Course Descriptions (as of March 2, 1999)
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.)

To Spring 200-level courses
To Spring 300-level courses
To 1998-99 Senior Seminars

440 A (Special Studies in Literature)
MW 1:30-3:20
Solberg
(Added after Time Schedule printed; sln: 8193)
Narratives in Diverse Englishes. English is the language of many different communities around the world each complete of itself, but all interacting more and more in this modern world. Variations, subtle and not so subtle, mark these linguistic markers of cultural difference. The class will examine the works of four authors as they move across boundaries of culture and geography, of memory (time) and place into imaginative fictions built on those moves. We will read Meena Alexander (India, Sudan, England, New York), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka [Ceylon], Canada), Ben Santos (Philippines, U.S.), Gary Pak (Hawaiian Creole English, US). We will read three memoirs and four works of fiction, questioning how the authors have relied on their "languages" to investigate memory, to invest their fictions with a sense of time and place. Texts: Alexander, Fault Lines; Nampally Road; Santos, Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories; Memory's Fictions; Ondaatje, Collected Works; Pak, A Ricepaper Airplane.

443 A (Poetry: Special Studies)
Dy 10:30
Frey
Inside Poetry: Imagery, Sounds, and Emotions. Just about all of us agree we can see visual images in our mind’s eye. Can we hear auditory images in our mind’s ear? Smell olfactory images in our mind’s nose? Feel kinesthetic images in our mind’s muscles? How do we actually experience nonvisual poetic “images” treating inside feelings of heart-heavy sadness, stomach-wrenching fear, or physical arousal or trance? How do listeners physically respond to musical elements in poetry? In addition to inner responses of laughter and crying, what other inner responses do readers and listeners experience (subvocalization? muscular tension and release? kinesthetic empathies?)? Can readers be trained to intensify bodily and emotive responses to poems? What may be characteristic differences in our behavior, thoughts, and feelings when reading, hearing, saying, chanting, or physically enacting the “same” poem? How may we decide which responsive behaviors may be best suited to particular poems. What physical range of responses may be appropriate in the appreciation of poetry generally?

How, more particularly, do rhythms work in poems and in persons? Do rhythm, song, and poetic devices such as alliteration and rhyme merely enhance meaning? Do they add dimensions of experience (physical emotion, sublimity, paradoxical wonder and freedom from conventions of language) not well captured in terms of discursive “meaning”? What, finally, are the nature and significance of feelings, emotions, moods, and other affective states experienced through poetry? Is “aesthetic emotion” just knowledge about emotions? Do aesthetically-induced emotions have a special character that distinguishes them from other emotions? Are poetic emotions culturally constructed? Biologically mandated? Both? What is it appropriate to do with or about the emotions one experiences through poetry? This course explores the hypothesis that a revitalization of literary study, after years of arguable enervation through overly abstract and theoretical study, may come partly through attention to the sensory and tonal life of literature. Students will read poems and secondary readings, discuss issues, write several short papers, memorize and perform briefly, and take a final exam. Text: X. J. Kennedy & Dana Gioia, eds., Introduction to Poetry (9th ed.)
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452 A (Topics in American Literature)
TTh 11:30-1:20
Simpson
Rural Women: Rural America in Early 20th-Century Women’s Writing. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed tremendous changes in Americans’ relationship to the ideals and habits of rural life. Rapid urbanization, unprecedented immigration and the beginnings of widespread education of women reshaped social relations at almost every level of American life. These changes seemed to announce that the force of rural life, with its obvious evocation of the myth of the Western frontier, was a ting of the past. In many ways, in fact, changes in women’s roles and the emerging importance of women in American cultural politics in the last half of the nineteenth century intersected with the changes in attitudes about rural life. This course attempts to confront the meaning and breadth of changes in attitudes about rural life by looking closely at the way in which women writers re-imagined the American woman’s ties to the rural. It asks not only, what changed, and for whom did it change, but more to the point, how were new conceptions of women related to the changes. The course is built around and depends on class discussion and group work as well as regular out-of-class writing. Texts: Roberts, The Great Meadow; Cather, My Antonia; Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs; Zitkala-Sa, American Indian Stories; Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

