Spring 2008

Students interested in taking introductory-level courses in writing should also see the Rhetoric and Composition section of the catalog. Descriptions of writing-oriented courses and procedures to be followed in order to meet the college-wide writing requirements may be found there. These courses do not count towards an English major.

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COURSES FOR NON-MAJORS

The English Department offers several 100-level courses intended to serve a general audience interested in learning about literature from topical approaches.  Such courses do not normally qualify as Writing Intensive classes and do not count toward the English major. Students hoping to do further work in English or literary study in general should normally begin work with a First-Year Seminar and proceed directly to 200-level courses.  

 

141-01 (13954) Rivers in American Literature, 4 hours / 4HU

MWF 11:00-11:50 + Th 7:00-10:00 pm, T.S. McMillin
An introduction to the different meanings of rivers in a variety of texts, genres, and formats. Through careful readings of short pieces (poems, films, songs, stories, essays), longer accounts (novels, history, travel writing, autobiography), and local waterways, we will examine some of the different meanings that Americans have attributed to rivers and attempt to imagine where our attitudes towards places, people, and flowing water might lead us. Student writing will include brief essays and exams. Enrollment Limit: 50.

190-01 (14474) Race, Immigration, and Culture, 1 hours / 1HU

TBA, A. Needham/L. Gibbons
This mini-course (graded CR/NE or P/NP) is designed to prepare for and benefit from the 2008 Oberlin Lectures in English and American Literature given by Prof. Luke Gibbons of Notre Dame University.  Focusing on three films by John Ford and one recent Irish film -- Fort Apache (1947), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), and Hard Road to Klondike (Dir Desmond Bell, 1999). -- this course will examine Irish and Native American resonances in film. Enrollment Limit: 25.

INTRODUCTORY COURSES TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH

Courses at the 200 level are designed to introduce students to the discipline of literary study in English through attention to fundamental issues and methods of interpretation in critical reading and writing, substantial coverage of texts, and instruction in the conventions of genre, period, and region as appropriate.

Prerequisites: These courses are open to students who have completed any Writing Intensive course, or have gained Writing Certification in any course in the Humanities. They are also open to those who have achieved a 5 on the AP exam in English Language/Composition or English Literature/Composition, or a score of 710 or better on the SAT II Writing test. Other students may be admitted by consent of the instructor, with the understanding that students should be able to demonstrate the ability to handle writing, discussion, and analysis in ways typically taught in Writing Intensive classes.

Introductory ELECTIVE Courses

Courses in this category do not serve the "Gateway" function for the English major; they do, however, introduce students to literary or linguistic study, and prepare them for advanced work in English.

232-01 (13424) Traditions of Metamorphosis, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

MWF 3:30-4:20, J. Hobbs
The theme of metamorphosis in literature from Ovid to Kafka -- including Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Julio Cortázar -- and in cinema and music. Our approach will be comparative, involving lecturers from various departments and programs, in addition to discussion classes. Identical to CMPL 232 (13425).  Diversity, Post-1900.  Enrollment limit: 30.

Introductory GATEWAY Courses

203-01 (13955) Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 4 hours / 4HU,WR

MWF 10-10:50, J. Bryan

This course is cancelled.

This course surveys English literary history from the 12th century to the 17th.  As we explore early romances, epics, poems, and plays, we will be particularly interested in how genres change across what we now consider a major period boundary.  What happens to textual representation under the pressure of dramatic historical shifts? How does literary entertainment reflect the differences between “pre-modern” and “early modern” culture? Why do we think in terms of "periods" anyway?  Authors will include Marie de France, Chaucer, Malory, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. Nature of Text. British, Pre-1700. Enrollment Limit: 23.

204-01 (14172) Shakespeare and Contemporary Criticism, 3 hours / 3HU, WR

MWF 2:30-3:20, P. Gorfain
Focused study of five plays representing history, comedy, tragedy, and romance: Henry IV,Part 1, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Tempest. Contemporary critical methods and theories will be studied in connection with each play, including feminist, folkloristic/anthropological, new historicist, performance, and race criticism. Performance issues and student scenes (assuming no training) also included. Nature of Interpretation. British, Pre-1700. Enrollment limit: 30.

