Undergraduate Course Offerings
Spring 2010
To assist students and advisers in selecting English courses, this listing describes the courses to be offered by the Department of English during the spring semester 2010. Except where otherwise noted, there are no prerequisites for English courses on the 200, 300, and 400 levels. English courses at the 500 level require graduate standing or permission of the instructor; courses at the 600 level require graduate standing. To determine the hours at which courses are offered, please consult the TRACS booklet distributed by the Office of Registration and Records.
In accordance with English Department policy and consistent with course objectives, teachers of any English course should take as a responsibility the inclusion of minority and female authors and the treatment of gender and ethnic issues.
All courses will carry three (3) hours of credit unless otherwise specified.
100-Level Courses
English 100 Introduction to Academic Writing
Four Credit Hours
Intensive introduction to critical writing and reading in academic contexts. Exploration of writing processes and academic literacy skills: interpreting assignments; comprehending, analyzing, and evaluating college-level texts; inventing, drafting, and revising; seeking, providing, and responding to constructive feedback; collaborating effectively under varied learning models. Extensive writing practice and individualized coaching. Attention to grammar and conventions of standard written English. Intended as preparation for ENG 101. All sections meet in computer classrooms.
For information about placement and the First-Year Writing Requirement, see http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/fwp/NewFrWrReq.htm.
English 101 Academic Writing and Research
Four Credit Hours
Intensive instruction in academic writing and research. Basic principles of rhetoric and strategies for academic inquiry and argument. Instruction and practice in critical reading, including the generative and responsible use of print and electronic sources for academic research. Exploration of literate practices across a range of academic domains, laying the foundation for further writing development in college. Continued attention to grammar and conventions of standard written English. Most sections meet in computer classrooms.
For further information about the First-Year Writing Requirement, see http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/fwp/NewFrWrReq.htm.
200-Level Courses
The Department of English considers writing an integral part of its 200-level literature classes. Therefore, each 200-level literature class will include a series of separate and substantial writing assignments, through which students reinforce the composition skills of English 100 and 101. The students' writing will interpret and analyze literary texts; it should demonstrate a capacity to generate, substantiate, and organize a formal critical argument, and should conform to the grammatical and mechanical conventions of standard written English. The writing might include some element of library research and documentation. The faculty will provide attention to and commentary on the quality of students' writing. Poor writing in 200-level courses will seriously affect a student's grade.
ENG 201 Writing Literary Analysis
Rouphail
Practical introduction to writing about literature for academic and other audiences. Close textual analysis, including attention to versification, narrative technique, and dramatic structure; various contextualizations, including biographical,literary-historical, and cultural-historical. Conventional genres of literary analysis, including close reading; conventions of organization and prose style in literary discourse; MLA conventions for prose style and documentation.
ENG 208 Studies in Fiction
Staff
This course surveys the historical development of fictional forms--tale, short story, novel, etc. As an introduction, some instructors may wish to exemplify medieval and Renaissance narrative forms through works by Chaucer, Nash, Sidney, or others. Emphasis is on the development of narrative types out of the cultures that produced them.
ENG 209 Introduction to Shakespeare
(Does not satisfy requirements for the English major)
Staff
Shakespeare for non-English majors. Seven to ten major plays, including representative comedies, such as The Taming of the Shrew; histories, such as Richard III; tragedies, such as Hamlet; and romances, such as The Tempest.
ENG 210 Introduction to Language and Linguistics
Bolonyai
Linguistic theory and method. Topics include the English sound system, morphology, syntactic structure, semantics, and historical and contemporary dialect variation. Language acquisition, language and the brain, and computer processing and human language.
ENG 214 Introduction to Editing
Staff
In this course, students learn to work with the writing of other people--evaluating, correcting, and adapting it for different purposes. Students develop both mechanical skills (editing for correctness and consistency, reading proof) and editorial judgment on matters of style, format, and content. They learn the conventions of editing for various types of publications--newspapers, books, instructions, brochures. They work in the Humanities Computing Lab to edit and format texts electronically. Other topics covered are the basics of page design, legal issues such as copyright and libel, and the problems of working with authors and publishers. This course serves as an introduction to the Rhetoric, Writing, and Language option of the English Major.
