Fall 2008
Here are the English courses being offered in Fall 2008 and the different ways in which they can be used to fill the English major and the Creative Writing minor. For a full description of each course, including the Special Topics courses, click on the course numbers below.
ENG 101 10-23: Literature and Composition
Counts for: First-Year Requirement
ENG 101 10 Gillin
ENG 101 11 Meehan
ENG 101 12 Volansky
ENG 101 13 Walsh
ENG 101 14 Knight
ENG 101 15 Dubrow
ENG 101 16 Meehan
ENG 101 17 Cousineau,T
ENG 101 18 Meehan
ENG 101 19 Olsen
ENG 101 20 Wagner, K
ENG 101 21 DeProspo,R
ENG 101 22 Martin
ENG 101 23 McCabe
This course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading, critical analysis, and writing through the study of literature. There are frequent writing assignments, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing.
ENG 103 10-13: Freshman Creative Writing
Counts for: Creative Writing minor
Section 10: TTH 11:30-12:45 with Wagner
Section 11: TTH 1-2:15 with Mooney
Section 12: TTH 2:30-3:45 with Mooney
Section 13: MWF 10:30-11:20 with Dubrow
A workshop on the forms of creative writing-poetry, fiction, and drama as practiced by the students themselves. Readings in contemporary literature. Freshmen only.
ENG 205 10-11: Shakespeare
Counts for: pre-1800, English elective, Humanities distribution
Instructor: Moncrief
Section 10: TTH 1:00-2:15
Section 11: TTH 2:30-3:45
This course will examine some of Shakespeare's best known earlier plays (those written before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions, with significant contributions from student papers, will explore Shakespeare's writings as products/producers of early modern culture through the consideration of issues including identity, politics, monarchy, religious conflicts, crime and justice, play and festivity, enclosure and urbanization, world exploration and colonization, nation and national identity, theatricality and theatre-going, religion, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been interpreted for performance.
ENG 207 10: History of English Literature
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
MWF 10:30-11:20 with R. Gillin
A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.
ENG 209 10: Introduction to American Literature
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
TTH 1-2:15 De Prospo
A survey of principal American writers from colonial times through World War II.
ENG 213 10 (AMS 213 10, BLS 213 10): Introduction to African American Literature I
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
MWF 10:30-11:20 Knight
This course is a survey of African American literature produced from the late 1700s to the Harlem Renaissance. It is designed to introduce students to the writers, texts, themes, conventions and tropes that have shaped the African American literary tradition. Authors studied in this course include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Frances E. W. Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes. There are no prerequisites for this course; however, students are encouraged to take HIS 319 "African American History to 1865" as a co-requisite.
ENG 215: Foundations of Western Literature I
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
TTH 11:30-12:45 with Olsen
No work has had a more profound impact on Western thought than the Bible. Familiarity with the Biblical texts is necessary for an informed understanding of almost any aspect of Western art and culture, from medieval love poetry to modern political debates. This course is designed to introduce students to the stories, doctrines, and themes of the Bible upon which most of English and American literature presumes.
ENG 216: Foundations of Western Literature II
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
MW 3:30-4:45 with T. Cousineau
This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus.
ENG 301 10: Medieval Literature
Counts for: pre-1800, elective
MWF 11:30-12:20 with Olsen
In this course, we will explore some of the texts and ideas that dominated the cultural landscape of Europe for centuries. We will consider many of the themes and topics that occupied the imagination of medieval writers, such as courtly love, the ways of Fortune, allegory, and authorship itself. We will sample many of the great authors of the Middle Ages, including Augustine, Boethius, Dante, and Chaucer. Most importantly, we will seek to come to a clearer understanding of how medieval readers looked at the world and how medieval writers expected their texts to be read.
