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(Descriptions last updated 28 May 2004)
Course Descriptions
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.
Add Codes
English classes, 300-level and above, require instructor permission for registration during Registration Period 3 (beginning the first day of classes). If students have not registered for a class prior to the first day, they should attend the first class meeting and/or contact the instructor to obtain the necessary add codes. Some creative writing classes require add codes for registration: see below, or contact the Creative Writing office, B-25 Padelford, (206) 543-9865.
400-Level Creative Writing add
codes
Admission to 400-level creative writing classes is by
instructor permission only. To obtain add codes, students will be asked to fill
out a brief questionnaire, provide an unofficial copy of their UW transcripts,
and submit a writing sample. The questionnaire contains more specific
information, and can be obtained at either the Creative Writing office (B-25
Padelford, open 11-3 daily, (206) 543-9865) or the English Advising office
(A-2-B Padelford).
Senior Seminars
ENGL 497
(Honors Senior Seminar) and ENGL 498 (Senior Seminar) are
joint-listed courses; students choose which number to sign up for depending on
their individual status. ENGL 497 is restricted to senior honors English majors
taking the additional senior seminar required for the departmental honors
program. Add codes for ENGL 497 are available in the English
Advising office, A-2B Padelford. All other senior English majors should sign
up for ENGL 498. Neither ENGL 497 nor ENGL 498 can be taken more than once for
credit.
First Week Attendance
Because of heavy demand
for many English classes, students who do not attend all regularly-scheduled
meetings during the first week of the quarter may be dropped from their classes
by the department. If students are unable to attend at any point during
the first week, they should contact their instructors ahead of time. The
Department requests that instructors make reasonable accommodations for students
with legitimate reasons for being absent; HOWEVER, THE FINAL DECISION RESTS WITH
THE INSTRUCTOR AND SPACE IS NOT GUARANTEED FOR ABSENT STUDENTS EVEN IF THEY
CONTACT THE INSTRUCTOR IN ADVANCE. (Instructors' phone numbers and e-mail
addresses can be obtained by calling the Main English Office, (206) 543-2690 or
the Undergraduate Advising Office, (206) 543-2634. Mailto e-mail links are also
included in the descriptions on this page.)
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, 282,
381, 382, 471, or 481 only if they have met the following ESL requirements: a
score of at least 580 on the TOEFL (237 on the computer-based 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, mailto: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: TTh
9:40-11:40; 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.
131 (Composition: Exposition)
6 sections: M-Th
8:30; M-Th 9:40; M-Th 10:50; M-Th 12:00; MW 1:10-3:10
[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.
200aA (Reading Literature)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
Gillis-Bridges
(W)
(A-term)
kgb@u.washington.edu
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: Shakespeare, Hamlet; Stoppard,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Updike, Gertrude and
Claudius.
200aB (Reading Literature)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
O'Neill
(W)
(A-term)
joneill@u.washington.edu
We will
read works from a variety of genres to develop interpretive skills based on a
close attention to textual detail and an appreciation of context. Critical
thinking and analytical writing are the means and end of the course.
Participation, presentations, and writing are required.
Texts: Joseph Conrad,
Heart of Darkness; Muller, Ways In; Zadie Smith, White
Teeth; Shakespeare, Othello; Melville, Melville’s Short
Novels.
200 C (Reading Literature)
MW 9:40-11:50
Oldham
(W)
daviso2@u.washington.edu
Exile
and Wandering. In this class we’ll read three wildly different
novels that have in common an interest in the experience of exile — political,
social and/or moral exile from one’s community and the wandering, physical or
spiritual, that results. As we do so we’ll ask some basic questions about
how literature works and adopt some tools that have been developed over the
centuries for answering those questions. The purpose of the class is to
introduce the study of literature as an academic discipline. We’ll
consider formal elements, social and historical context and the way that
literature speaks to us as individuals and as members of society.
Participation is key to the success of this class: be prepared to discuss
every day, or don’t take the class. Three papers are also required, with
optional revisions. Texts: Hoban, Riddley Walker; Silko,
Ceremony; Galeano, The Book of Embraces.
211aA (Medieval & Renaissance Literature)
M-Th 9:40
-11:50
Simmons’O’Neill
(A-term)
This class is designed
to introduce students to selected texts and issues in English literature from
the Old English period through Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
and to skills necessary to research and to writing about literary texts and
contexts. This course may be used toward the VLPA requirement, the “gateway”
prerequisites for applying to the English major, and/or the Period 1 requirement
for English majors [n.b.: no more than two 200-level courses may apply toward
the major period requirement.] We will use a variety of approaches, including
films, audio tapes, lectures, full class and small group discussion, library
research, access to medieval manuscripts and facsimiles in the UW’s collection,
student-led presentations, and annotated bibliography, essay and exam writing.