ENG 215 News Article Writing
Staff
This course offers an introduction to writing skills used by the various print media, particularly newspaper journalism. ENG 215 begins with an exploration of the different functions of the media, then moves quickly to writing news leads, simple news stories, and, finally, more comprehensive articles: features, profiles, speech and meeting stories, and interpretive reporting. Considerable time is spent on evaluating the performance of the local newspapers and on questions of fairness and ethics in the wider journalistic context.
ENG 219 Traditional Non Western Literature
Fosque
Readings in traditional literature, in translation, from Africa, the
Middle East, South Asia, China, Japan, and the Americas. Students will be introduced to the origins and flourishing of these oldest cultures through the oral and written stories, poems, essays and plays that have become the defining works of these societies. At
the same time we will look at the geographical, historical, and philosophical
contexts from which these texts arise.
ENG/FL 220 Studies in Great Works of Western Literature
Grimwood
Readings, in English translation, of literary masterpieces that represent the major periods and the major literary languages of Europe—including Genesis, Homer's Odyssey, Ovid's Metamorphoses (selections), Dante's Divine Comedy (selections), Shakespeare's Hamlet, Cervantes's Don Quixote (selections), Voltaire's Candide, Goethe's Faust, and Book I of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Two or three papers; occasional quizzes; a midterm exam and a final exam. Credit will not be given for both ENG/FL 220 and either ENG/FL 221 or ENG/FL 222
ENG/FL 220 Studies in Great Works of Western Literature
Fosque
Readings, in English translation, of Western literary masterpieces from the beginnings of literacy in the Middle East and Europe towards the present, including such authors as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Rilke, Proust, Dickinson, Kafka, and Borges.
ENG/FL 221 Literature of the Western World I
Staff
ENG/FL 222 Literature of the Western World II
Staff
Major works of European literature from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries.
ENG 222 Literature of the Western World II
Section 004
Milton Welch
This section surveys literary essays and novels related to the experience and influence of Western society and culture in Europe and America. Our readings cover individuals in conflict with social expectations. Across the historical periods of the West, we will ask if is it always better to be socially accepted rather than a social exception? How does Western literature represent the need to fit in, to belong? How about the absence of that need? Our essayists are Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and W.E.B. DuBois; our novelists include Madame De Lafayette, Goethe, Stendhal, and Robert Musil.
ENG/FL 223 Contemporary World Literature I
Staff
Twentieth-century literature of some of the following cultures: Russian, Eastern European, Western European, Latin America, Canadian, Australian.
ENG/FL 224 Contemporary World Literature II
Staff
A study of selected texts from the non-western world.
ENG 232 Literature and Medicine
Henley
ENG 246 Literature of the Holocaust
Mordzak
ENG 248 Survey of African-American Literature
Staff
A survey of major texts and authors in the African American literary tradition, from the slave narrative to the present.
ENG 249 Native American Literature
Byars-Nichols
This course is a survey of Native American Literatures from before contact with Europeans, to contemporary cultural productions. We will focus specifically on the following writers and texts, as well as their cultural and historical contexts: pre-contact oral narratives (Zuni, Seneca, and Yuchi), William Apess (Pequot), Zitkala-Sa (Sioux), N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), Chrystos (Menominee), Leslie Marmon Silko, (Laguna Pueblo), Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene), and Joy Harjo (Creek), and Craig Womack (Creek).
ENG 251 Major British Writers
Staff
This course surveys works by eight or nine of the most important British authors from the Middle Ages to the modern period. These authors normally include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, an eighteenth-century writer (Pope or Swift), a Romantic poet (Wordsworth or Keats), a Victorian author (Browning or Tennyson), a twentieth-century author (Joyce, Eliot, Conrad, Woolf, or Yeats), and one or two authors of the instructor's choice. The course is organized chronologically but usually concentrates not on historical contexts so much as upon the structures and themes of the works themselves. By confining itself to a small number of figures, the course may provide a more in-depth study than is usual in survey courses. Several short papers are usually required, along with two or three hour-long tests and a final exam. Restriction: credit is not allowed for both this course and either ENG 261 or ENG 262.
