Online Materials for ENGL 307

Required books

Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew, Texts and Contexts. Ed. Frances E. Dolan. NY: Bedford Books, St. Martin's Press.

Dekker, Thomas. A Woman Killed with Kindness. Ed. Brian Scobie. New Mermaid Series, Norton.

White, Martin, ed. Arden of Feversham. New Mermaid Series, Norton.

Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Norman Sanders. New Cambridge.

Middleton, Thomas and Rowley. The Changeling. New Mermaid Series, Norton.

Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi. Ed. Rene Weis. Oxford Univ. Press.

Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. New Mermaid Series, Norton.

Recommended Books

Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Fourth Edition. New York: MLA, 1995.

Diana Hacker, The Bedford Handbook, Third edition. NY: St. Martin's Press,

Course Objectives and Methods

1. To read, study, discuss, and appreciate a range of English early modern plays with a theoretical, topical focus on the ways these plays depict, use, support, and criticize forms of domestic violence including abuse of spouses, siblings, children, servants, friends.

2. To reconsider the plays in terms of contemporary studies of domestic violence in the U.S. and to work on making connections between contemporary recognition of recognizing, naming, and preventing violence.

3. To work out theories and methods of historical understanding so that we can engage responsibly and subtly as we address the differences and continuities between early modern plays, historical practices and discourses, and our own current experiences.

4. To develop critical methods to compare and synthesize methods and theories used by literary critics, historians, and current theorists, activists, and therapeutic writers who analyze and work on preventing domestic violence.

5. To place issues of domestic violence beyond understandings that focus on private and personal causes, and place concepts, behavior, and representations within larger institutional practices and discourses, noting how patterns of violence can be understood in terms of larger social structures, institutions, and media representations.

6. To question how the plays participate in cultural discourses and practices &emdash; now and then &emdash; about power and violence, sexuality, the construction of the domestic, gendered forms of honor, and other issues centering on regulating the family and sexuality.

7. To learn how to consider the literary texts as scripts and explore them with an eye to performance issues and how performance choices shape a range of meanings.

8. To experiment actively with performance choices through scene work (putting on scenes, discussing scenes) to learn how ideas can be expressed or critiqued through physical choices, interpretative acts.

9. To study scripts in relationship to video representations of the scripts, where available.

10. To develop a critical and theoretical sensibility by reading practical literary criticism that examines particular plays.

11. To develop advanced writing skills in critical, interpretative, and analytic discussions of particular plays as well as in comparing and synthesizing views of several works.

12. To place the plays in their own historical setting, understanding something about contemporary issues of the family, social change, regulating the domestic realm, and issues of violence.

13. To use the plays to understand the differences and similarities of issues, concepts, constructions in the depiction and representation of household violence.

14. To pursue how feminist theories, goals, and methods enable us to consider the intersecting forces of gender, sexuality, class, rank, color, and history.

15. To engage in collective efforts to produce knowledge through classroom dialogue, exchanging study question answers and responses, in out-of-class exchange, group projects, and possible activist work.

Course Requirements

1. Attendance and participation 10%

Attendance is required and more than three absences will result in a lowering of the grade. With each three absences the grade will be lowered 1/3 without ANY contingencies considered, other than medical illness, which depends on a doctor's report. Participation will be graded on the basis of strength and consistency of prep papers, contributions to in-class discussions and impromptu scenes, fine questions, helpful comments, responsiveness to others, contribution to the building of a community of learning, collective efforts.

2. One in-class scene and scene journal 20%.

The scene will be fully memorized, and involve costumes, props, a set, and other production needs. Scenes should involve some engagement with physicalizing the language; blocking, postures, movement, sound, music, lighting, or other ways of embodying and materializing issues of power, conflict, difference, and the like can be powerful. Everyone will receive a group grade for collective effort; a grade for their own scene journal; and a grade for their own contribution to the success of the scene either through their character, work on costumes or other technical features, ideas and leadership, cooperative effort. The scenes require very dedicated group work, high degrees of cooperation and mutual learning. Each scene will need at least four to five rehearsals to be effective and lines should be mastered (everyone off book) at least two days before the performance. Start early!

