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
(Descriptions last updated: 7 May 2007)
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.
NOTE: Students not previously admitted to the University of Washington (non-matriculated 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 TOEFL score of at least 580 (paper based), 237 (computer based) or 70 (internet based (total of reading/listening/writing sections), or one of these equivalent scores: 90 on the MTELP, 410 on the SAT-Verbal (taken before April 1995), 490 on the SAT-Verbal (taken April 1995 – February 2005), or 490 on the SAT Critical Reading (taken after February 2005); 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.
111 (Composition: Literature)
MW 9:40-11:50
[Study and practice of good writing: topics derived from reading and discussing
stories, poems, essays, and plays.] For information on ESL requirement for
non-matriculated students, click here.
121 (Composition: Social Issues) S
MW 11:30-1:30
[Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from reading and discussing
essays and fiction about current social and moral issues.] For information
on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.
131 (Composition: Exposition)
9 sections: M-Th 9:40-10:40; 10:50-11:50; 11:30-12:30; 12:00-1:00, MW
1:50-4:00
[Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from a variety of personal,
academic, and public subjects.] For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated
students, click here.
200aA (Reading Fiction)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
O’Neill
(W)
(A-term)
joneill@u.washingtonn.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; Herman Melville,
Melville’s Short Novels; Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog
in the Night-time.
200aB (Reading Fiction)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
van Rijswijk
(W)
(A-term)
hvr@u.washington.edu
Introduction to Law and Literature. This class seeks to provide students with
techniques and practice in reading and enjoying literature. To that end, students
will read literary texts with a mind to developing their own close-reading
practices. Alongside these literary texts, students will also read judgments
and trial transcripts from criminal cases in both contemporary and historical
periods. Thematically, we will use these legal and literary texts to think
about the different ways in which the law regulates relationships between individuals
and communities. We will also examine the nature of processes that function
alongside and outside the law, (eg, “norms”), to discipline individuals
and communities. Course work will include a demanding reading schedule, participation
in class discussion, a mid-term paper and a final paper. Texts: Atwood, Alias
Grace; Dostoevsky, Memoirs from the House of the Dead; Drewe, The
Shark Net;
Golding, Lord of the Flies; Morrison, Beloved; Sophocles, Antigone; Foucault,
Discipline and Punish (excerpts)
200 C (Reading Fiction)
M-Th 12:00-1:00
Griesbach
(W)
(full term)
dgries@u.washington.edu
Literature and Photography: This course introduces the study of
literature by exploring the relationship between literature and photography.
At times
we will find direct connections between the two, as when writers comment
on photography or vice-versa. But for the most part it is our task to put
these two media in conversation, comparing and contrasting different kinds
of content and matters of form. The primary text for this course is the collaborative
book by James Agee (writer) and Walker Evans (photographer), Let Us Now
Praise Famous Men. This challenging but perennially rewarding work is
about southern sharecropper families during the Great Depression, but it
is equally about
revolutionizing the documentary use of words and pictures. Examples of writing
and photographic work in America in the 19th and 20th centuries constitute
the rest of the material we will examine. Readings include a sampling of
poetry by Whitman and American modernists, a novella by Stephen Crane, and
a short novel by Thomas Pynchon. As we read, we will also survey the work
of exemplary American photographers, photographic circles, and movements,
including Matthew Brady, Alfred Stieglitz and pictorialism, Lewis Hine, the
1930s FSA photographers (Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and others), and Diane
Arbus. To gauge the actions, reactions, and interactions among writing and
photography, we will have some recurrent questions to pose, such as: what
counts as artistic/literary subject matter? What is the position of the writer
or photographer vis-à-vis his or her subject? What are some of the
ways literary and visual art relate to technology? How do words and images
represent social difference, like class, race, and gender? How do texts construct
or imply their own audiences? What makes art socially critical? What do instances
of cross-pollination, when images appear in texts and text in images, teach
us? Course work will include active participation in class discussion, a
group presentation, some short writing assignments, and two papers that add
up to 10-15 pages. Texts: Stephen Crane, Maggie and
Other Tales of New York; James Agee & Walker Evans, Let Us Now
Praise Famous Men; Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49.
