This course examines the construction of the immigrant in relationship to the citizen in the United States. In particular, we will read fiction, short stories, law, hip-hop music and film to think about how both of these figures, immigrant and citizen, are historically determined, socially constructed, fluid and yet also highly rigid. This class offers the opportunity to think about how literature functions as an alternative site for narrating history, a place to imagine new futures, and a critique of various institutions (like citizenship). We will ask how literature helps to define and contest the commonsense understandings of citizens and immigrants and the boundary drawn between them. Similarly, we will think about how law operates as a medium for creating fiction through the invention of such terms as "alien ineligible for citizenship," "national origin" and "permanent resident". Critical readings will provide a framework for considering how cultural texts help to define who, when, why and how one may be a citizen. We will work on close reading skills and practice developing strong claims in our writing through reading, discussing and writing about literature.

Course goals include 1) student-driven exploration of the course content, 2) connecting historical and theoretical readings to literary texts, 3) individual and group exploration of different methods of reading, discussion, and critical writing.

This class fulfills the University's W-requirement. In doing so, students will be required to write a series of shorter 2-3 page papers that build up to one longer essay of 10-12 pages. All writing will be subject to various forms of peer and instructor review. The workload also includes a presentation. This class is primarily discussion based and daily participation will constitute a significant amount of the total grade.

Possible primary texts include some of the following:
Bulosan, Carlos. America is in the Heart. 1946
Ciscernos, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek, and Other Stories. 1991
Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. 1990
Morales, Alejandro. The Brick People. 1988
Ng, Fae Myenne. Bone. 1994
Okada, John. No-No Boy. 1957
Viramontes, Helena Maria. Under the Feet of Jesus. 1995

“You think you know who you are?”… “You have no idea.” (Crash)

What all humans have in common is actually what distinguishes them. How we define ourselves is ultimately not up to us because the thing we use for our self-definition is beyond our control. While a variety of literary genres and forms mainly comprise this section of ENGL 200, we will use the conception of identity as the tool to frame our comprehension and interpretation of the selected readings. Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets define identity as “the set of meanings that define who one is when one is an occupant of a particular role in society, a member of a particular group, or claims particular characteristics that identify him or her as a unique person.” Beginning with this fundamental definition of identity, we are going to explore the multiplicity of identities of social subjects or objectified subjects, which are socially, nationally, racially, and sexually constructed. We will examine literary texts, including novels (A Passage to India by E. M. Forster, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Fixer Chao by Han Ong), novellas by Richard Wright and Jhumpa Lahiri, dramas (M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang), and films.

Additional readings consist of excerpts from Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks, The Wretched of the Earth), W. E. B. Du Bois’ (The Soul of Black Folk), Edward Said’s (Orientalism and Cultural Imperialism), and Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets’ Identity Theory, articles by Stuart Hall, Lionel Trilling, L. A. Kauffman, and Toni Morrison.

In this course, two learning outcomes have been set up for students: firstly, the ability to develop a reasonable interpretation of a literary text and to support that interpretation with evidence; secondly, the ability to develop more sophisticated discussion and composition skills in the interest of being better able to construct and defend their own arguments or interpretations.

As a “W” or writing class, this course will devote effort to writing about literature. The writing assignments will be partly formed by journal entries. Peer reviews will be held in class. Moreover, you will be required to accomplish two 5~7-page, and double-spaced papers. Revisions are compulsory.

Main text list
M. Butterfly (drama)
A Passage to India
Beloved
Fixer Chao
The Namesake (film)
Crash (film)

This course is designed as an occasion for students to ponder the relation between literary and cultural forms and interdisciplinary intellectual practices. In doing so, this course will seek to understand the utility of literary and cultural forms for launching inquiries that disrupt the disciplinary boundaries between the humanities and the social sciences. In these terms, we will work through a number of ‘literary’ and ‘critical’ texts that integrate the disciplinary concerns of English, sociology, geography, anthropology, and history.

With the focus on interdisciplinary knowledge production and literary forms in mind, our course readings will engage in the following questions: What is the relationship between history writing and narrative? How do literary forms negotiate and portray historical transformation? How can we approach questions of mapping and spatial representation through literary forms? How are certain literary forms linked to questions of social identity and difference?

Course Texts:
The Squatter and the Don by María Ruíz Amparo de Burton
The House Behind the Cedars by Charles Chesnutt
Dark Princess by W.E.B. Du Bois
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera by Norma Elia Cantú

I often find myself reflecting on the above phrase whenever I am faced with a work of literature, a poem, painting, piece of music, or film that appears to foil my preconceived expectations of what art is supposed to be. Certainly there is a kind of “pleasure” in seeing a film and having your expectations fulfilled, for example; identifying closely with the main character; vicariously watching that character overcome an impossible obstacle; and sharing in that character’s gradual resolving of the main conflict in the story. But, perhaps there is a different kind of pleasure involved in being “tricked” by a work of art and not receiving what you expected? Is this a perverse kind of pleasure? Imagine being able to discover new pleasures while developing the critical and analytical habits of mind that would allow you to appreciate literature or a film that escapes your preconceived expectations. Encountering challenging works of literature, music, and film (as we will in this class) will provide you with a dare. Can you think on the level that these texts are thinking? Will you, in doing so, reach a richer and more complex level of understanding and appreciation of the human condition? If we can agree that art is somehow “beyond human”—that it attempts to widen our perceptions and sensations and expose us to new ways of understanding, seeing, and feeling the world around us—then shouldn’t we all strive to become more than human? This will be our goal in English 200—to think beyond our current abilities and to become more than human by absorbing the lessons of these challenging texts.

One of the key ways to achieve the above goal will be to read texts that attempt to explicitly expose the act of reading for what it is: an active, frustrating, pleasurable, push-and-pull exercise that ultimately resists a final definition of itself. What is reading? What is this “thing” we do and more importantly, what is our role and what are our responsibilities upon opening a book? This course will challenge preconceived notions and definitions of the terms “reader,” “text,” and “author.” Often these terms are accepted at face value and as self-evident. However, as we investigate their possible roles during the act of reading literature we might find that they fail to maintain their popular definitions. However, whatever anxiety resulting from such an investigation will productively fuel our class discussions and your own writing. And, if we go about it effectively, the anxiety itself will become pleasurable and we’ll no longer see anxiety and pleasure as polar opposites.

To this end we will read Italo Calvino’s uncannily self-referential novel “If on a winter’s night a traveler”; Mark Z. Danielewski’s encyclopedic and labyrinthine “House of Leaves”; and Thomas Pynchon’s unresolved and postmodern short novel “The Crying of Lot 49,” as well as short stories by Shelley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. We will also be reading short critical work that explores the act of reading. In order to further our inquiry into the nature of reading literature and enrich our discussion of literature we will also consider film (Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”) and music (Miles Davis, J.S. Bach, Steve Reich, John Cage) that, like the above literary texts, invites engaged and active participation and challenges our expectations.

The assigned writing for this class will take the form of various short writing assignments, and 2 short papers that together fall within the scope of 10-15 pages (with required revisions). There will also be opportunities to peer-review one another’s work. Participation in class discussion is absolutely necessary. Please be prepared to be challenged in this class. The readings are difficult but infinitely rewarding. Since this is a “W” course we will also spend some time on composition and revision. Each paper will be read and commented on with revision in mind.

Books:
Mark Z. Danielewski, “House of Leaves,”
Italo Calvino, “If on a winter’s night a traveler,”
Thomas Pynchon, “The Crying of Lot 49”
Shelley Jackson, “My Body,” (available online)

Film:
Quentin Tarantino, “Pulp Fiction”

Course Packet:
“The Big Money” (short excerpt), John Dos Passos
“The Shadow at the Bottom of the World,” Thomas Ligotti
“The Library of Babel,” Jorge Luis Borges
“What is an Author?” Michel Foucault
“Inhabiting House of Leaves,” N. Katherine Hayles
“Liminal Terror and Collective Identity,” Matt Cardin
* slight shifting of texts in the course packet only may occur between now and the beginning of Spring Quarter.

