majoring/minoring in english
undergraduate programs
admission to the major
the english minor
major/degree requirements
course descriptions
advising
staying connected
opportunities
study abroad
fall in friday harbor
english honors
phi beta kappa
sigma tau delta
annual dean's list
bricolage
scholarships and prizes
undergraduate research
internships
life after college
career information
graduate school preparation
for prospective teachers
publishing
resources & information
english studies librarian
diversity info
graduation
alumni
student groups and publications
frequently asked questions
prospective UW students
contact us
(Last updated: 9 June 2000)
The following course descriptions have been written by individual instructors to provide more detailed information on specific sections than that found in the General Catalog. When individual descriptions are not available, the General Catalog descriptions [in brackets] are used.
ESL Requirement for Non-Matriculated
Students
Students not previously admitted to the University of Washington (nonmatriculated
status) may enroll in ENGL 111, 121, 131, 281, 381, 471, or 481 only if
they have met the following ESL requirements: a score of at least 580 on
the TOEFL or one of these equivalent scores: 90 on the MTELP, 410 on the
SAT-Verbal, 490 on the SAT-Verbal (recentered), or 20 on the ACT English.
For more information, consult an English adviser in A-2-B Padelford, (206)
543-2634, engladv@u.washington.edu.
104 (Introductory Composition)
M-Th 12:00
[Development of writing skills: sentence strategies and paragraph structures.
Expository, critical, and persuasive essay techniques based on analysis
of selected readings. For Educational Opportunity Program students
only, upon recommendation by the Office of Minority Affairs.]
111 (Composition: Literature)
2 sections: M-Th 9:40; M-Th 12:00
[Study and practice of good writing: topics derived from reading and discussing
stories, poems, essays, and plays.] Students not previously enrolled at the
University of Washington (non-matriculated status) may sign up for this course
if they meet the posted ESL requirements.
121 (Composition: Social Issues)
M-Th 10:50
[Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from reading and discussing
essays and fiction about current social and moral issues.] Students not previously
enrolled at the University of Washington (non-matriculated status) may sign
up for this course if they meet the posted ESL requirements.
131 (Composition: Exposition)
5 sections: M-Th 8:30; M-Th 10:00-12:10; M-Th 10:50; M-Th 12:00
[Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from a variety of personal,
academic, and public subjects.] Students not previously enrolled at the University
of Washington (non-matriculated status) may sign up for this course if they
meet the posted ESL requirements.
200 A (Reading Literature)
Dy 8:30
Oldham
(W)
Language and “Reality.” Virtually all literature, even the
most aggressively unrealistic, makes some sort of gesture toward the “real”
world, if only because it’s made of language and language is so bound up
with our need to communicate about things outside ourselves. At the
same time, any literature worth reading is so partly because it’s got properties
that have nothing to do with “reality.” Again, this is because it’s made
of language: language can do stuff that reality can’t, and playing with those
effects is a big part of what makes reading fun. In this class we’ll
read works with various takes on “reality,” on language, and on the relationship(s)
between the two, and consider what makes them interesting. In the process
we’ll explore some basic concepts in literary analysis that will stand
you
in good stead in the future. Requirements: Three short (4-5 page)
papers, in-class participation (including leading discussion); possibly short
written homework. Texts: Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court; Ellison, Invisible Man; photocopied course packet.
200 B (Reading Literature)
Dy 9:40
Aanerud
(W)
Techniques and practice in reading and enjoying literature. Examines
some of the best works in English and American literature and considers
such features of literary meaning as imagery, characterization, narration,
and patterning in sound and sense. Emphasis on literature as a source
of pleasure and knowledge about human experience. Texts: Ann Charters,
The Story and Its Writer; Jen Gish, Mona in the Promised Land;
Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing; Tim O’Brien, The Things They
Carried; Alice Walker, Meridian.
200 C (Reading Literature)
Dy 10:50
Oldham
(W)
Language and “Reality.” Virtually all literature, even the
most aggressively unrealistic, makes some sort of gesture toward the “real”
world, if only because it’s made of language and language is so bound up
with our need to communicate about things outside ourselves. At the
same time, any literature worth reading is so partly because it’s got properties
that have nothing to do with “reality.” Again, this is because it’s made
of language: language can do stuff that reality can’t, and playing with those
effects is a big part of what makes reading fun. In this class we’ll
read works with various takes on “reality,” on language, and on the relationship(s)
between the two, and consider what makes them interesting. In the process
we’ll explore some basic concepts in literary analysis that will stand
you in good stead in the future. Requirements: Three short (4-5
page) papers, in-class participation (including leading discussion); possibly
short
written homework. Texts: Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court; Ellison, Invisible Man; photocopied course packet.
