Course Descriptions: SPRING 2005


200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700



Advising

            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, of which three must be surveys), and four additional courses from the Area modules, at least two of which must be drawn from one Area module.  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 Patterson Office Tower).

 

            The English Advising Office in Patterson Office Tower (rooms 1225, 1227, and 1229) is a center for information and guidance on undergraduate degree programs and post-graduation planning.  The Advising Office serves not only English majors, but also those students working on a minor in English, those seeking Teacher Certification in English, those working on Topical majors in which English is prominent, and students from any area of the University seeking information or advice on English Department courses.  (Inquiries about first-year writing courses should be directed to the Writing Program Office, 1221 P.O.T.)

            The English Advising Office will be open Monday – Friday, from 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 – 4:30 p.m. throughout the Priority Registration period (March 31 – April 23).  Because of the demands made upon the office during this period, appointments are required.  Appointments with the advisors – Julie Walter and Christine Luft – can be made by contacting staff associate Andy Johnson in 1227 P.O.T. or by phone: (859) 257-3763. Students are strongly encouraged to see the advisors as early as possible, preferably a week before their registration time.  Please note that students in Arts and Sciences will not be able to register without having seen an advisor and having the advisor hold lifted.

 

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).

 



200 Level


ENG 207-001                         M 3:00-5:30 pm                                             Marksbury

BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION

We will concentrate on the essentials of fiction—voice, character, point of view, image, structure, and sequence—and the ways in which these mysteries intersect and cohere. We’ll keep one eye on the rudiments of narrative technique—description, compression, exposition, and dialogue—and the other on the look-out for lateral moves along the lines of scrimmage. We’ll forge taut and lyric sentences into chains of inevitable surprise.  We’ll find occult correspondences amidst reassuring dislocations, and start letting go of what we’ve been taught to keep hidden.  Maybe we can even figure out what needs to be withheld.  We’ll write stories.

            Or at least we’ll try.  Along the way, we enter into real and half-life dialogue with each other and everyone who dared to come before us—a heated conversation that’s been going on for quite a while.  We’ll look at established texts: some will serve as paradigms for generating narrative, and some will instructively disrupt those very paradigms. Then you will put your own work on the table.  And we’ll look into it as closely as we can.  The emphasis is on process.  You should be willing to take chances, and ready to revise.  Growth and forward movement will be rewarded.

            As Henry James was wont to tantalize, the house of fiction has many windows.  Let’s try to break into some of them.  Let’s try to come away with something useful.

 

ENG 207-002                         W 3:00-5:30 pm                                              Sexton

BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION

            Description not available at publication time.  Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 207-003                         W 3:00-5:30 pm                                              Howell

BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: POETRY

Note: New classroom GCHI 201.

            A poetry writing workshop that focuses on how our writing improves when we are active members of a writing community. The workshop will act as this community; writers involved will be responsible for new work every week, while also being committed readers of their fellow members' work. As the weeks progress, we work to "experience" poetry, rather than "think through" poetry, understanding the difference between the academic-mind and the artist-mind.

 

ENG 207-004                         R 3:30-6:00 pm                                              Reece

BEGINNING WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: CREATIVE NON-FICTION

This course will introduce young writers to the art of shaping the truth, using many of the same techniques as fiction writers. It will also familiarize students with the major American writers who have helped create this emerging genre.

 

ENG/LIN 210-001                             MW  4:00-5:15 pm                                         O’Hara

ENG/LIN 210-401                             MW  6:00-7:15 pm                                         O’Hara

ENG/LIN 210-402                             TR  6:00-7:15 pm                                           O’Hara

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

PREREQUISITE: NONE

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 1200 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?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: The student will be able to analyze, compare, and contrast language data drawn from all periods of  English and to explain the processes by which Modern English evolved. Learning to do this kind of analysis is the most important part of the course

METHOD: Four exams based on the assigned readings and selected videos; short analytical exercises and written assignments to reinforce what has been learned in class. 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.

 

NOTES:           1) English majors will find that this course complements their work in literature.

2) 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.

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

     including those on the waitlist.

 

ENG/LIN 211-001                             MW 4:00-5:15 pm                                          Guindon

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

This course will introduce and explore the forms and structures of human language, how they are similar, how they differ, 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 ‘happity’ out of ‘happy + 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 concepts and forms, and to deduce linguistic structures by applying methods of structural analysis to data drawn from a variety of languages.  There will also be at least four exams and one quiz; exam formats will generally be based on the homework.  Heavy emphasis is placed upon classroom preparation and participation.

 

ENG/LIN 211-002                             TR 3:30-4:45 pm                                            Stump

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

This course is the first semester of a two-course introduction to the scientific study of human language; this section will be taught in a large lecture format.  We will explore the principles regulating three domains of linguistic organization (those of phonology, morphology, and syntax), examining both the ways in which languages differ in these domains and the ways in which they are alike; we will additionally investigate the causes and processes of language change in each of these domains.  Students can expect regular homework assignments designed to enable them to understand linguistic principles and to apply methods of formal analysis to data drawn from a variety of languages.  The textbook will be Contemporary Linguistics, 5th edition (Bedford, St. Martin’s, 2004), by William O’Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff & Janie Rees-Miller.

 

ENG/LIN 211-401                             MW 5:30-6:45 pm                                          Guindon

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

            See description for ENG/LIN 211-001.

 

ENG/LIN 211-402                             TR 5:30-6:45 pm                                            Guindon

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

            See description for ENG/LIN 211-001.

 

ENG/LIN 212-001                             MWF 9:00-9:50 am                                       Marks

ENG/LIN 212-002                             MWF 11:00-11:50 am                                   Marks

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS II

The goal of this course is to expand your 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, and writing systems.  Success in this class will be measured by your ability to demonstrate the recurring structural patterns of language and to analyze the function of language as a part of society as a whole.  In addition, you will be able to illustrate the usefulness of linguistic approaches to language in everyday life.

 

ENG 230-001                         MWF 10:00-10:50 am                                   Froula

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

In this course, we will explore dreams and their function in culture as
they appear in mythology, fairy tale, poetry, fiction, film, and other
forms of storytelling.  We will also examine theories on the meaning of
dreams--as divine message, bodily and mental dysfunction, and voice of the
unconscious--from ancient, early modern, and modern times.   Examining
selections across several genres--novels, poetry, drama, short stories,
and films--we will structure our textual analysis around the following
issues: as readers, how do we approach literary representations of
dreams?  How do we recognize and react to elements in the dream as text,
i.e., "read" dreams?  How do concepts of dreaming shape our perceptions of
text, self, and world?  How do we use dreams as entry points through which
to effectively analyze a text?  We will consider these questions as the
basis to fulfill our course objectives:  to analyze literary and film
texts while interrogating the definitions and functions of "dream" and
"dreaming"; to investigate what narrative significance dreams carry; to
examine how authors use dreams to draw upon cultural ideas to affect the
reader/viewer; to move from the personal to the abstract, developing new
ways of seeing and understanding our own and the texts' relationships
to  fundamental social issues and universal human concerns; to understand
the representation of dreams within cultural contexts and theoretical
paradigms; and to study images from mass media to interpret how culture
"canonizes" certain representations or images as meaningful dreams.

Texts include:
  Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Freud's On Dreams O'Brien's
 In the Lake of the Woods,
Kingston's Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood
 among Ghosts, and other short stories, essays, and poetry.

Films include: Mulholland Drive (2002), The Matrix (1999), Waking Life (2001) and Repulsion (1965), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and The Ring (2002).

 

ENG 230-002                         TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm                                  Fulbrook

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE: METAMORPHOSIS

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 course, bodies and narratives, history and fantasy, dreams and nightmares are resurrected, revised, and rewritten 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 study of works by Hans Christian Anderson and 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, a collection of contemporary poetry wherein the great figures and scenes of ancient mythology are rewritten and transformed into stories of Elvis and James Dean, modern relationships and modern technology. Exploring texts such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray, William Shakespeare's A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, and Toni Morrison's Beloved, this course will include 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 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, re-imagining, and reconfiguring earlier sites of literary creation. The course requirements will include two 5-8 page papers, a revision, an annotated bibliography, and a final, group project.

