English Department Course Descriptions

Fall 2008

 

 

ENG 207 001  BEGINNING WKSP IMAG WRITING: FICTION      M 3:00-5:30                 Howell

Note: Course start date 09/08/08; Course end date 12/15/08

 

ENG 207 002  BEGINNING WKSP IMAG WRITING: FICTION      R 3:30-6:00                 Howell

 

ENG 207 003  BEGINNING WKSP IMAG WRITING: POETRY     W 3:00-5:30                 Howell

 

ENG 207 004  BEGINNING WKSP IMAG WRITING: FICTION      T 3:30-6:00                 Cardiff

 

ENG/LIN 210 001  HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE              MW 4:00-5:15            O’Hara

This is an introductory course in the History of the English Language in which we will study the ways in which English has developed from its origins to modern times.

 

PURPOSE of the course:  To answer the following questions: Where does Modern English come from? How has English changed over the last 1500 years? What do those changes show us about the process of language change in general? What influence have class, race, gender, and politics had on the development of English? What are some of the more common myths about language and why are they wrong? What is the future of English as a world language?

 

METHOD: The course will be structured around readings from The Story of English, supplemented by the SOE videos, by additional readings from the Encyclopedia, and Language Myths, as well as by handouts. Students will be expected to do the assigned readings before class and to participate in instructor-led discussions of the material.

 

EVALUATION: Four exams based on the assigned readings and selected videos; daily quizlets on the homework readings. No cumulative mid-term or final. 

 

TEXTS:  The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. David Crystal,

2d edition, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

                Language Myths. (eds) Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill, Penguin, 1998.

                The Story of English. Robert McCrum, 3d edition. Penguin Books, 2002.

 

NOTES:          1) Students in the College of Communications can satisfy their Language           

requirement (under Option B) by taking ENG/LIN 210 and ENG/LIN                     211 in any order.

2) Attendance is mandatory from the first day of class for all students        

     including those on the waitlist.

 

ENG/LIN 210 401  HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE              MW 6:00-7:15            O’Hara

See description for ENG/LIN 210-001

 

ENG/LIN 210 402  HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE              TR 6:00-7:15              O’Hara

See description for ENG/LIN 210-001

 

ENG/LIN 211 001  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I              TR 3:30-4:45               Staff

 

ENG/LIN 211 002  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I              TR 5:00-6:15               Staff

 

ENG/LIN 211 003  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I  MWF 9:00-9:50                El-Guindy

 

ENG/LIN 211 004  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I  MWF 10:00-10:50            El-Guindy

 

ENG/LIN 211 005  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I              TR 11:00-12:15    Barrett

This course is an introduction to the scientific study of human language, with an emphasis on the fundamental principles of linguistic theory, and applications of these principles in the investigation of grammatical structure, language change, language universals and typology, writing systems. The course will also focus on the application of linguistic study to real-world problems, e.g. language and technology. Credit will not be given to students who already have credit for ENG 414G. (Same as LIN 211.)

 

ENG/LIN 211 006  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I              TR 2:00-3:15         Hippisley

 

ENG/LIN 211 007  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I              TR 2:00-3:15         O’Hara

SCOPE of the course:  Linguistics is the scientific study of human language as a system. Everyone knows a language – but what does it mean to know a language? How are languages different from one another? How are they similar? This course introduces students to the major sub-fields of linguistics, focusing on the structure of human language (phonology, morphology, syntax), and concludes with a consideration of semantics, the study of the ways in which we convey meaning  through language. We will also do a systematic survey of traditional English grammar.

METHOD: Daily quizlets; quizzes on individual chapters; exams on related chapters; frequent in-class and periodic homework assignments to reinforce what has been learned in class. No cumulative mid-term or final.

TEXTS:

1)   Relevant Linguistics, 2d edition. Paul W. Justice, Center for the Study of Language and Information, 2006.

2)    Essential English Grammar. Philip Gucker, Dover Publications, 1966.