ENG 303 10: The Seventeenth Century
Counts for: pre-1800, elective
MW 1-2:15 with Moncrief
Early modern England saw an enormous range of popular printed materials-- many types of poetry, prose, and drama of course, but also pamphlets, ballads, broadsides, sermons, conduct books, medical manuals, domestic guides, woodcuts, and more-- available for public consumption. This course will examine a diverse range of "literary" (Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Donne, Herrick, Herbert, Marvell, Milton, etc.) and "non-literary" texts in relation to seventeenth-century culture. Class discussions-- with significant contributions from student research-- will explore print materials of the seventeenth century as products/producers of a changing culture through the consideration of cultural topics including but not limited to: politics, monarchy, authority and revolution, the city, urbanization, voyage and "discovery," nation and national identity, religion and spirituality, imagination and identity.
ENG 306 10: The Victorian Age
Counts for: 1800-1900 English Lit., elective
TTH 11:30-12:45 with R. Gillin
Major poets, novelists, and essayists including Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Pater, Bronte, and Gaskill will be studied in conjunction with the culture of the age of Victoria.
ENG 310 10: Poe & the Literature of the British Colonies of North America & of the Early United States
Counts for: American Literature, elective
W 4:00-6:30 with DeProspo
The course will concentrate on the writings of Poe as exemplifying the literature of the British Colonies of North America and of the early United States. Other readings will be chosen from among the writings of Bradford, Bradstreet, Taylor, Edwards, Franklin, Crevecoeur, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Brockden Brown, and Irving.
ENG 317 10 (GEN 317 10): Women's Literature
Counts for: elective
TTH 2:30-3:45 with D. Cousineau
This course will explore the way women writers both draw on literary traditions and introduce important innovations in narrrative form and subject matter. We will consider such psychlogical and cultural issues as the portrayal of female subjectivity and desire, mother-daughter relationships, and hybrid identities (racial and ethnic). Writers will include Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, and other modern and contemporary novelists.
ENG 326 10: Living Writer's: Topics in Non-Fiction
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
TTH 11:30-12:45 Shenk
This course will illuminate the role of research, voice, and expertise in writing on specific disciplines. Considering such topics as food, sex, and rock 'n roll, we will closely read essays, stories, and books - often as a precursor to an encounter with the authors themselves. In addition to short analytical assignments, students will be expected to choose a topic for investigation themselves and to prepare a final creative project.
ENG 328 10: Children's and Adolescent Literature
Counts for: elective
M 7:00-9:30 pm with B. Gillin
Various genres will be treated with regard to historical, social, cultural, and contemporary perspectives. Readings for the course will be drawn from the folk tale, fairy tale, poetry, myth, fiction, and picture books. The art and practice of storytelling will be treated, and students are expected to work up a performance. Prerequisite: Any two English courses on the 200 level.
ENG 351 10: Playwriting I
Counts for: Creative Writing Minor, elective
W 2:30-5:00 with Maloney
Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage.
ENG 411 10: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
W 2:30-5:00 with Mooney
Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.
ENG 411 10: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
F 1:00-3:30 with Dubrow
Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing, Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.
ENG 494 10: SpTp Modernism I
Counts for: 1900-present British Literature, elective
TTH 1:00-2:15 with Cousineau
A study of selected masterpieces of the early phase of modernist writing (1890-1922). Emphasis will be equally placed on the formal and thematic innovations introduced by the major writers of this period (Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H.Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot) and on their indebtedness to the "great tradition" of western literature.
ENG 494 11: SpTp The Gilded Age & American Realism
Counts for: American Literature, elective
TTH 10:00-11:15 with Knight
This course examines key prose fiction from the Gilded Age of American culture (roughly 1878 - 1901). Careful attention will be given to the intersection of ethnicity, gender, class and environment in the work of Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Frances E.W. Harper, Charles Chesnutt, and others. By the end of this course, students should be able to:
-Identify and critique the various treatments of "Big Business" and industrialization in literature of the period
-Discuss the development of regional literature
-Assess how urbanization affected the literary imagination of various authors
-Identify and analyze multiple manifestations of social inequality in literature of the period.