ENG 252 Major American Writers
Staff
This course focuses on about ten of the most significant authors in American literature from the Colonial period to the present. By concentrating on a small number of figures, the course may provide a greater depth of study than is usual in survey courses. The course begins with one eighteenth-century writer, concentrates upon the major nineteenth-century writers,and treats at least four twentieth-century writers. Though the particular authors dealt with may vary from section to section, such figures as Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Douglass, Stowe, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, James, Frost, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Morrison are generally prominent among those studied. The works and writers under scrutiny are set in the social and intellectual context of their times. Requirements for this course normally include several outside papers of about five pages each, two or three hour-length tests, and a final exam.
Restriction: credit is not allowed for both this course and either ENG 265 or ENG 266.)
ENG 260 Introduction to Literary Study
Miller, Jason
Introduces fundamental questions in literary history and critical theory. Recommended for all LTN majors.
ENG 261 English Literature I
Staff
This course surveys English literature to 1660, including Old English, Middle English, and Renaissance works. It focuses on central figures (Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Milton, etc.), and it traces the development of various themes (the hero, religious faith, sexual relations, etc.) and genres (drama, love poetry, the epic, romance, allegory, etc.). It locates these developments within their historical contexts and introduces the most profitable approaches to reading the works of these periods. Requirements for the course vary according to the instructor, but they generally consist of at least two or three essays, two or three hour-long tests, and a final examination. (Restriction: credit is not allowed for both this course and ENG 251.)
ENG 262 English Literature II
Staff
This course presents a survey of English literature from 1660 to the present,including works that represent the Neoclassical, Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Contemporary periods. Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Tennyson, Joyce, Woolf, and Eliot generally figure large among the assigned authors. The course stresses historical backgrounds and contexts, formal and ideological developments, and cultural changes relevant to the authors studied. Requirements for the course vary according to the instructor, but they generally consist of at least two or three essays, two or three hour-long tests, and a final exam. (Restriction: credit is not allowed for both this course and ENG 251.)
ENG 265 American Literature I
Staff
This course is a survey of American literature from the Colonial beginnings until the Civil War. Though it includes a large number of authors, it focuses primarily on such major figures as Edwards, Franklin, Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Emerson, Melville, Poe, Douglass, Thoreau, and Whitman. The course sets these and other figures in the context of such large social and intellectual movements as Puritanism, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Requirements for the course vary according to the instructor, but they generally consist of at least two or three essays, two or three hour-long tests, and a final exam.(Restriction: credit is not allowed for both this course and ENG 252.)
ENG 266 American Literature II
Staff
This course surveys American literature from the Civil War to the present. Though it includes a large number of authors, it focuses primarily on such major figures as Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, James, Stephen Crane, Frost, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wright, Welty, Baldwin, and Bellow. The course sets these and other figures in the context of the large social and intellectual changes taking place in the nation--through such movements or periods as late Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism. Requirements for the course vary according to the instructor, but they generally consist of at least two or three essays, two or three hour-long tests, and a final exam. (Restriction: credit is not allowed for both this course and ENG 252.)
ENG 272 Writing about Film
Wallis
ENG 282 Introduction to Film
Staff
This course is designed with two very simple goals in mind: 1) To give students a forum to think actively and seriously about film 2) To give students the tools necessary to intelligently articulate (verbally and in written form) their ideas about film and its place within culture.
The course is divided into seven basic units. The first six will introduce students to important "ways into" film and to the major areas of film studies. In the final unit, students will synthesize what they've learned and apply a variety of critical tools to one cinematic text (chosen by the students themselves). Coursework includes frequent quizzes, two papers, a midterm, and a cumulative final examination.
ENG 287 Explorations in Creative Writing
Staff
Introduction to creative writing.
ENG 288 Fiction Writing
Staff
English 288 is intended to help the beginning writer learn to write short fiction. Critical and expressive skills are sharpened through the practice of writing itself, and also through written and oral critiques of student work and analysis of the techniques of established fiction writers. We will start with readings and exercises designed to practice the elements of fiction writing, building up to the writing of a complete short story. We will critique these stories in class, and students will revise and submit them, along with a portfolio of other work, for their final grade.
ENG 289 Poetry Writing
Staff
Experience in writing poetry. Class critiquing of student work and instruction in techniques of poetry.
