599 - : Literature of Migration (Advanced Studies in English)

Instructor: Chandler, Karen 

Meeting Times: 

 Prerequisites:ENGL 310; junior standing  

Class Description: ENG 599--Special Topic: Literature of Migration  

This course will survey fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama about individuals’ migration to the United States from the nineteenth century up to the present. The texts focus on portraying life in an adopted world, and in doing so, they suggest how earlier experience in another land has molded the protagonists and prepared for life in America. Migration is both physical and psychological, and the texts treat this complicated experience in interesting ways.

One objective of this course will be familiarizing students with formal and thematic features within this literature. The class will explore questions raised in particular works, questions pertaining to identity, tradition and cultural memory, sense of place, ideas of community, and ideas of America. Another objective of the course will be to offer students the opportunity to explore ways writers used these texts to situate and define themselves within American society. Another goal will be familiarizing students with aesthetic, national, and ethnic influences from writers’ native cultures that inform their texts. 

Required texts may include works by Bernard Malamud, Bienvenido Santos, Tanuja Desai Hidier, Jhumpa Lahiri, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Gene Luen Yang, Julia Alvarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Chang-Rae Lee. Critical works by Werner Sollors, Carinne Mardorossian, Gustave Firmat Perez, José Saldívar, Kate Capshaw Smith, and others will complement our reading of the literature.

601 - : Introduction to English Studies

Instructor: Jaffe, Aaron
Meeting Times: Thurs 7pm-9:45pm

This course seeks to orient, equip, and help you answer what comprises advanced, graduate study in English. Under the words English Studies, one finds a thrilling—and, okay, bewildering—array of forms of intellectual work:  literary impressions and appreciation, creative writing, New Criticism, Critical Theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism, psycho-analysis, deconstruction, Marxism, critical race theory, queer theory, reader-response and reception theories, semiotics, systems theory, pragmatism, hermeneutics, New Historicism, Russian Formalism, New Textualism, "just reading," rhetoric and composition studies, cultural phenomenology and on and on.  Some of these are complementary, others mutually exclusive.  Some, brand new; others, borrowed or recycled.  This is an introduction to MA in English, but it is more than an introductory course. You will try out and try on some compelling texts, ideas, and questions from the discipline today, learning some of its most exciting lines of inquiry about literature, about culture and about critical and interpretive practices.  Along the way, you will delineate some useful maps of the issues and motives of English Studies that will expand the ways you read literary, social, and cultural texts. You will learn to write for and from an English Studies perspective—an abstract for a conference paper, an annotated bibliography, and a review essay—practicing the forms of invention necessary to have something to say in these academic genres.  

Class will be organized around these following three subjects:

(1)  History and Institution of English Studies

(2) Professional Practices and Protocols

(3) Where's English Going?

Special Notes:
This section requires permission from the instructor.

602 - : Teaching College Composition

Instructor: ,
Meeting Times: Tues 4-6:45pm
Class Description:  This course is for GTAs and instructors teaching dual-credit and college English.

Special Notes:  This section requires permission from the instructor.

604 - : Writing Center Theory and Practice

Instructor: Williams, Bronwyn
Meeting Times: TR 2:30-3:45pm

Class Description: This course prepares incoming GTA's to teach in the University Writing Center. In this course we will discuss the theoretical foundation necessary for examining pedagogical issues important to an effective writing center. We will cover topics including ways of approaching writing consultations with students, responding effectively to student writing, the role of style and grammar instruction in the writing center, consulting strategies for ESL students, digital media and writing center work, assessment and record-keeping, and resource development. We we read a variety of scholarship on issues of literacy, composition and rhetoric, and writing center work as well as discuss issues raised in weekly work in the Writing Center.    

Special Notes:  This section requires permission from the instructor.

606 - : Creative Writing I

Instructor: Griner, Paul
Meeting Times: Tues 7pm-9:45pm

Prerequisites:Permission of instructor or enrollment in a degree program in English.

Class Description: Course Description and Goals

This is a graduate level workshop-style course in the writing of original fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or drama. Class sessions are used primarily to discuss work written by class members, which is distributed and studied in advance of the discussion. Because it is a graduate class, I expect to start discussing student work immediately.

You are also required to attend at least two readings of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama during the semester, and to write one short (two page) report on each of them. These reports are meant to be analytical, not mere summaries; I’ll explain them in more depth during the first class.

You will also write a paper on craft and technique, seven to eight pages long. The final draft will be due on the final day of class. I’ll explain this more fully in the first class as well.

As is true of most workshops, you know far better than I what you hope to get from this course, but I expect you to do a lot of reading and writing, to attend and participate in every class, and to revise thoroughly at least one of the pieces you workshop. I also expect to see all of you improve as writers, and as readers and critics. That doesn’t necessarily mean I expect you to become more “polished” writers; in some cases it may mean you’re more willing to take risks, while in others it may mean you’ll gain greater expertise in things you’ve already learned to do well.