The scene journal will be due at the class following the scene performance. The journal will include a log of activities, actually written after each rehearsal and a long commentary containing the following elements:

a. Character study -- Talk about as much as you can possibly know from the entire script about your character; consider stage directions, what the others say about the character; major choices the character makes; their circumstances. Be sure to recognize how you interpret your character's gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, color, class, status, experiences, education, occupation, views, personality, body type, etc.

Consider ways to develop your character: what do they wear most of the time; how do they move, sit, smoke, use their voice, etc. What kinds of clothing do they wear? Do they have props or use items that help define them? In the scene you choose discuss your characters super-objective (what do they want to achieve) for the whole play, their more specific goal for the scene, and their play-by-play objectives during separate small actions (beats) as their progress toward their objectives are thwarted or advanced.

Think about character in terms of characters' actual actions of speech (their grammar, metaphors, forms of speech acts&emdash; do they ask a lot of questions, give orders, speak in asides, have soliloquies to audience) and other actions rather than just categories and adjectives.

How is your character determined by your performance choices that are informed by signals in the script and what other possible performance choices in your scene might have been made that would inflect the character in another direction?

b. Scene analysis -- what are the given circumstances in your scene, what conditions obtain for the characters (what has happened and what is the situation); what problems face the characters. In your scene, what are each other character's objectives and how are the other character's objectives pursued, frustrated, redefined, re-pursued through the course of the scene. Where are the conflicts and accords, discoveries and changes? What does this scene accomplish for the play, in terms of plot, character, situation, and theme?

c. Signals for performance choices: where are the major scripted signals you must observe? What kinds of signals demand definite, specific choices? What signals indicate an optional choice must be made but do not show exactly how to make the choice? What other signals do you find for choices you need to make about costume, props, blocking, line readings, characterization? What choices do you make that can be supported by the script although the script does not indicate such choices? Are you making choices for your scene that work there but would not work if the scene were performed with the rest of the play? What is your justification for doing that?

d. Issues of violence and representation: how does your scene explore ideas, themes, and issues at the core of the course?

3. Midterm paper, 20%

The midterm will center on one or more of the plays from the first half of the course, but not one in which you performed a scene. The midterm should address key issues of the course, and should include attention to at least one essay or work engaging with current domestic abuse, early modern history, theory regarding consent, sexuality, rape, or the like, or practical literary criticism. Check with the instructor to get your topic approved or supported with suggestions. The midterm should total about 7-8 pages.

4. Final assignment 25%

The final assignment may be a final paper (10-12 pages); a long final scene (or a short one done two ways; or two shorter scenes); or group or individual creative project on the plays from the second half of the semester. Group projects can take the form of a collective activist effort for the campus or wider community; such group project must, in some way, employ attention to early modern drama.

If you do not write a paper, you must rewrite one part of your midterm paper if it earned less than an A-. You must turn in your rewrite by Dec. 1, having discussed the particular type of revision you will do beforehand with the instructor. You must make a proposal for your final paper or project by Fri. Nov. 17 and required conferences will be held on all proposed topics by Thanksgiving break. All scenes will include a scene journal, a report and discussion must accompany all projects, and all papers must include some research using theory or practical criticism.

All papers must conform to the rules for format and documentation as laid out in the MLA Handbook.

Many instructor comments and corrections will use the abbreviations and refer students to relevant passages in the Bedford Handbook. Be sure to buy and use these optional books if you have any problems with either format or rules of grammar and punctuation.

5. Study Questions, 25%

Study questions will be posted regularly to create specific ways to address particular ideas, issues, or problems. Written answers and/or thinking about study questions will provide a vehicle for students to prepare for taking an active and responsible role in discussion.

The instructor will design study questions, but students can invent their own, as well. Study questions will be posted in advance for many classes, and students will prepare in writing a response to at least one of the questions for each meeting for which study questions are posed or required. During any one-week, students may offer one study question of their own or refashion a given question.