 

ENG 230-003                         MWF 12:00-12:50 pm                                   Simon

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE: THE FRONTIER

This course will explore the literature of the American frontier, beginning with the thirteen colonies through the conquest of the West.  The topics we will explore are the significance of the American frontier, the development of frontier mythology, and the importance of the frontier to American identity.  Not only will we look at the stereotypical depictions of cowboys and Indians, but we will examine how the vision of the West changes throughout literature as well as adjusts to industrialization.  We will also explore racial and gender issues in these frontier texts.  Some questions we will explore: How did the frontier help shape our national identity? What stereotypes from frontier/Western mythology do we still use to define our Americanness?  How has the mythology of the frontier changed as America has moved from an agrarian nation to an industrial nation? Course texts may include: Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, Norris’s McTeague, Gilman’s The Crux, Cather’s O Pioneers, Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, Ford’s The Searchers, and Stevens’s Shane.

 

ENG 230-004                         TR 9:30-10:45 am                                          Zunshine

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE: LYING BODIES: PRETENSE, PERFORMANCE, AND THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL

Eighteenth-century novels feature a spectacular array of liars, from Defoe’s Moll Flanders (Moll Flanders) and Henry Fielding’s Blifil (Tom Jones) to Frances Burney’s Mr. Moncton (Cecilia) and Jane Austen’s Wickham (Pride and Prejudice). This course takes as its starting point the proliferation of liars in eighteenth-century fictional narratives to consider the following questions: 1) The eighteenth century is credited with developing what we consider today a recognizably modern novel, that is, a novel attuned in subtler ways to the psychology of its characters and readers and capable of representing the unprecedentedly nuanced interpersonal consciousness. What is the relationship, then, between the period’s obsession with lying and the emergence of this new “psychological” novel? 2) Given the popularity, in the eighteenth-century, of non-fictional treatises on the body language associated with faking one’s emotions on stage, what is the relationship between the theatrical and the novelistic treatments of lying? 3) And, finally, how does our desire to identify liars in our social environment influence the kind of fictional stories that we want (or pointedly do not want) to read?

A tentative reading list includes Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Fielding’s Tom Jones, Burney’s Cecilia, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma, as well as several plays and non-fictional treatises on the “art of lying.” Two long papers, six short writing assignments, a midterm, and a final.

 

ENG 230-005                         MWF 2:00-2:50 pm                                       Godbey

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE: THE CITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

As one of the defining features of American life since the Civil War, urbanization, alongside the development of American cities into centers of culture and politics, has had a profound effect American life and literature.  This course seeks to explore this effect throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries by using American novels and their relationship to cities as an introduction to American literature.  We will read a variety of authors from diverse backgrounds, literary traditions, and time periods in order to better understand the effect of urbanization on both literature and American life.  Thus, while the focus of the class will be on texts that address cities and urbanization (whether directly or by contrast as in the suburban novel), it is also a broad introduction to American literature. 

Class discussions, exams, and papers will be based on close textual reading and analysis, supplemented by research that will help you place each text in its proper historical and cultural context.

Some of the questions this course will address are: How has the development of the city affected modern identity?  How has the city affected our conception of what it means to be an American as well as ideas about individual identity?  How has our relationship with the city changed?  How can we see urbanization and its changes reflected in literature?  In what ways have authors responded, stylistically and thematically, to either life in the city or urbanization?

 

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

Revolutionary Road (1961) ­ Richard Yates

Less than Zero (1985) ­ Bret Easton Ellis

Tropic of Orange (1997) - Karen Tei Yamashita

 

ENG 230-401                         TR 6:00-7:15 pm                                            Fisher

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE: TALES OF HOLLYWOOD

This course will explore the novels and films about the Hollywood film industry itself.  We'll examine the social, cultural, historical, ethical, and aesthetic issues of Hollywood, from what goes into making a successful film, to what happens to the human characters who get involved with filmmaking, either as a producer, director, or actor.  We'll also look at how Hollywood promotes itself as a "land dreams," while the texts more often than not suggest a "land of nightmares."

 

Books (tentative):  Nathaniel West's Day of the Locust; F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Love of the Last Tycoon; Ray Bradbury's A Graveyard for Lunatics; Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister; Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty; plus a few others

 

Films (tentative):  Sunset Blvd.; Mulholland Drive.; Sherlock, Jr.; The Player; Adaptation; Lost in La Mancha; Ed Wood, Barton Fink, Sullivan’s Travels

 

ENG 231-001                         TR 2:00-3:15 pm                                Rogers-Carpenter

LITERATURE AND GENRE: NOVELS & FILM ADAPTATIONS, OR IS THE BOOK ALWAYS BETTER THAN THE MOVIE?

In this course, students will examine the film adaptations of five different novels in conjunction with the original works in order to gain a better understanding of how literature plays a role in their everyday lives. The diverse formats of the novels included here—Choderlos De Laclos’s epistolary Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1842), Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1936), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), Susan Orleans’s The Orchid Thief (1998), and Max Allan Collins’s graphic novel, The Road to Perdition (2002)—present distinctive aesthetic challenges for screenwriters and producers. As a class, we will analyze what happens to these narratives when they are adapted to film paying special attention to aesthetic implications, in addition to exploring political and commercial influences on this process. Course requirements include two group research projects, weekly responses, one shorter paper, and one longer final essay.
Course texts--novels/films:
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1842 [Trans. Douglas Parmée—1999])/ Dangerous Liaisons (1988: Dir. Stephen Frears)
Gone With the Wind (1936)/ Gone With the Wind (1939: Dir. Victor Fleming)
Beloved (1987)/Beloved (1998: Dir. Jonathan Demme)
The Orchid Thief (1998): Adaptation (2002: Dir. Spike Jonze)
The Road to Perdition (2002): The Road to Perdition (2002: Dir. Sam Mendes)


Also ancillary excerpts from Film Studies and historical sources

 

ENG 231-002                         MWF 9:00-9:50 am                                       Voss

LITERATURE AND GENRE: WRITING LIVES, WRITING LIES: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND/AS FICTION

When is one’s story fact and when is it fiction?  In this course, we will investigate the thin line between “fact” and “fiction” by examining (embellished) autobiographies and (autobiographical) novels from nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, including Lauren Slater’s Lying, Herman Melville’s Typee, Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom, Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, John Griffin’s Black Like Me, and James McBride’s The Color of Water.  We will investigate corroborating (or contradictory) “evidence” for some of these texts and consider questions such as: Why do some authors choose to write autobiography and some novels?  What are the distinctions between the two genres?  How might the conventions of each genre influence the composition of a piece?  Which texts are “true” and what does that mean, anyway?  Finally, we will begin writing our own (fictional?) autobiographies.

 

ENG 233-001                         MWF 10:00-10:50 am                                   Reese

LITERATURE AND IDENTITIES: SEXUALITY AND CENSORSHIP

We will examine a series of texts in this class that deal explicitly with a variety of issues concerned with sex and sexuality (from sex itself to homosexuality to “perverse” sexualities) and that because of their explicitness have in some way been censored or banned in the past.  We will concern ourselves with how these texts articulate a variety of approaches to talking about or “dealing with” sex and sexuality.  We will also examine how the censoring of these texts exhibits certain fears or concerns that we have had culturally in the past and discuss whether or not we have “gotten over” these issues.  As part of this process, this class will ask questions such as:  How do we think about sex and sexuality and why do we think about it in these ways? How have we thought about sex in the past?  Why are we afraid to talk about some of these issues?  Are these texts pornographic?  What is pornography and how do we decide when a text has crossed that line?  When does a person become capable of dealing with these issues?  Note:  This class will contain texts that deal very explicitly with sexual content using explicit language to do so.  We will talk frankly about these uses in this class.

Texts for this class:

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Maurice by E.M. Forster

The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

 

ENG 234-001                         MWF 1:00-1:50 pm                                       Oaks

INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE

            This course samples the richness of women’s literature focusing on life writing. As well, students will be able to explore their own lives through the individual creative forms that appeal to them—journal-writing, poetry, essays. Possible authors include Alice Walker, Charlotte Bronte, Christina Rossetti, Cecilia Woloch, Rita Dove, Sharon Olds, Louise Gluck, Marilyn Hacker, Maxine Hong Kingston, Julia Alvarez. In addition to creative explorations, course work will involve expository writing as well as much class discussion.