 

ENG/LIN 211 008  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I  MWF 2:00-2:50                 El-Guindy

 

ENG/LIN 211 009  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I              TR 12:30-1:45             Staff

 

ENG/LIN 212 001  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS II             TR 9:30-10:45             Staff

 

ENG/LIN 212 002  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS II MWF 12:00-12:50             El-Guindy

 

ENG/LIN 212 003  INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS II             TR 3:30-4:45       Lauersdorf

 

ENG 230 001  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MWF 9:00-9:50                       Staff

 

ENG 230 002  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MWF 10:00-10:50                   Staff

 

ENG 230 003  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MWF 11:00-11:50                   Staff

 

ENG 230 004  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       TR 3:30-4:45                           Staff

 

ENG 230 005  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MWF 1:00-1:50                       Staff

 

ENG 230 006  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       TR 8:00-9:15                           Staff

 

ENG 230 007  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MWF 12:00-12:50                   Staff

 

ENG 230 008  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       TR 2:00-3:15                           Staff

 

ENG 230 009  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MW 3:00-4:15                         Staff

 

ENG 230 010  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       TR 9:30-10:45                         Staff

 

ENG 230 011  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       TR 11:00-12:15                       Staff

 

ENG 230 012  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MWF 2:00-2:50                       Staff

 

ENG 230 013  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       TR 12:30-1:45                         Staff

 

ENG 230 401  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE                       MW 6:00-7:15                         Staff

 

ENG 231 001  LITERATURE AND GENRE                         MWF 1:00-1:50                       Staff

 

ENG 231 401  LITERATURE AND GENRE                         TR 7:30-8:45                           Staff

 

ENG 232 001  LITERATURE AND PLACE                          MWF 12-12:50                        Staff

 

ENG 233 001  LITERATURE AND IDENTITIES                 TR 9:30-10:45                         Staff

 

ENG 234 001  INTRO TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE         TR 8:00-9:15                           Staff

 

ENG 234 002  INTRO TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE         MWF 11:00-11:50                   Staff

 

ENG 234 003  INTRO TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE         MWF 2:00-2:50                       Staff

 

ENG 261 001  WESTERN LIT: GREEKS—RENAISSANCE   MWF 10:00-10:50  Campbell, D.

English 261 is a course in which students satisfy the Graduation Writing Requirement by engaging in and writing about great literary works from the ancient world to the Renaissance. The course focuses on six great works that represent main elements in the evolving culture and helped shape our current world. As we trace the three periods, certain repeated themes will lend continuity to the course: life as a voyage or pilgrimage; human origins and purpose and therefore our relatedness to and alienation from nature, the gods, or God; the evolving concept of justice; the human as heroic, tragic, comic; what, for each author, seems to constitute success; and the place of the artist in or on the fringes of society.

 

ENG 261 002  WESTERN LIT: GREEKS—RENAISSANCE   MWF 11:00-11:50  Campbell, D.

See description for ENG 261-001

 

ENG 261 201  WESTERN LIT: GREEKS—RENAISSANCE   Distance Learning      Fulbrook

Contact the Distance Learning Office for more information: 257-3377.

 

ENG/AAS 264 001  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   MWF 8:00-8:50                       Staff

 

ENG/AAS 264 002  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   MWF 1:00-1:50                       Staff

 

ENG/AAS 264 003  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   MWF 2:00-2:50                       Staff

 

ENG/AAS 264 004  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   MW 3:00-4:15                         Staff

 

ENG/AAS 264 005  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   TR 11:00-12:15                       Staff

 

ENG/AAS 264 006  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   TR 2:00-3:15                           Staff

 

ENG/AAS 264 401  MAJOR BLACK WRITERS                   MW 7:30-8:45                         Staff

 

ENG 271 001  THE NEW TESTAMENT AS LIT                  MWF 9:00-9:50                       Staff

 

ENG 281 001  INTRODUCTION TO FILM                          TR 12:30-1:45                  Marksbury

 

ENG 281 002  INTRODUCTION TO FILM                          MWF 9:00-9:50                       Staff

 

ENG 281 003  INTRODUCTION TO FILM                          MWF 10:00-10:50                   Staff

 

ENG 281 004  INTRODUCTION TO FILM                          MWF 12:00-12:50                   Staff

 

ENG 281 401  INTRODUCTION TO FILM                          TR 6:00-7:15                           Staff

 

A&S 300 004  SPECIAL COURSE                                        TR 3:30-4:45                      Sengupta

BEYOND SONG AND DANCE: INDIAN FILMS AS POSTCOLONIAL TEXTS

Note:  This course is taught by English Instructor Aparajita Sengupta, but is listed under A&S 300-004.

