Winter 2002 200-Level ENGL Courses

Course Descriptions (as of January 7, 2002)
The following course descriptions have been written by individual instructors to provide more detailed information on specific section sthan that found in the General Catalog. When individual descriptions are not available, the General Catalog descriptions [in brackets] are used. (Although we try to have as accurate and complete information as possible, this schedule remains subject to change.)

200 A (Reading Literature)
Dy 8:30
Lane
(W)
Students in this class will read and respond to well-known literary works written by British authors during the nineteenth century. Readings include Pride and Prejudice, The Pickwick Papers (excerpts), and Great Expectations. This class will not only analyze these works within a historical context, but will also examine contemporary representations of these works. In addition to regular class meetings, there will be at least two evening film screenings during the quarter. Films shown during these screenings will also be available on reserve at the library. This is a computer-integrated class. No prior computer experience is necessary. Grades will be based on papers, tests, group presentations, and class participation. Texts: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; photocopied course packet.

200 B (Reading Literature)
Dy 9:30
Wallace
(W)
Reading (Too Much?) Into It. How many times have you heard people suggest that literature contains “hidden” meanings? Have you ever wondered what occult arts are necessary for discovering these secrets? Although this course will not offer any secret literature decoder rings, it will provide a context in which to discuss the processes of reading. Is it possible to “read too much into things?” How do we know when we are reading too much? not enough? How do people read differently? How does how we read affect what we read? In this course, we will read a selection of U.S. literature primarily from the twentieth century that deals in some way with reading processes. In some cases, we will be observing characters reading or misreading their surroundings; in some cases we will ourselves be the (mis)readers. In all cases, we will think not only about the interpretive strategies depicted in the literature, but also about our own interpretive strategies, how we find meaning in or make meaning out of a text. Texts: Henry James, The Turn of the Screw; Louise Erdrich, Tracks; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49.

200 C (Reading Literature)
Dy 11:30
Brenner
(W)
This will be a class in reading hard and well. The books we'll be looking at are not connected by some common theme or idea; they are simply good and interesting storeis and poems that have the power to tell us a great deal about ourselves as we read them. Expect to write weekly papers, as well as three other longer and more polished papers during the quarter. Texts: A. CHekhov, Five Great Short Stories; Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women; Lewis Carrol, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.

200 D (Reading Literature)
Dy 12:30
Goh
(W)
This is a survey course that will examine some of the rich variety of genres in English and American literature. We will examine Elizabethan drama and poetry, explore the rise of fiction in the eighteenth century and sample the drama and poetry of the twentieth century. The works and genres that we examine will tell us something about the social and cultural forces that helped shape them. Literature is thus taken as both testimony and manifestation of social and cultural changes, or even of shifts in an entire civilization's social motivations and philosohpoical directions. This approach will open up multiple avenues for us to sample current critical articles on literature and literary studies. There will be two papers as well as response papers and assignments for our readings. Class activities will include exercises, discussions and corroborative work. We will also watch a film or two (based on drama) and evaluate them. Texts: Beaty & Hunter, eds., The Norton Introduction to Literature, 7th ed.; Rudyard Kipling, Kim.

200 E (Reading Literature)
Dy 1:30
Fischel
(W)
[Techniques and practice in reading and enjoying literature. Examines some of the best works in English and American literature and
considers such features of literary meaning as imagery, characterization, narration, and patterning in sound and sense. Emphasis on literature
as a source of pleasure and knowledge about human experience.] Texts: Beaty/Hunter, eds., Norton Introduction to Literature, shorter edition; Kingston, Woman Warrior.

205 A (Method, Imagination, and Inquiry)
Dy 10:30
Searle
(W)
This course is offered as both an English and Comparative History of Ideas course. It offers a rigorous introduction to intellectual history by examining the rich relations between method and imagination, by treating Western intellectual history as overwhelmingly motivated by the idea of inquiry. Selections include literary, philosophical and scientific texts. The reading for the course is demanding, but coherent: each text provides a basis for better understanding the next. Selections include works by Plato, Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, Descartes, Kant, Coleridge, C. S. Peirce, Thomas Kuhn and William Faulkner. The course meets daily; one meeting each week will be in smaller sections to go over reading and writing assignments. There is a take-home mid-term examination, a number of short papers, and a final paper. The course does carry “W” credit. (Meets with CHID 205A) Texts: Plato, Phaedo; Ackrill, ed., A New Aristotle Reader; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Francis Bacon, The New Organon; William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!; photocopied course packet.

