Spring Course Descriptions
English Courses
Detailed Course Descriptions for Selected Courses
COMPOSITION
CPN 101-001/029: Writing Studies II
Pittsley, MWF 9:10-10/MWF 10:20-11:10
Writing Studies II: This course section will be themed around film study and appreciation. We will analyze several film-making devices and styles, and ground-breaking films that utilize them, to determine their genre and contribution to future film-making.
AEN
ENG 619: Literature for Adolescence
Bender, Th 4:20-6:50
What makes adolescents want to read? How are adolescents portrayed in literature that’s geared for them? How can literary texts best be brought to life for young readers by creative instruction? What counts as “literature” in the secondary classroom? This course seeks to answer these and related questions through a critical study, examination, and evaluation of literature written specifically for and about adolescents. Texts are selected to represent a variety of cultural perspectives and are written by authors who cast the world in diverse ways. In addition to reading, students will learn a range of methods to teach adolescent readers effectively, will deploy these methods through individually constructed and team-taught lessons, and will, ultimately, design units for middle or high school classrooms that organize teaching ideas into well-orchestrated plans of action. The class will also consider current scholarly work on young adult fiction and a series of assessment techniques, always with an eye to bringing out the best that kids can do.
Literature Courses
ENG 208/CIN208: Introduction to Film Analysis
Colella, G. - M,W,F - 9:10-10:00 & 10:20-11:10am
This course goes beyond the entertainment value of movies and film, by examining the formal elements and taking it thorough various critical lenses to arrive at a deeper understanding of one’s viewing experience through analysis and academic discourse. We engage with a multitude of genres, time periods and artistic perspectives that help us explore implied cultural and sociological commentaries and viewpoints. We get to talk about your favorite movies, with an academic twist. By using analysis to extract the true richness, depth, and meaning within the various elements of the films, we also walk away with the knowledge of how to have a much more fulfilling experience as an active viewer, rather than a passive audience member.
ENG/CIN 208: Introduction to Film Analysis (philosophies of comedy)
Neville; TR 11:40 – 12:55
ENG 208 will focus on careful analysis of the formal and social contexts of film. Students will learn the vocabulary of film studies in order to articulate both aesthetic and critical responses and to make interpretive claims. During this session we will explore a range of films within the broad genre of comedy. We will investigate theories of comedy; in essence why do we laugh? Who laughs? At what or whom? And, regarding film comedy as a cultural product, we will also investigate the way comedies perform a range of social roles; from providing escapes from boredom or anxiety, to establishing or reinforcing social norms to provoking revolt. In other words, comedy is serious business!
ENG 325: American Literature Before 1900
Radus, MWF 10:20-11:10
In this course, we will read literature produced in the United States and its colonial precursors prior to 1900. We’ll devote particular attention to how writers from various ethnic, racial, and gendered backgrounds addressed issues that influenced the development of the United States. Our active in-class discussions will be supplemented by short response papers and two exams. [Representative works of major writers of the Puritan Age, the Age of Reason, the Romantic Age, and the Age of Realism and Regionalism. Fulfills: LASR.]
ENG 355: Survey of British Lit. to 1780
Leffel, T/R 11:40-12:55
A critical survey of early British Literature, focusing on major genres, authors, literary periods movements, and critical/theoretical approaches. Authors to be studied include, Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Milton, Alexander Pope, Earl of Rochester, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, Eliza Haywood, and others.
ENG 356: Major Figures in British Literature: 1780-Present
Bender, T/R 1:15-2:30
This course focuses on representative works of British literature from Romanticism to the present day. A wide range of texts, including poetry, fiction, political treatises, and journals, are explored for what they can tell us about the predilections, anxieties, and obsessions of the period they emerged from, in conjunction with our own present-day reading concerns. Complementary to this exploration, attention is given to the visual culture of the period in question, especially to portraiture, which can arguably show us things words may not, or not yet, be able to say. Women’s writing, from the feminism of Mary Wollstonecraft to the experimentation of Zadie Smith, receives particular emphasis.