Texts: J. R. R. Tolkien, ed./trans., Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo; Katharine Wilson, ed., Medieval Women
Writers; William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream;
photocopied course packet (available at CMU copy center).
213 A (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
TTh
8:30-10:40
Wacker
nwacker@u.washington.edu
This
course will trace a transition from the modern period to the cultural norms of
the present. We will examine changes both in representations of the social order
and in the fabric of representation used in narrative fiction, films and
personal narrative. We will place great value on both these lines of response in
our reading and viewing. As we read, we will be interested in reconstructing the
nature of society, of social roles and institutions, of gender and race as well
as the dynamics of individual identity during these two periods, or more
properly by the interlude of reaction and transformation that joins the
modernist past and our present. However, we will also treat the qualities of
representation employed in text and film, including uses of voice, image,
point-of-view, atmosphere and patterns of narrative organization that color,
comment on and amplify the meaning of events represented.
Texts: Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on
Postmodern Culture; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Richard
Rodriguez, Days of Obligation; Dubravka Ugresic, The Museum of
Unconditional Surrender; photocopied course packet.
225 A (Shakespeare)
Dy
10:50
Gonyer-Donohure
(W)
jengd@u.washington.edu
It’s
summertime, and what better time to study and enjoy some of Shakespeare’s most
enjoyable, most disturbing, most beautiful, most humorous, most politically
charged plays? We will read, analyze, perform, and write about 5 to 6 plays
representative of the Shakespearean canon. We will practice close reading and
explications, as well as discuss literary and historical context, modern
critical approaches, and, perhaps most importantly, the performative
possibilities (or rather, the power of performance as interpretation) of each
work. In addition to reading film adaptations as critical interpretations, we
will be utilizing the various summer Shakespeare performances around the Seattle
area, especially the “Shakespeare in the Park” productions. Please be aware that
these performances are during the weekends (we will watch no more than three
weekend performances). This is a “W” course, so you should be prepared to write.
Texts will include individual plays (to be determined) and Bedford Companion
to Shakespeare (McDonald, ed.).
229 A (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
TTh
9:40-11:50
Easterling
mailto:heasterl@u.washington.edu
A
course within which we will use a range of English literary texts from the
period 1600-1800 to become better, more resonant readers of early modern
literature. This is first and foremost a reading and writing class — plenty of
both, and lots to be gained through both with a dynamic range of literature.
Texts: Damrosch, et al., eds., Longman Anthology of British
Literature, Vol. 1B and Vol. 1C.
230 A (English Literary Culture: After 1800)
MW
9:40-11:50
Lane
cgiacomi@u.washington.edu
This
course examines the relationship between England and India during the nineteenth
century and early twentieth century. We will begin by reading Elizabeth
Gaskell’s Cranford. This novel is set in England, but it features
several characters with ties to India. Our discussion of this novel will focus
on how the British empire influenced life in England during the Victorian ear.
The other readings for the course are a collection of short stories by Rudyard
Kipling, including “The Man Who Would be King,” and E. M. Forster’s novel A
Passage to India. Both authors focus on British life in India, highlighting
the tensions and contradictions of the empire. In addition to these readings,
students will complete short research presentations and write three
papers. Texts: Gaskell, Cranford; Kipling, The Man
Who Would be King and Other Stories; Forster Passage to
India.
242 A (Reading Fiction)
MW 10:50-1:00
Barlow
(full
term)
(W)
cbarlow@u.washington.edu
Identity
and Environment in American Fiction. The environment has often been used in
American literature to imagine what it means to live in this nation in
particular places and at specific moments in history. This course begins from
this theme in order to introduce the process of reading and interpreting fiction
more generally. In short, we will explore how environments are depicted in a
variety of literary texts and what that indicates about American identity and
culture. The primary goal of this course is close reading of fiction as a way to
produce thoughtful and engaging arguments. In order to meet this goal we will
read mostly novels and short stories, as well as several historical and critical
essays, and have discussions about the readings every day in class. Expect
active participation in class, regular group work, a mid-term exam, and a final
paper completed in several stages. Texts: Willa Cather, The
Professor’s House; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching
God; Don DeLillo, White Noise; Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger
and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.