 

ENG 234-002                         TR 8:00-9:15 am                                            Davis

INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S LITERATURE

English 234 is a survey of American women’s writing.  In this course, we will focus on the following themes:  women and work, identity formation, and sexuality. We will begin in the 1920s and work our way through each decade to the present, employing a historical and cultural approach to American Women Writers and gender studies.  In addition, we will place the works we are studying in their immediate historical context by recovering contemporaneous reviews of the novels, as well as reading additional works by the authors we are studying. Possible texts for the course include works published by past presenters and upcoming participants in the Kentucky Women Writers Conference.  The following is a sample list of the texts we will most likely read:  Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), selections from Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight (1993), Marya Hornbacher’s Wasted (1998), Alexandra Robbins’s Pledged (2004), as well as poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikky Finney, Adrienne Rich, and Sonia Sanchez. 

 

ENG 234-401                         MW 6:00-7:15 pm                                          Purdue

INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S LIT: SCIENCE FICTION BY WOMEN WRITERS

In this course we will read nineteenth and twentieth-century science fiction by women writers.  We will consider the common elements, approaches, and techniques among the authors; the importance of race, gender, class and “otherness” in the texts; and the subgenres and special themes that emerge as characteristic of science fiction. Some questions that we will explore are:  If science fiction reflects the world of the present in its presentation of worlds of the past, future, or elsewhere, what kinds of judgments/ appeals/ criticisms can we draw from the texts about the contemporary world?  What is unique or different about women’s science fiction? Why do the themes of sexuality, gender roles, reproduction, and genetic engineering occur frequently in science fiction texts by women?  Texts include: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale, and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.

 

ENG 262-001             MWF 11:00-11:50 am                                   Campbell, D.

WESTERN LITERATURE: 1660 TO PRESENT

English 262 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 two examinations, one 5-8 page paper, and two shorter papers. 

 

ENG 262-201                         M 5:00-7:30 pm                                             Wilke

WESTERN LITERATURE: 1660 TO PRESENT

            Meets at Carnegie Center.   Contact Distance Learning for more information: 257-3377.

 

ENG 264-001                         TR 9:30-10:45 am                                          Barrio-Vilar

MAJOR BLACK WRITERS

New classroom: CB 331

            This course serves as an introduction to literature written by Black authors. Although our main focus will be the study of African American literature, we will also consider works by other writers of the African Diaspora. We will explore various literary genres in order to discover how different writers articulate the Black experience in specific cultural, historical, and political contexts. Moreover, we will consider how Black literature has evolved over time and has impacted various social and political movements around the world, such as Emancipation and Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude and Negrista movements, Postcolonialism, Feminism, and the Black Arts movement. We will discuss issues such as the following: What kinds of works constitute the (Black) literary canon? How is the Black experience articulated in literature? In what ways do race, class, gender, sexuality, and culture affect the construction of Black identity and Black literature? How does Black literature influence society? How do the assigned texts speak to each other?

 

ENG 264-002                         MWF 9:00-9:50 am                                       Tucker

MAJOR BLACK WRITERS

Using texts from various time periods, we will examine how the search for African-American identity manifests itself through the desire to connect with one's individual history as well as attempts to negotiate through and belong to a community. This search takes places across political, literary, and historical cycles such as slavery, reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, and contemporary society. By viewing the combination of these cycles, we will view these works to see how the authors create characters who navigate through the minefields of race, gender, and class to find a place they can call home.  

 

ENG 264-003                         MWF 1:00-1:50 pm                                       Fairfield

ENG 264-004                         MWF 2:00-2:50 pm                                       Fairfield

MAJOR BLACK WRITERS

Description not available at publication time.  Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 281-001                         MWF 12:00-12:50 pm                                   Staff

INTRODUCTION TO FILM

Description not available at publication time.  Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 281-002                         TR 12:30-1:45 pm                                          Staff

INTRODUCTION TO FILM

Description not available at publication time.  Please contact the instructor for information.

 



300 Level


ENG 301-001                         MWF 1:00-1:50 pm                                       Roorda

STYLE FOR WRITERS

This course is meant to help you understand prose style and develop as a stylist in your own writing.  We’ll consider what it means to have or discern a style, how style in writing can be attended to and discussed, how styles and registers shift with changes in situation, what principles and techniques help us manipulate texts to achieve (or betray) varied effects.  We’ll move between activities dealing with style in global, descriptive, even philosophical terms, and those that focus on composing and editing in a particular, practical, broadly effective style stressing “clarity and grace.”  Class sessions will shuttle between small group tasks and whole class recitations based on regular daily work of several sorts—short writings, reading responses, analysis and imitation of passages, exercises in constructing and editing sentences and paragraphs—all toward the end of improving our prose, not to mention (a related thing) what we take as ourselves.  There will be quizzes and a final project as well, the project entailing the drafting, revising, editing, and stylistic analysis of a prose work of your own, in a genre and for purposes you determine.  While the work will seem detailed and even niggling at times, our credo is broad: style is that aspect of any activity involving the grounds for choice.  Working with style, we try the possibilities and conditions of our expression, and thus, our freedom.

 

ENG 306-001             MWF 9:00-9:50 am                                       Morley

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 market their work to journals and magazines, including how to find the right journal, what to write in a cover letter, and how to edit for publication. Also, we will also focus on professional editing in theory and practice, in both publishing and teaching. We will have guest speakers and an occasional field trip to see and meet professional editors and publishers in their own environment. In this course you will get resume-worthy experience as a Peer Tutor in the UK Writing Center, as a special staff member of Limestone (the Literary Art Journal at UK), and hopefully your own publication.

 

ENG 306-002                         TR 9:30-10:45                                                Dotson

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 market their work to journals and magazines, including how to find the right journal, what to write in a cover letter, and how to edit for publication. Also, we will also focus on professional editing in theory and practice, in both publishing and teaching. We will have guest speakers and an occasional field trip to see and meet professional editors and publishers in their own environment. In this course you will get resume-worthy experience as a Peer Tutor in the UK Writing Center, as a special staff member of Limestone (the Literary Art Journal at UK), and hopefully your own publication.

 

ENG/LIN 310-001                             TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm                                  Bosch

AMERICAN ENGLISH

            This class will focus on spoken American English in all its variety.  How does your speech differ from mine?  How is it similar?  Can language change in the space of a generation? What's the difference between "good" English and "bad" English?  Can we (or do we) speak more than one dialect?  What do northerners say if they don't say "y'all"? Topics include regional, social, ethnic, and gender-based variation; research methods in dialectology; the “English-Only” question; dialect and education. 

            Goals of the course: This class will give you practice writing, speaking, arguing, presenting a position, discussing it, testing a hypothesis, and following an idea through to its conclusion.  Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

·        Describe the major linguistic properties that may vary from dialect to dialect, and provide examples of each;

·        Explain how dialect differences arise, and identify three main factors contributing to dialect divergence;

·        Identify the major regional dialect areas of the United States, and their distinguishing characteristics;

·        Discuss how speech marks a speaker’s social identity;

·        Describe two ways in which factors such as region, social class, and ethnicity may affect speech;

·        Describe two ways in which dialect study can contribute to our understanding of related areas such as education, testing, and community awareness. 

Requirements: Five homework assignments, 10-12 page final research paper, oral presentation of research. 

 

ENG 330-001                         TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm                                  Eldred

TEXT AND CONTEXT: AGE OF INNOCENCE (WHARTON)

Published in1920, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the "perils of a perfect marriage."  We will study the way The Age of Innocence was received (critically and popularly).   We'll also study the novel in the context of Wharton's upper-class life on two continents. Because the U.K. Opera Theatre is producing Madame Butterfly (originally produced in 1904), we’ll take advantage of seeing that opera and discussing themes in common to Wharton’s novel.  In addition to The Age of Innocence, readings include the movie script for The Age of Innocence; Wharton's autobiography, A Backward Glance; Wharton's nonfiction book, French Ways and Their Meanings; and selections by Wharton biographers R.W.B. Lewis and Shari Benstock. For a basic introduction to Wharton's life and work, see http://www.edithwharton.org/ and http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/6741/.

 

ENG 330-002             MWF 10:00-10:50 am                                   Campbell, D.

