Autumn 1998 200-level ENGL courses

Course Descriptions (as of 10 September 1998)
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. (Although we try to have as accurate and complete information as possible, this schedule remains subject to change.)

200 A (Reading Literature)
Dy 8:30 (W)
Andrews
We'll explore various genres, specifically in terms of literary conventions, in hopes that recognizing these conventions and making claims about their effects will help produce a more manageable reading experience. We will begin with poems, move to short stories (or shorter narratives), and conclude with Morrison's Song of Solomon and Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Texts: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; photocopied course packet.

200 B (Reading Literature)
Dy 8:30 (W)
Chaney
This course is designed to further your abilities as a reader and writer through a close and, hopefully, pleasurable and rewarding examination of a range of literary texts. We will take as one of our themes the way in which family narratives help shape identity as well as theway that history and culture affect literature. We will read short stories, a memoir, poetry, and a novel. Texts: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; Art Spiegelman, Maus I; David Madden, ed., A Pocketful of Poems; Ann Charters, ed., The Story and Its Writers, 4th ed.

200 C (Reading Literature)
Dy 9:30 (W)
DeWolf
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: Madden, A Pocketful of Poems; Charters, The Story and Its Writer (compact edition); DeLillo, White Noise.

200 D (Reading Literature)
Dy 11:30 (W)
Lydia Fisher
This course is designed as an introduction to reading and writing about literature at the college level. We will read and discuss poetry, short stories, and a novel together, attending to formal features such as narrative point of view, setting, and use of language. In the process of reading, we will be focusing on the theme of American character, looking at how a national literature works to shape a reader's sense of membership and individual identity. The primary goal of this class is for students to learn how to read language figuratively and critically, and write effectively about that kind of reading. Be prepared to do lots of reading and lots of writing. Texts: Lauter, ed., Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2, 2nd ed.; James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

200 E (Reading Literature)
Dy 12:30 (W)
Andrews
We'll explore various genres, specifically in terms of literary conventions, in hopes that recognizing these conventions and making claims about their effects will help produce a more manageable reading experience. We will begin with poems, move to short stories (or shorter narratives), and conclude with Morrison's Song of Solomon and Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Texts: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; photocopied course packet.

200 F (Reading Literature)
Dy 1:30 (W)
Chaney
This course is designed to further your abilities as a reader and writer through a close and, hopefully, pleasurable and rewarding examination of a range of literary texts. We will take as one of our themes the way in which family narratives help shape identity as well as theway that history and culture affect literature. We will read short stories, a memoir, poetry, and a novel. Texts: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; Art Spiegelman, Maus I; David Madden, ed., A Pocketful of Poems; Ann Charters, ed., The Story and Its Writers, 4th ed.

200G (Reading Literature)
MW 1:30-3:20 (W)
Laughlin
Added 8/19. SLN: 9159
In this course we will look at works that in various ways question the possibilities of genre and of art itself. Reading authors from many different backgrounds and times (including Yasmina Reza, Sherman Alexie, and Emily Bronte), we will explore the ways in which these writers respond to the traditions--cultural and artistic--which shape their work. This course involves a significant amount of writing and revision. Texts: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, Sunday in the Park with George; Yamina Reza, Art; Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; photocopied course packet.

205 A (Method, Imagination, & Inquiry) (W)
Dy 1:30
Searle
[Examines ideas of method and imagination in a variety of texts, in literature, philosophy, and science. Particularly concerned with intellectual backgrounds and methods of inquiry that have shaped modern Western literature.] (Meets with CHID 205) Texts: Plato, Phaedo; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Descartes, Discourse on Method; Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!; photocopied course packet with additional texts by Aristotle, Bruno, Kant, Coleridge, Emerson, and C. S. Peirce.

207 A (Introduction to Cultural Studies)
TTh 12:30-2:20
George
"Culture"-the traditions, beliefs, customs, habits and practices of a society-form the basis of social institutions. These, in turn, are frequently the subject of literary authors who use their imaginative works as a means to cultivate and/or critique cultural values. Literary critics who employ a cultural analytical approach seek to discover the beliefs and practices within literary texts and link them to the social contexts within which they were composed. The benefits to such an approach, as Stephen Greenblatt puts it in his essay "Culture," are twofold: "…if an exploration of a particular culture will lead to a heightened understanding of a work of literature produced within that culture, so too a careful reading of a work of literature will lead to a heightened understanding of the culture within which it was produced. This course should provide you both benefits. During the quarter we will explore academic, corporate, and cyber cultures within contemporary American society by critically and carefully reading short stories, a feature film, and Internet discussions that represent in various fashions those culture. Course requirements include regular class attendance and thoughtful participation; a willingness to learn to think seriously, critically, and contextually about texts that are conventionally viewed as commonly "popular" or merely base; online research, and a writing portfolio (based on three assignments) completed in a process fashion. (Computer-Integrated section; no computer experience necessary.) Texts: Joyce Carol Oates, "Theft"; Labute, In the Company of Men; photocopied course packet including texts about academia and a variety of critical article on cultural approaches to literary criticism; variety of online Listservs, Newsgroups, and Web sites.