250aA (Introduction to American Literature)
M-Th
9:40-11:50
Harkins
(A term)
gharkins@u.washington.edu
National
Belongings. In this course we will ask how different ideas about “America”
have been constructed through literary and political representation. We will
focus in particular on historical narratives about the relationship between
literature and nation, exploring how the search for a specifically “American
Literature” has been used to construct or naturalize changing practices of
national belonging. Close attention will be paid to conditions of racial,
economic, and gendered citizenship as well as to efforts to contest these
conditions over time. Our key questions will ask: what is the relationship
between nationalism and literature? What does it mean to “belong” in the United
States, and how have changing ideas about literature” been central to the
promise and limits of national belonging? This intensive summer course will
focus on 3 — 4 key novels of the late 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries,
which will be read alongside key cultural and political essays of the period.
The central novels of the course will be selected from the following list:
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl; Herman Melville, Benito Cereno; Edith
Wharton, House of Mirth; and John Okada, No No Boy.
Texts to include above books plus photocopied course
packet.
281aA (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th
10:50-12:30
Thornhill
(A-term)
Savvy Rhetorics and Sneaky
Subjectivities. In an era of media and audience sophistication where even
one word can encompass a large number of speech acts (such as the use of “dude”
in the Volkswagen commercial illustrates), how might we create even more
interesting and provocative ways of expressing ourselves and our ideas? This
intermediate expository writing course will offer you the chance of working with
a small group of students to pursue an intensive investigation into your own
writing practices and production to help you develop stimulating and intriguing
claims about your ideas and sharpen up your writing style. Throughout the
quarter we will also be looking at the ways that our own practice of writing can
improve by investigating the expectations and conventions within which we are
expected to write. By examining public texts through such academic approaches to
language study as Discourse Analysis and Genre Theory, we will intensify our
investigation into our own writing by interrogating the social and ideological
situatedness of the texts we are writing to improve the substance and reception
of our own written production. Our discussions will engage textual, visual and
oral instances of culture jamming as well as personal statement writing, public
speeches and instructional texts. The intertextual engagement of our own work
with those documents will provide a route by which we will interrogate our own
writing practices and will help us to create fresh approaches to writing. While
the work is creative and interesting, the pace is quite vigorous. You will write
many papers and edit copies of your classmates’ work. In addition, you will be
reading a number of dense theoretical articles on language and literary study
and analysis. No auditors. 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. Text: John Trimble, Writing With
Style; photocopied course packet.
281aB (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th
8:30-10:00
Tollefson
(A-term)
tollefso@u.washington.edu
This
course will develop your writing skills through in-class writing, collaborative
group activities, discussion, and three writing assignments. Our topic will be
the spread of English worldwide, with a focus on the movement to declare English
the official language in the United States. We will read a variety of writings
about the spread of English and the Official English movement, including policy
statements, argumentative works by participants in the debate, and academic
analyses. The three writing assignments will develop your ability to write
informative, argumentative and research-based writing. No auditors. 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. Text: Crawford, Language
Loyalties.
281aC (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th 12:00-1:40
Simmons-O'Neill
(A-term)
esoneill@u.washington.edu
This is
a one-month computer-integrated 5-credit intermediate composition course in
which the central theme is common to all of our lives: family. While this theme
is common, the nature of our families and our experiences within them vary
tremendously. Assignment #1 is designed to begin with your own experiences and
memories, and to develop skills of expression these personal narratives in an
evocative and purposeful way. In Assignment #2 we turn to the discipline of
Social History as a way to understand a specific person, element or event in
each person’s family history. This project requires extensive research (both
personal and library-based); training will be provided in part by UW libraries
History subject area specialists. Peer critiques and daily assignments
(including an oral history interview and transcript) are also required.
Assignment #3, the Final Portfolio, asks you to bring together your work, and to
analyze your learning about family, history and writing this quarter. To be
successful in ENGL 281, you will need to come to class regularly, to keep up
with daily assignments, and to spend a considerable amount of time outside of
class pursuing your research, drafting and revising essays, and commenting on
the work of your peers. No auditors. 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. Texts: Toby Fulwiler & Alan Hayakawa,
The College Writer’s Reference; photocopied course packet.
282 A (Composing for the Web)
TTh 10:50-1:00
Dillon
dillon@u.washington.edu
How to
write informative and persuasive web pages. Lecture-presentation format plus lab
applications. Always meets in lab. Familiarity with Windows environment and
Uniform Access (“Dante”) accounts (Unix environment) is recommended preparation
for course. Assignments will include creation of group and individual web sites.
For further information, see class web site: http://courses.washington.edu/hypertxt/engl282/ No auditors.
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. Text: Musciano & Kennedy, HTML and
XHTML: The Definitive Guide.
283 A (Beginning Verse Writing)
MW 8:30-10:00
Elkun
delkun@u.washington.edu
Intensive
study of how to make a poem. This introductory course includes a series of
writing experiments with a focus on creativity and craft. Text:
Addonizio & Laux, The Poet’s Companion.
