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(Descriptions last updated: 21 May 1997)
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.
Students not previously admitted to the University of Washington (nonmatriculated status) may enroll in ENGL 111, 121, 131, 281, 381, or 481 only if they have met the following ESL requirements: a score of at least 580 on the TOEFL or one of these equivalent scores: 90 on the MTELP, 410 on the SAT-Verbal, 490 on the SAT-Verbal (recentered), or 20 on the ACT English. For more information, consult an English adviser in A-2-B Padelford, (206) 543-2634, engladv@u.washington.edu.
104 (Introductory Composition)
M-Th 12:00
[Development of writing skills: sentence strategies and paragraph structures.
Expository, critical, and persuasive essay techniques based on analysis
of selected readings. For Educational Opportunity Program students
only, upon recommendation by the Office of Minority Affairs.]
111 (Composition: Literature)
2 sections: M-Th 12:00; T Th 9:40-11:40
[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)
M-Th 10:50
[Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from reading and discussing
essays and fiction about current social and moral issues.] For information
on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.
131 (Composition: Exposition)
5 sections: M-Th 8:30; M-Th 9:40; M-Th 10:50; M-Th 12:00
[Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from a variety of personal,
academic, and public subjects.] For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated
students, click here.
200 A (Reading Literature) W
Dy 8:30
Somerson
This class will focus on the intersections of nationality, sexuality, and
identity in novels, short stories, and autobiographical narratives by contemporary
women writers. By pairing fictional with non-fictional accounts of identity,
we will investigate the relationship between fact and fiction, the personal
and the political. We will consider how these narratives present various aspects
of identity (including race, gender, sexuality, and class) in relation to
national identity. Examining the connection between what we think of as personal
relationships and the larger forces of national and international politics,
we will pay special attention to what is often considered the most personal
attribute (sexuality) as it is negotiated in relation to these larger forces.
Texts: Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina; Two or
Three Things I Know For Sure; Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy; A Small
Place; Michelle Cliff, Abeng; The Land of Look Behind: Prose
and Poetry; Anchee Min, Red Azalea.
200 B (Reading Literature) W
Dy 9:40
Blyn
Thinking and Re-Thinking Literary Traditions. This course is an introduction
to literature and has been designed to introduce students to the various
ways
literature creates meaning. As our focus, we will take some of the
great works of the western tradition. Next to each of these classic works,
we will study a contemporary rewriting of it. We will hone in on the political,
social and intellectual critiques these rewritings attempt, such as the redefinition
of gender roles and racial boundaries. What does it mean to rewrite a classic
literary work? For what reasons do contemoprary writers turn to these older,
traditional works? Are the rewritings more or less controversial than the
classics to which they are referring? What is the value of a literary canon?
What happens when a play is adapted into a novel or film? These are the kinds
of questions which will emerge in the course of the quarter. Texts:
Aristotle, The Poetics; Sophocles, Complete Plays; Lee Breur,
The Gospel at Colonus; Aeschylus, The Oresteia Trilogy; Christa
Wolf, Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays; Defoe, Robinson Crusoe;
Coetzee, Foe; Richardson, Pamela; Fielding, Joseph Andrews,
with Shamela and Related Writings.
200 C (Reading Literature) W
Dy 10:50
Adair
In an effort to learn to more widely read, appreciate and analyze literature,
we will consider a sampling of poetry, short stories, and novels in addition
to photography, art, and film from the 19th and 20th centuries. At the heart
of the course is consideration of the desire to name--and thus stabilize
and neutralize--"the other" in Western literary texts. Texts: McKay,
Home to Harlem; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Caldwell, Tobacco
Road; Laurence, Complete Short Stories; Shelley, Frankenstein;
photocopied course packet.
200 D (Reading Literature) W
Dy 12:00
Reid
Hamlet sets the stage (so to speak) for this course, by bringing up the
question of madness as a topic burdened by ambiguity, biased by point of
view: "I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a
hawk from handsaw." Students will write short papers in class and out, a
longer paper, and an in-class final. Texts: William Shakespeare, Hamlet;
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre; Emily Dickinson, Final Harvest;
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper; Sherman Alexie, The
Summer of Black Widows; Lucille Clifton, The Terrible Stories;
Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient; optional: Jean
Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea.
200 U (Reading Literature) W
TTh 7-8:10 pm
Taylor
This course is intended as an introduction to enjoying literature (not just
a good idea: it's required). To facilitate this end we will examine
a selection of poetic, dramatic, and fictional texts while discussing the
different strategies involved in the creation of literary meaning: figurative
language, characterization, narration, etc. Texts: Jane Austen, Pride
and Prejudice; Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things; Oliver Goldsmith,
She Stoops to Conquer; Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?;
phnotocopied course packet.
