Spring 2001 200-level ENGL courses

(Descriptions last updated: 20 March, 2001)

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200 A (Reading Literature)
Dy 8:30
(W)
McRae
This course is a basic introduction to literature, suitable for non-majors as well as people considering an English major. We'll begin with a broad survey of poetry, from the middle ages to the present, move onto short stories (mostly twentieth-century), and finish with a contemporary novel. Writing assignments include several short response papers and longer essays. Students will also be required to make two presentations: one of a poem of their own choosing, and another of a passage from the novel along with a group of classmates. Texts: Beaty, et al., eds., The Norton Introduction to Literature, 7th ed.; Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn.

200 B (Reading Literature)
Dy 9:30
Hogan
(W)
This course will trace the development of the mystery novel as a genre. We will focus our attention on different critical perceptions of these works—why, for example, are mysteries excluded from the “literature” sections in bookstores? Why have mysteries commonly been treated as “fluff,” as something to do in one’s spare time and without any literary merit? With this in mind, we will focus on both form and content, exploring the ways in which mysteries have traditionally contributed to the evolution of literature. Texts: Ruth Rendell (writing as Barbara Vine), No Night is Too Long; Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express; Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night; P. D. James, A Certain Justice; Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep.

200 C (Reading Literature)
MW 12:30-2:20
Kaup
(W)
This course examines contemporary North American literature from a cross-cultural angle. We will read U.S. and Canadian fiction and poetry by authors of (mostly) Asian, Latina/o, and Metis descent. We will discuss questions such as” What are the multicultural poetics these writers have worked out? How do literary forms such as magical realism, ethnic autobiography, bilingual poetry articulate cultural crossings and conflicts? How do these works respond critically to mainstream North American literature? Can multiculturalism become mainstream without losing its critical edge? A red thread that will be running through our conversations is the concept of dialogic and relational identity and the dialogic imagination as it contrasts with ethnocentric practices and concepts of minority writing. Need to commit 3 evenings outside class time for film screenings. Texts (and Films): Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Lee); Giant (Dir. George Stevens); Lone Star (Dir. John Sayles); Maria Campbell, Halfbreed; Margaret Laurence, The Diviners; Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima; Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion; Tino Villanueva, Scenes from the Movie GIANT; Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior; photocopied course packet with Latina/o poetry and Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition.”

200 D (Reading Literature)
Dy 1:30
Caruso
(W)
This initial 200-level English course will introduce you to the demands of reading and writing in a sophomore-level literature class. The course aims to present you with new challenges, but it will also provide you with new opportunities to express yourself. Together we will help you exercise your reading skills as well as develop and improve your critical writing skills. To stimulate discussion and to generate writing, we will read essays and short stories related to the American genre of detective fiction. Course readings will focus on the 19th-century origins of the genre and will include stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Prescott Spofford and Mark Twain. The detective will serve as our model of the ideal reader. Playing the role of a textual detective, you will examine the means by which evidence is accumulated to generate knowledge. We will explore different approaches to analyzing literature by recognizing reading and writing as inseparable activities which comprise a continuing dialogue in a cooperative discourse community. Course Requirements: written work (one 2-3 page analytical essay, and three 4-6 page essays due throughout the quarter), and participation, i.e., coming to class prepared to take active part in discussions and group exercises. Text: Photocopied course packet.

200 E (Reading Literature)
Dy 2:30
Gribbin
(W)
The Body as Memory. This course introduces you to four genres of literature: poetry, short fiction, drama, and the novel. In order to really “understand” literature, we’ll focus as much on how a theme or idea is affected by ways of writing as we will on what literally is being said about that idea. The course is structured around the general theme of “The Body as/and Memory” in order to explore the place of the body in literature, the way sin which it is represented and what it represents. To what degree is the body always symbolic of an abstract concept in literature? To what degree is it discussed as a body itself? What kinds of bodies do what kinds of representational “work” (are, as The Portrait of Dorian Gray mentions ironically, “good” people in “good” bodies? If so, what defines a “good” body?)? To what extent can the body “record” memory? To what extent is it resistant and why? Hopefully, you will leave this class understanding literature not as a code to be cracked in order to get to “the meaning” but rather as something that in its very structure has meaning as it talks about meaning. Texts: J. Paul Hunter, ed., The Norton Introduction to Poetry, 7th ed.; Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior; James H. Pickering, ed., Fiction 100, 9th ed.; Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; Wit.