ENG 407: The Study of English
Harbin, T/TH 11:40-12:55
Do you understand how English works? How do we, as a society and as individuals, interrelate with our language? In this course we will study language and literacy acquisition and development; diversity in language use, historical and social influences on language, and second language and bilingual learning. More specifically, we will focus on the social domains that affect and are affected by our language. How does our language use relate to our identity and to our understanding of others? In making this inquiry, we will explore dialect, gendered language, first and second language acquisition, the history of English, and the differences between written and spoken language.
ENG 417: American Literature 1820-1865
Radus, MWF 12:40-1:30
This class is an intensive seminar on the literature of the United States from 1820 to 1865. We will read widely across the time period, with particular but not exclusive attention to representative work from “major” figures like Dickinson, Douglass, Emerson, Hawthorne, Lincoln, Melville, Poe, Thoreau, and Whitman. We’ll also read important but lesser-known authors like Davis, Fuller, Harper, Horton, Howe, and Whittier. Our discussion-based seminar will be supplemented by two papers, two exams, and other opportunities for informal engagement with assigned texts. [Studies in American literature and culture of the Romantic age. Prerequisite: Successful completion of at least 6 credit hours of ENG courses at the 200 level or above. (3 cr hrs) Fulfills: LASR.]
ENG 433: Shakespeare
Leffel, T/R 2:50-4:05
A critical survey of William Shakespeare’s poetic and dramatic art. In addition to a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, plays to be studied include: Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest. Besides reading aloud and performing select scenes, we will also watch film and stage versions to enliven discussion and emphasize issues of performance and adaptation. Students will also analyze the plays in relation to literary, cultural, and historical texts and contexts.
ENG 529: Colonialism, Race, and Resistance from Aphra Behn to Bob Marley
Leffel, W 4:20-6:50
A survey of literary and cultural representations of colonial slavery and resistance across the “Two Indies,” but focusing on two locations in particular: India and Jamaica. Works to be studied include Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko; Maria Edgeworth, “The Grateful Negro” and “Lame Jervas”; Mariana Starke, The Sword of Peace; William Earle, Obi; or The History of Three Finger’d Jack; Anonymous, The Woman of Colour; selected abolitionist poetry (Coleridge; More; etc..); excerpts from slave narratives in addition to the complete narrative of The History of Mary Prince; and later pop cultural and musical engagements (Bob Marley).
ENG 528: Studies in American Indian Literature
Indigenous Materialisms and Contemporary Indigenous Literatures
Radus, M 4:20-6:50
In the last two decades, scholarship in English and other disciplines has begun to reconsider the status of material objects, affording to those objects the power to shape human actions. These “new materialisms” have challenged hierarchies that privilege human actors over material objects, exploring instead the networks that link these parties and lend to them a co-constitutive power. For those versed the cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America, however, these so-called “new” materialisms can seem quite old. As Kim TallBear notes, “indigenous peoples have never forgotten that [objects] are agential beings.” In this course, we will explore the Indigenous critique of the new materialism, tracking the representation, status, and agential power of objects as they are represented in Indigenous stories, novels, poems, and plays from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
ENG 619: Literature for Adolescence
Bender, Th 4:20-6:50
What makes adolescents want to read? How are adolescents portrayed in literature that’s geared for them? How can literary texts best be brought to life for young readers by creative instruction? What counts as “literature” in the secondary classroom? This course seeks to answer these and related questions through a critical study, examination, and evaluation of literature written specifically for and about adolescents. Texts are selected to represent a variety of cultural perspectives and are written by authors who cast the world in diverse ways. In addition to reading, students will learn a range of methods to teach adolescent readers effectively, will deploy these methods through individually constructed and team-taught lessons, and will, ultimately, design units for middle or high school classrooms that organize teaching ideas into well-orchestrated plans of action. The class will also consider current scholarly work on young adult fiction and a series of assessment techniques, always with an eye to bringing out the best that kids can do.
Professional Writing
PWR 210: Digital Writing with Data
Ahern, M/W 3:00-4:15pm with M lab 1:50-2:40pm
In this course we will create digital texts that involve data and communicate research findings from science, technology, and healthcare contexts to the general public. Some of our exploration will focus on the “new” kinds of research and writing made possible through digital tools and platforms, and some of our exploration will involve planning, design, evaluating data, and the creation of research-based webtexts. Throughout we will question our position in a so-called “digital age” as researchers, scholars, and citizens of our various worlds. Always we will seek to understand how our work with data and digital environments reshapes our notions of accessibility, inclusion, and justice.