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300-Level Courses
ENG 305 Women in Literature
Hooker
ENG 315 Advanced News Article Writing
Reavis
Advanced work in writing news stories, profiles, features, and investigative stories. Includes analysis and critical reading of print media. Assumes near-perfect grammar, knowledge of AP style, and competency at news and feature writing.
ENG 317 Designing Web Communication
Phelps
Preq: ENG 214, or ENG 216, or ENG 314
English 317 is designed to help you engage in serious study and practice of the ways that people produce effective communication in web environments. In this class, you will read about a variety of issues related to communication on the web and other networked information technologies. Additionally, you will practice information design skills that will enable you to produce effective web-based documents. We will work on a variety of writing and design tasks that are shaped by the various communication spaces (e.g. personal, pedagogical, and commercial) where they are found. You will have the opportunity to design communication for personal web space. You will learn to write interactive content to meet the needs of users working in pedagogical spaces. You will learn to work with a client to develop a unique online communication solution. You will also do some traditional scholarly work by analyzing an emerging textual genre that has accompanied the popular acceptance of an information technology of your choosing.
ENG 323 Writing in the Rhetorical Tradition
Reider
ENG 326 History of the English Language
Reaser
ENG 327 Language and Gender
Staff
This course is an introduction to the intersection of language use and gender identity from the perspective of linguistics. For several decades, linguists and others have noted the differences in language use between men and women. Over time, however, increasing sophistication in theory, fieldwork, and analytic methods have led to the conclusion that gender-based differences in language cannot adequately be described in dichotomous terms, i.e., two distinct genders or sexes with their own ways of talking. The complex language/gender interface is approached through basic theoretical approaches, quantitative and qualitative methods, and data analysis.
ENG 331 Communication for Engineering and Technology
Staff
Preq: Junior standing
This course, formerly ENG 321 (Communication of Technical Information), is aimed primarily at students in engineering and other technological fields. Students may take only ONE of the following courses: ENG 331, ENG 332 or ENG 333. In this course, students become familiar with written communication in industrial and technical organizations. Students are encouraged to adapt writing assignments to their own work experience, professional goals, and major fields of study. Instruction covers all phases of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, and critiquing other people's work). Emphasis is placed on organizing for the needs of technical and management readers; concise, clear expression; and the use of visual aids. Typical assignments include job application letters and resumes, progress reports, proposals, technical instructions, and at least one oral presentation.
ENG 332 Communication for Business and Management
Staff
Preq: Junior standing
This course (formerly ENG 221) is aimed primarily at students in business-, administration-, and management-related fields. Students may take only ONE of the following courses: ENG 331, ENG 332 or ENG 333. This course introduces students to the more important forms of writing used in business and public organizations. Students are encouraged to adapt writing assignments to their own work experience, professional goals, and major fields of study. Instruction covers all phases of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, and critiquing other people's work). Emphasis is placed on organizing for the needs of a variety of readers; concise, clear expression; and the use of visual aids. Students practice writing tasks dealing with the routine problems and details common in a work environment and more specialized writing such as problem analyses and sales and administrative proposals. Each student also gives one or two oral presentations related to the written work.
ENG 333 Communication for Science and Research
Staff
Preq: Junior standing
This course is aimed primarily at students who plan careers in scientific research. Students may take only ONE of the following courses: ENG 331, ENG 332, or 333. This course introduces students to the more important forms of writing used in scientific and research environments. The course explores the relationship between research and writing in problem formulation, interpretation of results, and support and acceptance of research. Students are encouraged to adapt writing assignments to their own work experience, professional goals, and major fields of study. Instruction covers all phases of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, and critiquing other people's work). Emphasis is placed on organizing for the needs of a variety of readers; concise, clear expression; and the use of visual aids. Typical assignments include proposals, journal articles, and at least one oral presentation.
ENG 350 Internship in Writing and Editing
Katz
Preq: ENG 215, ENG 314
Directed work experience for English majors including work-site mentoring and evaluation. Department supervision includes course work directed toward designing employment application materials, developing a portfolio of professional work, and reading the literature on workplace socialization.