TEXT AND CONTEXT: REVOLUTION & THE ENGLISH ROMANTICS

With the political and social upheavals of the later 18th century came dramatic and far-reaching changes in western world thinking.  In England, these changes are reflected in, shape, and give special meanings to the poetry of the era.  Our course will study an important sampling of that poetry, especially that of William Blake and William Wordsworth.  We will also examine selected writings from such influential political thinkers of the era as Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft.  There will be two papers and two examinations.  Grades will also be based on class participation and regular attendance.

 

ENG 330-003                         MWF 11:00-11:50 am                                   Carter

TEXT AND CONTEXT: THE DARK MARK TWAIN

We know the kindly, mustachioed, white-haired-gentleman author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and of “Leaping Frog …” fame, and the humorist who traveled the globe cheering thousands with his irreverent views on governments and the late 19th century world. What we may be less familiar with is the cynical, “blasphemous” writer that even his family hid from the public after his death. This dark Twain tackled religion’s hypocrisy and mankind’s ignorance as well as other issues of his day. We’ll begin with Adam and take our tour of Mark Twain’s Bible through to the early 20th century and “The Mysterious Stranger” that Samuel Clemens was.  Work load will be daily readings, two short essays, one larger essay, and other contextual assignments.

 

ENG 330-401                         M 6:00-8:30 pm                                             Meckier

TEXT AND CONTEXT: NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (ORWELL)

            A meticulous reading of Orwell’s masterpiece. Where does it stand in the modern British utopian tradition?  What does Orwell have to say to us 21 years after 1984?  Additional readings: Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia, Zamiatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World, Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Orwell’s essays.  Informal lecture-discussion, mandatory attendance, mid-term paper, final paper.

 

ENG 330-402                         T 6:00-8:30 pm                                               Meckier

TEXT AND CONTEXT: LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER (LAWRENCE)

            A close, frank examination of Lawrence’s controversial novel, possibly his best.  Additional texts: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, Huxley’s Point Counter Point and Brave New World, Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, selected Huxley and Lawrence essays, plus a reconsideration of the trial of Lady Chatterly for obscenity.  Informal lecture-discussion, obligatory attendance, two papers: mid-term paper, final paper.

 

ENG 331-001                         MWF 11:00-11:50 am                                   Prats, J.

SURVEY OF BRITISH LITERATURE I

In ENG 331 we will survey British literature from Beowulf through Paradise Lost. We will read representative texts from the Old and Middle English periods as well as from the Renaissance and 17th Century. As we explore the varied genres and themes within their historical and cultural backgrounds, we will consider the intriguing development of the English language. Along the way, we will inquire into the changing role of literature in society.  How do we define literature?  Who is the writer?  How is the work produced and circulated?  Who are the readers? We will discover how these shifting contexts shape the literature of each period.

Expect lively lecture-discussion classes enriched with film and web presentations and student activities.  Students will complete a mid-term and a final exam (with essay, short-answer, and identification questions).  Other requirements are individual and group oral presentations involving research, and three papers (one shorter explication, one shorter chronology, and one longer essay reflecting conscientious research). Attendance and spirited participation required.

 

ENG 332-401                         W 6:00-8:30 pm                                              Dathorne

SURVEY OF BRITISH LITERATURE II

            This will be a study of British literature drawn from various time periods in examining various texts.  We shall bear in mind issues relating to race, class, and gender.

            Grades will be awarded as follows:

                        Participation in class – 20%

                        Oral presentation in class – 20%

                        A take-home mid term – 25%

                        A take-home final – 35%

 

ENG 333-001                         TR 9:30-10:45 am                                  Campbell, W.

STUDIES IN A BRITISH AUTHOR: SHAKESPEARE

This course will be a survey of Shakespeare's works, from early to late.  Our readings will include histories (Richard III, Richard II, 1 Henry IV), comedies (The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Measure for Measure), selected sonnets, tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear), a romance (Cymbeline), and perhaps one of the early narrative poems.  The course requirements will include regular attendance, participation in class discussions and in-class writings, and completion of five written assignments: three examinations and two critical essays.  The text for the course will be The Complete Works of Shakespeare, fifth edition, ed. David Bevington.

 

ENG 333-002                         MWF 10:00-10:50 am                                   Allison

STUDIES IN BRITISH AUTHORS: W. B. YEATS & JAMES JOYCE

A study of the writings of poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) and novelist James Joyce (1882-1941), in relation to the social, political, and literary contexts in which they lived. Two very different authors, working in different traditions. Yeats, once described as a “Victorian Gael,” characterized himself as one of “the last romantics”- and yet his later poetry plays an important part in the history of 20th century poetic Modernism. We’ll read Joyce’s novels Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. We’ll think about poetic form, the form of the novel, and the shape of epic narrative, and we’ll explore the relationship between literature and its backgrounds: nationalism, the Celtic Revival, modernity, modernism.

 

ENG 333-301             MTWRF 10:00 am-12:00 pm 12:30-2:30 pm         Broome

STUDIES IN A BRITISH AUTHOR: SHAKESPEARE

            Winter Session: December 20-January 11.

This course is designed to introduce you to a variety of Shakespeare’s works in several genres: comic, tragic, historical, romance drama, and lyric poetry. We will study the conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and poetry and examine how Shakespeare adopts and adapts them in his work. We will also pay some attention to the ways his plays have been adapted to twentieth-century cinema. 

We will focus closely on the language of the works, familiarizing ourselves with its historical context and learning to appreciate the variety of ways it can be interpreted. This course will ask you to think and write critically—to test the validity of yours and others’ assertions, to construct arguments in response to specific and general prompts that reflect current developments in Shakespeare and English studies, and to present conclusions drawn from your own research into aspects of Shakespearean literature. I hope that your increased familiarity with and understanding of Shakespeare’s works will deepen your appreciation of them, too.

Due to the condensed nature of the winter session, we’ll need to move quickly if we hope to cover the works I’ve chosen. We won’t attend to them in a shallow way, though; we’ll have at least two days of intense discussion for each large work. Please read the entire play before we begin discussing it in class. We will usually discuss the first three acts on Day 1 and the final two on Day 2, unless we need to change plans to accommodate our screening of a film clip. Some of the films we’ll screen clips from include Hoffman’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999), Branagh’s Henry V (1989), Olivier’s Henry V (1944), Parker’s Othello (1995), and Nelson’s O (2001). You will also need to study selected sonnets alongside the plays; in groups, you’ll analyze and present them to your colleagues.

Required Texts

New Penguin Shakespeare editions:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream ISBN: 0140707026; Henry V ISBN: 0140707085; Othello ISBN: 0140707077; The Tempest ASIN: 0140707131; Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint ISBN: 0140707328. You may use editions that you have on hand, including editions of collected works. The recommended texts are inexpensive single editions that include some useful notes and introductory statements by respected editors. Other required readings will be distributed in class. 

 

ENG 334-001                         TR 12:30-1:45 pm                                          Clymer

SURVEY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE I

This course will be an immersion in the literature and cultural history of America from the sixteenth century through roughly the Civil War.  Our primary focus will be on the complex and often ambivalent ways in which issues of race, identity, and nationhood were imagined and intertwined by writers in these centuries.  Our reading will begin with the literature of empire – narratives of exploration written for a European audience by sixteenth-century adventurers and merchants. This will be followed by a unit focusing on the writing produced by early New England and Southern colonials; here we will read accounts of internal strife and dissent stemming from gender and religious differences, while we also study the colonists’ fear borne of their contact with natives.  Next, as the colonies make the turn toward nationhood in the eighteenth century, we will study their increasing preoccupation with what being an “American” seemingly implies and entails, as well as what it excludes. Finally, we will devote the last several weeks of the term to the stunning outpouring of work generated by American writers in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.  In this unit, we will read the writing of America’s most famous authors – including Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Emerson, and Douglass – within the context of a roiling historical milieu dominated by slavery, women’s rights, and a changing economic structure. 

The primary text will be the Heath Anthology of American Literature, volume 1.  Students should expect to come away from this class with a deep knowledge of both famous and often-undervalued American writers, as well as a firm grounding in the cultural history within which these men and women produced their work. Grades will be based on a 6-8 page essay, a collaborative research project, a mid-term, and a final exam.