India is among the largest film-producing countries of the world, and produces many kinds of films, including popular and parallel films in regional languages, musicals, independent films, documentaries and even English language films. The popular Hindi musicals produced in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), are the best-known Indian films, but can hardly represent the gamut of films made all over the country. This course will serve as an introduction to the various genres of films produced in post-independence India (films produced after India’s independence from England in 1945). Along with an introduction to the history of film in India, this course will also provide a survey of recent filmmaking modes and techniques, and an overview of both regional language and Hindi/Urdu films from India. We will also take into account the issues that are vital to India as a postcolonial nation; issues like economic class, language, identity, nationalism, and the diaspora would all be considered in assessing the films.

 

AC 301 001  TOPICS IN AMERICAN CULTURE                T 3:00-5:30                            Clymer

RACE/SEX/MONEY & AMERICAN CULTURE

Note:  This course is taught by English Professor Jeff Clymer, but is listed under American Cultures 301.

AC 301 is an interdisciplinary course, which means that we will read novels as well as historical documents, study photographs, and view movies.  This course is arranged around a particular theme, and our theme this semester will be the many and strange intersections of racial identity, sexuality, and money during the last 150 years in the US.  Slavery will loom large in the first weeks of the course, and, among other things, we’ll learn about white slave owners who tried to live in “normal” marriages with their enslaved “wives”.  We’ll read about the history of an enslaved woman put on trial for murdering her owner after years of sexual abuse.  When we turn to the 20th century, we will study about the life and times of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion who was arrested for crossing state lines in the company of white women, and we’ll also figure out if Jay Gatsby in Fitzgerald’s famous novel is really white—and if not, what that might all mean in a book so fascinated with family genes and family money.  During this section of the course (the 1920s), we will also read a novel about a fair-skinned African American woman who “passed” and became a wealthy, and troubled, white wife.  Finally, we will finish with one of the most monumentally cool books of the 20th century, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and the award-winning novel that rearticulated its themes for our contemporary moment in 2007’s Man Gone Down.  

Grade will be based on class participation, in-class presentations, and a final documentary project blending historical research and literary interpretation

Reading List:  Frank Webb, The Garies and Their Friends; Melton McLaurin, Celia, a Slave; Dora Apel and Shawn Michelle Smith, Lynching Photographs; Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition; Ken Burns, Unforgivable Blackness (documentary movie about Jack Johnson); F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Nella Larsen, Passing; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Michael Thomas, Man Gone Down

 

ENG 330 001  TEXT AND CONTEXT                                  MWF 1:00-1:50           Campbell, W.

SOUTHERN WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Using Drew Gilpin Faust’s Mothers of Invention as a guide for the semester, the class will study writings that reveal how Southern women negotiated the challenges, dislocations, redirections, and loses brought on by America’s Civil War. We’ll see our subject through the very different but equally revealing and often complementary lenses of biography, autobiography, social history, diary, memoir, and narrative fiction.

We’ll start with Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, then go on to Mary Chesnut’s diaries (The Private Mary Chesnut) and Sarah Katherine Stone’s Brokenburn. After midterm, we’ll move to two twentieth century interpretations of our subject, first in Ann

Blackman’s biographical study Wild Rose: Rose O’Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy, second in Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind. Each student will write two examinations and two essays; quiz scores, class attendance, and class participation will figure prominently in final grades.

 

ENG 330 002  TEXT AND CONTEXT                                  MWF 12:00-12:50                   Oaks

GHOST STORIES

 

ENG 330 003  TEXT AND CONTEXT                                  TR 2:00-3:15                          Allison

JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES

A course on the great modernist novel, James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), read in the context of a number of books which inspired Joyce as he conceived and wrote the novel, including Homer’s The Odyssey (of course), and Hamlet.  To begin, we shall read Joyce’s earlier novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which introduces Stephen Dedalus, a main character in the later novel.  Don Gifford’s compendious Ulysses Annotated will help us appreciate the labyrinth of reference and allusion, chapter by chapter.  Joyce claimed that he got the idea of interior monologue – which he developed into a fully-fledged stream of consciousness technique – from a novel by Edouard Dujardin, Les Lauriers Sonts Coupés (translated as We’ll to the Woods No More); we’ll read this too. Other contexts of the novel to explore include biographical, historical and political backgrounds, and relevant supplementary readings will be provided. Also, we shall think about the critical reception of the novel, how it was read (and censored) in the 1920s and after, how it plays a crucial role in the history of modernism, and how its influence may be discerned in the work of contemporary writers. Participation and attendance; occasional quizzes; three papers; final examination.

