Spring Quarter 2009: Course Descriptions

ENG 401 - History of the English Language
Meyer, TH 5:45-9:00

This course is a systematic study of the nature, history and usage of the English language, tracing the language from its Proto-Indo-European origins to its present status in England, North America, and the world.

Core requirement in the MAE. Writing Theory/Pedagogy in the MAW. Lang/Lit/Teach-ing/Publishing requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW, and MAWP.

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ENG 408 - Stylistics
Sirles, M 5:45-9:00

Theory and practice in examining features of style, including linguistic, rhetorical and literary perspectives on style.

Core requirement in the MAE. Language & Style requirement in the MAW and MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 419 - Women in Medieval Literature
Bartlett, T 5:45-9:00

This course will explore a wide range of literature by European women authors in the later Middle Ages (c. 1100-1535). We will explore a wide variety of genres and approaches to writing, including the visionary and scientific works of Hildegard of Bingen, the ecstatic travel narrative of Margery Kempe, the visions of a feminized Christ of Julian of Norwich, and the defense of women by Christine de Pizan. We will also read a variety of shorter poems, plays, and treatises to gain the widest exposure possible to medieval women’s cultural contributions; and we will evaluate a range of theoretical lenses on this material.

Course requirements include intensive and careful reading, a research prospectus and paper, an annotated bibliography and presentation, and active participation on all in-class and on-line course activities.

Medieval period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 439 - Studies in Eighteenth-Century British Literature: Urban Literature in the Age of Enlightenment
Squibbs, T 5:45-9:00

The urban historian Lewis Mumford wrote that the city is “second only to language itself in the transmission of culture,” and that “by means of new aesthetic structures … the city defined the new collective personality that had emerged” out of it. In this course we will encounter such acts of cultural transmission and the traces of collective personality in a variety of literary
genres: the novel, the essay, the short story, the journal, and satiric poetry.

Our main focus will be on 18th-century London, though we will jump across the Atlantic periodically to compare London-based urban literature with that of 18th-century Philadelphia. Throughout the term, we will pay special attention to how these works reflect urban life, and to how their authors sought to shape their urban environments with their writings.

Restoration & 18th C. British and Early American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 442 - English Romantic Poetry
Gross, W 5:45-9:00

In English 442 we will examine the literature of Regency England and consider how romantic verse stacks up against two romantic novels. What themes do they have in common? What shared ideas? How do the topics addressed by Wordsworth, Byron's Don Juan, Shelley's "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and poems by Anna Barbauld, Helen Maria Williams, Charlotte Smith, and William Blake participate in the culture of Regency England? Is the Prince Regent's experiment at Brighton Pavilion, and his use of the architecture of John Nash as helpful a rubric for thinking about literary production during this time as the perhaps overused word "romantic"? We will read one biography by Christopher Hibbert, two novels (The Sylph and Wilhlem Meister's Apprenticeship by Goethe), and approximately 30 poems from the period, including Byron's Don Juan.


19th C. British and/or American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 451 - Modern British Novel: Virginia Woolf
Garrigan, TH 5:45-9:00

We will read five novels by Virginia Woolf spanning from 1922 to 1941 (Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, Between the Acts) as well as selected nonfiction prose, including A Room of One's Own, in order to situate her within both the Modernist movement and the female literary tradition posited by feminist critics. Special attention will be given to biography and to the Bloomsbury milieu in which she wrote.

Modern British and/or American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 455 - Modern Irish Literature
Fairhall, M 5:45-9:00

How does a film about a young rock band from the rough north side of Dublin provide a key to understanding Joyce, Yeats, J.M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Edna O’Brien and other writers of the Irish Literary Renaissance and the later twentieth century?

In ENG 455, Modern Irish Literature, informally titled “Irish Soul,” you will find the answer in a high-participation seminar that will give you a framework for understanding almost everything you have read or will read about some of Europe's most iconic storytelling of the twentieth century.

Modern British and/or American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 465 - Modern American Novel
Ingrasci, W 5:45-9:00

Students will read seven novels (5 of length, 2 short) that present the search for identity in America in the 20th century. Students will discuss [in whole class/small group confabs] the crucial cultural issues and conflicts facing seekers of a viable way to belong/contribute to U.S. society during significant eras of social strife and change. A plot quiz on each novel will assure that all students will contribute to our discussions. One paper, a ten-page criticism of a fictional work by one of our course authors, is required. An essay exam (prompts provided before exam week) will require students to contrast paired works from the course. Key focal entries of the course include the artist’s questing for a viable role in an anti-intellectual society, confronting gender-role barriers to a career, seeking a political/moral identity in a corrupt state government, finding a useful identity for a rich idler in America, confronting a racial identity derived from the roots of heritage in the South, and choosing between a middle-class identity vs. a transient’s life.