213aA (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
George
(A-term)
elgeorge@u.washington.edu
“Novel, a short story padded>” --Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s
Dictionary, 1911
This intensive 5-week course will focus upon modern and postmodern fictions:
short stories published during the close of the 19th century, and others throughout
the 20th. We will analyze each story closely and formally, and then in the
contexts of literasry modernism and postmodernism, as well as in relation to
shifting cultural ideologies. We will also view and analyze certain of the
short stories adapted to film (including “An Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge”) as a means of understanding various reading and viewing audience
receptions to these print and audiovisual narrative formats. Writers and stories
we’ll read, discuss, and write about include: Bierce, “An Occurrence
at Owl Creek Bridge,” Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” Hemingway, “Hills
Like White Elephants,” Chopin, “The Story of an Hour,” Faulkner, “A
Rose for Emily,” Jackson, “The Lottery,” Wright, “The
Man Who Was Almost a Man,” Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues,” Oates, “Where
Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Mason, “Shiloh,” Jen, “Who’s
Irish?”, Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Carver, “Cathedral,” Coupland, “Microserfs,” Proulx, “Brokeback
Mountain.” Course requirements include active attendance, intellectual
engagement and critical discussion, online reading gof seom stories, (e.g.,
Douglas Copeland’s “Microserfs”) as well as research of biographical,
critical and cultural contexts; short quizzes and short-essay responses, and
a final examination. Text (print): Ann Charters, The Story
and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction.
213bB (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
Wacker
(B-term)
nwacker@u.washington.edu
[Introduction to twentieth-century literature from a broadly cultural point
of view, focusing on representative works that illustrate literary and intellectual
developments since 1900.]
225 A (Shakespeare)
M-Th 9:40-10:40
Stansbury
(W)
(full term)
hls2@u.washington.edu
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact.” So
says Theseus at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For Summer quarter,
we will be examining the notions of madness, love, and the poetical figure
in the works of Shakespeare. We will read texts that explore altered states
of consciousness, the power of sexual jealousy on the psyche, feigned and true
insanity, and the implications of these illusions and realities in Shakespeare’s
dramas. We will be focusing much of our discussions on the themes of desire
and sexuality as offered in Shakespeare’s works. We will also be working
with modes of production, including film and art, and will be seeing a stage
performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays. The main goals of the course
are to help you learn to “decode” the language of Shakespeare through
close readings and to make you more confident readers of the great Bard. In
addition, we will negotiate the difference between the works as they perhaps
might have been understood in Shakespeare’s own culture and how they
have been understood since. As this is a W course, you will be expected to
write. Text: David Bevington, ed., The Complete Works
of Shakespeare, 5th ed.
242bB (Reading Fiction)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Peck
(W)
(B-term)
peckl@u.washingtonn.edu
Modernist Short Fiction. Much of the allure of Modernist writing derives
from the shifts in both perspective and technique which characterize it. In
this
course, we’ll examine these innovations in light of the social changes
that pushed writers (and all artists) of this period to forge new modes of
expression. What, exactly, does Modernism reject, and what, if anything, does
it affirm in its place? What aspects of this heritage have endured, and with
what repercussions? These are a few of the questions we’ll consider as
we seek to develop our critical awareness as readers and hone our rhetorical
skills as writers via in-class discussion and impromptu group presentations,
weekly in-class writings, and two 5-page argumentative essays. To adjust for
the compressed nature of this B-term class, we will consider a wide array of
short stories as well as one novella. Texts: Norton Anthology
of Short Fiction, Shorter Seventh Edition; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness;
Sherwood Anderson,
Winesburg, Ohio; Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time; photocopied
course packet,
242 C (Reading Fiction)
M-Th 12:00-1:00
Kimmey
(W)
(full term)
dkimmey@u.washington.edu
This course takes as its primary assumption that fiction participates in political
life. As a literary form, fiction can reveal fractures in society, provoke
scandal or criticism, align public sympathy to a political cause, and create
the conditions for imagining alternative possibilities. Fiction in the nineteenth
century was particularly invested in these political aims. Whether it was exposing
injustice, advocating reform, or proposing radical change, nineteenth-century
authors harnessed fiction as a mass-consumed cultural form to reach a wide
reading public. The result was an array of generic forms that, more explicitly
or more subtly, became articulated to social and political concerns. Over the
summer, we will read short stories and novels clustered by genre (the gothic,
sensational fiction, sentimental fiction, and the romance)—though with
the caution that most, and arguably the best, of what we read will transgress
the law of genre. We’ll start with the American gothic: Poe, Melville,
and Hawthorne, but also the lesser-known stories of Alcott. From there, we’ll
move into sensational fiction of the market, particularly George Thompson and
George Lippard. Our study of sentimental fiction will focus on Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which we will use to debate the possibilities
and, critically, the limits that fiction has for promoting social and political
change. Lastly, we’ll finish out the quarter reading a selection of short
stories that fall under the heading of the romance. Throughout the readings,
we will engage nineteenth-century fiction for the ways in which it both defined
ideals of political society and diagnosed social injustice, particularly racialized
slavery, capitalism and urbanization, and the subordination of women. Method
of Instruction: Class discussion, student presentations, and some lecturing
for historic background and framing. Writing assignments (3 short papers, 1
longer paper) will help students identify narrative elements and analyze fiction
through both close-reading and resistant reading practices. Texts (required): Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The
House of Seven Gables, George Lippard’s
The Quaker City, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A course
packet will be made available of short stories, secondary/critical essays,
and historical texts coordinated with the course.
