Winter 1999 200-level ENGL courses

Course Descriptions (as of 23 November 1998)
The following course descriptions have been written by individual instructors to provide more detailed information on specific sections than 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.)

200A (Reading Literature)
Dy 8:30 (W)
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

200B (Reading Literature)
Dy 9:30 (W)
Mazzeo
What happens when we read a piece of literature? How do memory, forgetting, and desire interpose themselves upon (or arise out of) our interpretive activity? These are the central questions of this course, and we will focus on learning to understand and to enjoy literature by looking closely at some works that attempt to describe the experience of reading itself. Our main texts will be two novels: Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot and Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. We will also consider short stories by Gustave Flaubert and Jorges Luis Borges and numerous poems, including works by Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Frost. Course requiremens will include: active participation, six (6) short critical essays, and a discussion partnership.

200C (Reading Literature)
Dy 12:30 (W)
Cole
This course offers a general introduction to reading literature, through the careful analysis of contemporary poems, short stories, and novels that explore questions of sexual identity. While we attend to interesting themes and ideas, we'll also work to develop the critical reading skills that heighten the appreciation of literature. Texts: Toni Morrison, Sula; Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit; photocopied course packet.

200D (Reading Literature)
Dy 1:30 (W)
Lamm
In this course we'll explore the thematics of mourning in American literature. Often, mourning demands that writers reimagine their relationship to objects and language as well as reevaluate the importance of their own work. So, we'll look closely at the voices mourning inspires and the particular perception mourning shapes. We'll read one novel at the end of the course, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, but the emphasis will be on poetry, primarily elegies. Poems by Whitman, Dickinson, Ginsberg, Lowell, Plath, O'Hara, Notley, and Gluck, as well as secondary material on mourning will be available in a course packet. Texts: Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; photocopied course packet.

200E (Reading Literature)
Dy 12:30 (W)
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

200F (Reading Literature)
Dy 1:30 (W)
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

200U (Reading Literature)
TTh 7-8:50 pm (W)
Raine
This course is designed to introduce students of all disciplines to the interpretation and analysis of literary texts, and to help you become more thoughtful, skilled and confident readers and writers. We'll read a number of poems and short stories and a novel, exploring how and why poets and fiction writers use language differently than nonfiction writers do. Class discussions and writing assignments will ask you to move beyond summary, to pay attention to the texts' formal strategies as well as their content, to complicate your readings with productive questions, and to express your interpretation sin clear, focused, coherent essays that do justice to the complexity of the texts. Five short response papers, two longer essays and a take-home final will be required, with the opportunity to revise one of the essays. (Added 10/1/98; sln: 8242.)Texts: Hunter, Norton Introduction to Poetry, 6th ed.; Charters, The Story and Its Writer, 5th ed.; Hemingway, In Our Time; Morrison, The Bluest Eye.

210A (Literature of the Ancient World)
Dy 8:30
Atchley
This course functions as an introduction to a broad range of literature from ancient cultures surrounding the Mediterranean and beyond, focussing on a wide spectrum of literary, artistic, political, psychological, and philosophical ideas of these ancient peoples and some of the major works that have shaped the development of literary and intellectual traditions to the Middle Ages. Through these disparate texts, we shall trace some of the enduring themes of these early peoples, themes such as the nature of the hero and the role of the quest, as well as the mythological and philosophical cosmogonies inherent in these texts. We shall see how a knowledge of classical themes, motifs, and topoi will enhance and illuminate our reading of a wide variety of texts from the ancient world to the present day and how they still inform the popular imagination. We shall also delve into the function of these narratives and the various genres that we shall encounter. Texts: David Ferry, ed., Gilgamesh; Lattimore, tr., The Odyssey; Apuleius, The Golden Ass; Charles Martin, tr., Poems of Catullus; Thomas Kinsella, ed., The Tain; Lee M. Hollander, ed., The Poetic Edda; optional: John Maier, A Gilgamesh Reader; Robert Graves, The Greek Myths.Storluson, Edda.