Texts we’ll read IN SEQUENCE [All in bookstore.]:

Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark (1915). 464 pp. (Signet). (Diva must choose opera over marriage.)

Jack London, Martin Eden (1909). 485 pp. (Penguin). (Macho male bootstrap-evolves into socio-philosophical writer.)

Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933). 65 pp. (Norton). (Lovelorn columnist seeks hope in a cynical world.)

William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses (1940-42). 365 pp. (Random House). (Miscegenation dooms a family from 1840s to 1940s.)

Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men (1946). 438 pp. (Harcourt). (Privileged idealist confronts red-neck, Bayou politics.)

Saul Bellow, Henderson, the Rain King (1959). 352 pp. (Penguin). (Dilettante rich scion goes to Africa to find himself.)

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (1981). 210 pp. (Farrar). (Orphaned sisters must choose: middle class? or hobo-dom?)

Modern British and/or American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 469 - Mapping the American Gothic
O'Gorman, W 5:45-9:00

Students will develop an informed critical understanding of the Gothic and study a number of major authors across the national, chronological, and regional boundaries that necessarily shape our usual course offerings. We will begin with brief consideration of the eighteenth-century origins of the Gothic novel in England; we’ll then consider how Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville revised British Gothic conventions in their American setting and, subsequently, how writers of the U.S. South responded to these antebellum texts as they wrote a “Southern Gothic” fiction that at times played on the region’s proximity to Latin America rather than Europe. We will trace the overt intertextual connections between Poe and Walker Percy, Hawthorne and Flannery O’Connor, and Melville and Cormac McCarthy; we’ll also consider William Faulkner’s relationship to all of these authors.

E. A. Poe, selected short stories
Nathaniel Hawthorne, selected short stories
Herman Melville, novella Benito Cereno & selected short stories
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
Flannery O'Connor, selected short stories
Walker Percy, Lancelot
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


Modern British and/or American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 472 - Literary Criticism
Royster, TH 5:45-9:00

Study of the theoretical foundations of literary criticism, exemplified by major texts from ancient Greece to the present.

Core requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW, and MAWP.

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ENG 475 - Studies in Literature: Latino/Latina Literature
Gonzalez, M 5:45-9:00

This course examines the canonical literary texts produced by and about Latino groups in the United States. Through close readings, students will trace the changing ways Latino communities have imagined their identities within and across the national borders of the United States and Latin America. We pay special attention to the roles that colonialism, U.S. imperialism, globalization, political and economic displacement, and (im)migration have played in the shaping of contemporary identities. Students examine the issues of cultural nationalism, assimilation, and bilingualism in Latino cultures, consider critiques of Latinidad from gendered and racialized perspectives. The course includes texts from a variety of genres and media – from autobiographies to novels to poetry to film.
This quarter, students will also participate in events and activities organized by DePaul's English Department for the Chicago Public Library's "One Book, One Chicago" program, as well as events organized by the Latino and Latin American Studies Department to commemorate the Cuban Revolution.

Designed for teachers, writers and scholars, ENG 469, previously listed as Theorizing Transnationalism in American Literature, offers a cutting edge immersion in a hot literary field. This course will still meet on Wednesday evenings. It will be
cross-listed with English 369, the undergraduate Latino/a Literature course, Latino Studies and the School of Education. It will count as a DT (diverse traditions) for undergrads and will count for a Modern American Literature course for graduate students.

Potential texts include: Americo Paredes, With His Pistol in His Hand, Tomas Rivera, And The Earth Did Not Devour Him, Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek, Cristina Garcia, The Aguero Sisters, Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. and Ariel Dorfman, Heading South, Looking North.

Modern British/American period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 477 - Topics in Publishing: Getting Published: An Editor's Guide
Reid
LPC T 5:45-9:00
NAP Sat. TBA

How do you pitch a book proposal? Do you really need to get an agent? What can you do to help your manuscript reach an editor’s desk? And who is your audience anyway? While it seems to get harder and harder to get published, there are some things that a writer can do to catch an editor’s eye. A cutting-edge immersion in the world of contemporary publishing, this graduate seminar will cover such topics as trendspotting, the role of agents, deciphering a contract, and the emerging market for online and self-published books. This course, an introduction to the publishing process from an editor’s perspective, helps you identify the best publishing opportunities for your own writing.