212-01 (13956) Wit, Rakes, Madmen, and Jane: A Survey of Eighteenth-Century Literature, 4 hours / 4HU,WR

TuTh 9:35-10:50, L. Baudot
This course will introduce students to the various modes of literary production in eighteenth-century Britain, including the periodical essay, the novel, neoclassical and lyric poetry, satire, and drama. We will read these forms of literary expression with a view toward understanding how they illuminate large-scale historical transformations, such as the rise of commodity capitalism, the consolidation of the middle class, and the formation of feminist consciousness. Nature of Text. British, 1700-1900. Enrollment Limit: 30.

220-01 (13957) Romantic Literature, 4 hours / 4HU,WR

TuTh 1:30-2:45, J. Olmsted
An interdisciplinary study of "romanticism" in England and Scotland between 1789 and 1832, treating works by poets, essay writers, novelists, painters and urban architects. Among works to be considered will be poems by Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Byron, essays by Burke, De Quincey, Coleridge, and Hazlitt, and fiction by Mary Shelley. Painters to be considered will include Girtin, Constable, Turner. We will investigate the Prince Regent's attempts, working with John Nash and others, to transform London into an imperial city. Nature of Text. British, 1700-1900. Enrollment limit: 30.

228-01 (13959) Modern British and Irish Fiction, 4 hours / 4HU,WR

MWF 11:00-11:50, D. Walker
Novels and short fiction by such major twentieth-century writers as Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Graham Greene. Nature of Text. British, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 30.

260-01 (13960) Black Humor and Irony: Modern Literary Experiments, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

TuTh 1:30-2:45, G. Johns
African American humor has historically received little academic study. But the many anthologies of oral humor and the visibility of stand-up comedy invite us to examine the presence and role of humor and irony in African American literature. This course thus centers on a concentrated group of black literary humorists and explores various theories and methods (functional, structural, and cultural) for interpreting their works. Authors we will read include Chesnutt, Hurston, Hughes, Ellison, and Reed. Nature of Interpretation. American, Diversity, Post-1900. Enrollment Limit: 30.

273-01(14152) The Psychoanalytic Imagination in American Culture, 4 hours / 4HU,WR

TuTh 9:35-10:50, I. Geerken
In this course we will examine psychoanalysis as a literary and artistic medium in its own right. In addition to studying classic texts of Freudian psychoanalysis and those of object-relations theorists, we will explore the representation of psychoanalysis in the modern imagination. We will look, for example, at how post-war American film portrays the rehabilitation of the hysteric through the patient-doctor relationship (Spellbound, The Three Faces of Eve, Lilith), and how the "confessional" school of American poets (Lowell, Berryman, Plath) uses the therapeutic session as a basis for poetry. We will also examine contemporary memoirs of madness, analyze the short stories of A.M. Homes, and evaluate the Freudian "family romance" in film and TV (The Sopranos). What we hope to accomplish from this work is an appreciation of psychoanalysis as an influential and intriguing model (and modeler) of human consciousness, as we test its validity across various periods and genres. Nature of Interpretation. American, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 30.

275-01 (12890) Introduction to Comparative Literature, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

MWF 3:30-4:20, J. Deppman
What kinds of theoretical models are valid for grounding literary comparisons across history, place, language, nation, culture, genre and medium? Texts from several literary traditions will be used to answer that question and explore topics in theory, translation, East-West comparison, and literature and the other arts. Identical to CMPL 200 (12983). Note: Comparative Literature majors should take this course by the junior year. Diversity. Enrollment limit: 25.

282-01 (12891) Shifting Scenes: Drama Survey, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

TuTh 11:00-12:15, C. Tufts
This course will study the development of drama from the ancient Greeks to the present with the aim of promoting understanding and analysis of dramatic texts. By studying the major forms of drama--tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy--within their historical and cultural contexts, we will explore the elements common to all dramatic works, as well as the way in which those elements vary and evolve from one time and place to another. Nature of Text. Diversity, 1700-1900 OR Post-1900 (not both). Enrollment limit: 30.

ADVANCED COURSES

Courses at the 300 level are designed to broaden students’ experience of literature in English while also deepening the study of the discipline through focused reading of texts, criticism, literary history and theory.