211A (Medieval and Renaissance Literature)
Dy 9:30
Lowe
In this class we will be reading a variety of medieval and Renaissance texts, with an eye to tracing patterns of thought during the period. We will begin with literature from Celtic (the Mabinogion, and a selection of early Irish tales) and Anglo-Saxon cultures. In a different vein, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, though a classical work, influenced many medieval thinkers, and is therefore an important text in our study of the medieval period. We will also look at the lais of Marie de France (an interesting form of Celtic narrative), some medieval lyric poetyr, and the fourteenth-century poems Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We will round off the medieval period with Malory's Morte d'Arthur and the writings of medieval mystics such as Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. We will look at the emergence of the humanist subject in the Renaissance period, in the work of Sidney and Montaigne, and conclude with a brief survey of the Metaphysical poets. NOTE: I have deliberately omitted Chaucer from the assigned readings: this is because I believe he demands more attention than we can afford in a survey class. There are undergraduate courses in Chaucer, and interested students should sign up for these. Texts: Jones & Jones, trs., The Mabinogion; Gantz, tr., Early Irish Myths and Sagas; Thiebaux, ed., The Writings of Medieval Women: An Anthology; Vinaver, ed., King Arthur and His Knights; Borroff, tr., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; optional: Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work.

211B (Medieval and Renaissance Literature)
Dy 11:30
Hoblit
This course will focus on reading some of the relatively widely read works of the Medieval and Renaissance periods. While 10 weeks does not allow a full "survey" of such a broad field of literature, we will look at samples of major works as a way of introducing ourselves to the literature of these periods. We will also spend some of our time discussing why we continue to read these works as we approach the 21st century (i.e., why does a class like this one exist, and why have you chosen to enroll in it). The class will be driven by discussion to the extend of regulasr student preparation and participation. The other way we will engage with the texts we read is through writing. You can expect at least 5 formal papers, and a number of smaller daily written assignments. Sophomores only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Mack, ed., Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces; optional: Hacker, The Bedford Handbook.

212A (Literature of Enlightenment and Revolution)
Dy 1:30
Prather
This course focuses on the literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and more specifically on what are commonly referred to as the Enlightenment and the Romantic period. We will investigate on what grounds these two epochs can be differentiated and inquire as to the nature of their relationship, especially as it pertains to the question of individual and collective (psychological and political) identity. Our inquiry will be grounded in our reading of a variety of texts: novels, poetry, philosophical treatises and autobiography. The course emphasizes close reading and in-class discussion. Expect a number of short writing assignments, exercises, periodic reading quizzes, a take-home essay-exam, and a final essay. Texts: Berlin, The Age of Enlightenment; Voltaire, Candide; Blake, Blake's Poetry and Designs; Wordsworth/Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads; Pope, Essay on Man and Other Poems; Rousseau, Reveries of the Solitary Walker; Shelley, Frankenstein.

213A (Modern and Postmodern Literature)
Dy 12:30
C. Fischer
This course will survey two broad and complex literary and cultural developments known as Modernism and Postmodernism, focusing mostly on novels, but also looking at some poetry, criticism, and short stories. We will begin with the first few chapters of Joyce's Ulysses (which are both readable and fun) and end with Martin Amis' Money. Each of these authors are infamous for writing about "low" mattesr in"high" style--therefore language and its formal innovations will be a central part of our course. We will also examine the tensions between the self and city, art and advertising, civilization and barbarism, and spiritual and moral anomie. Texts: James Joyce, Ulysses; Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita; Martin Amis, Money; photocopied course packet.

213B (Modern and Postmodern Literature)
Dy 12:30
Christensen
Class added 10/19/98; sln: 8279.
This coruse looks at the way Postmodern authors have "rewritten" Modernist cities. At the turn of the century, cities had become, through their explosive growth, the rich nerve-centers of Modernist culture. Cities were both the meeting-place for exciting new art forms, and were paradoxically also the target of many artists' anguish. This course looks at how cities are portrayed by three great Modernist authors--Thomas Mann, James Joyce, and Franz Kafka--and how they depict Venice, Dublin, and the City-as-Labyrinth respectively. We will then examine how these same cities (or city-forms) are devolved and textually "imploede" by their Postmodern counterparts--Italo Calvino for Venice, Samuel Beckett for Dublin, and Jorge Luis Borges for the labyrinthine city. We will assess the transition from Modernism to Postmodernism by looking at the city first as the site of loss, angst and depersonalization, and secondly in the way the city merges with the text to become a kind of metaphor for human thought. In addition to the six above-mentioned authors, we will also read several essays and excerpts from Virginia Woolf to gain importan insight into Modernist aesthetics in genral. Students will write several one-page analysis papers, and two medium-length papers. Willingness to participate actively in class will be expected. Texts: Mann, Death in Venice; Calvino, Invisible Cities; Joyce, Dubliners; Kafka, The Trial; Borges, Labyrinths; Beckett, Mercier and Camier; Leaska, ed. The Virginia Woolf Reader.

