UG Course Descriptions: Spring 2014

Days, times and room locations listed below are subject to change. For detailed and up-to-date listings of instructors, course times, room numbers, and open/closed/waitlisted status, see the University's official online Schedule of Classes.

For past syllabi or more information on a specific course, please contact the English Department at 502-852-6801.

 

Spring 2014

3340 ENGL 202-01 Introduction to Creative Writing: MWF 9-9:50 a.m. HM111 (Professor Miller )

English 202 introduces students to the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama with their attendant vocabularies, traditions, and forms. In the course of the semester, a 202 student can expect to:

·Read, write, and revise work in all three genres.

·Locate and refine her individual writing process.

·Learn strategies for interrogating her own work.

·Practice giving thoughtful critiques of peer work.

 

3341 ENGL 202-02 Introduction to Creative Writing: MW 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. HM111 (Professor Weinberg )

This course gives you the opportunity to explore the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama; think of them as vast nations you’ll visit only briefly, but long enough to decide if you want to return in future semesters. Your main projects will be a short story, a series of poems, and a ten-minute play. The first month will be a primer in four areas of craft applicable to all three genres: detail/image, voice/point-of-view, character, and setting. You’ll experiment with these foundation elements in writing exercises and discuss how published writers apply them. For the remainder of the semester, you’ll take a closer look at each genre in mini-units, and you’ll be introduced to the creative writing workshop, in which you’ll exchange constructive criticism of your fiction and poetry.


3677 ENGL 202-03 Introduction to Creative Writing: T/Th 1-2:15 p.m. HM111 (Professor Martinez )

The student who will benefit most from English 202 is one who is curious about the world, who engages in non-required reading as a primary activity and who writes daily (or who aspires to these habits and is eager to do the work necessary to get there).

English 202, An Introduction to Creative Writing, offers the opportunity to explore the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama with the goal of enabling students to gain or improve competence as readers, writers, and critics in all three genres. Students will leave English 202 prepared for the demands of higher level creative writing courses, having learned a set of techniques for invention, writing, and revision; a critical vocabulary for each genre; experience in workshop sessions; and a broader knowledge of contemporary literature in each genre.


1176 ENGL 202-75 Introduction to Creative Writing: T/Th 5:30-6:45 p.m. HM219 (Professor Mozer)

Intro to Creative Writing focuses on three major genres: poetry, fiction, and playwriting. This section of 202 doesn't separate out each genre individually, rather, takes a wholistic, rolling approach to genre discussions--we might be discussing rhythm and meter in poetry but workshopping a one-act and a short story. This is a discussion-driven class centered on reading both current and timeless pieces in all three genres (and sometimes nonfiction); constant writing exercises designed to develop and define your creative writing muscles; and regular, rotating workshops wherein we read and critique your works in progress.
Students will complete one short story, one small collection of poems, and one complete one-act or scene. The course will require regular writing exercises and critical discussion of both published and student work. You will also attend one play or one reading. At the end of the class you will submit a portfolio of your strongest, revised work from the semester.


4564 ENGL 250-01 Introduction to Literature –H: T/Th 9:30 -10:45 a.m. DA308 (Dr.Tamara Yohannes)

This general education meets the HUMANITIES requirement and will focus on literature as a reading experience, using Italo Calvino’s experimental novel as a guide to the various approaches to reading and understanding literature of a variety of genres.Strategically, this course requires each student to read, think, and write about the assigned literature daily and to come to class ready to discuss the important issues raised by the literature with the student’s team and with the whole class.Teams will be assigned during the first week of class and will remain functioning throughout the semester.

GOALS:My hope is that, by the end of this course, you will:

  1. deepen your experience and enjoyment of reading literature, both in this class and beyond;
  2. gain confidence in developing your own readings of literature, both in this class and beyond;
  3. develop your collaborative skills in synthesizing, analyzing, and interpreting primary texts;
  4. Communicate an understanding of vocabulary, concepts, materials, techniques, and methods of intellectual inquiry within the arts and/or humanities;
  5. Describe and evaluate texts using primary and secondary materials;
  6. Analyze and synthesize texts, recognizing the diversity of cultures and historical contexts.

5383 ENGL 300-01 Introduction to English Studies-WR: MWF 9-9:50 a.m. HM123 (Dr. Biberman)


5384 ENGL 300-02 Introduction to English Studies-WR: MWF 1-1:50 p.m. DA202 (Dr. )


6121ENGL 300-03 Introduction to English Studies-WR: T/Th 1-2:15 p.m. EH215 (Professor Anderson)

This course will explore key questions in the field of English study and offer an orientation into the English major. Some of these questions include: what is literature and how do scholars study it? Why is literature important? Why is literary study important as an academic discipline? How do we read English as a literary language or set of linguistic practices? And how do we write about these practices? What kinds of literature are central to English study? What kinds have been neglected? What can literature tell us about culture, and vice versa? What terminology and methods do we use to analyze texts? What are the distinctions and convergences of creative writing, literary analysis, and evaluation? Required reading for the course will likely include two novels, two plays, several short stories and poems, a writing handbook, and some sample literary criticism.