This course “covers techniques and practice in reading and enjoying literature in its various forms: poetry, drama, prose fiction, and film. [It] examines such features of literary meanings as imagery, characterization, narration, and patterning in sound and sense.”



And how will we accomplish this? We will learn to focus on key details and relevant contexts by practicing close reading and contextualizing techniques. The goal of such work is not to “pick apart” literature, but to approach its content meaningfully and intelligently in order to read its cultural and aesthetic engagement to the fullest.



This class offers a "W" credit. This means that course participants will be expected to produce a total of 10-15 pages of formal, academic writing which has gone through a cycle of instructor feedback and revision. This requirement will be met with two 5-7 page essays over the course of the quarter. Participants will also be responsible for a number of free-write assignments throughout the quarter and active participation in class activities and discussion. We will cover some formal academic writing technique in this class, but please keep in mind that this is not a full writing course. Though prior composition credits are not prerequisite, such experience will be to your distinct advantage.

Course “readings” will likely include some or all of the following texts (well, probably not all):

Prose: “Bartleby the Scrivener,” “The Dead,” “The Library of Babel,” The Sound & the Fury, Mrs. Dalloway, Slaughterhouse-Five, Things Fall Apart, If upon a winter’s night a traveler, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Apex Hides the Hurt

Film: Three Colors Red, Talk to Her, Mulholland Drive, Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Pulp Fiction

Drama: The Importance of Being Ernest, Waiting for Godot, No Exit, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Poetry: “The Miller’s Tale” & “The Reeve’s Tale,” selections from The Inferno, “The Raven,” “The Rape of the Lock”

This course will examine Haiti as represented in literature, including representations across the novel, dramatic, poetic, and cinematic forms. The devastating earthquake ravaging Haiti in January 2010 drew attention to the way in which popular media representations of Haitian culture, politics, and history have been a touchstone in U.S. cultural, political, and economic engagement with the country. As an alternative focal point to these mainstream representations, the course’s attention to Haiti in literature will help develop critical and engaged reading practices, attempting to fulfill the course catalog’s description for the course: “Covers techniques and practice in reading and enjoying literature in its various forms: poetry, drama, prose fiction, and film.”
In focusing on the literature surrounding Haiti, this course will explore how these representations engage with historical, political, economic, and environmental issues on the island and in its global presence. Additionally, the course will explore how a U.S.-based readership can engage with Haiti and its literature, and the issues facing the Americas. This engagement is three-part: 1) immersing ourselves critically in the texts under study, 2) understanding the cultural and historical context of their production, and 3) engaging with Haiti’s literary production in relation to us as readers who inhabit the large next-door neighbor to this island nation.
In addition, as a "W" course, this one carries a specific writing focus: 10-15 pages of graded, out-of-class writing, in the form of three short papers (2-3 pages) and one longer paper (5-7 pages). The purpose of this writing is not to demonstrate mastery—of Haiti, of its literature—but to help engage with the texts and their and our contexts. Writing for this course has both a formal (as mentioned above) and informal place, but in both cases is a place to explore meanings, connections, and ideas. As such, all of the formal course writing will involve substantial peer and instructor feedback, and substantial revision, and all of the informal writing will help both discussion and development of the formal writing assignments.
4. Course texts:

Aimé Césaire The Tragedy of King Christophe (play) – e-reserve
Jacques Stephen Alexis General Sun, My Brother (novel)
Edwidge Danticat The Farming of the Bones (novel)
Rita Dove “Parsley” (poem)
Réné Dépestre A Rainbow for the Christian West (poem) – e-reserve
Maya Deren Divine horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (Documentary film)
Edwidge Danticat Krik? Krak! (stories)
Jonathan Demme The Agronomist (documentary film)

Secondary works will be made available via e-reserve.

We all use stereotypes – to define others and to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. This class will attempt to unpack the cultural representations of the “other” we call stereotypes as we read through the literature of the 20C. This class will think through the role of literature in negotiating, reinforcing, and challenging how we are defined and how we define others through social categories as we also think about how stereotypes mold our reading process. Because race is the salient social category through which “America” is lived and sexuality is a salient way that race is constituted, this class will focus on reading representations of the intersection of these two modalities of power. We will read literature as one among many multiple, shifting discourses within the broader discursive formations of race and sex. That is, we will read literary texts as one type of cultural knowledge among many (including historical, scientific, sociological, popular, etc.) that deploys sexuality to define racial categories (and vice versa) in U.S racial/sexual formation.

Texts may include James Baldwin’s Another Country, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Gertrude Stein’s “Melanctha,” Richard Wright’s 12 Million Black Voices, T.S. Eliot’s “Columbo and Bolo” poems. Other potential texts include the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Frank O’Hara, Langston Hughes and/or Allen Ginsburg, the writings of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Delaney, and/or David Henry Hwang. We will temper our literary readings with literary criticism on selected readings, critical/theoretical essays (by Sander Gilman, Scott Pickering, Homi Bhabha, José Muñoz, Eileen Boris), and historical texts (by Angela Davis, Gail Bederman, Gunnar Myrdal).

A decent grade will depend heavily on engaged class participation and interrogation of each day’s reading as well as weekly response postings, several short papers and a final paper project.

This course aims to introduce students to cultural studies reading practices, key concepts, and terms within the field of English and literary studies. We will explore cultural studies methodologies through a focus on literary and cultural productions emerging from, and about, the urban. This course, then, will explore the ways in which urbanicity (urban subjects, milieu, space, social movements) and its cultural production reproduce, regulate, and/or contest normative notions of racialization, sexuality, gender, and class.

Possible primary texts might include: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love, Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange, Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, hip hop lyrics and music videos.

Possible secondary texts might include: Stuart Hall’s “The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities,” Raymond William’s Marxism and Literature, Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Mike Davis’s City of Quartz, Min Song’s Strange Future, and Tricia Rose’s Black Noise and The Hip Hop Wars.

Your grade will be determined by a midterm, final, group presentation, and participation (which includes actively reading and participating in class discussions, quizzes, and informal writing assignments).

This course does not meet the University “W” requirement.
This course does fulfill the VLPA requirement

Alexander Galloway in _Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture_ argues that play "is a symbolic action for larger issues in culture" (16) and that video games "render social realities into playable form" (17). Using a broad archive of "imagined worlds" and video games, drawing on literature, film, hypertext, and scholarship, this course will identify and explore the key concepts, the key moves, and the key terms of the interdiscipinary fields of cultural studies. In other words, how do we develop a curiosity about the world? What are different critical practices and methodologies for unpacking cultural productions, such as websites or film or novels or video games? How do we understand and analyze the intersections of cultural and social formations like race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality? In this course, we will look at and analyze texts of media old and new through the lenses of cultural studies and deploy virtual worlds and video games as theories about and dramatizations of our social relationships and realities, our cultures, and our world.

Primary texts may include in whole or in excerpt: Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler's _Keywords for American Cultural Studies_, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Walter Benjamin, Will Crowther's _Adventure_, Judith Butler, Alexander Galloway, Shelley Jackson's _Patchwork Girl_, Benedict Anderson, Ian Bogost, Lisa Nakamura, Orson Scott Card, Sherry Turkle, Howard Rheingold, Maureen McHugh, N. Katherine Hayles, William Gibson, _Tron_, Donna Haraway, Nick Montfort, Cory Doctorow, _The Matrix_, and _World of Warcraft_.