211A (Medieval & Renaissance Literature)
Dy 9:40
Atchley
Introduction to literature from a broadly cultural point of view, focusing
on major works that have shaped the development of literary and intellectual
traditions from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Texts:
Schmidt, ed., Piers Plowman: A New Translation of the B-Text; Boethius
(Green, tr.), Consolation of Philosophy; Malory (Vinaver, ed.), King
Arthur and His Knights; Borroff, tr., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
The Pearl; Johnston, ed., Cloud of Unknowing; Stevick, ed., One
Hundred Middle English Lyrics; Shakespeare, Four Tragedies: Hamlet,
King Lear, Macbeth, Othello.
212A (Literature of Enlightenment and Revolution)
Dy 10:50
Mazzeo
This course will focus on learning to read, interpret, and enjoy literature
written from 1750-1820, the period that historically encompasses the European
Enlightenment, the French and American Revolutions, and the Napoleonic Empire.
Although these texts may seem old-fashioned and fussy at first, they express
views that remain radical and controversial, and they have helped to shape
our contemporary ideas (and debates) about human rights, responsibilities,
and freedoms. We will begin the course by establishing an historical context
and by reading some short selections from essays on education, government,
sexual freedom, slavery, and civil liberty. Alongside these essays,
we will read several representative literary texts from the Enlightenment
and Romantic periods and will consider how they engage and develop these fundamental
questions about the nature of the individual, his or her political rights,
and the social contracts that limit and/or protect these freedoms. In all
cases, our emphasis will be on learning to read closely and to interpret literary
texts. Course requirements will include weekly response papers (2
pp.), one longer essay (6 pp.), and reading quizzes as needed. Students will
also participate in a "discussion partnership" with the instructor once during
the quarter and will be asked to generate a final portfolio of materials related
to this project. Course readings will include excerpts from essays
by Rousseau, Pope, Diderot, Paine, Monesquieu, Jefferson, and Wollstonecraft. We
will also consider literary texts by Pope, Voltaire, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley,
Wordsworth, and Blake. The selection of works includes both poetry
and prose readings. Texts: Pope, Essay on Man; Mary Wollstonecraft,
Vindication of the Rights of Women; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein;
Voltaire, Candide; Rousseau, Social Contract; photocopied course
packet.
213A (Modern and Postmodern Literature)
Dy 8:30
Wacker
This course will explore several very recent issues emerging in the discussion
of literature, culture and society in the aftermath of modernism. We will
read Don DeLillo's White Noise as both a portrait of a media-saturated
U.S. popular culture and as an example of literary postmodernism. In Robert
Reich's The Work of Nations we will examine some of the social and
cultural consequences following on the transformation of the national economy
of the U.S. into a so-called postindustrial economy. Benjamin Barber's Jihad
vs. McWorld will be our window onto the phenomena of economic, political
and cultural globalization. We will in some ways sum up the course by exploring
in Richard Rodriguez's Days of Obligation a growing contemporary
awareness of the historicity and the cultural hybridity of the ethnic and
cultural backgrounds against which individuals and groups assert their identities,
backgrounds shaped simultaneously by global integration and growing cultural
differentiation.
225A (Shakespeare)
TTh 12:00-2:10
Doyle
This is a survey course, examining Shakespeare's career as a dramatist.
Over the course of the quarter we will examine eight plays--comedies, tragedies,
romances and histories--and consider Shakespeare's development of themes,
characters and dramatic situations from text to text. Through a combination
of class discussion, lecture, film and dramatization, the class will focus
on the living language of the plays and the human problems and foibles Shakespeare
explores within them. Each week, class members will submit a short writing
assignmnet (one page) on the play under discussion. In addition, class members
will each be expected to submit a brief report on a film version of one of
Shakespeare's plays. There will be a midquarter quiz and, for a final project,
class members will be expected to work collaboratively on creating a director's
notebook for a scene from one of the plays studied. Plays to be considered:
1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V; As You Like It and
Midsummer Night's Dream; King Lear and Hamlet; The
Tempest and Winter's Tale. Texts: Shakespeare, Four Histories;
Four Tragedies; The Late Romances; Four Comedies.
228A (English Literary Culture: to 1600)
Dy 8:30-10:40
Simmons-O'Neill
(A-term)
Readings from Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury
Tales, Julian of Norwich, and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.
Midterm, essay, workshop presentation/performance, final. Texts:
Chickering, tr., Beowulf; Borroff, tr., Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight; Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (ed. Hieatt & Hieatt);
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (tr. Walsh); Shakespeare,
Midsummer Night's Dream.
229A (English Literary Culture: 1600-1800)
Dy 12:00-2:10
van den Berg
(A-term)
An intensive reading of English culture during two crucial centuries.
Writers in the 17th century claimed the self as their topic, their identity
painfully tested by religious conflict, scientific revolution, civil war,
and the complexities of interior life. The 18th century featured a new model
of social literature, of cultural thinking marked by satire, sentimentality
and speculation, by ethics and exploitation. It was an Age of Reason
obsessed with madness, an Age of Exuberance shadowed by right thoughts and
reverie, and an Age or Urbanity built on memories of deserted villages and
moral decay. Texts: Abrams, et al., The Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Vol. 1 (6th ed.); Graham, ed., Her Own Life: Autobiographical
Writings of 18th-Century Englishwomen.