284aA (Beginning Short Story Writing)
M-Th 8:30-10:00
Shields
(A-term)
dshields@davidshields.com
Readings,
exercises, and assignments intended to get students writing with greater depth
of thought and feeling. Text: photocopied course packet.
284 B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW
10:50-12:30
Kannberg
chrissay@u.washington.edu
At the
heart of this course is an introduction to conventional story workshopping with
craft-focused readings of short fiction, both student and published, and
developmental exercises centering on techniques of literary fiction writing. A
willingness to play on paper with the many aspects of storytelling is primary; a
close second is active participation in discussions and in-class
writing. Texts: Hansen & Shepard, You’ve Got to Read
This; Checkoway, ed., Creating Fiction.
310 A (The Bible as Literature)
Dy 8:30
Griffith
jgriff@u.washington.edu
A rapid
study of readings from both the Old and New Testaments, focusing primarily 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: Michael Coogan, ed.,
New Oxford Annotated Bible, 3rd ed.
313aA (Modern European Literature in Translation)
M-Th
10:50-1:00
Staten
(A-term)
mailto:hstaten@u.washington.edu
We
will read a variety of poems and fictional works from France, Germany, England,
and the U.S. in order to get a sense of the complex phenomenon called
“modernism,” a style or cluster of styles of writing that flourished from
roughly 1910-1930. There is no simple definition of what this term means; like
other period terms in literary theory (cf. “romanticism” or “realism’), it
refers not to any single quality of literary works but to a diverse set of
stylistic characteristics, any of which might be missing from any given work
referred to as modernist. Thus the only way to get a sense of how the term works
is to read a number of things that are labeled with it and see how they are
similar and how they are different. That is what we will do. We will also read a
couple of essays that will alert you to how literary critics write about
modernism. Our approach to the reading of the literary works will be strictly
“formalist.” I do not expect you to already know what formalist reading is or
how to do it; this course will teach you. In fact, the literary works you read
will teach you, because modernist writing is what the theory of formalist
reading is based on. We will spend the first half of the course reading the
works of three poets, the last half the work of three prose writers, as follows:
Poets: Baudelaire, Eliot, Rilke; Prose writers: Kafka, Woolf, Gide. You will
write a short warm-up paper on modernist poetry in the first week, followed by a
3-4 page mid-term paper on the same topic. Your final paper will be a 4-5 page
paper on modernist prose. I highly recommend that you buy a manual, handbook, or
glossary of literary terms (any one will do), and use it to look up concepts
like “modernism,” “romanticism,” “sonnet,” and so forth. You should study the
definitions of these terms over and over during the quarter to try to get them
firmly into your heads. (Meets with C LIT 320A; A-term)
Texts: Eliot, Selected Poems; Kafka, “The
Metamorphosis”; Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; Gide, The
Counterfeiters; photocopied course packet including works of Baudelaire and
Rilke.
315 A (Literary Modernism)
TTh 10:50-1:00
Wacker
nwacker@u.washington.edu
(full
term)
This course will focus on the literary culture of transatlantic
modernism, including key works of fiction and works that shaped the intellectual
life of their writers, including Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Wittgenstein.
Texts: Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis; Sigmund Freud,
Civilization and its Discontents; Joseph Conrad, Heart of
Darkness; Frederic Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of
Morals; Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier; Gertrude Stein,
Three Lives; William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury.
323bA (Shakespeare to 1603)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Streitberger
(B-term)
streitwr@u.washington.edu
Shakespeare's
career as dramatist before 1603 (including Hamlet). Study of history plays,
comedies, and tragedies. Text: Bevington, ed., Complete
Works of Shakespeare.
324aA (Shakespeare after 1603)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Coldewey
(A-term)
jcjc@u.washington.edu
This course
focuses on Shakespeare’s crowning achievements: the four great tragedies
(Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear), and the last of his late
romances (The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest). Four quizzes, three short
papers. Texts: Greenblatt, et al., eds, The Norton
Shakespeare; McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare;
Bradley, Shakesperean Tragedy.
325 A (English Literature: The Late Renaissance)
TTh
12:00-2:10
Easterling
heasterl@u.washington.edu
This
course will consider “the late renaissance” in England through the lens of
drama. Shakespeare, of course, is the most vivid emblem to modern readers of the
centrality of drama in early modern literary culture. But he was one among a
number of dramatists whole collective output created not just an entertainment
phenomenon, but a particular way of understanding culture, human nature, etc. We
will study the late Renaissance by reading and writing about drama all
quarter. Texts: Barker & Hinds, eds., The Routledge
Anthology of Renaissance Drama; Parr, ed., The Shoemaker’s
Holiday; Shakespeare, Henry V; Much Ado About Nothing.