207 A (Introduction to Cultural Studies)
MW 9:30-11:20
Elkington
Humanity and Machinery. How are our lives affected by technology? How many facets of our existence are dependent upon machines, often machines that are beyond our comprehension? The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the computers we use every day, all rely upon complicated machinery and technological sophistication unthinkable even decades ago. Yet, they become the background to our quotidian lives. This course draws out and questions the roles of technology and machinery in society, highlighting our prevalent attitudes and anxieties. The course is divided into three roughly equal thematic sections: utopia, dystopia, and integration, demonstrating overlapping attitudes that exist across lines of era, class and ideology. In addition to the written texts, students will be asked to watch several films and performance art videos. Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; William Gibson, Neuromancer; photocopied course packet.

210 A (Literature of the Ancient World)
MW 8:30-10:20
Keep
In this course we will read epic poetry and romance translated from ancient Greek and Latin: The Odyssey of Homer, The Aeneid of Virgil, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, and The Transformations of Apuleius – major works that have shaped the development of English literary traditions. We will consider problems relating to identity and change, as we track literary genre, character and motif through variations and metamorphoses. Recommended preparation: Readiness and willingness to read and research and to respond in writing. Assignments and grading: A mid-term and a final exam will test reading comprehension and literary analysis. In addition, students will perform library research and produce an annotated bibliography, as well as several shorter writing projects. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. (Section B represents 5 spaces in this section reserved for new transfer students only.) Texts: Homer, Odyssey (tr. Mandelbaum); Virgil, Aeneid (tr. Mandelbaum); Ovid, Metamorphoses (tr. Mandelbaum); Apuleius, Golden Ass (tr. Graves).

210B (Literature of the Ancient World)
MW 8:30-10:20
Keep
See 210A above. 210B represents 5 spaces reserved in that section for new transfer students. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B Padelford.

211 A (Medieval & Renaissance Literature)
TTh 8:30-10:20
Taylor
[Introduction to literature from a broadly cultural point of view, focusing on major works that have shaped the development of literary and intellectual traditions from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.] Non-majors only, Registration Period 1.

211 B (Medieval & Renaissance Literature)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Mussetter
We will be doing an overview of Early and Late Medieval literature in English. This means Beowulf and some minor Old English poems along with some of their historical and cultural backgrounds—and this means the Germanic migrations into the British Isles, the formation of the state which will become England, the tensions between paganism and Christianity, the warrior ethic, the visual arts, the myths and lore that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them and combined with the Celtic materials of the Britons. The second half of the course will be devoted to the literature, history, and culture of the 14th-15th centuries. This means Gawain and the Green Knight, The Miller’s Tale, a few plays, and a bit of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur. In addition to the readings, there will be a midterm and a final (part take-home, part in-class identifications/essays). And in addition to that, there will be a weekly e-mail “paper” on some subject related to class discussion. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vols. 1A and 1B.

211C (Medieval & Renaissance Literature)
TTh 1:30-3:20
See 211B above. 211C represents 5 spaces in that section reserved for new transfer students. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B Padelford.

212 A (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
Dy 9:30
Tandy
"But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?" (Shelley 21). Thus the narrator of Frankenstein begins a novel that is about both human endeavors and human consequences, determined hearts and resolved wills not always in agreement. Shelley's novel sits at the pivot point in the period we examine this quarter, embodying both the potential glories and terrors of revolutions individual, social, political, and industrial. Our study of this period will fall into two interdependent units: we will examine first the development of the modern individual subject through readings in British philosophy, psychology, and poetry as well as the novels Moll Flanders (Defoe) and Emma (Austen); later in the quarter, we will undertake the questino of how British society reacted to the challenges presented by the modern inddividual, with readings from history, philosophy, and political economy and the novels Frankenstein (Shelley) and Hard Times (Dickens). Non-majors only, Registration Period 1.

