DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS FOR
SPRING 2004
(excluding ENG 101, 102, 105, 203, 204, 205)
The undergraduate major program in
English requires students to take ENG 330 (Text & Context), one Language module
course (210, 211 or 310), four 300-level Literature modules courses (two in
British Literature, two in American Literature), and four additional courses
from the Area modules, at least two of which must be drawn from one Area
module. In addition, all majors must complete a one-hour capstone
course, taken concurrently with an Area module course. The Area modules
are: Literature, Film & Media, Writing, Imaginative Writing, Language
Study, Theory, Education. A complete description of the English major
is available in the English Advising Office (1227 The English Advising Office in The English Advising Office will be
open Monday – Friday, from
Note on registration for writing
courses (ENG 207, 305, 407, 507, and 607): Students wishing to take these courses should advance
register for them and attend the first class meetings. These students should be aware, however,
that (as stated in the UK Catalog) ultimate enrollment in the courses will be
by consent of instructor, given after the first class meeting
(thus, registration for the course does not guarantee a place on the final
roll). ENG 207-001 M BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING:
POETRY Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 207-002 M BEGINNING
WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION “Gurney Students will
be invited to read their work aloud in class for practice and for gentle
critique by fellow students. English
207 Fiction is an introductory course that prepares students for the more
advanced English 407 and 507 creative writing courses. ENG 207-003 T BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION This is an introductory undergraduate course designed to
explore the writing of fiction, especially the short story. Students will
focus on the essential elements of fiction, including imagery, voice,
character, setting, the use of language, and narrative form. At times we will
draw on the rich genres of poetry and drama to enhance our discussions of
language, imagery, and dialogue. Students will look at both traditional and
experimental story forms, will explore these forms in their own writing, and
will participate fully in a supportive workshop setting, giving and receiving
thoughtful criticism, which will be used as a basis for revision. This is a
writing class, and that will be our focus, but since reading and writing are
a symbiotic pair, each essential to the other, we will also take close,
analytical look at published work, seeking to understand the forms and
unravel the process of creation. The class will be organized as a writing
workshop, in which you will have a chance to present your own work, and also
the opportunity to critique the work of your peers. You will be expected not
only to take your own work seriously, but also to give fair, constructive and
helpful feedback to the other students in the class. ENG 207-004 R BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 211-001 MW ENG 211-002 TR ENG 211-003 TR INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I This course will introduce and explore the forms and
structures of human language, how they are similar, how they are recorded,
and how they can change over time.
Significant sections of the course will cover: –human
speech sounds and how they are used (Why, for instance is ‘blaps’ a possible English
word, but not ‘bspla’? Why is the ‘s’
at the end of ‘leaves’ actually pronounced as a ‘z’?) –word-formation
(Why can we form ‘reality’ out of ‘real + ity’ and ‘sanity’ out of ‘sane +
ity’, but not ‘dearity’ out of ‘dear + ity?) –sentence
structure (Why is ‘pretty women and horses’ ambiguous? How are the two phrases in ‘looking sharp,
looking for love’ different?) Students
can expect daily homework assignments designed to enable them to understand
linguistic forms, and to deduce linguistic structures by applying methods of
structural analysis to data drawn from a variety of languages. Test formats will generally be based on the
homework. ENG 211-401 TR INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I This course is an introduction to the nature and
classification of language and to the methods used in contemporary linguistic
science to analyze and describe languages, with attention to the practical
application of linguistics. ENG 211-402 TR INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I 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 various fascinating sub-fields of linguistics,
focusing on the structure of human language (phonology, morphology, syntax),
selected writing systems, and historical linguistics, including the
historical development of the English language. GOALS of the course: 1) To demonstrate the recurring
structural patterns of language as a symbolic system. These regularities are
found in every language, and occur at all levels of structure (phonology,
morphology, syntax). 2) To illustrate the use and usefulness of linguistic
approaches to language in the course of our everyday life: from learning how
infants acquire their first language to understanding how we use language to
communicate and miscommunicate with one another to understanding the
complexities involved in the interaction of language and technology (eg.
voice-activated products, machine translation, etc). METHOD: Daily quizlets; quizzes on individual chapters;
exams on related chapters; frequent analytical exercises from the Workbook to
reinforce what has been learned in class. No cumulative mid-term or final. TEXTS: Contemporary Linguistics, William O’Grady,
et al; 4th edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s. Study Guide to
accompany Contemporary Linguistics, same publisher. ENG 212-001 TR ENG 212-002 TR INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS II PREREQUISITE: ENG/LIN 211 completed in Fall 2002 only. PURPOSE
of the course: To expand students’ knowledge of linguistics as an
academic discipline through a study of various sub-fields of Applied Linguistics,
focusing on the main issues and problems of interest in semantics, first and
second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics,
sociolinguistics, and animal communication. GOAL of
the course: To demonstrate how language is acquired and used as a
system communication. LEARNING
OBJECTIVE: The student will be able to analyze language data, formulate and
test hypotheses, and argue persuasively for one solution over another. These
skills will be developed by doing linguistic analyses: discovering patterns
of acquisition and use in data drawn from English and a variety of foreign
languages. Learning to do this kind of analysis is the most important
part of the course. METHOD:
Daily quizlets; quizzes on individual chapters; exams on related chapters;
frequent analytical exercises to reinforce what has been learned in class. No
cumulative mid-term or final. TEXTS: Contemporary
Linguistics, William O’Grady, et al; 4th edition. Bedford/St.
Martin’s; the Workbook is NOT required for this course. 1) No
overrides will be given for this course. 2) A
section of ENG/LIN 212 will be offered during the 4-Week Summer Session. ENG 230-001 TR
INTRODUCTION TO
LITERATURE: CONNECTIONS - Theatre of the Absurd. A close examination of some seminal works of the absurd theater and of its sources. Plays by Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, and
Genet. The literary and intellectual
roots of the absurd in dada, symbolism, surrealism and silent film. Absurdist
drama brought the forces of the unconscious and the irrational to the
stage, creating a different dramatic form to express them. Absurdist drama
depicted the individual suffering loss of identity and an inability to
achieve a relatedness in a world
increasingly atomized, mechanized, and depersonalized. Three papers, mid-term and final. ENG 230-002 TR INTRODUCTION
TO LITERATURE: MADNESS IN MODERN LITERATURE This course will examine representations of madness in twentieth
century American and British Literature.
