300-Level Course, Spring 2005

Course Descriptions (as of 8 March 2005)
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.)

First Week Attendance
Because of heavy demand for many English classes, students who do not attend all reguarly-scheduled meetings during the first week of the quarter may be dropped from their classes by the department. If students are unable to attend at any point during the first week, they should contact their instructors ahead of time. The Department requests that instructors make reasonable accommodations for students with legitimate reasons for being absent; HOWEVER, THE FINAL DECISION RESTS WITH THE INSTRUCTOR AND SPACE IS NOT GUARANTEED FOR ABSENT STUDENTS EVEN IF THEY CONTACT THE INSTRUCTOR IN ADVANCE. (Instructors' phone numbers and e-mail addresses can be obtained by calling the Main English Office, (206) 543-2690 or the Undergraduate Advising Office, (206) 543-2634.)

302 A (Critical Practice)
MW 1:30-3:20
Simpson
csimpson@u.washington.edu
Visual Culture Studies. This course will introduce you to the critical practice of visual cultural studies, which means it will introduce you to the theory and practice of analyzing visual texts. Visual cultural studies grow out of the concern with textuality in late twentieth-century literary criticism, which was focused on how language and literary forms create meaning in specific social, cultural and political contexts. Ultimately, work on textuality led us to think beyond the written text, to consider how language and literature is embedded in and reacts within a matrix of cultural production that includes the visual. In this course, we will take up the realm of the visual in forms such as photography and photojournalism, comics or graphic narratives, films, television and digital media. These forms increasingly make up our everyday experience of cultural representation and, as such, they have impacted the evolution of written texts like the novel or the story, as well as our reception and understanding of those written forms.

In this course we will read and discuss key theories about the impact of visual forms. We will also attempt to test these theories by discussing our experiences and critiques of reading and/or viewing primary works of visual culture. Our historical focus will be on the twentieth century. In particular, we will try to understand the movement from a late nineteenth-century industrial age dominated by written texts to a new era of post-modern, global capitalist culture.

Students will be asked to participate in daily class discussions and group work, which means regular and visible attendance is crucial to passing this course. Written assignments include: (1) an annotated bibliography of criticism on a particular reading/visual text; (2) a short critique of one reading/visual text (this critique will be evaluated by me as well as one of your peers); (3) a peer-evaluation of a class member’s short critique; (4) a final paper (minimum 7 pages) ideally based on the annotated bibliography and/or the short critique.

311 A (Modern Jewish Literature in Translation)
TTh 10:30-12:20
Butwin
joeyb@u.washington.edu
The course requires the words “intranslation” in order to accommodate the many languages adopted by Jewish writers after 1880 – Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, German . . . But as I look to the content and not simply the language of these stories, I am inclined to replace the word “translation” with “transition” for new writing in each of these languages would emerge from the alteration, the migration, and the Revolution that would transform traditional Jewish life in the shtetl and the ghetto of Eastern Europe before it obliteration in the early 1940s. This course will reveal the vitality of this multi-lingual Jewish culture before the Second World War. Our readings are entirely comprised of short fiction from the Yiddish of Sholom Aleichem and I. L. Peretz, the Hebrew of S. Y. Agnon and Dvora Baron, the Russian of Isaac Babel and the German of Franz Kafka and Joseph Roth. Students will write a series of short essays that will punctuate the lecture and discussion of the course. (Texts that are not listed below will appear on Electronic Reserve.) Texts: Franz Kafka, The Sons; Joseph Roth, Wandering Jews; Dvora Baron, The First Day and Other Stories; Isaac Babel, The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel.

313 A (Modern European Literature in Translation)
TTh 10:30-12:20
LaGuardia
ehl@u.washington.edu

Fiction, poetry, and drama from the development of modernism to the present. Texts: Flaubert, Madame Bovary; Kafka, The Trial; Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols; Beckett, Endgame; Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground; Ibsen, Hedda Gabler; Mann, Death in Venice.

316 A (Literature of Developing Countries)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Chaudhary
zahidc@u.washington.edu
This course will introduce students to literature from Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. We will examine the issues and themes that emerge out of the specificity of particular writers’ literary, political, and historical concerns. How is racial difference produced under colonialism? How do the narratives of Empire become the ground of colonial subjects’ claim to liberty? What role do sexuality and gender have to play in various forms of colonial subjection, and in the rise of national consciousness? The writers that we read are as concerned about the history of colonization as they are in critiquing the cultural-political institutions under which they write. Texts: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place; George Lamming, In the Castle of my Skin; Anis Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism; Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; Salmon Rushdie, The Moor’s Last Sigh; optional: Derek Walcott, Collected Poems, 1948-1984; Malck Alloula, The Colonial Harem.