 

8092 ENGL 300-04 Introduction to English Studies-WR: T/TH 2:30-3:45 p.m. DA103 (Professor Journet)

In the class we will focus on narrative, or the way people arrange the events of their lives in order to tell the stories of who they are.  We will read some critical and theoretical research about narrative, and we will look at narrative in a variety of texts, including the following:  Jim Crace, Being Dead.  Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.  Sigmund Freud, Dora, A Case History, and D.M. Thomas, The White Hotel.  Assignments include response papers and thesis-driven essays.


3342 ENGL 301-01 British Literature I: MW 2-3:15 p.m. NSLL30 (Professor Stanev)

This course will survey a representative selection of Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Medieval, and Renaissance texts that not only reflect a variety of cultural and historical experiences in England from about 700 to 1675, but that have also exerted considerable influence on British life and thought. We will blend lecture and creative dialogue in order to deepen our understanding of the early modern canon of British literature, and recognize and respond to specific historical changes in values and cultural ideas. Discussions will investigate the language and significance of a profoundly dynamic body of works, which emerge from the domains of folk play, the fabliaux, erotic and pastoral poetry, allegory, heroic epic, romance, and liturgical, as well as secular, drama. Our particular learning outcomes will be 1) to recover the significance of early modern writings in their original setting; 2) to recognize the chronological and stylistic pattern of change in the literary canon of the British Isles over a millennium; 3) to place some of the most widely acclaimed masters of the pen, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, among the writings and ideas of their contemporaries.

 

4171 ENGL 301-75 British Literature I: T/Th 7-8:15 p.m. SK111 (Prof. Billingsley)

This course surveys British literature from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries. We concentrate upon the reading and interpretation (both written and oral) of representative works; lectures and secondary readings provide historical and cultural background for understanding the works within the milieu of their creation. If this course is successful, at its end you should be able to do the following:

  • read and understand representative works in the context of their original creation and as received in critical study, and demonstrate that understanding in your own brief close readings and critical commentary;
  • demonstrate basic familiarity with the prosody of English poetry by the practical scansion of selected poems;
  • place these works in their historical, social and cultural context, and explicate that context in critical discussion of the works and authors;
  • participate in and synthesize other readers' perceptions in oral and written discussion; and
  • comprehend and express an informed historical-critical understanding of class, gender and literary culture issues in clearly organized, competently argued and well-supported academic prose. Texts: Greenblatt, et al., Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th edition, Major Authors Volume A.  See the Blackboard tab “Course Documents” for additional materials, exercises and other information about specific daily assignments.

1512 ENGL 302-01 British Literature II: T/Th 9:30-10:45 a.m. DA107 (Professor Jaffe)


3344 ENGL 303-01 Scientific and Technical Writing-WR: MWF 1-1:50 p.m. (Dr. )


3345 ENGL 303-02 Scientific and Technical Writing- WR: T/Th 2:30-3:45 p.m. (Dr. )


6568 ENGL 304-75 Creative Nonfiction: MW 5:30-6:45 p.m. HM117 (Dr. Griner)

In this class we will explore several sub-genres of creative nonfiction including the lyric essay, new journalism, historical narrative, and memoir. For each section we will look closely at readings culled from modern and contemporary sources and then engage in a series of workshops, writing drills and discussions. The focus of the class will be on further developing your unique voice and range as well as augmenting your talents as a critical reader.


3346 ENGL 305-01 Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction: MWF 1-1:50 p.m. DA104 (Professor Leung)

 

In Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction we will read and discuss a variety of contemporary literatures from diverse sources, primarily from 1960-Present. Readings might include work from writers such as James Baldwin, Rahul Mehta, E.L Doctorow, and Alice Munro. Through the readings, writing exercises, and longer narrative projects, each student will work to advance their writing and thinking skills, ideally finding that these two things are not mutually exclusive. Elements of craft will be central to this course as will the complicating factors of genre, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Students will write different forms of short fiction and  should be prepared to read peer work and to comment on it thoughtfully and critically. By extension, everyone has the right to expect the same from their peers. We will not be writing commercial fiction. Note: This course is designed for students who have successfully completed English 202 or its equivalent.

5428 ENGL 305-02 Intermediate Creative Writing:Poetry: T/Th 2:30-3:45 p.m. SH100 (Dr. Skinner)

This is a workshop‑style course in the writing of original poetry. While class sessions are used primarily to discuss work written by class members, some classes will focus on discussion of contemporary published work, and other issues relevant to creative writing. COURSE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Through the work of the course students will: build a vocabulary with which to discuss contemporary poetry; explore in some depth a number of contemporary published works, and discern their strengths and weaknesses with increasing insight and clarity; learn to recognize the difference between levels of precision in language; learn something of the historical context for contemporary poetry; become familiar with some of the basics of prosody; and learn to profitably apply all of the foregoing to the improvement and growth of their own original writing, and that of their peers.