ENG 494 12: SpTp Caribbean Diaspora Literature
Counts for: elective
MW 8:30-9:45 with Shoge
The course covers literary works of writers of the Caribbean Diaspora published in English from the early 1920s to the present. The writers originate from the English, French, and Spanish islands as well as Guyana and became self-selected exiles or emigrants to the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. The authors include Claude McKay, George Lamming, Samuel Selvon, Edward Braithwaite, Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Fred D'Aguiar, and others and collectively their works cover the colonial to post colonial eras. They write about the Caribbean from the center and from outside the center. Fiction, poetry, and plays of these writers will provide the literary framework from which students can examine the multiplicity of Caribbean native and diasporic cultural identities. Through critical analysis of literary elements students will understand the tensions and symbiotic relations from which the blending and creating of new characters, imagery, symbolism, rhythms and tones emerged.
ENG 505 10: Poe & the Literature of the British Colonies of North America & of the Early U.S.
Counts for: Graduate Program Only
T 6:30-9:00 pm with DeProspo
The course will concentrate on the writings of Poe as exemplifying the literature of the British Colonies of North America and of the early United States. Other readings will be chosen from among the writings of Bradford, Bradstreet, Taylor, Edwards, Franklin, Crevecoeur, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Brockden Brown, and Irving.
ENG 518 10: Victorian Literature
Counts for: Graduate Program Only
M 7:00-9:30 pm with Gillin
Major poets, novelists, and essayists including Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Pater, Bronte, and Gaskill will be studied in conjunction with the culture of the age of Victoria.
Spring 2008
Here are the English courses that were offered in Spring 2008 and the different ways in which they can be used to fill the English major and the Creative Writing minor. For a full description of each course, including the Special Topics courses, click on the course numbers below.
ENG 102 10-16: Forms of Literature and Composition
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
Instructors:
Section 10: Gillin, R
Section 11: Olsen
Section 12: Cousineau, T
Section 13: Campion, A
Section 14: Campion, P
Section 15: Wagner
Section 16: Cousineau, D
A study of prose fiction, poetry, and drama, this course is intended to develop the student's capacity for intelligent reading and critical judgment. It also covers the fundamentals of composition. There are frequent writing assignments that are associated with the study of literature, as well as individual conferences on the student's writing. Eng 102 is the second half of the 101-102 sequence; the courses need not be taken in order.
ENG 204 10: Intermediate Creative Writing
Counts for: Creative Writing minor
Instructor: Wagner
This course is designed for students interested in pursuing a minor in creative writing, or who want to investigate an interest in doing so. This workshop will offer guidance in honing craft in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, and may be considered a helpful continuation of the Freshman Creative Writing course for those who feel they would benefit from more work on fundamentals and additional workshop experience before going on to the Advanced Workshops. Registration for this course would be monitored to implement a pecking order: first eligible would be those students who have declared a CW minor but have not taken-nor, because they are sophomores and juniors, cannot take-Freshman Creative Writing.
ENG 206 10: Shakespeare
Counts for: pre-1800, English elective, Humanities distribution
Instructor: Moncrief
This course examines some of Shakespeare's best known earlier plays (those written before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603) both in the context of early modern English culture and as play scripts/performances. Class discussions, with significant contributions from student papers, will explore Shakespeare's writings as products/producers of early modern culture through the consideration of issues including identity, politics, monarchy, religious conflicts, crime and justice, play and festivity, enclosure and urbanization, world exploration and colonization, nation and national identity, theatricality and theatre-going, religion, family, sexuality, and gender. Using films and live productions (if available) we will also consider the plays as they have been interpreted for performance.
ENG 208 10: History of English Literature
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
Instructor: R. Gillin
A survey of the development of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present with attention to the historical background, the continuity of essential traditions, and the characteristic temper of successive periods. The second semester begins approximately with the Restoration in 1660.