320 A (English Literature: The Middle Ages)
MW 8:30-10:20
Remley
remley@u.washington.edu
[Literary culture of the Middle Ages in England, as seen in selected works from earlier and later periods, ages of Beowulf and of Geoffrey Chaucer. Read in translation, except for a few laters works, which are read in Middle English.] Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Heaney, Seamus, tr., Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (dual-language ed.); Winny, James, ed., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (dual-language ed.); Gantz, Jeffrey, Early Irish Myths and Sagas; Amt, Emily, Women's Live in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook.

323 A (Shakespeare to 1603)
TTh 8:30-10:20
Easterling
heasterl@u.washington.edu
Shakespeare’s diverse decade from approximately 1593 – 1603 will be our focus in this course, and specifically his development of history and comedy as dramatic modes and modes for interrogation. We’ll focus closely on histories for half the quarter, on comedies for the other half. Requirements will include attending a local production of The Taming of the Shrew as a class. Writing for every class meeting, participation expected. A demanding class. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Bevington, ed., The Complete Works of Shakespeare, 5th ed.

324 A (Shakespeare after 1603)
MW 2:30-4:20
Coldewey
jcjc@u.washington.edu
In this class we will explore Shakespeare at his peak. We are going to read all four of the big tragedies – Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear – plus two of his late romances – The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. If we have time, we may also look at some of his sonnets. We will want to know where he gets his power and how he can still mean things to us after 441 years. Written work: four quizzes, two short papers, (3-4 pp.) and participation in The Great Debate. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Stephen Greenblatt, et al., eds., The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition; Russ McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, 2nd ed.; A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy.

325 A (English Literature: The Late Renaissance)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Easterling
heasterl@u.washington.edu
Two words can serve to encompass the central issues, conflict, ideals, questions of the late Renaissance: “God” and “King.”. To these two I add a third idea, also centrally preoccupying to England in the 1600s and not unrelated to “God” and “King”: the status of women. Our course on the late Renaissance will use these three “problems” to frame the reading of a range of 17th-century literature: poetry, drama, and a bit of prose. Our reading and our thinking about literary treatments of “God,” “King,” and “Women” will culminate in our last four weeks, spent with Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem often considered the last gasp of the Renaissance in England. Lots of reading, writing, due for every class meeting. Very demanding, but also very rewarding. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: John Milton, Paradise Lost (ed. Leonard); Damrosch, et al., eds., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1B; Carroll & Damrosch, eds., Othello and The Tragedie of Mariam: A Longman Cultural Edition.

327 A (English Literature: Restoration & Early 18th C.)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Olsen
elenao@u.washington.edu
The literature of England from 1660 to 1750. This course will focus on the emerging public literary culture during the early eighteenth century, which took the form of a great profusion of printed material, a new sense of English literary identity, and the “rise” of the novel. Authors include: John Dryden, William Congreve, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Daniel Defoe. We will also read lesser-known writers, especially focusing on women poets. Reading load is fairly heavy. Other requirements include short response papers, one longer essay, a midterm and/or final exam. Majors only Registration Period 1. Texts: Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1C (Restoration & 18th Century); Defoe, Moll Flanders.

328 A (English Literature: Later 18th C.)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Olsen
elenao@u.washington.edu
In this course, we will read literature of the period formerly known as the “Age of Johnson.” It has also been known as the “Age of Sensibility” and the “Pre-Romantic” era. All of these titles are limited and limiting, and we’ll examine the why and how of all of them by reading poetry and some prose of the period. This was a time when the idea of authorship was in flux, and undergoing changes that led to modern conceptions of creativity and literature. Authors include: Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith, Ann Yearsley, Hannah More, William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Reading load is fairly heavy. Other requirements include short response papers, one longer essay, and a midterm and/or final exam. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Norton Anthohlogy of Engish Literature, Vol. 1C (Restoration & 18th Century); Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield.

333 A (English Novel: Early & Middle 19th C.)
MW 8:30-10:20
Dunn
dickd@u.washington.edu
With attention to major writings by Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, and Charles Dickens, this course will take its cues from the first line of the first novel. Pride and Prejudice begins, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man possessed of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” The matters of singleness and matrimony, possession and being possessed, and of wealth and/or luck are major concerns for conversation about individuality, gender, and class in and among Austen’s novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. Class discussion will center on these topics, and there will be a midterm, 6-10 page paper, and final exam. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; Great Expectations.