New media and game play will be a required part of the class. Students will be required to keep a "plog" (play log) as part of the course website. Moreover, students will produce weekly response papers, which will potentially be used to develop into a larger online group project. Students seeking W-Credit will be accommodated.

This class will be a selective survey of British fiction post-1800. To focus down such a wide range of material, our readings and discussions will be loosely centered around reading and education, because these rubrics and their many iterations will allow us to touch on many key issues and concerns in our historical range. Unquestionably an age of widespread print production and the increased opportunity for access to reading material, the nineteenth century saw much anxiety and debate about what kinds of reading material were proper for different persons and groups. Central to this debate was education—not only in an institutional sense, but in moral, cultural, and political ones as well. The framework of education encompassed questions of who should be educated and in what manner, how those educations ought to be carried out, and the social and political implications of certain forms of educational practice and ideology, which were actively taken up in many discourses, and heavily in literature, which was itself seen as a means of education. Novels sometimes took up the purpose of teaching their readers about social dissension, economic disparity, gendered roles and political struggle, while at other times creating harmony and romance in their narratives to elide the portrayal of these differences. Often, as we will see, the novels did both,
criticizing some forms of social reality while teaching their audiences their own versions of what problems needed to be addressed. Examining how these concerns are raised in their contexts and via the literature which> engages them will provide us with a common analytic through which we will be able to examine many issues touching the “education” of the nineteenth-century subject such as gender, empire, industry, and class.

Following these conversations, we will end with a novel that turns a critical lens onto what emerges out of nineteenth-century aesthetic and intellectual culture and education to reflect on questions of modernity. Expect a rigorous reading schedule for the course. Other student responsibilities will include short response papers, in-class freewrites, a collaborative presentation, consistent participation in class discussion, a midterm and final exam.

4._ Book List_:
>> Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 1865. (978-0141439761)
>> Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. 1850. (978-0140439441)
>> Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. 1855. (978-0140434248)
>> Forster, E.M. Howards End. 1910. (978-0141182131)
>> Course Pack, available at Ave Copy (4141 University Way)

ENGL 213 is designed to serve as an introduction to twentieth century literature from a broadly cultural point of view, focusing on representative works that illustrate literary and intellectual developments since 1900. This course will situate modernism and postmodernism as reactions to a profound crisis of spirituality in the West, a crisis engendered by the intellectual turn toward secular relativism in the nineteenth century. We will also examine how writers experimented with language and form to represent the altered sense of space, time, and the self engendered by modernity and postmodernity. Primary texts will include poems, short stories, and novels. The overall course goals are to hone your: 1) critical thinking skills; 2) ability to analyze literary texts; and 3) ability to write about literature. Student responsibilities include daily attendance, active participation in discussions and activities, two brief online posts, two short paper proposals, and two 5-7 page papers with revisions that satisfy the university “W” credit.

Course Reader, which will include short stories, journal articles, and other short readings

Texts:

• Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis Trans. and Ed. Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton, 1996. [0393967972]
• Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Ed. Bonnie Kime Scott. San Diego: Harvest/Harcourt, 2005. [0156030357]
• Gide, Andre. The Counterfeiters. Trans. Dorothy Bussy. New York: Vintage, 1973. [0394718429]
• Maugham, W. Somerset. The Razor’s Edge. New York: Vintage, 2003. [1400034205]
• Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Dial, 1999. [0385333846]
• DeLillo, Don. White Noise: Text and Criticism. Ed. Mark Osteen. New York: Viking/Penguin, 1998. [0140274987]
• Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th Ed). New York, 2009. [1603290249]

This course is a survey of British and American literature from the twentieth century, with close attention given to literary form and technique as responses to the experience of “modernity.” Instead of approaching the modern/postmodern divide as an absolute, we will investigate the evolution of similar problems and techniques in literature that occur across the twentieth century. We will place particular emphasis on narrative style and literary representations of how time is experienced. To that end, we will begin by exploring the modernist preoccupation with the individual’s inner life, and trace how writers throughout the twentieth century attempt to represent subjective experience in very different ways. We will read a mix of genres over the course of the quarter, including short stories, poetry, novels, and a play. In our discussions, we will investigate the texts’ forms, patterns, techniques, ideas, cultural contexts, and intertextuality. For the final paper, you will be encouraged to develop your own line of questioning within an area of interest to you.

Course requirements include a demanding reading schedule, active in-class participation, response papers, a group presentation, a midterm, and a final research paper of 6-8 pages.

This course does not meet the University “W” requirement.
This course does fulfill the VLPA requirement.

*Texts: *

* Joseph Conrad, /The Secret Agent/ (1907) [Oxford World’s
Classics (2004), ISBN 978-0-19-280169-2]
* James Joyce, /Dubliners/ (1914) [Norton Critical Edition (2006),
ISBN 978-0-393-97851-3]
* T.S. Eliot, /The Waste Land /(1922) [Norton Critical Edition
(2000), ISBN 978-0-393-97499-7]
* Jean Toomer, /Cane/ (1923) [Norton Critical Edition (1987), ISBN
978-0-393-95600-9]
* Virginia Woolf, /Between the Acts/ (1941) [Harcourt Annotated
Edition (2008), ISBN 978-0-15-603473-9]
* Samuel Beckett, /Waiting for Godot/ (1954) [Grove Press (1994),
ISBN: 978-0-8021-3034-1]
* Don DeLillo, /White Noise: Text and Criticism/ (1985) [Viking
Critical Library Edition, ISBN 9780140274981]
* Photocopied course packet containing poetry and critical essays

Though he is most often discussed as a dramatist, William Shakespeare considered himself a poet first and foremost, who turned to playwriting as a way to make money, and as a natural extension of his acting career. In addition to producing the language’s most respected corpus of plays and of poetry, the bard’s work has also been an inspiration to hundreds of artists in genres as diverse as painting, ballet, opera, filmmaking, sculpture, architecture, and many others. This class will consider Shakespeare’s poetry, with an ear tuned to his unique language and image-making. We will also consider him as a cultural touchstone, reading adaptations, listening to symphonies, and criticizing paintings inspired by his work. In order to understand his composite gifts of characterization and narrative structure, we will read, in addition to a selection of sonnets and criticism, three plays in their entirety.

The goal is not to read all the Shakespeare we’ll ever need to read in the span of one class, but to qualify ourselves as readers of his poetry, that we might open to his language: reading, at any later date, with appetite and comprehension.

In accordance with the University's W requirement, you will be responsible for writing and revising several short papers, totaling 12-15 pages, in addition to keeping a diligent reading journal, and participating in the class blog project.

This course is a survey of modernist fiction, with a twist. The content consists primarily of novels published between 1907 and 1953, by authors such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, James Baldwin, John Dos Passos, Joseph Conrad, and Aldous Huxley. While reading these texts, we will focus less on giving literary modernism a single definition and more on the divergent ways it can be articulated through aesthetics, history, culture, and place. Since modernism is such a broad topic, we will narrow our attention to three lines of modernist inquiry: an obsession with what’s new, depictions of the city and urbanization, and the rise of certain media and technologies in the first half of the 20th century. That said, film, audio recordings, advertisements, and some poetry will supplement modernist novels throughout the quarter.

With a twist. And that twist is this: “Modernism Now” is also an opportunity for undergraduates to gain hands-on competences in using digital tools and web-based platforms for humanities inquiry, specifically the study of modernist fiction. During one class meeting per week, we will investigate how to produce sustainable digital scholarship through new media and their intersections with several stages of the writing process, including conducting research, gathering evidence, and composing arguments. By the quarter’s end, you will gain knowledge in how to use the following for academic purposes: WordPress blogging platform, the Zotero research tool, Flickr’s Library of Congress photostream, the Modernist Journals Project, JSTOR’s Data for Research visualizations, UbuWeb, and Google Maps. No previous experience with any of these platforms, tools, or archives is required.