242aD (Reading Fiction)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
Furrh
(W)
(A-term)
dmf3@u.washington.edu
This course will focus on the literature of the American Renaissance with a
particular focus on the historical construction of vision, the workings of
ideology and their relation to nineteenth-century concepts of madness. Drawing
on a range of writings from the period we will look at the aesthetics of the
sublime and the problematics of vision at work in the fictions from the 1820s
through the 1850s. Specifically, the larger cultural enterprises – landscape
painting and the picturesque, and transcendence with nature – and their
attendant “ways of seeing” allow members of nineteenth-century
society to look out upon a landscape -- that once would have been viewed as
harsh and life-threatening -- as instead beautiful, unblemished, and serene.
It was a way of seeing that allowed people, who enjoyed the advantages of spectatorial
distance, to view the fresh snows that blanketed a rugged “top most cliff” as
a “new-dropped lamb, its earliest fleece” (Melville). This sentimental
mode of seeing the world can and was transferred to social spaces and urban
landscapes as well as people and the result is a breakdown of nineteenth-century
concepts of social justice. For those who did not participate in these culturally-constructed
meanings of the natural world, but instead took notice of the horrors of slavery,
genocide of Native Americans, the plight of urban workers and women there emerged
in the fictions of the period the nervous body (and the unreliable narrator)
with its host of physical and/or psychological ailments. We will be reading
Melville’s Piazza Tales and “Billy Budd,” several short stories
form Poe (including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The
Black Cat,” “The Maelstrom”), Hawthorne’s “Young
Goodman Brown,” Louisa May Alcott’s “Flower Fables,” as
well as the poetry of Whitman, Emerson and Dickinson. We will also draw on
a few non-fiction texts to assist in our analysis, including: Emerson’s “Astronomy,” Fitzhugh’s “Cannibals
All!”, Frederick Douglass’s 4th of July speech, and Marx’s
1844 Manuscripts. All of these titles are available online and will be included
in a course packet.
250bA (Introduction to American Literature)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
Harkins
(W)
(B-term)
gharkins@u.washington.edu
National Belongings. This course provides an introduction to studies
of American literature and culture. The course surveys a broad range of historical
materials,
from Puritan proclamations of American Exceptionalism to political and literary
texts of the early Republic, mid-nineteenth-century texts on abolition and
Manifest Destiny to mid-twentieth-century texts on the Cold War and civil rights.
We will focus in particular on how “America” has been constructed
through changing narratives of national history. This summer we will ask how
different narratives create or contest the meaning of belonging in national
history. What does it mean to “belong” in the United States? How
have practices of national belonging changed over time, and how have different
narratives about history been used to make sense of these changes? In this
class we will explore the ways that changing narratives forms – from
oral speeches, newspapers to popular music and animation – have shaped
the making and re-making of the American past. Our primary texts will
include Charles Brockton Brown, Wieland: Or, The Transformation; Harriet
Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; Herman Melville, Benito
Cereno,
and John Okada,
No No Boy.
281 A (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MW 9:40-11:50
Dillon
(full term)
dillon@u.washington.edu
Students will write five different types of persuasive prose essays (4-5 pages
each), working on identifying different aims of writing, adjusting their own
writing according to specific aim and audience, critiquing pieces of writing
in relation to their aims, and assessing language and style as means of persuading.
Class will proceed by means of discussion and workshops. Grades will be based
on portfolio of writing for the course. Successful completion of ENGL 131 or
equivalent is recommended preparation for taking this course. Text: Bryan
A. Garner, The Oxford Dictionary of Americna Usage and Style. For
information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click
here.