200 D (Reading Literature)
Dy 12:00
Kvidera
(W)
This course is an introduction to reading and writing about literature for
students of all disciplines. We will examine a variety of literary
texts – poetry, short stories, and a novel – and discuss the conventions
of both literary form and literary interpretation. Our focus throughout
will be on understanding the figurative nature of language and the importance
of form and structure in literary work. We will aim for developing
stronger critical reading and writing skills in order to get greater enjoyment
out of reading, analyzing, and discussing literature. Texts:
Lauter, ed., The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2 (3rd
ed.); Morrison, Beloved.
211 A (Medieval and Renaissance Literature)
TTh 12:00-2:10
Streitberger
Introduction to literature from a broadly cultural point of view, focusing
on major works that have shaped the development of literary and intellectual
traditions from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Text:
Abrams, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of English Literature,
Vol. 1.
212 A (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
Dy 10:50
Bredesen
In this introductory course we’ll read literature written during the Enlightenment
and the early years of the Romantic period, an historical interval marked
by revolutions – political, industrial, intellectual, and aesthetic.
Our writers took on “big” questions regarding human nature, God, the role
of government, the ideal society, the natural world, the structure of the
mind and the roles of imagination, reason, and emotion – and answered them
in ways that have conditioned our own late 20th-century sensibilities.
We’ll pay careful attention to the sound and sense of particular passages,
but we’ll also read these against the historical background as gathered from
lectures, secondary sources, and individual research. Course requirements
include regular participation, midterm, final exam, final paper, and a variety
of class activities which may include quizzes, response papers, group presentations,
and poetry recitation. Texts: Austen, Sense and Sensibility;
Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Coleridge, The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner and Other Poems; Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion; Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia;
Pope, Essay On Man; Voltaire, Candide; Wollstonecraft, A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wordsworth, William Wordsworth:
Favorite Poems.
213aA (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
Cummings
(A-term)
Twentieth-century American dreams and nightmares are the subject of this
course: short stories, novels, poetry, film, and political speeches are
the
texts. Three basic questions will guide our reading of each dream work:
(1) What is the vision and how is it expressed? (2) Under what
socio-historical conditions is the dream produced and how might they shape
its composition? (3) What are the dream work’s real life consequences
and for whom? Texts: Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God;
Kerouac, On the Road; Butler, Dawn; photocopied course packet
225 A (Shakespeare)
Dy 12:00
Lester
(W)
In the recently published Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human,
Harold Bloom proposes that Shakespeare's plays should not be regarded as
imitations of life so much as inventions of it. "Personality, in our
sense," Bloom contends, "is a Shakespearean invention, and is not only Shakespeare's
greatest originality but also the authentic cause of his perpetual pervasiveness."
Such a bold assertion attests to the continued vitality and relevance of Shakespeare.
In this course, a survey of Shakespeare's career as a dramatist, we will
examine this claim through the study of representative comedies, histories,
romances and tragedies. Special attention will be given to story, theme
and language, in addition to character; and a variety of critical perspectives
from which the plays may be approached will be explored. Texts:
Greenblatt, ed., The Norton Shakespeare; Plautus, The Menaechmus
Twins and Two Other Plays; McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare.
228 A (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
MW 12:00-2:10
A. Fisher
Survey of texts that illustrate English literary and intellectual culture,
beginning with Chaucer in the late 14th century, and ending with Shakespeare,
early in the 17th. Classes will focus on the ideas behind the stories, as
well as on the stories themselves—what sense they made to people at
the time, and what their logic was, their sheer difference from the
ideas we take for granted now. Since the class begins in the medieval period,
some of the texts will be in Middle English; nobody is expected to know Middle
English coming into the course, but everyone is expected to have a serious
go at it. Written work consists of translation quizzes, two midterms,
and a final examination. Text: Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Vol. 1 (7th ed.).
229bA (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
van den Berg
(B-term)
--cancelled 5/1--
230aA (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Finnigan-Wilson
(A-term)
[British literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Study of
literature in its cultural context, with attention to changes in form, content,
and style.] Texts: Gaskell, Manchester Life; Kipling, Gunga
Din and Other Favorites; Shaw, Pygmalion; Ward, ed., World
War I British Poets; Woolf, A Room of One's Own.