230A (English Literary Culture: after 1800)
Dy 9:40-11:50
Goodlad
(A-term)
This survey of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature begins
with the romantic poetry of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats. From there
we move to Austen's Emma, a brief overview of Victorian poetry (Tennyson,
Browning, Barrett Browning, Arnold and Rossetti), and Victorian prose (Ruskin,
Nightingale and Pater). We conclude with Forster's Howard's End.
The course will emphasize the historical, cultural and political contexts
of these works as well as their contributions and responses to the making
of "modern" consciousness--including constructions of class, gender and national
identities. Texts: Austen, Emma; Forster, Howard's End;
Nightingale, Cassandra; Broadview Anthology of Poetry; Oxford Anthology
of English Literature, Vol. 5.
242A (Reading Fiction) W
Dy 8:30
Reid
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live"--but what do the stories we
tell, tell us about ourselves? What stories get retold? When a story is retold,
what (who) gets left out? What remains--or becomes--central? Why?
Beginning with Frankenstein and ending with The English Patient,
in this course we will examine figures alienated by their respective literatures.
Where useful, we'll also consider film versions (often useful misreadings)
of the fictions, asking, what is this figure made to (allowed to) "say" to
our culture through the medium of film? When a story is significantly
changed, who changed it, and with what effect? And, especially, whose story
is no longer told? Students will write several short papers (about 1
page each), one longer paper (5-8 pages), and an in-class final.Texts:
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
and Other Stories; Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre; Henry James, The
Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The
Yellow Wallpaper; Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina; Michael
Ondaatje, The English Patient.
242B (Reading Fiction) W
TTh 12:00-2:10
Stygall
In this course, we will read novels clustered around questions of "fiction"
and "fact," using those novels as a means of attempting to define the domain
of fiction. All three of the novels we will read have some greater or lesser
anchor in "actual" history. As we read Frances Sherwood's Vindication,
we will also read biographical material on the 18th-century feminist Mary
Wollstonecraft and read her published letters. As we read Toni Morrison's
Beloved, we will read materials on the legal controversies of the
immediate pre-Civil War period, and discuss the relation of the Margaret
Garner case in Ohio to the novel. As we read the third novel, Theodore Dreiser's
An American Tragedy, we will also read newspaper accounts of the trial
on which the novel is based, a trial occurring twenty years before Dreiser
published the novel. So what is fiction? As we read these novels, we will
also read several articles describing how scholars have been thinking about
fiction and literature and these particular authors. Requirements include
a midterm, a final, and a long, final paper.
242U (Reading Fiction) W
MW 7-9:10 pm
Taylor
This course is intended as an introduction to fiction as a literary genre,
with most of our attention to be paid to the devlopment of the modern novel,
with ancillary readings offering some background in the origins of literary
fiction, and the development of the novel from late medieval romance. Texts:
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness;
Toni Morrison, Beloved; Don DeLillo, White Noise; photocoiped
course packet.
250A (Introduction to American Literature)
Dy 10:50-1:00
George
(A-term)
Telling Stories of 20th-Century America. This subtitle defines the
main objective of this course: to introduce you to many fictional perspectives
of 20th-century American life that stem from historical, cultural, and biographical
fact. In 4-1/2 weeks we will overview 8 decades of 20th-century American fiction,
and acquaint ourselves with facts of history, race, gender, culture, and
personal experience that form the contextual core of various authors' perspectives
on 20th-century America; we will then connect those to the substance and
style of their fictions. Course requirements include thoughtful attendance,
oral and written discussion and analysis, quizzes, and a final examination.
Text: Prentice Hall Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2
(6th ed.).
258A (African-American Literature: 1745-Present)
Dy 11:30-1:40
Butler
(A-term)
This course is a thematic and chronological survey of African American literature
from its beginnings to the present day. Because of time constraints, the course
is necessarily selective and representative. We will emphasize African American
writing as a literary art; the cultural and historical context of African
American literary expression; and the role of African American literature
in redefining what has been considered mainstream American literature. Text:
Gates and McKay, Norton Anthology of African American Literature. (Meets
with AFRAM 214A)
281A (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MW 8:30-10:00
Tollefson
This course will develop your writing skills through in-class writing, collaborative
group activities, discussion, and three essay assignments. Our topic will
be the movement to declare English the official language in the United States
(including efforts to restrict other languages), as well as opposition to
this movement. We will read a variety of writings about the Official English
movement, including magazine and newspaper articles, policy statements, argumentative
works by participants in the Official English debate, and academic analyses.
The three essay assignments will develop your ability to write informative,
argumentative, and research-based writing. (For information on ESL requirement
for non-matriculated students, click here.) Texts:
James Crawford, ed., Language Loyalties; photocopied course packet.