207 A (Introduction to Cultural Studies)
Dy 8:30
Linder
Consuming Americans/Department Store Identity. Cultural Studies is an extremely open “discipline,” and we’ll begin the course with an overview of its origins and its understanding of the interrelationship between culture and identity. We’ll then narrow our focus and attempt our own cultural study of the connections between American identity and twentieth-century consumer economy. How have Americans responded to the growth of consumption and commodity goods? What’s it mean to live in a land of department stores? Our study will take the birth of widespread commodification at the turn of the century as a starting point and conclude with the yuppie craze of the 1980s (remember Alex Keaton from Family Ties or Gordon Gecko from Wall Street?) Along the way, we’ll look at both Jazz Age flappers and 1950s Leave It to Beaver culture. Our cultural studies approach also means that we’ll look at American consumer culture from a variety of cultural texts—we’ll examine, among others, advertising tracts, novels, movies, political speeches, and sociological studies. Course requirements include active participation, a number of brief response papers, a midterm, and an 8-10 page final essay. Group presentations might also be incorporated. Texts: William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture; Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People; Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

210 A (Literature of the Ancient World)
Dy 9:30
Escoz
This course provides an introduction to the ancient literature of the Mediterranean, beginning with the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and ending (time permitting) with a few selections from the Confessions of St. Augustine, written roughly 1500 years later. Along the way, we shall read a number of Greek plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Poetics of Aristotle, Plato’s Apology, poetry by Ovid and Sappho, Virgil’s Aeneid, and selections from the Old and New Testaments. The course requires a fair amount of reading, and class participation is paramount. Work consists of two 4-6 page papers, a portfolio of 1-2 pp. response papers, and a final examination. (210B represents spaces in the section reserved for new transfer students only; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Homer, The Iliad; The Odyssey (tr. Fagles); Aeschylus II (The Complete Greek Tragedies; Sophocles, Three Theban Plays (tr. Fagles); Euripides I (The Complete Greek Tragedies); Virgil, The Aeneid (tr. Fitzgerald).

211 A (Medieval and Renaissance Literature)
Dy 8:30
Falsberg
In this course we read, query, and talk back to works important in England from 500-1500 A.D., testing out approaches for putting them into dialogue with Islamic literatures. As you build an increasingly dense body of reading and writing context, you lay a foundation for strong thinking in future coursework, especially where a sense of the medieval textual and cultural landscape is vital. We begin with Old English poetry, examining the treatment of war, the tendency to riddle, and a tribute to the enigmatic phoenix, asking why Anglo-Saxon England was the first region in medieval Europe to use its vernacular for recording literature. We then turn to Persian Farid Ud-Din Attar’s The Conference of the Birds, probing the potentialities of the frame-tale genre and the pilgrimage theme, both to resurface throughout the quarter. Here we will also begin to consider what it means to see Islamic cultures in overt and covert dialogue with the Christian West. We next investigate Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls and selections from The Canterbury Tales. Seeking contexts for our consideration of love, mysticism, and pilgrimage, we will revisit Attar and also peruse parts of the Arabic One Thousand Nights and a Night. Why do the bawdy and the sublime so often appear cheek-by-jowl in these works? To conclude, we query how the collected lais of Marie de France stand up next to the other tale collections. Do her poems suffer for lack of a framing device, or do they, by demanding alert reader/listener response, build up a protean internal frame? Attentive reading and class participation are essential. Work includes one longer paper (6-8 pages), a portfolio of 1-2 pp. response papers, and a final examination. Students will also read and recite in Middle English. No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Alexander, tr., The Earliest English Poems; Farid Ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds (tr. Davis); Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls (electronic edition); The Canterbury Tales (ed. Hieatt & Hieatt); Dawood, tr., Tales from the Thousand and One Nights: Hanning & Ferante, eds., The Lais of Marie de France.