Since English 242 is a “W” course, you will be asked to iteratively develop and revise a web-based, ten- to fifteen-page research paper on a topic of your choice (within the domain of modernist fiction). By “iteratively develop,” I imply that you will gradually compose your paper over the entirety of the quarter, instead of writing a bulk of it at the end. I will ask you to incorporate an annotated bibliography, an abstract, and plenty of collaboration and conversation into that process.
If you have any questions prior to enrolling in the course, then I encourage you to email me at jentery@uw.edu.
Required Texts
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain [978-0385334570]
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent [978-0141441580]
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World [978-0060850524]
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Annotated) [978-0156030359]
Recommended Text
James Joyce, Ulysses [978-0679722762] (we will read one or two chapters)

This course is interested in exploring representations of different imaginations of “community,” “coalition” and “belonging” through primarily what China Miéville calls, “Weird Fiction.” Drawing mostly from works often categorized as fantastical, speculative or estranging fiction, this class considers how these texts differently imagine forms of “coalition” and “community.” We will follow how these writers of “weird fiction” conceptualize and imagine “community” with special attention to how forms of inequality and categories of race, gender, class and sexuality are differently represented and negotiated within various models of “coalition.” As a “W” course, students will take class themes, in class writing assignments, and ideas that emerge in class discussion, and produce several short papers, a “prospectus,” and 2 drafts of a 5-7 page paper in order to more deeply explore the animating questions of this course. Students will also have the opportunity to practice multiple kinds of revision including meeting with me in conferences and peer-review.

Possible texts include: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower; Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love; Ana Castillo’s So Far from God; Danzy Senna’s Caucasia; Alice Walker’s Meridian; Gloria Naylor’s Bailey’s Cafe; and Paul Beatty’s White Boy Shuffle.

Reading audiences have long been thrilled and chilled by fictions about our estrangement from our selves, each other, and the objects, affairs, and locations that make up our world under global capitalism. Our class this quarter will consider a range of texts which make an art of representing this alienation. In addition to the novels listed below, we'll be reading a number of philosophical and critical texts, and watching several films which may include: The Stalker, Gummo, Mon Oncle, Why Does Herr R Run Amok?, The World.

Course requirements: Your final grade will be based on your demonstration of your completion and comprehension of reading assignments through your regular contribution to class discussion, GoPost reflections, and a number of writing assignments. Note that this is a "W" course, and as such will require you to produce 10-15 pages of graded, out-of-class writing, in the form of a longer paper with a required revision OR two or more short papers, likewise with revisions.


Required Texts:
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand. Journey to the End of the Night
McKay, Claude. Banjo: A Novel Without a Plot
Calvino, Italo. Marcovaldo
Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Paramo
McCarthy, Cormac. Suttree

For Victorian writer John Ruskin, home “is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home.” The notion of a domestic sanctuary that could and would protect its inhabitants from the anxieties of the outside world was a powerful structuring myth in the Victorian era. However, luckily for the student of nineteenth century literature, the Victorian home was rather more porous than Ruskin’s description would lead us to believe: the worries and struggles of the factory, the poorhouse, the brothel, the public house, the teeming streets, etc., all found their way across the threshold to bask in the glow of the Victorian hearth. The novellas, short stories and essays we will read in this course all meditate on the concept of home just as fervently as Ruskin does, but with one key difference: All of the homes in them will open wide the doors to “terror, doubt and division,” and will give us all the fodder we need to talk about hauntings, ghosts, crypts, prisons, insanity, murder, vampires, and decadence. In order to satisfy the “W” requirement, students will be responsible for one shorter paper response paper (2 pgs), and one longer (11-12 pg) paper, both of which must be revised in response to feedback from the instructor.

Reading List:
Isabella Beeton, Beeton’s Guide to Household Management
Coventry Patmore, selections from “The Angel in the House”
Poe “Fall of the House of Usher”
Thomas Hardy, “Barbara of the House of Grebe”
Brett Harte, “Selina Sedilia”
Marcel Schwob, “Bloody Blanche”
Charlotte Perkins Stetson, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Speckled Band,” Hound of the Baskervilles
Louisa May Alcott, Behind a Mask
Sheridan LeFanu, Camilla
Thomas Preskett, Varney the Vampire (excerpts)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (excerpts)
Angela Carter, “Lady of the House of Love”
**critical texts paired with some of these texts

In this course, we'll examine a range of literary narratives about health, illness, the body, and their scientific/medical interventions. Throughout the quarter, we will consider what Susan Sontag terms the “punitive and sentimental fantasies concocted” about illness, both in historical and contemporary contexts. We'll first examine selected critical accounts of illness, including "On Being Ill" by Virginia Woolf and Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor." Then, we'll turn to fictional accounts of health and illness, including works by George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, Woolf, Michael Cunningham, and Ian McEwan. In addition to a heavy reading load, this course requires regular class participation, writing in and out of class, reading quizzes, and exams. 8:30am is not for everyone; please consider the early hour and the participation requirements before enrolling.

Readings (subject to change):

1. George Eliot's The Lifted Veil (1859)
2. Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
3. Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (1912)
4. Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
5. selections from Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors (1977, 1988)
6. Michael Cunningham's The Hours (1998)
7. Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2005)

This course will read one book of poems each week. Class participation will be required by reading poems aloud. We will read big poems & little poems, long poems & short poems, old poems & new poems, easy poems & difficult poems, sad poems & funny poems. You will learn how to sound like a poet by pronouncing the subject of the course as a two syllable word: po-em. This is one of the many tricks of poetry you will learn.

You will be evaluated on participation and written work, which will consist of two short papers and weekly commentaries. In addition to reading aloud, you will also be asked occasionally to draw and exercise other artistic talents you may or may not possess. Attendance at one extra-curricular poetry reading will be required.

This course is designated as “W,” which will be met by two six-page papers (MLA) with a required revision.

Required Texts:

1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Tr. Simon Armitage (0393334155).
2. Nets. Jen Bervin (0972768432).
3. Orpheus & Eurydice. Gregory Orr (1556591519).
4. The Lichtenberg Figures. Ben Lerner (1556592116).
5. Howl. Allen Ginsberg (0872860175).
6. Lunch Poems. Frank O’Hara (0872860353).
7. The Blue Estuaries. Louise Bogan (0374524610).
8. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (0146000811).
9. Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated. Carson Cistulli (0976951614).

We’ll be reading a wide range of American literary texts, from poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to novels by such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ralph Ellison. Students in this course should expect to do lots of reading, and they should come prepared to record their responses to all reading assignments through detailed journal entries keyed to each session of the course. Several papers will also be required. Two major issues that we’ll be grappling with are the challenges that these text pose to: 1) the often unexamined American concept of e pluribus unum—one indivisible national whole emerging out of many strands; 2) the tendency to think of American time as progressing forward into a future that displaces the past, makes historical memory largely irrelevant, validates youth over age, and directs attention away from current disappointments toward forthcoming promise and hope. In contrast to the concept of e pluribus unum, the focus in this course will be on how shifting voices and perspectives from disparate dimensions of U.S. culture often collide to the point of ambiguity, friction, and dissonance; they resist easy synthesis, although their collisions often prove to be considerably more fascinating, and far less dismal, than naïve dismissals of dissonance sometimes assume. We’ll also be exploring challenges to the glib assumption that time inevitably progresses forward in the U.S.A. As Ralph Ellison writes in Invisible Man, he has learned that history often moves like a “boomerang” rather than an “arrow.”