Through the chosen texts and supplemental handouts, we will explore
the development of popular conceptions of what it means to be “mentally ill”
and the ramifications of a variety of terminologies, such as: madness,
lunacy, neurosis, psychosis, idiocy, and insanity. This is not to suggest
that we will be “diagnosing” the characters of these texts, but that we will
be discussing the ways in which mental illness has changed from the “stark
raving lunatic” to the “medicated Everyman.” Ultimately, this class seeks to
discover the social implications of the continuously changing definitions of
madness. Some of the questions this course will consider include: How have
our cultural perceptions of mental illness changed over time? What have been
the sources of stigma related to mental illness, and how current and
persistent are they? How does literature perpetuate and/or counteract this
stigma? How have representations of treatment and their relative “successes”
historically reflected perceptions of mental illness? ENG 230-003 MWF INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE: WAR IN LITERATURE AND FILM Move over, CNN, Fox News, History Channel! An
investigation, based on readings and film screenings of the moral and
cultural paradoxes of war: why, for instance, are nations most united and
inspired just before they set out to destroy other nations? Why is it that
stories of war—studies of destroying other civilizations or cultures—so often
constitute the bases of cultures, of civilizations? How do the passions of
war justify killing in the name of
a nation’s loftiest ideals? ENG 230-004 TR
INTRODUCTION TO
LITERATURE: METAMORPH0SIS This course will provide a means to become acquainted
not only with literature from a broad range of historical periods, but with a
wide array of methodologies for reading and analysis. In this introductory
class there will be danger and domesticity, fairy-tales and fashion, monsters
of science and dramas of the drawing room, physical feats of amazement and
psychological thrills abounding at every step of the way as experts, novices,
and scientists, play-writes, poets and novelists metamorphose mythology, history, and literature right before your
eyes, changing statues into women, squashed cabbage leaves into ladies,
beautiful men into grotesque works of art, and the haunting memories of
slavery into a ghostly twentieth-century novel. In this course, bodies and
narratives, history and fantasy, dreams and nightmares are resurrected and
reborn again and again through a selection of texts chosen for their
investment in both stories of metamorphosis and the metamorphosis of story
across a variety of literary genres and historical periods. Next to the
writings of the Brothers Grimm, for example, we will study Anne Sexton's and
Angela Carter's erotic and feminist retellings of these well known fairy
tales for children into twentieth-century poems and short-stories for adults.
Next to Ovid's Metamorphosis, we will consider After Ovid and discover
ancient mythology rewritten and transformed into our modern day world by
contemporary poets who return to Ovid's stories only to find that in the
return the tales he tells are no longer the same . Exploring texts such as
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray,
William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion we will
journey in this course through readings and class discussions designed to
offer you a chance to get your feet wet with a variety of literary genres,
historical fields, and critical approaches to literary study. Our general
thematic, loosely defined, will be metamorphosis -- bodily, psychic,
historical, generic, critical, etc.--and we will consider plays, novels,
fairy-tales, and poems which in one way or another turn upon this issue
either at the level of "plot," by telling a tale about
transformation, or at a more meta-textual level by retelling, reimagining,
and reconfiguring earlier sites of literary creation. The course requirements
will likely include two 5-8 page papers, a revision, an annotated
bibliography, and a final, group project. ENG 230-005 MWF
INTRODUCTION TO
LITERATURE: THE CITY This class takes as its central concern the trope of the
city in American fiction. The image of
the modern metropolis has long served as an opportunity for American authors
to explore the dual nature of place as both a physical location and as a
concept that embodies a host of competing ideologies and representations
(democracy and the great melting pot vs. segregation, the image of
opportunity vs. the reality of class and economic discrimination, etc.). We will look at literary (and cinematic)
representations of the modern American metropolis that embody these
dichotomies and demonstrate the city’s ability to affect change and alter –
for better or for worse – individual identities. As sociologists first began to note during
the early decades of the 20th Century, the city is a perfect
laboratory for the study of human nature and social processes. Drawing from this idea we will approach the
city as both fact and symbol, while at the same time using representations of
the city to explore larger issues of American identity, race, class, and
gender. Some of the questions/issues this course will explore
are: n
How has the development of the city affected modern
identity? n
How has the city been positioned as both the embodiment
of, and an impediment to, democratic ideals?
n
How do representations of the city contrast with rural
settings and what does this contrast reveal about competing American
mythologies? n
Shifting images of the city. How do contemporary literary
representations differ, if at all, from their past counterparts? What can we learn from this shifting image? Possible Texts – Maggie a
Girl of the Streets (1893) – Stephen Crane Sister
Carrie (1901) – Theodore Dreiser O
Pioneers! (1913) – Willa Cather Native
Son (1940) – Richard Wright Wise Blood (1952)
– Flannery O’Connor Another Country (1960) – James Baldwin
Mao II (1993)
– Don Delillo Three (3) papers and a Midterm ENG 230-006 MWF INTRODUCTION
TO LITERATURE: BANNED BOOKS: FROM HUCKLEBERRY TO HOLDEN TO HARRY Why are school districts and some parents afraid of
Harry Potter, Huckleberry Finn or others? Why are certain works and their
characters’ words either avoided or expurgated to gain admittance into the
corridors of learning? This course will open these works and examine the
historical, social, and cultural reasons for the books being challenged in
the past or today. Poems such as Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and Ginsberg’s
“Howl” have rallied opponents to suppress their inclusion in anthologies,
Maya Angelou’s caged bird can’t sing and Huckleberry still is asking
questions about heaven over a hundred years later. We’ll try to redeem or
reject these texts through close readings and research into the complaints
about the books and into the themes of the texts. Coursework will include
daily readings, two 5-7 page papers, and other shorter writing assignments. ENG 231-001 MWF LITERATURE
AND GENRE: NARRATIVES OF THE ROAD IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE In this course we will explore road narratives in
American literature and ENG 231-002 MWF LITERATURE AND GENRE: THE NOVEL This course follows the development of the novel as a
genre from 200 A.D. to 1998. Topics to be considered: the relationship
between the novel and the romance; the novel in history and the history of
the novel; parody and intertextuality; the novel and popular culture. The
reading list features Longus's Daphnis and Chloe, Heliodorus's An
Ethiopian Romance, Fielding's Tom Jones, Austen’s Emma, Nabokov's Lolita, and
McEwan's Atonement. This is a demanding class. Each novel on the list
is challenging in a different way, and several of them pose difficult
questions that we may not be able to answer. Course requirements include
short bi-weekly papers, two longer papers, a midterm, and a final. ENG 231-401 M LITERATURE AND GENRE: DETECTIVE FICTION Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself
mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man
and yet an unusual man. He must be . .