ENG 330 004  TEXT AND CONTEXT                                  MWF 10:00-10:50                   Staff

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ENG 330 005  TEXT AND CONTEXT                                  MWF 11:00-11:50                   Staff

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ENG 330 006  TEXT AND CONTEXT                                  TR 9:30-10:45                 MacDonald

JONSON, SHAKESPEARE, AND RENAISSANCE COMEDY

While Shakespeare's comedies are probably more familiar to students than comedies by any of his contemporaries, they are also probably the least typical works in this important Renaissance dramatic genre. This section of English 330 will set Shakespeare's comedies alongside those of one of his most important--and most radically different--contemporaries, Ben Jonson.

Through reading Shakespeare and Jonson side by side, students will be able to grasp some of the wide range of Renaissance comedy--how it was structured, what it laughed at, and the way it looked at the world. From studying these two professional rivals together, I hope students will develop a new appreciation of the breadth and accomplishment of both playwrights, and of this central Renaissance genre. Two papers, two exams, and a short project.

 

ENG 331 001  SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT I                         MWF 11:00-11:50             Giancarlo

         A survey of British literature from Beowulf to Dryden (500-1700), with special attention given to Chaucer, Langland, Sidney, Spenser, Raleigh, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton.

 

ENG 332 001  SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT II                                    TR 12:30-1:45                      Kalliney

A survey of British poetry, prose, and drama, 1700-Present.

 

ENG 333 001  STUDIES IN BRITISH AUTHOR(S)                        MWF 12:00-12:50                      Staff

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ENG 333 002  STUDIES IN BRITISH AUTHOR(S)                        MWF 1:00-1:50                          Staff

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ENG 334 001  SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT I                     TR 11:00-12:15                         Staff

 

ENG 335 001  SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT II                    TR 2:00-3:15                             Blum

 

ENG 335 401  SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT II                    TR 6:00-7:15                              Staff

 

ENG 336 001  STUDIES IN AMERICAN AUTHOR(S)        MWF 11:00-11:50                   Reece

NONFICTION

 

ENG 336 002  STUDIES IN AMERICAN AUTHOR(S)        TR 12:30-1:45                            Rust

TWICE-TOLD TALES

Every narrative act begins in response, but only a few acknowledge the debt.  This course examines books that do just that.  It focuses on novels that self-consciously begin as comment upon other novels, as well the novels they rewrite.  We begin with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; move to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Geraldine Brooks’ March; and end with Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, and Ian McEwan’s Saturday.  Occasionally, we will also view a film based on one of these texts.  We will study the novels in pairs, the original and the remake, treating each as both independent entity and critical commentary. How does the appropriation of a prior cultural moment construct a particular subsequent one? In what spirit does the later text proceed: homage, critique, revision, elaboration? How does it suggest we understand its predecessor? What aspects of the original does it highlight, and what does it obscure? These are a few of the questions we will ask in the service of becoming self-conscious, informed and articulate readers.

 

ENG 381 001  HISTORY OF FILM I                                     TR 9:30-10:45                  Marksbury

 

ENG 395 001  INDEPENDENT WORK        To be arranged with instructors

 

ENG 401 001  SPECIAL TOPICS IN WRITING                   TR 11:00-12:15                     Roorda

TRAVEL

Short titles mean big subjects.  Travel here means travel writing, for starters—the genre that crops up in Sunday paper supplements, throwaway airline mags, and other ephemera of the desire trades—but it doesn’t stop there.  It entitles an impulse of long standing and broad import: the urge to ambulate, to follow the flock, outstrip the ice, net the next specimen, stock the mind with memories against bare time.  It’s a theater of identity, the performance of ordinary self in extraordinary straits, all that ain’t you.  It’s profoundly political in an age of four bucks-and-rising petrol, contrails of greenhouse gases, confiscated penknives at airport check-ins, Canada flag patches on U.S. backpacks.  And it’s a trope for writing: writing as travel, the mind’s perambulation through remembered and imagined landscapes.  (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a film about a writer who could move only one eyelid, is in a sense a film about travel.)  It is a posture, an attitude toward experience, such that Thoreau could quip that he’d “travelled a good deal in Concord”—his own home town.