225A (Shakespeare)
Dy 12:30 (W)
Kupka
This introduction to Shakespeare will attempt to present the plays as blueprints for collaborative performances rather than as poetry interrupted by those irritating stage directions. The initial approach to each play will be an examination of the context of its earliers performances. Students may be asked to perform parts of these plays - cooperation is required, but the ability to act is not. Assignments: 4 papers (one-page, single-spaced), 4 quizzes, 2 performance-related assignments (i.e., set design or brief performance). Texts: Shakespeare, Richard III; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Troilus and Cressida; Macbeth; The Tempest. (Signet editions will be ordered at the Bookstore, but any edition will be acceptable.)

228A (English Literary Culture: To 1600)
Dy 8:30
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

228B (English Literary Culture: To 1600)
Dy 12:30
Easterling
This course will be less a survey than a sampling of the earliest English literature-we will not march relentlessly from Chaucer to Shakespeare, but will instead spend time on a smaller number of works from this period, including selections from The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lyric poetry by Sidney, Shakespeare, Wyatt, among others, and selections from Spenser's Faerie Queene. There will be a considerable emphasis on writing: weekly response papers, two critical papers over the course of the quarter, as well as a mid-term and a final. Text: Abrams, et al., eds., Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 (6th ed.).

229A (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
Dy 8:30
J. Fisher
This course surveys English literature from 1600-1800. The poetry, plays, and fiction that we will be reading all reflect some of the political and ideological struggles of the times. Therefore, we will pay especially close attention to issues of gender, social class, religion, sexuality, colonialism, and race as they are dealt with in these books and within the context of English history. Because of the vast quantity of literature printed during these two hundred years, we will only be able to read a small representation. However, the range of texts selected should provide a useful introduction to the periods under consideration. Texts: Abrams, et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 (6th ed.); Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe.

229B (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
Dy 1:30
Tandy
This course covers two centuries of English literature, roughly from the end of the reign of Elizabeth I to the beginnings of revolutionary stirrings in Europe. England experienced some startling changes in this period, as her people reevaluated their position with regards to their God, their monarch, other nations, and each other; part of our project this quarter will be to explore how these changes are reflected in the literature of the time. Another part of our project, however, will be to read these texts for their own sake, with an eye towards their artistic merits and appeal to audiences of any period. Texts: Abrams, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 (6th ed.); Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders.

230A (English Literary Culture: After 1800)
Dy 9:30
Blake
Liberty and the Individual. A broad introductory survey of British literature of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods-from the time of the French Revolution to World War I and the latter days of the British empire. We will study the literature in relation to intellectual, political, and social context, considering the extension of democracy, the celebration of nature in the face of industrialization and the growth of cities, science in relation to religion, the "woman question," "art for art's sake," and imperialism. Sample critical approaches will be introduced, and a late-20th-century perspective provided by a video viewing of a recent film of a classic Victorian novel. Lecture-discussion. Requirements: class attendance and participation; short in-class and out-of-class study exercises; midterm (identification and short essay); take-home essay assignment (5-7 pp.); final (identification and short essay, and longer essay). Texts: Abrams, et al., Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 (6th ed.); C. Brontë, Jane Eyre; recommended: Daniel Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.

230B (English Literary Culture: After 1800)
Dy 11:30
Blake
Liberty and the Individual. A broad introductory survey of British literature of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods-from the time of the French Revolution to World War I and the latter days of the British empire. We will study the literature in relation to intellectual, political, and social context, considering the extension of democracy, the celebration of nature in the face of industrialization and the growth of cities, science in relation to religion, the "woman question," "art for art's sake," and imperialism. Sample critical approaches will be introduced, and a late-20th-century perspective provided by a video viewing of a recent film of a classic Victorian novel. Lecture-discussion. Requirements: class attendance and participation; short in-class and out-of-class study exercises; midterm (identification and short essay); take-home essay assignment (5-7 pp.); final (identification and short essay, and longer essay). Texts: Abrams, et al., Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 (6th ed.); C. Brontë, Jane Eyre; recommended: Daniel Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.

242A (Reading Fiction)
Dy 8:30 (W)
Emmerson
Family Romances and the Experimental Novel. This class will explore narratives of marriage, divorce, adultery, incest, abandonment, maternity (paternity), "couples" and "singles," "dysfunctional" families, "family values," family erotics and family innocence in five modern experimental novels. The course will consider parallels between experiments with the form and function of "family" in modernity, and experiments with the form and function of long fiction. Texts will include James' Wings of the Dove, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury; Ellison's Invisible Man; Nabokov's Lolita; and Adrienne Kennedy's People Who Led to My Plays. Expect to write several short response papers, one term paper, and a midterm.