ENG 369 Nineteenth-Century American Novel
Baker
ENG 373 Late Twentieth-Century Poetry
Lisk
ENG 374Com 374 History of Film since 1940
Pramaggiore
This course surveys international developments in film since 1940, and, in particular, the shift away from the dominance of postwar Hollywood studio filmmaking and the emergence of the European art film and anti-colonial cinemas in the 1960s and 1970s. We will examine the resurgence of Hollywood "monoculture" as a global industry in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Historical and aesthetic movements addressed will include: Italian neorealism, the French New Wave, Indian art cinema, British Social Realism, the Hollywood Renaissance, and contemporary transnational cinemas.
ENG/AFS 375 African-American Film
Orgeron M.
This course traces the history of African-American film culture from the turn-of-the-century to the present. We will begin by studying pre 1950s cinematic representations of African Americans, from the films of Thomas Edison to those of black independent filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. We will consider major directorial figures, genres (melodrama, gangster, documentary), and historical movements (Blaxploitation, 1980s social realism, and so on). In addition to looking at films made primarily by African-American directors, we will consider on-screen images of African-Americans over the course of the last hundred years of American cinema. Directors will likely include Spike Lee, Melvin Van Peebles, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Kasi Lemmons. Requirements include two analytical papers and a final examination.
ENG 380 Modern Drama
Severin
This course will explore modern drama, starting with Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1891) and continuing to experimentalist theater of the twenty-first century, as both a literary and performed art form. We will read approximately eight plays and discuss the connections between critical interpretation and staging. Some class sessions will focus on the viewing of productions. Assignments will include a midterm and a final, as well as an oral report, an annotated bibliography, a draft and final paper.
ENG 384 Film Theory
Orgeron, D.
This course will introduce students to a variety of critical approaches to and debates within film studies. We will consider the aesthetics of cinematic form and discuss the constituent elements of "film language"? we will enter the longstanding debates regarding film "authorship" and examine the work of one contemporary "auteur"? we will discuss the importance of "the star"? we will investigate theories of genre, exploring both the American Western and the horror film? we will study the cinema's complex relationship to notions of "the real"? we will discuss film's relationship to the other arts? and, finally, we will analyze issues of cinematic spectatorship and identification.
ENG 388 Intermediate Fiction Writing
Batemen
ENG 389 Intermediate Poetry Writing
Laux
FL 394 Modern South Asian Literature in Translation
Mertz
This course is an introduction to modern South Asian literary traditions. We examine major themes and debates that have engaged South Asia writers from the 19th and 20th centuries, including a variety of engagements with colonialism, nationalism, and the formulation of modern South Asian identities. Course readings are drawn from multiple genres (e.g., poetry, short fiction, drama, and the novel), literary traditions (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, and English), and from both mainstream and marginal writers. As many of the texts chosen for this course were originally written in a language other than English and deal with concepts and cultures with which students may not already be familiar, we also pay particular attention to issues of cultural and literary translation as well as relevant historical and social contexts. Authors will include Ravindranath Tagore, Anantha Murthy, Girish Karnad, Ismat Chugtai, and R. K. Narayan. Course satisfies World Literature requirement, Asian/African requirement, etc.
ENG 399 Contemporary Literature II
Thompson
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400-Level Courses
ENG 405 Literature for Adolescents
Thuente
Preq: Junior standing
The history, types, and characteristics of literature for adolescents. Emphasizes reading and analyzing the literature by exploring the themes, literary elements, and rationale for teaching literature for adolescents. Addresses ways in which this literature can be integrated and implemented in English/Language Arts curriculum.
FL 407 Postmodernism (equivalent to ENG 407)
Mykyta
Examination of the nature of the postmodern through the analysis of selected texts from a variety of cultural and literary tradition. Includes works by Borges, Barnes, Witherspoon, Calvino, Djebar, Auster and Rushdie - England, Italy, Algeria among others. Special attention given to how qualities typically associated with the postmodern both transmute accepted notions of identity, genre and narrative structure and produce different motions of the postmodern depending of specific socio-political, ideological and historical contexts.
Short paper, take-home midterm and final and final research paper will be required. Satisfies World Literature requirement, Twentieth-Century requirement.