281B (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MW 10:50-12:20
Long
A Sense of Where You Are. The general aims of intermediate expository
writing include extending your competence as a reader, thinker and writer;
deepening your repertoire of argumentative techniques, stylistic strategies
and rhetorical sophistication; and furthering your awareness of argumentative
forms and the role of style in a range of expository contexts. This section
of ENGL 281 will devote considerable attention to Henry David Thoreau's
Walden. We will begin by reading and talking about Walden,
carefully and critically, and writing about Walden, attentively and
precisely. In the second half of the course, you will develop a writing project
of your own design. Success in this course will follow from your commitment
to the freedom and discipline of intellectual work. Expect to be actively
involved in class discussions and to give a presentation to the class. The
writing will include daily assignments in a variety of modes, and a longer
written project to be completed during the second half of the course. All
of the written work will be collected in a portfolio for the final grade.
(For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.) Texts: Thoreau, The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau: Walden; Diana Hacker, A Writer's Reference.
281C (Intermediate Expository Writing)
TTh 8:30-10:00
McGuire
In this course we will focus on the cultural significance of language in
contemporary American society. Class members will write a series of papers
investigating this theme. Emphasis on the drafting and revision process; portfolio
grading. (For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students,
click here.) Texts: Joseph M. Williams, Style:
Toward Clarity and Grace; Sally De Witt Spurgin, The Power to Persuade:
A Rhetoric and Reader for Argumentative Writing.
281D (Intermediate Expository Writing)
TTh 10:50-12:20
McGuire
In this course we will focus on the cultural significance of language in
contemporary American society. Class members will write a series of papers
investigating this theme. Emphasis on the drafting and revision process; portfolio
grading. (For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students,
click here.) Texts: Joseph M. Williams, Style:
Toward Clarity and Grace; Sally De Witt Spurgin, The Power to Persuade:
A Rhetoric and Reader for Argumentative Writing.
281U (Intermediate Expository Writing)
MW 7-8:30 p.m.
Long
A Sense of Where You Are. The general aims of intermediate expository
writing include extending your competence as a reader, thinker and writer;
deepening your repertoire of argumentative techniques, stylistic strategies
and rhetorical sophistication; and furthering your awareness of argumentative
forms and the role of style in a range of expository contexts. This section
of ENGL 281 will devote considerable attention to Henry David Thoreau's
Walden. We will begin by reading and talking about Walden,
carefully and critically, and writing about Walden, attentively and
precisely. In the second half of the course, you will develop a writing project
of your own design. Success in this course will follow from your commitment
to the freedom and discipline of intellectual work. Expect to be actively
involved in class discussions and to give a presentation to the class. The
writing will include daily assignments in a variety of modes, and a longer
written project to be completed during the second half of the course. All
of the written work will be collected in a portfolio for the final grade.
(For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.) Texts: Thoreau, The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau: Walden; Diana Hacker, A Writer's Reference.
283A (Beginning Verse Writing)
TTh 9:40-11:10
Gomez
An introductory course in the ways and means of making a poem. Students
will be required to keep to a rigorous schedule as well as participate in
group workshops. In addition we will be reading a range of live and dead
poets,
paying attention to various elements of prosody. Texts: Mary Oliver,
A Poetry Handbook; Czeslaw Milosz, A Book of Luminous Things.
284A (Beginning Short Story Writing)
MW 9:40-11:10
Shields
Writing, rewriting, reading, and critiquing short stories. Probable strong
emphasis on the very short story.
Texts: Shapard, Sudden Fiction (International); Stern, Microfiction.
284B (Beginning Short Story Writing)
TTh 9:40-11:10
Michelson
Introduction to the theory and practice of writing the short story. Text:
photocopied course packet.
310A (The Bible as Literature)
Dy 8:30
J. Griffith
A rapid study of readings taken from both the Old and New Testaments, focusing
mainly on those parts of the Bible with the most "literary" interest--narratives,
poems and philosophy. Students will be expected to attend class regularly
and take part in open discussion of those assignments. Written work will
consist entirely of a series of between five and ten in-class essays, done
in response to study questions handed out in advance. Text: Metzger & Murphy,
eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha,
Revised Standard Version.
316A (Literature of Developing Countries)
Dy 9:40-11:50
Zinyemba
(A-term)
Contrasting Images of Africa. From the perspective of Tarzan to that
of black power or black affirmation, the African continent and its peoples
have been imaged variously, sometimes in ways diametrically opposed to each
other, before and after Shakespeare's Othello. Such images have had
far-reaching effects on Africa and its peoples, contributing not only to how
people outside Africa view the continent and its peoples, but also to the
formulation of foreign policy on Africa in Europe, North America and other
continents. This course will examine images of Africa in literary works written
by authors dubbed as "settler" writers, both male and female, and by native
writers writing in "The Empire Writes Back" tradition, also both male and
female. Texts: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Joyce Cary,
Mister Johnson; Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing; Alan Paton,
Cry The Beloved Country; Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God; Ngugi
wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat; Dambudzo Marechera, House of Hunger;
Achebe, et al., Short African Stories. (Meets with C LIT 323.)
Professor Zinyemba is visiting this summer from the University of Zimbabwe.
