Winter Quarter 2010: Course Descriptions

ENG 401 - History of the English Language
Sirles, M 6:00-9:15

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.

Language core requirement in the MAE. Lang/Lit/Teaching/Publishing requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 407 - Language & Style for Writers
Sirles, W 6:00-9:15

A comprehensive examination of structural and stylistic devices that accomplished writers use in creative and literary nonfiction contexts. Topics include sentence emphasis and rhythm, coherence, point of view, authorial stance, and rhetorical aspects of sentence structure, repetition, and punctuation.

Language core requirement in the MAE. Lang/Lit/Teaching/Publishing requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 411 - Chaucer
Kordecki, T 6:00-9:15

Chaucer's works in context of his milieu.

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

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ENG 427 - Milton
McQuade, Th 6:00-9:15

English 427 aims to explore the life and work of John Milton.  Students will read a variety of Milton's writings, including Comus, Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes.  Our focus will be upon how Milton's work engages with early modern politics, gender, and religion. Weekly readings seek to balance literary and critical texts. Students are expected to read primary materials-including ballads, broadsheets, marriage treatises, sermons, and theological tracts-when writing their essays.

Renaissance period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 428 - Studies in Shakespeare: Performing Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation
Royster, Th 6:00-9:15

In her book Shakespeare After all, Marjorie Garber argues that "Every age creates its own Shakespeare." How do we make sense of Shakespeare, who in our own cultural context seems both "rich and strange"? Throughout the course we will consider issues such as race, gender, nation building, images of sexuality and of violence, and the commercialization of Shakespearean theater and of the Shakespeare icon. Each week, we will be discussing one of play through the lens of critical essays. We will also have weekly performance presentations, three response papers and a final ten-fifteen page essay by quarter's end. Works covered this quarter will include The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, Othello, Troilus and Cressida, and the Tempest. We will end with Gloria Naylor's novel, Mama Day, to think about Shakespeare's influence in contemporary writing. This course will serve as a graduate-level introduction to Shakespeare's dramas and Shakespeare Studies.

Renaissance period requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 446 - Nineteenth Century Irish Literature
J Murphy, T 6:00-9:15

The nineteenth century was a period of extraordinary trauma and change in Ireland. A great rebellion had taken place in 1798. In the 1840s the death and emigration which resulted from the potato famine reduced the population of Ireland by a fifth. The countryside was a locus of conflict between peasants and landlords. It was a century of charismatic political leaders, secret societies and revolutionary organizations. It was also a time of great social change, especially for women, as both the institutions of the state and of religion became more active in people's lives. Literature—fiction, poetry, drama and prose—was one of the principal means whereby attempts were made to negotiate relationships within Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. This course will address these issues through the anthologized work of a wide variety of authors.

19th Century British requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 449 - Topics in 19th Century British Literature: The Victorian Family
Conary, W 6:00-9:15

Sarah Stickney Ellis was by no means alone when, in 1845, she expressed the following sentiment about the importance of family to English national identity: “There is an honest pride which every true heart has a right to feel, and England’s pride should be in the inviolable sanctity of her household hearths.” Indeed, Ellis’s proclamation in The Young Ladies’ Reader was only one part of an unprecedented campaign to celebrate the virtues of domesticity that helped define the Victorian middle class. The Victorian obsession with happy homes and family values had a considerable impact on the literary production of the time, limiting many authors to content that would not bring a blush to a young person’s cheek. Yet the kinds of domestic tales that the most celebrated Victorian novelists decided to tell are hardly catalogues of household virtue. This course will explore contrasting representations of the family in the Victorian periodical press and novels by Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights), Charles Dickens (Little Dorrit), Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Lady Audley’s Secret), and George Eliot (Daniel Deronda). We will investigate the lingering influence of the Gothic, changing notions of femininity and masculinity, and the importance of marriage and inheritance laws to domestic plots. Our reading load will not be light, but our sampling of a diverse array of novels written between 1847 and 1876 will provide a necessary foundation for our exploration of debates over the role of the family in Victorian society.

19th Century British requirement in the MAE. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 465 - Studies in the Modern American Novel: Fiction from 1920 to the Present
O'Gorman, W 6:00-9:15

We will proceed chronologically, stressing historical contexts and examining changing constructions of American identity in relation to religion, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and region. Divergences and continuities between modernism and postmodernism, as well as questions of genre more generally, will be major topics of discussion. Possible authors include Hemingway; Porter; Faulkner; O'Connor; Updike; Bellow; DeLillo; McCarthy; Morrison; Erdrich.

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

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ENG 469 - Topics in American Literature: Popular Romance Fiction
Selinger, M 6:00-9:15

Serious academic attention to popular romance fiction begins in the 1980s, with the publication of Janice Radway's Reading the Romance and Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women, by Tania Modleski. The conventions, genres, and readership of romance fiction have all evolved dramatically since this time, however, and critics have not always kept pace with them. In this course, we will explore some of the varieties of popular romance fiction (and of romance criticism) currently published in the United States. Using tools from genre theory, cultural studies, feminist psychoanalysis, the philosophy of love, and aesthetic analysis, we will learn to read popular romance from a variety of contemporary authors and subgenres, including some mix of historical, contemporary, multicultural, paranormal, and erotic romance.

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

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ENG 471 - Bibliography and Literary Research
Bartlett, Th 6:00-9:15

This course provides an intensive introduction to the graduate-level study of English. Throughout the quarter we'll develop and polish the skills necessary for advanced research, and we'll discuss important professional issues.

Core requirement in the MAE. May NOT be used for credit in the MAWP.