210 A (Literature of the Ancient World)
MW 12:30 (lecture); quizzes: TTh 12:30, TTh 1:30
Alan Fisher
This course kills two university birds with one stone. The "birds" are humanities (VLPA) breadth requirements on the one hand, entrance into the English major on the other; the "stone" is a group of well-known texts representing ancient literature. "Well-known texts" of ancient literature, according to the anthologies that make them available, mean pretty much the same thing all over: Gilgamesh, bits of Homer, some Greek plays (including Oedipus Rex), Plato's Apology, love poems from Sappho and Catullus, and bits of Vergil's Aeneid. We'll read them and talk about them. The class is two lectures a week given to all sections, in which general issues are discussed, and two section meetings a week, to discuss particular interpretive problems and questions of reading. Work required consists of two 4 to 6 page papers, a portfolio of 1-2 pp. response papers, and a final examination. Text: Wilkie & Hurt, eds., Literature of the Western World.

211 A (Medieval & Renaissance Literature)
Dy 8:30
Mussetter
We will be looking at the development of some literary/cultural ideas from their earliest articulation in medieval literature to their reformulation in the Renaissance. Some of these "ideas" are the hero and his relation to society, love, the literary representation of the ;inner man," the interrelation of literature and politics, the development of literary genres, and so on. The course is designed to be "introductory," and as such is appropriate to pre-majors and non-majors. Besides the readings, there will be two substantial exams-part take-home essays, part in-class identifications and short answers. There will also be a weekly e-mail "paper" due on some aspect of current class material. Attendance will be taken, participations counted toward final grade. Text: Abrams, et al., Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1.

212 A (Literature of Enlightenment & Revolution)
MW 10:30 (lecture); quizzes: MW 11:30; TTh 11:30; TTh 12:30
Shabetai
Innocence Lost. This course will examine literature from the Enlightenment through the early years of the Romantic period. In particular, we will study various kinds of loss as represented in a number of literary works: the fall from Eden, the loss of certainty about our ability to know the world, attacks on religious faith, challenges to human dignity, and finally, the loss of innocence. Students will attend two hours of lecture in addition to two hours of discussion in smaller sections. Requirements: regular attendance and participation, frequent writing assignments, and an exam. Texts: Pope, Essay on Man; Swift, Gulliver's Travels; Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; Voltaire, Candide; Blake, Blake's Poetry and Designs; Goethe, The Sufferings of Young Werther; Wordsworth & Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads; Austen, Northanger Abbey; Shelley, Frankenstein.

213 A (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
MW 11:30 (lecture); quizzes: MW 12:30; TTh 11:30; TTh 12:30
Cummings
Twentieth-century American dreams and nightmares are the subject of this course: short stories, novels, poetry, film, and political speeches are the texts. Three basic questions will guide our reading of each dream work: (1) What is the vision and how is it expressed? (2) Under what socio-historical conditions is the dream produced and how might they shape its composition? (3) What are the dream work's real life consequences and for whom? (A critical essay, mid-term, and final are required writing assignments.) Texts: Doctorow, Ragtime; Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstone; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Kerouac, On the Road.

213B (Modern & Postmodern Literature)
TTh 2:30-4:20
Laughlin
Added 8/19. SLN: 9160
In this course we will read some of the major writers of this century. We will begin with the great figures of the Modern period--Woolf, Joyce, Eliot--then move on to the Postmodern era, with writers such as Samuel Beckett, Sylvia Plath, and Allen Ginsberg. The end of a century is always a time of self-reflection, and at the end of our course we will look at a very contemporary and very self-reflective work, Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters. "Postmodern" sounds like a contradiction in terms--but what happens after Postmodernism? Texts: Virginia Woolf, Monday Or Tuesday: 8 Stories; James Joyce, Dubliners; T. S. Eliot, The Waste-Land, Prufrock, & Other Poems; Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot; Sylvia Plath, Ariel; Barbara Pym, Quartet in Autumn; Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters; photocopied course packet.