321A (Chaucer)
Dy 10:50-1:00
Simmons-O'Neill
(A-term)
An intensive introduction to the study of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
and Middle English. Paper, workshop/performance, exam.. Texts: Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales: 9 Tales and the General Prologue (ed. Kolve & Olson); The Wife of Bath (ed. Beidler); optional: Benson,
ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed.; Chaucer Studio, "Wife of Bath's
Prologue and Tale" (audio tape).
322A (English Literature: The Age of Elizabeth I)
Dy 9:40-11:50
Streitberger
(A-term)
The golden age of English poetry, with poems by Shakespeare,
Spenser, Sidney, and others; drama by Marlowe and other early rivals to
Shakespeare, prose by Sir Thomas More and the great Elizabethan translators.
Texts: Sir Thomas More, Utopia; Machievelli, The Prince;
Hollander & Kermode, The Literature of Renaissance England; Ben
Jonson, Three Comedies; Christopher Marlowe, The Complete Plays.
323YA (Shakespeare to 1603)
MW 7-9:10 p.m.
Webster
(Evening Degree)
The goal of this class is to make you a better and more confident reader
and watcher of Shakespeare. To accomplish this goal, first, you will come
to know well the texts of five of Shakespeare's best-known and most frequently
performed plays: Richard II, 1 Henry IV, Henry V, Twelfth Night,
and Hamlet. Second, you will have thought about performing Shakespeare's
plays, working with others in the class to select and "perform" short speeches
from each of the plays we read. And third, you will write a lot. Writing
requires engaging actively with your reading, and it ensures that you--and
everyone else in the class--come ready to contribute to the general class
thinking. Accordingly, you'll be writing a "response" paper of approximately
two pages for most class meetings. Two mid-terms (one in-class, one take-home)
and a final. Texts: Shakespeare, Richard II, 1 Henry IV, Henry
V, Twelfth Night, Hamlet; photocopied course packet. (Evening
Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.)
324A (Shakespeare after 1603)
TTh 10:50-1:00
Dunlop
Three plays (one "problem play," one tragedy, and one unclassifiable
masterpiece) by a Shakespeare who has become not only a seasoned and versatile
playwright but also adept at making the resources of poetic language serve
a dramatic function. Therefore a lot of close reading, and as much "performance"
as we can manage. Students may choose between writing papers or taking
(midterm and final) examinations.Texts: Shakespeare, Othello; Measure
for Measure; Antony and Cleopatra.
326A (Milton)
Dy 9:40-11:50
van den Berg
(A-term)
An introduction to the works of John Milton--his art, his politics, and
his religious struggles. Midterm, final or term paper. Texts:
Milton, Paradise Lost (ed. Elledge); Carey, ed., Milton: Complete
Shorter Poems; Patrides, ed., John Milton: Selected Prose.
329A (Rise of the English Novel)
Dy 8:30
Blyn
This course will take as its focus the genre of the novel in its earliest
period. As an "invention" of the eighteenth century, the novel serves as
a stage on which social, political, and economic debates of the time were
rehearsed, performed, and reviewed. In the process of defining what a novel
might be and what its function in society should be, the novel essayed into
"low culture" and "high culture" domains. Our reading list will include both
canonical novels and novels that have been excluded from the traditional
canon of great literature, including works by women writers that are less
well-known than their male contemporaries. While studying some of the most
popular novels of the century, we will seek to understand the process by
which the novel became "disciplined" to changing social values. How and to
what extent did the novel become an acceptable art form? What is a novel?
Where did it come from? Why was it popular? What fears and desires does the
novel allow the people of the eighteenth century to explore? Texts:
Meridian Anthlogy of Early Women Writers; Daniel Defoe, Robinson
Crusoe; Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels; Samuel Richardson,
Pamela; Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, with Shamela and Related
Writings; Eliza Haywood, Love and Excess; Jane Austen, Northanger
Abbey; J. M. Coetzee, Foe.
331YA (Romantic Poetry I)
TTh 7-9:10 p.m.
Persyn
(Evening Degree)
The 1790s: Visions of Romantic Glory. Beginning with the storming
of the Bastille in 1798, the decade of the 1790s was full of intellectual
and political ferment. We will be reading the poetry written in England during
this deacde by looking at the interconnections between the works of the following
individuals: sonnet writers Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson; novelist and
political writer Mary Wollstonecraft and poet William Blake; and the two poets
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Our final readings will extend
into the first decade of the nineteenth century as we assess the aftermath
of the explosive 1790s. Two short papers, a midterm, final essay, final exam. Instructor's Note: I will be teaching ENGL 331 on the assumption
that students have taken at least one course in poetry and/or have some previous
knowledge of scansion and of metrical analysis. If you have any questions,
please feel free to e-mail me at mkpersyn@u.washington.edu or to call me at
(206) 543-2245. Texts: Johnson & Grant, eds., Blake's Poetry and Designs;
Wordsworth and Coleridge, The Lyrical Ballads; Wordsworth, The
Prelude; Coleridge, Poems and Prose; optional: Blake,
Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Songs of Innocence and Experience. (Evening
Degree students only, Registration Periods 1 & 2.)