In this course we’ll read travel writing, writing on travel, and writing on writing as travel, and will write on travel (and will travel) ourselves, in field notes, travelogues, articles and essays.  The course is student-centered and workshop-based—its territory set but its destination, as it were, uncertain and itinerary fluid.  Course grading will split about equally between daily work—reading, notebook writing, drafting essays and responding to drafts of others—and a portfolio of finished writing, some twenty-plus pages worth (more for grad students).  Not the outcome but the journey’s the thing: as the saying goes, wherever you go, there you are!

 

ENG 401 002  SPECIAL TOPICS IN WRITING                   TR 12:30-1:45                            Staff

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ENG 407 001  INTERMED WORKSHOP IMAG WRITING             T 3:30-6:00              Norman

FICTION

 

ENG 407 002  INTERMED WORKSHOP IMAG WRITING             W 3:00-5:30                 Vance

POETRY

 

ENG 407 003  INTERMED WORKSHOP IMAG WRITING             R 3:30-6:00          Marksbury

SCREENWRITING

 

ENG 480G 001  STUDIES IN FILM                                      MWF 10:00-10:50               Foreman

SHAKESPEARE & FILM

A study of a variety of Shakespeare's plays in both written and filmed forms.  We will begin with the poetic, dramatic, and (to some extent) theatrical values of Shakespeare's texts and thus especially with Shakespearean language ("wordplay") and the way words reveal, and hide, and make, character.  Then we will turn to movies made of or from the plays and to the elaborate and subtle visual "language" movies use to tell stories.  Inevitably, and intentionally, we will speak of what the filmmakers have "done to Shakespeare," but it is important to recognize that we will see the films not only as versions of the plays but also as original and integral works.  We will also attend to way the intelligence and imagination of audiences, including ourselves, engage the gaps in time and culture back to other periods, people, and places--to Shakespeare as the 16th century became the 17th, to people in several countries a hundred years ago trying to figure out how to "film Shakespeare," to Laurence Olivier in World War II Britain, to Akira Kurosawa in Japan in the 1950s (and again in the 1980s), to Al Pacino in 1990s' America, and so forth.  The sweep we make from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (c. 1592) to Julie Taymor's Titus (2000) should tell us something about the world over the last four hundred years and about ways of seeing it.

NOTE:  For Fall 2008, ENG 480G-001 and ENG 481G-001 are the same course, meeting at the same time and place with the same instructor and syllabus.  Topics for papers and exams will vary somewhat to accommodate primary focus on play text or film, according to student interest.  Students may register for whichever section best suits their curricular plans.

 

ENG 481G 001  STUDIES IN BRITISH LIT                         MWF 10:00-10:50               Foreman

SHAKESPEARE & FILM

NOTE:  For Fall 2008, ENG 480G-001 and ENG 481G-001 are the same course, meeting at the same time and place with the same instructor and syllabus.  Topics for papers and exams will vary somewhat to accommodate primary focus on play text or film, according to student interest.  Students may register for whichever section best suits their curricular plans.

 

ENG 481G 002  STUDIES IN BRITISH LIT                         TR 9:30-10:45                      Kalliney

BRITISH FICTION 1900-1950

A survey of British (and Irish) fiction from the modernist period.  Authors may include Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Jean Rhys, and Virginia Woolf.

 

ENG 482G 001  STUDIES IN AMERICAN LIT                    TR 9:30-10:45                            Rust

AMERICAN SENTIMENTALISM

Between 1768, when Laurence Sterne named an unfinished book A Sentimental Journey, and 2008, when no one likes to be called “sentimental,” something seems to have happened to the word.  In fact, sentimentalism, a form of writing in which readers derive pleasure from the pain they feel imagining other people suffer, has always inspired intense antagonism and equally intense allegiance.  Focusing on novels from between the American

Revolution and the Civil War, this class will attempt to discern common elements among the wide variety of novels called sentimental, and to reconcile these texts’ appeal with their potentially exploitative aspect.  In asking what makes a written work sentimental, we will examine the term's implication in gendered, racialized and class-based strategies of self-definition and oppression, as we explore intersections of sentimental discourse with nationalist ideology, abolitionist rhetoric, industrialization and colonialism.  Readings will include Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, Hannah Foster’s The Coquette, Charles Brockden Brown’s Clara Howard, Herman Melville’s Pierre, or the Ambiguities, Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills.