242B (Reading Fiction)
Dy 9:30 (W)
Alston
This course is centered around themes and narratives of the individual confronting society, culture, and family. Through a compelling variety of novels, we will explore questions and issues such as: How are individuals "framed" or constructed by their various environments? What are the similarities, differences, strategies, and motivations that characterize these attempts to escape or surmount cultural constraints? We will closely examine these texts in order to contemplate how these fictional characters confront ruptures in family and community, and further, how these texts undermine and alter our notions of what constitutes "community." Texts: Sarah Orne Jewett, Country of the Pointed Furs; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Willa Cather, My Antonia; Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day; Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone.

242C (Reading Fiction)
Dy 10:30
Friend (W)
Last summer, the publishing house Modern Library released a list of what they called the top one hundred books written in English in the twentieth century. The list generated a lot of controversy for ignoring women, people of color, and contemporary authors. In subsequent interviews, the judges who had helped to compile the list admitted that they were surprised that it had been taken so seriously; they also stated that they had chosen books from a selection which Modern Library had given them. Not surprisingly, that selection was heavily weighted toward Modern Library's own titles, thus confirming what many people had suspected: the list was nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to sell books. That stunt worked, and sales of those titles soared. That story illustrates a peculiarity about our view of literature: we tend to think that it should be centered on the study of "classics," despite the fact that no one seems to be able to articulate what makes a classic without resorting to platitudes such as "timelessness" and "universal appeal." In addition to providing a range of approaches to fiction, this class will also ask what criteria we use to determine what gets read--and what doesn't get read--in literature classes. Texts: Djuna Barnes, Smoke and Other Stories; Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian; Kathy Acker, Great Expectations; Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep; Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

242D (Reading Fiction)
Dy 11:30 (W)
Landwehr
This course will study contemporary novels and short stories as a site for discussions about various aspects of identity, including race, gender, sexuality and class. Weekly response papers, two 8-page papers, and mid-term required. Be prepared for a heavy reading load. Texts: Gloria Naylor, Bailey's Café; Faye Myenne Ng, Bone; Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina; Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine.

242E (Reading Fiction)
Dy 2:30 (W)
Hennessee
In this class we will read fiction that, while foregrounding moral and ethical dilemmas, problematizes and complicates our ability to judge them. One short paper, one longer paper, midterm and final, active participation required. Texts include Morrison's Beloved, Gardner's Grendel, Forster's A Passage to India, Kosinski's Steps, Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, short stories by Joyce, Walker, Carter, Kafka, O'Connor, O'Brian, and Mansfield. We will also read a few short excerpts from philosophical tracts (Kant, Bentham, Sartre) to help provide frameworks within which to understand the problems presented in the fiction.

250A (Introduction to American Literature)
Dy 8:30
J. Griffith
We'll read and discuss an assortment of prose and poetry by American writers. Students will be expected to attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments, and take part in class discussions. Written work will consist entirely of a series of from five to ten brief in-class essays, done in response to study questions handed out in advance. Texts: Perkins, et al., The American Tradition in Literature (shorter, one-volume version; 9th ed.); Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables; Steinbeck, East of Eden.

250B (Introduction to American Literature)
MW 9:30 (lecture)
(quizzes: MW 10:30; T Th 9:30; T Th 10:30)
Wald
This course will explore some major themes, concerns and developments in the literature of the U.S. from its declared existence in 1776 through the early years of the 20th century. Central among them is the relation of literature to the articulation of a nation: how does literature reflect and participate in the effort to define "America" and "Americans"? What are some of the formal and rhetorical literary strategies that authors bring to these questions? How, in general, do language and narrative constitute experience and shape our understanding of ourselves as groups and as individuals? How and why do both national and literary concerns change over time? The course will be divided into three units: (1) history, literature, and nation; (2) immigration and urbanization; (3) modernity, modernism and the image. There will be a take-home essay examination at the end of each unit. Texts will include novels, short stories, essays, political speeches, and films. Texts: Harriet Wilson, Our Nig; Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; Abraham Cahan, Yekl; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

257A (Introduction to Asian American Literature)
MW 11:30-1:20
Wong.
Introductory survey of Asian American literature provides introduction to Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Hawaiian, South-Asian, and Southeast-Asian American literatures and a comparative study of the basic cultural histories of those Asian American communities from 1800s to the present. Texts: Frank Chin, et al., eds., AIIIEEEEE! An Anthology of Asian American Writers; Shawn Wong, ed., Asian American Literature; Jessica Hagedorn, ed., Charlie Chan is Dead; Milton Murayama, All I Asking For Is My Body; Fae Ng, Bone.