. a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it and
certainly without saying. He must be
the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. Raymond
Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder We are concerned then in the whodunit with two stories
of which one is absent but real, the other present but insignificant. Tzvetan
Todorov, The Poetics of Prose Few genres have enjoyed the popularity of detective
fiction. Drawing on the Gothic (with
its emphasis on the grotesque, the mysterious, and the desolate), narratives
of detection inform many nineteenth and twentieth century texts as well as
compose their own separate literary identity.
However, as the detective story “took off” commercially in the middle
of the last century, the figure of the detective also abandoned the strictly
white male heterosexual aspect which had defined the tradition (without
encompassing the complexity) of the genre.
This course will sample the field of detective stories
examining both the landmarks which provide a legacy for this literary type
and the horizons which reveal its expansive potential. Some possible “landmark” writers include E.
A. Poe (The Murders in the Rue Morgue/The Mystery of Marie Roget),
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Hound of
the Baskervilles/The Sign of Four),
Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep),
and Agatha Christie (Murder at the Vicarage
or Murder on the Orient Express); while Barbara Neely (Blanche on the Lam), Sherman Alexie (Indian Killer), and Barbara Wilson (Sisters of the Road or Gaudi Afternoon) constitute some of the writers on the
“horizon.” Students will write two papers, one shorter (5-6 pages)
and one longer (9-10 pages). In
addition, class participation and peer review will figure prominently in the
course. ENG 232-001 TR LITERATURE AND PLACE: SHAKESPEARE’S The English Renaissance was fascinated by ancient ENG 232-401 M LITERATURE AND PLACE: Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 233-001 MWF LITERATURE AND IDENTITIES: EMERSON AND
AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM This
course will consider Transcendentalism as the springboard for the first
distinctly American forays into intellectual culture: social and religious
reform, philosophy, literature, ecology, and spiritualism. With Emerson’s Self-Reliance
essay as our central text, we’ll focus on the construction of personal and
national (or anti-national) identities in writers like Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret
Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Walt Whitman. We’ll also read Texts
Hawthorne,
Nathaniel, The Blithedale Romance. Myerson, Joel, ed. Transcendentalism: A Reader. ENG 234-001 MWF INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE:
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS English
234 is a survey of American women’s writing. In this course, we will focus on
women and work, identity formation, and sexuality. We will begin in the 1920s
and work our way through the 1990s. Possible readings for this course include
Nella Larson’s Passing (1929), Zora
Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching
God (1937), Lillian Smith’s Strange
Fruit (1944), Shirley Jackson’s Life
Among the Savages (1953), Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed (2001). ENG 234-002 TR INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE: WOMEN
WRITERS Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 262-001 and -002 MWF SURVEY
OF WESTERN WORLD LITERATURE: THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE PRESENT This course surveys Western World literature from the
Enlightenment to the present, focusing upon works of great literary merit
which represent main elements in the evolving western culture. In this course
we will engage the ideas and examine the evolving world view of these three
hundred years, relating our discussions to our own ideas and values. There
will be three examinations, one paper and a number of short writing
assignments. ENG 262 – DISTANCE LEARNING UEBEL SURVEY
OF WESTERN WORLD LITERATURE: THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE PRESENT Like ENG 261, this is a television course based on the
PBS program "Living Literature: The Classics and You,"
involving one hour‑long television class per week. Student work
will be web‑based, and will involve short exercises in addition to a
midterm and a final. We will study several of the primary literary texts that
have shaped Western culture from the Enlightenment to
modernity. Readings include: Voltaire’s Candide,
Goethe’s Faust, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Dostoyevsky’s Crime
and Punishment, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych, and Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
Themes emerging during the course will include: the problem of
identity, the problem of ethical codes and value systems, the problem of
society formation, God, dieties, and religion, illusion and reality, and art
and the artist.
003 MWF 12:00-12:50 pm 004 MWF 2:00-2:50 pm Tweedy MAJOR
BLACK WRITERS ENG 270-001 MWF 8:00-8:50 am Lewin THE
BIBLE AS LITERATURE This course is an introduction to the study of the
Hebrew Bible. Students will learn the analytical techniques with which
scholars understand biblical materials and apply these to issues of
authorship, translation, and narrative continuity. We will consider the
texts before us as literary artifacts and not as the basis of religious
doctrine. ENG 281-001 MWF 12:00-12:50 pm Fisher INTRODUCTION TO FILM: NARRATIVES OF
DISINTEGRATION The
films in this course depict human (and, in some cases, nonhuman)
conflicts. I use the term disintegration
to illustrate this conflict, which may be examined culturally, historically,
socially, aesthetically, spiritually, ecologically, and so on. For example, we can picture the process or narrative
of disintegration as a vortex, which is a continuous cycle of rapid
swirling, spiraling, whirling matter, often made up of air or water. In the films we’ll explore, the vortex is
often aesthetically represented through specific scenes of chaos and
disorder. While the study of the technical
aspects of filmmaking and an exploration of various genres will be a part of
this course, we will pay particular attention to how we read these
narratives of disintegration as texts:
aesthetically, culturally, psychologically, and so on. We will consider the significance of
isolation, fear, obsession, time, technology, etc., in terms of
disintegration and in terms of how these films connect with each other on
some level as a continual exchange of ideas, as part of a larger vortex of
images and situations developed by filmmakers from the United States to the
United Kingdom, from silent films to CGI-laden films. In addition, I’d like to spend “extra” time
with directors who frequent these themes of disintegration, like Terry
Gilliam and David Lynch. We are not
here to judge films, or to rate them, or to agree on only one
interpretation. We are here to ask questions,
make relevant observations, and to explore the films as a part of our
international culture, history, and art.