334 TS (English Novel: Later 19th C.)
TTh 7-8:50 pm
Keeling
bkeeling@u.washington.edu
Where British literature is concerned, we often refer to much of the nineteenth century as the “Victorian” ate or period because Queen Victoria reigned throughout so many of these years : 1837 – 1901. These years marked momentous, often intimidating social changes and startling inventions that fostered both prosperity and poverty, reform and exploitation, and ambitions and doubts. For some, the years represented achievement, faith, and progress; for others, they represented destruction, collapse, and discontinuity. Between such extremes, however, we might also find those who view the years as years of transition. This notion of “transition” will provide the broad focus for our course this term as we explore various literary experimentations in the British novel – experimentations that arguably set the stage for the so-called Modernist movements of the twentieth century. In order to suggest the connection that allows for a transition between the Victorians and the Modernists, we will begin and end the term with women who seem representative of both extremes and of the notion of transition. We will begin with George Eliot’s final (and most unconventional novel, Daniel Deronda; and we will conclude with Virginia Woolf’s first (and most conventional) novel, The Voyage Out. Additional authors may include: William Morris, George Meredith, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Pater, Thomas Hardy, Lewis Carroll, and E. M. Forster. Evening Degree students only.Texts: George Eliot, Daniel Deronda; William Morris, The House of the Wolfings; George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread; Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out.

337 TS (The Modern Novel)
MW 7-8:50 pm
Veronica Browning
vernr@u.washington.edu
“ On or about December 1910 human nature changed,” Virginia Woolf said shortly before she published Mrs. Dalloway. This course will examine novels written just before and after this date and explore just what it is that makes a novel modern. Evening Degree students only. Texts: Conrad, The Secret Agent; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Woolf, The Waves; Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Stoker, Dracula; Wells, The Time Machine.

338 A (Modern Poetry)
MW 1:30-3:20
Popov
popov@u.washington.edu
This course will explore the forms and values of modern poetry – its ambitions and anxieties, its daring innovations, difficulty, and sheer beauty. The first half of the course will survey modern poetry from its origins in Baudelaire and the French symbolists through the heyday of Anglo-American modernism in the 1920s (Eliot, Pound, Stevens). The second half is dedicated to the work of W. B. Yeats. Requirements: commit to memory two poems of at least 20 lines each, midterm, and final examination. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: W. B. Yeats, The Collected Works, Volume. I (The Poems), ed. Finneran; T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems; Pound, Selected Poems; Baudelaire, Baudelaire in English.

342 A (Contemporary Novel)
TTh 2:30-4:20
Merola
nmerola@u.washington.edu
[Recent efforts to change the shape and direction of the novel by such writers as Murdoch, Barth, Hawkes, Fowles, and Atwood.] Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Brian Hall, I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company; Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain; Joyce Carol Oates, The Falls; Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge; Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood; Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake; Michael Chrichton, State of Fear; Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica.

343 A (Contemporary Poetry)
TTh 2:30-4:20
Walker
codyw@u.washington.edu
This class will look at contemporary comic poetry (with the understanding that the comic and the tragic often share closet space and like to borrow each other’s clothes). Expect a mix of John Berryman, Philip Larkin, Theodore Roethke, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, A. R. Ammons, Wendy Cope, Russell Edson, James Tate, James Cummins, George Starbuck, Lucia Perillo, Miroslav Holub, Joe Wenderoth, Kay Ryan, Loren Goodman, and others. Books should be purchased at Open Books: A Poem Emporium, located at 2414 N. 45th St. Open Books is one of only two poetry-only bookstores in the country. If you’re a student of poetry and you live in Seattle, you should feel obligated, I think, to darken its doorstep. The bookstore’s hours are Tuesday to Thursday, 12 to 6 and Friday and Saturday, 12 to 7. Majors only, Registration Period 1.

350 A (Traditions in American Fiction)
MW 3:30-5:20
Abrams
rabrams@u.washington.edu
A sampling of significant American fiction, with attention to extreme and dramatic differences in literary voice, and featuring as comprehensive a look as possible at the ranges of theme and technique that have engaged American authors over the years. Students should come prepared to read texts closely and to deliberate on the reciprocity between fiction and the socio-political context it both derives from and helps to form. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Portable Hawthorne; Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories; Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Stephen Crane, The Portable Stephen Crane; Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Stories; Henry James, The Portable Henry James.