Required Texts:

Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (Course Pack); also for purchase at the U Bookstore: Hawthorne, THE PORTABLE HAWTHORNE; Frederick Douglass, NARRATIVE; Emily Dickinson, THE COMPLETE POEMS; Rebecca Harding Davis, LIFE IN THE IRON MILLS AND OTHER STORIES; Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN; Kate Chopin, THE AWAKENING; Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY; Ralph Ellison, INVISIBLE MAN

This course offers an introduction to American literature and culture. As we read a survey of texts ranging historically from colonial times to the present, we will track the way thinkers and writers have defined and challenged the relationship of American identity to the social and political institutions that shape our lives, including government, religious institutions, education, the military, and the “peculiar institution” of slavery. We will examine the utopian, revolutionary project of inventing the institutions of a new society and contrast this with the equally American idea of rugged individualism, paying special attention to the way that authors have represented American national character as caught between these two understandings of the individual “self” as part of a nation, culture, and society.

Course requirements will include extensive reading, quizzes, a presentation, and two papers. Course texts may include fiction, poetry, and political writing by Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, W.E.B. DuBois, Nella Larsen, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Toni Morrison.

Like many survey courses on American Literature, this class will examine how literature has contributed to the construction of national identity and what Benedict Anderson has called the 'imagined political community' of nationalism. In this particular class, we will specifically focus on representations of death, violence, and mourning as persistent motifs for 'remembering/forgetting' (i.e. producing) an American 'people.' To that end, we will pursue two questions across the course texts: how does the way in which death, violence, and mourning get represented produce a particular form of a national people? Who or what gets ‘forgotten’ in each form of remembrance?

The reading load for this class will be heavy and MAY include F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Alice Walker's Meridian, Fae Ng's Bone. Shorter class readings (available online) MAY include texts from Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Jackson Turner, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville. Work for the course includes participation in class discussion and activities; group presentations; weekly short, informal entries in a class go-post, a 5-7 page essay, and a final exam.

This course will examine the historical currents that necessitated the emergence of Asian Pacific American literary sensibility, in conjunction with a consideration of the difficulties and possibilities inherent to in this categorization. Asian American populations have been deeply impacted by restrictive immigration legislation and American foreign policy, putting its peoples in a unique position for defining Americanness. How do artists with an Asian ancestry challenge a country that ostensibly celebrates diversity yet looks with suspicion on the foreign? We will be reading the short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri, the play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, and novels by John Okada, Brian Roley, and Bich Nguyen

This course moves beyond the introduction to general academic writing common to 100-level writing courses to introduce students to the particularities of writing in the academic and professional disciplines. Students will focus their attention on the rhetorical practices of writing within their declared or intended major field of study. Students can expect to develop a view of writing as a rhetorical practice, as well as a deeper understanding of the writing conventions in their majors.

Prerequisites:

While 281 has no formal prerequisite, this is an intermediate writing course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs and essays. Thus we strongly encourage students to complete an introductory (100 level) writing course before enrolling in English 281.

In classical rhetoric, “invention” is the term used to talk about the process of coming up with, or “discovering,” arguments. In On Rhetoric, Aristotle identifies general strategies for invention as well as strategies that are specific to certain genres of oratory. Absent from the genres of writing considered by Aristotle is stand-up comedy, but we can forgive him for his oversight because stand-up comedy didn’t really exist in the fourth century BCE. Our goal in this class, then, will be to identify the strategies of rhetorical invention specific to the genre of stand-up comedy writing. In order to do this we will first learn more about rhetorical invention, complicating Aristotle’s description by considering how the concept of genre contributes to invention and to what degree the rhetor’s social position influences the “discovery” of quips. After analyzing transcripts of routines from stand-up comedians for their use of invention, we will attempt to use the techniques we have identified to do our own comedy writing. Please be aware, however, that this course requires some heavy theoretical reading and is not a creative writing class. Students should expect to write three analytical papers related to the topic of rhetorical invention based on course readings and their own research and analysis of comedic rhetoric. This writing will be in addition to the frequent, smaller writing assignments that students will be asked to complete on a regular basis.

Students from outside of the English department can expect to learn about the concept of “genre” and practice an analytical method that will help you identify what is expected from your work in genres such as lab reports or business proposals, and to invent writing in these genres. That said, we will not be spending time working in these genres; our genre of choice will be stand-up comedy.

Prerequisites:

While 281 has no formal prerequisite, this is an intermediate writing course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs and essays. Thus we strongly encourage students to complete an introductory (100 level) writing course before enrolling in English 281.

The primary aim of this course will be to further develop the writing skills you have acquired in other university writing courses, specifically by examining how genre informs writing strategies. In order to narrow our project, we will focus our attention on the topic of Jane Austen’s novels, their modern day adaptations, and the critical and cultural writing surrounding this topic.

The recent proliferation of Austen adaptations (film, television, novels, etc.) introduces questions of genre and rhetorical choice. How do key elements of Austen’s novels transfer, or fail to do so, across genres? Does Jane Austen’s nineteenth-century audience share any characteristics with the audience members of Joe Wright’s 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? How, rhetorically speaking, do authors and directors make their attention to audience visible, in text and on film? What, for film critics, constitutes a “successful” Austen adaptation? How are Austen adaptations marketed, and what does this tell us about audience?

More importantly, your writing for this course will allow you the opportunity to experiment with the various genres we examine in class. We will begin by writing a traditional, academic essay on an Austen novel, refreshing our academic writing skills. Next, you will craft your own film review of an Austen adaptation, followed by a comparative analysis of an Austen novel and your choice of Austen adaptation. Finally, students will craft a proposal for their own Austen adaptation. A great deal of freedom will be given with this final project; depending on your academic interests, your proposal could consist of a chapter-draft of a new Austen sci-fi novel, along the lines of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a business budget plan for a new Austen film adaptation, or an Austen website. All formal writing assignments will be paired with a rhetorical analysis reflection piece in which you account for and defend your rhetorical choices and explain their intended effects.

• Film adaptations will be available on reserve in Odegaard library.
• A Course Pack of secondary materials (critical articles on Austen, adaptation theory pieces, film adaptation reviews, and selections from print Austen adaptations) will also be available for purchase.

Texts:

• Austen, Jane. Emma Alistair M. Duckworth, Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. [0312207573]
• Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Robert Irvine. Broadview Edition, 2002. [9781551110288]

Prerequisites:

While 281 has no formal prerequisite, this is an intermediate writing course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs and essays. Thus we strongly encourage students to complete an introductory (100 level) writing course before enrolling in English 281.

ability to use (X)HTML and CSS to make web pages and link them together as websites --ability to analyze and critique web writing

Course is available for graduate credit as ENGL 554

Catalog Description: Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem.

Catalog Description: Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem.

Catalog Description: Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story.

This is an immersion course: for ten weeks, we will soak ourselves in the short story form. Warning: your fingers will get pruny. We’ll be reading as many short stories as we can; some we’ll love, and some we’ll hate. We’ll discover how to create vivid characters, settings, and scenes. We’ll learn the importance of plot, the pros and cons of each point of view, and how to write convincing dialogue. We’ll also experience the “writing workshop,” in which we read and critique each other’s work. Perhaps most importantly, we will learn how to critique and revise our own. At the end of the quarter, everyone will hand in a portfolio of his/her work, which will include a revised short story. If this appeals to you, then sign up and dive in!

Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, 7th ed.

ISBN: 0-321-27736-8

Also, a course packet.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified humanities course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified humanities course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified humanities course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

Catalog Description: Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required.

This course will revolve around one, short text, Herman Melville’s famous, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” We will begin by reading “Bartleby” very carefully, including the works of thinkers like Emerson, Edwards and Priestly, that are said to have inspired it. We may also read another short story or two of Melville’s that pursue very similar questions. We will conclude the quarter by reading a range of later productions inspired by Melville’s apparent critique of capitalism, including critical works by Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze and others, and popular retellings of the story, in the form of a feature-length film, a current TV sitcom and a short story. Through it all, we will try to trace the many ways this story about “not” doing anything continues to compel us. Students will be asked to complete two short pieces on “Bartleby”. The first will be an essay or analysis demonstrating that you can both explain and can offer a fresh take on a specific list of passages and questions raised by our initial reading of the story and its immediate cultural context. The second essay must engage the contemporary critical and creative spins on Melville’s story. This essay may be either critical or creative. If you choose to do a creative project, it must be preceded by a 500 word proposal, approved by me, that defines the theoretical underpinnings of and ambitions of the project.