Some of the films we will examine
include: Chaplin’s Modern Times
(1936); Scott’s Blade Runner (1982); Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960); Aronofsky’s Pi (1998); Bergman’s The Seventh Seal
(1956); Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (1998); Nolan’s Memento
(2000); Polanski’s Chinatown (1974); Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys
(1995); Myrick and Sanchez’s The Blair Witch Project (1999);
Pellington’s The Mothman Prophecies (2002); Lynch’s Mulholland
Dr. (2001); and Fulton and Pepe’s Lost in La Mancha (2002). ENG 281-002 TR 9:30-10:45 am Froula INTRODUCTION TO FILM: CONSTRUCTIONS AND DISJUNCTIONS: GENDER, IDENTITY, AND THE MOVIES Movies both instruct and reflect our cultural gender
roles, i.e., how men and women should define their behavior, appearance, and
sexual morés. In this course, we will
examine films as cultural documents, noting not only how they construct
characters’ gender and sexuality but also how gender intersects with
mythologies inherent in our conceptions of heroes and anti-heroes, family,
militarism, romance, and politics.
Films will include Rebel Without
a Cause, Bend It Like Beckham, Full Metal Jacket, Boys Don’t Cry, Chasing
Amy, G.I. Jane, Thelma and Louise, and Amores Perros, among others. ENG 306-001 TR 11:00-12:15 pm Reece INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSIONS IN WRITING This course
attempts to answer the question, “But can I make money at this?” “Professions in Writing” offers a pragmatic
introduction to the following career paths: freelance writing, editing and
publishing, and teaching writing.
Students will learn how to write a marketable magazine profile and
query letter, how to copy-edit, and how to edit for story. We will conclude by exploring some
philosophies of writing with an eye toward teaching. LIN 317-001 MWF 2:00-2:50 Guindon LANGUAGE
AND SOCIETY: LANGUAGE CONTRACT This course will explore the various outcomes of
language contact, particularly pidgins and creoles. We will examine various theories (from past
and present) of pidgin/creole origins, the languages which have contributed
the most to the creation of pidgins and creoles in the past few centuries,
how the structures of pidgins and creoles differ from those of languages with
a more natural birth, and what the development and structures of these
languages may be able to tell us about human cognition. The primary
readings for the course will be from An Introduction to Pidgins and
Creoles, by John Holm, Cambridge textbooks in Linguistics, Cambridge
University Press, 2000. Students
should expect to take frequent quizzes throughout the semester, and will
present one paper focusing on a creole language taken from a list given out
at the beginning of the semester. LIN
317-002 TR
2:00-3:15 Stump LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY: ENDANGERED
LANGUAGES Language
death is not a new phenomenon in human history. Over the past century, however, the rate of
language extinctions has accelerated dramatically; according to one estimate,
more than two thirds of the languages now spoken will be extinct by the end
of this century. Why is this
happening? Can anything be done to
reverse this trend? Should anything be
done? Is anything being done? How does a language die? What is the impact of a language’s death on
the community in which it was traditionally spoken? Which languages are at the greatest risk of
extinction? Is the spread of English
as a global language a threat to minority languages? In this course, we will examine the host of
issues surrounding the crisis of mass extinction with which the world’s
languages are now threatened. Coursework
will include class discussion of numerous assigned readings and a term
project. Texts will include Vanishing
Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages by Daniel
Nettle and Suzanne Romaine; English as a Global Language by David
Crystal; and assorted supplementary readings. ENG 330-001 TR 3:30-4:45 pm Doolen TEXT AND CONTEXT: POLITICAL RADICALISM AND
JOHN DOS PASSOS’ USA TRILOGY ENG 330 is a new course that is designed to give
students an opportunity to study a single text in its literary, cultural, and
historical context. Our focus this semester will be John Dos Passos’s U.S.A. trilogy, a panoramic sweep of
American life in the first three decades of the twentieth century, and a work
many critics have called the great American novel. The trilogy is composed of
three novels—The 42nd
Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—that depict American
life during a period when social upheaval and world war were transforming the
nation’s democratic ideals. The prologue to U.S.A. gives you a sense of the author’s ambition: "U.S.A.
is the slice of a continent. U.S.A. is a group of holding companies, some
aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a
chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stockquotations rubbed out and
written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public library full of
old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the
margins in pencil. U.S.A. is the world's greatest rivervalley fringed with
mountains and hills, U.S.A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many
bankaccounts. U.S.A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington
Cemetary. U.S.A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away
from home. But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people." Written in the 1930s, U.S.A. was a rare avant-garde work that found its inspiration in
the lives of ordinary people. Dos Passos brought about this effect by
experimenting with different storytelling methods: he creates authentic
"newsreels" of events, popular songs, and political issues,
introspective "camera eyes," biographies of popular figures, and
fictional lives of the twelve major characters. The effect, as one critic
aptly put it, “is something like a multimedia event within a single
book.” Our aim will be to understand
how such an experimental novel works to capture a nation in crisis. We will complement our study of this montage-like method
with a close look at Dos Passos’s life, read contemporary reviews of the
novel, consider other fictional and non-fictional accounts of the period,
reflect on world war and the question of political radicalism, write new
interpretations of the epic novel, and much more. This course will stress collaboration,
student participation, and essay writing. ENG 330-002 MWF 11:00-11:50 am Prats TEXT AND CONTEXT: HEART OF DARKNESS To begin: a close—very close—reading of the great Conrad
novel will form the basis of subsequent readings and investigations. We will
follow these considerations with critical inquiries into the moral, cultural,
historical, and intellectual consequences and possibilities that Conrad
articulates in Heart of Darkness.