Students will also be assigned partners who will write out a Response to at least one of their Answers each week. Students will exchange their Answers and Responses to study questions with their partners either by giving them a hard copy, or sending them an email attachment in Word, or emailing their Answer or Responses within the body of the email. Students will keep a portfolio of hard copy texts of all their own Answers and their partners' Responses. All Answers and Responses will show the date written and bear the author's name. The Portfolios will be handed in on the last Friday before the midterm break and on the last day of classes of the semester. Answers will be graded for consistency of preparation, variety in types of answers and questions considered, specific and in-depth thinking, creativity, careful analysis, various forms of intellectual and creative excellence. Students will also be graded for their Responses with the same types of criteria. An overall grade will be given to the Portfolio as a body of work.

The objectives of exchanging Answers and Responses will be to build a greater intellectual dialogue between class members, enhancing the group production of knowledge and critical thought. Exchanges can help students to see how their answers lead a classmate to make further discoveries of their own, to learn how their answers might be improved, to test their interpretations and arguments, and to gain skills in challenging, respectful, and constructive dialogue with peers.

Answers to study questions may reach any length, but should total at least one page, double-spaced. Responses should employ two or three paragraphs, at a minimum. Here are goals for the Answers.

Cite texts in specific ways; refer to particular essays and writers in the reader and handouts; use clearly defined concepts and theories and show your sources with clear references or footnotes; think creatively and critically to take questions or topics in directions that interest you personally. Over the semester, try your hand at a variety of types of questions: some will address performance choices; some might engage with theory; some could address interpretative puzzles; some will respond to historical readings; some could grapple with current readings on violence. Over the semester have fun also devising your own study questions to meet your interests; to raise issues or methods that you think have not been addressed; to help accomplish syntheses of historical and current issues, or the like.

Responses from partners should do the following:

1. Always begin by saying what you think the main thrust or achievement of the answer is. Take a non-evaluative, descriptive approach. Spend a paragraph on this.

2. Responses must always be constructive, respectful, and show careful attention to what your partner is trying to accomplish. In a further paragraph or two help your partner see how their Answer leads you to make your own discoveries or how you have learned from an oppositional dialogue with it. You need to explain, very specifically, how an Answer helps you make particular discoveries. Here are some ways to do that.

a. You might suggest some specific alternative reading, method, theory, or set of ideas that the person might consider, and show specifically how the Answer might have been pursued quite differently (not necessarily "better") by using different references, examples, theories, or methods. This is not to indicate that the partner's choices were wrong, just show how the Answer suggests alternatives to you and where those alternatives lead you.

b. You could engage in a form of oppositional debate or a provocative exchange to show how the Answer leads you toward a strong difference that you find interesting and productive. The goal here is not so much to create conflict as to use difference and disagreement to enhance close thinking, careful argumentation, and an engaged discussion founded on respect and careful attention to what the other person is saying.

c. You can compare your own Answer to the very same question analyze how and why your answers are the same or different, what each accomplishes, and what each of you can learn from each other.

d. You can describe and analyze how the partner's Answer was, in practice, useful in the actual class discussion, and what you noticed about others' responses to the Answer in class. If there wasn't much response, you can imagine how the discussion might have gone further, had there been more time, or if people had responded more fully.