242 A (Reading Fiction)
Dy 8:30
Somerson
(W)
This class will focus on the intersections of identity, memory, and history
in works by contemporary North American authors. We will be considering
how these narratives evoke memory in relation to the formation of various
aspects of identity (including race, gender, sexuality and class) within the
larger realm of national identity. We will also investigate how national
and international histories (including slavery, colonialism, and World War
II) are represented via personal relationships in these narratives. Texts:
Joy Kogawa, Obasan; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Michael Ondaatje,
The English Patient; Nora Okja Keller, Comfort Woman; Jim Grimsley,
My Drowning; Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres.
242 B (Reading Fiction)
Dy 9:40
Keeling
(W)
“The word ‘civilization,’” Freud declares in Civilization and Its discontents,
“describes the whole sum of the achievements and the regulations which distinguish
our lives from those of our animal ancestors and which serve two purposes—namely
to protect men against nature and to adjust their mutual relations.”
Later, he insists that “the meaning of the evolution of civilization is no
longer obscure to us. It must present the struggle between Eros and
Death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction, as it
works itself out in the human species. This struggle is what all life
essentially consists of, and the evolution of civilization may therefore be
simply described as the struggle for life of the human species.” Freud’s
emphasis on the “civilizing” process being a struggle provides an intriguing
link between Freud and many of the American and British writers who, in the
early years of the Twentieth Century, like him, began to reflect upon and
critique the cultural changes resulting from industrialization, technology,
and the shifting notions of (personal) identities. Just as we ourselves
embark into a new century, in this course we will explore the diverse ways
that authors at the turn of the previous century experienced their new social
world. Some will experience civilization in terms only of spiritual
emptiness. Others will approach civilization as a process with very
physical and tangible implications for self-expression and subjectivity.
Texts: James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room; Nella Larsen, Passing;
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men; Willa Cather, O Pioneers!;
Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust; Sigmund Freud, Civilization
and Its Discontents; H.D., Kora and Ka; Bid Me to Live: A Madrigal.
242 C (Reading Fiction)
Dy 10:50
G. Dean
(W)
This course is designed to help you develop and refine your analytical reading
and writing abilities. Our focus will be on fiction with a peculiar
and insistent interest in vision, visual artists and people we might call
"visionaries." How do writers of fiction imagine and recreate the visual
world in writing? What happens when the experience of sight is translated
into and transformed by the written word? As we examine these and other
questions, you will need to be observant about what you see and read--and
then put your observations into writing. Thus the subject of the course
also serves as an analogue for the reading and writing practices we will undertake. Course
requirements include a reading journal, response papers, and a longer final
essay. Texts: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the
Seven Gables; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Steven Millhauser,
Edwin Mullhouse; photocopied course packet.
250aA (Introduction to American Literature)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Patterson
(A-term) u
In this course we will consider four important issues in American literature:
captivity, passing, work, and authorhsip. We will be reading texts
that complicate our understanding of what it means to be an American and
what it means to be an author. This course is not a survey of American
literature, but rather an introduction to the issues, problems, and questions
raised by some of its texts. We will be reading and discussing the
works intensively, and requirements will include weekly in-class writing
assignments and a final essay. Texts: Susanna Rowson, Charlotte
Temple; Art Spiegelman, Maus, Vol. I: My Father Bleeds History;
James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man; F. Scott
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the
Iron Mills.
250bB (Introduction to American Literature)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
George
(B-term)
Telling Stories of 20th-Century America. This subtitle defines the
main objective of this course: to introduce you to many fictional perspectives
of 20th-century American life that stem from biographical, historical, and/or
cultural fact In 4-1/2 weeks we will read and analyze a variety of fictions
written during the 20th century. We will acquaint ourselves with facts
of biography, history, and culture that form the contextual core of various
authors’ imaginative expressions of what matters in American experience.
Course requirements include thoughtful and regular attendance, oral and written
discussion and analysis, short (paragraph and page) weekly writing, and some
online research. Texts: Lauter, The Heath Anthology
of American Literature, 3rd ed.; highly recommended: Harmon & Holman, A Handbook to Literature;
Lunsford & Connors, The Everyday
Writer.
281aA (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th 8:30-10:00
Simmons-O’Neill
(A-term)
Family. This course asks students to write about the course
theme, “family,” from the perspectives of both personal narrative and social
history. In addition to developing your ability to create a compelling
personal narrative, you will become familiar with primary and secondary sources
and research methods used in the stud of history, and will construct a historical
analysis of a specific person, event or issue from your own family’s past.
