Autumn 1997 300-level ENGL courses

Course Descriptions (Last updated: August 7, 1997)
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.)

Graduate Course in Old English open to undergraduates
ENGL 512 (Introductory Reading in Old English; daily 8:30) is open to undergraduate students interested in language study and/or Anglo-Saxon literature. This is a beginning course in the earliest written form of the English language, indispensable for study of literary (and other) texts from the middle ages, extremely helpful to understanding the nature of the English language, and fundamental to historical study of the English language. Students should have some background in language study, preferably ENGL 370 or equivalent. Permission of the instructor (Professor Robert Stevick) required; e-mail to: stevickr@u.washington.edu.

300A (Reading Major Texts)
MW 12:30-2:20
Patterson
Beloved. In 1856, the slave Margaret Garner escaped from her master in Kentucky and traveled to Ohio. When faced with capture by her owner, Garner killed her infant daughter rather than allow her to be returned to slavery. In her powerful novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison transformed Margaret Garner into Sethe, and in the process of turning history into literature she complicated how we understand both. This course will be an intensive reading and rereading of Beloved, as well as an intense investigation of a number of historical, legal, and critical issues raised by the novel. The first half of the course will be devoted to a close reading of the novel and to an understanding of its relation to the histories of slavery and Reconstruction. In the second half of the course, we will look at the different ways critics and literary theorists have read and reconstructed the novel. Warning: although the focus in this course will be on only one novel, there will be a large amount of secondary reading material, much of it dense and difficult. Requirements will include several short essays and in-class writing.

310A (The Bible as Literature)
MTWThF 10:30
McCracken
An introduction to the Bible, with emphasis on its literary forms, especially narrative (biblical story), but also biblical poetry, oracles, epistles, apocalypse. There will be some outside readings on history, geography, and theology, but the main focus is on reading the Bible as narrative. A good portion of each class session will be devoted to discussion of particular topics or study questions. Daily preparation (reading the assigned text and background material, and thinking through literary problems), attendance, and active class participation are required. Grades based on discussion, exams, and writing assignments, including short, in-class essays. Texts:The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, NRSV; Gabel, Wheeler, & York, The Bible as Literature: An Introduction, 3rd ed.

315A (Literary Modernism)
TTh 1:30-3:20
LaGuardia
[Various modern authors, from Wordsworth to the present, in relation to such major thinkers as Kant, Hegel, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Wittgenstein, who have helped create the context and the content of modern literature. Recommended: 305 or other 300-level course in nineteenth- or twentieth-century literature.] Texts: Nietche, Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo; Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground; Kafka, The Sons; Mann, Death in Venice; Gogol, Dead Souls.

Special Note: ENGL 512 (Introductory Reading in Old English; daily 8:30) is open to undergraduate students interested in language study and/or Anglo-Saxon literature. This is a beginning course in the earliest written form of the English language, indispensable for study of literary (and other) texts from the middle ages, extremely helpful to understanding the nature of the English language, and fundamental to historical study of the English language. Students should have some background in language study, preferably ENGL 370 or equivalent. Permission of the instructor (Professor Robert Stevick) required; e-mail to: stevickr@u.washington.edu.

321YA (Chaucer)
TTh 7-8:50 p.m.
Remley
(Evening Degree)
This course will stress critical reading and group discussion of Chaucer's most highly regarded works (Troilus and Criseyde and the Canterbury Tales) as well as a wide selection of his "minor" compositions in both poetry and prose. We will explore the biography of Geoffrey Chaucer, the historical and cultural background of his career, recent critical work on his poetry, and the Middle English language itself. Midterm, final, one paper. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.) Texts: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Hieatt, ed.); Love Visions (Stone, ed.); Troilus and Criseyde (Coghill, tr.); Benson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer.

322YA (English Literature: The Age of Elizabeth I)
MW 7-8:50 p.m.
Webster
(Evening Degree)
A tour of love, sex, and death in the sixteenth century--lots of Spenser's knights and dragons, lots of plays by Shakespeare's friends, and love poetry to conjure by. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.) Texts: More, Utopia; Fraser & Rabkin, Drama of the English Renaissance, Vol. 1; Spenser, The Faerie Queene; Shakespeare, Sonnets; Rice & Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe.

323A (Shakespeare to 1603)
MW 8:30-10:20
Frey
Study of sonnets, Venus and Adonis, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, and Hamlet through lecture, discussion, tests, paper, and memorized group performances by all students in class. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.)

324A (Shakespeare after 1603)
MTWThF 9:30
Altieri
This course studies Shakespeare's plays after the death of Elizabeth and therefore concerns mainly his big tragedies, though we're reading a few other things--at one end, Troilus and Cressida, and at the other a romance, The Tempest. A short paper, two exams, and an acting episode. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida; Othello; Macbeth; Antony and Cleopatra; Henry VIII; The Tempest.