No UW bookstore texts on order, since all course readings will be included in a short course packet available at The Ave Copy Center.

This course will focus on a large critical question, the contemporary status of literature in relation to other media, primarily digital or new media forms but also visual media more generally. The critical practice or mode of analysis associated with this question is sometimes referred to as intermediation, the study of exchanges and dialogues across media (how do new media forms reproduce, redefine, or reject features of printed books, such as the “page”; alternately, how do novels try to incorporate or mimic aspects of Internet communication?). A focus on this kind of question is intended to promote self-reflection on our assumptions about literature, print, and the relation between them. The course will also bring to bear on this question a specific body of historical and theoretical work on the emergence and institutional development of print culture, literary studies, and the book as cultural form. We will turn to the history of the book to try to understand the possible futures of the book.
What does the history of the emergence of print text as the dominant communicational medium within Western modernity have to teach us about the current emergence of the Internet and computer-mediated communication? There are three general answers to this question. Some commentators insist that print culture is obsolete, while others argue that books as a medium for the written word perform certain kinds of privileged cultural work (such as the establishment of critical distance or deep attention) that cannot be duplicated by other media and will therefore remain indispensable. The practice of intermediation tends to assume a third position – that is, that we increasingly inhabit a diverse media ecology, within which printed text will continue to exist, but in a relativized or decentered form, without the normative authority that print has had (or seemed to have had) in the past. What are the effects of this change, if they cannot be reduced to either the most utopian or the most dystopian and apocalyptic possibilities?

When I refer to the “book as cultural form,” I mean the ideals or cultural values that have come to be associated with the specific technology of the printed book – for instance, the way the book is taken as a model or embodiment of specific forms of thought, rationality, and critique. What continuities and discontinuities are there between the forms and practices of new media and print culture as it has traditionally been understood? For instance, do new media simply extend the processes of democratization and greater access (as well as the rise of vernacular literatures) that seem to follow from the invention of the printing press (as might be suggested by the explosion of self-publishing online), or do they disrupt and even preempt such processes? If print forms like the newspaper and the novel are crucial in the development of the idea of the modern nation-state or “imagined community” of readers, as Benedict Anderson argues, does the emergence of new media pose a challenge to nationalist ideologies and imaginaries? What new models of the public sphere and of citizenship do these new technologies demand, if any?

We will read work on earlier print culture and the transition to new media by critics who might include Benedict Anderson, Jurgen Habermas, Michael Warner, Lauren Berlant, Nancy Fraser, Rita Felski, Richard Lanham, and Lev Manovich. We will compare and contrast Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to its hypertextual revision in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (written using Storyspace software, a pre-HTML lexia/link format). N. Katherine Hayles’s book Electronic Literature (along with the primary works on the book’s CD-ROM and website) will provide examples and analyses of new media forms (we will especially focus on interactive fiction and the addition of Flash animation to written text: what happens when texts are to be watched or played, not just read?). In relation to cultural studies arguments about the nature of visual culture, from Adorno and Horkheimer on the culture industry to Henry Jenkins on fan cultures and practices of textual poaching, we will consider the relation of word and image, in part by reading a graphic novel, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which reworks a set of literary sources (as does Patchwork Girl; like new media generally, these works raise questions about changing ideas of intellectual property, originality, and creativity). Patchwork Girl in part focuses on the relevance to new media of feminist traditions for the analysis of gender and sexuality, and we will end the course by turning more directly to a focus on the relevance of U.S. racial histories and critical traditions, by reading DJ Spooky’s Rhythm Science, a book on electronic music and the practice of the mash-up, in relation to a science fiction novel by African American writer Samuel R. Delany that represents a cosmopolitan network society, a new form of imagined community.

Assignments for the course will most likely include three essays and some more informal, ungraded writing assignments.

Along with a set of shorter essays, texts for the course will probably include:
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism
N. Katherine Hayles, Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl (CD-ROM)
Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Samuel R. Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, Rhythm Science (book and CD)

What do we do in English? Well, on the face of it, we don’t do much. We don’t build buildings, create software for computers, or handle large sums of money (unfortunately). We simply read and write. As it turns out, however, these skills are not as easily understood or developed as they might appear. Most Americans beyond the age of six or seven can read and write something, but once learned the skills of literacy remain somewhat opaque to our analysis and reflections. As English majors you’re supposed to learn (or have already mastered) the ability to “close-read,” whatever that means, and while it is indeed part of the foundation of the discipline, close-reading itself requires different kinds of attention according to the context of when and why we’re reading and the demands of what we’re reading. So, in this course, we will consider the act and art of close-reading, by studying several theorists who are very good readers in their own ways. We will read Freud, Clifford Geertz, John Berger, and Judith Butler as they close-read very different kinds of texts—from stories, to cultural practices, to paintings. As we consider the assumptions and practices that make them good readers, we will also apply their models to a set of texts, from Fight Club, to a gothic story, to Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. We will be paying attention to ways we read for pleasure, as well as what kinds of pleasure are involved in this particular and peculiar form of attentiveness we call close-reading. Assignments will include several short essays and a presentation.

Catalog Description: Intensive study of, and exercise in, applying important or influential interpretive practices for studying language, literature, and culture, along with consideration of their powers/limits. Focuses on developing critical writing abilities. Topics vary and may include critical and interpretive practice from scripture and myth to more contemporary approaches, including newer interdisciplinary practices.

This course introduces African literature, one of the most dynamic and fertile literatures of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. We explore a variety of literary techniques that draw upon traditional oral cultures as well as European forms, and deploy satiric, realist, and experimental styles to represent African experiences. The course engages with a historical range of literature and considers the political experiences of colonialism, anti-colonial resistance, nationalism, and decolonization as contexts for an understanding. As well as examining the specific cultural environments which frame African literary production, we will also chart broad issues such as language, race, gender, nationhood, environment, globalization, which are central to many African writers and critical commentators. Students should come away from the course with an understanding of how ideological struggles about national and postcolonial identities continue to inform global literature, and have insight into the shifting dynamics of colonialism and its aftermath. Students are expected to keep up with an intensive reading schedule. Writers may include Okot P’Bitek, Ferdinand Oyono, Bessie Head, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Yvonne Vera, Zakes Mda.

Catalog Description: Literary culture of 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 later works, which are read in Middle English.

Engl 321 explores one of Chaucer's major works, The Canterbury Tales, along with some of his other poetry that can help us understand his works and his world. Academic goals of the course include a familiarity with Chaucer, some fluency in Middle English and an ability to negotiate the literary culture of medieval England.

Texts:
1) The Canterbury Tales: Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue. 2nd
Edition. Kolve, V.A. and Glending Olson, eds. (Norton, 2005).

2) The Yale Companion to Chaucer. Seth Lerer, ed. (Yale University
Press, 2007).

Engl 324 explores some of Shakespeare's later plays, including the four "great" tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth) and two of his late romances (The Winter's Tale, The Tempest). We will be concerned with discovering how tragedy frees and traps, and how Shakespeare transcended form in his last dramatic visions.