212B (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
Dy 9:30
See 212A above. 212B represents 5 spaces reserved in that section for new transfer students. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B Padelford.

212 C (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
MW 10:30-12:20
Hennessee
This introductory course will examine literature of the 18th – early 19th centuries. Writers of this time took on “big” questions: what is the nature of God? Can humans know and understand the world? What is the best way to organize society? What should our relationship with nature be? What is the role of imagination? Reason? Education? Feeling? Love? Their answers to these questions continue to influence the way we think. Course requirements include: take-home midterm, in-class midterm, group project, 4-6 pp. essay, various short writing assignments, active class participation. Expect some lecture (on historical background and other contexts), more discussion, demanding (but rewarding) reading. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Alexander Pope, Essay on Man and Other Poems; David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels; Voltaire, Candide; Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience; Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

213 A (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
Dy 9:30
Keeling
Rather than attempting to distinguish between the Modern and the Postmodern, or between the epistemological and the ontological, we will, in this course, attempt to place so-called “modernist” and “postmodernist” texts in dialogue with one another in order to explore the similarities between those works that seemingly seek to fashion a unified worldview from the fragmentation defining twentieth-century existence and those that (again, seemingly) accept it. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Mayra Santos-Febres, Sirena Selena; Virginia Woolf, Orlando, A Biography; Mrs. Dalloway; Michael Cunningham, The Hours; Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing; Ruthann Robinson, A/K/A; H.D., Asphodel; E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime; David Leavitt, While England Sleeps.

213 B (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
Dy 11:30
McRae
The Textual Self. In this course, we'll read novels about strange people who lead interesting lives, and discover themselves by self-consciously occupying the stories in which they simultaneously describe and invent themselves. Sometimes they're too sensitive and tiresomely tragic, but other times they're hilarious. In the early twentieth century, coming-of-age novels are generally complex explorations of individual artistic consciousness. The fragmented, unsettled, sometimes difficult prose characteristic of these novels represents, but also partially reinvents, the hypersensitive, alienated, fragmented, unsettled consciouness that produces it. The result is often a kind of self-conscious, self-induced literary madness. While late-twentieth-century examples of the genre evince some of the same recursive self-consciousness, literary self-invention takes a new shape when artists mine literary forms that seem to have said it all before, but say it new ways by mixing it up with popular culture: tv, movies, pop music, Race, gener, sexuality, and degrees of normalcy further complicate the mix. Requirements: Group presentation, midterm, final, participation. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; H.D., HERmione; Larsen, Quicksand/Passing; Beatty, White Boy Shuffle; Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn.

213 C (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
Dy 12:30
Elkington
The Question of Meta-narrative. Jean-Francois Lyotard once characterized Postmodernism as an incredulity toward meta-narratives. But what is a meta-narrative? And if Postmodernism questions them, does that mean that Modernism does not? Starting with Lyotard, this course looks at the concept of Modernism in relation to Postmodernism, in its development through novels of the 20th Century. Along the way, we’ll define “meta-narrative,” looking for evidence of how a variety of texts employ, contain, resist, or subvert the very concept in reaction to literary and cultural contexts. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. (Section D represents 5 spaces in this course reserved for new transfer students.) Texts: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Charles Johnson, Middle Passage; Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body; John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure; photocopied course packet.

225 A (Shakespeare)
MW 8:30-10:20
Streitberger
(W)
Shakespeare’s career as dramatist. Study of representative comedies, tragedies, romances, and history plays. Text: David Bevington, ed., The Complete Works of Shakespeare (updated 4th ed.)

228 A (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
MW 8:30-10:20
Fogerty
Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction, a landmark in popular culture, features a particularly brutal assault against on eof the central characters, Marsellus. His response--after he is freed and in control of the situatino--is to threaten his attacker: "I'm gonna git Medieval on your ass." What does it mean to get "Medieval" in twenty-first century America? One of the concerns of this course wil be to examine how this notion--the implciation that in modern culture the term "Medieval" signifies violence and revenge, the mysticism of the unknown, and question of religion and culture and sexuality seeming far removed from our world--actually resonates with the formative literature of English culture. We will read literature from Beowulf (that unlikely New York Times bestseller), to Christopher Marlowe. The course may include, but will not be limited to, discussion, lecture, presentations, quizzes, several papers, a mid-term, and a final. Texts: Pearsall, ed., Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375-1575; Rice & Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Euorpe 1460-1559; Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great; Edward II; Heaney, tr., Beowulf: A New Verse Translation.Non-majors only, Registration Period 1.