335aA (English Literature: The Age of Victoria)
M-Th
8:30-10:40
Butwin
(A-term)
joeyb@u.washington.edu
It is safe to
say that more of what we commonly call “literature” was produced, printed and
consumed (that is, read) in Victorian England (roughly 1830 to 1900) than in all
periods that precede it. The course is short, the period long. We will resolve
this difference by focusing on several magnificent texts written dead center in
the period, each approaching through different means what I also consider to be
issues central to the period. In fiction, prose argumentation and in poetry,
Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, and Robert Browning each describe the complex
emergence of the Self in the modern mass society that produced, printed and
consumed all that literature. We will read Dickens’ Great Expectations,
Mill’s essays On Liberty and On the Subjection of Women and
several of the fine dramatic monologues of Browning whose modernity is made to
look remarkably like Renaissance Italy. Each of our texts was written within a
few years of 1860. There will be frequent one page response papers written
during the course and a somewhat longer essay at the end. Brief lectures, lots
of discussion. Texts: Charles Dickens, Great
Expectations; J. S. Mill, Liberty with the Subjection of Women
(ed. Collini); Robert Browning, electronic reserve.
336 TS (English Literature: The Early Modern Period)
MW 7:00-8:50
pm
Luskey
mailto:luskey@u.washington.edu
This
class will focus on the relationship between literary modernism and social
change in Britain during the first third of the 20th century. Particular
attention will be given to the impact of World War I, and the cultural
institution of “little magazines,” which sought to foster an aesthetic
revolution. (Evening Degree students only, registration periods 1 &
2.) Texts: James Joyce, Dubliners;
Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier; Candace Ward, ed., World
War One British Poets; T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other
Poems; Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; E. M. Forster, A Passage
to India; Wyndham Lewis, BLAST1.
337aA (The Modern Novel)
M-Th
8:30-10:40
George
(A-term)
elgeorge@u.washington.edu
Black,
White, and Colored — Pleasantville and the Modernist Experience.
This multi-media, intensive course (5 weeks) willfocus on defining literary and
cultural Modernism, first through the critical study of the film
Pleasantville, and then through three not-so-pleasant, still notorious
novels alluded to in that relatively conventional film: D. H. Lawrence’s
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the
Rye, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. We will analyze what
is disturbingly “modern” about the themes and formats of each text, literally
burned by cast members in that film about America in the 1950s and still widely
censored in our time. We will investigate why each text was not — and is not —
always openly embraced by a variety of viewing and reading audiences.
Specifically, we will pose these questions: (1) Why did the novels so shock
their contemporary audiences, and why do they continue still to disturb readers
in an otherwise popularly “progressive” culture? (2) What did their receptions
have to do with the cultural anxieties portrayed in the film
Pleasantvilleand the film adaptation of the novel To Kill a
Mockingbird? (3) Why do these same modern anxieties continue in our current
society — in other words, what hasn’t changed? Course
requirements include a sincere interest in exploring these questions
via primary reading and secondary research, daily and engaged course attendance
(this is an 8:30 a.m. class, and I need you to be there in mind and body),
thoughtful discussion, individual and group reports, and a final examination.
Texts: Kershner, The Twentieth-Century Novel: An
Introduction; D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928); J.
D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951); Harper Lee, To Kill a
Mockingbird (1960).
345 A (Studies in Film)
MW 12:00-3:20
Luskey
mailto:luskey@u.washington.edu
Focusing
on the film noir tradition, this course emphasizes the development of precise
and sophisticated analytical skills for reading film. We will begin by
considering the formal and thematic origins of film noir in German Expression
before turning to the classic period of American film noir (1941-1958). The
course will conclude by examining the persistent appeal of film noir style in
more contemporary works from the mid-1970s to the present day. Text:
Gianetti, Understanding Movies.
352 A (American Literature: The Early Nation)
Dy
10:50
Griffith
(full term)
jgriff@u.washington.edu
We’ll read
and discuss an assortment of novels, stories, poems and memoirs by American
authors in the period preceding the Civil War. Students will be expected to
attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments, and take part in open
discussion. Written work will consist entirely of a series of brief in-class
essays written in response to study questions handed out in advance.
Texts: Baym, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of American
Literature, Vol. B, 6th ed.; Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
353aA (American Literature: Later 19th C.)