324YA (Shakespeare after 1603)
TTh 4:30-6:20 p.m.
Streitberger
(Evening Degree)
Shakespeare's career as dramatist after 1603. Study of comedies, tragedies, and romances. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.) Texts: Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest.

325A (English Literature: The Late Renaissance)
MTWThF 11:30
Altieri
This course is a survey of early seventeenth-century English literature, and so that ear, being a revolutionary one, requires our spending time with the history that leads up to and includes the revolution that did away with kings for a very short while. Kings are probably less personally important than the religious banners they march behind. The relation between religion and the very personal poetry developed now is a major concern--Donne, Herbert, Marvell, a very little Milton our major reading. An exam and a series of short papers, largely on the poetry, though a little prose may get in there, Hobbes being part of both the revolution and the shut-down of metaphor. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Abrams, et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1; The Bible (King James version).

327A (English Literature: Restoration & Early 18th-Century)
TTh 12:30-2:20
McCracken
An introductory course in the literature of England, 1660-1745, including an allegory by Bunyan, a comic drama by Congreve, satiric poems by Dryden and Pope, the works of Swift (Gulliver's Travels, etc.), and more. We'll talk about the social and political contexts of these works, and since irony, as we know it, is one of the great inventions of this age, we'll be thinking about what it is and how it works. Expect a lot of discussion, some in-class essays, student presentations, and some exams. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Abrams, et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 (6th ed.); Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony; John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress.

330A (English Literature: The Romantic Age)
MW 9:30-11:20
Shabetai
This course will be focused around some of the topics about which the Romantics wrote poetry and prose. We will also study a number of artists painting during this period. Topics will include nature and the aesthetics of the sublime; human nature and the question of ethics; slavery; the French Revolution; childhood and innocence. Students will write 5 short papers, one long paper, and take an exam. Regular attendance and participation in discussion and peergroups will be expected of all students. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Perkins, English Romantic Writers; Ann Radcliffe, The Italian; Shelley, Frankenstein.

332A (Romantic Poetry II)
MW 12:30-2:20
Shabetai
In this course we will study the second generation Romantic writers including Emily Brontë, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Keats. We will consider the writers in relation to their intellectual and aesthetic contexts. Students will write 5 short papers, one long paper, and take an exam. Regular attendance and participation in discussion and peergroups will be expected of all students. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Keats, Poems; Byron, Selected Poetry; Shelley, Poetry and Prose; Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

333A (English Novel: Early & Middle 19th Century)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Goodlad
The dramatic social, cultural and political transformations of the early nineteenth century are a rich historical context for the novel's increasing importance as a genre. We consider four remarkably different novels and the contributions they make to the development and stabilization of modern consciousness (including shifting conceptualizations of time and space; constructions of class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and English national character). We consider Austen's innovative Sense and Sensibility in light of post-French Revolutionary anxieties and modern penitentiary reform. Reading Scott's Heart of Midlothian, we focus on the distinctive workings of historical romance, and ponder its decline after Scott. Dickens's Oliver Twist and Charlotte Brontë's Shirley provide us with brief but intellectually challenging excerpts from critical theory. Lectures will stress historical and ideological contexts; papers and exams will provide opportunities for close textual analysis within these contexts. Access to e-mail (for the purpose of additional discussion) is strongly advised. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.)

333U (English Novel: Early & Middle 19th Century)
MW 7:30-8:50 p.m.
Dunn
(Course added 6/27/ 97; sln: 8631)
The principal reason for the list of novels to be read in this class is that they are the major works of major writers. Much of our discussion will center on the basis (or dubiousness) for their having such stature in literary history. The order of reading (Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, C. Brontë, E. Brontë) lets us begin with two satirical overviews of early nineteenth-century England; the following three novels provide views of the impact of prevailing class, gender, and moral constraints upon the disenfranchised--the poor and criminal, the "little," the exceptional. It will be important to supplement the final four novels with background readings in the Norton Critical Editions. Texts: Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Dickens, Oliver Twist; Thackeray, Vanity Fair; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

335A (English Literature: The Age of Victoria)
MW 11:30-1:20
Alexander
Among the poets and prose writers to be studied are Carlyle, Tennyson, Mill, Newman, Arnold and Ruskin. They will be viewed in relation to what the historian G. M. Young called "A tract of time where men and manners, science and philosophy, the fabric of social life and its directing ideas, changed more swiftly perhaps, and more profoundly, than they have ever changed in an age not sundered by a political or a religious upheaval." Some of the recurrent topics will be: the reaction against the Enlightenment; rejections and revisions of romanticism; the nature of authority; the religion of work; the idea of a university. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Abrams, et al., Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2; Charles Dickens, Hard Times.