334A (English Novel: Later 19th Century)
Dy 10:50
Alexander
This course tries to suggest the richness and variety of the English novel
by studying the relations between content and form in six novels, ranging
from The Warden to The Secret Agent. Although considerable
attention will be paid to the social, historical, and philosopical backgrounds
against which the novels appeared, no attempt will be made to reduce the
novels to "reflections" of a ruling class or learned elite, or to an assemblage
of dirty tricks played by white Europeans against the rest of the human race.
On the contrary, it will be assumed that, as Kenneth Burke once wrote, the
law of the imagination is "when in Rome, do as the Greeks." Texts:
George Eliot, Middlemarch; Anthony Trollope, The Warden; Charles
Dickens, Great Expectations; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure;
Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray; Joseph Conrad, The Secret
Agent.
335A (English Literature: The Age of Victoria)
Dy 12:00-2:10
Goodlad
(A-term)
This survey of Victorian literature stresses historical, cultural and political
contexts and the making of Victorian (class, gender, sexual and national)
identities. We begin with prose selections from Carlyle and poetry by Tennyson,
Browning, Barrett Browning and Arnold. Focussing on such key ideological
themes as "domesticity," "femininity/masculinity," and "Englishness," we will
read excerpts from Ruskin and Arnold, the counter-protest of Florence Nightingale,
the conciliatory fiction of Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranford), and the "gothic" poetry of Rossetti and Swinburne. We conclude with a glimpse
into late-Victorian "decadence," reading Pater's "immoral" prose and Wilde's
scandalously witty play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Texts:
Nightingale, Cassandra; Gaskell, Cranford; Oxford Anthology
of English Literature, Vol. 5.
337A (The Modern Novel)
Dy 8:30-10:40
George
(A-term)
Passings: The Modern Novel in British and American Cultures. This
intensive course will focus on defining literary modernism through the study
of three novels: Forster's A Passage to India, Larsen's Passing,
and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. We will study the varieties of physical
and metaphysical passings in each novel, just as we will try to determine
how modernism serves as a passage between the literary eras of late nineteenth-century
realism and Edwardianism and late twentieth-century postmodernism. Course
requirements include regular attendance; active, thoughtful discussion;
short essays and quizzes; and a final examination. Texts: Forster,
Passage to India; Larsen, Passing; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying;
Abrams, Glossary of Literary Terms.
352YA (American Literature: The Early Nation)
TTh 7-9:10 p.m.
Patterson
Vision and Super-vision. American writers before the Civil War were
fascinated with the relationship between the "eye" and the "I"--that is, with
how learning to see is part of the process of fashioning a self. Beginning
with both the dark (Poe) and light (Emerson) sides of this process, this course
will examine the variety of ways that writers such as Louisa May Alcott, Frederick
Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs envisioned themsleves within their historical
and cultural circumstances. Requirements will include participation
and several short essays. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Periods
1 & 2.) Text: Paul Lauter, ed., The Heath Anthology of
American Literature, Vol. 1.
353A (American Literature: Later 19th Century)
Dy 9:40
J. Griffith
We'll read and discuss an assortment of novels, short stories, and sketches
produced by American authors in the decades following the Civil War. Students
will be expected to attend class regularly, to keep up with reading assignments,
and to take part in open discussion. Written work will consist entirely of
a series of from five to ten brief in-class essays done in response to study
questions handed out in advance. Texts: Judith Fetterley, ed., American
Women Regionalists 1850-1910; Henry James, The American; William
Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham; Kate Chopin, The Awakening
and Selected Short Stories; Frank Norris, McTeague; Charles Chesnutt,
The Marrow of Tradition; Mark Twain, Great Short Works; Stephen
Crane, Great Short Works.
354A (American Literature: The Early Modern Period)
Dy 12:00
Adair
In this class we will read, discuss, think and write about early "modern"
American responses to the American condition between World War I and World
War II. This fascinating body of literature is known for its representations
of disillusionment in the wake of World War I, and is marked as well by
experiments in form and content. We will consider works by Stein, Faulkner,
Steinbeck, Hemingway, Hurston, Barnes, and Fitzgerald. Midterm and
final papers, short quizzes, intense class discussion.Texts: Stein,
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying;
Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle; Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms;
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby;
Barnes, Nightwood.
355A (American Literature: Contemporary America)
Dy 10:50
Wacker
There is little consensus about the masterpieces of the contemporary period.
Here are some candidates. We will focus on the problems of fixing aesthetic
standards in the absence of stable literary canons and of appreciating the
specifically literary excellence of diverse works.We will also take up the
new complexities of the literary as a contemporary cultural institution.
Texts: Barthelme, The Dead Father; Bellow, Seize the Day;
Bishop, Complete Poems; Lowell, Life Studies; Merrill, Inner
Room; Nabakov, Pale Fire; Walcott, Omeros.