 

ENG 482G 401  STUDIES IN AMERICAN LIT                    MW 6:00-7:15                        Doolen

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN LIT 1800-1860

How did American authors capture and express the social and political pressures of a defining era in U.S. history? What sorts of stories, subjects, and genres captivated their audience? In this course, a survey of American cultural history from 1800 to 1860, you will develop answers to these essential questions. We will read novels, poems, essays, slave narratives, historical tracts, and other texts that will aid our study of the period. We will pay special attention to the larger cultural history and the links between specific pieces of literature and the historical events that may have shaped them, including conflicts over slavery, the national policy of Indian Removal, and debates about American Empire in the 1850s.

 

You will need to be open to an interdisciplinary course of study that may look, at times, more like a History or Cultural Geography class than an English class. You should be prepared to do a lot of reading, take extensive reading notes, and collaborate inside and outside of class. A substantial final project constitutes 40% of the final grade.

 

ENG 483G 001  STUDIES IN AFRICAN AMER/DIASPORIC LIT     MWF 12:00-12:50        Staff

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ENG 486G 001  STUDIES IN THEORY                               TR 11:00-12:15                         Blum

PSYCHOANALYSIS, LITERATURE, & FILM

 

ENG 507 001  ADVANCED WKSHP IMAG WRITING         T 3:30-6:00                      Marksbury

FICTION

Note: Course start date 09/16/08; Course end date 12/09/08

 

ENG 507 002  ADVANCED WKSHP IMAG WRITING         T 3:30-6:00                             Howell

POETRY

 

ENG 507 003  ADVANCED WKSHP IMAG WRITING         W 3:00-5:30                          Norman

FICTION

 

ENG 509 201  COMPOSITION FOR TEACHERS              W 4:00-6:30                             Burns

Note: Contact Distance Learning Office for more information: 257-3377

 

ENG/LIN 512 001  MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR          TR 11:00-12:15                  Hippisley

 

ENG/EDC 514 001  TESL MATERIALS & METHODS       MW 4:30-5:45                       Clayton

 

ENG/LIN/ANT 515 001  PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS       MWF 11:00-11:50                   Bosch

The study of Phonology is the study of the sounds of human language, and of the systematic organization of these building blocks of human speech. This course aims to demonstrate the regularity of sound structure in speech, and the information carried by the smallest pieces of language.  We will also discuss the relevance of linguistic theory to today's world, including issues of speech pathology, child language acquisition, accent and dialect difference, foreign language learning, and computer-based technologies such as "hearing" and "speaking" machines.

At the end of the semester, the student will be able to:

  • use the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the basic sounds of American English.
  • understand how a language employs a limited set of sounds to convey meaningful differences between words.
  • analyze language data, and formulate and test hypotheses.

These skills will be developed by practicing linguistic analyses: discovering the structural patterns in languages drawn from all over the world (Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas). 

Written requirements: There will be 3 written homework assignments, and numerous short problem sets.  In addition there will be 5 quizzes, but no final exam.  Your last homework assignment will be due during exam week. 

 

ENG 600 001  BIBLIO & METHODS OF RESEARCH       TR 11:00-12:15                      Allison

This course is comprised of three parts: (1) Introduction to traditional and electronic research tools available in modern research libraries, with special sessions on bibliographies, reference guides, academic journals, online databases. Visits to Special Collections & Digital Archives. (2) Overview of the emerging discipline of Book History, including printing and publishing history, the early modern transition from manuscript to print, and the rise of electronic publishing. On a related note, we shall also think about book design and examine some notable collaborations between authors and designers. Examination of the history of ideas about authorship, intentionality, reading communities, reception (readings to include Robert Darnton, D.F.McKenzie, Adrian Johns, Pierre Bourdieu, Roland Barthes, Mark Rose, Jane Tompkins, Janice Radway, others). Visits to King Library Press. (3) Short history of 20th century editorial theory, from W.W. Greg and Fredson Bowers to Jerome McGann, including an examination of several famous editorial case studies [Hardy, Yeats, Joyce, Plath]. Exercises in transcription and annotation of manuscripts from the Peal Collection, King Library. Texts to include: David Finkelstein, Book History Reader (2nd edition); McGann, Critique of Modern Textual Criticism; McGann, Textual Condition; McGann, Radiant Textuality; Hardy, Woodlanders; Plath, Ariel, selected essays by various hands. Requirements to include oral reports, short written assignments, a longer research paper.