We will thereafter turn our attention to the historical background of the
novel through a study of the astonishing European frenzy of pillage and
plunder, mayhem and murder in Africa under the Machiavellian king of Belgium,
Leopold II. After a reading of King
Leopold’s Ghost, we will further assess the influence and significance of
Heart of Darkness through the
critical readings in the Norton edition and through a reading of Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, even as
we consider earlier European encounters with an Other (another Other) in
short, most likely photocopied, selections from the invasions of America by
Cortez, De Soto, Cabeza de Vaca, and John Smith. We will also touch briefly
on early portents of Mr. Kurtz’s famous “postcriptum” to his pamphlet on the
suppression of savage customs: we will study the massacres at Mystic Fort
(1637), Sand Creek (1864), Wounded Knee (1890)—and thence perhaps inevitably
to the fulfillment of Kurtz’s imperative in the My Lai Massacre (1968). Then
to T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (and also Yeats’s “The Second Coming”) and,
under these added influences, on to two film adaptations of Heart of Darkness: Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Francis
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and two
other movies that resonate with it: Black
Robe and Cabeza de Vaca. Lots
of class discussion, midterm, final, final essay (8-10; preceded by formal
draft). ENG 330-003 MWF 12:00-12:50 pm Zunshine TEXT AND CONTEXT: RICHARDS0N’S
CLARISSA AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH CULTURE Although the eighteenth century is sometimes called “The
Age of Reason,” this course intends to set the record straight. The central
offering is Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa,
which, before the advent of the “Harry Potter” series, used to be called the
longest novel in the English language. Part bildungsroman, part suspense thriller, Clarissa is the lens through which we will be viewing class and
gender relationships in eighteenth-century England as well as the history of
the novel as a genre. Requirements include journal-keeping, two papers, a
midterm, and a final. ENG 330-401 M
6:00-8:30 pm Meckier TEXT AND CONTEXT:
GREAT EXPECTATIONS A detailed examination of Dickens’ thirteenth and
arguably finest novel as tragicomedy, inverted fairytale (anti-Cinderella),
retelling of the Misnar story from Tales
of the Genii, weekly serial, autobiographical novel or bildungsroman,
post-Darwin novel, etc. Discussion of penal colonies (colonialism), money and
class (Haves versus Have-Nots), the virtues of self-help, the ideal of the
gentleman, the two endings. Readings include David Copperfield, Frankenstein, Pendennis, A Day’s Ride, Jane Eyre,
Jack Maggs. Student reports, mid-term paper, final paper. ENG 330-402 T
6:00-8:30 pm Meckier TEXT AND CONTEXT: BRAVE
NEW WORLD A close reading of Aldous Huxley’s signature novel in
relation to his other writings about utopia in an attempt to determine his
place in the modern utopian (literary) tradition. Texts include Brave New World, Ape and Essence, Brave
New World Revisited, Island; Butler’s Erewhon;
H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, Men Like
Gods, The First Men in the Moon, A Modern Utopia; Zamiatin’s We; Orwell’s 1984. Discussion topics involve the impact of the following upon
A.F. 632: cloning, universal birth control, promiscuity, drugs, religion,
poetry, heresy, onomastics, games (i.e. golf), popular culture, the BNW typescript, freedom versus
happiness, Ford, Wells, Sir Alfred Mond, Freud, Pavlov, D.H. Lawrence,
America. Student reports, mid-term paper, final paper. ENG 331-001 TR 11:00-12:15 pm Kiernan SURVEY
OF BRITISH LITERATURE I ENG 331-002 MWF 1:00-1:50 pm Broome SURVEY
OF BRITISH LITERATURE I Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check the Dept. of English web site
for updated information: www.uky.edu/AS/English/. ENG 332-001 MWF 1:00-1:50 pm Tri ENG 332-002 MWF 11:00-11:50 am Tri SURVEY
OF BRITISH LITERATURE II ENG 332 surveys English literature from Dryden
(post-Milton) to the present. Readings, lecture, and whole class discussion
will focus on the major writers, with students leading occasional class
forays into the poetry and prose of “lesser lights” who did not make it onto
the survey syllabus but who do make
us laugh, cry, think, act . . . or just make us mad. While we will try to
look at our selections in new ways, students will also be expected to show
some curiosity about the history, culture, social movements, and vocabulary
associated with prose and poetry from the Restoration, Enlightenment,
Romantic, Victorian Age, and Twentieth Century periods, and from a few great
and small wars occurring along the way. Lots of reading, lecture-discussion
classes, student-led activities, audio-video samplings. Quizzes when merited,
mid-term and final exams, one short and one long critical paper. ENG 333-002 MWF 9:00-9:50 am
Lewin STUDIES
IN A BRITISH AUTHOR: MILTON John Milton's poetry, prose and drama are among English
literature's most radical and most memorable texts. In this course we
will explore Milton's work and its decisive impact on the course of English
and American literature. Special attention will be paid to Milton's
influences, the cultural, political and social contexts in which he
wrote. Other topics covered may include genre, censorship and free
speech, free will, and gender. ENG 333-003 TR 12:30-1:45 pm Miller STUDIES
IN A BRITISH AUTHOR: SHAKESPEARE In this class we will read seven plays: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, Othello,
Macbeth, and The Tempest. Class
discussions will cover various aspects of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy, including
plot design, the construction of individual scenes, style in both prose and
verse, and recurrent themes—especially Shakespeare’s sense of life itself as
a social drama characterized by role-playing.
You’ll also be required to view a number of recent films available on
videocassette or DVD so we can talk about how directors seek to translate
Shakespeare’s plays from the page to the screen. Other requirements include
two critical essays, a class presentation, and participation in a major
course project: during a two-week
period in the second part of the semester, we will stage a full-dress trial
of Othello for the murder of Desdemona.
Attendance is also required, and yes, this requirement is strictly
enforced. The instructor emphasizes
both lively discussion and clear, effective writing; serious attention will
be given, in and out of class, to the skills of critical analysis developed
in your essays. Texts for ENG 425 are the Norton Shakespeare, ed. Greenblatt et. al, and John Trimble’s Writing with Style. Students
who take this course should come out of it with a clearer and more confident
sense of how to write a critical analysis. They should be able to read,
watch, or discuss Shakespeare plays with some knowledge of the historical
context of Elizabethan theater, and they should be better able to appreciate
the complexities of plot, character, theme, and language—in Shakespeare
specifically, but also in literary works generally. ENG 335-001 MWF 1:00-1:50 pm Marksbury SURVEY
OF AMERICAN LITERATURE II Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 336-001 TR 2:00-3:15 pm Reece STUDIES
IN AN AMERICAN AUTHOR: FOUR KENTUCKY STYLISTS This course will focus on the essays of four Kentucky
writers, all of whom, it could be said, are better known for their fiction.
They are: Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, Barbara Kingsolver and Guy Davenport.
We will pay careful consideration to why fiction writers chose to move
outside that genre and we will study that latitude such a move provides.