 

ENG 335-001                         MWF 1:00-1:50 pm                                       Marksbury

SURVEY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE II

A survey of American literature running from the Civil War (we'll start with Whitman) to the near-present (we'll probably finish with the David Mamet play Glengarry Glen Ross). The emphasis will be on major authors and fiction, with forays into Southern and African American writing. Texts include The Norton Anthology and Don DeLillo's White Noise. Close readings and connections between the texts across time will be stressed as we try to balance forms as various as the novel, the short story, the poem, the essay--and possibly the film. Expect plentiful reading, heated discussion, and three take-home exams. 

 

ENG 336-001                         TR 2:00-3:15 pm                                            Reece

STUDIES IN AN AMERICAN AUTHOR: WENDELL BERRY

This course is dedicated to the work of Wendell Berry, and will examine how his agrarian philosophy manifests itself through fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. We will begin with the hugely influential Unsettling of America, then move to That Distant Land (stories) and the Selected Poetry. We will take a hard look at Berry’s response, throughout his career, to the current ecological crisis brought on by industrialism and consumerism.

 

ENG 336-002                         MW 3:00-4:15 pm                                          Trask

STUDIES IN AMERICAN AUTHORS: WILLA CATHER & ELIZABETH BISHOP

This class will focus on two of the most highly regarded 20th-century American writers: the novelist Willa Cather and the poet Elizabeth Bishop. Cather died in 1947, a year after Bishop published her first book of poems.  They were not friends or contemporaries, and neither influenced the other.  Yet both were women; both were attracted to women; and both refused to be categorized as women writers. These commonalities will form the basis of the crucial questions we shall ask in this course.  Expect to pay close attention to questions of sexuality, feminist literary history (its strengths and limitations), formalism, modernism, and post-modernism. We’ll read 5 of Cather’s novels and a number of her short stories, and we’ll read all of Bishop’s poetry and her major prose.  We’ll also acquaint ourselves with the critical literature on both writers, as well as with something of the literary milieu in which each practiced.  The class will be divided evenly between the two writers.  Two short papers and a somewhat longer one will be required, along with occasional reading checks.

 

Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark, My Antonia, A Lost Lady, The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Collected Stories.

 

Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poetry, The Complete Prose.

 

ENG 395-001                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

INDEPENDENT WORK

            This course allows English majors to pursue an area of specific interest under the guidance of a professor in the English Department.  Interested students should stop by 1227 P.O.T. (English Advising Office) for the proper paperwork.  Students’ plans must be approved by their directors and by the Chair of the English Department.    

 



400 Level


ENG 401-001                         TR 12:30-1:45 pm                                          Reece

SPECIAL TOPICS IN WRITING: NATURE WRITING

For students looking to get outside the classroom walls, this course might offer an open door. We will study many of America’s important nature writers, but we will also range freely ourselves through various natural and unnatural environments around campus and around Lexington. A major portion of the grade for this course will depend on a field journal kept throughout the semester.

 

ENG 401-401                         M 5:30-8:00 pm                                             Oaks

SPECIAL TOPICS IN WRITING: ADAPTATIONS

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 or 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.

 

Possible 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 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, The Business of Fancydancing (book of poetry and film adaptation), “Snow White (variations by the Grimm Brothers, Anne Sexton, and Angela Carter), Gaudi Afternoon (novel and film versions), and “Death and the Compass” (short story and film versions).

 

 

ENG 407-001                         W 3:00-5:30 pm                                              Finney

INTERMEDIATE WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: POETRY

This mid-level poetry writing course is a seminar designed for the student writer drawn to the music and craft of poetry. The burgeoning, serious, poetically-inclined or poetically-inquisitive student, who is committed to a continuing dialogue about the magic and mechanics of this most ancient and gracious literary genre is invited into this circle. This course begins with a refresher moment that looks at some of the foundations of the form: line length, image and symbol, rhythm, and various themes. Mid-semester the focus shifts to a discussion of how poetry wraps its long luscious arms around art, history, science, and geography. In the last weeks of the semester the course wraps up with a look at the importance of poetry in contemporary society: How, when, and why, it is used. From the beginning to the end of this class the student poet writes and shares poetry in the poetry circle, which is always dedicated to sincere improvement of the poem. From the beginning to the end of this lyrically-inclined conversation we learn how to read and talk about poetry. We do not try and define what a poem means. We look at how the poet accomplishes what she/he has set out to do. As a student writer in this course you are encouraged to leave all safe zones and construct risky thoughtful writing. Any and all texts will be announced on the first day of class, which is a mandatory attendance day.

 

ENG 407-002                         T 3:30-6:00 pm                                               Finney

INTERMEDIATE WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION

This intermediate section of Imaginative Writing – Fiction is a seminar dedicated to the reading, understanding and crafting of strong imaginative narrative. After an introduction and review of the elements of good fiction which include; character building, the placement of conflict, lovely luminous language, strategic openings and closings, the class moves into the major journey of the semester, the workshop setting. Within the workshop circle the various student voices come together to share in the common goal of moving the work in progress closer to clarity and completion. During the semester, two stories, 6 – 10 pages in length, are crafted by each student with special time and attention given to the Revision process towards the end of the semester. The weekly critique uses the foundational elements of good fiction as guide. Each week the student writer is also given complimentary reading material and writing exercises to help steward and gird the original student work in progress. The published stories used for this mentoring work are explicitly chosen from exciting and inventive writers from around the globe. Any and all texts will be announced on the first day of class, which is a mandatory attendance day.

 

ENG 480G-001                                  TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm                                  Prats, A.

STUDIES IN FILM: THE VIETNAM WAR AND/IN FILM

An exploration of Hollywood’s many versions of the Vietnam War, with particular attention to the historical and cultural questions raised by these movies, from The Green Berets (1968) to We Were Soldiers (2002). We will screen some 18 or 20 movies, all of them outside of class (in the Media Lab of the Young Library). Some of the titles that I will consider for discussion (in addition to the two mentioned above): The Deer Hunter; Full Metal Jacket; Coming Home; Apocalypse Now; Apocalypse Now Redux; Platoon; Born on the Fourth of July; First Blood; Rambo: First Blood, Part II; Uncommon Valor; Jackknife; Tigerland; 84 Charlie MoPic; Jacob’s Ladder; Go Tell the Spartans; Twilight’s Last Gleaming. In addition we will screen all the installments of the famous PBS series: Vietnam. Required Text: Karnow, Vietnam: A History. Requirements: Midterm (essay & “objective”); Final (essay & “objective”); Research paper. Class Participation.

 

ENG 481G-001                                  MWF 12:00-12:50 pm                                   Allison

STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: MODERN POETRY

An examination of a range of 20th century poets, British and Irish, in relation to social and literary contexts. W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Stevie Smith, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney and one or two more. Stress on close reading, poetic language and poetic forms, but also on backgrounds­ social, political, biographical. When do you want to make background materials really matter, and when not? We’ll talk a lot about meaning and interpretation, and about how you understand your role as a reader.

 

ENG 482G-001                                  TR 2:00-3:15 pm                                            Doolen

STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: RISE OF THE U.S. NOVEL

This course is an introduction to the rise of the novel in the United States.  We will read a mix of famous and relatively unknown authors, as well as investigate how the form of the novel changes over the first half of the nineteenth century. In our reading, we will focus on two related questions: how does the novel capture the social and political pressures of a particular historical moment? Where is the line between fiction and history, dreams and reality? The works we will study cut across several literary genres, including the American Gothic, the Sentimental Novel, and the Historical Romance, and we will try to understand the relationship between literary and historical writing. Requirements include an extensive portfolio, both analytical and creative in nature, a positive attitude, and an openness to new ideas.

 

ENG 483G-401                                  R 6:00-8:30 pm                                              Dathorne

STUDIES IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN/DIASPORIAN LITERATURE: GLOBAL SURVEY OF BLACK LITERATURE

            This course will be concerned mainly with texts from African, African American, and other Disaporian writers.  Note that after each section there will be a book which you MUST purchase.  This will constitute the basis of lectures, and assignments will be set from this.

