FALL 2008 COURSES
LAKE SHORE CAMPUS
Criticism and Theory (ENGL 270)
Section: 066
Instructor: M. DeLancey
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 pm - 2:30 pm
TBA
What’s the point of reading literature? How can we do it fruitfully and responsibly? These are the two main theoretical questions we’ll be asking throughout the term. Literary theory is valuable primarily as we use it to enhance our understanding of literary texts, and it is in the reading of the texts, as we apply theory to them, that any theory is tested and elaborated. Accordingly, the focus of the class will not be theory in isolation, but the application of theory to specific texts. Our main emphasis will be on contemporary theory, and we will experiment with a number of theoretical approaches, reading a representative selection of critical essays and a broad range of literary texts of different genres and historical periods.
Introduction to Poetry (ENGL 271)
Section: 01W
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 pm - 1:25 pm
TBA
ENGL 271 01W is a writing intensive class.
Course description not yet available
Section: 02W
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 pm - 2:30 pm
TBA
ENGL 271 02W is a writing intensive class.
Why should we care about poetry – and how should we care about it? And why do the answers to these two questions seem so similar? We’ll start historically – who before us cared about poetry, and why? We’ll study the pressure poems put on their historical moment, and how they’re shaped by it in surprising ways: for example, our discussion of Beowulf will start, not with the Anglo-Saxons, but with the Victorians, who invented “Anglo-Saxon” literature in part to reinforce their own imperial representations of nation and race. Most of the authors in our anthology were white, male, and rich – how has literature been used to promote a series of questions and assumptions that they may have shared (sometimes called “the canon”), and how has it, even in these same authors, blown apart all the stereotypes and orthodoxies we’d expect to find? Beginning with Old English and moving past World War I, we’ll watch the invention not only of English (and then British) culture, but of the English language itself, its twists and triumphs, detours and degenerations – and most importantly, we’ll watch as language, especially literary language, is fashioned into the greatest vehicle of social (as well as aesthetic) contest.
Section: 03W
Instructor: J. Jacobs
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 pm - 3:35 pm
TBA
ENGL 271 03W is a writing intensive class.
In this class, we will use the large Norton collection of poetry in English--plus one or two recent books by modern American poets. Though we will read materials from various periods, our emphasis will not be historical. Nor will we treat poems like crossword puzzles. We will read a range of materials, largely modern. And our interest will be in how and why particular poems are linked to one another--and, also, to us. Why do they move us, provoke us, make us laugh, see ourselves differently, and so on? The idea will be to engage poetic texts directly and personally. As part of this process, students will write three analytical papers. There will also be a final exam.
Section: 067
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 am - 10:10 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 068
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:45 am - 11:15 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 069Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 pm - 3:35 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Introduction to Drama (ENGL 272)
Section: 02W
Instructor: V. Foster
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm
TBA
ENGL 272 02W is a writing intensive class.
In this class we will read and discuss a variety of plays by dramatists from the Greeks to the present: Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Glaspell, Brecht, Williams, Miller, Beckett, Wilson, and Churchill. Topics will include the relationship between text and performance, dramatic genres (especially tragedy and tragicomedy), dramatic conventions or forms (realism, expressionism, epic theatre, and theatre of the absurd), and themes such as the family and issues of race, class, and gender. Discussion, videos, in-class performances; writing workshops. We will attend a performance of The Good Person of Setzuan at Mullady Theatre (LSC). Requirements: class participation, three 5-page critical essays (two drafts each), in-class writing and tests, final exam.
Introduction to Fiction (ENGL 273)
Section: 04W
Instructor: T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 am - 10:10 am
TBA
ENGL 273 04W is a writing intensive class.
The primary goal of Introduction to Fiction is to train students in the understanding, appreciation and criticism of prose fiction. Students will study works of fiction as a means of exploring human experience and understanding the creative process. Because fiction represents ideas and beliefs indirectly, it requires analysis and interpretation to elucidate its potential meanings. Students in this course will learn to understand how fiction expresses ideas, feelings, values and will acquire the critical and technical vocabulary that will enable them to describe, analyze, formulate arguments and interpret works of fiction.
Section: 05W
Instructor: T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 am - 11:15 am
TBA
ENGL 273 05W is a writing intensive class.