281bB (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
Stygall
(B-term)
stygall@u.washington.edu
[Writing papers communicating information and opinion to develop accurate,
competent, and effective expression.] For information
on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.
281aC (Intermediate Expository Writing)
M-Th 8:30-10:40
Butwin
(A-term)
joeyb@u.washington.edu
This course will be a workshop for writers. My premise is that there is no
better way to improve your writing than to write. Yes, reading helps, grammar
helps, talk helps. Assignments and deadlines help. But you must write. I will
provide most of the assignments and all of the deadlines. I’ll talk about
writing and I’ll assign some reading from current newspapers and magazines
along with some older material on Electronic Reserve. I’ll refer you
to good sources for grammar and spelling. But you must write. And you will,
at and for every meeting. Five weeks later, you’ll be better writers. For
information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click
here.
282 A (Composing for the Web)
MW 12:00-2:10
Dillon
(full term)
dillon@u.washington.edu
Introduces the writing of nonfiction narrative and expository pieces for publication
on the Web. Analysis and criticism of on-line work. All assignments will be
submitted as web pages and will involve analysis, redesign, and fresh composition
of websites. The course is taught in a computer-integrated environment using
PCs and Windows programs. Small group work, presentations, workshopping, and
individual assignments will be supplemented with brief lectures. Recommended
preparation includes some experience editing digital images, knowledge of how
to upload and download files, familiarity with Dante/Vergil command line (Unix
commands).Text: Musciano & Kennedy, HTML & XHTML:
The Definitive Guide. For
information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click
here.
283 A (Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 9:40-11:20
Feld
(full term)
aefeld@u.washington.edu
This class will start with an intensive study of the traditions/elements of
the craft of poetry: meter, line, stanza, form, image, concrte detail vs. abstraction,
etc. We will then move on to study the elements of the craft of free verse,
which we’ll discover isn’t as free as one might think. The class
will also progress in historical time: we’ll starts working with some
of the earliest English poetic forms and work our way up to a study of contemporary
poetry. Text: Ferguson, et al., eds., The Norton Anthology
of Poetry, 5th ed.
284aA (Beginning Short Story Writing)
M-Th 10:50-12:20
Wong
(A-term)
homebase@u.washington.edu
This course is an introduction to the writing of fiction. Students will examine
and analyze writing strategies with respect to developing readable and challenging
short stories. To that end, students will investigate risks and rewards of
constructing a story, telling a story, and managing the elements of fiction,
such as character, plot, dialogue, setting, tone, mood, theme, and point of
view. Students will write a series of short two-page assignments, critique
each other’s work, and lead a discussion of the craft of fiction using
work by published authors. Text: photocopied course packet.
284bC (Beginning Short Story Writing)
M-Th 8:30-10:10
Porter
(B-term)
ewporter@u.washington.edu
English 284 is an intensive, daily exploration of the art of writing short
fiction. Through the reading of classic short stories, the creation of our
own original pieces, and active explorations of Seattle in the summertime,
we will be learning how to see the world through the eyes of a writer and mine
it for its creative possibilities. The course will explore such fundamental
topics in short story writing as plot, character, setting, dialogue, theme,
metaphor, image, and point of view. Small group workshops will illuminate the
relationship between readers and writers and will allow us to ask questions
of our stories and our own writing process, opening possibilities for future
creation and revision beyond the limitations of the class. An interest in writing
and reading and an active, open mind are the only requirements necessary. Assignments
will include daily reading of one canonical short story; short writing exercises
and at least one longer short story; written feedback upon peer work. Grades
will be assessed through a final, comprehensive portfolio of work completed
over the course of the class. Texts: Anne Bernays & Pamela Painter, eds.,
What If: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers; photocopied course packet.