 

4563 ENGL 306-01 Business Writing -WR: T/Th 8-9:15 a.m. HM207 ()


3347 ENGL 306-02 Business Writing - WR: WF 11-11:50 a.m. ED107 (Dr.)


3348 ENGL 306-03 Business Writing - WR: MW 4-5:15 p.m. DA107 ()


3349 ENGL 306-04 Business Writing-WR:MW 2-3:15 p.m. DA204 ()


3350 ENGL 306-05 HON: Business Writing-WR:


3351 ENGL 306-06 Business Writing -WR: T/Th 11a.m.-12:15 p.m. HM015 (Dr. Detmering)


3352 ENGL 306-07 Business Writing -WR: T/TH 1-2:15 p.m. NS128 (Dr. Lamsal)


6295 ENGL 306-100Business Writing-WR: T/TH 8-9:45 a.m. Panama (Professor Mirchandani)


6296 ENGL 306-101 Business Writing -WR: M/W 8-9:45 a.m. Panama (Professor Mirchandani)


6142 ENGL 306-50 Business Writing -WR: Distance Ed. (Dr. Tanner)


6143 ENGL 306-53 Business Writing -WR: Distance Ed. (Dr. Tanner)


6144 ENGL 306-54 Business Writing -WR: Distance Ed. (Dr. Tanner)


6145 ENGL 306-55 Business Writing -WR: Distance Ed. (Dr. Tanner)


3826 ENGL 306-75 Business Writing -WR: MW 5:30-6:45 p.m. HM209 ()


3353 ENGL 306-76 Business Writing -WR: MW 7-8:15 p.m. HM207 ()


5412 ENGL 306-77 Business Writing -WR: T/TH 4-5:15 p.m. DA208A ()


3827ENGL 306-78 Business Writing -WR: T/TH 7-8:15 p.m. HM123 ()


3960 ENGL 306-99 Business Writing -WR: S 8:30 a.m.-12 p.m. HM217 ()


8093 ENGL 309-01 Inquiries in Writing -WR: T/TH 2:30-3:45 p.m. ED107 (Dr. Brueggemann)

Writing the Body.  Because our focus is interdisciplinary, we will look at writing and research across the various disciplines that interest each student and that employ different ways and means for writing about the body—social, psychological, medical, legal, literary, artistic, etc.  For students in interdisciplinary Liberal Studies programs, the course complements the work of LBST 300 in interdisciplinary writing and research. A student in English 309 should expect to create and revise compositions in multiple genres. Compositions should establish a clear purpose, exhibit audience awareness, and reveal a sense of the writer’s presence and position. A student in English 309 should expect to complete four to six projects of their own design.

3354 ENGL 309-02 Inquiries in Writing -WR: T 1-3:45 p.m. LF130 (Professor Rogers)


3355 ENGL 310-01 Writing About Literature Nonmajor-WR: MWF 11-11:50 a.m. DA206 (Professor Lu)

The title of English 310, Writing About Literature, indicates that writing is its central focus.Literature is the subject of your inquiry, something you are to write about.However, each of the words in the course title raises intriguing questions.For instance, how do we best go about defining terms such as writing,literature,in English?Why?What particular options might be closed down and opened up by being assigned to write about literature in a college course offered by the English department at the University of Louisville?How?

In order to explore these questions, we will read texts from a variety of genres commonly assigned questionable as well as canonical literary status within the field of literary study.And we will examine some methods for reading as well as writing about literature students are commonly expected to learn in college classrooms.

Required Texts

Gwynn, R. S. ed.Fiction: A Longman Pocket Anthology, 7th ed.

Ahmad, Dohra ed. Rotten English: A Literary Anthology

Course Procedures:

The success of this course will depend on what you as well as I do.The classroom is a place for you to try out ideas and to raise and explore questions.Active participation in class or group discussion and during individual conferences with me will therefore play a crucial role in your progress.

By active participation, I have in mind efforts to be a responsible and responsive listener as well as speaker.I encourage a willingness in students not only to form and voice opinions but also to revise and qualify them in the context of what others have to say on the issue.Therefore, finding constructive uses for the differences in one anothers academic and social backgrounds as well as interests is crucial to your success in this class.Your performance during various formats of discussion will constitute 40 % of your final grade.

You will do in-class writing quizzes asking you to address a question related to the assigned reading of the day.The aim of these quizzes is to help me assess the level of preparation you bring to our class meetings.Your grades for the quizzes constitute 40% of your final grade.

You will also compose a critical essay (12 pages) in which you try out a method of reading and writing on some of the assigned readings for the course.This essay writing assignment is worth 20% of your final grade.


 

3356 ENGL 310-02 Writing About Literature Nonmajor-WR: MW 3:30-4:45 p.m. EH215 (Professor Lu)

The title of English 310, Writing About Literature, indicates that writing is its central focus.Literature is the subject of your inquiry, something you are to write about.However, each of the words in the course title raises intriguing questions.For instance, how do we best go about defining terms such as writing,literature,in English?Why?What particular options might be closed down and opened up by being assigned to write about literature in a college course offered by the English department at the University of Louisville?How?

In order to explore these questions, we will read texts from a variety of genres commonly assigned questionable as well as canonical literary status within the field of literary study.And we will examine some methods for reading as well as writing about literature students are commonly expected to learn in college classrooms.

Required Texts

Gwynn, R. S. ed.Fiction: A Longman Pocket Anthology, 7th ed.

Ahmad, Dohra ed. Rotten English: A Literary Anthology

Course Procedures:

The success of this course will depend on what you as well as I do.The classroom is a place for you to try out ideas and to raise and explore questions.Active participation in class or group discussion and during individual conferences with me will therefore play a crucial role in your progress.