The Naperville section of this course will meet on the following dates and times:

4/4: 9:00 to noon
4/18: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
5/2: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
5/16: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
5/30: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
6/6: 9:00 to noon

Lang/Lit/Teaching/Publishing requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 478 - Topics in Teaching: Teaching Popular Literature, Culture, and Cultural Studies
Royster, T 5:45-9:00

Teaching Popular Literature, Popular Culture and Cultural Studies, will look at the intersections between cultural theory, pedagogy and everyday life. We'll be discussing ways to teach and use cultural theory in the classroom to get students to think critically about issues of culture, power and identity in everyday life, from hip-hop, to vampire fiction, to feminist 'zines to Facebook. Readings will include cultural theory from Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Henry Girioux, Richard Hebdige, Mark Anthony Neal and others.

Lang/Lit/Teaching/Publishing requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop: Poetry: Experiments in Storytelling
Jones, W 5:45-9:00

Literary Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop: Writing Dirty: Cultural History as Literary Nonfiction
Shteir, T 5:45-9:00

This course resurrects the forgotten, racy particulars of everyday life—items like slot machines, jukeboxes, garter belts, racing forms, stock cars, etc.—in stories of literary nonfiction. Students will read Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and newer authors. Students will write two creative essays and one critical study. Topics include finding and researching stories, reporting on the street, and writing and revising for drama.

Literary Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop: Food and Entertainment Writing
Walker, W 5:45-9:00

Everybody loves to eat and be entertained—but how do you write about it for publication? Students in this course will develop a “cultural” beat of their own and write three pieces within that realm, all the while studying the work of some of the country’s top arts and culture writers.

Literary Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop: Writing the Short-form Urban Essay
Sullivan, Sat. LOOP

This course is an introduction to the urban short-form essay, a genre found in metropolitan magazines, in journals focusing on contemporary trends and culture, and in the lifestyle and leisure sections of newspapers. This workshop focuses on writing casuals, profiles, enthusiasms, contraria, humor, and the personal urban essay. Students will produce three essays of publishable quality.

Classes will meet on the following dates and times:

4/4: 9:00 to noon
4/18: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
5/2: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
5/16: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
5/30: 9:00 to noon, 1:00 to 4:00
6/6: 9:00 to noon

Literary Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 488 - Writing Workshop: Writing the Personal Essay
Morano, TH 5:45-9:00

This graduate workshop focuses on studying and writing creative nonfiction essays, with particular attention paid to voice, style, form and structure, narration and exposition, scene, and narrative distance. Class time will be devoted to discussions of published writing, workshops of student essays, writing exercises, and explorations of prose style.

This course is not a repeat or duplication of ENG 426 "The Essay: History, Theory, Practice," which studies the history of the essay form. ENG 409 "Writing the Personal Essay" is a writing workshop that focuses on the practice of writing essays and critiquing student works-in-progress. Students interested in the art and craft of personal-essay writing, including those who have taken ENG 426, are encouraged to enroll in this course.

Literary Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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ENG 492 - Writing Workshop: Writing Fiction
Stolar
LPC M 5:45-9:00
NAP W TBA

A course in writing short stories. Emphasis is placed on class discussion of student writing.

Literary Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. May be used as an elective in the MAE, MAW and MAWP.

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WRD 511 - Topics: Writing, Rhetoric, the Public Sphere
Abraham, M 5:45-9:00

Explores the persuasive strategies that humans use to bring attention to undervalued or lost causes—such as human rights or environmental issues—as they create audiences, or publics, concerned with those subjects.

Writing Theory/ Pedagogy concentration requirement in the MAW. Permission of director required for MAE and MAWP students.

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WRD 513 - Semiotics
Vandenberg, W 5:45-9:00

An introduction to semiotics, or the study of "the sign"—a theory of meaning that is concerned with anything intended to or interpreted to stand for something else, including objects, pictures, sounds, gestures, and body language. The course examines the construction of meaning in manifold contexts, extending the notion of "text" beyond the written page to any artifact that functions as a "message" embodied in a genre and a medium. The study of semiotics is important for writers in that our understanding of and expectations for literacy have become increasingly bound up with other modes of symbolic production in digital environments such as the Internet.

Writing Theory/ Pedagogy concentration requirement in the MAW. Permission of director required for MAE and MAWP students.

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WRD 525 - Writing for the Web
Slattery, TH 5:45-9:00

An introduction to various genres of web-based communication and the roles played by writers, readers, and users of web sites. Includes analysis, design, and revision of web-based writing as well as practice producing written documents which accompany the development of web information.

Technical/ Professional Writing concentration requirement in the MAW. Permission of director required for MAE and MAWP students.

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WRD 542 - Urban Literacies
Bowden, T 5:45-9:00

Explores the multiple dimensions of literacy with a special emphasis on adult literacy in an urban environment. Students examine the relationship between theory and practice, reading about theories of literacy from psychology, cognitive science, education, composition & rhetoric and linguistics while engaging in literacy tutoring at Chicago-area literacy sites.

Writing Theory/ Pedagogy concentration requirement in the MAW. Permission of director required for MAE and MAWP students.

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