            Grades will be awarded as follows:

                        Participation in class – 20%

                        Oral presentation in class – 20%

                        A take-home mid term – 25%

                        A take-home final – 35%

 

ENG 487G-001                                  TR 12:30-1:45 pm                                          Blum

CULTURAL STUDIES: PSYCHOANALYSIS & CULTURE

What can psychoanalytic perspectives contribute to our understanding of cultural phenomena—practices, ideals, the contemporary stories of pleasure and happiness that “work” for us?  This course will focus on certain key themes in psychoanalytic theory—the child, gender difference, narcissism, and borderline disturbances and will go on to consider in some more depth psychoanalytic accounts of body image and beauty culture.  The course will introduce students in depth to psychoanalytic principles (which will involve weekly two-page response papers).  There will also be a final take-home examination.

 



500 Level


ENG 507-001                         R 3:30-6:00 pm                                              Edwards

ADVANCED WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: FICTION

This is an advanced undergraduate/graduate level course designed to explore in great depth the writing of fiction, especially the short story.  Students will gain an extensive understanding of narrative form, and will examine many aspects of the story, including characterization, narrative motion, and the use of language and imagery.  Students will look at both traditional and experimental 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 507-002                         W 3:00-5:30 pm                                              Vance

ADVANCED WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: POETRY

            Imaginative Writing 507-002 is an advanced course in the craft of writing poems, for students who have demonstrated commitment to this work and to the reading of contemporary poets.  We will form an audience for each other’s poetry, and will read widely in an anthology.

 

ENG 507-003                         T 3:30-6:00 pm                                               Edwards

ADVANCED WORKSHOP IN IMAGINATIVE WRITING: AUTOBIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR

This is an advanced undergraduate/graduate level course designed to explore in great depth the writing of autobiography and memoir.  Students will gain an extensive understanding of multi-faceted and sometimes elusive form.  We will explore the border between memory and imagination, how a writer weaves experience, research, and perception to create an autobiography that's cogent, unique, and relevant to a wider audience.  Students 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 form 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 509-201                         T 5:00-7:30 pm                                               Williamson

COMPOSITION FOR TEACHERS

            This course introduces students to the theories, practices, and approaches for teaching composition, with an emphasis on the middle and secondary level. The major aim of this course is to equip future teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary to better teach students to express their ideas through printed text. The course focuses on assignment and lesson development, strategies for improving writing, and response and assessment of writing. A review of grammar, usage, and mechanics is included.  Questions about this course can be directed to the instructor at jrwilliam@ft-thomas.k12.ky.us .   Note: Course meets at Carnegie Center.  Contact Distance Learning Program for more information: 257-3377.

 

ENG/EDC/LIN 514-401                    MW 5:30-6:45 pm                                          Clayton

TESL MATERIALS & METHODS

            An extension of ENG/EDC/LIN 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/LIN 513 preferred, but not required.

 

ENG/ANT/LIN 516-001                    TR 9:30-10:45 am                                          Stump

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

            The more human languages you look at, the more you are struck both by their amazing diversity and by the fundamental ways in which they are alike.  In this course, we will methodically investigate the differences and similarities among grammatical systems, drawing upon extensive data from a wide variety of languages.  Several class periods will be devoted to the “hands-on” elicitation and transcription of linguistic data from one or more speakers of a designated foreign language; these data will provide the basis for three written assignments and a term project in which students will develop their own original grammatical analyses.  (The designated languages which we have investigated in past years include Amharic, Bambara, Berber, Chichewa, Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Tamil, Telugu, and Uyghur; members of this spring's class should expect a comparably “exotic” language.)  The textbook will be Lindsay Whaley's Introduction to Typology (Sage Publications, 1997).

(Prerequisite:  ENG/LIN 211 or equivalent.)

 

ENG 570-001                         MWF 3:00-3:50 pm                                       Oaks

SELECTED TOPICS IN ADVANCED STUDY OF LIT: THE WOMAN DETECTIVE

            Students must enroll through WS 595-001.

Description not available at publication time.  Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 570-401                         TR 6:00-7:15 pm                                            Popkin

SEL TOPICS IN ADV STUDY OF LIT: AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THEORY & CRITICISM

            Once regarded as nothing more than the simple transcription of an author's life, autobiography is now recognized as a complex literary genre that poses complicated questions about the relationship between memory, experience, and writing.  In this course, we will explore the theoretical issues involved in the reading and study of autobiography, and test these perspectives through the reading of selected autobiographical texts, from Augustine's Confessions to contemporary first-person literature.

For more information, contact Jeremy Popkin, Professor of History, popkin@uky.edu.   Cross-listed as HIS 595-401.

 

ENG 610-001                         TR 12:30-1:45 pm                                          Zunshine

STUDIES IN RHETORIC: THE TEACHING OF THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL

When you are on the job market, your ability and willingness to teach a class on the eighteenth-century English novel makes you a more attractive candidate, no matter what your main field is. Thus, one practical objective of this course is to prepare you for teaching such a class. We will read a broad selection of eighteenth-century novels, focusing on such authors as Behn, Defoe, Fielding, Haywood, Richardson, Burney, and Austen, and discuss (and apply in our pedagogical practicums) a variety of teaching approaches and theoretical methodologies. We will also consider such questions as 1) the relationship between institutional settings, personal histories, and career goals, on the one hand, and individual teaching philosophies, on the other; 2) the formation of our implicit assumptions about our students (e.g., how much they know; how much would they be willing to read) and about  the texts under consideration (e.g., what constitutes a “new” canon of English literature?); and 3) the relationship between theoretical approaches and specific pedagogical dilemmas. Requirements: a series of response papers, a sample syllabus with a course description, a teaching philosophy statement.

 



600 Level


ENG/LIN 617-001                             MW 3:00-4:15 pm                                          Clayton

STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS: RESEARCH METHODS

            This class has two purposes.  First, students will become acquainted with research traditions, methods, and assumptions in the study of language acquisition, teaching, and policy.  Second, students will learn how to write proposals appropriate for social science research.  Students are encouraged to focus reading and writing assignments toward their own research interests.  Class is open to advanced undergraduate students (with consent of the instructor) and graduate students in English, linguistics, educational policy studies, foreign language pedagogy, and similar fields.  Prereq:  ENG/EDC/LIN 513 preferred, but not required.

 

ENG 642-001                         MW 3:00-4:15 pm                                          Allison

STUDIES IN MODERN BRITISH LIT: YEATS, JOYCE, AND BECKETT

A study of the writings of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett, in relation to the social, political, and literary contexts in which they lived. Very different authors, working in different traditions, though all of them Irish and each of them influenced in different ways by the Irish revolution, or in Beckett’s case by its aftermath (resistance fighter in more ways than one, his war was world war two). A study of how authors develop and change, and how they use and adapt sources for their own artistic ends. An examination of literary Modernism in poetic, fictive, and dramatic terms. If Yeats was the last Romantic, was Beckett the last Modernist?  And how have their successors responded to their examples? Yeats’s poems and plays; Joyce’s poems and novels, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses; Beckett’s poems, two plays and at least one novel: Murphy. We’ll talk about poetic and dramatic form, the form of the novel and the shape of narrative, and the relationship between literature and its backgrounds: nationalism and post-nationalism, the Celtic Revival and the counter-Revival, modernity, modernism, and what comes after. Required: oral reports, one shorter paper, and a longer term paper.

 

ENG 653-001                         M 5:00-7:30 pm                                             Trask

STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1900 

We’ll look at the history of sexuality between the rise of the New Woman and the AIDS emergency from a variety of angles (historical, theoretical, literary-critical).  We’ll look at all the major turns of events within the sex-gender system in the last century: the bohemian 20s, the “free love” 60s, transformations in masculine and feminine self-definition, the rise of feminism and gay liberation, and the enduring battles over these movements and others (like birth control).  The syllabus will mix and match recognizable literary texts with some primary documents—from life-narratives to Supreme Court decisions (such as Loving v. Virginia)—spanning the 20th century.   The class is meant to teach students how to think about the interdisciplinary subject of sexuality within the context of the humanist classroom. No prior expertise in feminism, lesbian and gay studies, or theory is necessary. In addition to some influential essays, the reading list will in all likelihood contain the following:

 

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume One

Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex”

Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements*

Christine Stansell, American Moderns*

George Chauncey, Gay New York*

Estelle Freedman and John D’Emilio, Intimate Mattters*

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique*

Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male*

Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control*

Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack

Emma Goldman, The Traffic in Women

Mary Casal, The Stone Wall

Ralph Werther, Autobiography of an Androgyne

Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps

Tennessee Williams, Suddenly Last Summer

Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums

Leroi Jones, The Toilet

Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

James Baldwin, Another Country

Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook

Thom Gunn, The Man With Night Sweats

 

* excerpts

 

ENG 681-001                         TR 9:30-10:45 am                                          Prats, A.