370A (English Language Study)
MW 10:50-1:00
Tollefson
This course is an introduction to important issues in English language
study. The emphasis is on the links between language and society.
Major topics include socially patterned language variation, language acquisition,
and language
policy in schools. Text: Virginia P. Clark, Paul A. Eschholz, & Alfred
F. Rosa, eds., Language: Introductory Readings.
374A (The Language of Literature)
TTh 9:40-11:50
Stygall
In this course, we will study linguistic approaches to the analysis of literature.
These approaches include recognizing the linguistic markers of narrative discourse,
the relationship between actual conversations and those portrayed in fiction
and drama, the uses of sound patterns and rhythms in poetry, the appearance
of dialect and its relationship to spoken dialects of English, and the meanings
and uses of particular vocabularies. We will use a primary text, Paul Simpson's
Language through Literature, for explanation and discussion, and we'll
use two briefer workbooks, Style (John Haynes) and Sentence Structure
(Nigel Fabb), for practice analysis. There will be two exams, a group presentation
of a stylistics analysis of a literary work of the group's choice, and a
final paper analyzing an aspect of a literary work.
381A (Advanced Expository Writing)
MW 8:30-10:00
Dillon
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. (For information on ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.) No texts.
381B (Advanced Expository Writing)
TTh 8:30-10:00
Butwin
This class will be a semester exercise in writing, revision, and the news
of the world. Each week we will read and discuss one day's issue of the New
York Times. Assignments will emerge from these discussions. In alternate
weeks the assignment will be the revision of the previous paper. Together
we will enact the entire genesis of an essay from the initial stimulus--the
New York Times--to its composition and revision. (For information on
ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.)
No texts except for the weekly copy of the New York Times.
381C (Advanced Expository Writing)
TTh 10:50-12:20
Butwin
This class will be a semester exercise in writing, revision, and the news
of the world. Each week we will read and discuss one day's issue of the New
York Times. Assignments will emerge from these discussions. In alternate
weeks the assignment will be the revision of the previous paper. Together
we will enact the entire genesis of an essay from the initial stimulus--the
New York Times--to its composition and revision. (For information on
ESL requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.)
No texts except for the weekly copy of the New York Times.
383A (Intermediate Verse Writing)
TTh 12:00-1:30
Wagoner
Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Further development
of fundamental skills. Emphasis on revision. Prerequisite: ENGL 283 or equivalent.
Add codes in Creative Writing
office, B-25 Padelford, (206) 543-9865 (open 11-3 daily). No texts. (Meets
with ENGL 483A.)
384A (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
MW 12:00-1:30
Shields
Writing, rewriting, reading, and critiquing short stories. Probable strong
emphasis on the very short story. Prerequisite: ENGL 284 or equivalent.Add codes in Creative Writing
office, B-25 Padelford, (206) 543-9865 (open 11-3 daily). Texts: Jerome
Stern, Microfiction; Shapard & Thomas, eds., Sudden Fiction
(Continued); Hansen & Shepard, You've Got to Read This.
471A (The Composition Process)
TTh 8:30-10:40
Doyle
This course has three objectives: to explore the nature of the composing
process, contrasting what various researchers and teachers have written about
it with the evidence of our own experiences; to evaluate attempts to teach
and measure writing in the light of what we discover about the composing
process; and to fine-tune our own composing strategies by examining current
discussions of such strategies. In addition to small, in-class assignments,
class memebers will keep a writing journal, participate in two collaborative
class presentations, and develop research into the nature of composing, writing
instruction or writing evaluation. This project stands in lieu of a final
examination.Texts: Graves, Rhetoric and Composition, 3rd ed.;
Wiley, Gleason, & Phelps, Composition in Four Keys.
471B (The Composition Process)
Dy 12:00
Sale
Though our major texts in this course might be called "theoretical," the
aim is entirely practical: a course in composition for people who are, or
intend to become, teachers in composition. We will write a lot--journals,
papers, assignments, comments on assignments--and talk about all these.
What, ideally, should a teacher of writing seek from students? How,
practically, can a teacher of writing work well with as many as five classes
of students, thirty students each, meeting five days a week? In earlier
incarnations of this course I have had quite a few say at the end, "I'm
not sure what we just did, but it should have gone on longer." Texts:
Spellmeyer, Common Ground; Harris, A Teaching Subject; Mayher,
Uncommon Sense.
481A (Special Studies in Expository Writing)
MW 10:50-12:20
Dillon
Writing Hypertext. This is a class in writing hypertext in HTML for
posting on the Net.Our interest ranges over four uses of this new medium:
for self- and artistic expression; for finding and exchanging information;
for advocating positions and debating public issues; for providing instruction.