ENG 212 10-11 (AMS 202 10-11): Introduction to American Culture II
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
Instructor: DeProspo (both sections)
Taught in the spring semester and having as its prerequisite ENG 211 (AMS 201), the course is concerned with the establishment of American Studies as a curriculum in post-World War II American colleges and universities. Readings will include a variety of written texts, including those not traditionally considered "literary," as well as a variety of other-than-written materials, including popular cultural ones, in accordance with the original commitment of American Studies to curricular innovation. Introductions to the modern phenomena of race, gender, sexual orientation, and generation in U.S. culture will be included. A comparatist perspective on the influence of American culture internationally and a review of the international American Studies movement in foreign universities will also be introduced.
ENG 216 10: Foundations of Western Literature II
Counts for: English major intro sequence, Humanities distribution
Instructor: Olsen
This course will begin with an investigation of Greco-Roman mythology, and will then proceed to a study of some of the major works of Greek and Roman literature that paved the way for all subsequent Western literature. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus.
ENG 305 10: Romanticism
Counts for: 1800-1900 English Lit., elective
Instructor: R. Gillin
The movement from the late eighteenth century to 1832 considered as a revolution in the aims and methods of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
ENG 307 10: Modernist Fiction I
Counts for: 1900-present British Lit., elective
Instructor: T. Cousineau
A study of the major novels of such early modernist writers as Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf.
ENG 309 10: Modernist Poetry
Counts for: 1900-present British Lit., elective
Instructor: T. Cousineau
A study of the major poetic innovators of the modernist period, including W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Mina Loy.
ENG 332 10 (AMS 332 10): Literary Romanticism in the US II
Counts for: American Literature, elective
Instructor: DeProspo
Readings will be chosen from among the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman.
ENG 351 10 (DRA 351 10): Playwriting I
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
Instructor: Maloney
Analysis and practical application of techniques and styles employed in writing for the stage.
ENG 394 10 (DRA 394 10, BLS 394 10): Poetry and Performance
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective, Black Studies minor
Instructor: Price
This course examines aspects of recitation and the oral traditions of poetry, emphasizing America's long history of memorizing and reciting favorite poems. The influences of Native American, African, European and other traditions on the performance of poetry will be considered, as well as the growing popularity of the "spoken word" genre. Students will consider the dialect poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the blues and jazz poetry of Langston Hughes and Ted Joans, the improvisational recitation of the Beats, the influence of Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement, and the Nuyoricans and contemporary "Slam Poetry." Class assignments will involve students reading, examining and reciting their work and the work of other assigned poets.
ENG 411 10: Advanced Creative Writing (Fiction)
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
Instructor: Staff
Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.
ENG 413 10: Creative Non-Fiction
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
Instructor: Shenk
This course will use a workshop approach for students who are interested in developing their skills in a kind of writing which combines elements of journalism, such as the feature article, with elements of the literary, such as the personal essay. In addition, students will also develop their essay skills in the form of the personal narrative and travel writing. In essence this course treats the various forms of the essay with a special emphasis on the creative ways the genre can be interpreted and rewritten. Readings of representative essays will be included.
Prerequisite: Freshman Creative Writing or Intermediate Creative Writing. Primarily intended for juniors and seniors.
ENG 490 10: Internship: Journalism
Counts for: Creative Writing minor, elective
Instructor: Lang
This course teaches basic news reporting and writing -- the who, what, when, where, why & how of story organization; getting quickly to the point; conciseness; straightforward exposition; accuracy, fairness and balance, and ethical issues.
For the student who wants to write for the Elm, the internship makes minimal demands. Requirements are that interns report and write regularly in the Elm; bring first draft of stories to the instructor for review and guidance, for 15 minutes of personal instruction; meet with the instructor, other interns and Elm editors for an hour on Fridays, after the Elm is distributed, to deconstruct and reconstruct that issue, passing plaudits or brickbats, planning follow-ups and story ideas for weeks ahead.