610 - 01: Coop Internship PhD Lev

Instructor: Kopelson, Karen
Meeting Times: (as arranged)

Class Description: Contact Dr. Karen Kopelson, Director of Graduate Studies, for more information.

Special Notes: This section requires permission from the Director of Graduate Studies.

613 - 01: Independent Study

Instructor: , Individual Faculty by consent or Director of Graduate Studies
Meeting Times:  as arranged

Class Description:   Contact Dr. Karen Kopelson, Director of Graduate Studies, for more information.
 

615 - 01: Thesis Guidance

Instructor: Kopelson, Karen
Meeting Times: (none/ as arranged)

Class Description:  This course is for students intending to work on a thesis as part of their M.A. degree. ;It can be taken in any term once a decision to take the thesis option has been made.

Special Notes:  This section requires permission from the instructor.  Contact Dr. Kopelson.

621 - 01: Sociolinguistics

Instructor: Soldat-Jaffe, T
Meeting Times: W 4:00-6:45PM

Prerequisites:ENGL/LING 518

Class Description: Sociolinguistics is the study of language in its social context. As such we study language primarily as a means of communication. The identity of the speaker and of the speech community defines the choice of the language. We will look questions like: What are the different language varieties? Who speaks what language variety to whom, why, and with whom? What happens when we find languages in contact? What influences the speaker’s language attitude? How does language spread, shift, die, or revive? In addition to the textbook we will also be reading scholarly articles that I will post online.

624 - 75: Literature and Law in Medieval England (Old English and Middle English Language and Literature)

Instructor: Rabin, Andrew
Meeting Times: W 7:00-9:45PM

In this seminar, we will investigate the relationship between legal and literary discourse in medieval England. In particular, we will explore how legal and literary texts use similar rhetorical strategies to articulate ideas about authority and “normal” social behavior. We will seek both to understand concepts of law and literature in these texts as historical phenomena and to consider also how an interdisciplinary approach can be used to better understand the discursive strategies and social function of each genre. These are only a few possible subjects, and I suspect our discussions will encompass topics as diverse as the texts themselves. As this is a discussion-based class, we will no doubt cover a wide variety of topics, and I strongly encourage students to bring their own intellectual interests into the classroom.

673 - : Serial Narrative: Bleak House and The Wire (Rhetoric and Textual Analysis)

Instructor: Journet, Debra
Meeting Times: THurs 4pm-6:45pm

Class Description:    This course will focus on Charles Dickens' Bleak House and the TV show The Wire as complex narratives that are read and viewed over long periods of time. In both cases, the depth and density of the narrative enable the "writer" to show the structural nature of poverty and social inequity: no single strand can be removed without changing the nature of the story as a whole.  How do readers and viewers make narrative sense of such "deep" or "thick" stories?  How does the complexity of these kinds of narratives challenge other genres (such as, for example, ethnographic or historical accounts) that attempt to represent complex social ecologies?  What resources might we locate in these narratives that can enrich our own representational practices as researchers?

In addition to the above primary texts, we will read work in narrative theory to be announced later. 
      
Special Notes: Counts for either a rhetoric or literature course. 

676 - : Medical Rhetoric (The Rhetoric of Science)

Instructor: Kopelson, Karen
Meeting Times: Thurs 7pm-9:45pm

Prerequisites: Graduate Standing.

Class Description: In Gorgias, Plato opposes rhetoric—a false art leading only to greater deception—to medicine—a true art leading to more Truth and contributing to the greater Good. Clearly, such oppositions persist to this day, yet over the past decade or so scholars in rhetoric and writing studies have determined not only that medical discourse may be a fruitful site for our own analyses, but that we might actually have something special to contribute to making medical (discursive) practices more just (e.g.,through interdisciplinary research and other forms of cross-disciplinary collaboration).

This course will study how, and to what ends, scholars in rhetoric and writing studies and other language-based fields have studied medical discursive practices of various sorts (spoken and written) in various textual and material contexts. Readings will come primarily from contemporary journals and edited collections in rhetoric and writing studies but we may also read in medical sociology and anthropology when scholars in these fields theorize medical or healthcare language practices in particularly compelling ways.

The primary purpose of this course is to better understand the workings--the rhetorical, disciplinary, and ideological power--of medical/healthcare discourses as illuminated by scholarship in rhetoric and writing studies. Yet, as the paragraphs above should suggest, we will also be working to understand the purpose, or potential purposes, of this “illumination.” As we "read for content," then, we will often simultaneously be working at the meta-level to ask questions about what our different research methodologies enable (or preclude) in the study of medical discourses and about the very nature—the (im)possibility—of interdisciplinary inquiry more generally.

Course requirements will include but are not limited to: weekly reading; weekly written responses to the reading; consistent, and consistently thoughtful, participation in class discussion; a seminar paper.