STUDIES IN FILM

By request (though most likely by default), maybe even out of necessity (in other words, in the paramount interest of “coverage”), the spring 2005 version of ENG 681 will focus on major Hollywood genres after 1929. Not all genres will be treated equally, however, since the instructor’s predilections, to say nothing of his whims, will tend to tip the scales in favor of Westerns (Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, High Noon, Shane, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Unforgiven [and I’m not even listing the Indian Westerns]) and war movies (Paths of Glory, Bataan, Sands of Iwo Jima, To Hell and Back, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, The Thin Red Line, Saving Private Ryan, Three Kings, Black Hawk Down), followed closely by film noir (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, To Have and Have Not [am I getting too obvious here?] The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Chinatown, The Conversation]), then by the gangster movie (The Public Enemy, White Heat, The Godfather, and that insult to every respectable and self-respecting Cuban, Scarface) with horror a distant fifth (Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead [Romero], though we might also pay attention to Carrie and The Shining). While the “coverage” commitment requires attention to the musical (Top Hat, The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, Chicago) and the romantic comedy (Pretty Woman [are there any others? Is Sleeping with the Enemy an appropriate sequel?] and maybe Bridget Jones’s Diary) we are not likely to do much work with screwball comedy or slasher films. Required: John Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance, and Belton, American Cinema/American Culture. Final Exam, Final Essay, Class Participation.

 

ENG 690-001                         T 3:30-6:00 pm                                               Bordo

STUDIES IN LITERATURE & GENDER: NABOKOV’S LOLITA & HER DESCENDANTS

A half century after its publication, Lolita continues to irritate the nerves of contemporary sexual politics, and forces us to confront aspects of human behavior that we'd prefer not to look at.  Assessing Lolita today is a complex business, however.  For in the years since Lolita was published, Nabokov's literary creations have generated a set of images that seem more inspired by cultural archetypes and ideological agendas than by the details of the novel, and that have virtually usurped those details in the popular imagination.

            This course will explore the complex conversation that has existed between Nabokov's Lolita and post-War culture, beginning with a close reading of the novel, then focusing on the film adaptations of Nabokov's novel—Stanley Kubrick's (1962) and Adrian Lyne's (1998)--and concluding with an exploration of other contemporary "participants" in the conversation, including Sam Mendes' American Beauty, photographic and mass media representations of the nymphet, child beauty pageant culture, the contemporary sexualization of children, as well as recent novelistic attempts to give Lolita her voice (Pia Pera's Lolita's Diary; Nancy Jones' Molly), and portions of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. Throughout, we will discuss the role cultural politics have played in interpretations and uses of the novel and images inspired by its characters.

 

ENG 691-001                         To be arranged.                                              Eldred

READINGS IN RHETORIC: CONSULTING PRACTICES

This course allows graduate students to integrate readings in Rhetoric and Composition scholarship and provides an opportunity to discuss research with faculty associated with Rhetoric and Composition. In addition to readings, students will be expected to post a reading journal on the Discussion Board or complete a brief annotated bibliography which they must also post on the Discussion Board. This course may be repeated for a maximum of three credits. Prerequisites: ENG 609 and 610 or consent of the instructor.

 



700 Level


ENG 700-001                         To be arranged                                               Pierce

ENG 700-002                         To be arranged                                               Pierce

TUTORIAL FOR PHD CANDIDATES

            This course is designed to prepare advanced doctoral students for qualifying examinations. Much of the work will be done individually and in small groups, tailored to each student's place in the process. We will work on constructing the lists and rationales, develop strategies for note-taking and studying, and take practice exams. Students preparing for the oral examination will work on drafting the prospectus. You must have completed your course work to take this class. Any exceptions will have to be cleared by the instructor.

 

ENG 722-001                         TR 2:00-3:15 pm                                            MacDonald

SEMINAR IN RENAISSANCE STUDIES: SHAKESPEARE & OVID: HISTORY, DESIRE, & CHANGE

This semester, the focus of English 722 will be Shakespeare's recourse throughout his career to the works of his favorite classical poet, Ovid. The Renaissance fascination with Ovid's portrayals of desire and its fateful consequences--rape, unnatural births, gender-blurring transformations of all kinds--will form one important strand in the class's investigations. Another strand will be contributed by Ovid's habits of revising "official" version of Roman events. How does Shakespeare express an Ovidian understanding of history and politics? Primary texts will include the two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, a selection of Shakespeare's plays, and lyrics by such Renaissance poets as Lyly, Lodge, Spenser, Marlowe, and Barnfield. Latin is welcome, although not necessary, since all Roman texts will be read in Renaissance translation. Course requirements will include an annotated bibliography, critical analyses of selected critical articles, an abstract of a potential conference paper, and a final term paper for the course.

 

ENG 738-001                         TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm                                  Rosenman

SEMINAR IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE

This course will explore what we call “class formation” in the heart of the nineteenth-century, which saw “the rise of the middle class,” “the making of the English working class,” the establishment of “the two nations,” to cull out a couple of truisms about the period. We will understand “class formation” and these more specific phenomena as processes, not entities, for class identities remained under construction throughout the century, with shifting and permeable boundaries, multiple and fluid membership critieria, and unpredictable connections and antagonisms. We’ll attend to figures who temporarily stabilize class positions (the sober mill owner, the tragic factory worker) as well as those liminal figures who trouble class boundaries, such as the seamstress and the social climber.

We’ll take a cultural studies approach, combining literature, social history, and modern criticism. Literary readings will include Dickens’ Hard Times, Gaskell’s North and South, Collins’ Basil, Tonna’s Helen Fleetwood, as well as poetry and fiction from Chartism, the most significant working-class movement of the period.

And another thing: the library is likely to acquire a wonderful collection of primary sources on the British Empire in the nineteenth century, enhancing the substantial primary holdings it already has. If this happens, I’ll also devote a portion of the class to empire, looking at the same issues of identity formation with an emphasis on race, nationality, and religion. I can’t set the syllabus until I look at the collection, but expect to read some microfilm and on-line sources for this part of the course. In this case, the title of the course is “Under Construction: Selves and Others in Victorian Britain.”

No surprise: although I haven’t designated gender as a structuring category for the class, it will be a crucial part of our discussions throughout the semester.

Expect to write a long seminar paper, a shorter paper (which can serve as a tune-up for the longer paper), and an in-class report. Of course, expect to come to class and talk. Because this is a 700-level course, we’ll devote extra time to exploring scholarly resources and preparing work for presentation and publication. If you have special interests in the nineteenth century, social class, or imperialism, let me know and I’ll do my best to accommodate them.

 

ENG 748-001                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

MASTER’S THESIS RESEARCH

            Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 749-001                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

DISSERTATION RESEARCH

            Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 750-401                         T 6:00-8:30 pm                                               Doolen

SEMINAR IN COLONIAL LITERATURE

This course will cover the rise of the novel in the United States from the end of the revolutionary period to the 1850s. We will read those authors who dominate US literary history—authors such as Charles Brockden Brown, James Fenimore Cooper, and Herman Melville—but we will also study other writers who challenge conventional wisdom and help us to imagine alternative literary histories in the US. In our reading, we will focus on two related questions: how does the novel capture the social and political pressures of a particular historical moment? Where is the line between fiction and history, dreams and reality? The novels we will study cut across several literary genres, including the American Gothic, the Sentimental Novel, and the Historical Romance, and we will attempt both to understand and to theorize the relationship between literary and historical writing. This course will give graduate students from any area an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the novel form. In addition, students will gain appreciation and working knowledge of an exciting, and still neglected, period of US literary history. Requirements include an annotated bibliography and a final seminar paper. 

 

ENG 752-401                         W 6:00-8:30 pm                                              Clymer

SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: 1860-1900

This seminar explores the class politics of late-nineteenth-century American literature.  Traditionally identified as the period of “Realism” and “Naturalism,” these years have always been viewed as ones in which authors were especially interested in social conditions.  We will both engage with this traditional literary history and push past it.  Our wider focus will include the emergence of a modern commodity culture, speculative financial shenanigans, the economics of marriage and gender roles, American imperialism, the nationalization of the marketplace, working-class protest writing, and the peculiar intersections of class and racial politics.  The approach will combine historicist criticism with close textual reading, and we will also be attentive to the intersection of individual writers’ lives with the social and institutional mechanisms of writing, publishing, and literary history.