ENG 417 Editorial and Opinion Writing
Warren
ENG 425 Analysis of Scientific and Technical Writing
Katz
Preq: ENG 314, 331, 332, or 333
In this course we will explore the construction of scientific arguments, both among professional scientists and between scientists and the public. We'll explore a variety of ways of analyzing scientific and technical texts from rhetorical and linguistic perspectives, among others, with special attention given to selected texts in molecular biology, evolutionary biology, and the space program. Note: Students do NOT need to have a specialized background in science or engineering. All majors are welcome.
ENG 426 Analyzing (Visual) Style
Rieder
The spring semester's approach to style will focus on visual and other "post-verbal" forms of suasive communication. The emphasis throughout the semester will be hybrid and multimodal rhetorics in digital media. The goal will be to both recognize and learn how to analyze forms of rhetorical style in a wide range of recent socio-cultural contexts. From politics to performance art, we will learn how image, sound, text, and movement are combined to form the stylistic rhetorics by which we are surrounded daily.
Partial reading list:
Books:
- Richard Lanham's The Economics of Attention
- Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen' Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design
- Margaret Dikovitskaya's Visual Culture: The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn
Articles/essays/chapters:
- Frederic Jameson's "Postmodernity, or the Cultural Logic of Late-Capitalism"
- Eric Mason's "Moving Thumos, Images, Emotions, and Activism."
- Roland Barthes' "Myth Today"
- Michel de Certeau's "Practices of Space"
- Excerpts from Charles A. Hill and Marguerite Helmers' Defining Visual Rhetorics
- Excerpts from W.J.T. Mitchell's Picture Theory
- Excerpts from Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media
- Excerpts from Stephen Johnson's Interface Culture
ENG 439 Seventeenth-Century EnglishNondramatic Literature
Young
John Donne and the major metaphysical poets will be set against Ben Jonson and the Cavalier school. In addition, we shall read Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and the first book of Hobbes's Leviathan. There will be a midterm, a final exam, two short papers, and frequent quizzes over the reading assignments.
ENG 448 African-American Literature
Dudley
ENG 451 Chaucer
Gross
This class studies Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, considered in the social, historical, and cultural context of his age. We will give special attention to Chaucer's portrayal of human nature, his development of the idea of the individual, and his astute observation of everyday reality. We will read the tales closely in order to understand Chaucer's use of rhetoric and his ability to create individual voices and character. The course gives attention to recent critical approaches, especially concerning issues of gender and class. No prior knowledge of Middle English is needed. Two papers, including a creative translation project; an oral presentation; a midterm and a final.
ENG 453 The Romantic Period
Joffe
ENG 455 Literacy in the United States
Anson
At this moment, astonishingly complex processes are at work as you read, interpret, and reflect on these words. For most of us, these processes are invisible: we read because we have been reading for most of our lives. It's something that, from our perspective as educated people, we take entirely for granted, yet almost every aspect of our lives—including our social relationships, our further education, our jobs, our ambitions, even, on some levels, our survival—depends on it.
In this course, we will examine the nature of literacy, including its history, purposes, acquisition, institutionalization, and present status in the United States, with special focus on cultural diversity and social equity. We'll learn about where written literacy came from, what actually happens (moment by moment) when we read, and what's required to learn to read. We'll explore controversies about the best approaches to reading instruction, the relationship of reading and writing, the relationship of speaking and reading (including the role of spoken dialects), and how technologies are affecting literacy. We'll also consider some of the social, political, and ethical issues of literacy in the U.S.—for example, how literacy is related to power, or how written texts can exploit or deceive. As part of the service-learning requirements for the course, you will tutor a child or young adult for two hours per week in a local school-based literacy program. Tutoring opportunities will be provided in class. Course requirements include frequent low-stakes writing, two papers, and a brief presentation.