352 A (American Literature: The Early Nation)
Dy 8:30
Griffith
jgriff@u.washington.edu
We’ll read and discuss an assortment of novels, stories, poems and memoirs by American authors in the period preceding the Civil War. Students will be expected to attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments, and take part in open discussion. Written work will consist entirely of a series of brief in-class essays written in response to study questions handed out in advance. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Baym, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. B of the five-volume 6th edition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie.

355 A (American Literature: Contemporary America)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Blake
kblake@u.washington.edu
Contemporary American Literature of Nature: The West. This course explores a field that is developing in English departments: literature of nature, here with emphasis on the American West. While English classes offer acculturation in language and literature, in this class you will go “back to nature.” But culture is part of nature – as Gary Snyder says, words are wild. Following initial short readings from the Bible, Edmund Burke, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir that set historical reference points, the course directs main focus to American literature of nature in the West from the mid 20th century to the present, drawn from Barry Lopez, “A Presentation of Whales,” Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, selected poems of Gary Snyder, Marc Reisner, video segment from Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, John McPhee, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains,” James Welch, Winter in the Blood, Gretel Ehrlich, selections form The Solace of Open Spaces, Marilynn Robinson, Housekeeping, selections from Victor David Hanson, Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, and/or selections from Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories.

The West here means the West Coast and inland Northwest. Our region has produced writers worthy of the tradition. You should be aware of the focus on Contemporary Western Literature of Nature rather than expecting general coverage of Contemporary American Literature. And be aware that the “Western” of story and the silver screen is a subject in itself and beyond our range. Perspectives on paradigms include Christian, pastoral, sublime, Zen, environmentalist, Native American, work-oriented, feminine-feminist. We cover essays, fiction, and poetry, making for quite a number of works, but many are in slim volumes and short selections, and some are available via coursepak, class handouts, or video.

Lecture-discussion. Class participation is expected (standout participation can count of to +/- .3 on course grade). In-class essay midterm (30%) and final (30%). Paper (c. 8-9 pp. 40%). All required work must be completed according to the schedule. Majors only, Registration Period 1.

Texts: Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces; Hanson, Fields Without Dreams; Kerouac, The Dharma Bums; McPhee, The Control of Nature; Muir, The Yosemite; Robinson, Housekeeping; Thoreau, Walden; Welch, Winter in the Blood; optional: William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature; Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End; Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water.

355 B (American Literature: Contemporary America)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Liu
msmliu@u.washington.edu
This course will be based around how various contemporary American authors have tested the possibility of human agency against the confines of the body (one’s perceived biological, raced, or moral limits) in a consumer-saturated society. We will start the quarter with Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley to explore two post-World War II novels that grapple with the American promise of self-creation within societies that are materially abundant, yet unequally accessible to all. The rest of the quarter will cover fiction of the last 15 years that touches on a wide variety of subjects, including chemical disasters, Hitler studies, carnival freaks, genetic modification, Bill Clinton, and passing. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Don DeLillo, White Noise; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye: Philip Roth, The Human Stain; Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley; Katherine Dunn, Geek Love; Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain.

358 A (Literature of Black America)

MW 1:30-3:20, F 1:30-2:20

Grooters

sgrooters@u.washington.edu

Lisa Lowe writes in "Writing and the Question of History" that the novel in general-and the Bildungsroman, or "coming of age" novel, in particular has played a key role in interpellating readers as raced, gendered, sexed, and classed national subjects. In other words, the novel works to teach us how to imagine ourselves into the story of "America" and its history. Significant to our course is Lowe's focus on the relationship between aesthetics (i.e. the genre of the novel) and identity. Lowe asserts that Asian American writers who choose to write using these dominant aesthetic forms, do so not to emulate or imitate dominant American narratives, but to challenge those narratives. In this course, we will examine whether and how Lowe's argument might also apply to Black American literature written in dominant genres. To do so we will study novels written by African American and Afro-Caribbean authors in the bildungsroman tradition alongside theoretical pieces by Black literary critics and compare how their aesthetic and political arguments intersect. Students will be expected to keep up with a rigorous reading schedule, participate consistently during class discussions, write weekly reading responses, and make at least one in-class presentation. In addition, students will be evaluated based on a midterm and final exam and a final project. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Invisible Man, Maud Martha, No Telephone to Heaven, School Days.