338A (Modern Poetry)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Holberg
A wide-ranging examination of the poetry of the last century. I intend to cover a large number of poets, so be prepared for a quarter of sustained reading and thinking. We will begin with a heavy concentration on mastering poetic forms and on an analysis of poetic techniques. We will investigate the shift from Victorian sensibilities to "modern" ones and explore the ideologies which inform this shift. Although the majority of the class will focus on pre-World War II poetry, we will look at post-war poetry as well. I hope to have several poets come to the class as guest speakers. Poetry workbook and response papers, two short papers, and a research project. Texts: Lewis Turco, The New Book of Forms; Ellman & O'Clair, Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.)

345A (Studies in Film)
MW 2:30-4:50/ TTh 2:30-3:20
Shaviro
This class is a general introduction to the study of film. We will see a series of classic and more recent American and foreign films, and discuss these films as individual works as well as investigate more general topics on the nature of film. One short paper, a midterm, and a long take-home final. No texts. (Meets with C LIT 357A.)

351A (American Literature: The Colonial Period)
MTWThF 9:30
J. Griffith
We'll read and discuss an assortment of novels, memoirs, sermons, journals, treatises and other writings by American authors of the colonial and early national periods. Students will be expected to attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments, and take part in open discussions. Written work will consist entirely of from five to ten brief in-class essays, done in response to study questions handed out in advance. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: John Tanner, The Falcon: A Narrative of the Captivity & Adventures of John Tanner; Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Other Writings; Michael Kemmen, ed., The Origins of the American Constitution; Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple; Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon; St. Jean de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of 18th-Century American Life; Hannah Foster, The Coquette.

352YA (American Literature: The Early Nation)
MW 7-8:50 p.m.
Abrams
(Evening Degree)
[Conflicting visions of the national destiny and the individual identity in the early years of America's nationhood. Works by Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and such other writers as Poe, Cooper, Irving, Whitman, Dickinson, and Douglass.] (Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.)

353A (American Literature: Later 19th Century)
MTWThF 8:30
J. Griffith
We'll read and discuss an assortment of novels, short stories and sketches produced by American authors in the decades following the Civil War. Students will be expected to attend class regularly, to keep up with reading assignments, and to take part in open discussions. Written work will consist entirely of a series of between five and ten brief in-class essays done in response to study questions handed out in advance. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Judith Fetterley, ed., American Women Regionalists, 1850-1910; William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham; Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Short Stories; Mark Twain, Roughing It; Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth; Stephen Crane, Great Short Works; Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition; Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction.

354A (American Literature: The Early Modern Period)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Shulman
[Literary responses to the disillusionment after World War I, experiments in form and in new ideas of a new period. Works by such writers as Anderson, Toomer, Cather, O'Neill, Frost, Pound, Eliot, Cummings, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Stein, Hart Crane, Stevens, and Porter.] (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: LeSueur, Salute to Spring; Wright, Uncle Tom's Children; Larsen, Quicksand; Eliot, The Wasteland (Facsimile and Transcript); Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Faulkner, The Hamlet; Zinn, The Twentieth Century.

354YA (American Literature: The Early Modern Period)
TTh 7-8:50 p.m.
Adair
In this class we will read, discuss, think and write about early "modern" American responses to the American condition between World War I and World War II. This fascinating body of literature is known for its representations of disillusionment in the wake of World War I, and is marked as well by experiments in form and content. We will consider works by Stein, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Hurston, Barnes, and Fitzgerald. Midterm and final paperes, short quizzes, intense class discussion. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.) Texts: The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2; Stein, Selected Writings of Gergrude Stein; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Barnes, Nightwood.

355A (American Literature: Contemporary America)
MW 10:30-12:20
Long
This course will examine the work of six poets who are explicitly concerned with the reciprocity of poetry and place. The study of attitudes and actions toward the environment reveals much about the values, ideals, ambitions, fears and anxieties of contemporary America; and each of the books of poems we will read exemplifies a speculative concern with the physical, geographical, personal, historical, spiritual, emotional and mythical dimensions of palce. We will also be looking at poems by other writers, including Ammons, Rexroth, Kumin, Simic, Roethke, and Haines. Class requirements include attendance, participation, short papers, and a final paper project. Texts: Elizabeth Bishop, The Collected Poems; Robert Hass, Field Guide; Denise Levertov, Evening Train; Adrienne Rich, An Atlas of the Difficult World; Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End; William Carlos Williams, Paterson.