Students will write comparative analyses of these writers and will fashion
their own essays, modeled on the examples of these four stylists. ENG 382-001 TR
12:30-1:45 pm Smith HISTORY
OF FILM II ENG 401-001 MWF 2:00-2:50 pm Oaks SPECIAL
TOPICS IN WRITING: COMPETING STORIES This course examines contentious versions of
stories. Clearly, an individual
narrative creates its own singular life out of experience (actual or
psychic); but the raw material of experience can elicit any number of
representations. In fact,
representations themselves can provoke alternate narratives. Since the act of comparing works evokes meanings
not available in an examination of each piece in isolation, the comparison
process can enhance our understanding of texts and expand the possibilities
for writing creatively about them. Works to be explored include: “Tony’s Story” by Leslie
Marmon Silko and “The Killing of a State Cop” by Simon Ortiz, Devil in a Blue Dress (novel and film
versions), “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Miller’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales, Eyes Wide Shut (screenplay and film by
Stanley Kubrick) and Dream Story by
Arthur Schnitzler, “Snow White” (versions by the Grimm Brothers, Anne Sexton,
and Angela Carter), Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf and The Hours
(novel and film versions). Students will write one short (5-6 page) and one long
(9-10 page) paper. Discussion and
workshopping of papers will constitute the majority of class time. ENG 407-001 M
3:00-5:30 pm Moffett INTERMEDIATE
WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: POETRY We will begin the workshop by reading and discussing
selections of poetry, mainly contemporary poetry, both to prime the pump for
our own writing and to spend serious time considering the factors that make
poetry poetry, that is, different from prose. We may return to the work
of published poets from time to time, but will spend most of our class time
reading and discussing our own work, and thinking about how each poem
submitted to the workshop can best fulfill its individual potential.
The class will divide into two groups, which will alternate in turning in new
work; a poem will thus be due from each student every other week. Each
poem will be revised and gone over in conference with the instructor the week
after it has been “workshopped.” ENG 407-002 T 3:30-6:00 pm Finney INTERMEDIATE
WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 480G-001 TR 2:00-3:15 pm Blum STUDIES
IN FILM: FILM, CINEMA, AND SEXUALITY From the marriage comedies of the early twentieth
century to pre-code Hollywood, from heavily censored cinema under the
production code to the sexualized cinema of post-liberation society, this
course will consider both the history of the representations of sexuality in
the cinema and how such representations participated in cultural practices ENG 481G-001 TR 11:00-12:15 pm Uebel STUDIES
IN BRITISH LITERATURE: CONTINENTAL CONNECTIONS This intensive seminar will study the Alexandria Quartet, a series of four
novels (Justine/Balthazar/Mountolive/Clea
[published 1957-60]) by Lawrence Durrell, in its relation to European
literatures of the last two hundred years.
There is arguably no more profound a literary study of the intricacies
of human passion than the Quartet,
or at least none so beautifully written.
This seminar is then a rare opportunity to study these masterpieces,
and to do so in relation to some of the Quartet’s
primary “contenders” for the deepest and most moving study of human
desire—Goethe’s Elective Affinities,
Flaubert’s Salammbo, Mann’s Death in Venice, and Barnes’s Nightwood, and Godard’s Le Mépris (Contempt). Topics to
be discussed: the instability of
desire, literary modernity, the emotions, poetic space (the city),
temporality, pain, and, somewhere in all this, pleasure. You won’t
be able to read these books together again, ever, not in a course. ENG 481G-002 MWF 1:00-1:50 Broome STUDIES
IN BRITISH LITERATURE: RENAISSANCE LITERATURE Description not available at time
of publication. Please contact the
instructor or check back here for updated information. ENG 483G-401 T 6:00-8:30 pm Dathorne STUDIES
IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN OR DIASPORIC LITERATURE: POSTCOLONIALITY AND 20TH
CENTURY CARIBBEAN LITERATURE Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated information. ENG 486G-001 W
3:00-5:30 pm Fulbrook STUDIES
IN THEORY: INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE Oedipus, castration, penis envy, dream
interpretation. If you have heard of
these concepts before that is a testament to just how much of an influence
psychoanalytic theory has had on twentieth and twenty first century thought –
for better and worse. Yet, as familiar as most people are with these terms,
many less people have actually read Freud let alone the psychoanalytic
theorists who follow and diverge from him. This class will give you the
chance to do that, providing you with an introduction to psychoanalysis by
also thinking simultaneously about the relationships amongst psychoanalysis,
literature, history, and culture.
Reading selected texts by Freud and other psychoanalytic theorists
(provisionally: Melanie Klien, D.W.
Winnicott, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Adam Philips),
alongside Michel Foucault’s The History
of Sexuality, and selected literature and film, this class will present a
broad and inter-disciplinary introduction to psychoanalytic theory.
Particular focus will be given to issues of gender, sexuality, narrative form
and the many ways in which psychoanalysis informs and is informed by
nineteenth-century literature, literary studies more broadly, and twentieth-century
culture. While we will be thinking most
particularly about the fraught relationship between psychoanalysis,
literature, and history, we will also be asking broader questions about the
significance of psychoanalysis in twentieth and twenty-first century culture.
Why, for example, has psychoanalysis been by and large rejected by clinical
psychologists for therapeutic purposes in America but not in England or
France? Why on the other hand does it
still have a vital, if waning life, in literary studies? What is the
relationship between psychoanalysis and science? Between psychoanalysis and
literary study? What tools does psychoanalysis offer us for thinking through
the emergence, formation and transformation of gender, sexuality,
subjectivity, and literary narrative? Is there such a thing as an
“unconscious” of a culture or of social formations? What can we learn by studying and
historicizing psychoanalysis through nineteenth-century literature about the
erotics and psychological dynamics of hate and love, pornography and rape,
sex and gender, peace and war in today’s society? These are just a few of the questions that
will be raised in this class through an introduction to the tools,
methodologies, and limitations of psychoanalysis as we discover them
ourselves through primary texts and as they have been discussed by a long and
interdisciplinary history of literary and cultural theory. Students will
ideally have an opportunity toward the end of the semester to use the
knowledges they have gained as a means to investigate vital areas of concern
or interest in twenty-first century culture.