The primary goal of Introduction to Fiction is to train students in the understanding, appreciation and criticism of prose fiction. Students will study works of fiction as a means of exploring human experience and understanding the creative process. Because fiction represents ideas and beliefs indirectly, it requires analysis and interpretation to elucidate its potential meanings. Students in this course will learn to understand how fiction expresses ideas, feelings, values and will acquire the critical and technical vocabulary that will enable them to describe, analyze, formulate arguments and interpret works of fiction.
Section: 06W
Instructor: S. Walsh
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
TBA
ENGL 273 06W is a writing intensive class.
Goals: A Core class in the humanities has the goals of strengthening students’ reasoning, analytical reading, and writing skills. A Core literature class should teach students how to approach a work of literature: to see it as a work of art, as a whole, and to understand its elements or parts. The elements of fiction on which we will focus are plot, point of view, narrator, characterization, setting, and theme, considering them as essential elements that function together to create the whole. My goals as the instructor are to help you develop your “literary moves” through reading protocols, through other close reading strategies, and through using techniques of reader response. In a sense, all of the preceding goals lead to measurable outcomes.
This is a Writing Intensive course, so we will use frequent journal entries on Blackboard to reflect on the literature, to prepare for class discussion and to lead to brief papers. Four essays, six to eight pages, will focus on formulating claims, locating support, drafting, and revising.
Other goals that are very important to me, however, are hard to quantify: I hope my students will exit the class appreciating the artistry of good and great fiction, enjoying reading it, and using it to broaden our necessarily limited experience by entering fictional worlds. As Henry James claims, the success of a work of fiction can be determined by “the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that illusion makes it appear to us for the time that we have lived another life–that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience” (Theory of Fiction).
Readings: a custom selection of 19th and 20th century short stories; novels by Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Edith Wharton, and a contemporary writer.
Section: 071
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 am - 12:20 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 072
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 am - 12:45 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 073
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Introduction to Shakespeare (ENGL 274)
Section: 074
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 pm - 2:30 pm
TBA
In this course we will study eight of Shakespeare's plays, including plays from a variety of genres--comedy, history, tragedy, romance--and from various stages of his career as a playwright. We will consider the plays in relation to the intellectual, political, and social contexts in which they were produced, the theatrical practices and conventions of the age, and Shakespeare's own development as a playwright. We will also explore ways in which the plays allow for a variety of interpretations and kinds of performance, and consider various critical approaches. Requirements will include papers, a midterm, and a final. Please note: English majors should take English 326, not English 274.
Section: 075Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 am - 9:45 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 07W
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 pm - 1:25 pm
TBA
ENGL 274 07W is a writing intensive class.
In this course we will study eight of Shakespeare's plays, including plays from a variety of genres--comedy, history, tragedy, romance--and from various stages of his career as a playwright. We will consider the plays in relation to the intellectual, political, and social contexts in which they were produced, the theatrical practices and conventions of the age, and Shakespeare's own development as a playwright. We will also explore ways in which the plays allow for a variety of interpretations and kinds of performance, and consider various critical approaches. Because this course is writing intensive, there will be frequent brief writing assignments, both in and out of class. Requirements will include papers, response papers, a midterm, and a final. Please note: English majors should take English 326, not English 274.
Chief American Writers to 1865 (ENGL 277)
Section: 08W
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 pm - 2:30 pm
TBA
ENGL 277 08W is a writing intensive class.
Course description not yet available
Section: 09W
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 am - 12:45 pm
TBA
ENGL 277 09W is a writing intensive class.
Course description not yet available
Chief American Writers 1865-Present (ENGL 278)
Section: 076
Instructor: D. Braud
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 am - 12:45 pm
TBA
This section will focus on novels and poetry produced in the United States after the Civil War. Topics will include, but are not limited to; the construction of gender, class, and race as socially-defined descriptors, and how these are upheld or questioned in literary works; an analysis of literary movements in the United States during this period; the interaction between literary production and the larger social forces which help to shape form and content. Authors include, but are not limited to, William Dean Howells, Edith Wharton, HD, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, and Mohsin Hamid.
Section: 10W
Instructor: M. DeLancey
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 am - 10:10 am
TBA
ENGL 278 10W is a writing intensive class.