Prerequisites: Two 200-level courses, including at least one Gateway course; or three 200-level courses.

301-01 (13961) Chaucer, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

MWF 3:30-4:20, J. Bryan

This course is cancelled.

Our text will be The Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English.  No previous experience with the language is required. British, Pre-1700. Enrollment limit: 25.

306-01 (14197) Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Poetry: Discourses of Love, 3 hours / 3HU, WR

MWF 10:00-10:50, R. Pierce
Non-dramatic poetry from the period 1580-1660, with special attention to  Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and Marvell. The course will consider how these poems participate in discourses of love in the Early Modern period. British, Pre-1700. Enrollment limit: 25.

307-01 (13962) Six Great Elizabethan and Jacobean Plays in Context, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

MWF 2:30-3:20, P. Gorfain

This course is cancelled.

During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, theatre reached its apex as powerful courts interacted with controversial plays to help shape political, economic, and social life.  Six important dramas enable us to question how early modern theatre participated in history and how it may still speak to us.  Works include Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Jonson’s Volpone, Marlowe’s Edward II, Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling, and Ford’s Tis Pity She's a Whore. British, Pre-1700. Enrollment limit: 25.

308-01 (13963) Sexualities in Shakespearean Poetry and Drama, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

MWF 10:00-10:50, P. Gorfain
Shakespeare’s works profoundly and poetically, seriously and comically, materially and symbolically critique and celebrate multiple types of sexuality, eroticism, and sexual experience.  We will employ varied theories and methods for studying these sexualities, including ways for queering the early modern period.  We’ll also consider how performance choices inflect interpretations of sexual expression. Works include "Rape of Lucrece," selected sonnets, Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, and either Titus Andronicus, or Coriolanus.  British, Diversity, Pre-1700. Enrollment limit: 25.

324-01 (13964) Six Poets: 1945-Present, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

TuTh 1:30-2:45, D. Harrison
This course will pay close attention to poetry’s efforts to find new forms and modes of expression in a world overshadowed by unthinkable acts and unspeakable experience.  How have lyric poets undertaken to employ their art to give voice to what appears to be, by definition, unutterable?  Lowell, Bishop, Plath, Heaney, Ashbery, Graham.  American OR British (not both), Post-1900.  Enrollment limit: 25.

348-01 (13965) Modern Drama: Ibsen to Pirandello, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

W 7:00-9:30 pm, C. Tufts
This course explores the different ways in which "reality" was staged by playwrights including Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Shaw, and Pirandello.  We will consider how modern theatrical movements such as realism, naturalism, expressionism, and metadrama sought to represent "reality," focusing on evolving stagecraft.  Emphasis will also be placed on the historical and cultural contexts surrounding the early stages of modern drama. Diversity, 1700-1900 OR Post-1900 (not both). Enrollment Limit: 25.

353-01 (12367) American Literature, 1825-65: "To Write Like an American," 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

MWF 11:00-11:50, S. Zagarell
Melville's phrase captures a major concern of American writers during the antebellum period: the creation of a distinctly American literature. Directly or indirectly, many writers of the era engaged with "writing like an American" -- Melville, Emerson, Whitman, Douglass, Jacobs among them -- while a few, notably Poe, repudiated the very idea. We'll read work by the writers I've listed and by others as we consider what "writing like an American" entailed during the formative era in American culture and history. American, Diversity, 1700-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

357-01 (13966) Transatlantic Cross-Currents: Nineteenth-Century British and American Literature, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

MWF 2:30-3:20, S. Zagarell
Cross-national literary influences. Debates about slavery and Abolition, race and empire. Exchanges about culture and class. Such issues will frame our exploration of ways in which American and British writing spoke on both sides of the Atlantic. Attention to transatlantic contexts—-political, economic, cultural—-will inform our discussion. Writers likely to include Douglass, Dickens, Stowe, Emerson, Carlyle, C.Bronte, Stoddard, Frances Harper, Melville, Conrad, James, Kipling, Whitman. American OR British (not both), Diversity, 1700-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

362-01 (13967) Partition, War, Dislocation: Mid-Twentieth-Century South Asia and Historic Palestine, 4 hours / 2HU, 2SS, CD, WRi