284 D (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 12:00-1:30
Steere
(full term)
jsteere@u.washington.edu
By the end of this course, students should have a better understanding of what
defines a great contemporary short story and how to craft their own work. While
the class will contain discussions about the typical elements of fiction (plot,
character, setting, etc.) the real emphasis will be on equipping students with
a process for exploring and creating stories on their own. In approaching fiction,
perhaps for the first time, students have a fresh perspective on the generative
process, and as such will be able to benefit from thinking about the roots
from which great prose arises. This course will be held in a class-wide workshop
format. Students will submit work to be reviewed by other students and the
professor after which the class will discuss the author's work and make suggestions
for its improvement. We will also be discussing published stories by professional
writers and excerpts from Robert Olen Butler's book on writing, From Where
You Dream. The class may also venture outside the classroom to write
from experiences in art galleries and natural areas. The best thing a student
can do in order to prepare for this course is read. Familiarizing yourself
with modern literary fiction will help you understand
the expectations for how to create your own stories. Magazines that publish
short fiction include The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's,
etc. Prominent anthologies of contemporary authors include The Best American
Short Stories, Best New American Voices, and many others
that are readily available in almost any bookstore. As always, studying the
classic works of authors like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Virginia Wolff,
Alice Munro, etc. will surely help as well. Students will be writing two stories
over the course of the quarter and revising one of them. A presentation on
one of the stories in the required fiction anthology
will also be required. In addition, in-class writing activities, exercises,
and responses to other students' stories will also be considered part of the
body of work students should produce by the end of the quarter. Evaluation
will consist of a response to the written stories, the presentation, and class
participation. Course website: http://courses.washington.edu/engl284.
Texts: .Nicholas Delbanco, ed., The Sincerest Form: Writing
Fiction by Imitation;
Robert Olen Butler, From Where You Dream.
302bA (Critical Practice)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Harkins
(B-term)
gharkins@u.washington.edu
Cultural Studies of the Novel. This course provides a follow-up to ENGL 202,
the Introduction to the English major. It is a practicum of critical methods.
This particular section of 302 will provide in-depth practice in “cultural
studies” approaches to the novel. Our focus on cultural studies will
include attention to the following methodological questions: what is the “form” in
formalist approaches to the novel? What is “materialism” and
why would you use it to read novels? What kinds of critical practices – close
reading, archive development, historical research – are important to
cultural studies methodologies? Does narratology (the study of narrative
form) have a role? What about ethnography or other research methods from
anthropology, sociology, or the empirical human sciences? By the end of the
course, students should have a grasp of various approaches to the study of
culture and narrative forms. Students will also have been exposed to a range
of social and political questions related to cultural studies methodologies,
including theories of race, gender, sexuality, and class. We will read literary
theory alongside Henry James, Daisy Miller; Jeanette Winterson, The
Passion;
and Caryl Philips, Crossing the River.
310 A (The Bible as Literature)
M-Th 8:30-9:30
Griffith
(full term)
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: Coogan, ed., New
Oxford Annotated Bible, 3rd ed.
315bA (Literary Modernism)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Staten
(B-term)
staten@u.washington.edu
[Various modern authors, from Wordsworth to the present, in relation to such
major thinkers as Kant, Hegel, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Wittgenstein,
who have helped create the context and the content of modern literature.
Recommended: ENGL 230 or one 300-level course in 19th- or 20th-century literature.]
Meets with C LIT 320A.
321aA (Chaucer)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Rose
(A-term)
hhcr@pdx.edu
An introduction to Chaucer in Middle English, with emphasis on learning to
read and interpret the Canterbury Tales in Middle English. We will
study how the Tales are wonderfully entertaining stories, generic
experiments, and extraordinarily
complex and beautiful poetry. The tales can be bawdy, heartbreaking, ironic,
and revealing of the human condition. Situating the Tales in their
literary, social, and historical context will help us to appreciate Chaucer's
genius
and his era. You will also become acquainted with some of the best scholarly
responses to Chaucer’s work. Emphasis on close reading and class discussion,
reading aloud. Reading quizzes, short papers, final. Required texts: Benson,
ed., The Riverside Chaucer; Boethius (tr. Green), The Consolation
of Philosophy;
optional texts (will also be on library reserve):
Mann & Boitoni, eds., The Cambridge Chaucer Companion; Miller, Chaucer:
Sources and Backgrounds; Cooper, ed., The Canterbury Tales.
323bA (Shakespeare to 1603)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
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., The Complete
Works of Shakespeare, 5th ed.
328bA (English Literature: Later 18th C.)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Olsen
(B-term)
In this course we will read literature of the period known as the “Age
of Johnson.” It has also been known as the “Age of Sensibility” and
the “Pre-Romantic” era. All of these titles are limited and limiting,
and we’ll examine the why and how of all of them by reading poetry
and some prose of the period. This was a time when the idea of authorship
was in flux, and undergoing changes that led to modern conceptions of creativity
and literature. Authors may include Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Oliver
Goldsmith, Ann Yearsley, Hannah More, and others.