We will have less to say and do with HTML on the Net as a means of advertising
and marketing, public relations, or recreation. The class will sometimes
meet in the Collaboratory in Odegard Undergraduate Library. We will do a
quick "homepage" course if you don't have one yet ("new-weber" and all that)
and cover topics including: markup languages (LaTex, SGML, HTML); DTDs and
validation; types of hypertext structures; shaping navigation; style guides
and principles of "good HTML"; net search tools; validation; monitoring traffic;
inclusion of images and sound (multimedia) (copyright!). In addition to spiffing
up your home page, we will work on group projects to create archive sites
on topics of general interest and on individual projects as well. You will
be able to work from home (via a modem) or another campus lab outside of
class (and you will probably want to and need to). (For information on ESL
requirement for non-matriculated students, click here.)
Text: Musciano & Kennedy, Html: The Definitive Guide.
483A (Advanced Verse Writing)
TTh 12:00-1:30
Wagoner
Intensive study of ways and means of making a poem. Prerequisite:
ENGL 383 or equivalent; writing sample. Add codes in Creative Writing
office, B-25 Padelford, (206) 543-9865 (open 11-3 daily.) No texts. (Meets
with 383A.)
485U (Novel Writing)
M 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Bosworth
This is not a course for beginning fiction writers. Just as one shold never
attempt a marathon before training at shorter distances, it is not wise to
attempt a novella or novel without some experience in short fiction. It is
presumed, then, that you are familiar with the fundamentals of fiction writing,
of dramatizing experience, and creating a "fictional moment." For although
we will pay attention to all dimensions of fiction, emphasis will be placed
on those problems which arise from length--how one orders a longer sequence
of events, how one manipulates a large cast of characters, how one retains
a sense of unity and identity within the diversity which characterizes most
novels. (Note: it is acceptable for this course, and in many cases
advisable, to undertake a long story or novella before attempting a full-length
novel.) Fiction writing is a serious way of knowing the world, and no time
will be squandered on analyzing the purely commercial marketplace, or on how
one might reduplicate fiction whose only function is the passing of time or
the making of money. Prerequisite: ENGL 484 or equivalent. Add codes in Creative Writing
office, B-25 Padelford, (206) 543-9865 (open 11-3 daily).Text:Three
by Flannery O'Connor.
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).
497/498A (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar) W
MW 10:50-1:00
Dunlop
Fiction and Freud. Freud is essentially background
material: we spend most of our time on a close reading (and re-reading)
of two richly complex novels, with particular emphasis on how these anticipate,
complicate, and above all dramatize aspects of Freud's thesis. Texts:
Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents; E. Bronte, Wuthering
Heights; Dickens, Great Expectations. Senior English majors only.
(497: honors senior majors only; add codes available in Undergraduate
Programs office, A-11 Padelford, (206) 543-2190.)
497/498B (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar) W
TTh 8:30-10:40
Sale
Faulkner and Frost. Who is the greatest American novelist of this
century? Faulkner, probably. Who is the greatest American poet of this
century? Frost, probably. What do they have in common? the ability to convey
an abiding sense of place--Mississippi for Faulkner, northern New England
for Frost--without doing much describing of places. This seminar will attempt
to discover or uncover their achievement by asking how they make their places. Caveat emptor: some, perhaps all, enrolling in this seminar may be
doing so to complete their requirements for the English major so they then
can graduate in August. While this is a fine reason, it is not a strong one.
So please be advised before you enroll that attendance here is required, and
at least some writing (probably via e-mail) will be due for every seminar
meeting. Failure to take yourself as a serious person may have painful consequences.
Texts: Faulkner, Go Down, Moses; The Hamlet; Frost, The Library
of America Robert Frost. Senior English majors only. (497: honors senior majors only; add codes available in Undergraduate
Programs office, A-11 Padelford, (206) 543-2190.)
497/498C (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar) W
TTh 12:00-2:10
Patterson
Detection, Criminality, and the Murder of Reality. Jean Baudrillard,
the French philosopher, has said that the most common contemporary crime
is the "murder of reality." In this course, we will use the genre of the
detective novel as a means to investigate this "crime." Who are the
criminals, who the detectives, and what exactly is this crime? In order
to understand what's at stake in this investigation, we will start with the
origin of the detective in Edgar Allan Poe's character Dupin, and then trace
the changing literary and cultural conventions of detection into the present.
Along the way we will look at several related issues: The characteristics
of a good mystery or a good detective, and the "cultural work" they perform.
The ways that detective novels engage us in the process of "solving" larger
social and philosophical mysteries. Finally we will look at how the processes
of reading and interpretation are themselves forms of detection. Warning:
do not take this course just because you think the reading will be fun and
light. Although the texts themselves are enjoyable, we will be reading some
difficult theoretical and philosophical secondary texts. Assignments will
include short writing assignmnents and a long, 12-15 page, final essay. Texts:
Edgar Allan Poe, Selected Writings; Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock
Holmes; Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage; Josephine Tey,
The Daughter of Time; Robert Parker, Early Autumn; Sara Paretsky,
Bitter Medicine; Paul Auster, City of Glass; Walter Mosley,
A Bed Death. Senior English majors only. (497: honors senior majors only; add codes available in Undergraduate
Programs office, A-11 Padelford, (206) 543-2190.)
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).