211 B & C (Medieval and Renaissance Literature)
Dy 10:30
Taylor
This course will examine the transformations in English Literary culture from the late middle ages into the late Renaissance. Students should plan on regular attendance, bi-weekly reading quizzes, midterm and final exam, two main papers. The text is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1 (7th ed.), out of which we will read late medieval lyric and drama, fifteenth-century poetry and drama, some Shakespeare, and selections from the metaphysical/cavalier/sons of Ben and puritan poets of the early seventeenth century. (211C represents spaces in the section reserved for new transfer students only; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford.) No majors, Registration Period 1.

212 A (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
Dy 9:30
Mitchell
In this course, we will consider a number of important literary texts written between roughly 1700 and 1800, a period often considered to encompass the movements of “enlightenment,” “revolution,” and “romanticism.” While we will consider texts from several national literary traditions, our emphasis will be on British literature, and we will focus our study through a series of three related debates that were vital to many eighteenth-century authors: (1) the “commerce” debate (were emerging practices of finance and consumption “good” or “bad” for national communities?); (2) the abolition debate (was the slave trade a good or bad thing for Britain, and if the latter, how might it be combated?); (3) the debate on the poor (why were so many people poor and starving in Britain, and what – if anything – should be done about it?). In each case, we will consider texts written in a variety of genres (essays, novels, poems, etc.), including Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Tobias Smollett’s The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, and William Wordsworth’s “The Ruined Cottage.” We will also consider the ways in which the genre of a text relates to its “message.” Finally, we will investigate various eighteenth-century demographic, social, and cultural changes that help us to understand why the issues above were of vital interest to the authors under consideration in this course. (212B represents spaces in the section reserved for new transfer students only; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Consuming Subjects: British Women and Consumer Culture in the Eighteenth Century; Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner; Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker.

212 C (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
MW 12:30-2:20
Finnigan-Wilson
The Birth of the Individual. We will work from the hypothesis that although of course there were “individuals” before the 18th century, they likely did not have the same conception of self (or “subjectivity”) that we do now. In this class, we will explore changing conceptions of what it might mean to be an individual at large in the world—a person with rights and responsibilities to him or herself, as well as to others. The second and related theme of this course will be to look at changing ideas about the self and its relation to the state. We will pay close attention to how and why political and social philosophies changed to bring about the great “Rise of the Middle Class” in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Course requirements: 8 to 12 response papers/in-class quizzes, a midterm and final exam, and a final paper. No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; William Godwin, Caleb Williams; J. S. Mill, On Liberty and Other Writings; Alexander Pope, Essay on Man and Other Poems; Marry Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

213 A & B (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
Dy 8:30
Walker
Poetry and Its Difficult Laughter. This course will examine some comic strategies of poets from the Pound era to the present. A course packet will include work by Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, James Tate, and Joe Wenderoth. We’ll test the following observation from W. C. Fields: I never saw anything funny that wasn’t terrible. (213B represents spaces in the section reserved for new transfer students only; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Text: photocopied course packet.

213 C (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
Dy 11:30
Wallace
In this course we will read U.S. literature of the twentieth century in its larger historical context. Focusing on experiences of space and time, we will discuss modernism and postmodernism as literary responses to the profound historical, social, philosophical, geographical, political, and economic changes that characterized the century. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which these texts represent different historical landscapes—from the closing of the U.S. western frontier to the institution of the post-Cold War “New World Order” – and will consider the ways in which these landscapes intersect with issues of nation, class, race, gender, and sexuality. No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Frank Norris, McTeague: A Story of San Francisco; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Nella Larsen, An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen; Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five or the Children’s Crusade; Octavia Butler, Dawn; Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rainforest.

213 D (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
Dy 1:30
McRae
This course is a survey of British, Ameridan and Anglo-Irish 20th-century literature, adn the various literary movements and historical conditions from which these works arose. We'll begin with some of the poetry by which early twentieth-century poets defined "Modernism" as a movement, and move to a study of various other self-consciously modernist movements from the same period that have received, until recently, less critical attention. Next, we'll discuss various literary movements that arose in mid-century: especially the Beats, protest poetry, and the new generation of poets working to create and assert ethnic and political identities previously unacknowledged in mainstream literature. We'll continue reading poetry in our study of the literary, cultural, and historical shift from modernism to postmodernism, but move onto other media as well: a film (Blade Runner) and a contemporary novel. Assignments will include a weekly journal, one short essay and a longer, final essay. No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Ellman, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry; Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn.