355B (American Literature: Contemporary America)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Posnock
In this course in contemporary American literature we will read a number of experiments in genre--novels, essays, stories, poems and memoirs--by Flannery O'Connor, Robert Lowell, James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Frank O'Hara, Toni Morrison, Norman Mailer, Adrienne Kennedy, and Art Spiegelmann. The cultural, political and psychic traumas unleashed by the genocidal racism of the Second World War shapes the imagination of all these authors and each fashions innovative literary forms to represent the phantasmagoria of postwar and contemporary American life. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.) Texts: Robert Lowell, Life Studies; Sylvia Plath, Ariel; Art Spiegelmann, Maus; Mamet, House of Games; Baldwin, Fire Next Time; Kramer, Whose Art Is It?; Kennedy, People Who Led To My Plays; Morrison, Sula.

359U (Contemporary American Indian Literature)
MW 5-6:50 p.m.
Colonnese
American Indians have been portrayed in thousands of books and movies and many or most of these portrayals have been unsympathetic, culturally biased, and inaccurate. During this century, American Indian authors have used the artistic form of the novel in an act of resistance to regain Indian identity. This course will examine five novels in terms of the statements each makes about Indian identity. The course will involve two in-class tests and a paper. (Meets with AIS 377.)

370A (English Language Study)
MTWThF 8:30
Wennerstrom
This is a general survey course on the study of English language. Topics include structure and function of language, language acquisition, language variation, and language and social identity. Expect group discussion, homework problems, quizzes, and one term paper on a current language issue of your choice. Texts: Clark, Eschholz, & Rosa, Language: Introductory Readings, 5th ed.; The Language Files.

381A (Advanced Expository Writing)
MW 8:30-9:50
Ellsworth
In this course, we will be using periodicals from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries as our primary texts. You will be asked to write three, possibly four, papers based on your examination of these periodicals. There will be a phtocopied course packet, but much of your reading will require you to spend a great deal of time in the library in either the microfilm room or Special Collections. Class discussion will center on the reading from the course packet and on your individual area of research. You will be making one formal presentation on your research during the quarter and be expected to talk about your research and your writing in less formal ways over the whole quarter. Text: photocopied course packet.(Majors only, Registration Period 1.)

381B (Advanced Expository Writing)
TTh 12:30-1:50
Chait
Writing Beyond the Academy. This course focuses on the transference of rhetorical strategies and stylistic techniques from the classroom to the "working" world outside. We will study the particular requirements of expository writing in Journalism, Education, and Public Relations, and explore the applicability to these fields of skills gained in producing standard research papers in the university. With this latter operation under our belt, we then will add the new skills specific to textual practice in each discipline. We will concentrate especially on tailoring texts to individual audiences and devote class time to honing the mechanical and argumentative techniques needed to reach them. This accretion of past to present skills mimics our theme, "The Rear-View Mirror as Trope." Like a kind of structural analepsis akin to the literary one of our class text, David Guteron's The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind, it should prepare students well for writing beyond the academy. For the course itself, a literary analysis, three field-specific papers and one oral presentation will be required. (Majors only, Registration Period 1.)

383A (Intermediate Verse Writing)
MW 1:30-2:50
Dunlop
No writing class can provide the essentials (of imagination, eyes and ear, etc.), but this one will try to encourage them. What a class can provide is improved technique, but this can only be acquired by practice: one learns by doing. Therefore, there'll be a lot of writing--in the shape of specific exercises as well as original work. No heavy seriousness: light verse (which depends for its success on technical dexterity) much encouraged. Prerequisite: ENGL 283 or equivalent. Add codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL, (206) 543-9865, open 11-3 daily. Text: Hollander, Rhyme's Reason.

383B (Intermediate Verse Writing)
TTh 1:30-2:50
Angel
Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Further development of fundamental skills. Emphasis on revision. Prerequisite: ENGL 283 or equivalent. Add codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL, (206) 543-9865, open 11-3 daily. Text: Friebert & Young, eds., Longman Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry.

384A (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
MW 1:30-2:50
Grossman
A writing workshop, focusing on the short story form. Emphasis will be on the elements of fiction (character, tone, point of view, dialogue, setting, plot, conflict, climax, narration, scene), and how these elements sustain the continuity of the story. Each student will be asked to complete three short stories (one between 750-1000 words, one between 2500-3500 words, and one between 3000-5000 words). We will also read published short stories for classroom discussions from such authors as Julio Cortazar, Charles Johnson, Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ralph Ellison, and Yukio Mishima. Text: Charters, ed., The Story and Its Writer (4th ed.). Prerequisite: ENGL 284 or equivalent. Add codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL, (206) 543-9865, open 11-3 daily.

384B (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
TTh 10:30-11:50
Flygare
[Exploring and developing continuity in the elements of fiction writing. Methods of extending and sustaining plot, setting, character, point of view, and tone.] Prerequisite: ENGL 284 or equivalent. Add codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL, (206) 543-9865, open 11-3 daily.

AUTUMN 1997 300-Level Courses

AUTUMN 1997
300-Level Courses