452 B (Topics in American Literature)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Singh
Assimilation and Pluralism in 20th-Century American Literature and Social Thought. What does it mean to be called an American? How does someone become a part of the “we, the people” that is said to comprise this particular national community? Are there legal rules, cultural and behavioral norms, or generational patterns that determine a person’s claims to Americanness? Do “our” shared professions of American identity transcend, or override other kinds of differences, for example, those based on class, race, and region, ethnicity, or religion, sexuality, and gender? Conversely, is the unifying appeal of Americanness and Americanism frequently built upon the implicit, even violent suppression, and exclusion of entire groups of people, who are labelled alien, deviant, and ”other”? Has the understanding of who is, and can be an American changed over the course of the twentieth century? Are some of “us” more American than others? Why are some Americans deemed unAmerican? What does it mean to live in the United States and refuse to call oneself an American? This course examines these questions through and analysis of literary and historical documents. We will pay particular attention to how the contradictory legacies of colonial conquest, racial slavery, ethnic diversity and religious toleration have shaped the participation of different groups in the national life of the United States in the twentieth century. Course readings, lectures and films place special emphasis upon exploring the different ways American Indians, white, black, Latino, Asian, native and immigrant Americans have influenced who and what counts as “American.” Overall, we will be considering the controversial history of America as a multi-ethnic, “multicultural” nation, assessing the meaning and historical consequences of various struggles for membership and/or autonomy within the larger, “national” society. The course concludes with recent debates over the politics of liberal education, immigration, sexuality and civil rights. Meets with AES 498. Texts: DuBois, Souls of Black Folk; Gilman, Herland; Paredees, George Washington Gomez; Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Octavia Butler, Dawn; Milton Murayama, All I Asking For is My Body; Ellison, Invisible Man.

466 YA (Gay & Lesbian Studies)
MW 7-8:50 pm
Cummings
During the quarter we will focus on the politics of “queer representation,” paying particular attention to how gays, lesbians, and/or queer-identified subjects are represented, in what contexts, by whom, at what points in time, and with what consequences. Some of the representations we’ll be looking at are drawn from mainstream media and government documents; the majority are the work of self-identified lesbian and gay fiction writers, performance artists, film and video-makers, educators, columnists, and critics. Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2. Texts: Randal Kenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead; Leslie Feinburg, Stone Butch Blues; Sarah Schulman, Rat Bohemia; Martin Duberman, Queer World; photocopied course packet.

471 A (The Composition Process)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Dillon
This is a course about writing and the teaching of writing in the schools. We will discuss designing courses and assignments, responding to writing, standards and evaluation, roles of the teacher, and issues of difference. “Writing” more and more involves CMC (Computer Mediated Communication), and we will have a look at networked classes, virtual discourse communities, and the notion of net literacy. Writing for the course will include keeping a response journal (for some time), posting to an on-line LIST, and reflecting on that experience. Also a mid-term and a final. Add codes in English Advising office, A-2-B PDL. Texts: Tate, et al., Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook.

474 A (Special Topics in English for Teachers)
MW 1:30-3:20
Parker
Tutor Training. While any interested person may take this class, it is required for a job in the English Department Writing Center in 1999-2000. Our focus will be on three main components of Writing Center work: How We Write: We will do in-class writing, reflective journals, and formal essays with attention to revision. How We Read: Along with the textbook reading, we will look at student papers (including our own) and discuss what we value in them and why. How We Converse: Through a sociolinguistic frame, we will consider the ways that our conversations create relationships and realities, especially given how conversational style can be influenced by gender and ethnicity. The class will also include observation and tutoring practice in the Writing Center. If you have any questions about either the job or the class, please see the instructor in Padelford B-12. Credit/no-credit only. Add codes available in B-12 Padelford. Texts: Toni-Lee Capossela, The Harcourt Brace Guide to Peer Tutoring; Laurel Johnson Black, Between Talk and Teaching: Reconsidering the Writing Conference.