225 A (Shakespeare)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Lester
(W)
In the recently published Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom proposes that Shakespeare's plays should not be regarded as imitations of life so much as inventions of it. "Personality, in our sense," Bloom contends, "is a Shakespearean invention, and is not only Shakespeare's greatest originality but also the authentic cause of his perpetual pervasiveness." Such a bold assertion attests to the continued vitality and relevance of Shakespeare. In this course, a survey of Shakespeare's career as a dramatist, we will examine this claim through the study of representative comedies, histories, romances and tragedies. Special attention will be given to story, theme and language, in addition to character; and a variety of critical perspectives from which the plays may be approached will be explored. Texts: Greenblatt, ed., The Norton Shakespeare; Platus, The Menaechmus Twins and Two Other Plays; McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare.

228 A & B (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
Dy 8:30
Tate
This course surveys representative texts from c. 700 to 1600. The course goal is to gain a critical understanding of the texts in question through close reading and investigation of the valuable historical and cultural contexts. In addition, discussion, lecture and other classroom exercises foster aesthetic and intellectual engagement with the literature's diverse content and forms. Therefore, the course will explore various topics including, but not limited to, the peculiarities of literary language in Old, Middle and early Modern English; shifting views on social order; issues of sexuality, gender and race; theatre architecture and audience behavior, now and then; current academic theoretical trends; problems of sensory imagery; and the basics of prosody. All students are required to perform memorized parts in a performance group that meets throughout the quarter. Also required: discussion, secondary readings, papers, quizzes, midterm and final. . (ENGL 228B represents spaces in this class reserved for new transfer students only; add codes available in English Advising office, A-2-B Padelford, (206) 543-2634.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Rice & Grafton, eds., The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559, 2nd. ed.; Hamer, ed., A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse; Heaney, Beowulf: A New Verse Translation; Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great; Pearsall, ed., Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology.

228 C (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Parr
This class serves as an introduction to the vast world of Medieval and Renaissance literature. As a thematic organizing principle, this section will focus on representations of women. We will examine not only literature about women, but also a number of texts by women. Given the much-discussed misogynist bias in pre-modern literature, we often overlook the many and varied responses to that antifeminist tradition. In this course, we will explore the images and voices that women create and that are created for them, within the context of the early English literary tradition. Major texts under consideration will include The Book of Margery Kempe, selections from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies, as well as a number of shorter pieces. Mid-term, final, and short response papers. No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Blamires, ed., Women Defamed and Women Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts; Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies (tr. Richards); Borroff, tr., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Windeatt, tr., The Book of Margery Kempe; Chaucer., The Canterbury Tales (ed. Hieatt & Hieatt).

229 A (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
MW 11:30-1:20
Olsen
Between 1600 and 1800 England became one of the most powerful nations in the world, but also experienced internal upheaval both alarming and exciting. In this introductory sampling of the literature of this period, we will discover the ways in which British poetry, drama, and fiction reflect and comment upon this exploding nation and also upon individuals’ experiences therein. In the process, we will explore how reading literature of an earlier time provides ground for examining our own positions in language, culture and society. This exploration involves considering questions such as: “What is great literature? What makes these texts appeal to audiences of any century?” In investigating these questions, we’ll read some writers whose work has been overlooked, such as Margaret Cavendish, philosopher, poet, biographer, and Aphra Behn, poet, novelist, playwright, and spy and considered by many as the first “professional” woman writer in English, as well as those whose names re nearly synonymous with “great literature,” such as Donne, Milton, Swift. The course requires a fairly substantial amount of reading, and class participation is paramount. Written work consists of two 5-7 page papers, a notebook of 1-2 page critical responses, and a final examination. (229B represents spaces in the section reserved for new transfer students only; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: David Damrosch, et al., eds., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1; Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders.

229 C (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
Dy 1:30
Easterling
Working as much as possible with pairs of texts (by men and women, from early and late in the period, that were public or private) from different literary genres, this class will approach English literature between 1600 and 1800 via selected texts that we can put into conversation with each other. The course will move less according to chronology than to a logic that foregrounds understanding, for example, what poetry (or drama, or prose) as literary expression meant to 17th-century readers and writers, and how this might change in the course of 200 years. Above all, this will be a reading course where we consider how and also why we read literature, perhaps especially this older literature, at all. Feel free to contact the instructor before Spring Quarter for more information. No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Damrosch, et al., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1; Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders.