228B (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
MW 8:30-10:20
See 228A above. 228B represents 5 spaces reserved in that section for new transfer students. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B Padelford.

228 C (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
MW 1:30-3:20
Stafford
In this course we will explore some of the important English literary and cultural texts produced before 1600, with the theme of “exploration” itself being our primary focus. We will think about exploration in many contexts – journeys to real and imagined places, travels into various sections of society, and forays into the constructions of gender and love. The texts for this course will all come from the Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1. They will include (but are certainly not limited to) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from The Travels of John Mandeville, Thomas More’s Utopia, selections from the poetry of John Donne, and Middleton and Dekker’s play, TheRoaring Girl. Coursework will include two exams, several short response papers/activities, one longer paper 6-8 pages) a group presentation, and active classroom participation. Be prepared to encounter rough terrain on our journey – but also expect it to be quite rewarding! Non-majors only, Registration Period 1.

229 A (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
Dy 9:30
Rob Mitchell
In this course we will focus on texts written between 1600 and 1800, a period that stretches from roughly the end of the Renaissance up to the end of the Enlightenment. This was a period of widespread and fundamental change in English (and later British) political life, economy, and social relations, as England witnessed an extended civil war, a “Financial Revolution” that included the establishment of the Bank of England, and the emergence of the middle class. In this course, we will be concerned with the ways in which literature of this period engaged these changes, focusing especially on the ways in which poems and plays interrogated changes in commerce. We will focus on poetry and drama, and we will study texts such as Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, several poems by John Donne, essays by John Milton as well as parts of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Aphra Behn's Ooronoko, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” and John Gay’s A Beggar’s Opera. Students will be responsible for: (1) preparing for, and participating in, all scheduled sections; (2) a midterm and final; (3) four short papers; (4 ) a short presentation. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. (Section B represents 5 spaces in this course reserved for new transfer students.) Texts: Damrosch and Baswell, eds., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1; Gay, The Beggar’s Opera.

229B (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
See 229A above. 229B represents 5 spaces in that section reserved for new transfer students. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B Padelford.

229 C (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
MW 11:30-1:20
E. 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, Pope. The course requires a fairly substantial amount of reading, and class participation is paramount. Written work consists of one 5-7 page paper, short weekly response papers, and midterm and final examinations. Texts: David Damrosch, et al., eds., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1; Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1.

230 A (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
MW 8:30 (lecture; quizzes: MW 9:30, TTh 8:30, TTh 11:30)
Butwin
Certainly more of what we call literature has been generated—written, printed, distributed—in England between 1800 and 2002 than in all periods in all countries put together before that time. We have ten weeks in which to account for it, and we will do so with the help of three novels, a course packet of poetry and prose, two movies and a few audiotapes. What these should yield is an impression of enormous change in little time. In 1800 there was no railroad, no telegraph; by the time Dickens wrote Hard Times (1854) and when Hardy wrote Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1890) there was hardly a corner of England (1850s) and of the world (1890) that couldn’t be reached by steam and electricity. By the time Virginia Woolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway (1925) her world was scarred by the most global and mechanical of activities—modern warfare. Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) and the recent films of Hanif Karishi will help to bind the past and the perplexing present. Large lecture, small discussion groups, essays and exams. Texts: Charles Dickens, Hard Times; Thomas Hard, Tess of the D'Urbervilles; Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; photocopied course packet, "A Selection of Prose and Poetry, 1800-2002". films (on reserve): Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times; Hanif Karishi, My Son, the Fanatic.