 

ENG 601 001  ESSAYS & CREATIVE NONFICTION         TR 11:00-12:15                     Roorda

 

ENG 609 001  COMPOSITION FOR TEACHERS              TR 9:30-10:45                       Roorda

 

ENG 610 001  STUDIES IN RHETORIC                              TR 2:00-3:15                       Prats, A.

 

ENG/LIN 617 001  STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS                   W 3:00-5:30                             Bosch

LINGUISTIC THEORY & PRACTICE FOR GRAD STUDENTS

This course is designed specifically for graduate students as an introduction to the practice and principles of linguistic research. Basic principles of the structure of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics) will be covered.  Additional topics include: dialect variation, conversational pragmatics, language and education, language acquisition by children, second language acquisition, signed languages . . . to some extent our emphasis will depend on the interests of the students.  There will be a focus on developing and evaluating theory on the basis of data collected by students, where possible.  Our textbooks will be Language: Introductory Readings (7th ed), by Virginia Clark et al and Language Files (10th edition), Ohio State University Department of Linguistics. 

Requirements: class participation, 2 short papers, one oral presentation on a topic of your choice (including handouts), a final research paper, and an oral presentation of research paper. 

Although the course bulletin says an introductory course in linguistics is a prerequisite for this course, that is not the case.  In fact, this course is intended for those who have no previous coursework in linguistics. Graduate students from all fields are welcome; please contact me by email if you have any questions about the course: bosch@uky.edu. 

 

ENG 621 401  STUDIES IN CHAUCER                               W 6:00-8:30                       Giancarlo

         A seminar focusing on narratives of Chaucer’s women: The Book of the Duchess; Troilus and Criseyde; The Legend of Good Women; and selected Canterbury Tales: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” “The Man of Law’s Tale,” “The Clerk’s Tale,” and others. Reading will also include excerpts and analogues from Chaucer’s contemporaries Langland and Gower, and selections from contemporary theoretical and critical approaches to Chaucer. All reading will be done in Middle English, so some attention will be paid to matters of language. Work will include an in-class presentation and a research paper, as well as a small project on pedagogy.

 

ENG 651 001  STUDIES IN AMER LIT BEFORE 1860      R 3:30-6:00                            Doolen

This American Studies-style seminar will cover a broad stretch of U.S. culture from 1800 to 1860. Students can expect to explore larger questions of nationalism, exploration, slavery, and empire, even as we focus on a few representative literary figures. Authors we will be reading include, among others, Lydia Maria Child, James Fenimore Cooper, Timothy Flint, Sarah Hale, Frederick Douglass, William Apess, Martin Delany, and Herman Melville. As much as the seminar will provide students with an overview of the period, it is also a seminar in developing the students’ general critical skills. To that end, the seminar will introduce students to a few of the contemporary theoretical and critical models that have been instrumental in revising U.S. literary history (e.g. critical race theory, postcolonialism, sentimentalism, and transnationalism). Students will work toward developing strategies for positioning authors and texts within specific cultural, historical, and theoretical contexts. As such, students should be willing to experiment with new ways of reading literary and cultural texts. 

Note: For some reason, the UK website lists an alternative starting/ending date for this seminar. Please disregard it. We will follow the regular academic calendar.