230 A (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
MW 8:30-10:20
Jason Harris
This course is a broad survey of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. Many have their doubts about the fate of the individual, art, equality, faith, liberty, and nature in the twenty-first century. Yet there are also those who eagerly await advancing technology and socio-political progress. Looking back to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we can see similar hopes and fears. How have writers sought for meaning—looking backwards, forwards, and within—amid the whirl of industrial, political, and social change? No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Abrams & Greenblatt, eds., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2; Calder, ed., The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson.

230 B & C (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Gribben
Nineteenth-Century Bodies. We’ll explore various theories about and ways of living the nineteenth-century body in literature by dividing the course into three units: the Deviant Body, the Body as Art, and the Body as Spirit. Of course this entails an on-going exploration and definition of what might constitute “the normal body,” which we will read in terms of the cultural and social regulations that work to “produce” such a body conceptually and to reinforce the material reality of that body. There will be a course pack of critical materials that will provide both context and starting points for disagreement about these bodies (selections from Nina Auerbach’s Woman and the Demon, Freud, Nietzsche, Darwin, The Victorian Visual Imagination, and the anthology Deviant Bodies). Two five-page papers, each centered on one of the units above, and one presentation within the unit on which no paper will be written, a mid-term and a final exam. (230C represents spaces in the section reserved for new transfer students only; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts:English Victorian Poetry; Elaine Showalter, ed., Daughters of Decadence; Shelley, Stoker, Stevenson, Frankenstein, Dracula, & Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; George DuMaurier, Trilby; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights; photocopied course packet.

242 A (Reading Fiction)
Dy 8:30
Wooley
(W)
Reading American Literature. ENGL 242 offers an introduction to reading and writing about fiction. Taking a cue from the course title, we will focus on the status of reading in various American literary texts: Herman Melville, “Benito Cereno”; Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy; Sui Sin Far, selections from Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings; David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly; and Octavia Butler, Kindred. What kinds of narratives do we see encountered in these works? What, if anything, does reading have to do with action? And finally, what is the relationship between reading and the negotiation of an “American” identity? Supplemental materials may include Helena Maria Viramontes’ “The Moths,” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar,” and James Baldwin’s “Notes for a Hypothetical Novel.” Texts: Butler, Kindred; Hwang, M. Butterfly; La Farge, Laughing Boy; Melville, Billy Budd and Other Stories; Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

242 B (Reading Fiction)
Dy 9:30
Raine
(W)
This course is designed to help you become more thoughtful, skilled and confident readers of fiction. We will focus on how modern and postmodern American writers use literary form to investigate our changing relationships with place. Most of these texts are short, but challenging: they experiment with unconventional styles and structures that challenge our expectations of how stories are told. We will therefore consider both form and content as we explore these questions: How does nature fit into the twentieth-century world of cities and strip malls, consumer culture and information technology? How does where you are affect who you are; conversely, how does who you are affect your reaction to a place? Is the modern city a place of alienation and changer, or of pleasure and possibility? How do the difficulties we encounter as readers reflect the difficulties characters face as they try to build meaningful relationships with place? Assignments will include five response papers, one longer essay (6-8 pages), a journal project, and a final exam. Texts: Cather, The Professor’s House; Hemingway, In Our Time; Larsen, Quicksand; Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain; Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.

242 C (Reading Fiction)
Dy 11:30
Chin
(W)
In the Absence of Authorities. This course is loosely organized around literary works where an “absence” of authority figures leaves protagonists on their own to make sense of the often bewildering worlds in which they live. Through this lens we will consider such disparate themes as the American Dream, growing up, race and racism, etc. We will interrogate mainstream perceptions of these themes as well as examine the ways that they operate together to form models of “normality” to which one is expected to aspire. A t times students may be expected to familiarize themselves with the social and historical contexts in which these works are set, but no previous expertise in this background is necessary. In addition to the books listed, there will also be short stories, essays, and documentaries. Course requirements include short response papers, two major essays, and midterm and final exams; students will also have the opportunity to lead discussions. Texts: Peter Bacho, Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories; Leonard Chang, Dispatches From the Cold; Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?; Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine; Fae Myenne Ng, Bone.