Schedule

DATE	ACTIVITY	ASSIGNMENT
Wed 9/6	Intro. to course	Syllabus chart on cycles and types of domestic violence; look at early scene
Fri 9/8	Reading an early modern dramatic script: meter, embodiment, choices, and violence	Shrew Act 1
Sun 9/10	Reading Shrew aloud	Optional group reading 2-5 pm
Mon 9/11	Shrew Act 2, and historical issues	Readings in Dolan edition; study questions
Wed 9/13	Shrew Act 3, and contemporary issues: Sibling abuse	Vernon Wiehe chapters on Sibling Abuse (handouts); study questions
Fri 9/15	Shrew Act 4, and historical issues	Readings in Dolan edition; study questions
Sun 9/17	Shrew video (BBC or Zefferelli)	Mudd 050 2-5 p.m.
Mon 9/18	Shrew Act 5, and literary criticism	Boose and Burt essays (handouts) and study questions
Wed 9/20	Shrew and contemporary issues: consent	MacKinnon essay (handout) and study questions
Fri 9/22	Shrew scenes	Readings in Dolan edition; study questions
Sun 9/24	Reading Arden of Feversham aloud	Optional group reading 2-5+ pm
Mon 9/25	Arden of Feversham lecture and discussion	Finish complete play. Shrew scene journals due
Wed 9/27	Arden of Feversham and literary criticism	Orlin and Dolan essays; study questions
Fri 9/29	Arden of Feversham and contemporary issues: consent	Will, Fassin, and Haines essays (Reader); study questions
Sun 10/1	Reading A Woman Killed with Kindness aloud	Optional group reading 2-5+ pm
Mon 10/2	Arden of Feversham scenes
Wed 10/4	A Woman Killed with Kindness lecture and discussion	Finish complete play. Arden of Feversham scene journals due
Fri 10/6	No class, make up later in semester
Mon 10/9	No class, Yom Kippur
Wed 10/11	A Woman Killed with Kindness and literary criticism	Bromley and Panek essays (Reader); study questions
Fri 10/13	A Woman Killed with Kindness , Arden, Shrew and contemporary issues	Walker, Herman, and Avni readings (Reader); No study questions. Midterm paper due. Portfolio of study questions Answers and Responses due.
Mon 10/23	Historical context	Amussen essay (Reader); study questions
Tue 10/24	Reading Othello aloud	Optional group reading, 7:30-11 p.m.
Wed 10/25	A Woman Killed with Kindness scenes
Fri 10/27	Othello, Lecture and discussion	Finish complete play.
Mon 10/30	Othello, Acts 1-2	Study questions. A Woman Killed with Kindness scene journals due
Wed 11/1	Othello, Acts 3-4	Study questions
Fri 11/3	Othello, Act 5	Boose, Wayne, Deats, essays (Reader); study questions
Sat 11/4	Make up class: Othello and violence readings	Dutton, McNeill, essays (Reader); study questions
Sun 11/5	Othello video	Mudd 050 2-5 p.m
Mon 11/6	Othello scenes	Goode, Butterfield essays (Reader); study questions
Tues 11/7	Reading Duchess of Malfi aloud	Optional group reading, 7:30-11 p.m.
Wed 11/8	Duchess of Malfi lecture and discussion	Finish complete play.
Fri 11/10	Duchess of Malfi and historical context	Fletcher essay (Reader); study questions. Othello scene journals due
Mon 11/13	Duchess of Malfi, review sibling abuse issues
Wed 11/15	Duchess of Malfi and literary criticism	Steen and Ronk essays (Reader); study questions.
Fri 11/17	Duchess of Malfi scenes
Sun 11/19	Reading The Changeling aloud	Optional group reading, 7:30-11 p.m.
Mon 11/20	The Changeling, lecture and discussion	Finish complete play.
Wed 11/22	The Changeling and historical context	Bronham and Burnett essays (Reader); study questions. Duchess scene journals due
Mon 11/27	The Changeling and literary criticism	Burks and Neill essays (Reader); study questions
Wed 11/29	The Changeling and violence readings	Russell and Brownmiller essays (Reader); study questions
Fri 12/1	The Changeling scenes
Sun 12/3	Reading 'Tis Pity She's a Whore aloud
Mon 12/4	Duchess scenes
Wed 12/6	'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Lecture and discussion	Finish complete play;
Fri 12/8	'Tis Pity She's a Whore and literary criticism	Clerico and Strout essays (Reader). Duchess scene journals due
Sun 12/10	Final presentations, time TBA	Make up class
Mon 12/11	'Tis Pity She's a Whore and violence readings	Wilson and Martin essay (Reader); study questions
Wed 12/13	Wrap up and course evaluation	Heise essay (Reader); NO study questions. Portfolio of study questions Answers and Responses due.
Sat 12/16	Final papers due
Tues 12/19	Final presentations, continued	Final exam scheduled time: 2-5 p.m.

This course was planned and redesigned with the assistance of Rachel Barrett, co-chair of SAST, member of the course during Spring, 1999. Thank you, Rachel!

Helpful Numbers SAST x8429 National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 Nord Center (Lorain County Rape Crisis Center) 1-800-888-6161 Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) 1-800-656-4673 Network for Battered Lesbians and Bisexual Women 1-617-423-7233