This course will chart the development of Modernism in American literature and culture from its emergence in the late nineteenth century to its ascendancy and dominance throughout the greater part of the twentieth. The authors we will read—among them, T. S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, Hart Crane, Ralph Ellison, Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Bishop—address the perennial American issues, but they do so within the context of a dialogue with the forces that give Modernism its distinctive character. Our first question will be historical: for these authors, what does it mean to be “Modern?” Our second question will be cultural: what does it mean to be American in the Modern period?
Medieval Culture (ENGL 279)
Section: 077
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
African-American Literature (ENGL 282)
(crosslisted with BWS 282)
Section: 078
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 am - 11:15 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
NOTE: The section listed above fulfills the Multicultural Requirement for the English major.
Section: 011W
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 pm - 1:25 pm
TBA
ENGL 282 11W is a writing intensive class.
Course description not yet available
NOTE: The section listed above fulfills the Multicultural Requirement for the English major.
Women in Literature (ENGL 283)
(crosslisted with WOST 283)
Section: 01H
Instructor: B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
TBA
HONORS CORE
“If women have learned many of the ways they interpret their lives from the narrative schemata of novels and stories,” writes Joanne Fry, “they can also gain from fiction new insights into the narrative processes of constructing meaning.” Crosslisted with Women’s Studies, English 283 is designed to meet the “literary knowledge and experience” requirements of the Loyola Core. Focusing on literature written by 20th century women authors, this course is designed to help students gain knowledge of women’s lives and writings; to show them the difference gender makes to the writing, reading, and interpretation of literature; to train them in the analysis of literature; and to teach them how to describe, analyze, and formulate arguments about literary texts. The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, and Toni Morrison. There will be oral presentations, papers, a midterm and a final exam.
Section: 079
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 am - 11:15 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 012W
Instructor: S. Weller
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 pm - 3:35 pm
TBA
ENGL 283 12W is a writing intensive class.
Course description not yet available
Section: 605
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Introduction to Film History (ENGL 284)
Section: 080
Instructor: G. Phillips
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TBA
M 1:40 pm - 2:30 pm LECT
F 1:40 pm - 3:30 pm SCRN
The relationship of cinema to fiction and drama is studied by tracing the first half century of film history from Chaplin through Hitchcock. Representative films will be screened, but contractual agreements require that the screenings be open to class members only. The primary text will be Major Film Directors of the American and British Cinema by Gene Phillips, S.J. Lectures, discussion, one term paper, midterm and final essay exams.
Section: 13W
Instructor: A. Kessel
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm
TBA
This course will examine the history of global cinema in its first 100 years. Film is a visual and narrative art, but it is also an industry, a technology, and a means of political and cultural expression. Our class will consider all these facets of cinema. We will view, discuss, and write about movies, movements, and film makers from many nations, including France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, India, Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States. This course fulfills the Artistic Knowledge and Experience requirement in the Core Curriculum and is cross listed with International Studies.
Section: 606
Instructor: S. Venturino
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
This course will trace the international development of film from the silent era to the present, addressing technical and formal aspects of cinema, as well as a wide variety of thematic issues. We will consider the ways in which cinema is at once a distinct art form and one that shares important features with drama, fiction, and painting. Through our survey of significant and representative films in several genres, we will also explore the terminology and theoretical tools necessary for film appreciation and criticism. Course requirements include film screenings outside of class, frequent quizzes, two essays, and active participation in class discussion. Texts include Film Art (8th ed.) and Roger Ebert’s The Great Movies.
Nature in Literature (ENGL 288)
Section: 081
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 am - 10:10 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 082
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 am - 9:45 am
TBA
Course description not yet available
Society and Literature (ENGL 289)
Section: 083
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 084
Instructor: O. Hadziselmovic
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 am - 10:10 am
TBA
This course examines the interaction between the individual and society in a number of works, both fictional and non-fictional: novels, graphic novels, travelogues, essays, and poems. We will study how society, often a foreign one, influences a person’s views and even shapes her or his life in significant, frequently dramatic ways, as it does in Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine. We will also see how characters try to resist the pressures of their society and culture, as in Willa Cather’s novel The Professor’s House. In the first half of the course, we will concentrate on the question of identity and perception of that identity that the characters or authors grapple with when faced with society’s demands or with unfamiliar social and cultural circumstances. In the second, we will read a number or travel accounts, in which authors offer a wealth of insights into the societies and cultures they visit. The methodological emphasis in the course will be close reading of texts, discussion, and writing about them, both in class and outside it.