335aA (English Literature: Age of Victoria)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Butwin
(A-term)
joeyb@u.washington.edu
Victorian England: Anxiety and Aspiration. Premise: I could have said “Hopes
and Fears” but the simple premise of the course would be the same:
that the hopes and fears, the anxiety and aspiration of entire societies
emerge from the same source. Utopian hopes are inspired by the same stimuli
that inform most dire anxieties of the age. Each reveals the other, and each
will give us access to the common culture of a period. In this case our subject
is England in the 19th century when that small island of the NW coast of
Europe owned the largest empire and the most powerful navy; it was home to
the largest city, and it was the primary source of new technologies, industrial
production and fossil fuels in the world. And, as we know, all of those claims
come with a penalty. We will look to the rich literary production of the
period for demonstration of our premise . . . and for the pleasure that comes
with reading its major authors. Lecture, discussion, and a series of short
essays. Texts: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist; R. L. Stevenson, Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; John Ruskin, On Art and Life; selection of prose and poetry
on Electronic
Reserve.
337aA (The Modern Novel)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Burstein
(A-term)
jb2@u.washingtaon.edu
While the definition of the novel seems clear, at least as a noun, what precisely
does it mean to be modern? “The Modern Novel” seeks to acquaint
students with some of the ground-breaking literary texts of the early twentieth
century. Our primary geographic focus will be England, but we’ll take
at least one pass across the Atlantic, circa 1925, by moving from Woolf’s
Mrs. Dalloway to Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Hopefully, this will prove startling. We will read closely, at once focusing
on the
ambiguities of the texts as hand – the sentient student will emerge
from the course with a clear sense of what it means to dissect literary language – and
intertextual comparisons. Thematic topics will include: the status of adultery
and fidelity; the role of the modern woman/”The New Woman”/ and
more generally the pros and cons – or limitations and liberations – of
individual consciousness and its modes of expression. (Can a consciousness
be expressed? Or can it be anything other than expressed?) In addition to
the above, authors will include Conrad and Ford. We will
do five novels in five weeks, beginning with Heart of Darkness. Texts: Conrad, Heart
of Darkness; Ford, The Good Soldier; Lawrence, Womein in
Love; Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
338bA (Modern Poetry)
M-Th 10:50-1:00
Wacker
(B-term)
nwacker@u.washington.edu
[Poetry in the modernist mode, including such poets as Yeats, Eliot, Pound,
Auden, and Moore.]
342aA (Contemporary Novel)
M-Th 12:00-2:20
George
(A-term)
elgeorge@u.washington.edu
“Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across
the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories,
the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.” – Janet Frame,
contemporary New Zealand novelist
“We’re all one beat away from becoming elevator music,” --Don Delillo
Not Stranger than Fiction: The Contemporary Novel and Memesis.(c) Popular
social myth holds that novels are a means of merely escaping life; however,
the readings for this course challenge you to do otherwise: to read
and analyze these works as reflections of you and your neighbors, local and
global, to offer a mimetic rendering of life as actual people currently live
or have lived it in the recent past. These texts, devoid as each is of escapist
endings, create mindful melodies that move well beyond Muzak, helping readers
gain a felt intellectual, emotional, and ethical awareness of current conditions
that can help us finally understand how both the contemporary novel critiques
cultural norms in ways that revitalize the soul. The first text is a film
about novel writing – Stranger than Fiction. The contemporary
core of its narrative theme focuses upon mythical lifeless conformity vs.
vital
nonconformity. Thereafter, all the novels we will read, analyze, and discuss
in this five-week course will be filled with similar themes concerning the
afflictions of idealism upon characters recognizable to us in everyday life.
We’ll track the cast of characters conforming to or defying social
myths and norms, and analyze the consequences. Course requirements include
engaged attendance, discussion, short essays, in-class online research,
and a final examination. Texts: Doyle, The Woman Who
Walked into Doors; Morrison,
The Bluest Eye; Smith, Hotel World.