Hours vary. Students can pick their 15-minute slot for individual session with the instructor anytime between 3 and 5:30 on Tuesdays. The hour for full staff session on Fridays is adjusted each semester to best accommodate the schedules of editors and interns but typically is between 1 and 4.
ENG 494 10: Senior Writing Seminar (Fiction)
Counts for: Creative Writing minor
Instructor: Staff
Each student will work toward a completed manuscript of at least fifty pages of fiction. Reading lists will be tailored to the specific needs of each student, and a series of short response papers will be assigned along with weekly work on the manuscripts.
Prerequisite: Creative Writing Minor, Senior Status
ENG 494 11: Senior Writing Seminar (Poetry)
Counts for: Creative Writing minor
Instructor: P. Campion
Each student will work toward a completed manuscript of at least thirty pages of poetry. Reading lists will be tailored to the specific needs of each student, and a series of short response papers will be assigned along with weekly work on the manuscripts.
Prerequisite: Creative Writing Minor, Senior Status
ENG 494 12: Black Heroes
Counts for: American Literature, Black Studies minor, elective
Instructor: Peterson
This course explores the literature of historical, popular and folk heroes that emerge throughout the Black/African Diaspora. With an expressed focus on African American Heroes (like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, John Henry, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, and Angela Davis), the course will wrestle with the various ways in which heroes are made, commodified and historicized in the public sphere. One of the goals of the course is to engage the various texts in which heroes (or allusions to them) appear. Some of these "texts" include film (Spike Lee's Malcolm X, The X-Men, Scarface), music (ballads of John Henry, lyrics from Tupac Shakur, Scarface and others), and Comic Books. In fact, the conceptual and visual inspiration for this course is the Marvel Comics superhero: Black Panther. The Black Panther is an African hero from the fictitious utopian nation of Wakanda who moonlights as a super hero in the Marvel Comics Universe. His imaging and character development are key touchstones to the themes and concepts explored in this course.
ENG 494 13: Tolkien
Counts for: elective
Instructor: Olsen
The beginning of the 20th century saw a major shift in literary thought and sensibility. While his peers, the modernists, were responding in one way, J.R.R. Tolkien was moving in a diametrically different direction, reviving a literary and linguistic culture from England's past. With his astounding breadth of invention and his almost unequalled mastery of language, Tolkien crafted one of the most powerful and influential literary works of the century. In this course, we will begin with a study of the literary and theoretical foundations of Tolkien's work and then move through a careful study of Tolkien's major works: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.
ENG 494 14: Poetry and the Age
Counts for: American Literature, elective
Instructor: P. Campion
Taking its title from Randall Jarrell's famous book of criticism, this course will offer an in-depth examination of five or six American poets now writing. (Probables include Louise Gluck, Frank Bidart, Robert Pinsky, C.K. Williams, James McMichael, and Anne Winters.) While basing our reading on formal analysis, we'll also focus on how these poets respond in their work to the very experience of contemporary life. In particular we'll ask what makes their poetry American? How do the personal and the public intermingle in their art? How have they reinterpreted the traditions they've inherited?
ENG 494 90: Shakespeare Now: Shakespeare and Contemporary Criticism (Honors)
Counts for: English Literature Pre-1800, elective
Instructor: Moncrief
This honors course focuses on the advanced study of Shakespeare's plays in conjunction with the study of contemporary literary theory. Using the plays (including Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest and others) as case studies, the class will examine each play in relation to historical, seminal, or controversial criticism. Readings will concentrate on important critical approaches to the study of Shakespeare including New Criticism, Reader Response Theory, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Marxism, Feminism, New Historicism/ Cultural Materialism, Performance Criticism and Post-Colonialism. Students will learn how to read literary criticism and how to employ various approaches in their own analysis of the texts. The course also emphasizes research methodology, including understanding and using important library resources and databases to locate secondary source material. Additionally, two Shakespeare critics will present public lectures and will meet with the class to discuss their work.
Pre-requisite: at least one semester of Shakespeare at the 200-level or permission of the instructor