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ENG 474 - Teaching Literature
S Murphy, TH 6:00-9:15

This course prepares students to teach introductory literature courses at the secondary and post-secondary (primarily community college) levels. Together we will address multiple forms of "literacy" as they pertain to the classroom, familiarize ourselves with various pedagogical practices, develop specific methods of teaching the major literary genres, and consider the transactional nature of reading and writing within a neuroscientific framework.

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

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ENG 477 - Topics in Publishing: Literary Editing
Harris, TH 6:00-9:15

Close study of the attention that writers give to revising and shaping stories and essays and of the role of literary editors in facilitating writers' purposes. Approaches to refining language and details, rhythm and movement, action and dialogue, indirection and silence, and other properties of voice and structure unique to literary writing.

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

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ENG 477 - Topics in Publishing: Magazine Editing: Packaging the Story
Hahn, Sat NAP

As magazines compete against TV and the Internet for readers' attention, the challenge to being a great magazine editor is to use new, innovative and timely ways to tell a story. For instance, should your magazine's upcoming Obama-one-year-in-office anniversary story take the form of: a photo essay, a traditional long-format narrative analyzing his first 12 months, a Q&A with Dick Cheney on Obama's performance, or a line graf that, like a stock market chart, pinpoints the President's highs and lows? These are just a few options, and there are many more. In this class, we'll familiarize ourselves with the many, often highly visual, ways magazines use to tell a story. We'll study lots of magazines, and we'll learn how magazines are structured. We'll learn what factors editors use in deciding how to cover a particular story. And we'll compose a few non-traditional stories ourselves. This is an excellent class for magazine junkies and for those who hope to enter the field of print journalism.

This course meets on the following dates: Jan. 9 (9:00 - noon); Jan 23 (9:00 - 4:00); Feb. 6 (9:00 - 4:00); Feb. 20 ( 9:00 - 4:00); March 6 (9:00 - 4:00); March 13 (9:00 - noon).

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

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ENG 478 - Topics in Teaching: Grammar for Teachers
Meyer, T 6:00-9:15

This course will provide an overview of traditional views of English grammar as well as insights provided by a more descriptive approach. Students will develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of the English language and how to explain it. This course is especially recommended for middle and high school English teachers and for those planning to teach English and writing at the community-college and four-year college levels. Writers and editors wanting to strengthen their understanding of English grammar and structure will also benefit from this class.

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

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ENG 479 - Topics in Language and Form: Narrative Strategies
Stolar, T 6:00-9:15

Narrative Strategies is a course that will look at a handful of novels written in this millennium and explore how the novels use different craft strategies to accommodate and enhance their particular content. We'll look at contemporary novel form as aspiring writers hoping to learn how we can approach our own material.

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

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop Topics: Writing the Personal Essay
Harvey, TH 6:00-9:15 NAP

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.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop Topics: The Art of Revision
Morano, M 6:00-9:15

For many writers, revision is the most difficult and most rewarding part of the writing process. This course will focus on all aspects of revision, including finding the best form and structure for material, crafting an engaging voice, and polishing sentence-level prose. Students will revise at least two works – essays and/or short stories – that they have written prior to this term and will prepare a final manuscript for submission to literary journals. This course is appropriate for students who have taken at least one fiction or nonfiction workshop.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop Topics: Writing Long-form Fiction
Ojikutu, M 6:00-9:15

This course explores the chasm between the short story and long-form works of fiction. Students will draft and revise their own series of novel chapters, or a novella manuscript, as a final project. One objective will be to explore how kernel elements of narrative fiction and its primary plot structures alter and extend within the framework of an expanded work.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop Topics: Writing & Editing Children's Literature
Reid, T 6:00-9:15

In this reading and writing-intensive introduction to children’s fiction, we will grapple with the many unique aspects of a genre that is defined first and foremost by the age of its readers. While reading and assessing recent children’s books, students will draft and revise the first chapters of their own middle grade or young adult novel. Along the way, we’ll explore issues of concern to children’s book editors (those arbiters of “taste” who decide if a manuscript lives or dies), including competition, marketability, and submission protocol.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 484 - Writing Workshop Topics: Satire and Postmodern Short Fiction
Sneed, TH 6:00-9:15

In this graduate writing workshop, we will read short stories by David Foster Wallace and George Saunders, two writers who have inspired cultish devotion among many due to their unique, strange, often wildly funny stories. Their books are intriguing specimens of postmodern fiction, a style often defined by irony, reflexivity and heterogeneity that challenges the straightforward narratives of many modernist and contemporary writers. Students will have the opportunity to write their own satirical stories, and experimentation with traditional story forms will be encouraged.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 487 - Travel Writing
Morano, W 6:00-9:15

In this workshop, students will craft the raw materials of experience, memory, and sometimes research into travel essays. In our writing and reading we’ll grapple with concepts of truth, accuracy, and authority, as well as with questions about the very nature of travel. What does it mean to travel? Why do we do it? What do we gain in the process of uprooting ourselves, and what do we lose? By turning away from the simple answers to these and other questions, and by excavating material for its depth and richness, students will begin to shape preliminary writings into pieces of literature that both engage and enlighten the reader.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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ENG 491 - Science Writing
Anton, T 6:00-9:15

We take science writing to be every bit as creative and fun to read and write as fiction and poetry. It is high-paying and in high demand. Students read some of the classics, among which might be Watson's Double Helix or Nasar's A Beautiful Mind. We write press releases, literary articles and essays, and learn from a guest professional. No advanced science preparation or background is necessary, though always welcome. Students need only some courage, discipline and willingness to work.

Writing Workshop requirement in the MAWP. Elective in the MAE and MAWP.

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