Section: 14W
Instructor: M. Loweth
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 am - 10:10 am
TBA
ENGL 289 14W is a writing intensive class.
Chicago writers were among the first to show the impact of the city on the lives of their characters. Writers like Theodore Dreiser, James T. Farrell, Frank Norris, and Nelson Algren identified the city as a powerful force influencing attitudes, actions, even language. We will survey some of the most significant Chicago writers to show how H.L. Mencken could call Chicago “the literary capital of the United States.” We will also take a closer look at the development of Hispanic and African American writers in Chicago. Students will be required to write reader response journals to help facilitate discussions, to give a short oral presentation focused on a Chicago writer, to write two summary response essays and a literary analysis.
Section: 62W
Instructor: S. Venturino
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
ENGL 289 62W is a writing intensive class.
“Fitting In.” Individuals are born into already existing structures of society. Laws, families, traditions, gender roles, ethnicity, and economics each stand to enable and disable a person’s ability to fit into a given social system. How has literature represented the challenges that such circumstances provoke? How has literature itself become an aspect of these challenges? In our readings, we will consider literature’s dual role as both a window into the lives of characters attempting to fit in and a means by which societies might be challenged and changed. The writing-intensive aspect of this section will be addressed through written commentaries, summaries, and essays, each designed to explore the literary works as well as strengthen useful composition skills. Texts (primarily drawn from the early to middle twentieth century) include Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth and a variety of short stories, as well as Janet Gardner’s Writing About Literature: A Portable Guide.
Human Values in Literature (ENGL 290)
Section: 085
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 pm - 1:25 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 086
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 15W
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 pm - 3:35 pm
TBA
ENGL 290-15W is a writing intensive class
We will examine several films in which young people address important questions such as: Who am I becoming and who do others want me to be? What are my talents and strengths? What are my diversions and distractions? How can I pursue my own goals while being attentive to the needs of others?
We also will use theory to examine the dilemmas these characters face as they pursue, complicate, question, reconsider, and re-invigorate their callings. By examining these complicated individuals, and by discussing their stories, we will create a framework in which to address these same questions in our own lives. Because of its focus, our course is recommended by EVOKE. Our course is writing-intensive. You will write three essays, with required drafts of two of them. Our other work includes a final exam.
Grammar: Principles & Pedagogy (ENGL 303)
Section: 64W
Instructor: R. Sheasby
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 pm -9:30 pm
TBA
ENGL 303 64W is a writing intensive class.
A study of English grammar focusing on linguistic applications such as the teaching of Standard American English to native and non-native speakers, to speakers of Ebonics, and other classroom applications. Required for students planning to teach high school English, but open to others. Students will demonstrate understanding of grammar and sentence structure sufficient to teach them.
Section: 65W
Instructor: R. Sheasby
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
ENGL 303 65W is a writing intensive class.
A study of English grammar focusing on linguistic applications such as the teaching of Standard American English to native and non-native speakers, to speakers of Ebonics, and other classroom applications. Required for students planning to teach high school English, but open to others. Students will demonstrate understanding of grammar and sentence structure sufficient to teach them.
Studies in Women Writers (ENGL 306)
(WOST)
Section: 087
Instructor: B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am - 11:15 am
TBA
Crosslisted with Women’s Studies, English 306 is designed to help students gain knowledge of women’s writings and to understand the ways in which women novelists use fiction to challenge inherited cultural and literary assumptions. In the course of our investigations of the structures and strategies of representative works of fiction written by 20th century women authors, we will focus on the important cultural and gender scripts and psychological dramas encoded in the works we read, paying special attention to the various ways the authors represent romantic love, mother-child relationships, and female friendship in their works, and we will also become familiar with the critical conversations and debates that surround the works we read. The authors we will cover include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Dorothy Allison, Alice Munro, and Toni Morrison. There will be oral presentations, papers, a midterm and a final exam.
English 306 fulfills the historical period distribution requirement for one course in literature since 1900.