225 A (Shakespeare)
Dy 8:30 (W)
Charles Fischer
This course is designed as an introductory offering of Shakespeare's major plays-a survey of his histories, comedies and tragedies. No previous knowledge of the period is necessary. Texts: Shakepeare, Much Ado About Nothing; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Richard III; Henry V; Macbeth; Hamlet.

228 A (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
Dy 12:30
Dunlop
British literature from the Middle Ages to the end of the sixteenth century. Study of literature in its cultural context, with attention to changes in language, form, content, and style. Text: Abrams, et al., eds., Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1.

229 A (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
Dy 8:30
Ellsworth
This course will provide a broad survey of English literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We will look at the cultural context for the literature as we examine individual works closely. There will be weekly response papers, some short research projects, two exams, and a short final paper. Text: Damrosch, ed., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1.

230 A (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
MW 8:30-10:20
Freind
This class will offer a broad survey of British literature from the beginning of the 1800's until the 1930's. We'll start with the Romantic poets, reading both canonical writers and others whose work has traditionally been overlooked, then move to the Victorians. When we reach the twentieth century, we'll discuss whether the term "British literature" still has any real meaning, since many of the most prominent writers in England were from other countries, and since advances in transportation and printing facilitated a much higher degree of circulation of ideas from Asia, the Continent, and the US. Assignments will consist of a midterm, final, three short papers of at least a page, and a longer paper of at least five pages. Texts: Longman Anthology of Birtish Literature, Vol. 2; Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

230 B (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Ellsworth
This course will provide a broad survey of English literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will look at the cultural context for the literature as we examine individual works closely. There will be weekly response papers, some short research projects, two exams, and a short final paper. Text: Damrosch, ed., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 2.

Dy 8:30 (W)
Prather
Semblance and Resemblance. This course will consider how "fiction"-a "feigned or false story: a falsehood"-is implicated in relationships between models and copies, reality and appearance. We will be looking at different types of fictional texts-literature, visual art, film, and music-from different theoretical and practical perspectives: Plato's theory of forms, the postmodern "simulacrum," the notion of microcosm, mimicry in nature, copyright law. Expect plenty of in-class and computer-based discussion, at least one major paper, in-class essays and journal writing or response papers. Texts: Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber; Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; photocopied course packet.

242 B (Reading Fiction)
Dy 9:30 (W)
Prather
Semblance and Resemblance. This course will consider how "fiction"-a "feigned or false story: a falsehood"-is implicated in relationships between models and copies, reality and appearance. We will be looking at different types of fictional texts-literature, visual art, film, and music-from different theoretical and practical perspectives: Plato's theory of forms, the postmodern "simulacrum," the notion of microcosm, mimicry in nature, copyright law. Expect plenty of in-class and computer-based discussion, at least one major paper, in-class essays and journal writing or response papers. Texts: Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber; Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; photocopied course packet.

242 C (Reading Fiction)
Dy 12:30 (W)
Christensen
Reading Fiction: Modes of Remembrance. One particularly interesting novelistic technique is to portray characters remembering their past and gathering it up in fragments. This creates an intriguing opposition between the imagined and the real, and invites us to ask why the characters seem obsessed with remembering, with re-collecting their experiences. Are they trying to reconstitute or reinvent an identity from the pieces of an old puzzle, or are they trying to redeem themselves, to cleanse their conscience in some fashion? What is so compelling about such fictional structure? We will look at four twentieth-century novels that explore the question of memory and its relation to present reality. Our works include one of the greatest and most famous instances of the theme of remembrance, Proust's In Search of Lost Time (the first volume), and three more recent-and more fragmented-novels: Duras's The Lover, Lively's Moon Tiger, and Ondaatje's The English Patient. To help us analyze the relation between memory, "objective reality" and identity, we will also study a range of short stories and parables by Jorge Luis Borges from his Personal Anthology. Students will write one paper on each novel, as well as several short response papers and creative assignments. No exam.

242 D (Reading Fiction)
Dy 1:30 (W)
Rose
[Critical interpretation and meaning in fiction. Different examples of fiction representing a variety of types from the medieval to modern periods.] Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Edith Wharton, Summer; Charlotte Brontë, Villette; David Staines, ed, The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes; Ellen Wynn, ed., The Short Story: 50 Masterpieces.

250 A (Introduction to American Literature)
MW 1:30-3:20
Chait
A selection of American texts, from Jefferson to Barthelme, that presents different perspectives on American culture, ideology, and the creation of the American self. We shall examine these narratives in their historical and cultural contexts, paying special attention to the role of class, race, gender, and religion, and their respective transformations of the American Dream. Starting with the Declaration of Independence from the Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, we will move via essays, short stories and poems (Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar," Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," Walt Whitman's "Calamus" poems) to Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts, Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and, finally, Frederick Barthelme's 1995 image of cyberpunk America in the Painted Desert. Texts: Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust; Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar; Frederick Barthelme, Painted Desert.