Grades will be based primarily (75%) on a final portfolio due at the last
class meeting. Because this course is designed on a collaborative workshop
model, class attendance, participation, and timely completion of daily assignments
are crucial to your success in the class, and to your final grade. Texts:
Fulwiler, The College Writer’s Reference, 2nd. ed.; photocopied course
packet.
281bB (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th 8:30-10:00
Simpson
(B-term)
The Suburbs. This course is designed to challenge students to develop
and refine their own writing by reading and analyzing the writings of published
authors and their classmates. Our focus will be the concept of the post-World
War II U.S. suburbs, a phenomenon that has both shaped and reflected contemporary
American society. We will read historical analyses of the rise and
development of the suburbs, as well as journalistic reports, personal esays
and a final novel. Students will be expected to attend class every
day, keep a journal, write three papers, and complete one rewrite. Texts:
Jackson, The Crabgrass Frontier; Oates, Expensive People; photocopied
course packet.
281aC
(Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th 9:40-11:10
Emmons
(A-term)
ENGL 281 is an intermediate expository writing course – students will be
expected to have mastered the mechanics of academic writing prior to enrolling
in this course. This section, “Negotiating Genres,” will focus on a
variety of situations that require our written response(s). Students
will become more aware of the circumstances and requirements encoded in various
writing tasks. They will be asked to view writing as a social activity,
as an interaction with and among particular communities. In return,
students will gain both a mastery of technical writing skills and an understanding
of the implications of writing in particular contexts. Text: photocopied
course packet.
281 D (Intermediate Expository Writing)
TTh 12:00-1:30
Cole
(Full-term)
This course engages writing on the margins of the acceptable, the appropriate,
and the socially-approved. The writer whose identity challenges preconceptions
about who should write and the narrative that transgresses conventional
literary boundaries are our concerns. Although the course will begin
with Virginia Woolf and others who faced exclusion in the past, most of the
readings will be relatively contemporary. Lesbian and gay writing will
take up a substantial part of the course. Texts questioning the distinction
between fiction and non-fiction, alongside the frontiers of personal identity,
will serve as topics for critical writing; in addition, students will compose
more open-ended essays. Indeed, students will write a lot.
Texts: Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza;
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name; Rubén Martinéz, The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City, and Beyond; David
Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Distintegration; Virginia
Woolf, A Room of One’s Own; photocopied course packet.
283 A
(Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 8:30-10:00
Pecqueur
Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Text: photocopied
course packet.
284 A (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 8:30-10:00
Nestor
In this course we will explore some of the ways that elements such as character,
narrator, scene, plot, dialogue, and imagery may be employed within a piece
of fiction. The focus of the class will be on shorter length assignments,
but the overall product from the quarter will be a fair chunk of writing.
This class will also be an opportunity for you to learn how to read others’ writing
with a critical eye and to give feedback that is hopeful, helpful, and honest. Text: Kercheval, Building Fiction.
284 B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 10:50-12:20
Gottlieb
[Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story.]
284 C (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 9:40-11:10
Shields
Reading, rereading, writing, rewriting short stories, with particular emphasis
on the short-short story. Text: Photocopied course packet.
310 A (The Bible as Literature)
Dy 8:30
J. Griffith
A rapid study of readings taken from both the Old and New Testaments, focusing
mainly on those parts of the Bible with the most “literary” interest—narratives,
poems and philosophy. Students will be expected to attend class regularly,
keep up with reading assignments, and take part in open discussion. Written
work will consist entirely of a series of in-class essays, done in response
to study questions handed out in advance. Text: Metzger & Murphy,
eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
(Revised Standard Version).
315 YA (Literary Modernism)
TTh 6:00-8:10 pm
Staten
The period of “modernism” in literature centers on the period from about
1910 to about 1930. The term refers primarily to certain innovative
types of writing that were done at this time, in particular – in an English-speaking
context, at least – the work of T. S. Eliot and James Joyce. The movement
was Europe-wide, however, and in this course we will sample a variety of prose
and poetry from England, France, and Germany to get a sense of the range
of works called "modernist."” We will begin by looking at some poems by Baudelaire,
a 19th-century writer who is a precursor of modernism. We will then
work through poems by Eliot, Rilke, and Stevens, and prose works by Gide,
Woolf, and Kafka. We will also read some literary criticism by way
of trying to define what “modernism” means. Meets w. C LIT
396 YA.
(Evening Degree students only, Registration Period 1.) Texts:
T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems; Djuna Barnes, Nightwood; Virginia
Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis; Andre
Gide, The Counterfeiters.