478 A (Language & Social Policy)
MW 9:30-11:20
Tollefson
This course examines the relationship between language policy and other areas of social policy. In particular, we will explore language policy in education, with special attention to its impact on economic opportunity and political power. We will also look at the influence on language of the worldwide phenomenon of migration, and we will explore various arguments for language rights. A central theme of the course will be the paradox that societies dedicate vast resources to language education, yet are often unable—or unwilling—to remove linguistic barriers to education, employment, and political participation. Texts: Tollefson, Planning Language, Planning Inequality: Language Policy in the Community; Power and Inequality in Language Education; photocopied course packet.

481 A (Special Studies in Expository Writing)
TTh 9:30-10:50
Dillon
Writing Hypertext for the Net. This course assumes basic knowledge of HTML and ability to move files around from/to Dante accounts, but we will review basics. We will spend time browsing and analyzing good “writing” on the Web and discussing issues of the Web as a new medium for writing (starting with Landow’s book). Considerable attention will be given to design and use of the graphic side of the medium. We will do group work as well as individual projects. Texts: Musciano & Kennedy, HTML: The Defnitive Guide, 3rd ed.; Landow, Hypertext 2.0.

483 A (Advanced Verse Writing)
TTh 11:30-12:50
Wagoner
Intensive study of ways and means of making a poem. No texts. Prerequisite: ENGL 384; writing sample. Add codes available in B-25 PDL, open 1-5 daily.

484 A (Advanced Short Story Writing)
MW 1:30-2:50
Shields
Writing, rewriting, reading, rereading short stories. Strong emphasis 0n very short stories as a way to learn about the form. No texts. Prerequisite: ENGL 384; writing sample. Add codes available in B-25 PDL, open 1-5 daily.

484 U (Advanced Short Story Writing)
Tues. 4:30-7:10 pm
Bosworth
This is the last in the undergraduate sequence of short story workshops; entry will only be allowed for student writers who demonstrate real familiarity with the fundamentals of short fiction, and who have both specific ambitions as a story writer, and the capacity to work independently. Exemplary readings, written student critiques, and formal introductions to fictional work will also be required, as well as a conscientious willingness to help other students with their manuscripts. Fiction writing is a serious way of knowing the world, and no time will be squandered on analyzing the strictly commercial marketplace, or on how one might reduplicate fiction whose only function is the passing of time or the making of money. Prerequisite: ENGL 384 and writing sample to be screened by instructor. Add codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 Padelford, open 11-3 daily. No texts.

485 A (Novel Writing)
MW 11:30-12:50
Shields
Novel writing. Students work on their own book-length projects. No texts. Prerequisite: ENGL 384 or 484; writing sample. Add codes available in B-25 PDL, open 1-5 daily.

491A (Internship)
*Arrange*
Supervised experience in local businesses and other agencies. Open only to upper-division English majors. Credit/no credit only. Prerequisite: 25 credits in English. Further information and add codes in English Undergraduate Advising office, A-2B PDL.

492A (Advanced Expository Writing Conference)
*Arrange*
Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student and instructor. Revision of manuscripts is emphasized, but new work may also be undertaken. Prerequisite: permission of program director. Instructor codes in English Undergraduate Advising office, A-2B PDL.

493A (Advanced Creative Writing Conference)
*Arrange*
Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student and instructor. Revision of manuscripts is emphasized, but new work may also be undertaken. Prerequisite: permission of program director. Instructor codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL, open 1-5 daily.

494 A (Honors Seminar)
TTh 10:30-12:20
Eversley
Approaches to Literary Criticism: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. In this course students will develop their critical reading, writing, and research skills through an in-depth study of Ralph Ellison’s epic, Invisible Man. Our goal will be to develop interpretive arguments about the novel, its cultural moment, and critical issues about race, literacy, literary production, and existentialism. We will explore a number of critical approaches to reading this novel, including historical context, past and contemporary literary criticism, as well as popular interpretations and reviews. Short writing assignments will culminate in an extended final essay. Readings include Ellison’s Invisible Man and Shadow and Act as well as supplemental readings. Departmental honors students only; add codes in Undergraduate Advising office, A-2B PDL. Texts: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Flying Home and Other Stories; Shadow and Act.