258 B(African-American Literature: 1745-Present)
MW 10:30-11:20. Fri 10:30-12:20
Ralston
Course reinstated 6/30; new SLN: 9023
[A chronological survey of Afro-American literature in all genres from its beginnings to the present day. Emphasizes Afro-American writing as a literary art, the cultural and historical context of Afro-American literary expression and the aesthetic criteria of Afro-American literature. Offered jointly with AFRAM 214B.]

281 A (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 8:30
Dunn
To address the catalog objectives of this course concerning "accurate, competent, and effective expression," frequent writing assignments will draw upon Neil Postman's The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School and the writing of John Stuart Mill as examples of effective expression. Texts: Postman, The End of Education; Mill, On Liberty, Subjection of Women, chapters On Socialism. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above.

281 B (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 9:30
White
Ralph Waldo Emerson asked, "Where do we find ourselves?" In this course, you will find your answer to this question. Rather than explicate texts, the students' writing will develop their own thoughts and beliefs. Students will work toward writing styles beyond the merely functional, to write with what I like to call "texture." As a means of developing texture, we will explore the relation between writing and speech. The class readings, Emerson and William James, will present examples of writings closely related to speech. In addition to meetings devoted to discussion of the texts, there will be a weekly "writing workshop" in which students will present their work in writing and out loud to their fellow students. Texts: Emerson, Essays: First and Second Series; James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature; Strunk, Elements of Style. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above.

281 C (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 10:30
Mazzeo
Although this course focuses primarily on the development of effective composition skills, its literary context asks you at the same time to consider some of the "real" effects of language and representation. We will be investigating, in particular, the role that twentieth-century "utopian" writing played in developing the political conflict between "communism" and "capitalism" that finally resulted in the Cold War. To what degree, we will ask, is it true that "it is by words that the world's great fight, in these civilised times, is carried on"? The course readings will begin with two utopian models of political theory-Rousseau's Social Contract and Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto. After considering how these writers configure the relationship between the individual and society, we will turn our attention to a few works that attempt to imagine the "logical" results of different social contracts; these texts include Animal Farm (Orwell), and The Time Machine (Wells). Additional course material will focus on contemporary mass-media reactions to these works, with an emphasis on their manipulation (especially in film versions) as "war" propaganda. Course requirements will include weekly critical essays (8), which will expose students to several different models of expository writing. Students will also be asked to engage in a "discussion partnership" with the instructor. Class discussion will be divided between attention to literary texts and a consideration of writing issues. Due to the organization of this course, regular attendance and active participation will be necessary for your success. Texts: Rousseau, Social Contract; Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto; H. G. Wells, Time Machine; George Orwell, Animal Farm; photocopied course packet. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above.

281 D (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 11:30
Hoblit
[Writing papers communications information and opinion to develop accurate, competent, and effective expression.] Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above.]

281 E (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 12:30
Cole
Cultural Cool. What's really cool? This course critically examines the construction of coolness in contemporary American society, with special attention to how the culture industry manipulates our perceptions and desires. The essay collection, Commodify Your Dissent, will orient our exploration of cultural artifacts, such as commercials and magazine articles. We will also read fictional texts that broach the issue of the cool. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is the other required text; I will prepare a course packet of several short stories. This class offers students opportunity both to write about literature and to analyze and write about contemporary culture. Please expect a variety of writing assignments. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above. Texts: Frank & Weiland, eds., Commodify Your Dissent; Morrison, The Bluest Eye; photocopied course packet. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above.

281 F (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MWF 1:30
Kupka
[Writing papers communications information and opinion to develop accurate, competent, and effective expression.] Texts: Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western CivilizationI; Michael Dibdin, Dead Lagoon. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above.

283 A (Beginning Verse Writing)
MW 9:30-10:50
Whitmarsh
[Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem.] Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above. No texts.

283 B (Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 11:30-12:50
Lewis-Hawk
This course will study use of image, sound, and form in the composition of poetry. We will read poetry and do assignments to use the tools of the trade. The second half of the course will consist of an open workshop in which students share and discuss their own original poems. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above. Text: Nims, Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry.

284 A (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 12:30-1:50
A. Nelson
Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above. English majors only, Registration period 1. No texts.

284 B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 10:30-11:50
Nestor
Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and above. English majors only, Registration period 1. Text: Lamott, Bird by Bird.

AUTUMN 1998 200-Level Courses

AUTUMN 1998
200-Level Courses