epic - is one of the
most famous and influential poems in the literary history of the
West, and Ezra Pound is one of its most insightful and creative
readers. He appreciates both the beauty and the enormous
ambitions of Dante's epic, and feels so challenged by its authority
that he commits his career to writing a modern American epic poem,
one that will update Dante and do for America in the twentieth
century what Dante did for Italy and Europe in the
fourteenth. We will read Dante's Vita Nuova and all three
sections of the Commedia and then turn to what many consider to be
the most important and certainly the most experimental modernist
poem, Pound's The Cantos. The genre of the epic, the relation
of poetry to history, politics, and spirituality, and the relation
of the modern to the medieval and of the "present" to the "past" as
historical concepts, will be among the course's main themes.