321aA (Chaucer)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Simmons-O’Neill
(A-term)
This course is designed as an introductory but intensive study of selected
Canterbury Tales in Middle English, of current critical responses to Chaucer’s
work, and of students’ developing interests with regard to these texts and
issues. Class activities will include oral performance, translation
exams, short answer and essay midterm and final, and a research project. Texts: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General
Prologue; The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale; The Wife of Bath’s Tale (audiotape).
322 YA (English Literature: The Age of Queen Elizabeth)
MW 6:00-8:10 pm
Webster
A tour of love, sex, and death in the sixteenth century--lots of Spenser’s
knights and dragons, lots of plays by Shakespeare’s friends, and love
poetry to conjure by. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Period 1.)
Texts: More, Utopia; Spenser, The Faerie Queene;
Shakespeare, Sonnets; Rice & Grafton, Foundations of Early
Modern Europe; Arthur Kinney, ed., Renaissance Drama: An Anthology
of Plays and Entertainments..
323aA (Shakespeare: to 1603)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Coldewey
(A-term)
[Shakespeare’s career as dramatist before 1603 (including Hamlet). Study
of history plays, comedies, and tragedies.] Texts: Stephen
Greenblatt, ed., The Norton Shakespeare; E. M. W. Tillyard, The
Elizabethan World Picture; optional: Russ McDonald, The Bedford
Companion to Shakespeare.
324 A (Shakespeare: after 1603)
TTh 9:40-11:50
Dunlop
Three plays by a Shakespeare who has become not only a seasoned and versatile
playwright but also adept at making the resources of poetic language serve
dramatic functions. Therefore, a lot of close reading, and as much performance
as we can manage. Students may choose between writing papers or taking
a final examination. Texts: Shakespeare, Measure for Measure;
King Lear; The Winter’s Tale.
325 YA (English Literature: The Late Renaissance)
MW 6:00-8:10 pm
Fisher
Poetry and drama in the earlier seventeenth century: poems by John Donne,
Ben Jonson, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell, plays by Ben Jonson and John
Webster. Classes will emphasize close reading of both the poetry and
the plays—and close reading will be much assisted by a willingness to engage
unfamiliar ideas and by a lively historical imagination. Written work
consists of weekly exercise papers, which count as a set but are not graded
singly, two midterm examinations, and a final examination. Texts:
Jonson, The Alchemist and Other Plays; Webster, The Duchess of
Malfi; photocopied course packet.
326bA (Milton)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
van den Berg
(B-term)
--cancelled 5/1--
329 A (Rise of the English Novel)
Dy 10:50
Stearns
In this course we will consider the development of the novel both as a means
to represent realism and as a response to that aesthetic and cultural impulse.
What do its eighteenth-century practitioners or detractors mean by realism?
What functions does realism serve in the novel and for novelists of the eighteenth
century? How do certain kinds of novels, like Tristram Shandy or gothic
novels, react to the realist tradition? This course will require significant
amounts of reading, your participation in class discussions, and some written
work, including short essays and exams. Texts: Henry Fielding,
Tom Jones; Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders; Samuel Richardson, Pamela;
Frances Burney, Cecilia; Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy;
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.
333aA (English Novel: Early & Middle 19th Century)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
Alexander
(A-term)
Six novels, three from the Romantic period, three from the Victorian, will
be studied. Attention will be given to the way that novelists convey
ideas, and to the relation between form and content in these books. Texts:
Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; Shelley, Frankenstein;
C. Brontë, Jane Eyre; E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights;
Dickens, Oliver Twist.
334 A (English Novel: Later 19th Century)
MW 9:40-11:50
Dunlop
One short (and good) novel that asks for careful reading; three (though
you can elect to concentrate on any two of Eliot/Trollope/Hardy) great big
novels that also ask for careful reading. This means that basic requirements
are (a) you like to read, (b) have the time and stamina to read a good deal,
(c) are interested in reading well. You can choose between writing papers
(minimum three) OR taking a midterm-and-final; other options possible.
Texts: Stevenson, Kidnapped; George Eliot, Middlemarch;
Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?; Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge.