By active participation, I have in mind efforts to be a responsible and responsive listener as well as speaker.I encourage a willingness in students not only to form and voice opinions but also to revise and qualify them in the context of what others have to say on the issue.Therefore, finding constructive uses for the differences in one anothers academic and social backgrounds as well as interests is crucial to your success in this class.Your performance during various formats of discussion will constitute 40 % of your final grade.

You will do in-class writing quizzes asking you to address a question related to the assigned reading of the day.The aim of these quizzes is to help me assess the level of preparation you bring to our class meetings.Your grades for the quizzes constitute 40% of your final grade.

You will also compose a critical essay (12 pages) in which you try out a method of reading and writing on some of the assigned readings for the course.This essay writing assignment is worth 20% of your final grade.


 

6124 ENGL 310-03 Writing About Literature Nonmajor-WR: T/Th 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. TBA (Professor Wald)

This class serves as an introduction to the study of literature for non-majors. We will read, discuss, and write about poetry, prose, and drama. The course will focus on the role of nature, environment, and place in twentieth-century U.S. literature. Please note that this course requires ENGL 102 or 105 as a prerequisite. This class meets the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR). This class requires a substantial amount of writing, including one required revision.


4565 ENGL 311-01 American Literature I: MWF 11-11:50 a.m. DA308 (Dr. Chandler)

This survey of American literature will include a range of different kinds of literature: early texts about the European discovery and settling of America; American Indian creation stories; colonial political and religious genres; and the more familiar literature of the nineteenth century (by Poe, Thoreau, Stowe, Dickinson, and Whitman). Work requirements will include student presentations, quizzes and monthly exams, and frequent writing assignments. The principal book for the course will be The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, volume 1.


1190 ENGL 311-02 American Literature I: Canceled

 

 

3358 ENGL 312-01 American Literature II: T/Th 2:30-3:45 p.m. DA104 (Professor Wald)

In this survey course, we will read works of U.S. literature from 1865-Present. We will discuss the major literary movements of this time period including naturalism, realism, regionalism/local color, modernism, and postmodernism.We will pay particular attention to the thematic preoccupations and formal innovations of each literary movement.This class will help you think about literature in relationship to its cultural context and increase your understanding of literary history.


3357 ENGL 312-75 American Literature II: MW 5:30 p.m.-6:45 p.m. HM205 (Professor)


3359 ENGL 334-01 Shakespeare II: T/Th 1-2:15 p.m. HM101(Professor Dietrich)

We will read eight of Shakespeare’s plays, in a variety of genres, and also some modern interpretive essays.We will focus on reading and interpreting the plays, but we will also engage questions about genre and contemporary productions in a range of cultures.Cultural Studies will be the broad critical umbrella under which we will work, so students can expect a significant element of historicity.Students will write short answers to interpretive questions for each class, short summaries of three critical articles, and a research paper on production history (10 pages).

 

 

4829 ENGL 369-01 Minority Traditions in American Literature-CD1: MWF 11-11:50 a.m. HM108 (Professor Leung)

This course  is an exploration of Contemporary Asian-American literature, primarily since 1960, with some historical contextualization. Readings may include work from such writers as Maxine Hong Kingston, Frank Chin, Rahul Mehta, Karen Tei Yamashita, David Henry Hwang, Monique Troung, and Jessica Hagedorn as well as criticism, and theory identifying and unpacking the history of Asian-American stereotypes, civil rights, diasporic aspirations, assimilation, and other equally important  concerns. In class, discussion of the complicating factors of genre, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality will be central. The ideal student for  this course is a person who is a careful, thoughtful reader who takes extensive notes as they read. This student will also have the initiative to research terms, concepts, ideas, historical references and etc. as they occur in our texts.  This ideal student will be prepared to share his/her findings in class through active, verbal participation.  Required writing includes weekly responses to course texts (500 words) as well as a final research paper on a topic self-selected in consultation with your professor. Prerequisite: ENGL 102 or 105


8680 ENGL 372-01 Graphic Prose: Crafting Comics: MWF 12-12:50 p.m. DA103 (Professor Fuller)

In this special topics course, we will be collecting our knowledge of graphic prose—exploring examples from traditional “heroic” comic books, punk zines, and artist books, then onward to graphic novels and memoirs filled with pictures that are all too true. As a class we will read pivotal graphic books such as Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Collins, and V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. In addition, we will examine newer works in the genre such as Blankets by Craig Thompson, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil by Stephen Collins, and Goliath by Tom Gauld. Throughout the semester you will be assigned exercises to help you produce meaningful works that combine text and visuals. Our course will culminate in each of us producing an extended work of graphic prose. Together we will develop our artistic and writing skills independently, before joining these forces to tell more vivid stories. Whatever your genre of writing, whatever your style of art, in this course we will find examples of graphic literature that belong with you, while building your own portfolio of graphic prose.


3268 ENGL 373-01/WGST 325 Women in Literature-CD2: 10-10:50 a.m. HM117 (Dr.Sheridan)

As the course title indicates, this section of English 373 will focus on three terms, “reading,” “girl,” and “culture.” We’ll expand traditional definitions of novels as we read graphic novels and non– linear hypertexts. We’ll investigate what it means to be a girl by exploring the public pedagogies that all too often represent girls in a limited fashion, such as white, American,

able-bodied, monied. Finally, we’ll explore how cultures naturalize certain ways to be a person, an issue of particular importance in times of significant cultural and economic changes such as today.