361 A (American Political Culture: after 1865)
TTh 11:30-1:20
Merola
nmerola@u.washington.edu
Geographical Imaginations: Producing the National Territory in the Wake of Lewis and Clark. In this course we will consider the central place of land and landscape to the imagination and production of the United States as a coherent political and affective entity. In other words, we will examine literary, historical, painted, and legal documents to examine the ways in which “America” has represented, and thereby laid claim to, her physical terrain. Our historical range will e long: we will begin with the Lewis and Clark Expedition and trace America’s topographic affections and disaffections through to the end of the twentieth century. Topics will include exploration narratives; Indian Removal; tourism; national parks; the frontier; industrial, agricultural, and nuclear wastelands; suburbs; and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Course requirements: active and engaged participation in discussion that is interdisciplinary in nature, formal response papers, and a final research paper. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok and Other Writings on Indians; Willa Cather, O Pioneers!; John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath; Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit; Subhankar Banerjee, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land; Rick Bass, Caribou Rising: Definding the Porcupine Herd, Gwich-‘In Culture and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

363 A (Literature and the Other Arts & Disciplines)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Handwerk
handwerk@u.washington.edu
Living in Place: Literature and the Environment. Our focus for this course will be upon how literature deals with the environment, i.e., how literary texts represent environmental issues and why it matters that they be represented in this form. How, that is, does where we live and, even more importantly, how we imagine the place in which we live, affect who we are? How do our relationships to nature and our relationships with other people intersect? We will be considering a range of prose texts, including fictional narratives, non-fictional essays and journalism, selected from a variety of historical and cultural settings. Course goals include (1) developing the analytical reading skills appropriate to specific kinds of texts, (2) working on how to formulate and sustain critical arguments in writing, (3) learning how to uncover the logic and stakes of specific attitudes toward the natural world, (4) understanding how environmental issues are linked to other social and cultural concerns, (5) seeing how those linkages are affected by particular historical and political conditions. The course will contain a significant writing component, both regular informal writing assignments and several medium-length analytical papers. Meets with C LIT 396A, ENVIR 450A. Texts: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony; John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid; Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire; Philip Appleman, Darwin; Octavia Butler, Wild Seed.

367 TS (Women & the Literary Imagination)
TTh 4:30-6:20
Kaup
mkaup@u.washington.edu
Feminist Domesticity: Women’s Revisions and Myths of the Home. So, talking about feminism, what’s home got to do with it? A whole lot. Domestic interiors have shaped women’s identities – as Virginia Woolf wrote, “Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force.” The domestic sphere is also the cradle of feminism, for by making the home an issue of public debate (and by claiming the authority to speak in public about the home), women, raised as homemakers, have turned a private matter into a matter of public concern. In the process, women intellectuals themselves have emerged from the shadows of the household into the light of the public sphere. Moving by key texts in 19th—and 20th-century women’s fiction and scholarship, we will study the diverse way sin which women writers have reconceptualized the social (and sometimes also the material) structures of the home. The course uses a multicultural approach to establish a dialogue between Anglo-American, Mexican American, and African American feminisms and texts. Evening Degree students only. Texts and Film: Stepford Wives; Jovita Gonzalez, Caballero; Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale; photocopied course packet with readings by Catharine Beecher, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Betty Friedan, bell hooks, and others.

368 A (Women Writers)
MW 2:30-4:20
Taranath
anu@u.washington.edu

Women Writers of Nigeria and African Feminisms. This course will prioritize international feminist writings, and in particular, look at the various debates and issues regarding African feminisms and womanisms. We will juxtapose the often complex theoretical readings with an investigation of literature from Nigeria written by women. Please note: this course is designed to be fast paced, theoretically challenging, reading intensive, and intellectually rigorous. The texts we will read and discuss thematize issues of gender, sexuality, race, colonial history and imperialism, power relations, and patriarchy. Students who enroll in this class must be willing to engage in these issues during class discussions and in their written work. Texts: Simi Bedford, Yoruba Girl Dancing; Flora Nwapa, Efuru; C. Ngorzi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus; Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood; Karen King-Aribisala, Kicking Tongues.

