The complete version of the English bulletin is available here.

Current courses appear below.

SPRING 2013

ENG 217 [28234] SURVEY OF POSTCOLONIAL WRITERS: This course will serve as an introduction to postcolonial literature, examining how recent fiction, poetry, and theater have dealt with the legacy of modern European colonialism.  In addition to novels, poems, and plays from the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, we will read a wide variety of philosophical and historical texts to help us understand the recurrent themes, contexts, and central concerns of postcolonial studies.  The central concern of this class is to address the ways in which the historical, psychological, and political aftermath of colonialism has manifested in recent literary culture. Throughout the semester we will track how language, history, and cultural identity have been reconceived by postcolonial writing. TR 4:50, Senk

ENG 225W [24887, 25109] INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING: The purpose of this class is to introduce students to the variety of basic techniques in the writing of short fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction. Weekly assignments both in and out of class will focus on developing skill in such elements of creative writing as character development, plot, dialogue, metaphor, image, and versification, among others. Students will evaluate craft elements in both published writing and peer writing, and will experiment with and revise to improve craft elements in their own creative work. Students will be assigned a minimum of 25 pages of graded writing, including exercises, multiple drafts of creative work, evaluations, and reactions. Completion of this course enables students to register for upper-division writing seminars in fiction, poetry, playwriting, and the personal essay.  Writing Intensive.  Required for English majors with an emphasis in creative writing.  TR 8:00, Staff, TR 4:50, Grossberg

ENG 226W [25735] SOPHOMORE SEMINAR: LITERATURE AND MOURNING: “The past is never dead,” wrote William Faulkner in Requiem for a Nun, “It’s not even past.”  In a wide variety of texts, we will encounter a host of characters for whom the past is not past.  We will investigate, through written responses and in-class discussion, how literary works of fiction, poetry, drama, and film portray processes of mourning, register the otherness of death and loss, and examine the nature of unconscious fixation.    Texts include Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Morrison’s Beloved, Marguerite Duras’s film Hiroshima, mon amour, Christopher Nolan’s Memento, and more. Required for all English majors. TR 2:05, Senk

ENG 231 [29508] SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE II: Our survey begins with the rise of the Romantic Movement in the Age of Revolution and features such poets as Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, Byron and Keats; proceeds through the Victorian Age, in which writers like Tennyson, Dickens, Browning, Christina Rossetti and the Bronte sisters forged literary identities in an expanding industrial landscape; and continues through the 20^th century with explorations of consciousness in writers such as Eliot, Yeats, Woolf, Heaney, and Rushdie.  The interplay of politics and poetry as well as the contributions of the excluded (women, workers, or colonial subjects) will be discussed. TR 10:50, Ross

ENG 318 [28286] AFRICAN AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY: We will read in African American autobiographies of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries and discuss theories of autobiography and self-representation. In addition to some shorter works, we will also read works by some of the following authors: Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Keckley, William Wells Brown, Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Huey Newton, Audre Lorde, and Edwidge Danticat. Requirements: Regular reading and attendance, a few papers, a research presentation, and a final exam.  TR 3:30, Sinche

 ENG 322 [26743] AMERICAN POETRY: American poetry since the Civil War is the bastard offspring of an oddly matched but prolifically (re)productive couple. They are Walt Whitman, the self-celebrating Kosmos of Manhattan, and Emily Dickinson, the self-effacing belle of Amherst.  This course explores the interplay of their maximalist and minimalist poetics, first in their own poems, then in the work of their modernist inheritors, from Robert Frost to Langston Hughes and beyond. MW 1:30, Stull

ENG 323 [26437] ROAD TRIPS: This advanced English class will focus on the road trip in American literature. We will read classics like On the Road, modern masterpieces like Cold Mountain and watch films like Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise. As we examine these (and other) texts, we will discuss the structure of journey narratives, the qualities and limits of this particular form, and the reasons that so many authors have positioned the road trip as a seminal part of American culture. TR 2:05, Sinche

ENG 328 [23812] STUDIES IN WOMEN’S WRITING: UNRULY WOMEN IN THEATRE: What happens when a woman on stage goes too far? In this class, we look at transgressive women in performance: women who kill, expose themselves, refuse motherhood, or rage against the biases of gender, race and class.  Does behaving badly challenge societal roles for women or do they simply reinforce negative stereotypes?  What is more effective, edgy performances such as Annie Sprinkle’s “post-porn” sexual rituals onstage, or the relatively mainstream work of Theresa Rebeck (of TV’s Smash) which is produced on Broadway, where only 19% of plays are by women?   Are women obligated to write plays that challenge our view of gender, especially when these works (whether they be plays, performance art or comedy) can be uncomfortable to watch and are often marginalized?  Through our analysis of playwrights such as Sarah Ruhl, Paula Vogel, Sophie Treadwell, Suzan-Lori Parks and Eve Ensler, we will consider what happens when women make spectacles of themselves.  TR 9:25, Striff