Texts:
1) The Norton Shakespeare, Second edition, Stephen Greenblatt, et al.,
eds. (Norton, 2008)

2) The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, Second edition, by Russ
Mcdonald. (St. Martin's, 2001)

3) Shakespearean Tragedy, by A. C. Bradley. (Penguin, 1991)

The writers and literature of England from 1660 to 1750. We will be reading plays, prose, and poetry, chosen to illustrate the variety as well as the creative force of the written word in this period, bringing to life (for example) the urban horrors of Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, the aristocratic dreamworld of Pope’s Rape of the Lock, the cheerful crooks and whores of The Beggar’s Opera, or the big people and little people of Gulliver’s Travels. Major authors covered include Dryden, Congreve, Defoe, Swift, Pope, Gay, and Fielding, with emphasis on careful reading for understanding and enjoyment of this literature in its social and cultural context. Two papers with revision, weekly one-page reading responses, mid-term, final. Workload toward the high end of the scale

This course will serve as a general introduction to Romanticism in British literature between 1765 and 1830. It will focus on two particular literary responses to the Enlightenment: the emergence of Gothic fiction and the Romantic cult of Nature. Please expect to read four novels as well as healthy amounts of poetry and nonfiction prose.

This class is a study of modern-fiction landmarks, with special emphasis on artistic method and the transformation of the novel as a genre. Topics include: modernity and the quest for meaning; the crisis of public and private values; authority and point of view; irony and ambiguity; modes of consciousness; temporal and spatial structures; self-reflexive language and stylistic experiment. Texts and Editions (in alphabetical order): Conrad, The Secret Agent (Oxford World’s Classics); Flaubert, Sentimental Education (Oxford World’s Classics); Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Signet); Kafka, The Trial (Schocken); Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover Thrift); Woolf, Jacob’s Room (Harcourt Annotated ppb). You can use other editions but you’ll have to you read the critical materials (essays, letters, prefaces, introductions, etc.) printed in the editions listed above (copies of them will be placed on reserve). The course has a serious load: we’ll read six medium-length novels all of which require heightened attention to detail and much reflection. Requirements and Grading: final = 40% of your grade; mid-term = 30%; short assignments (one on each novel), attendance and participation contribute the remaining 30%.

All students must read Sentimental Education before the first meeting.

This course examines the work of female directors from around the globe. We will begin with silent-era director Alice Guy Blachè and culminate our study with films from the 2010 Seattle International Film Festival. An exploration of women directors’ work not only allows us to analyze cinematic narrative and style, but also provides a unique perspective on film history. Moreover, course films raise questions about the relationship between an individual filmmaker’s work and larger cinematic traditions or cultural contexts. Throughout the term, we will address the following questions:

o What, if anything, distinguishes the work of women directors?
o How does an investigation of women directors change our conception of film history?
o How does feminist film criticism help us to interpret films made by women? What challenges do particular directors pose to critics?
o How do historical, cultural, and industrial factors shape the work of women directors?
o How do films made by women engage local ideologies of gender, race, class, and sexuality?

The first part of the course investigates how women directors rework “the woman’s film." The second focuses on cinematic portrayals of politics, history, and war, and the third examines films that explore identity in the postmodern era.

Books

Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction (9th edition)
Course packet available via Professional Copy 'N Print, 4200 University Way Northeast

This is a survey class reviewing responses to modernity in American literature between World Wars I and II. We’ll read selected novels and short stories, focusing on experiments in form and the development of new cultural identities by American writers as they negotiate the ambivalent (disruptive and liberating) impact of modernity and the disappearing traditions of the past. The use of the plural (modernisms and traditions) is crucial: the course will juxtapose canonical modernisms (for example, that of the post-war expatriate “lost generation”) to alternative modernisms emerging in the work of women and non-white authors. Throughout the quarter, we will ponder two major questions raised and answered in varying ways by each author: 1) What is modern fiction? Responses are formal experiments that generally (but not always) lead modernist fiction away from verisimilitude and 19th-century concern with socio-cultural content and towards a high self-consciousness about form: a focus on the medium of writing, the materiality of texts, narrative technique and constructedness of the language. 2) What constitutes modern American identity? Modernist narrative responds to the crisis of cultural authority and the breakdown of traditional society. Here, we will find that we can only speak of modern identities in the plural and trace alternative ways that modernity is articulated in different regional and ethnic cultures in the U.S. For example, Euro-modernists Hemingway, Cather, and Faulkner, who in varying ways are troubled by the social rise of “ethnic” newcomers and immigrants, often promoting exclusions on the basis of race, are partly at cross-purposes with writers of African American and Mexican American descent, whose “American” homelands immigrant Euro-Americans “inherited” by appropriation. Facing centuries-old legacies of slavery, conquest and colonization brought to completion by Euro-American modernity, some writers of color (such as Américo Paredes) testify to displacement and loss, with no apparent solution or hope for future renewal, while others (Hurston) embrace the promise of modern rearticulations of tradition.

What does the structure of narratives tell us about the way human beings experience time and space? How do writers, painters, and film-makers work with time and space to create visual and textual narratives? Do they readily adopt models prevalent in their culture, or do they create their own representation of these categories, and thus challenge culturally established paradigms? Could we talk of politics of space and time in fictional narratives? How does the medium at the creator’s disposal – words for writers and images for painters and film-makers – influence the temporal and spatial order in visual and literary texts? How does the representation of time and space in artistic works mold the temporal and spatial experience of readers or viewers? How do narratives direct the attention on the one hand, to that which is fundamentally human in the way we perceive and handle time and space, and on the other, to that which is culturally specific and determined?

The purpose of this class is twofold. On the one hand, we will closely acquaint ourselves with existing critical approaches to narrative time and space. On the other hand, we will direct our efforts to coming up with new ways of viewing temporality and spatiality in fictional narratives. We will discuss examples of literary, cinematic, and painterly narratives that were created in different time periods and cultures ranging from antiquity to the present, and West to East. Theoretical texts written by literary critics, art historians and film theoreticians of different cultural backgrounds will provide us with a number of terms that help describe the organization of time and space in artistic works. We will talk about the ways in which concepts such as point of view or perspective, embedding, focalization and voice are useful in unraveling the temporal and spatial order of narrative works, and the ways in which these theoretical concepts fail to capture the complexity of the concrete artistic works at hand.

Narratives composed of multiple story lines on different levels – chain narratives and framed narratives -- are especially apt at providing answers to these questions. Criticism has discussed the representation of space in these types of narratives in terms of two major categories. Space is considered to be the background or setting in which the actions of characters occur. It is also defined by the various contexts within which different stories are told or visually represented to an audience. The time line in chain and frame narratives has been generally defined as the scheme, which orders the different stories according to criteria of before or after. In this class we will seek for new ways to define narrative space and time.

Course readings include the following primary texts: Old Testament: Exodus 3, Franz Kafka “A Country Doctor,” Dante “Inferno” from The Divine Comedy, Mary Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, Joseph Conrad Lord Jim, G. E. Lessing Nathan the Wise, and Thornton Wilder The Cabala. In addition, there is a course reader with theoretical texts by Northrop Frye, W J. T. Mitchell, Wolfgang Kemp, G. E. Lessing, Nelson Goodman, Paul Ricoeur, J. Hillis Miller and Benjamin Seymour.

Class assignments include weekly response papers, a mid-term and course portfolio.

This course investigates the language and culture of the Middle English period in England (1100-1500). We will examine Middle English texts with an eye to the cultural importance of written material and the shifting roles of literacy in early England. We will consider different kinds of texts: letters, instruction manuals, poems, saints' lives, court documents, scientific treatises, and religious or mystical writings. In our readings, we will encounter the differing relationships of English speakers to their language: the ways that French, English and Latin coexisted in this period, the ways that regional dialects of English divided up the linguistic landscape, the use of literacy as a means for ecclesiastical authority, the importance of gender for the use and change of English, the function of written texts prior to the advent of print culture.