242 A (Reading Fiction)
Dy 8:30
Strand
(W)
American Awakenings. Consider the recent film Family Man, in which the bachelor businessman character played by Nicolas Cage wakes up one morning in a new life, married with kids to his old girlfriend. Or the 1998 hit films Pleasantville, in which Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon find themselves in a utopian 1950s town, and The Truman Show, in which Jim Carrey's character awakens from the illusion he thought was reality. In these films and others like them, the idea of awakening becomes the basis for not only the film's action, but also a larger social critique. This figure of "awakening" has a long legacy in literature, too, and the stories we will read and write about in this class will be grouped loosely around "awakenings," particularly in 19th- and 20th-century American literature. Through this thematic framework, we will explore the following questions: In what ways is the concept or experience of "awakening" a thematic force in American narratives? How are different kinds of awakenings -- not only literal and literary, but also psychological, religious, romantic, social, national, or otherwise symbolic awakenings -- expressed in these stories? What is the cultural role of such awakenings, and how can they be cast both to construct and to critique culture? How do various kinds of awakenings manifest themselves in different historical moments? What are their implications for social categories like class, race, and gender? And, ultimately, how do we expect literary texts, particularly fictional ones, to "awaken" us as readers? Working to develop your skills in reading and writing about fiction, we will look at how these narratives work through their fictional elements (like plot, character, or theme), their figurative language, their relation to historical context, and their relation to other texts, both fiction and non-fiction. Course texts will include short stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, Ambrose Bierce, Henry James, Edith Wharton, W.E.B. DuBois, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver, as well as the following novels: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Kate Chopin, The Aeakening; F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise; and Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Course requirements will include active participation, regular quizzes and in-class writing, several response papers, a longer paper (weeks 6-7), a final project, and a final exam.

242 B (Reading Fiction)
Dy 9:30
L. Fisher
(W)
This is a course aimed at developing students’ analytical reading and writing abilities. You will be reading and discussing fiction in class, looking at related texts that will provide context for the fiction you read, and writing about 3what you read both formally and informally. In this section we will be looking specifically at the notion of place in American fiction. This concept of place is rather flexible. With our examination of diverse fiction from various periods we will be interrogating Americans’ relationships with their environments, their homes, and their land. Looking at place will allow us to talk about America’s traditions of regional writing and travel writing. We will also look at how writers represent the geographical significance of social changes like urbanization, modernization, immigration, commercialization, etc. Texts: Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson; Kate Chopin, The Awakening; James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man; Willa Cather, My Antonia; Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills; Jack Kerouac, On the Road; suggested: Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference, 4th ed.

242 C (Reading Fiction)
Dy 10:30
Rivera
(W)

242 D (Reading Fiction)
Dy 11:30
Parris
(W)
American Childhood after 1950. In this course, we will consider the construction of childhood in the late twentieth century through a variety of fictional forms: short story, novel, young adult fiction, and graphic novel. A number of questions will inform our reading: What do American think childhood ought to be? How do factors like race, class, gender, and sexuality affect the way childhood is conceptualized? What does the everyday life of a child look like according to these writers? What is a “happy childhood”? How does the form affect both the content and our reading of a piece of fiction? What role does emotion play in the socialization of children? Students will write several short response papers, two short essays, and a final paper. Texts: Victor Martinez, Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida; Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers; Nicholson Baker, The Everlasting Story of Nory; Ntozake Shange, Betsey Brown; Ariel Schrag, Potential; photocopied course packet.

242 E (Reading Fiction)
Dy 1:30
Liu
(W)
What We Learn In School. This course centers on how schooling, from the elementary to university levels, influences the way we see ourselves and our surroundings. Through plays, short stories and novels, we will examine how past and present American educational systems have both nurtured and limited the development of individualism and independent thinking in both students and educators. We will compare and contrast fictional texts selected for this class with excerpts from educational philosophies of the 20th century. The goal is not to judge the efficaciousness of education policy but rather to explore how individuals of different races, sexes, and sexual orientations respond to school as a normalizing, and sometimes repressive, institution. We will address the following issues: the social and political aspects of education, the relation of education to identity formation, and the valuable lessons that a formal education cannot teach. Work for this course includes reading responses, two papers, and one in-class exam. Texts: Philip Roth, The Human Stain; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Blu’s Hanging; Margaret Edson, W;t; Anzia Yezierska, Salome of the Tenements; David Sedaris, Naked (excerpts); Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun; Don Delillo, White Noise.