681 - A: Toni Morrison (Seminar in Special Studies)

Instructor: Griffin, Susan
Meeting Times: Wed 4pm-6:45pm

Class Description: 
This seminar will study the literary, cultural, and historical figure of Toni Morrison. Best-known as a novelist—and perhaps as a guest on Oprah,  Morrison has also been a teacher (Howard and Princeton Universities), an editor (Random House), a librettist (Margaret Garner), a political activist (collections on Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas and on O.J. Simpson), a children’s book author, and someone who has worked intensively with photography and photographers. A Nobel Prize Winner, who has been translated into multiple languages, Morrison is an international figure. What are the meanings of these Toni Morrisons? What is their history? How did this woman come to stand for Black Women’s Writing in America?

We will study Morrison’s writing across a range of genres, looking at the trajectory of her career and the developments in her writing. We will pay attention as well to critical, theoretical, popular, and writerly responses to that oeuvre.   

For those who like to read ahead, readings for the course will be posted to Blackboard this summer; you will have early access to the class site.

Requirements for the course will include reading responses and a seminar paper (which we will workshop in class).    

686 - : Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement (Seminar in American Studies)

Instructor: Schneider, Stephen
Meeting Times: Tues 7pm-9:45pm

Class Description:

In this seminar, we’ll examine the rhetorical texts and theories that emerged from the American civil rights movement. That said, we’ll take something of a long view of these civil rights struggles and consider the period from 1930 to 1980, and consider early anti-lynching and anti-poll tax campaigns, the desegregation of the military, and the Brown v Board decision alongside more recognizable civil rights campaigns. We’ll also ask what the lingering impact of the civil rights movement was after 1965, when the Voting Rights Act passed, and 1968, when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. To that end we’ll look at the impact of the Black Panther Party and the Black Power movement as outgrowths from and responses to the civil rights era.

Readings for this course will consist of three sets of texts: primary civil rights texts, scholarship on the rhetoric of social movements, and analyses of civil rights rhetoric. We’ll also look at a number of different scholarly approaches, including rhetorical criticism, public memory studies, and frame analysis.

687 - : Academic Writing in Theory and Practice (Seminar in Rhetorical Studies)

Instructor: Horner, Bruce
Meeting Times: Mon 4pm-6:45pm

Class Description:  

This seminar will explore the burgeoning scholarship on academic writing, novice and expert, to make sense of the writing deemed “academic” by those deemed “academics” and their critics, and to address questions of what we might, and are expected to, teach and what (and how) we are expected to, and might, write. Issues to be considered include competing definitions of academic writing, the politics of language(s) in academic writing, modes by which scholarship circulates, ways by which the “impact” of scholarly publication is measured, the global geopolitics of scholarly production and reception, the commodification of knowledge, and intellectual property disputes.  This seminar’s topic also ties in closely with the Watson conference, and its theme “Economies of Writing,” that will take place in October.  Visiting scholars will include David Russell and Theresa Lillis.

Special Notes:  Note: 602 is no longer a prerequisite for this course.

690 - 01: Dissertation Research

Instructor: , Dr. Karen Kopelson /Faculty director
Meeting Times: as arranged

Class Description:   This course is for PhD students working on their dissertations.  It can be taken in any semester.

Special Notes: This section requires permission from the instructor.

692 - : Film, Gender, Sexualities (Topics in Interpretive Theory since 1900)

Instructor: Byers, Tom
Meeting Times: Mon 7pm-9:45pm

Prerequisites: Graduate standing; English 691 or equivalent. A graduate seminar dealing with a specific topic or area of inquiry within the broad field of post-1900 theories of interpretation.

Class Description:  

This course will focus on issues of gender and sexuality in fictional films, and on the development of feminist, gender, and queer film theory and criticism since the 1970s.  It will also draw on psychoanalytic and Marxist theoretical frames.  (Much feminist and queer film theory has roots in psychoanalytic theory, so if you are not open to that discourse, this course may not be for you.)  We'll consider some or all of the following theorists and critics: Freud, Louis Althusser, Judith Butler, Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Mary Ann Doane, Susan Jeffords, Tania Modleski, Linda Williams, Barbara Creed, Carol Clover, Ruby Rich, Gaylyn Studlar, Teresa De Lauretis, Jackie Stacey, Jane Gaines, Robin Wood, Richard Dyer, bell hooks, Steve Neale, Harry Benshoff, Diana Fuss, others. 

Films will include some or all of the following: Casablanca, Stella Dallas (King Vidor version), Duel in the Sun, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Vertigo, The Silence of the Lambs, Braveheart, Thelma and Louise, The Piano, She's Gotta Have It, Daughters of the Dust, Bride of Frankenstein, Cruising, Philadelphia, Brokeback Mountain, The Crying Game, My Beautiful Laundrette, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Personal Best, Watermelon Woman, Frozen River, Boys Don't Cry, Paris is Burning, If These Walls Could Talk 2, The Kids are Alright, others.

Likely assignments: weekly discussion board, conference-length paper, seminar paper.  Do not take this course if you are offended by criticism or editing of your written work.