PWR 213: Writing Poetry
Bartlett TR 10:05-11:20 / TR 11:40-12:55
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” -Rita Dove
This writing workshop is an introduction to the craft of writing poetry. You will spend most of your time writing your own poems and reading poems and craft essays by contemporary writers. Throughout this course, we will be concerned with exploring and discovering personal voice and style, not with traditional form and meter. This is a workshop, which is dependent upon a community of conscious and willing writers. A workshop is much more than a simple discussion of your work; it requires a commitment from every writer in the class to give close attention to new and developing work. In fact, a major text for the course is the raw efforts of its writers. By the end of the course, you will generate and revise multiple poems and a reflection on your own craft.
PWR 295: Introduction to Professional Writing
Raw, TTh 11:40am-12:55pm
PWR 295 introduces students to key concepts in rhetoric such as genre, audience, and rhetorical situation as principles for learning professional genres in a variety of work and career contexts. “Professional writing” can be found in any kind of career in which writing or documentation is one of the central tasks. Since professional writing spans creative writing, technical writing, business writing, publishing, and writing in various professions, students may explore a range of genres. Additionally, students will practice writing for different venues, such as workshops, publication, or online environments that increase the visibility and readership of their work. In this course, we will explore how to learn to write and communicate in a specific career/field through projects including analyzing job ads, interviewing experts in a field, analyzing genres of writing (including public and digital genres), and researching ethical and professional issues. This work will culminate in the creation of a “field guide” in which you will compile your learning to teach your peers about writing in a career/field.
PWR 315: Writing Creative Non-Fiction
Neville; TR 1:15-2:30
Writing creative non-fiction means dedicating oneself to the truth of one’s experience. Writers employ literary devices in order to relate true stories. Sub-genres include the personal essay, memoir, expository essay, cultural critique and lyric essay. Creative non-fiction is a hybrid form that can include collage, poetry and prose, visual and digital texts. In this class we will use writing as a tool to discover and express what is most true and real to each of us. Because creative non-fiction reflects upon a shared reality, we will spend a lot of time in workshop, relating to and learning from each other. We will also utilize writing sparks on a regular basis and introduce new writing forms and techniques. The emphasis will be on individual creativity and discovery. Students will work through the semester to compile a portfolio of polished writing projects that reflect their personal journeys.
PWR 395: Revising and Editing
Raw, TTh 10:05-11:20am
"Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying." —John Updike
In this class, we will examine theories and practices of revision and editing by taking a single piece of writing through a substantial revision. Acting as both author and editor, you will learn how to critically revise and edit your own work, as well as to provide developmental, structural, and sentence-level feedback to other writers.
PWR 409: The Evolution of Writing
Dr. David Franke, Tuesdays, 4:20 –6:50
We think of technologies as modern, but cave paintings employed technologies in the form of pigment; the pyramids were written in stone. Those technologies enabled public displays of now-lost knowledge and stories. What sort of knowledge and stories, connections and power relations would an alphabet create, where one can see spoken language for the first time? Or a printing press — or an iPhone? In this historical course we study the challenges that emerging writing technologies pose as they “rewire” cultures, rapidly creating new forms of knowledge, communities and identities. Midterm, short papers, co-leading some lessons, final paper. Requirements: Smart phone. Optional: Field trip to NYC to observe ancient writing technologies.
PWR 429: Rhetoric of Disability
Raw, TTh 2:50-4:05pm
According to the CDC, one in four adults in the US have some form of disability; disability touches our lives both personally and as members of a society in which the “normal” is privileged and equitable access for all remains a challenge. This course will introduce you to the field of disability studies and the ways in which rhetoric constructs, facilitates understanding of, and challenges perceptions of disability and ability. We will explore topics including intersectional discourses on disability, race, gender, sexuality, and class; theories of affect and embodiment; disability activism past and present; issues of accessibility; and the ways in which emerging technologies offer new paths and complications to our conceptualizations of the body and mind. Our discussions will be grounded in scholarly literature and rhetorical theory, as well as public discourse (past and present) and multimodal and creative work.