4039 ENGL 373-02/WGST 325 Women in Literature-CD2: T/TH 11-12:15 p.m. HM117 (Dr. Yohannes)

This cross-listed course, which meets the CD2 Gen Ed requirement, will take an inter-disciplinary approach to analyzing the development of Women’s autobiographical writing from early spiritual autobiographies to the current experiments in alternative narratives.


8094 ENGL 391-01 Studies in the Novel: M/W/F 10-10:50 a.m. DA208B (Professor Ryan)

Using novels from the late 18th century through the turn of the twentieth, this course will explore the ways in which American fiction has constructed, challenged, and complicated notions of national identity and cohesion. Readings will include Charlotte Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, Lydia Maria Child’s Hobomok, Herman Melville’s Confidence-Man, Charles Chesnutt’s Marrow of Tradition and other works to be determined.


7815ENGL 402-01 HON-The Wire-WR: T/TH 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. HR204 (Professor Journet)

In this seminar, our goals will be to examine how the complexities of urban poverty are represented in serial narrative.  The Wire challenges our notions of good/evil and problem/solution: no single institution or easily resolved story can do this subject justice.  The Wire's complex narrative structure instead offers viewers a sense of the structural nature of poverty in which the causes and effects or poverty are interwoven into all aspects of the city, including drug gangs,  police, labor and unions, political systems, education, and journalism.

Course material will include viewings of The Wire (done outside of class); research in sociology and anthropology concerning urban poverty; research in narrative theory; and research on The Wire (there is, for example, an anthology of critical essays and a special issue of Critical Inquiry devoted to the series).

Course assignments will include short presentations on the viewing and readings and a final seminar paper.


6561 ENGL 403-01 Advanced Creative Writing: MW 2-3:15 p.m. DA202(Dr. Griner)

As the catalogue notes, 403 is a course designed for students who’ve had considerable experience in imaginative writing, and who wish to increase their abilities as writers of drama, fiction, creative nonfiction or poetry.

This is a workshop-style course, which means that classes will primarily be devoted to discussing work written by class members, which is distributed and studied in advance of the discussion.And please do note that it’s a multi-genre course.You’ll not be required to write in all genres, but you should be able to discuss them all with some level of critical facility and fluidity.


6562 ENGL 413-01 British Literature-Beg. To Shakespeare-WR: MWF 9-9:50 a.m. DA209B (Dr. Rabin)

 


5797 ENGL 415-50 19thCentury British Literature-WR: Distance Ed. (Dr. Yohannes)

This on-line course will study the literature of the Victorian Era in British literary history, i.e., approximately the period from 1830-1901, and will use George Eliot’s novel Middlemarchas a focus text through which to read the fiction, poetry, and autobiographical, political and religious texts of the period. It meets the 1700-1900 historical literary period requirement for English majors.

The course will be divided into four shorter units after which formal papers of various lengths will be taken through at least two drafts.

 

Topic

Paper Assigned

Dates

Victorian literature by women

Researchinto the Historical Context of one of the assigned readings

1/6-2/1

Victorian poetry

Explication of an assigned poem

2/2-2/22

Literary Realism

Considering the nature of Literary Realism

2/23-3/29

Secondary Research-Middlemarch

Metacognitive paper on Middlemarch

3/30-4/26

 

8096 ENGL 419-01 American Literature 1830-1865-WR: M/W 2-3:15 p.m. DA107 (Professor Ryan)

This writing-intensive course will look at mid-nineteenth-century American culture through the lens of authorship studies. Topics will include the widespread practices of reprinting, anonymous publication, and plagiarism; the interdependence of magazine and book publishing; the rise of celebrity authorship; and the persistent tensions between popular appeal and artistic aspiration. We’ll read some literary works that specifically address authorship (e.g., Melville’s Pierre, Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, Dickinson’s poetry) alongside scholarship and primary documents that speak to particular forms of literary production. Archival research using digital databases will be a significant part of the course.


6549 ENGL 421-01 American Literature 1910-1960-WR: T/TH 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. DA203 (Professor Clukey)


4015 ENGL 423-01 African/American Literature 1845-Present-WR: CD1 MWF 12-12:50 p.m. (Dr. Chandler)

This course will explore fiction, poetry and drama created by African Americans and published between 1845 and the present. As a writing-intensive (WR) course, ENG 423 will rely on student writing as a form of critical thinking about literature and its cultural contexts. The course work will include student presentations, quizzes and monthly exams, and frequent writing assignments. Required reading material will include the Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature, volume 2, as well as nineteenth-century texts available online.

3360 ENGL 450-01 Cooperative Internship in English Studies: Internship

(Dr. Chandler)

Prerequisites: You must be a declared English major, with six hours in English beyond 101 and 102 or 105. You must also have a 3.0 GPA and receive permission of the instructor. Internship opportunities and placements are researched by the student and submitted for approval by the Director of Internships.  Each Internship position needs to have at least 40 hours of work on site and include a supervisor/mentor on site willing to provide a final evaluation of the Intern to the English Dept.  All Internships should be off-campus; this requirement may be waived by the Director of Internships if the student can demonstrate that the position does not directly benefit the English Dept. or another degree granting Academic program.  Students may petition to use their current work-site as an Internship, if they can identify a project or position that is SUBSTANTIALLY different from, and supplementary to, their normal work requirements.