243 A (Reading Poetry)
Dy 1:30
Brenner
(W)
In this class, we will hone our reading powers to hear the "sound of sense" in poems mostly modern. Expect to write short papers each week, and at least three longer and more polished papers during the quarter. Text: R. Diyanni, Modern American Poets, 2nd ed.

250 A (Introduction to American Literature)
Dy 10:30
Berte
In this course, our central focus will be examining literature’s role in the evolution of American attitudes toward gender, class, and race. We will explore the impact of these lines of inquiry for understanding both contemporary American culture and ourselves as individuals. Additionally, we will study how individual pieces of literature fit into historical context and into major American literary/artistic movements. While analyzing how social attitudes in American culture have been represented, c challenged, reinforced, and reformed by American literary texts, we will seek to answer the following questions: What value does a historical survey of American literature have for 21st-century Americans? How are traditional categories for studying literature—through the lenses of race/class/gender or through artistic movements—both useful and problematic for the study of literature and culture? What role does literature play in shaping our larger culture as distinctively “American”? How can becoming an experienced reader of American literature and culture influence our roles in contemporary America? Course requirements include response papers, frequent reading quizzes, a midterm and a final exam. Readings include short fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sui Sin Far, William Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oates, and Raymond Carver; non-fiction by Ben Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Frederick Douglass, and Zitkala Sa; and novels by Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, Thomas Rivera, and Mark Twain. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. (Section B represents 5 spaces in this section reserved for new transfer students.) Texts: Baym, ed., Norton Anthology of American Literature, shorter, 5th ed.; Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson; Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth; Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time; Thomas Rivera, And the Earth did not Devour Him.

250B (Introduction to AmericanLiterature)
Dy 10:30
See 250A above. 250B represents 5 spaces in that section reserved for new transfer students. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B Padelford.

250 C (Introduction to American Literature)
MW 12:30-2:20
Prebel
In this class we will explore themes and topics in American literature from the colonial period to the present. This course is not intended to survey all of American literature in this very expansive time period, but instead to consider teh evolution and development of what we consider "American" about literature at different cultural and historical moments. We will thus attend to boththe "context" in which a text emerges and its aesthetics in order to consider how a narrative engages notions of what it means to be American. This class asks for critical analysis of texts as well as an appreciation of them, and also requires a significant amount of writing (response papers ane exams). Text: McQuade, et al., eds., The Harper Single Volume American Literature, 3rd ed.

250 D (Introduction to American Literature)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Barnett
Survey of the major writers, modes, and themes in American literature, from the beginnings to the present. Specific readings vary, but often included are Taylor, Edwards, Franklin, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, James, Eliot, Stevens, O’Neill, Faulkner, Hemingway, Ellison, and Bellow. Non-majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Baym, et al, eds., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, shorter, 5th ed.

251 A (Introduction to American Political Culture)
MW 11:30-1:20
Linder
In what ways might Leave it to Beaver be an outgrowth of radioactive atomic fallout? How are political statesmen such as John Foster Dulles presenting a viewpoint that has affinities to that offered by Jack Kerouac and the Beats? How, according to some, were Moms ruining America? Our work in this class will attempt to answer these and related questions by examining postwar American culture through a variety of texts — from detective fiction to political speeches, from sociological tracts to Hollywood movies, from legal documents to Beat poetry. In short, we’ll work to attain a more comprehensive picture of 1950s and to some extent, 1960s America by putting seemingly disparate cultural forms in dialogue with one another. We’ll attempt to discover what unites these various postwar texts, what common concerns and/or hopes they give voice to. As the Beav might say, “Gee, Wally, this course is gonna be swell!”(Offered jointly with POL S 281.) Texts: Mickey Spillane, The Mike Hammer Collection, Vol. 1 (I, The Jury; My Gun is Quick; Vengeance is Mine!); Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

257 A (Introduction to Asian-American Literature)
MW 11:30-1:20
Solberg
Introductory survey of Asian-American literature provides introduction to Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Hawaiian, South-Asian, and Southeast-Asian American literature and a comparative study of the basic cultural histories of those Asian-American communities from the 1800s to the present.] Texts: Shawn Wong, ed., Asian-American Literature: Brief Introduction and Anthology; Vienvenido N. Santos, Scent of Apples; Monica Sone, Nisei Daughter; Gary Pak, The Watcher of Waipuna; G. S. Sharat Chandra, Sari of the Gods.