M-Th
9:40-11:50
Emmerson
(A-term)
cemmerso@u.washington.edu
On
the Surface of Things: Henry James and Edith Wharton. This course will
examine novels and short stories published at the turn of the century by James
and Wharton, focusing mainly on both authors’ fascination with the surface of
things after a century of inward-gazing fiction. Texts: Henry
James, The Golden Bowl; The Wings of the Dove; Edith Wharton,
The House of Mirth; Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas.
354bA (American Literature: The Early Modern Period)
M-Th
9:40-11:50
Laufenberg
(B-term)
hjl3@u.washington.edu
An examination
of American Modernism, beginning with the poems of T.S. Eliot and others,
followed by early and late modernist novels and plays, including those
classically associated with the Modernist movement and many challenging and/or
following altogether separate threads in the American literary tradition.
Authors: Pound, Hart Crane, Moore, Millay, Frost, Stein, Sandburg, Williams,
H.D., O’Neill, Toomer, Hughes, Faulkner, Henry Miller, and
others.Texts: Baym, ed., Norton Anthology of American
Literature, Vol. D; Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer.
355aA (American Literature: Contemporary America)
M-Th
12:00-2:10
Merola
(A-term)
nmerola@u.washington.edu
Multiethnic
Contemporary United States Literature. The rise of ethnic literatures is
one of the important trends in contemporary United States literature. In this
course we will explore novels and short stories from African-American,
Asian-American, and Native American literary traditions. We will also read
theoretical and historical pieces regarding the cultural and critical
conversations that enabled and accompanied the inclusion of these literatures in
the literary canon of the United States. Course texts: Toni
Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman
Warrior; Louise Erdrich, Tracks; extensive photocopied course
packet with theoretical and historical material and short stories by Sherman
Alexie, Gayl Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri, Toni Morrison, Bharati Mukherjee, Simon
Ortiz, Gerald Vizenor, and others. Course requirements:
willingness to read closely and carefully, consistent and engaged
participation, 3 or 4 in-class examinations.
358aA (Literature of Black Americans)
M-Th
9:40-11:50
Moody
(A-term)
jmoody@u.washington.edu
This course
is subtitled "The Signifyin' Monkey Cuts Class" because it will explore the
literary representation of the experiences of blacks and (or in) the UW academy
from the eighteenth century through the present. Selected course readings cover
a wide range of black modes of “book learning,” cultural wisdom, and practical
knowledge. By focusing on learning experiences of African American trickster
figures, the course attends to texts that subvert or supplant Euro-American
education theories with distinctive black epistemologies. Reading, reading,
reading, writing, class discussions, active listening; a few lectures. Daily
reading quizzes, analytical commentaries, interim and final exams. Grades based
on writing excellence; critical and analytical skills; prompt submission of
written assignments. Meets with AFRAM 358aA. Text: H. L. Gates,
et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.
359aA (Contemporary American Indian Literature)
M-Th
9:40-11:50
Colonnese
(A-term)
buffalo@u.washington.edu
This
class introduces students to the genre of American Indian novel and explores how
the works have served as artistic acts of resistance. Meets with AIS 377aA.
Texts: DeLoria, Waterlily; Welch, Fools Crow;
Winter in the Blood; Erdrich, Tracks; Owens, Dark
River.
361aU (American Political Culture: After 1865)
M-Th 6:00-7:50
pm
Cummings
(A-term)
ckate@u.washington.edu
Nature
and Nation. This course is grounded in the recognition that representations
of nature — environmental and human — have profoundly shaped Americans’
imagination of the U.S. nation, determining who belongs to this social community
and who does not. In our reading of literature, film, government documents, and
other cultural forms, we will track different historical understandings of
“nature” and “nation” from the late 19th-century to the present. We will trouble
understandings of nature as a given; we will examine how nature is
(re)constructed historically across disciplines; and we will focus on how the
category, “nature,” animates imaginings of national and transnational belonging
from the official closing of America’s western frontier to the present. The
contemporary phenomena we will examine include: “new frontiers” forged by global
capitalism, human genomics and space exploration; efforts to conserve the
wilderness and its utilization as them park; reconceptualizations of human and
the environment. Texts: Octavia Butler, Dawn; Ruth
Ozeki, My Year of Meats; Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rain
Forest; DeLillo, White Noise; photocopied course packet.
367aA (Women and the Literary Imagination)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
George
(A-term)
elgeorge@u.washington.edu
“Where
Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”: Feminist Narratives from Print to Screen.