496 A (Major Conference for Honors)
*arrange*
Individual study (reading, papers) by arrangement with the instructor. Required of, and limited to, honors seniors in English. Add codes in Undergraduate Programs office, A-11 PDL.

497/498 A (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 9:30-11:20
Blake
(W)
Literature of Nature: The West. This course explores a field that is just developing in English departments and is quite a new departure for me (as a Western American who loves the region and its writing but usually teaches 19th-century British literature). It offers a paradoxical capstone course. After “acculturation” in English language and literature, you will go “back to nature.” But culture is part of nature. Gary Snyder says words are wild. With an initial selection from Thoreau as a reference point in a tradition of nature writing, we turn to modern and contemporary writing of the West, specifically the West Coast and inland Northwest. Our region has produced writers worthy of Thoreau. The “Western” in story and film is a subject in itself and beyond our range. Perspectives include: romantic-sublime, pastoral, Christian, environmentalist, native american, feminine/feminist, Zen. We cover essays, history, fiction, poetry, whether as primary readings or secondary works for reports: many are slim volumes or short selections—drawn from Barry Lopez, John Muir, Mary Austin, Richard White, John McPhee, James Welch or Leslie Marmon Silko, Gretel Ehrlich, Marilynne Robinson, Gary Snyder. with videos of Cadillac Desert and Chinatown, and several critical essays. Emphasis on seminar discussion; one report or leading of discussion; a short response paper, then built on for a 8-10 pp. paper. I am open to adapt assignments to your purposes. Research, discussion, oral presentation, and critical writing are skills you can enhance and lay claim to via this course. Past seminars have proved helpful to students for writing samples and letters of recommendation. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford. Texts: Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain; Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces; John Muir, The Yosemite; Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping; Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End; James Welch, Winter in the Blood; Richard White, The Organic Machine; two photocopied course packets; optional: William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground; Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums; Gary Snyder, A Place in Space.

497/498 B (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 9:30-11:20
Curzan
(W)
The Politics and Problems of “Standard English.” What exactly is Standard English? We employ the term as a self-explanatory entity all the time, and yet when asked, we have trouble pinpointing it, settling for “Walter Cronkite’s English” or some such unsatisfactory definition. In this seminar, we will examine the origins of “Standard English” –which are far more recent than one might suspect—as a jumping-off point for discussing the present-day ramifications of this accepted standard for the language. We will cover many of the social, political, pedagogical, and literary issues surrounding Standard English, including bilingual education, attitudes toward dialects, the Ebonics controversy, the English Only Movement (triggered by the little known fact that the U.S. has no official language), and the use of non-standard varieties of English in literature. This course will be of particular interest to students wishing to explore the relationship between language and society, politics, and power, and it will be extremely useful to students considering careers in English teaching. No background in technical language study is required. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford. Texts: Rosina Lippi-Green, English with an Accent; Deborah Cameron, Verbal Hygiene.

497/498 C (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 12:30-2:20
Coldewey
(W)
Medieval to Renaissance in English Literature: From Script to Print. In this class we will be examining English literature as it evolves out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and focusing on the main cultural events: the invention of printing as an important material consideration and the concomitant shift to literacy. Early English literary invention is to an extraordinary degree both a witness and a child of its own age, and as it moves from a manuscript culture to a print culture, the ground rules of textual production, dissemination, and consumption themselves change. Coursework: Three quizzes (10% each), two Summary Evaluations of critical articles or chapters from secondary reading (10% each), class discussion (10%), a class presentation (15%), and a 7-10 page paper (25%) Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford. Texts: Hamer, ed, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse; Borroff, tr., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (ed. Hieatt & Hieatt); Malory, King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales (ed. Vinaver); Gassner, ed., Medieval and Tutor Drama; Marlowe, Dr. Faustus and Other Plays; Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art; Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe; Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The TEchnologizing of the Word.