281 A (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 8:30
Gribben
Legendary Writing/Writing a Legend. What makes someone a legend? How is a legend created in writing, and what kinds of writings create what kinds of legends? This course focuses on developing the analytical skills and the close attention to language and style necessary to understand how writing is intentionally different from discipline to discipline. You will read and practice writing several different kinds of writing: book reviews, close reading responses, argumentative papers, creative non-fiction pieces, personal ads, song lyrics, etc., in order to differentiate among ways persuasive writings create and highlight different values to suite the discipline's needs and beliefs. We'll discuss readings and write about the language of Legends--how something/someone is made into a legend, what qualifies as having legendary status, and what those values say about the cultures that create those legends. Assignments include a series of short writings and three longer (6-7 pages) papers that utilize and develop your skills in analyzing words, metaphors, and language contexts. No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Paterniti, Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain; photocopied course packet; Ballads/legendary songs -- tape on reserve in Odegaard Media Center.

281 B (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 8:30
Ganter
Writing-as-Critique. Most people follow the cultural commonsense and think of "writing" as a self-evident and a transparent "thing": "writing" is writing. To question this dominant view on "writing"--to place it in quotation marks and open it up to interrogation--may strike some as a bit absurd or at least philosophically pretentious. But by putting "writing" in question it becomes clear that the transparency of "writing" is constructed by a highly complex and layered set of historical assumptions and cultural operations. In other words its transparency is the effect of opacity. This course will unpack the transparency of "writing" by making a case that writing is a highly opaque, complicated social practice and its transparency is ideological. At the same time, it will point out that a study of "writing" is inseparable from a study of social and cultural practices since "writing" is symptomatic of these practices. All social practices (from falling in love, to watching a movie, to paying taxes and choosing a career) are like "writing" in that they seem transparent but in actuality they are opaquely knotted with ideological assumptions. In fact poststructuralist theorists such as Jacques Derrida talk about social relations as a form of writing. Whether social relations are indeed a form of "writing" or whether "writing" is a form of social relations will be one of the core questions of the course.

We will begin with the unpacking of "writing" through a reading of Barbara Johnson's essay, "Writing", in which she argues that "writing" is a practice of "difference." By "difference" she means that "writing" is self-referential: it is the effect of slippages and differences of signs within language rather than the outcome of any reference to pre-existing "experience"--objects, emotions, acts or feelings outside language. This is, of course, radically at odds with the traditional view that regards writing as experiential and mimetic: a reference to objects, ideas, emotions and feelings that have an existence outside "writing." The course will analyze these and other theories such as the materialist theory of writing that theorizes writing as social practice, that is part of social (class) struggle. The materialist understanding of "writing-as-critique" means that writing is theorized as a social act and as such an active practice of participation in social change: writing as the signature of citizen. As we will see through course readings and discussions, "critique" (as in "writing-as-critique") is not the same as "criticism." "Criticism" is a "judgment" made on the basis of eternal "values". Critique on the contrary is a mode of knowing that shows how values are rooted in actual, historical conditions. Critique is a self-examining understanding that demonstrates that there is nothing self-evident in the self-evident. "Love", for example, is not a "spontaneous" (self-evident) emotion but like all emotions is historical: it is constructed for social purposes (e.g., to give "family"--which is produced by cultural and economic relations--a certain naturalness, authority and inevitability). We will examine a variety of "critiques" (from Foucault to Barthes to contemporary feminism and anti-racism as well as green and anti-globalization critiques) and read them side by side with "materialist critique" grounded in the Marxist theory of "ideology".

Course discussions will evolve around texts by Bertolt Brecht, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, bell hooks, Karl Marx, Terry Eagleton, Theodore Adorno, Louis Althusser, Cornell West, Judith Butler, Vandana Shiva, Tom Clancy and Zadie Smith as well as films such as Finding Forrester and Shrek. No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Terry Eagleton, Idology: An Introduction; Zadie Smith, White Teeth; Tom Clancy, Op-Center: State of Seige.