"Women have always been in motion and for a variety of complex reasons; and their traveling has always been gendered and embodied traveling, situated with complex social, cultural, and historical forces. . . . no single study can do more than tease out some of these forces as they affect specific travelers or generations of travelers." —Sidonie Smith, Moving Lives
The textual focus of this course is on 20th-century dislocated girls and women who venture into some kind of wilderness, physical and psychological; as well, it’s a course that explores the connections between those wild locales and the female travelers who, in conventional social terms, transgress them; finally, it’s a course that questions why these so-called “wild” girls and women get under- or overexposed in the translation of printed text to screen and how readers like you might critically read fiction and film as a clarifying lens of conventional cultural and gender norms — even if other people sitting next to you in bookstores and theatres don’t or won’t.
All of the texts feature girls and women. Some explore Australia, one Africa, and others America. Some of the texts are penned or directed by men. Some are adaptations of stories and novels, some screenplays only. Each was more or less popular in print than on screen. A couple were blockbusters turned cult classics, while others might be destined for the used-rental bargain bin.
Over the course of five weeks, we’ll try to tease out reasons why.
Requirements include dedication to keeping an open mind and interest in
broadening your horizons of aesthetic, gender, and cultural critique (whatever
they are, and without required need for personal revelation on your part, as
we’ll have plenty of personal revelations to study from the authors’ texts
themselves); keeping up with the reading and screening of written and filmed
texts; daily class attendance and engaged discussion with me and others in the
class (this is a discussion-oriented course that runs 4.5 weeks, and so
distance-attendance is not a viable option); short oral presentations of your
readings and written response papers; a final examination that both creatively
and critically teases out and identifies the forces that motivate and sustain a
variety of female heroines on the move.
Texts will include most of the following — but please do
wait until after the first class session to buy books (in case out-of-print
editions cause me to substitute texts): Sidonie Smith, Moving Lives:
20th-Century Women’s Travel Writing; Doris Pilkington, Rabbit-Proof
Fence (the memoir) and Rabbit-Proof Fence (the film), screenplay
by Christine Olsen, directed by Phillip Noyce; Robyn Davidson, Tracks;
Maggie Greenwald, The Ballad of Little Jo (written and directed by
Greenwald; Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”; and
Smooth Talk, screenplay by Tom Cole, directed by Joyce Chopra; Callie
Khouri, Thelma and Louise, directed by Ridley Scott; Beryl Brinkman,
West with the Wind; Patrick Stettner, The Business of
Strangers, written and directed by Stettner.
370aA (English Language Study)
M-Th
10:50-1:00
Tollefson
(A-term)
tollefso@u.washington.edu
This
course is an introduction to major issues in English language study. The
emphasis is on the links between language and society, with particular attention
to issues that are important for teachers. Major topics include socially
patterned language variation, dialects, language acquisition, and language in
the classroom. Text: Clark, et al., eds., Language:
Readings in Language and Culture.
381 A (Advanced Expository Writing)
MW 8:30-10:00
Dillon
(Full term)
dillon@u.washington.edu
What makes
Advanced Expository Writing advanced? Not, in this course, the length of the
papers assigned, but the variety of types, audiences, and purposes of the
papers. We will begin with a little theory about kinds of rhetorical purposes,
understanding "rhetorical" as "attempting to increase the reader's adherence to
your point of view on a matter." The assignments are designed to give practice
writing papers with four different rhetorical purposes. That is, you can choose
any topic for the papers, but the paper should be of the type assigned. They
should be of moderate length (roughly five pages typewritten). In addition we
will devote some class time to advanced points of mechanics and punctuation and
the analysis of style as it functions rhetorically. There will be a final paper
analyzing the style of a passage of prose which you select. Class will consist
of some lecture and discussion, class presentations. Writing groups for each
paper. Recommended preparation: good grasp of the conventions of formal prose
and habitual reading. No auditors. 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. Text: Bryn Garner, Oxford Dictionary of
American Usage and Style.
381bB (Advanced Expository Writing)
M-Th 10:50-12:20
Kimberly
Swayze
(B-term)
swayze@u.washington.edu
This is an
advanced writing course that will provide experienced writers with an
opportunity to engage questions of language structure and function, style,
audience, context, purpose, and rhetorical effects. We’ll look at examples in
which discussions of language and its implications are foregrounded as a means
to discussing linguistic and rhetorical choices we make in our own writing.
Course work will involve stylistic and formal analysis of readings, short
writing assignments along with three major papers (analytical, persuasive, and
reflective essays), workshop-style editing and revision, and some analysis and
practice at the level of the sentence and paragraph. This is an intensive,
four-week B-term course. Active participation in class and group/peer
discussions, daily assigned work, and individual conferencing form part of the
course requirements. Recommended preparation: ENGL 281 or a strong
composition background. Junior or senior status recommended. No auditors.
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. Texts: Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar:
Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects; Sandra Silberstein, War of
Words: Language, Politics, and 9/11; photocopied course packet.