TuTh 9:35-10:50, A. Needham / F. Hasso
This cross-divisional team-taught course focuses on the cultural, social, historical, and political dimensions and consequences of the partitions, wars, and dislocations that occurred with the withdrawal of the British Empire from historic Palestine and India and the establishment of Pakistan and Israel in 1947 and 1948. The course will be reading intensive, include a film component, and organized in a seminar style that requires significant student engagement. Students will be expected to complete a number of papers, including one based on the analysis of primary source materials. Diversity, Post-1900.  Enrollment limit: 26. Identical to GAWS 362 (13968)  and SOCI 362 (13969). Enrollment in this interdisciplinary course requires consent of the instructors and will generally be limited to third- and fourth-year students who have completed some relevant coursework. Declared majors in any of the following departments/programs will have enrollment priority: English, Gender and Women's Studies, and Sociology.

363-01 (13970) Gaines, Morrison, Wideman: Textualizing Orality and Literacy, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

TuTh 9:35-10:50, G. Johns
In Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong outlined a theory about changes in human thought processes that result from developments in speech, writing, and print.  Beginning with this classic study, this course will focus closely on three contemporary novelists who continue the African American tradition's own "play" between writing and orality.  Examining Ernest Gaines, Toni Morrison, and John Edgar Wideman, we will study their post-Civil Rights (paradoxically) textual experiments in re-configuring and re-presenting "the black interior."  American, Diversity, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

365-01 (13971) American Drama, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

TuTh 1:30-2:45, C. Tufts
Selected works of major American playwrights. Emphasis will be placed on close reading, as well as on the significance of each play in regard to political and social movements of the time and the evolution of the American theater. Among the playwrights to be considered: Odets, O'Neill, Williams, Hellman, Albee, Shepard, Baraka, Bullins, Fornes, Kushner. American, Diversity, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

370-01 (14155) Itineraries of Postmodernism, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

MWF 1:30-2:20, J. Deppman
When and why did Modernism transmogrify into Postmodernism? This course examines current theories of these two amorphous "isms" and surveys the forking paths between them. We will read works and hybrids of literature and theory and consider such topics as: (de)constructions of gender; death of the author, (inter)textuality and the play of the signifier; surrealism and the hyperreal. Authors may include Barnes, Kafka, Barthes, Foucault, Vattimo, Lyotard, Nancy, Derrida, Borges, Baudrillard. Diversity, Post-1900. Identical to CMPL 370 (14154). Prerequisite: A literature course in any language. Enrollment limit: 25.

373-01(13972) American Literature, Movies, and Culture in the 1930s: Art and Social Value, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

MWF 11:00-11:50 + Tu 7:00-10:00 pm + Sun 1:00-4:00, P. Day
This course focuses on American culture in the 1930s with particular reference to the relation between the novel and cinema, though other arts and media such as photography, painting, and music will also be addressed. We will consider not only the relation of these arts to each other but to the social crisis of the Great Depression. American, Post-1900. Prerequisite: Two 200-level courses, including at least one Gateway course, or three 200-level courses, or CINE 101 and a Cinema Studies Cinematic Traditions course. This course is cross-referenced with Cinema Studies and also counts towards the Cinema Studies major. Enrollment limit: 25.

383-01(13973) Selected Authors: Vladimir Nabokov, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

MWF 2:30-3:20, D. Walker
A close reading of short fiction, autobiography, and the major novels from Despair through Transparent Things by this great 20th-century master.  American, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

388-01(13974) Selected Authors: Salman Rushdie, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

TuTh 3:00-4:15, A. Needham

This course is cancelled.

This course will focus on the fictional and non-fictional oeuvre of one of the most prominent Anglophone writers of our time -- Salman Rushdie. Class discussions will seek to contextualize (and be contextualized by) a host of theoretical/cultural concepts deriving from postcolonial studies -- like hybridity, mongrelization, migration, cosmopolitanism, national allegory-- with which Rushdie’s work is associated or seen as exemplifying in particularly accurate and cogent ways. The course will be reading intensive and require significant student engagement. British, Diversity, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

 

390-01(13975) Selected Authors: William Faulkner, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