370 A (English Language Study)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Li
juanli@u.washington.edu
ENGL 370 is an introduction to the study of the formal structure of language and its social use, with focus on the English language. The first half of the course will focus on the scientific and empirical study of the formal properties of language. We’ll begin with the study of the sound system, followed by the study of word meaning and formation, sentence structure, and the structure of text. These will give you the basic tools to study language at all its linguistic levels – sounds, words, sentences, and texts. The second half of the course will turn its attention to the social dimension of language and study its use in social contexts. This part of the course will cover topics ranging from dialects of English to the history of English, from the change of language use in situational contexts to conversational interactions and language acquisition. In this way, we’ll be able to analyze specific instances of language in use and the social powers that language carries. This course will give you knowledge about language that is crucial for understanding issues in a multilingual world. The course will be a combination of lectures, exercises, and discussions. The requirements include participation, homework, two exams, and a final research paper. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Edward Finegan, Language: Its Structure and Use, 4th ed.

371 A (English Syntax)
MW 2:30-4:20
Dillon
dillon@u.washington.edu
[Description of sentence, phrase, and word structures in present-day English. Prerequisite: ENGL 370 or LING 200.] Texts: James R. Hurford, Grammar: A Student's Guide; RObert D. Van Valin, An Introduction to Syntax.

381 A (Advanced Expository Writing)
MW 8:30-10:20
Veronica Browning
vernr@u.washington.edu
In this advanced expository writing course we will use literary chronosophy as a vehicle for the development of prose style for more experienced writers. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet; Paul Auster, Oracle Night; Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams.

381 B (Advanced Expository Writing)
MW 12:30-2:20
Thornhill
thornhil@u.washington.edu
Writing as Practice and Resistance. In this advanced composition course, we will be exploring writing as a practice -- a practice that makes use of textual and visual forms, is historically situated, and is ideologically invested. We will draw from the fields of both Cultural Studies and Discourse Studies to ground our investigations and to explore the assortment approaches from which various written, spoken and visual forms can be analyzed. Next, we will utilize elements from both fields of study to examine the resistance that that is enacted within a certain type of writing that I have called the “language contact text” -- or the text that has emerged as a result of and sometimes in response to dominant discourses in circulation. The primary materials that we will be examining include advertisements, newspaper articles and instances of culture jamming. The required writing for this course is varied; we will be explicating written and visual texts while also creating responses to texts in circulation. Both individual and collaborative, your writing will range from informal responses and formal paper write-ups to web-based writing and site creation. Ultimately, we will be exploring the basic questions that most writing begs: what does writing do, how does it do it, what are the implications of such writing, and how do people respond to writing in circulation. I hope that our investigations will help us to understand that there are choices in the ways in which we position ourselves and that those choices have material and ideological implications. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: photocopied course packet.

382 A (Writing for the Web)
MW 11:30-1:20
Dillon
dillon@u.washington.edu
[Writing substantial Web essays on topics of current concern. Extensive analysis and criticism of on-line essays. Prerequisite: ENGL 282.] No texts. Course website: http://courses.washington.edu/englhtml/engl382

383 A (Intermediate Verse Writing)
TTh 12:30-1:50
Wing
cdwing@earthlink.net

Poetry is a difficult mistress: elusively defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as, “the art or work of a poet;” often linked to genius and madness; said to be a true recounting of the heart and soul; William Carlos Williams’ “machine made of words,” or Robert Frost’s “lump in the throat.” What Poetry IS exactly remains a mystery. In this class we will make an attempt to dissipate some of the mystery’s fog by throwing ourselves out into the weather. That is to say, we will learn by doing; we will write, write, write and then write some more. Using Pound’s categories of Phanopoeia (Image), Melopoeia (Sound) and Logopoeia (Tone) we will wrestle Poetry to the dissecting table and see what we discover. Working both the critical and the creative faculties of the mind, assignments will include both formal and free verse poems, as well as pit stops in the realms of Dictionary Definitions, Etymology, Riddles, Limericks, Lists, Nonsense, and Nursery Rhymes—just to name a few. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Prerequisite: ENGL 283.

383 B (Intermediate Verse Writing)
TTh 1:30-2:50
Kenney
rk@u.washington.edu
[Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Further development of fundamental skills. Emphasis on revision. Prerequisite: ENGL 283.] Majors only, Registration Period 1. Prerequisite: ENGL 283.

384 A (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
MW 2:30-3:50
Loader

chrissay@u.washington.edu
[Exploring and developing continuity in the elements of fiction writing. Methods of extending and sustaining plot, setting, character, point of view, and tone.] Majors only, Registration Period 1. Prerequisite: ENGL 284.

384 B (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
TTh 9:30-10:50
Shields
dshields@davidshields.com
This course will focus on the very short story as a way to understand better the workings of narratives of all kinds. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Prerequisite: ENGL 284. Text: photocopied course packet.

SPRING 2005 300-Level Courses

SPRING 2005
300-Level Courses