349aA (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
M-Th 10:50 - 1:00
Rivera
(A-term)
lysar@u.washington.edu
“Terminal Identities” and the Cyberculture Imaginary. Scott Bukatman
defines "terminal identity" as follows: "an unmistakably doubled
articulation in which we find both the end of the subject and a new subjectivity
constructed at the computer station or television screen." This course
examines the interface of subjectivity and post-industrial (cybernetic and
digital) technologies, particularly as it is represented and aestheticized
in science fiction literature and film. Working primarily (though not exclusively)
with U.S. science-fiction, it attempts to understand the shifting valences
of this interface by exploring its various literary, cinematic, and theoretical
responses. Whereas the first half of the course will examine this interface
from the perspective of the white/male cultural dominant, the second half
will consider it from a distinctly racialized perspective. Thus, in addition
to asking what have become central philosophical questions in contemporary “cyberculture” (How,
if at all, does the “posthuman” problematize or interrogate the
assumptions of Enlightenment humanism? How have post-industrial technologies
reshaped how we relate to each other, ourselves, and other cultures?), this
course will also take into account how race (and, more to the point, the
experiences, attitudes, behaviors, and innovations of America’s “racial” others)
figures into the discourse of cyberculture in its literary, cinematic, and
theoretical contexts. Readings are likely to include fiction by Bruce Sterling,
William Gibson, Maureen McHugh, Pat Cadigan, Cory Doctorow, Neal Stephenson,
Walter Mosley, Nisi Shawl, and Greg Pak, and theoretical work by Guillermo
Gómez-Peña, Paul D. Miller, Tom Foster, Lisa Nakamura, Alexander
Weheylie, Donna Haraway, Chela Sandoval and Kathleen Hayles. In addition
to purchasing a few novels, students will also work with a substantial course
packet that will include short-stories, theoretical essays, interviews, and
excerpts from novels and comics. Students will be expected to write frequent
(and sometimes in-class) response papers, one mid-term essay, and take one
comprehensive final exam covering a wide-range of both the fiction and theory.
353bA (American Literature: Later 19th C.)
M-Th 12:00-2:10
Patterson
(B-term)
mpat@u.washington.edu
Uncanny America. In America, the late 19th century saw the emergence
of the nation as an economic and cultural power. As Americans looked to a
promising
future, the city as we know it came into being, the intellectual life was
vibrant, and hope for individual accomplishment was bright. And yet the America
was haunted. This is a course about the haunting of America, or rather, about
the ways in which American literature between 1865 and 1910 held the mirror
up to society to reveal its darker realities. Economic optimism was countered
by works about poverty, the bright future was haunted by the legacies of
the Civil War, and praise for equality was tempered by the writers’ obsession
with the ways in which minorities and women were constrained by the very
forces that offered such promise. We will use Freud’s famous essay
on the uncanny to discuss the various forms of haunting in the period. Included
will be real ghost stories by Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Ambrose Bierce,
but we will also consider other forms of the uncanny, like the doubling of
racial passing in Charles Chesnutt and Mark Twain, and the alienation in
city life in Horatio Alger and Stephen Crane. Assignments will include in-class
writing assignments and short essays. Texts: Henry
James, Turn of the Screw and Other Short…; Horatio Alger, Ragged
Dick; Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead
Wilson.
353B (American Literature: Later 19th C.)
TTh 4:40-6:50
Patterson
(full term; Evening Degree section)
mpat@u.washington.edu
Uncanny America. In America, the late 19th century saw the emergence
of the nation as an economic and cultural power. As Americans looked to a
promising
future, the city as we know it came into being, the intellectual life was
vibrant, and hope for individual accomplishment was bright. And yet the America
was haunted. This is a course about the haunting of America, or rather, about
the ways in which American literature between 1865 and 1910 held the mirror
up to society to reveal its darker realities. Economic optimism was countered
by works about poverty, the bright future was haunted by the legacies of
the Civil War, and praise for equality was tempered by the writers’ obsession
with the ways in which minorities and women were constrained by the very
forces that offered such promise. We will use Freud’s famous essay
on the uncanny to discuss the various forms of haunting in the period. Included
will be real ghost stories by Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Ambrose Bierce,
but we will also consider other forms of the uncanny, like the doubling of
racial passing in Charles Chesnutt and Mark Twain, and the alienation in
city life in Horatio Alger and Stephen Crane. Assignments will include in-class
writing assignments and short essays. Evening
Degree students only. Texts: Henry
James, Turn of the Screw and Other Short…;
Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick; Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; Mark Twain,
Pudd’nhead Wilson; Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition.
359aA (Contemporary American Indian Literature)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Colonnese
(A-term)
[Creative writings – novels, short stories, poems – of contemporary
Indian authors; traditions out of which they evolved. Differences between
Indian writers and writers of the dominant European/American mainstream.
Offered jointly with AIS 377.]