497/498 D (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 1:30-3:20
Popov
(W)
Samuel Beckett: Studies in Form and Medium. Relentlessly probing the grounds of being human, Samuel Beckett transformed the economy of the literary arts. This seminar will provide a comprehensive account of Beckett as the last classic: we’ll read/see/hear a representative selection of works for the page (prose fiction and poems), stage, screen, and radio. Several short assignments and a term paper. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford.Texts and materials: Murphy; Watt; Collected Shorter Plays; Complete Short Prose; Video: Waiting for Godot; Krapp’s Last Tape; Film. Audio: The Samuel Beckett Festival of Radio Plays.

497/498 E (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 8:30-10:20
Butwin
(W)
American Literature of Immigration. The New York Times tells us that “the percentage of the country’s population that is foreign born is at its highest level since World War II and is accelerating at a record pace . . . and is fueling an already intense debate over immigration in American life.” The debate described by the Times is largely a political discussion conducted by people who are not themselves immigrant. In this course we will read the literature of a largely pre-War immigration written by the immigrants themselves. We will read our way into the moment of transition when the old world is still vivid in the new, when the most “intense debate over immigration” is happening within immigrant families and communities. Our texts come from a wide variety of sources, from the Czar’s Russia to the Philippines. While all students will read and respond to all texts, individuals will be invited to specialize in particular nations for reports and longer essays. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford. Texts: Abraham Cahan, The Imported Bridegroom; Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart; Antonio Villarreal, Pocho; Frank McCort, Angela’s Ashes; Jerre Mangione, Mount Allegro; Ole Rolvaag, Giants in the Earth.

497/498 F (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 10:30-12:20
Donahue
(W)
The Beat Generation. This course examines three crucial writers of the Beat Generation: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Our first concern will be the experimental means by which they wrote their books: spontaneous prose, prophecy, and collage. Next, we will examine the reality these radical practices reveal, what Kerouac once called “the unspeakable visions of the individual.” Possible topics for discussion include mysticism, addiction, murder, music, the power of the state, black magic, sexuality, madness, and intergalactic viruses. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford.

497/498 G (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Mussetter
(W)
Robin Hood. We will trace the development of the literature of Robin Hood from the time of King John (12/13C) into modern times. This will not be primarily a “medieval” course, but it will be largely so. We will be getting into quite a bit of history. And since the literature of Robin Hood comes down to us in several genres, we will be doing quite a bit of “generic studies” as well. Since the literature of Robin Hood participates in a larger intellectual/cultural context than is usually supposed, we will be looking at pastoral traditions, the Wild Man/Green Man figures, the economic “realities” of folk life, and a bit of the “literature of protest.” There will be a lot of areas, in other words, to find a research topic in. You must write a substantial research paper for this seminar. You will also be expected to participate on a daily basis in the discussion as well as make a group presentation on some significant aspect of our material. There will be neither midterm nor final. We should have a lot of fun doing some really serious library work (computers and all!). Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford.Texts: Stephen Knight & Thomas Ohlgren, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales; Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw.

497/498 H (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Andrews
(W)
Troping Turner: Thesis, Confession, Diary. In this course we will discuss the relationship between violence and liberal space. Using two affirmative actions from the Johnson Administration--the Wilderness Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964—as a frame, we’ll trace out the implications of “frontier” as it shifts from a rhetoric of wilderness closure to that of preservative enclosure. We’ll discuss the symbiotic relationship between fantasies of demographic purity and ecological salvation and the subsequent collapse of democratic space. Throughout the quarter we’ll discuss the often confictual relationship between giving consent and taking exception. Students will be required to read William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner, Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia; Andrew Macdonald’s The Turner Diaries; Frederick Jackson Turner’s “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” along with Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and Rebecca Solnit’s Savage Dreams. Students will also be required to supplement these readings with a journal in which they write down their experiences of various types of space—from managed urban parkways to improvised weekend “wilderness” getaways to excursions into spaces and times in which they “feel” more raced or gendered than at others. Be forewarned, some of our course readings will be extremely repugnant; but a willingness to saunter intellectually within these repugnancies may provide an ongoing and necessarily provisional answer to the primary Emersonian critical query, “where do we find ourselves?” Requirements: participation, research/reading journal, 12-15 page seminar paper. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford.