ENG 507-001 W 3:00-5:30 pm Finney ADVANCED
WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: POETRY Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 507-002 R 3:30-6:00 pm Edwards ADVANCED
WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 507-003 T 3:30-6:00 pm ADVANCED
WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: AUTOBIOGRAPHY English 507: AUTOBIOGRAPHY offers students an
opportunity to tell to themselves and to others the stories of their lives.
Some of our stories are brief, often humorous anecdotes drawn from personal
and family memory. Other stories come from our deepest psychological and
emotional sources. Not all of our life experiences are told or written as
stories. Many students will want to just write of their thoughts, feelings,
memories and experiences. Writing practices and discussions both in and out
of class will aid the writer in shaping and refining the material. ENG 509-401 R 6:00-8:30 pm Williamson COMPOSITION
FOR TEACHERS Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 514-001 MW 5:30-6:45 pm Rouhier-Willoughby TESL
MATERIALS AND METHODS An extension of ENG/EDC 513, this course introduces
participants to materials used in the Teaching of English as a Second
Language (TESL) and to methods used by teachers in the profession.
Course requirements include attending lectures, participating in class
discussions, planning and teaching a variety of language lessons individually
and in small groups, observing ESL classes, and undertaking a materials
evaluation research project. Prereq: ENG/EDC 513; or consent of
instructor. LIN 521-001 TR 9:30-10:45 am Stump & Sathaye SANSKRIT
II The purpose of this course is to
allow students who have completed LIN 520 (Sanskrit I) to pursue a deeper
understanding of the Sanskrit language.
The Sanskrit literary traditions will be thoroughly surveyed and representative
texts from each of the several chronological strata of Old Indic will be
translated and discussed; these texts will include selections from the Rig
Veda, the Satapatha Brahmana, the Nalopakhyanam, the Bhagavad
Gita, Kalidasa's Meghaduta, and other texts. The course will also include an
investigation of the relation between Sanskrit and Proto‑Indo‑European,
with specific reference to those characteristics of Proto‑Indo‑European
grammar reflected in Sanskrit and to those innovations which distinguish the
Indo‑Iranian languages from other subgroups of Indo‑European. The texts for the course will be
William Dwight Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar and Charles Rockwell
Lanman's Sanskrit Reader. Students will prepare a number of
Sanskrit texts (drawn mainly from Lanman's reader) for class discussion; in
addition, students will turn in written translations and grammatical analyses
of four short texts. ENG 610-001 TR 11:00-12:15 pm Bauer STUDIES
IN RHETORIC: THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE This
class is designed to introduce new teachers of literature to the theoretical
and pedagogical questions that inform the teaching of literature and writing
about literature. The three questions that inform this course are: (1) How do
we teach students to read—and to what ends?; (2) How does the writing/reading
classroom become an interpretive community?; and (3) How do professors of
literature formulate their teaching goals and philosophies? This course will
focus on how we move from literary criticism and theory to literary pedagogy
and practice, as well as on the status of the profession. Assignments for
this course will include critical book reviews and a 10-page teaching
philosophy statement. ENG 622-001 TR 12:30-1:45 pm MacDonald STUDIES
IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE: 1500-1660 The English Renaissance inherited notions of stage
comedy from the ENG 653-001 TR 12:30-1:45 pm Roorda STUDIES
IN AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1900: LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT “Literature” and “environment”: paired terms, both cans
of worms. We’ll pry them open, see
what wriggles out, what hooks we can bait.
Some questions to cast with:
This course is not a survey: we won’t sketch the
development of pastoral or watch romantics morph into beats. It is synchronic, organized by topic and
genre, stressing reading in present situations, for present purposes. Readings will include a flurry of short
pieces plus longer works in three genres: nonfiction nature writing, long
poems or poem sequences, and speculative fiction—at least a couple of each,
for comparison. Of possible texts,
I’ve settled on some (by Ammons, Atwood, Snyder, T.C. Boyle, etc.) but will
choose among others in cahoots with the class. All will deal somehow with environmental
relations and experience, many with environmental plight—what we’re
accustomed to call “crisis,” except that crisis is temporary while our plight
is not. As “environment,” then, the
course should be sobering. As “literature,”
it’s supposed to be fun. Coursework will be typical, with brief talk-back papers,
responsibility to present on an author/topic/genre, and a shorter paper and
longer paper, below and well over ten pages respectively. Longer papers will be open in terms of
period, location, identities, genre, approach; we’ll leave some time free
toward the end to pursue topics.
Whatever else you do here, this course can fit. After all, everything is environed,
everything takes place. ENG 656-401 R 6:00-8:00 pm Pierce BLACK
AMERICAN LITERATURE: AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM This course will examine the central texts and writings
of African American literary theory and criticism, with a focus on the 20th
century. Framing the theoretical and
critical texts, will be close readings of “classic” African American novels,
including work from James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison. Included among the theorists and critics
whose work will be explored are: Hortense Spillers, Ann duCille, Henry Louis
Gates, and Deborah McDowell. Issues of
queer theory, black feminism, (post)structuralism, (post)modernism, etc.,
will inform our discussions of both primary and secondary texts. This seminar is for the graduate student whose primary
focus is African American literature or contemporary American
literature. Prerequisites: A graduate
level course in African American literature/culture, Women’s Studies, or
Social Theory. ENG 660-001/GEO 715 M 1:00-3:45 pm Uebel/Natter MODERN CRITICAL THEORY: SEMINAR ON
BENJAMIN It is the sheer force of originality in Walter Benjamin’s
work, probably more than any other single quality, that continues to place
these writings among the great achievements in twentieth-century
thought. That Benjamin should occupy
such a place is rather unlikely given that, aside from a collection of
aphorisms (One Way Street), the
only book he published in his lifetime was The Origin of German Tragic Drama, a book that even Theodor
Adorno at one time confessed he could not understand. In tracing out the main currents of his
thought, especially in his later writings (1934-40) as well as the Arcades Project, this seminar will be
the opportunity to assess Benjamin’s status as a social and literary
theorist. Because Benjamin’s work
moves fluidly across multiple fields of intellectual inquiry—e. g., literary
criticism, film studies, Marxist thought, social theory, geography,
aesthetics, and the philosophy of history—the premise of this seminar will be
an abiding commitment to cross-disciplinary thinking. To this
end, ENG 660 will meet with GEO 715, taught by Wolfgang Natter. In the interest of keeping the the seminar
to a productive size, ENG 660 will be admitting about 8, with the same number
for GEO 715. It is therefore strongly
encouraged that anyone interested in this seminar should meet with the
instructor before enrolling. ENG 690-401 T 6:00-8:30 pm Bordo TOPICS
IN WOMEN’S STUDIES: TEACHING PRACTICUM This course is designed for graduate students who are
currently teaching or planning to teach courses in gender and/or women's
studies. Seminars sessions will be divided into two segments. In the first
hour, the instructor or a faculty guest will lead the class in
lecture/discussion of particular topics, both practical (e.g. special
techniques for generating student participation, using technology, creating a
syllabus, working with first-year students, making effective use of movies
and pop culture) and theoretical/controversial (e.g. feminist pedagogy,
dealing with generational differences, respecting student diversity.) The
second half of class will be devoted to sharing, brainstorming and collective
strategizing of problems and challenges that the students in the class are
experiencing in their own teaching. We will also spend some time imagining
and constructing the "dream course" that each of you would most
like to teach. Other written assignments and readings will be determined
later. Permission of instructor is required. Preference will be given to
students whose areas of specialization include gender studies, masculinity
studies, or women's studies, and who are planning/hoping to find a job in
which they will teach (at least in part) in those areas. Interested students
should submit either a cv or a letter (to the instructor--111 Breckinridge
Hall) demonstrating this. ENG 700-001 AND 002 TBA Blum TUTORIAL PHD CANDIDATES Description
not available at time of publication.