337bA (The Modern Novel)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
George
(B-term)
Black, White, and Colored: ”Pleasantville,” the Modernist Experience. This
multi-media, intensive course (4-1/2 weeks) will focus on defining literary
and cultural Modernism through the critical study of the film Pleasantville,
particularly three novels alluded to in that film: D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s
Lover, J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a
Mockingbird. We will analyze the ways that these controversial texts
(each banned at one time or another since its publication) upset the status
quo, creating social anxiety and cultural crises. Course requirements
include regular attendance; active and thoughtful discussion (active face-to-face
and online discussion); online and offline research; short essays and presentations.
Texts: Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Salinger, Catcher
in the Rye; Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird; recommended: Harmon & Holman, A Handbook to Literature;
Lunsford & Connors, The
Everyday Writer.
345 A (Studies in Film)
M 12:00-3:20/W 1200-2:10
Gillis-Bridges
This class serves as a general introduction to film studies. The class
will investigate narrative and cinematic elements of classical Hollywood films
and films that challenge the classical Hollywood mode. The course includes
screenings, discussion, short lectures, and frequent written assignments.
Texts: David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction,
5th ed.; Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, 3rd
ed.
352 A (American Literature: The Early Nation)
Dy 10:50
J. Griffith
We’ll read and discuss an assortment of novels, stories, poems and essays
by American writers in the period preceding the Civil War. Students
will be expected to attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments,
and take part in open discussions. Written work will consist entirely
of a series of between five and ten brief in-class essays written in response
to study questions handed out in advance. Texts: Baym, et al.,
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1 (5th ed.); Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
353bA (American Literature: Later 19th Century)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
Moody
(B-term)
True Woman/New Woman. This course focuses on the transition
in the representation of American women in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, a transition marked by a shift from the figure of the “True Woman”
to that of the “New Woman.” We will read literature mostly by women,
and attend to the ways that American women’s lives are constructed and depicted
in the period between Reconstruction and the First World War. Selected
authors represent diverse American ethnic groups. Text: The Heath
Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2 (3rd ed.)
354 A (American Literature: The Early Nation)
Dy 9:40
Wacker
American literary modernism raised enduring questions about the possibilities
for securing order and meaning outside the transformations of industrial
capitalism, even as its literary formalist experiments were the product of
new technologies of travel, perception and communication. This course
will place great emphasis on modernist experiments in form that have altered
the practice and reception of all subsequent literary work, even work written
in opposition to the cultural politics of high modernism. However,
coming after modernism, we can also see in these early experiments a dance
between impulses to formal order and the provocation to formal innovation
presented by the boundary-dissolving rhythms of markets. We will explore
the possibility that the modernist enterprise can still renew our need to
both embrace and fend off the vicious and productive circularity of the culture
of late capitalism. Texts: Faulkner, Go Down, Moses;
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Wright, Native Son; Wharton,
Summer.
355 A (American Literature: Contemporary America)
Dy 8:30
Wacker
There is little consensus about the masterpieces of the contemporary period.
Below are some of the candidates. As we read them, we will focus on
the problems of fixing esthetic standards in the absence of stable literary
canons and of appreciating the specifically literary excellence of diverse
works. We will also trace the developing reception of each of these
works from initial reviews to recent scholarly criticism. In the process
we will examine changes in the status of the literary as a contemporary cultural
institution. Texts: Barthelme, The Dead Father; Bellow,
Seize the Day; Bishop, Collected Poems; Lowell, Life Studies;
Merrill, Braving the Elements; Nabokov, Lolita; Walcott, Omeros.
370 A (English Language Study)
MW 8:30-10:40
Dillon
This course is an introduction to the scientific study of language.
Drawing most of the examples from English, it surveys the major concepts
of phonetics/phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics
as they have been developed during the twentieth century. Written work
will include exercises from the text, quizzes, a mid-term and a final. Texts:
Pinker, The Language Instinct; Ohio State Univ., Language Files.
Note: In Winter 2001, ENGL 370 will be taught in conjunction with ENGL 373; concurrent enrollment in both ENGL 370 and 373 will be required. Students wishing to take ENGL 373 in Winter 2001should not take ENGL 370 in Summer or Autumn, but wait and sign up for both ENGL 370 and ENGL 373 in Winter.