 

ENG 660-401/ST 500-401  MODERN CRITICAL THEORY                       M 6:00-8:30                 Trask

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL THEORY

This course is cross-listed with ST 500, a required course for graduate students pursuing the certificate in social theory.  But a course like this might arguably be required for any serious student of literary studies as well.  While our focus will not be specifically on literary critics, we shall absorb a vast range of methods and models on which many practitioners of cultural and literary criticism base their own work.  The class will be divided between “classic” or rather indispensable theorists of the social (Marx and Engels, Nietzsche, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, Freud, Levi-Strauss) and some of the most significant applications, inheritances, or revisions of those theorists (Althusser and Balibar, Zizek, Bourdieu, Adorno, Barthes, Habermas, Rubin, De Certeau, Foucault, Giddens, Taylor, Sedgwick).  Written work will be a combination of reaction papers (some teamwork, some solo) and a final project of your choosing (either a take-home exam or a seminar paper of 10-15 pages).  Readings will be a combination of Xeroxed handouts and monographs available at the Kennedy bookstore or online.

 

To give a sense of what the class will look like, here is a plausible (though not definite or finalized) breakdown of the readings by week:

 

1. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, selections from German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, and Capital, Volume One

2. Commentary on Marx and Engels by Althusser & Balibar, Bourdieu, Zizek

3. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Why I am So Smart

4. Max Weber, from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism / Emile Durkheim, from The Division of Labor in Society / Charles Taylor, “The Rise of the Disciplinary Society,”  “The Great Disembedding”

5. Georg Simmel, “Metropolis and Mental Life,” “Fashion,” “The Stranger,” “How is Society Possible?”

6. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

7. Michel Foucault, from The History of Sexuality, Volume One, “Governmentality” / Eve Sedgwick, introduction to Epistemology of the Closet

8. Claude Levi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning / Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”

9. Theodor Adorno, from Minima Moralia / Roland Barthes, from Mythologies

10. Jurgen Habermas, from The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere / Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere” / Michael Warner, “Publics and Counter-Publics”

11. Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women,” “Thinking Sex,” Judith Butler interviewing Rubin in differences (summer-fall 1994).

12. Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

13. Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, Scott Lash, from Reflexive Modernization

 

ENG 691 001  READINGS IN RHETORIC                           Meetings TBA                       Eldred

CONSULTING PRACTICES

 

ENG 722 001  SEMINAR IN RENAISSANCE STUDIES     TR 12:30-1:45                 MacDonald

SHAKESPEARE’S HISTORIES

This semester, English 722 is subtitled "Shakespeare's Histories".  Shakespeare wrote plays on English history from the beginnings of his career as a dramatist through his last years on the London stage. Thus working on a scale and with a persistent interest unmatched by his contemporaries, he theatrically solicited a compelling narrative of the development of an English nation into being. In this class, we will read Shakespeare's history plays--and some by his contemporaries and predecessors--in order to isolate the nature of his accomplishment. We will work toward figuring out what Shakespeare's histories tell us about the nature of the connections between nation, gender, citizenship, and sovereignty, and pay some attention to how the histories have figured in the history of Shakespearean criticism.

 

ENG 781 001  SEMINAR IN FILM                                        T 3:30-6:00                             Nadel

AMERICAN COLD WAR FILM

 

 

Linguistics Courses

 

 

LIN 317 001  LANGUAGE & SOCIETY                                TR 12:30-1:45                         Stump

WRITING & WRITING SYSTEMS

Every day, people everywhere write and read what others have written.  In this course, we will investigate the use of writing in the world’s languages.  We will examine the different kinds of writing systems, including alphabets, syllabaries, logographic systems, and mixed systems of various kinds; we will discuss the 5000-year+ history of writing and the earlier systems from which writing evolved; we will look at writing systems as a dimension of sociolinguistic variation; and we will explore the contrasting psycholinguistic properties of different kinds of writing systems.  Our textbook will be Florian Coulmas’ Writing systems: An introduction to their linguistic analysis (Cambridge, 2002); some additional readings will also be assigned.  There will be several writing assignments (duh!) and two exams.

 

LIN 517 001  SPECIAL TOPICS IN LINGUISTICS             TR 2:00-3:15                          Barrett

THE K’ICHE’ LANGUAGE

This course is a general introduction to K’iche’, a Mayan language with roughly one million speakers in the central highlands of Guatemala. K’iche’ has a long literary tradition including such works as the Popol Wuj (the most important Mayan religious text) and the Rabinal Achi (a drama that has predates the Spanish Conquest and is still performed today). The K’iche’ language has played an important role in the Maya cultural revitalization movement and is the native language of many Maya intellectuals and activists, including Nobel prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu and the poet Humberto Ak’abal. The course requires no previous background in linguistics.