242 D (Reading Fiction)
Dy 1:30
Berte
(W)
Place, Space, and Fiction. This introductory course on reading fiction focuses on novels and short stories that explore the complex relationships between people and places. The texts we will read span the 19th and 20th centuries and explore the physical, social, and symbolic significance of a variety of spaces: home, work, school, city, suburb, and country. Some of the questions we’ll explore include: How does where you are affect who you are? How do social categories such as gender, race, and class affect the relationships between people and places? How do fictional representations reinforce and/or disrupt our traditional notions of specific spaces? What trends do you see over time in representations of certain types of space? This course is designed to increase your confidence and facility as a reader and interpreter of fiction; class discussion and writing assignments will provide opportunities for you to exercise and develop your interpretive skills. Assignments will include five response papers, one longer final paper (6 to 8 pages), and a final exam. Texts: Kate Chopin, The Awakening; Willa Cather, My Antonia; Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time; Nella Larsen, Quicksand; John Okada, No-No Boy; photocopied course packet including short fiction by Herman Melville, William Faulkner, John Updike, and Joyce Carol Oates.

242 E (Reading Fiction)
Dy 2:30
(W)
Cole
Twentieth-Century African-American Women Novelists. This course introduces the study of fiction through a close focus on some of the most interesting novels of the last century. By reading African-American women’s fiction, we’ll not only explore such topics as racial justice, feminism, and the expression of sexuality, but also attend to a powerful development in American literary history. The course includes major works by Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. While we consider provocative themes and ideas, we’ll work to develop the interpretive skills that heighten the appreciation of literature. Also planned is a showing of Julie Dash’s fabulous film, Daughters of the Dust. Sophomores only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Larsen, Quicksand and Passing; Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstone; Morrison, Sula; Walker, The Color Purple; photocopied course packet.

250 A (Introduction to American Literature)
MW 9:30-11:20
Abrams
Introduction to American literature and culture—its changing character, its diversity, its dynamism, its negative and positive sides. Our focus will be on a wide range of issues, including the meaning of the American Revolution and the colonial past, American territorial expansion, racism, immigration, friction between the classes, women’s rights, varieties of religious experience, the ideology of the “American Dream,” the struggle for national union, and the counter-force of particular ethnic and regional loyalties. We’ll explore the way American authors have forged powerful art forms to intensify and heighten our awareness of such issues. (250B represents spaces in this section reserved for new transfer students; add codes in English Advising, A-2-B Padelford, 206-543-2634.) No majors, Registration Period 1. Texts: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Portable Hawthorne; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; Margaret Fuller, Summer on the Lakes, in 1843; Emily Dickinson, Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson’s Poems; Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories; Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.

250 C (Introduction to American Literature)
TTh 8:30-10:20
Prebel
The purpose of this class is to introduce students to a wide range of American literature from the colonial period through the present. It is not a “survey” as such, but instead is organized into thematic units designed to trace the relationship between literature, the individual, and the nation at different moments in American cultural history. We will also consider how American literature evolves from and alongside American nationalism, in order to look at literary works as national narratives—stories that help define what it means to be American. There will be 2 midterm exams and a final, as well as the expectation of active, engaged, and intelligent class participation. No majors, Registration Period 1. Text: McQuade, ed., Harper’s Single Volume American Literature.

250D (Introduction to American Literature
TTh 1:30-3:20
Prebel
The purpose of this class is to introduce students to a wide range of American literature from the colonial period through the present. It is not a “survey” as such, but instead is organized into thematic units designed to trace the relationship between literature, the individual, and the nation at different moments in American cultural history. We will also consider how American literature evolves from and alongside American nationalism, in order to look at literary works as national narratives—stories that help define what it means to be American. There will be 2 midterm exams and a final, as well as the expectation of active, engaged, and intelligent class participation. No majors, Registration Period 1. Text: McQuade, ed., Harper’s Single Volume American Literature.