381 A (Advanced Expository Writing)
MW 12:00-1:30
Cole
This course engages writing on the margins of the acceptable, the appropriate,
and the socially-approved. The writer whose identity challenges preconceptions
about who should write and the narrative that transgresses conventional
literary boundaries are our concerns. Although the course will begin
with Virginia Woolf and others who faced exclusion in the past, most of the
readings will be relatively contemporary. Lesbian and gay writing will
take up a substantial part of the course. Texts questioning the distinction
between fiction and non-fiction, alongside the frontiers of personal identity,
will serve as topics for critical writing; in addition, students will compose
more open-ended essays. Indeed, students will write a lot, and will
be expected to produce substantial critical writing as well as to explore
non-conventional writing styles. Texts: Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La
Frontera: The New Mestiza; Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My
Name; Rubén Martinéz, The Other Side: Notes from the
New L.A., Mexico City, and Beyond; David Wojnarowicz, Close to the
Knives: A Memoir of Distintegration; Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s
Own; photocopied course packet.
381bB (Advanced Expository Writing)
M-Th 9:40-11:10
Browning
(B-term)
[Concentration on the development of prose style for experienced writers.]
383 A (Intermediate Verse Writing)
TTh 10:50-12:20
Pecqueur
Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Further development
of fundamental skills. Emphasis on revision. Prerequisite:
ENGL 283. Text: photocopied course packet.
384 A (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
TTh 12:00-1:30
Shields
Reading, rereading, writing, rewriting short stories, with particular emphasis
on the short-short story. Prerequisite: ENGL 284. Text:
Photocopied course packet.
471aA (The Composition Process)
M-Th 10:50-1:10
Guerra
(A-term)
In this course, we will be talking about a number of the theoretical issues
and concerns that have emerged over the past thirty years in the field of
composition studies, focusing in particular on our ever-changing understanding
of the act of writing in terms of product, process, and post-process.
Along the way, we will find ways to test these theories through practical
activities in the classroom so that you can gain insights into what different
students experience when they are asked to write and what different teachers
and researchers think should go on when students are asked to write.
In the long run, the main goal of this course will be to expose you to a
range of theoretical ideas, curricular approaches, and pedagogical strategies
that various teachers, theorists, and researchers believe are likely to
lead to the successful teaching of writing. Your job will be to decide
how to position yourself within this constellation of possibilities. Text:
Joseph Harris, A Teaching Subject: Composition Since 1966.
485 U (Novel Writing)
Mon 5:00-8:00 pm
Bosworth
This is not a course for beginning fiction writers. Just as one should never
attempt a marathon before training at shorter distances, it is not wise to
attempt a novella or novel without some experience in short fiction. It is
presumed, then, that you are familiar with the fundamentals of fiction writing,
of dramatizing experience, and creating a "fictional moment." For although
we will pay attention to all dimensions of fiction, emphasis will be placed
on those problems which arise from length--how one orders a longer sequence
of events, how one manipulates a large cast of characters, how one retains
a sense of unity and identity within the diversity which characterizes most
novels. (Note: it is acceptable for this course, and in many cases advisable,
to undertake a long story or novella before attempting a full-length novel.)
Fiction writing is a serious way of knowing the world, and no time will be
squandered on analyzing the purely 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 or 484 or equivalent, and writing
sample. Add codes in Creative Writing office, B-25 Padelford, (206) 543-9865.
Text: Tolstoy, Death of Ivan Ilyich an dOther Stories.
491 A (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. Add codes, further information in Undergraduate Advising
office, A-2-B Padelford (206-543-2634).
492 A (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. Instructor codes, further information available in Undergraduate
Advising Office, A-2-B Padelford (206-543-2634).
493 A (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. Instructor codes, further information available in Creative
Writing office, B-25 Padelford (206-543-9865; open 1-5 daily).
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. Instructor codes, further information
available in English Advising Office, A-2B Padelford (206-543-2634).
497/8 A (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 8:30-10:40
Streitberger
(W)
Lear. The story of Lear comes from ancient Celtic legend. The
Welsh historian Geoffrey of Monmouth first adapted it as history in his Historia Regnum Britanniae (c.
1136). In Geoffrey’s version
Lear is an early king of Britain who rejected his virtuous youngest daughter
because she refused to proclaim her absolute love for him. Lear divided
the kingdom between his two wicked older daughters with disastrous results.