Please contact the instructor or check back here for updated
information. ENG 722-001 M 2:00-4:30 pm Miller SEMINAR IN SPENSER English 722 this spring will focus on the poetry of
Edmund Spenser. We’ll organize
ourselves like a reading group and work through Books 1-3 of The Faerie Queene before deciding
whether to do all six books or turn to the shorter poems. The required texts for the course are
Hamilton’s extensively annotated scholarly edition of the poem, and an
invaluable reference work, The Spenser Encyclopedia. I won’t assign specific readings in the
latter, but you will find yourself consulting it all the time; it should be
valuable long after this course is over as a reference work on all sorts of
items relevant to the English Renaissance. Requirements for the course will include regular
presentations on the reading and on selected critical literature. There will be one short critical essay
(6-10 pages) due early in the semester, and a seminar paper (minimum twenty
pages) due on the final day of classes. ENG 738-001 TR
2:00-3:15 pm Rosenman SEMINAR IN VICTORIAN
LITERATURE: VICTORIAN POPULAR FICTION In this class, we'll read an unsystematic sampling from
the huge quantity of Victorian popular fiction, familiarizing ourselves with
significant genres such as sensation fiction and penny dreadfuls. While we
will attend carefully to individual texts, we'll also read Victorian and
modern commentaries on art to explore issues of cultural legitimacy and
authority, to analyze the ways in which the category "popular
fiction" is constructed in terms of gender and class, and to trace the
ways in which various audiences were defined and judged according to what
they read (or were presumed to read). Since I know that many of you are
interested in issues of social class, the course will contain a significant
section on working class authors and readers. ENG 750-001 TR 12:30-1:45 pm Doolen SEMINAR IN COLONIAL LITERATURE: WAR,
NATIONAL EXPANSION, AND THE WRITING OF EARLY This course focuses on the colonial period and
formulations of an emerging national identity. The writing of early American
culture is a vast international terrain. It stretches over three hundred
years; across the civilizations of Native American peoples, from the southern
Aztecs to the northern Huron, as well as the fledgling settlements of
Holland, England, Spain, France, and Portugal; speaks in countless
indigenous, African, and European languages; and is defined by a vexed
dialogue that takes place during moments of acute social and political
crisis. Since we only have a semester, we will have to be content with a
sampling of the colonial period’s most provocative cultural controversies and
their effects on literary and political discourse. We will begin by reading
several war narratives about [1] King
Philip’s War (1676), which pitted Puritan New England against a
confederation of Native American nations. We will read several Puritan
responses to the war, including Mary Rowlandson’s famous captivity narrative
and some lesser known histories, in order to theorize the fictional elements
inherent in historical writing. We will extend our specific study of the
racial component of Puritan historiography to the [2] New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741, which occurred after New York
City’s slaves were accused of attempting to overthrow the city. This event
will be the center of a more broad investigation of what constitutes our
“archival memory” of slavery. We will read everything from newspaper
fragments to some of the “classic” eighteenth century texts on the issue of
slavery so that we can gain a better sense of colonial identity formation.
Tracing this evolution into post-revolutionary America, our course will
conclude with a close look at how the residue of this colonial past affects
the formation of white nationalism in post-revolutionary America. With the
[3] Federalist War Crisis (1798) as
our focus, we will concentrate on how the novelist Charles Brockden Brown
distills the period’s national hysteria into historical fiction that is
tormented by colonial memories of racial conflict. While you will study a large body of literary texts, the
novel or poem does not define the colonial period, so you will need to be
open to interdisciplinary, American Studies-style analysis. You should be
prepared to do a lot of reading, collaborate inside and outside of class,
engage in several research assignments, and write a seminar paper. ENG 751-001 TR 11:00-12:15 pm Nelson SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: 1800-1860:
19th-C US UTOPIANISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE This class will study a variety of utopian social,
philosophical and political movements in the antebellum US, including (and
not limited to) Fourierism, Shaker communities, Nashoba and
Transcendentalism. The course will look to social and economic history and
political theory to ground our investigations. What made this incredible burst of
experimentation possible?
Revolution? Democracy? Capitalism? What are the factors that
limited the broader adoption of the various radical possibilities explored in
these philosophies and experiments?
How does a broad investigation of early nineteenth-century utopian
experimentation inform our political, historical and literary understanding
of the Transcendentalists? This course is built around an American Studies,
interdisciplinary model: it is not
primarily literary. Readings will
include history, social and political theory, fictional and non-fictional
literature and literary criticism.
Requirements will including doing the reading, participating in class
discussions and activities (a field trip to or field assignments in
Shakertown are very possible), journal summaries, a group project and a
research essay on a topic related to the course’s topic. |