281A (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 8:30
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

281B (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 9:30
Boyd
This course aids students in honing their critical reading and writing skills, with an emphasis upon the argumentative essay form. As such, students are expected to have a basic familiarity with the fundamentals of argumentative essay writing upon entrance. The topic for this course will be "Contemporary Americn Victims." We will examine the construction of the "victim" within a contemporary American socio-historical context. We will examine narratives of victimhood in the construction of such figures as Rodney King, Nicole Brown Simpson, Mary Kay Letourneau and others in visual and textual popular media. Two major questions we will consider are: In what ways are these victimhood narratives informed by/informing "traditional" narratives of American identity? How do specificities of time, geographic place, gender, race, class, sexuality, etc., shape these narratives, and to what degree? Sophomores and above only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Lunsford & Connors, The Everyday Writer; photocopied course packet.

281C (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 10:30
Barnett
This class is designed as an intermediate writing course which assumes you already have a mastery of basic writing skills. Over the course of the quarter, we will work on strengthening your writing skills and dexterity. The common theme we will use to accomplish this goal will be the issue of the United States' internal colonial practices. We will examine in literature, film and popular culture the representation of this practice and its effects. Students will write frequent response papers as well as several longer papers which will require research from a wide variety of secondary sources. Sophomores and above only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Ann Charters, The Story and Its Writer; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony.

281D (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 11:30
Plevin
This course will offer opportunities to write from personal experience to more analytical papers, as we explore the complex and shifting relationship we have with nature, and indeed, even how we define it. As such, students will find that there will be opportunities to connect their writing with other disciplines as they discuss and write about questions of "nature" and "wilderness" and how humans interact with the world beyond them. Sophomores and above only, Registration Period 1. Texts: William Cronon, Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature; Joseph M. Williams, Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (5th ed.).

281E (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 12:30
Browning
Introduction to Writing for the Web. This is a class in writing web pages. This medium is, by its very nature, multimedia, hyper-linked, and interactive; our goal will be to write pages and sites which employ these capacities. We will start at the ground level, with an introduction to hypertext and "markup languages"; this will include a quick "how-to-do-a-home-page" course. Course topics will include (but are not limited to): HTML markup techniques; the use of images, backgrounds and other visual effects; the issues involved in writing for a global (or a potentially global) audience; the advantages and disadvantages of writing in hypertext; shaping the way a reader "navigates" a web site; the Web as a site of artistic and self-expression; the Web as a site for information exchange, public debate, and education; style guides and principles of "good HTML"; who gets to decide what "good HTML" is, and why. (Students who already have a degree of HTML expertise would probably be more challenged by the senior-level version of this course, ENGL 481 - currently scheduled to be offered again in Spring 1999.) Sophomores and above only, Registration Period 1.Text: Musciano & Kennedy, HTML: The Definitive Guide, 3rd ed.

281F (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 1:30
Kluepfel
[Writing papers communicating information and opinion to develop accurate, competent, and effective expression.] Sophomores and above only, Registration Period . Text: Joseph M. Williams, Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace.

281G (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 2:30
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

281U (Intermediate Expository Writing)
TTh 7-8:50 p.m.
--cancelled after Time Schedule printed--

283A (Beginning Verse Writing)
MW 11:30-12:50
Pecqueur
This course will study the use of image, sound, and form in the composition of poetry. Sophomores and above only, Registration Period 1. Text: McClatchy, ed., Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry.

283B (Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 9:30-10:50
Lewis-Hawk
This course will study use of image, sound, and form in the composition of poetry. We will read poetry and do assignments to use the tools of the trade. The second half of the course will consist of an open workshop in which students share and discuss their own original poems. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above. Text: Nims, Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry.

284A (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 10:30-11:50
Nestor
Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story. English majors only, Registration Period 1. No texts.

284B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 12:30-1:50
Nelson
A beginning class on the craft of fiction writing. Students will develop their own fictino-writing skills through class workshops, peer exercises, and by careful study of short published pieces. English majors only, Registration Period 1.Text: Shapiro & Thomas, eds., Sudden Fiction Continued.

Winter Quarter 1999 200-Level Courses

Winter Quarter 1999
200-Level Courses