258 A (African-American Literature: 1745-Present)
TTh 9:30-11:20/F 9:30-10:20
Ralston
(W)
As the title indicates, this course is a survey, which means that it is an overview. African American literature of the United States begins in the 17th century with the oral tradition and continues today as we enter the 21st century. This is a diverse and demanding literary history, one that requires a certain dedication. The purpose of this course is to introduce you to African American literature and to help you understand its content, form, and aesthetic development so that when you encounter contemporary African American literature or literature that we have not studied in class, you will have a basis for understanding it, growing through it, and enjoying it. Unfortunately, we are challenged by the short time we have together. Despite this disadvantage, I worked to organize our syllabus to provide a strong understanding of African American literature and literary history in the context of US history. If we all work hard together, you will have a profitable and enjoyable experience. Course requirements: Each student will participate in a group presentation once during the term. There will be two take-home exams. There will be ONE 6-page paper. The paper topics will ask you to treat several authors’ works in a comparative analysis. Meets with. AFRAM 214. Text: Gates, et al., eds., Norton Anthology of African American Literature.

281 A (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 8:30
Strand
This course will focus on developing the analytical skills and the close attention to language that contribute to persuasive expository writing and will give you the opportunity to practice several different kinds of writing—from reviews, abstracts, and close reading responses to research summaries, metaphorical analyses, and argumentative papers. Course readings, writings, and discussion will center on the language of health and illness in late 20th-century American culture, on how we use the language of wellness and illness to conceptualize ourselves as individuals and as a community. Assignments will include a series of short response papers and three longer papers that will develop your skills in analyzing words, metaphors, and language contexts. Required course readings, in addition to a course packet, will include Margaret Edson’s play Wit (1998), Susan Sontag’s AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989) and Illness as Metaphor (1977), and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (2000). Expect to work individually and in peer review groups throughout the quarter. No freshmen, Registration Period 1. Texts: Edson, Wit; Sontag, AIDS and Its Metaphors & Illness as Metaphor; Gladwell, The Tipping Point; photocopied course packet.

281 B (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 8:30
Ganter
Introduction to Globalization and Transnationalism. Several 4-6 page papers and various in-class writing assignments are integral requirements in this course.

This course is an introduction to issues of "globalization" or "transnationalism." Today everyone from Bill Gates and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to novelists and literary critics like J. Hillis Miller are not only writing on globalization but are hailing it, by and large, as the central transformative force of our times. These writers are all referring basically to a moment in which the nation-state and national identity have lost the centrality they once held in social life. What we are now witnessing, according to this view, is the rise of a "transnational" culture without borders along with an equally "borderless" form of writing, education and literature--a literary education that is no longer tied to national idenity or to the national "values" of "unity," "origins," and "authenticity." J. F. Lyotard describes the new transnational culture as a borderless culture where "one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonalds food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and 'retro' clothes in Hong Kong."

This course is an occasion for inquiring into the fate of identity and writing "after" the nation. It asks students to engage with and analyze the connections between what has come to be called "good citizenship" and what, in turn, has come to be called "good writing." What do universities actually mean today when they talk about preparing student-citizen-writers for a "global society?" Through reading short story, novel, sociological essay and political manifesto we will engage with the assumption that "good citizenship" and "good writing" have never been stable, eternal values, but rather have changed historically and politically from moment to moment. With some assistance from Marxist literary and political theory and some short readings from green, feminist and race critics, the course will also inquire into the class politics of globalization and its new forms of citizenship (such as the "on-line" citizen of the global information economy -- the "netizen"). The course poses the following urgent question for writers today: is the embracing of globalization -- its global literature, its transnational culture and its information-age philosophies -- really anything but an "embracing" of the writing, thinking and citizenship skills that are required by global capitalism and its multicultural workforce? No freshmen, Registration Period 1.

Texts: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps; Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Global Cultures: A Transnational Short Fiction Reader; Samir Amin, Empire of Chaos; Philomena Mariani, ed., Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing.