8083 ENGL 460-01 James Joyce-WR: MW 2-3:15 p.m. HM101(Dr. Henke)

This course will focus on James Joyce's Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, with culminating discussions of style in FinnegansWake as time allows. Students will be expected to take part in the critical debate about Joyce's millennial status and his contributions to the modernist movement, postcolonial literature, Irish politics, and 20th-century experimental art. Why was Ulysses judged the most important novel of the 20th century? Do you agree that Joyce is the most significant English-speaking author of the last century?

Students will be asked to prepare assignments conscientiously and regularly contribute to an informed conversation on Joyce's major works. Course assignments will include weekly response papers, several mid-term critical papers, a final research essay, and an end of term cumulative examination.


8084 ENGL 460-02 Whitman & Dickinson-WR: MW 4-5:15 p.m. HM101(Dr. Golding)

This course will focus intensively on the work of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson—for many readers, the two greatest poets that the U.S. has produced—and on the extension of their

influence Into the recent past and present. While also reading their essays, correspondence and biographies, we will concentrate on Whitman’s and Dickinson’s poetry, both on their

stylistic experiments and on such shared themes as the Civil War, sex/gender politics, and spirituality or religion. In the last few weeks, we’ll look at their influence on the work of more

recent poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, and Susan Howe.


3361 ENGL 491-01 Interpretive Theory:New Criticism-Present: MWF 1-1:50 p.m. HM101 (Dr. Hadley)

Using Tyson’s Critical Theory Today and a number of shorter theoretical essays, this course will aim to introduce students to recent (20th century) and contemporary theories of interpretation. Emphasis throughout will be on students learning to recognize theoretical terms, concepts, and approaches, and to consider these approaches in their own thinking and reading. For the purposes of the course, theoretical concepts and approaches introduced will be explored through the interpretation and evaluation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby. Class sessions will be conducted seminar-style, and will be structured around interrogation and discussion.


4016 ENGL 504-01Advanced Creative Writing II-Poetry TTh 4:00 – 5:15PM (Professor Skinner)

This is a workshop‑style course in the writing of original poetry. While class sessions are used  primarily to discuss work written by class members, some classes will focus on discussion of contemporary published work, and other issues relevant to creative writing.Goals and Objectives: Through the work of the course students will: build a vocabulary with which to discuss contemporary poetry; explore in some depth a number of contemporary published works, and discern their strengths and weaknesses with increasing insight and clarity; learn to recognize the difference between levels of precision in language; learn something of the historical context for contemporary poetry; become familiar with some of the basics of prosody; and learn to profitably apply all of the foregoing to the improvement and growth of their own original writing, and that of their peers.


3363 ENGL 506-01 Teaching of Writing TTh 1:00 – 2:15PM (Dr. Schneider)

English 506 is an introduction to the theory, and practices that inform the teaching of writing. While we’ll initially look at theories of what writing (and the teaching of writing) is, we’ll also look at how theory governs pedagogical practice, and vice versa; to that end, we’ll examine both the pedagogical approaches that govern the teaching of writing, and the various practical activities—curriculum design, assignment design and sequencing, classroom activities and management, formative and summative assessment—we might use to ground and elaborate those approaches in the classroom.

5386 ENGL 510-01 MA Grad Coop Internship

(Dr. Kopelson)

Note: This section requires permission from the instructor


8218 ENGL 515-01 Introduction to Old English MWF 12:00-12:50PM (Dr. Rabin)

This course is designed to introduce students to the skills, challenges, and many pleasures involved in studying Old English language and literature.  As such, we will focus of the acquisition of those language skills needed to encounter pre-Conquest texts in the original Old English.  In addition to such linguistic concerns, we will also survey Anglo-Saxon history and culture, taking into account the historical record, archaeology, manuscript construction and illumination, and the growth of Anglo-Saxon studies as an academic discipline.  Readings will cover the entire range of Old English texts, including battle poems, saints' lives, elegies, sermons, epics, viking texts, and (of course!) monster narratives.

4927 ENGL 518-01 Foundations of Language TTh 1:00-2:15PM (Dr. Patton)

Note: This is a cross-listed course.


4929 ENGL 522-01 Structure of Modern English TTh 9:30-10:45AM (Dr. Stewart Jr.)

Note: This is a cross-listed course.

This course is designed as a linguistic exploration of the various forms and combinations of words, phrases, and sentences that contemporary speakers of English typically recognize as belonging to that language, i.e.“English.”
To help in this exploration, students will:

  • examine both popular and technical conceptions of “grammar”
  • examine that variety of English referred to as Standard American English (SAE)
  • consider some of the ways in which one can vary from SAE and still be speaking English
  • consider the role of situation, audience, etc., in determining “appropriate use”
  • acquire terminology and methods that permit clear description of English grammar
  • collect real-life examples of actual English usage for detailed description
  • identify and monitor trends in English usage to evaluate “changes in progress”

5800 ENGL 523-01 History of the English Language  TTh 2:30-3:45PM (Dr. Stewart Jr.)

Note: This is a cross-listed course.

This course traces the development of English from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) origins, through the Middle English (e.g., Chaucer) and Early Modern English (e.g., Shakespeare) periods, to Present-Day English. The course has a double emphasis:

  • internal history (diachronic change), or how grammar and vocabulary change with use over time and space, and
  • external history (language and dialect contact), including influences such as the 9th century settlement of Vikings in Britain and the 11th century Norman-French conquest of Britain.