281 C (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 10:30
Joly
[Writing papers communicating information and opinion to develop accurate, competent, and effective expression.] No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Jones & Jones, College Writing: Keeping It Real; Hacker, A Writer's Reference, 4th ed.

281 D (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 11:30
Lindsey
This course will challenge students to become better writers by becoming more responsible writers. Reponsibility in the writing process entails understanding something about the various uses and functions of writing, as well as the importance of context in determining meanings. Instead of simply mastering the five paragraph argumentative essay, students will be expected to become intimate with various genres of writing in order to make sense of the stakes of written (and oral) communications. Students will then mimic various writing genres, share their writing with the class, and have opportunities for revision. Text: photocopied course packet. No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1.

281 E (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 12:30
Whitmire
Marginal Writing: Perspectives in 20th-Century American Literature. In this coruse we will be analyzing the connections between writing "style" and the political and cultural implications of a variety of texts. As you identify the genre and explicate the rhetorical techniques of a given reading, you will also be developing your own writing skills -- expository and otherwise. You will reproduce several of the genres we read -- experimenting with and expanding your writing repertoire. You will also produce analysis in several academic and professional styles. By the end of the coruse, you will be able to deploy a variety of genres or "styles" of writing in response to the core thematic questions of the course. In addition, you should be able to articulate the implications of a writer's choice of genre -- the relationship between the style of the writing and the political, cultural or personal stakes of a text (including your own). Thematically, this course is structured around writing I have termed "marginal." Stylistically, I mean this term to indicate the way these texts often experiment with -- or directly challenge -- more institutionalized forms of discourse. However, the term "marginal" also refers to the way the writers in this course position themselves in their writing: as "outsiders" of one sort or another. During the course we will consider the implications of "marginality" or "outsiderness" -- as both a writing tactic and a literary label: What counts as an "outsider" perspective or identity? How do genre and writing style indicate, develop or create this perspective? How does the unconventional -- in form and content -- affect our reading of a particular text? How does this perspective affect our conceptualization of cultural categories such as race, gender, sexuality and class? And, if there is a "marginal" or "outsider" perspective, what does the "center" or the inside look like? No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Kirszner & Mandell, The Brief Holt Handbook.

281 F (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 1:30
Oldham
Q. What do the following things have in common: Genes, numbers, dreams, noises, sentences, frequencies, land, human beings, melodies, ideas, rights, faces, and names? A: All have been treated as "property" at one time or another. In this class, we'll look at the idea of "property" from a variety of perspectives-historical, cross-cultural, legal, and bio-ethical especially. We'll examine changing attitudes toward land ownership over the past few hundred years, and look at how people can treat abstract or intangible phenomena, such as songs, rights, or radio frequencies, as property. Along the way we'll touch on some unusual recent developments, like the patenting of human genes and of numbers, or the controversy over "Kennewick Man." Throughout, we'll be trying to answer the big question, "What is 'property'?" This will propose research in one or more different fields, which in turn will become the basis for a final paper. The course is designed to develop skills in academic (argumentative) writing, in particular forming complex descriptive claims, marshalling evidence, addressing counter-arguments, and organizing an argument for maximum effect. Two different citation formats (MLA & APA) are covered. Two essays, one research paper, various short writing assignments. Text: photocopied course packet. No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1.

283 A (Beginning Verse Writing)
MW 11:30-12:50
Matsumoto
Experience a studio-style class and discover new ways to write! L. Hughes, Bukowski, Mirikitani, and W. Coleman read here! Write 8 – 10 poems and receive constructive criticism from your peers. English majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Photocopied course packet.

283 B (Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 9:30-10:50
Halverson
Discusses tradition in poetry and focuses on contemporary poets and works. Texts: A. Poulin, Jr., ed., Contemporary American Poetry, th ed.; Twichell & Behn, eds., The Practice of Poetry.

284 A (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 9:30-10:50
Gunn
[Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story.] No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1.

284 B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 1:30-2:50
Min
[Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story.] No freshmen; majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Checkoway, Creating Fiction.

WINTER 2002 200-Level Courses

WINTER 2002
200-Level Courses