ENG 487 Shakespeare: Late Plays
Hunt
ENG 488 Advanced Fiction Writing
York
Permission of instructor required
A fiction writing workshop. Students will write three short stories or the equivalent, and revisions. A text on fiction writing will be assigned and we will spend time reading some published, short stories, but for the most part classes are run as workshop sessions where each student must comment on the manuscript under discussion. In the course of discussion we will deal with the techniques of fiction writing: establishment of character, manipulation of viewpoint, use of setting, and such matters as consistency, motivation, imagery, plotting and theme. (prerequisite: A or B in Eng 388, or consent of the instructor)
ENG 489 Advanced Poetry Writing
Balaban
ENG/HON 491H Utopias and Distopias
Morillo
Thomas More literally wrote the book on utopia in 1516, and in 1868 John Stuart Mill coined ‘dystopia’ as the antithesis of More's beautiful nowhere-land. These authors together represent just two of the many contributions of literature, the arts, political science, and philosophy to our current range of possibilities about what might make the world an ideal place, or an utterly horrible one. How have ideas of the good life changed? Where might it be found, or how created? Is a straight, non-satiric utopian vision still possible? Why are some works, like Gulliver's fourth voyage, classified as both utopian and dystopian? This course will explore some dimensions of utopian and dystopian thinking, including treatments of the topic in art, film, and new online media --the last a notable example of a portal to either a utopian or dystopian future, depending on whom you ask!
ENG 492 Stars in the Cinema: Hollywood and Europe
Gelley
This course will first of all look comparatively at the emergence of the star system in the silent era in Europe and in Hollywood. How was the emergence of the star system in different parts of Europe (e.g., Italy, Sweden, and Denmark) influenced by its development in Hollywood and vice versa? To what extent did the star in different contexts retain links to other forms of popular and high culture, such as, the theater, vaudeville, opera, and literature? In looking at the star in the sound era the course will, among other things, examine the effects of modern technological culture and globalization on the promotion and reception of the star in different national and transnational contexts (in our study of stardom in the sound era, we will focus primarily on the 1930's through the 70s, though we will also consider aspects of contemporary film stardom ). One aim of the course will be to forge connections between the cinematic effects of the star image in specific films and the commercially and publicly constructed persona of the star. Some of the star images we will be examining include those of Rudolph Valentino, Asta Nielsen, Francesca Bertini, Lyda Borelli, Lillian Gish, Isa Miranda, Ingrid Bergman, Marcello Mastroianni, Rock Hudson, Anna Magnani, Marlene Dietrich, Brigitte Bardot, Greta Garbo, and Rita Hayworth. Throughout the course we will consider various theoretical and historical approaches to the phenomenon of stardom (e.g., discussions of the star in feminist film theory and criticism, fan culture/reception of the star, the semiotics of the star image, the star and institutional modes of production).
ENG 492/IDS 496 Styles and Genres in Film: Subversive Film as Art
Gomez
This course will analyze how the taboo content and/or experimental form of selected films can jolt viewers into new ways of seeing and thinking about the nature of film, themselves, and the world. The central focus of the course will be on film as art, but emphasis will also be placed on religious, sexual, and political implications and on the aesthetic conventions and visual codes that filmmakers employ to manipulate audiences. Among some of the probable films to be screened and discussed will be: The Devils (uncut version), Blood of the Beasts, Dogville, The Night Porter, Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, The Battle of Algiers, Punishment Park, The Rite of Love and Death, One from the Heart, The Red and the White, In the City of Sylvia, The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, and Derek Jarman's Blue. This is a discussion-oriented class, which does not require previous film course experience.
This is the last time Professor Gomez will teach this class.
ENG/FL 497 Seminar in World Literature: Postcolonial Rewrites
Nfah-Abbenyi
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tifin write in The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures that "More than three-quarters of the people living in the world today have had their lives shaped by the experience of colonialism. It is easy to see how important this has been in the political and economic spheres, but its general influence on the perceptual frameworks of contemporary peoples is often less evident. Literature offers one of the most important ways in which these new perceptions are expressed and it is in their writing, and through other arts . . . that the day-to-day realities experienced by colonized peoples have been most powerfully encoded and so profoundly influential." This seminar will address the concept of "the empire writing back to the center" by examining questions of language and identity, subjectivity and otherness, gender and sexuality, postcolonialism and transnationalism. We will read side-by-side western and postcolonial writings. Primary texts will include:
- Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God
- Ken Bugul, The Abandoned Baobab
- Joyce Cary, Mister Johnson
- Michele Cliff, No Telephone to Heaven
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- Maryse Conde, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
ENG 498 Explaining Science to Public
Brodie
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