Because English hasn’t been “perfected” (whatever that would mean), it hasn’t stopped changing and it won’t, as long as people use it as a living language. In order to speculate as to how English might change in the future, this course will also consider regional dialects, and both current and post-colonial English vernaculars
around the world.

Successful completion of this course will provide the student with:

  • greater appreciation for the fluidity of language usage,
  • broader understanding of the socio-political contexts for language change, and
  • increased ability to describe language phenomena objectively.

6570 ENGL 535-01 Applied Linguistics for English Teachers Th 4:00-6:45PM (Dr. Patton)

Note: This is a cross-listed course.

6551 ENGL 544-01 Studies in Restoration & 18th Century British Literature Th 11:00-12:15PM (Dr. Ridley)

Those who work in the field of eighteenth-century studies talk of a “long eighteenth century” that goes from 1660 to 1830. (We can discuss the reasons for this in class.) Clearly it would be difficult to cover 170 years in any depth, so the subtitle, “Redrawing the Known World,” hints that we are going to find a way of narrowing class focus to look at discoveries made during the period that changed forever people’s view of their world and of mankind’s place in it. Some of those discoveries were geographical, for the period includes the European discovery and settlement of Australia. The class will read the convict narrative written by the English “prince of pickpockets,” George Barrington, about his transportation to Australia, and his views of an unfamiliar land and its aboriginal people (George Barrington, The Impartial and Circumstantial Narrative of the Present State of Botany Bay, in New South Wales, c.1793.) We will contrast his experience with those of gentlemen scientists trying to understand the flora and fauna of the new continent. A general late eighteenth century disdain for Australia will be contrasted with fascination expressed about Tahiti – discovered by Europeans only in 1767, after which the island and its peoples become the subject of a wealth of visual and verbal commentary, both fictional and non-fictional. As the map of the globe crystallized to its present form, the era was also one in which the popularization of the microscope and telescope among the educated classes led to literary investigations of worlds in miniature and those imagined while studying the heavens. The class will consider Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World (1666) about an imaginary journey to the North Pole and beyond, and Aphra Behn’s A Discovery of New Worlds (1688), in which Behn argues for the inclusion of women in scientific pursuits. In addition to these unfamiliar texts, we will also consider some better known explorations of eighteenth century encounters with unfamiliar people and places, such as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). By the end of the course, we will have seen how the map of the world was redrawn during the long eighteenth century, and how new discoveries changed British literature’s accounts of that world. Please note that it is impossible to study the literature of this period without understanding something of the period’s history: for the purposes of this course, that history will include an exploration of science and imperial politics.

8097 ENGL 545-01 Romantic Revolutionary Writing TTh 11:00-11:50 (Dr. Hadley)

This course will address select materials from revolutionary writings in England of the 1790s and following. A period of agitation and (less often) reform in England, these years witnessed the centenary of England’s Glorious Revolution, the rise of British Colonialism, the outbreak of war in France, the rise of rational (religious) dissent over the Test and Corporation Acts, the first modern manifesto on woman’s rights, the outbreak of war with France, the rise of (liberal Whig) parliamentary opposition to Pitt’s newly-instituted repressive laws, and the increasing polarization of literature and politics toward the end of the century. This course will look at texts representing that socio-political context--including the “pamphlet wars” of the early years of the 1790s--and at the creative response to this context. Specific topics may include: the question of American colonies, the politics of gender, the intimate connection between religious and political issues, and the increasingly noted link between imaginative power and reactionary politics.

We will address texts produced in England during the period 1780-1830, considering them both as reflecting their socio-historical context, and as constructed by our own, late twentieth-century re-visionary readings. In particular, we will address the expanding canon, engaging not only poetry traditionally recognized as "Romantic," but also a variety of other discourses and genres of the period: novels, essays, journal-writings, political pamphlets, and poetry. What, we shall ask, is the effect of the explosive cultural context--explosive in terms of gender, politics and aesthetics--on the writings of this period?  What, if anything, renders these writings distinctively "Romantic"? This course will consider as much the specifically textual as it will the generally socio-historical.  To this end, students are expected to bring the assigned texts to class each day to follow and participate in the presentation of the materials. Through readings, discussions, quizzes, and essays, students in this course should gain not only a working familiarity with course materials, but equally or more importantly, the ability to think through and apply concepts both originally and meaningfully.

8085 ENGL 551-01 Victorian Travel Narratives TTh 9:30-10:45AM (Dr. Rosner)

We will discuss several non-fiction Victorian travel/exploration stories in order to discover how they reflect some of the values and rhetoric of the Victorians.  With that information in mind, we will discuss several fictional texts of Victorian travel/exploration.

Tentative texts

Nonfiction:  Livingstone’s Missionary Travels, M. Kinglsey’s Travels in West Africa, M. Sheldon’s An African Expedition

Fiction:  Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mine, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, some short stories, and possibly Chatwin’s 1980 Viceroy of Ouidah.

Expect reading quizzes, written homework, participation in class and in the discussion list, and critical reading of several academic essays.  You will also have to write several short papers.

Any graduate students enrolled will be responsible for one long paper as well as for teaching a class.