During the course of the nine centuries since Geoffrey, Lear’s story has
been adapted and reinterpreted in many different forms—poetry, history, drama,
and film. We’ll examine some of the more important adaptations and interpretations
of the story, beginning with its medieval origins and tracing it through
the Renaissance, Neoclassical, and Romantic periods, and up to our own time,
studying these versions for what they reveal about the imaginations of the
cultures that produced them. Sessions may include: (1) From legend to history,
poetry, and drama; (2) Shakespeare and the deaths of Cordelia and Lear; (3)
Nahum Tate and Neoclassical decorum; (4) Edmund Kean, Coleridge, Hazlitt
and the Romantics; (5) Bradley, Tolstoy, and the Realists; (6) The 20th century’s
Lear: from Freud to Elton; (7) Post-WWII film interpretations: Brook
and Kozintsev; (8) Contemporary adaptations on state and screen: Edard Bond,
Lear (1970); Ronald Harwood, The Dresser (1980); Akira Kurasawa, Ran (1985). Requirements:
library and internet research, seminar presentations, essays. 497: Honors Senior English majors only. Add codes in English Advising
office, A-2-B Padelford. 498: Senior English majors only. Texts:
Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear; Edward Bond, Lear;
Ronald Harwood, The Dresser.
497/8aB (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
Cummings
(W)
(A-term)
Techno-Bodies. The socio-historical setting for what I have
called “Techno-Bodies” is late twentieth-century America. Some attention
will also be paid to influential body technologies from earlier time periods.
The course title is intended to signal bodily typologies (e.g., scientific
classifications of persons according to race and sex) as well as bodily decorations,
modifications, and techniques whose particular expressions include: biomedical
detection and treatment of “disease,” body-building, dieting and exercise
regimes, cyborgs or interfaces between human and machine, “technologies” of
sex (e.g., sex therapy, how-to manuals, “pornography,”), cosmetic
surgery, gender reassignment, and repro-technologies (e.g., artificial insemination
and in vitro fertilization). 497: Honors Senior English majors only. Add
codes in English Advising office, A-2-B Padelford. 498: Senior English majors
only. Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Leslie Feinberg,
Stonebutch Blues; Octavia Butler, Dawn; Margaret Atwood, Handmaid’s
Tale; photocopied course packet.
497/8bC (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Simpson
(W)
(B-term)
The Cold War Novel. Readings of what are arguably among the
most influential and provocative novels published from the 1940s through
the 1960s. In some way each of the novels confronts the issues or debates
that defined Cold War politics and culture, including: anxieties produced
by the development of bomb culture; the growth of U.S. involvement in global
politics; the inequalities persisting in U.S. society; and the rise of postmodern
culture. Students will keep a journal, detailing their responses to
and questions about the readings; lead two class discussions; and complete
a final 10-16 page critical analysis. 497: Honors Senior English
majors only. Add codes in English Advising office, A-2-B Padelford. 498: Senior
English majors only. Texts: Ellison, Invisible Man; Okada,
No-No Boy; Plath, The Bell-Jar; Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstones;
Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49.
499 A
(Independent Study)
*arrange*
Individual study by arrangement with instructor. Prerequisite: permission
of director of undergraduate education. Add codes, further information,
available in Undergraduate Advising office, A-2-B Padelford (206-543-2634)
Add codes are required for all graduate courses, and may be obtained in the English Graduate office, A-105 Padelford, (206) 543-2634.
586A (Graduate Writing Conference)
*Arrange*
590A (MA Essay)
*Arrange*
Research and writing project under the close supervision of a faculty member
expert in the field of study, and with the consultation of a second faculty
reader. The field of study is chosen by the student. Work is independent
and varies. The model is an article in a scholarly journal. Prerequisite:
graduate standing in English. Add codes available in English Graduate
office, A-105 Padelford (543-6077).
591A (MAT Essay)
*Arrange*
Research and writing project under the close supervision of a faculty member
expert in the field of study chosen by the student within the MAT degree orientation
towards the teaching of English, and with the consultation of a second faculty
reader. The model is an article in a scholarly journal. Add codes available
in English Graduate office, A-105 Padelford (543-6077).
597A (Directed Readings)
*Arrange*
Intensive reading in literature or criticism, directed by members of doctoral
supervisory committee. Credit/no credit only. Add codes available in English
Graduate office, A-105 Padelford (543-6077).
600A (Independent Study/Research)
*Arrange*
Add codes available in English Graduate office, A-105 Padelford (543-6077).
601A (Internship)
*Arrange*
Credit/no credit only. Add codes available in English Graduate office, A-105
Padelford (543-6077).
700A (Masters Thesis)
*Arrange*
Add codes available in English Graduate office, A-105 Padelford (543-6077).
800A (Doctoral Dissertation)
*Arrange*
Add codes available in English Graduate office, A-105 Padelford (543-6077).