281 C (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 9:30
Mower
The Rhetoric of “Civilization” 1870-1900: “Race” Presentation and the Question of Woman’s “Nature.” English 281 is designed to prepare you to meet the demands of academic writing by developing your abilities to think critically, read closely and write persuasively. However, rather than focusing on these skills in isolation, this course offers you the opportunity to consider these acts as part of the larger cultural and historical frameworks in which they are situated. By focusing on thinking, reading, and writing as social, collaborative acts, ENGL 281C invites you to consider what readers and writers, including yourself, bring to different texts. We will read and discuss a varied selection of texts—journalistic essays, short stories, novels, social criticism—in order to examine both the methods used by the writers and the audiences that these writers engage. Our materials will be drawn primarily from the turn of the 20th century, an era characterized by sweeping upheavals in American politics, society and culture. We will examine several of these moments of disjunction by exploring such issues as: racial and ethnic diversity; cultural and political imperialism; the civilized “fitness” of the New Woman. Focusing on a variety of genres and disciplines from this period will enable us to envision writing as a series of rhetorical choices specifically fashioned by the writer to communicate to a particular audience on a particular occasion. Similarly, we will re-imagine reading as an interactive process by examining how we as readers bring to each text a specific set of interpretive assumptions which limit and direct the range of meanings we actively construct from a text. No freshmen, Registration Period 1. Text: Susan Harris Smith & Melanie Dawson, eds., The American 1890s: A Cultural Reader; Jewitt, The Country Doctor.

281 D (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 9:30
Stafford
If you are reading this course description, you are interested in at least two things: furthering your education and developing your writing skills. These two interests will be the topic of this course, which will, in effect, take itself as its subject. Throughout the quarter we will explore questions such as the following: What are the goals of education? What role does writing have in our education? Why do so many writing courses get taught in the English department? Who determines what constitutes “good” writing? What is the place of language variation in education, and especially in academic writing? As we investigate these questions, we will seek to become more adept at paying close attention to language and we will hone our analytical skills in order to become better and more self-reflective writers. In pursuing this goal, we will read and write in a variety of genres. During the quarter, you will write several short pieces as well as three 6-8 page papers. No freshmen, Registration Period 1. Text: photocopied course packet.

281 E (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 10:30
Rivera
[Writing papers communicating information and opinion to develop accurate, competent, and effective expression.] No freshmen, Registration Period 1. Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; William Gibson, Neuromancer.

281 F (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 11:30
Simmons-O’Neill
Family. This course asks students to write about the course theme, “family,” from the perspectives of both personal narrative and social history. In addition to developing your ability to create a compelling personal narrative, you will become familiar with primary and secondary sources and research methods used in the study of history, and will construct a historical analysis of a specific person, event or issue from your own family’s past. Grades will be based primarily (75%) on a final portfolio due at the last class meeting. Because this course is designed on a collaborative workshop model, class attendance, participation, and timely completion of daily assignments are crucial to your success in the class, and to your final grade. No freshmen, Registration Period 1. (Please note: class is not Service Learning as indicated in the printed Time Schedule.) Texts: Fulwiler, The College Writer’s Reference, 2nd. ed.; photocopied course packet.

281 G MWF 12:30 –WITHDRAWN—

281 H (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 1:30
Lane
Many social critics writing in the nineteenth century portrayed reading as a dangerous activity. They connected prolonged reading with poor health, ranging from bad eyesight to strokes. Some even thought that excessive reading caused mothers to neglect their children. Currently, many social critics claim that watching films can be dangerous. The connection between films and violence has become a widely-discussed issue. The alleged danger of books and films indicates their persuasive power. Students in this class will read, discuss, analyze, and write papers about the power of words and images to influence readers and viewers. Analyzing these materials will facilitate students’ analysis of their own writing. The goal of this course is to help students develop their writing skills—to become influential and powerful writers. Students will complete several papers, most with more than one draft. The class meets twice a week in a computer lab, and once a week in a traditional classroom. Occasionally, there will be film screenings outside of regularly scheduled class times. All films shown during these times will also be available for independent viewing in the library. No freshmen, Registration Period 1. Text: photocopied course packet.

281 I (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 1:30
Browning
[Writing papers communicating information and opinion to develop accurate, competent, and effective expression.] No freshmen, Registration Period 1.

283 A (Beginning Verse Writing)
MW 9:30-10:50
Silver
Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Robert Wallace & Michelle Boisseau, Writing Poems, 5th ed.; Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town.

283 B (Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 11:30-12:50
Winakur
Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Robert Wallace & Michelle Boisseau, Writing Poems, 5th ed.

284 A (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 11:30-12:50
Henkle
Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Willford & Martone, eds., Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction.

284 B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 10:30-11:50
Jackson
[Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story.] Majors only, Registration Period 1.

SPRING 2001 200-Level Courses

SPRING 2001
200-Level Courses