8086 ENGL 552-01 Fictions of the Undead MWF 12:00-12:50PM (Dr. Griffin)

The Dead were restless in the nineteenth-century, returning in the forms of ghosts, vampires, and zombies. This class will study a range of their fictional appearances, analyzing them as literary texts, studying their illustrations (how do you draw a ghost?), and investigating the reactions of nineteenth-century readers. We will also explore the “cultural work” these narratives perform: what historical, economic, and cultural events made the Victorians such skillful inventors and avid consumers of ghosts?Possible readings include fictions by Ambrose Bierce, Charles W. Chesnutt, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Henry James, M.R James, Rudyard Kipling, Sheridan Le Fanu, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and others.

8087 ENGL 552-02 Critical and Creative Reading and Writing  4:00-6:45PM (Dr. Naslund)

This course emphasizes the interrelatedness of critical and creative work in literary studies. It provides the opportunity for students to focus on either their critical or creative writing, or both, and to apply their skills to any form of literary writing: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, writing for children and young adults, playwriting, critical essays, screenwriting. Most sessions begin with an hour long formal lecture on some technical aspect of both reading and writing.(For example, an early lecture focuses on the word; the next lecture is on the sentence; a later lecture is titled "The Dream Element in Literature and Writing.")Following the lecture, in-class exercises utilize the concepts presented in the lecture. A third segment of the class period, about half an hour, features light refreshments and conversation--a sort of stand-up, non-alcoholic, move-about cocktail party in the classroom. These informal conversation will focus on pre-assigned literary texts, starting with short works (short poems) and gradually moving into longer genres. Sometimes the cocktail conversations will focus on short, anlaytic or creative writing by class members. Some entire class sessions will be devoted to workshop-style discussions of critical or creative writing by class members, depending on what kind of work the individual wants to do. Reading includes a wide selection of poems and short stories, made available as pdf files, and longer works such as the children's classic The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder; the novel Howards End by E.M. Forster and the script of the screenplay based on the novel; Arthur Miller's play The Crucible; the Greek tragedy-trilogy, the Orestia, by Aeschylus; Michael Ondaatje's contemporary novel The English Patient and the film based on his novel, etc. Students will write a couple of short creative works or critical papers (5-8 pages) and a longer work (10-15 pages) in lieu of a final exam, due a couple of weeks before the end of the semester, to be revised, and returned to the instructor on the last day of class. Along with a conscientious effort toward not overworking the student, the course goal is to create an experience both intellectually stimulating and emotional supportive.

ENGL 554-01 Women’s Personal Narratives: W 4:30 – 7:15PM (Dr. J. Griffin)

*This is a cross listed course.

Women’s Personal Narratives (Spring 2014) will explore women’s rhetorical constructions of agency and subjectivity at the intersection of gender and traditionally androcentric institutions such as: education, military culture, work, politics, religion, citizenship, law, and medicine. While we may not cover all of these intersections in the course readings, we will employ tools of analysis that can apply to all. Those tools will allow students to engage in independent research projects across any of these intersections. We will confine ourselves to narratives of self (autobiography, memoir, letters, diaries) written by women rather than about them, and we will interrogate the nuances of this distinction. Course materials will pull from both nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers as well as from contemporary theory in self-narrative and women’s rhetoric.

6553 ENGL 564-01 Moby Dick as Anthology MW 2:00-3:15PM (Professor Petrosino)

*Pre-requisites: ENGL 102 or 105; junior standing

In this course, we will read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick as an anthology of creative forms: poetry, the essay, drama, fiction, etc., taking Melville’s eclectic opus as a kind of instruction manual for how writers may unfold a single obsession over multiple literary genres. At the start of the semester, students will identify a personally-relevant project topic to explore, and they will generate original writing on that topic, inspired by their own “white whale,” in at least three of the literary genres that Melville deploys in _Moby Dick_. Class time will be divided between seminar-style discussions about the Melville text and writing activities or workshops of manuscripts-in-progress. Students enrolling in this course should be interested in creative writing and familiar with the basic practice of moving a piece through multiple revisions. The multi-genre writings produced by students will be collected as a final portfolio at the end of the semester.

7754 ENGL 570-01: Language and Social Identity W 4:00-6:45PM (Dr. Stewart Jr.)

Note: This is a cross-listed course

Embarking on a study of language and social identity requires us to consider carefully our definitions of both of these concepts in their own right, and also to attempt to discern the ways and means by which each is used to create and contest the other.It is a fundamental assumption in linguistics that any natural human language system is, if taken on its own terms, the equal of any other such system.

It is clear, however, from human history –ranging from colonial experiences to global media production and consumption to our day-to-day and face-to-face personal interactions– that no two languages (or even two varieties of a single language) stand on truly equal footing.

In this course, we will explore:

  • the social structures that guide language socialization (e.g., caretaker speech or “motherese”, classroom discourse, language in entertainment intended for children);
  • the social structures that discipline language difference (e.g., stereotyping, official language rules and laws, provision of interpretation and translation services); and
  • the dimensions available in the structure of languages that can be used to indicate similarity to and difference from others (e.g., accent, slang, politeness, code-switching).

Discussion and examples will relate primarily to the use of English in the US, but other languages and communities are both relevant and welcome in the conversation and in student research.