Along the way, we will learn to read Middle English, and experience the excitement and challenges of early language. Although Middle English manuscripts appear very foreign at first, we find that early speakers of English had many of the same goals for their language use that we do: conducting business, expressing love, creating meaning, telling stories, teaching their children, insulting their neighbors. This class explores these purposes for language, finding the shared ground of English users over the centuries while analyzing our differences. No background in linguistics or medieval literature is required.

This advanced expository course seeks to understand and to mediate the current “post-racial” moment by developing strategies for racial literacy. This course builds from Lani Guinier’s (2004) challenge to “rethink race as an instrument of social, geographic, and economic control of both whites and blacks” by constructing a racial literacy that “offers a more dynamic framework for understanding American racism.” To do so, we will explore a range of methods for understanding, analyzing, and critiquing conceptions of post-racial America. We will develop a particular methodology for racial literacy by adapting tools from critical language study, critical race theory and critical community engagement. Through a variety of writing exercises that combine narration, argumentation, reflection and analysis, we will explore ways of constructing powerful counter-hegemonic critiques that demand that the “we” in public spaces be fundamentally restructured.

Catalog Description: Intensive study of various aspects of the craft verse. Readings in contemporary verse and writing using emulation and imitation.

Prerequisites:

ENGL 283 & ENGL 284

Catalog Description: Intensive study of various aspects of the craft of fiction or creative nonfiction. Readings in contemporary prose and writing using emulation and imitation.

Prerequisites:

ENGL 283 & ENGL 284

Queer Studies and the Cultures of Neoliberalism: This course will explore the relationship between queer sexualities and neoliberal political economy. Organized as a capstone seminar, this course is designed for students who have some familiarity with queer critical methodologies, and who are looking to continue to elaborate their critical interests in queer cultural and political life. Topics will include: racialization, citizenship, migration and diaspora, HIV/AIDS, transgender critique, globalization, multiculturalism, affect and feeling, medicalization, finance and risk, war and terror, and marriage.

While I am still finalizing the syllabus, required texts will likely include novels by Han Ong, Sapphire, and Rabih Alameddine, films by Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki, Foucault's History of Sexuality, and a sizable course packet on e-reserves.

Student grades will be based on participation, several short summaries of the critical material, and a final 8-10 page paper.

This seminar is a comprehensive introduction to James Joyce’s Ulysses as the summit of literary modernism. To dispel fear of Ulysses, we’ll read the book one episode at a time, tracking the progressive weaving and unweaving of sense. Discussions will address the book’s Irish and European contexts and extensions, and Joyce's exuberant transvaluations of all novelistic values (narrative devices, generic conventions, topics, perspectives, styles and humors). A portion of each meeting will be devoted to music in Ulysses. Desiderata: inklings of Joyce's earlier work, intimacy with Homer’s Odyssey, interest in sly uses of language. Text: Ulysses: The Corrected Text, ed. by Hans Walter Gabler, (available at UW Bookstore and elsewhere). Requirements: weekly tasks/quizzes and a final or an ongoing project involving independent research. Please note: Ulysses is a delightful but very demanding book: some preparation is highly recommended (contact instructor in person: A415 Padelford, W 11-12 or by appt.).

Our subject is the double meaning (and various shadings) of the subtitle. There is a long tradition in which the theater, distrusting its power of illusion, has been more or less conscious of its reality as theater, and makes a point of it in performance, refusing to be thought of as mere appearance, or misleadingly confused with life. Or as Bertolt Brecht once said, “theatering it all down.” At the same time there has been an emphasis on the idea of the self in the center of the stage, though that gets mixed up with the role of the actor. These tendencies, not mutually exclusive, have become so obsessive and sophisticated in certain advanced forms of theater, that one is likely to find no stage at all in the conventional sense, and sometimes even, no dramatic text. What remains instead is only theater, and instead of a character, only the self or fictions of the self; or in the breaking down and dispersion of the fictions, the appearance in the actor of the absence of a self. Or as in recent theory, from “deconstruction” to “queer,” the notion of a self as, ideologically, an aberration of history.

We shall discuss these unnerving (or awakening?) issues, while reading, and conceptually staging—in the mind’s eye—a spectrum of modernist and contemporary texts, from Pirandello and Brecht through Beckett and Genet to Suzan Lori-Parks and Sarah Kane.

Catalog Description: Intensive verse workshop. Emphasis on the production and discussion of student poetry.

Prerequisites:

ENGL 383, 384

An intense workshop for the most committed fiction writers planning a lifetime of work in the field. The focus is on the planning and composition of a novel or novella -- no genre fiction. High expectations for both the quality of the manuscripts and a willingness to assist other writers with their work.

Prerequisites:

ENGL 383, 384

Students will read and analyze screenplays and films, write film treatments and story synopses, create storyboards, and adapt existing short stories to screenplays.

Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student and instructor. This class will focus on completing research begun in Rome on Roman art, culture, and history. This class is restricted to students enrolled in the OMA/D Rome study abroad class.

The Major Conference for Honors in Creative Writing requires students to produce an "Honors Portfolio." If you are working directly with me, the expectation is that you are concentrating in the genre of poetry, and therefore a collection of poetry will constitute the honors portfolio. The length of the project and the nature of the work will be determined jointly by the student and myself. The portfolio should be the culmination of a student’s best work that represents a clearly conceived and well integrated whole (either a single, well developed work, or a coherent group of texts that make a collection). It should aspire to the level of creative work expected of graduate students in M.F.A. programs in creative writing. To achieve that level of accomplishment, the portfolio should have the following characteristics:
• A clear aesthetic vision that makes the piece purposeful and resonant.
• Use of language and images that is precise, fresh, and evocative.
• A consistent and well developed voice that gives the piece originality and authority.
• An awareness of literary tradition and contemporary art that is reflected in a thoughtful positioning within and against what has already been written.
• A masterful use image, symbol, meter, rhyme, lineation, etc.
• A clear concern with matters of craft that reflects a sense of an audience

This writing and research intensive seminar will walk you through the process of producing your honors thesis. During the course of quarter you will produce a thesis abstract, annotated bibliography, thesis outline, and a series of drafts of various lengths. These writings will be read by, commented on, discussed, and peer reviewed by your colleagues and, at various points during the quarter, by me. You will also be asked to come in for several individual conferences with me as the quarter and your thesis progresses. Emphasis of the seminar will be placed on acquisition of scholarly research skills, development of your writing skills, and acquisition of the fine art of effective, generous, and at once critical peer review of your colleague’s written work—not to mention handing in a great thesis with which you are satisfied!

Catalog Description: Individual study (reading, papers) by arrangement with the instructor. Required of, and limited to, honors seniors in English.

English 498/Education 401C will be taught by English faculty member and Community Literacy Program Director Elizabeth Simmons-O’Neill in collaboration with College of Education Language Arts faculty member Karen Mikolasy. This linked pair of courses offers an opportunity for English Majors considering careers in education to gain crucial school-based experience, serves as a bridge between undergraduate and Teacher Education Program language arts curriculum, and gives UW students an opportunity to give back to the community as you complete your undergraduate degree.

In English 498 students will meet twice weekly on campus (MW 10:30-12:20) in a writing-intensive seminar focused on learning effective methods of working with public school students in language arts, exploring some central challenges and opportunities for public education including ethnic and linguistic diversity, and using writing to inquire into, develop and communicate your thinking about these issues. In EDUC 401, you will put what you learn on campus into action, volunteering (4-5 hours a week, on a schedule you arrange) in one of our partner public schools: Olympic Hills Elementary, Garfield High School or Shorecrest High School.

This senior capstone opportunity is offered in partnership with the Phoenix Project, a new initiative including the UW English Department, the UW College of Education, and Shoreline and Seattle Public Schools. The Phoenix Project is designed both to prepare future language arts teachers and to support K-12 language arts students.

Required texts: Coursepack; Diana Hacker A Pocket Style Manual, 5th edition (or another style and citation manual)