384aA (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
M-Th 10:50-12:30
Shields
(A-term)
dshields@davidshields.com
Readings,
exercises, and assignments intended to get students writing with greater depth
of thought and feeling. Text: photocopied course packet.
384bB (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
M-Th 10:50-12:30
Preusser
(B-term)
k_preusser@hotmail.com
[Exploring
and developing continuity in the elements of fiction writing. Methods of
extending and sustaining plot, setting, character, point of view, and tone.
Prerequisite: ENGL 284.]
471bA (The Composition Process)
M-Th
12:00-2:10
Browning
(B-term)
sbrownin@u.washington.edu
This
course will introduce you to the theory and practice of teaching writing. As a
teacher, you’ll sometimes be faced with conflicting demands, between what you
feel to be best practice and what your institution expects. The idea behind this
class is to get you acquainted with a tool box of both theory and practice, so
that you can make the most informed decisions possible when it comes to teaching
writing. No auditors.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. Text: photocopied course packet.
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 Undergraduate
Advising Office (A-2B Padelford; [206] 543-2634).
497/498aA (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
M-Th
12:00-2:10
Simpson
(A-term)
csimpson@u.washington.edu
History
and the Graphic Novel. Although most of us think of them as serious-minded
comic books, the illustrated novel or “graphic novel”, as it has come to be
called, often documents significant alternative perspectives on the century’s
most traumatic historical events and cultural phenomena. In this course, we will
look at the manner in which some of the most celebrated graphic novelists have
embroidered a distinct form of narrative, one that mixes documentary or
journalistic techniques with the aesthetic concerns and license of the
storyteller. Course requirements will include a final long paper project,
preceded by an abstract, and a rough draft 497: Senior honors majors only (add
codes A-2B PDL); 498: Senior majors only. Texts: Spiegelman,
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History; Maus II: And Here My
Troubles Begin; Okubo, Citizen 13660; Satrapi, Persepolis: The
Story of a Childhood; Sacco, Palestine.
497/498bB (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
Streitberger
(B-term)
streitwr@u.washington.edu
Shakespearean
Comedy.
Text: Bevington, ed., Complete Works of
Shakespeare.
497/498 C (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW
12:00-2:10
Oldham
daviso2@u.washington.edu
Reading for Technique. This seminar is designed with creative writers in mind, particularly fiction writers. It is modeled on ENGL 581, “The Creative Writer as Critical Reader,” for MFA students. We will read a few novels and several short stories and analyze them from the point of view of practicing writers, rather than as literary critics. This means we will be directed by a different set of questions from those typically mobilized in a senior seminar or other literature class, and we will deploy some fairly hoary but still useful concepts to begin posing those questions. The questions will examine how aesthetic effects are produced, and the concepts will include such fundamental ones as plot, character, voice, and theme. The challenge, in other words, is not in the concepts themselves, as in some more theoretical courses, but in the application of the concepts to concrete instances and in the depth of insight to be gleaned thereby. While the class is designed for writers, and my preference is that it will be composed entirely or at least mostly of writers, non-writers can still learn a lot about how a piece of fiction is put together by concentrated attention to these questions. In addition to the primary texts, we will read some commentaries on writing by writers, which hopefully will help illuminate our questions of craft. If there is time, we will spend a week or two talking about the writer’s social role, political commitments if any, and related vexed questions.
Please note that this is not a creative writing workshop. You will not be producing original creative work for this class. Assigned work will include response essays every two weeks, offering a general technical assessment of the novel or stories under consideration, and examining a particular aspect of the work (i.e., questions of plot, character, voice, etc.). Also, a long essay at the end, modeled on the MFA Critical Essay, in which you examine one or more authors in light of your own aesthetic goals and practice and in light of some relevant, independently researched criticism. The idea is that the response papers will build toward the long essay. The readings reflect my preference for unconventional fiction, but that should not detract from their usefulness as models. I’m requiring more books than I usually do, on the supposition that as practicing writers you will benefit by owning these books long after the course is over, even if we only read selections now. (If you have concerns about the expense, get in touch and I’ll give you some ideas about how to save some money.) (497: Limited to honors seniors majoring in English (add codes in English Advising, A-2B PDL); 498: limited to seniors majoring in English.) Texts: Primary: Hoban, Riddley Walker; Calvino, Invisible Cities; Woolf, The Waves; Pancake, Given Ground; Gass, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country; O’Brien, The Things They Carried; Bambara, Gorilla My Love; Barthelme, Sixty Stories; Baldwin, Another Country; Secondary: Gardner, The Art of Fiction: Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium: Gass, Fiction and the Figures of Life.
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).