Texts include Henry James, The American; Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs; Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives; Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth; Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Charles Chesnutt’s Conjure Stories; William Dean Howells, An Imperative Duty; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women & Economics; Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, The Squatter and the Don; Jack London’s short stories; and Theresa Malkiel, The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker.

There will also be a healthy amount of literary and historical scholarship.

Grade to be based on 15-20 page paper, annotated bibliography, and class participation.

 

ENG 768-001                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

RESIDENTIAL CREDIT FOR THE MASTERS DEGREE

            Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 769-001                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

RESIDENTIAL CREDIT FOR THE DOCTORS DEGREE

            Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG 780-001                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

ENG 780-002                         To be arranged                                               Rosenman

DIRECTED STUDIES

            Please contact the instructor for information.

 



Linguistics Courses


 

 

ENG/LIN 210-001                             MW  4:00-5:15 pm                                         O’Hara

ENG/LIN 210-401                             MW  6:00-7:15 pm                                         O’Hara

ENG/LIN 210-402                             TR  6:00-7:15 pm                                           O’Hara

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

PREREQUISITE: NONE

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 1200 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?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: The student will be able to analyze, compare, and contrast language data drawn from all periods of  English and to explain the processes by which Modern English evolved. Learning to do this kind of analysis is the most important part of the course

METHOD: Four exams based on the assigned readings and selected videos; short analytical exercises and written assignments to reinforce what has been learned in class. 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.

 

NOTES:           1) English majors will find that this course complements their course work in literature.

2) 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.

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

     including those on the waitlist.

 

ENG/LIN 211-001                             MW 4:00-5:15 pm                                          Guindon

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

This course will introduce and explore the forms and structures of human language, how they are similar, how they differ, 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 ‘happity’ out of ‘happy + 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 concepts and forms, and to deduce linguistic structures by applying methods of structural analysis to data drawn from a variety of languages.  There will also be at least four exams and one quiz; exam formats will generally be based on the homework.  Heavy emphasis is placed upon classroom preparation and participation.

 

ENG/LIN 211-002                             TR 3:30-4:45 pm                                            Stump

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

This course is the first semester of a two-course introduction to the scientific study of human language; this section will be taught in a large lecture format.  We will explore the principles regulating three domains of linguistic organization (those of phonology, morphology and syntax), examining both the ways in which languages differ in these domains and the ways in which they are alike; we will additionally investigate the causes and processes of language change in each of these domains.  Students can expect regular homework assignments designed to enable them to understand linguistic principles and to apply methods of formal analysis to data drawn from a variety of languages.  The textbook will be Contemporary Linguistics, 5th edition (Bedford, St. Martin’s, 2004), by William O’Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff & Janie Rees-Miller.

 

ENG/LIN 211-401                             MW 5:30-6:45 pm                                          Guindon

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

            See description for ENG/LIN 211-001.

 

ENG/LIN 211-402                             TR 5:30-6:45 pm                                            Guindon

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS I

            See description for ENG/LIN 211-001.

 

ENG/LIN 212-001                             MWF 9:00-9:50 am                                       Marks

ENG/LIN 212-002                             MWF 11:00-11:50 am                                   Marks

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS II

The goal of this course is to expand your 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, and writing systems.  Success in this class will be measured by your ability to demonstrate the recurring structural patterns of language and to analyze the function of language as a part of society as a whole.  In addition, you will be able to illustrate the usefulness of linguistic approaches to language in everyday life.

 

ENG/LIN 310-001                             TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm                                  Bosch

AMERICAN ENGLISH

            This class will focus on spoken American English in all its variety.  How does your speech differ from mine?  How is it similar?  Can language change in the space of a generation? What's the difference between "good" English and "bad" English?  Can we (or do we) speak more than one dialect?  What do northerners say if they don't say "y'all"? Topics include regional, social, ethnic and gender-based variation; research methods in dialectology; the “English-Only” question; dialect and education. 

            Goals of the course: This class will give you practice writing, speaking, arguing, presenting a position, discussing it, testing a hypothesis, and following an idea through to its conclusion.  Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

·        Describe the major linguistic properties that may vary from dialect to dialect, and provide examples of each;

·        Explain how dialect differences arise, and identify three main factors contributing to dialect divergence;

·        Identify the major regional dialect areas of the United States, and their distinguishing characteristics;

·        Discuss how speech marks a speaker’s social identity;

·        Describe two ways in which factors such as region, social class, and ethnicity may affect speech;

·        Describe two ways in which dialect study can contribute to our understanding of related areas such as education, testing, and community awareness. 

Requirements: Five homework assignments, 10-12 page final research paper, oral presentation of research. 

 

LIN 317-001                                       TR 3:30-4:45 pm                                            Guindon

LANGUAGE & SOCIETY: INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE

This course will review how the Indo-European language was reconstructed on the basis of its daughter languages such as English, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, etc.  We will then go on to discuss the phonological system which was reconstructed for Indo-European and problems with that reconstruction, then discuss the morphological/syntactic structures of the language.  After exploring Indo-European, we will then discuss what the linguistic evidence and the archaeological evidence tells us about the culture of the people who spoke the language.  Students should expect extensive memorization, and at least four exams and one quiz.  Heavy emphasis is placed upon classroom preparation and participation.

 

LIN 317-002                           MW 3:00-4:15 pm                              Rouhier-Willoughby

LANGUAGE & SOCIETY: LANGUAGE & CULTURE

How many colors are there in the world? If you are a speaker of Dani, a language spoken in Papua New Guinea, you might say 2. If you are a speaker of Russian, you might say 12. How is this possible, given that all human eyes see the same colors? This is just one of many conundrums that we will study in our discussion of language and culture. We will examine how and whether our understanding of the world is dependent on the words we say.

 

LIN 318-001                           TR 12:30-1:45 pm                              Rouhier-Willoughby

SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS

Would you prefer to be called a flip-flopper or open-minded? These words may have the same meaning, but they convey very different attitudes and as a result, perhaps different meanings. This course will study the approaches to meaning and its variation in English and other languages. We will consider the meanings of words, of sentences, and of utterances, and the rich variety of information we convey with language, sometimes without even saying a word.

 

ENG 395-001                         To be arranged                                               Bosch

INDEPENDENT WORK

            Please contact the instructor for information.

 

ENG/EDC/LIN 514-401                    MW 5:30-6:45 pm                                          Clayton

TESL MATERIALS & METHODS

            An extension of ENG/EDC/LIN 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/LIN 513 preferred, but not required.

 

ENG/ANT/LIN 516-001                    TR 9:30-10:45 am                                          Stump

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

            The more human languages you look at, the more you are struck both by their amazing diversity and by the fundamental ways in which they are alike.  In this course, we will methodically investigate the differences and similarities among grammatical systems, drawing upon extensive data from a wide variety of languages.  Several class periods will be devoted to the “hands-on” elicitation and transcription of linguistic data from one or more speakers of a designated foreign language; these data will provide the basis for three written assignments and a term project in which students will develop their own original grammatical analyses.  (The designated languages which we have investigated in past years include Amharic, Bambara, Berber, Chichewa, Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Tamil, Telugu, and Uyghur; members of this spring's class should expect a comparably “exotic” language.)  The textbook will be Lindsay Whaley's Introduction to Typology (Sage Publications, 1997).

(Prerequisite:  ENG/LIN 211 or equivalent.)

 

ENG/LIN 617-001                             MW 3:00-4:15 pm                                          Clayton

STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS: RESEARCH METHODS

            This class has two purposes.  First, students will become acquainted with research traditions, methods, and assumptions in the study of language acquisition, teaching, and policy.  Second, students will learn how to write proposals appropriate for social science research.  Students are encouraged to focus reading and writing assignments toward their own research interests.  Class is open to advanced undergraduate students (with consent of the instructor) and graduate students in English, linguistics, educational policy studies, foreign language pedagogy, and similar fields.  Prereq:  ENG/EDC/LIN 513 preferred, but not required.