TuTh 3:00-4:15, J. Olmsted
An intensive study of major works by William Faulkner (1897-1962). Readings include Flags in the Dust, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, The Unvanquished and Absalom, Absalom!, and a selection of poetry, short stories, essays, and speeches. American, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

393-01(13976) Selected Authors: James Joyce, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

MWF 11:00-11:50, J. Hobbs
The development of Joyce's fiction from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake, emphasizing Ulysses, in the contexts of his biography and post-colonial Irish culture. Major issues will be the tensions between Joyce’s nationalism and internationalism, Catholicism and secularism, modernism and traditionalism, fantasy and social realism. Diversity, Post-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

394-01(13438) Selected Authors: Jane Austen, 4 hours / 4HU, CD, WR

TuTh 1:30-2:45, L. Baudot
An in-depth investigation into the work of Jane Austen.  We will read all of Austen's novels and a selection of her juvenilia, and pay particular attention to Austen’s treatment of love, courtship, morality, politeness, pain, and pleasure. British, Diversity, 1700-1900. Enrollment limit: 25.

395-01 (7308) Poetry Workshop, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

W 7:00-10:00 pm, P. Alexander
The writing of poetry. Intensive discussion of student work, accompanied by assigned reading. Admission based on a completed application form and a writing sample of six to eight poems (due in the Creative Writing Program office by Friday, January 4, 2008). Identical to CRWR 310 (7146). Prerequisite: CRWR 201. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.

397-01 (7309) Fiction Workshop, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

W 7:00-10:00 pm, S. Watanabe
The writing of short fiction. Admission based on a completed application form and a writing sample of at least 12 pages of fiction, made up of at least two separate pieces (due in the Creative Writing Program office by Friday, January 4, 2008). Identical to CRWR 320 (7147). Prerequisite: CRWR 201. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment limit: 12.

399-01 (7311) Teaching and Tutoring Writing Across the Disciplines, 3 hours / 3HU, WRi

TuTh 1:30-2:45, L. McMillin
A course in which students will tutor at the writing center or assist one of the writing-intensive courses offered in various disciplines while studying composition theory and pedagogy. In the process of helping to educate others, students work toward a fuller understanding of their own educational experiences, particularly in writing. Juniors or seniors who write well, regardless of major, are encouraged to apply. Identical to RHET 401 (14113). Note: Students enrolling in ENGL 399 or RHET 401 should also enroll in RHET 402, Tutoring Lab. Consent of instructor required. Enrollment Limit: 12.

SENIOR TUTORIALS, SEMINARS, AND HONORS PROJECTS
Senior Tutorials and Senior Seminars are designed primarily for English majors, and fulfill the 400-level requirement for the English major. Rising senior English majors should apply for tutorials and seminars through a common application available at the department office, not through individual instructors. Some places in seminars may be available for other qualified students after all English majors have been accommodated, by application to the department.

Honors in English also fulfills the 400-level requirement for the English major; it is only open to students who have been admitted through the application process.

Prerequisite: Admission based on a completed application form (available at the department office).

400-01 & 400-02 Senior Tutorial, 2-4 hours / 2-4HU, WR

400-01 (11768) TuTh 10:00-10:50, J. Pence
400-02 (11769) M 7:00-10:00 pm, S. Zagarell
For English majors in either semester of their final year only, involving close work in a small group on an individual project, leading to a substantial paper. Consent of instructor required.

437-01 (13439) Seminar: Ars Poetica: Poetry, Art, Thought, 4 hours / 4HU, WR

TuTh 9:35-10:50, DeSales Harrison
What are poems for? What good do they serve? How do poets describe, explain, or justify their art? The questions will guide us in a broader inquiry into poetry and its place among other arts. Poets will include Horace, Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Stevens, Bishop, Ashbery, Graham. Critics will include Lu Chi, Plato, Coleridge, Jakobson, Vendler, Bloom, Grossman. 1700-1900 OR Post-1900 (not both). Consent of instructor required. Enrollment Limit: 12.

451-01 (12905) Honors Project, 1-4 hours / 1-4HU, WR

TBA, T.S. McMillin
Intensive year-long work on a topic developed in consultation with a member of the Department, culminating in a substantial paper and a defense of that paper. Prerequisite: Senior major standing and acceptance by the Department. Consent of instructor required.