ENG 335W [28338] WRITING AS A SELF-CREATIVE PROCESS: A composing and critiquing workshop for those who already have a basic familiarity with expository and/or creative forms of writing and want to deepen their exploration and understanding of their creative energies and to actively develop them.  The emphasis is on writing as self-discovery and self-creation.  Students will work out in their own terms what it means to act as composers of a reality through language, whether it is a reality that actually reflects their world and self, an imagined world, or a blending of the two. Prerequisite:  Any 200-level English course or permission of instructor.  (Writing Intensive Course) TR 8:00, Logan

ENG 340 [28351] MYTH, LEGEND AND FOLKLORE: Where do fairy tales come from? Why are we so fascinated by vampires and werewolves? What defines a hero? In this course we will study some of the traditional stories that have been passed down from one generation and culture to the next, and consider how they’ve been adapted to suit different times and places. We’ll look at epics, sagas, creation myths, folk tales, and fairy tales, exploring their influence on popular culture and literature into the present day. MW 2:55, Walling

ENG 359 [28364] CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH GRAMMAR: Focusing on morphology and syntax, we will study the grammatical structures of the English language. This course will be an invaluable tool and enhance your writing skills beyond measure. This course will get into advanced grammatical structures, and will also work on diagramming sentences. R 7:30, Christensen

ENG 362/DRA 332 [26440] SHAKESPEARE: PLAYS AFTER 1600: Studies of seven major plays written during the second half of Shakespeare’s career—Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Measure for Measure, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.  Some attention will be given to historical context and critical approaches.  This course will culminate in a Shakespeare Scene Festival in which students will perform scenes from the plays studied. TR 9:25, Logan

ENG 366 [28299] MODERN BRITISH NOVEL: We will read some of the classic "modern" novels written by British and Irish writers in the first half of the 20th century.  Our authors include Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and Samuel Beckett.  We will ask: "What was Modernism?" in the eyes of contemporary novelists and their readers?  Among our themes will be the role of the artist in modern society, the effects of colonialism and war on the individual and society, the search for new gods in mythology and anthropology, and the re-definition of human psychology and sexuality. W 5:00, Ross

ENG 368/DRA 362 [25993] THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEATRE:. This course will explore what the theater was like before such modern traditions as artificial lighting, Method acting, and pop musicals. We will consider the history of the theater in Europe from ancient Greek drama through the 18^th century, paying special attention to such topics as the religious meaning of drama, changing definitions of realism, and the role of sexual humor in the theater. In addition to reading plays from a variety of periods and countries (including England, France, Greece, and Italy), we will discuss how performance styles and staging practices such as costumes, sets, and audience participation have evolved. MW 1:30, Walling.

ENG 410W [28403] THE ART OF THE PERSONAL ESSAY: In this course students will read, think about, and write personal essays, a versatile creative nonfiction form that allows the writer to examine the intersections of self and world. Reading assignments will consist of information about essay craft as well as historical and contemporary essay examples. Students also will draft, workshop, and revise a number of essays through the semester. This is a writing intensive course that requires regular attendance and active, engaged participation. Prerequisites: RPW 210, ENG 225W, or permission of the instructor. T 9:30, Richards

ENG 415W[28416] ADVANCED POETRY WORKSHOP: An intensive graduate-style writing workshop for advanced poetry writers, particularly those preparing a portfolio with which to apply to graduate programs and those seeking publication.  The course will involve an exploration of writing in form, a chronologically organized study of theories of poetry by American poets, beginning in the 19^th century with Emerson, and the work of writing, revising, and critiquing poems.  Students who have not completed ENG 310W but wish to take this course may do so with special permission from the instructor.  Prerequisites: ENG 225W, ENG 310W, and Permission of the Intructor. TR 3:30, Grossberg

ENG 436 [28429] SATIRE & SENTIMENT: 1660-1800: Satire & Sentiment surveys the best British literature written between 1660 and 1800, including works by Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, and perhaps Austen. We will learn about the aims and strategies of satire by studying some of the greatest examples in the English language, and then we will talk about why 18^th-century writers shifted from the satiric to the sentimental mode---from laughing at and scapegoating others, to crying for and sympathizing with them. Sometimes we will study 18^th-century texts in conjunction with paintings or prints by artists of the day (Hogarth, Fuseli), and sometimes we will compare them to twentieth-century works, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning comic (Spiegelman’s Maus) and some films (Modern Times, Network, and/or Best in Show). MWF 10:30, Blackwell

ENG 465W [24585] THE CAPSTONE COURSE: Endings: In this seminar-style
course, we will take a close look across creative writing genres at endings—physical endings, themes of ending, metaphorical endings, and emotional endings, including subjects such as death, transformation, loss, and recycling—as they relate to creative writers and creative writing.  In addition, students will research a thematic subject central to some of their own creative work in order to contextualize and articulate their own themes. They will also write and revise, and form a community of readers for a final project, a series of linked stories, poems, and/or, essays. Required for Senior English majors; recommended for English major with creative writing emphasis.  T 5:00, Stores

PLEASE NOTE: TIME AND DAY IS DIFFERENT FROM THAT WHICH IS PUBLISHED IN THE SPRING SCHEDULE OF COURSES.