361B (American Political Culture: After 1865)
MW 7:00-9:20 pm
Dean
(full term; Evening Degree section)
gnodean@u.washingtonn.edu
The Family Politic. Family: perhaps no other word has as much symbolic or
fund-raising power in U.S. political culture. Since the Civil War, when “brother” fought
against “brother,” the family has been metaphorically applied
to the nation itself; at the same time, the family is often invoked as the “basic
social unit” that many consider it a national duty to protect and preserve.
The idea of the family is potent across the political spectrum, but what
different people mean by the family – both in terms of actual configurations
of people and the political stakes associated with these configurations – is
highly contextual. In this class, we will investigate different literary,
sociological and political treatments of the family from the turn of the
twentieth century to the present. Our focus will be on three historical moments:
the early twentieth century and the challenges that immigration brought to
traditional definitions of family; the 1940s and 1950s, when “invisible” families
and domestic concerns shadowed the “ideal” family of American
mass media; and the 1980s and 1990s, when gay and lesbian activists began
to insist on the recognition and rights of alternative families. Evening
Degree students only. Texts: Anzia Yezierska, Bread
Givers; Toni Morrison,
The Bluest Eye; Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World.
457 A (Pacific Northwest Literature)
TWTh 9:40-11:20
Lamberton
(full term)
This course will focus on literary texts by historical and contemporary writers
associated with the Pacific Northwest., and will feature visits by prominent
writers associated with the region. Students will meet and talk with the
following writers about their work: Marilynne Robinson (author of Housekeeping and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Gilead); Heather McHugh (UW poet, essayist,
and translator); Richard White (Stanford historian of the American West);
Debra Magpie Earling (novelist and professor of Native American Studies,
University of Montana); Kim Barnes (memoirist and novelist, University of
Idaho); Roberrt Wrigley (poet and essayist, University of Idaho). In addition
to the class sessions, students will also attend readings by the above writers,
and see, in Seattle’s ACT Theatre, David Wagoner’s
play, First Class, about the influential teaching of renowned poet
and UW professor Theodore Roethke. Professor Dan Lamberton is Director of
the Humanities
Division, Walla Walla College. The course meets with HSTAA 433A, taught by
Professor John Findlay, UW Department of History. Students in both classes
meet together, and share most of the same readings, but will have different
assignments, depending on whether they are signed up for ENGL 457 or HSTAA
433. By arrangement, students may opt to enroll for more than one course.
See department advisers for more information.
477 A (Children’s Literature)
M-Th 10:50-11:50
Griffith
(full term)
jgriff@u.washington.edu
We’ll read and discuss an assortment of fairy tales, other stories
and novels for children. 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. Texts: John Griffith & Charles
Frey, eds., Classics of Children’s Literature, 6th ed.; J. K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
491A (Internship)
*Arrange*
Supervised experience in local businesses and other agencies. Open only
to upper-division English majors. Credit/no credit only. Prerequisite:
25 credits in English. Add codes, further information in Undergraduate Advising
office, A-2-B Padelford (543-2634).
492A (Advanced Expository Writing Conference)
*Arrange*
Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student and
instructor. Revision of manuscripts is emphasized, but new work may also be
undertaken. Instructor codes, further information available in Writing Programs
office, A-11 Padelford (543-2190).
493A (Advanced Creative Writing Conference)
*Arrange*
Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student
and instructor. Revision of manuscripts is emphasized, but new work
may also be undertaken. Instructor codes, further information available
in Creative
Writing office, B-25 Padelford (543-9865; open 11-3 daily).
496A (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 Programs office, A-11 Padelford (543-2190).
498bB (Senior Seminar)
M-Th 9:40-11:50
Streitberger
(W)
(B-term)
streitwr@u.washington.edu
Hamlet. The seminar begins with a historical overview of the revenge genre
and of the principal critical approaches to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Our
main focus will be on postmodern criticism of the play as it influences late
20th-century film productions. Requirements: short reports and a 10-12 pp.
paper focusing on film interpretations of the play. Senior majors only. Texts: Shakespeare, Hamlet; Thomas Kyd, The
Spanish Tragedy; photocopied course
packet.
499A (Independent Study)
*Arrange*
Individual study by arrangement with instructor. Prerequisite: permission
of director of undergraduate education. Add codes, further information,
available in Undergraduate Programs office, A-11 Padelford (543-2190).
Add codes are required for all graduate courses, and may be obtained in the English Graduate office, A-105 Padelford.
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 consultaion 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).