497/498 I (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 2:30-4:20
Weinbaum
(W)
Reproduction in Modern Thought and Literature. How has human reproduction been represented in modern literature, social theory, and scientific thought? In addressing this question this course will examine how reproduction has been variously cast as a natural, technological, and scientifically rational process. We will pay especially close attention to the construction of the relationships that exist among ideas about the reproduction of human populations, racial formations, and national formations. A number of interrelated questions will guide our inquiry: How has science intervened into human reproduction? How have theorists and writers responded? Can human reproduction be considered a natural process in these representations? How has women’s reproductive labor been pathologized and/or celebrated? How has the idea of racial identity been linked to the idea of reproduction? And, how are various forms of reproductive politics and modern nationalism connected? Theorists whom we will consider may include: Sarah Franklin, Michele Stanworth, Dorothy Roberts, Donna Haraway, Catherine Gallagher, and Emily Martin. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford. Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland; Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Jeremy Rifkin, The Biotech Century; Octavia Butler, Wildseed; Jane Lazarre, Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness; photocopied course packet.

497/498 J (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 3:30-5:20
Kaplan
(W)
British Writing in the 1920s.This seminar will explore British writing during the 1920s. The class will read a variety of works from this decade, ranging from its most famous (and difficult) poem: The Waste Land, to one of its favorite examples of popular fiction, The Inimitable Jeeves. We’ll read fiction by Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and Aldous Huxley, as well as two notorious novels (both of them banned by the censors): D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Radcliffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. In addition, each student will be assigned a “lost” or neglected book written during this decade as the focus for individual research and writing. Course requirements include active participation in class discussion, library research assignments, oral reports, short and longer papers, and a final examination. Senior English majors only; Add codes for 497 available in English Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford. Texts: P. G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves; Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party; T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land; Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Radcliffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness; Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point.

497/498 YA (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 7-8:50 pm
Webster
(W)
Shakespeare, Spenser, Freud. The goal of a senior seminar is to provide a “capstone” course to an English degree, a place where you can bring to bear on a special topic all the skills you’ve accumulated over the course of your degree work. Ideally, you have taken at least one course dealing with the material the seminar covers; the seminar thus can work at a somewhat more advanced level than would a standard upper division class. This class will try to honor that goal. Most of you will have taken at least one Shakespeare class, and I will assume you are not entirely new to Shakespeare’s language; few of you, however, will have read much (if any) Spenser; that will be a new and (with a little luck) exciting experience. Because you already know at least something about Shakespeare, we will begin with him, and use our reading of his work as a bridge to the much less known Spenser. Over the quarter, however, we will actually spend more time with Spenser than with Shakespeare, both because his poetry is less obviously available to modern readers than is Shakespeare’s, and because this class will very likely be your only chance to read his work carefully. And though The Faerie Queene isn’t--at least to begin with—as unfriendly as Much Ado About Nothing (for example), I’m betting that its themes of love, sex, religion and war will involve you more and more deeply. Once you’ve learned how to read Spenser’s allegory, you are likely to find that the world it offers you becomes very compelling. Beyond the general goal described above for a senior seminar, then, this class will aim to make you more informed and more confident readers of Shakespeare and Spenser. We will be doing close reading and discussing of texts in order that you become more familiar with Renaissance literary language. Some of our work will be in full-class settings; some in small groups. And finally, a word about Freud. We won’t be doing a lot—just Civilization and Its Discontents. I’m not a Freudian, nor were Spenser or Shakespeare. On the other hand, the issues that arise in works we’ll be reading do sharpen when put against Freud’s very interesting pre-World War II analysis of psyche and culture. Evening Degree Students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2. Texts: Spenser, The Faerie Queene; Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida; Much Ado About Nothing; 1 Henry IV; Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents; Rice & Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe.

499 A (Independent Study)
*arrange*
Individual study by arrangement with instructor. Prerequisite: permission of Director of Undergraduate Programs. (Faculty codes in Undergraduate Programs office, A-11 PDL.)

SPRING 1999 400-level Courses

SPRING 1999
400-level Courses