Bible as Literature (ENGL 308)
Section: 607
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
The Bible is one of the world=s most influential texts, and it is foundational to three of the world's great faith traditions. It contains elements of great literature, including narrative, poetry, and drama, that give voice to human experience and thought. In this course, we will read the Bible as a collection of literary works that represent recurring questions regarding the nature of the universe and that explore fundamental social, psychological and moral questions. We will be mindful of some of the interpretive issues raised by hermeneutics, and of how our understanding of the Bible=s meaning has evolved over time. After spending some time on the Bible itself, we will examine some of the most notable works of literature, art, and music that are based on the Bible, from The Second Shepherd=s Play through Milton and Shakespeare, to contemporary interpretations. Each student is encouraged to approach the materials from his or her own faith tradition. This course may count for the pre-1700 English major requirement.
Advance Writing: Autobiography (ENGL 310)
Section: 16W
Instructor: B. Silesky
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 2:45 pm - 5:15 pm
TBA
ENGL 310 16W is a writing intensive class.
Your job in this course will be to design, outline and write a chapter of a biography of someone who has significant literary, artistic or scholarly accomplishment. The subject you choose will be someone who has written one or more books that have been well received and respected, or has equal artistic or scholarly accomplishment. That could be a member of the faculty here or at one of the other universities in the area, most of whom have authored at least one book, or any other such writer, artist or scholar. We’ll discuss ways of choosing and locating an appropriate subject, designing and writing a biography, then we’ll discuss the chapter you write in class workshops.
South Asian Literature in English (ENGL 315)
Section: 088
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 am - 12:45 pm
TBA
This course examines literatures in English from South Asia and the South Asian diaspora. Whereas the beginnings of writing in English on the Indian subcontinent date back to the mid-nineteenth century, it was the anti-colonial movement in the early- to mid-twentieth century that saw this literature come into its own; and it is the postcolonial and diasporic experiences of South Asians that have underwritten much of its excellence since then. Focusing primarily on the issues of modern-day colonization, independence and partition, decolonization, and globalization as depicted in South Asian literatures in English, therefore, this course also investigates the representation of multiple nationalities, ethnicities, classes and castes, religions, linguistic traditions, gender and sexuality, and migration in the writings. In addition, the course assesses the role of the English language and the authors' locations and target audiences in determining the reception of the literatures both at home and abroad; and it analyzes the cultural bases of contributing literary techniques, including structure, language, narrative focalization, and characterization among others. Finally, the course addresses the disciplinary and pedagogical practices underwriting the study of South Asian literatures in English in the western academy. Readings will be drawn from various literary genres as well as critical and theoretical works written by authors from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad, and resident in India, USA, UK, and Canada. Requirements include two essay examinations, two research papers, and conscientious class participation.
Please note that this course meets the multicultural and post-1900 period requirements of the English major.
The Writing of Poetry (ENGL 317)
Section: 089
Instructor: J. Wilson
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm
TBA
This course will introduce students to creative approaches to poetry writing. Specifically, we will explore certain poetic techniques and examine various works by ancient, modern, and contemporary authors who have enlivened the terrain of poetry. In addition to testing out the waters of your own creativity, this course will offer a space to appreciate the richness of literature more broadly. Functioning as an introductory workshop where we’ll share our own writing, over the course of the semester we will also explore how good writing—in a variety of forms—can take shape. Our class time will be spent in a several ways: whole class discussions, individual writing exercises, small group and paired collaborations, and, as the semester develops, small group workshops with your peers. By the end of the term, students will have had a wealth of hands-on experience with poetry writing, and students will turn in a final chapbook of the best work written over the course of the term.
Section: 090
Instructor: J. Wilson
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR 4:15 pm - 5:45 pm
TBA
This course will introduce students to creative approaches to poetry writing. Specifically, we will explore certain poetic techniques and examine various works by ancient, modern, and contemporary authors who have enlivened the terrain of poetry. In addition to testing out the waters of your own creativity, this course will offer a space to appreciate the richness of literature more broadly. Functioning as an introductory workshop where we’ll share our own writing, over the course of the semester we will also explore how good writing—in a variety of forms—can take shape. Our class time will be spent in a several ways: whole class discussions, individual writing exercises, small group and paired collaborations, and, as the semester develops, small group workshops with your peers. By the end of the term, students will have had a wealth of hands-on experience with poetry writing, and students will turn in a final chapbook of the best work written over the course of the term.
The Writing of Fiction (ENGL 318)
Section: 091
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 2:45 pm - 5:15 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Section: 608
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
English Literature: Medieval Period (ENGL 320)
Section: 092
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Seminar
TR 11:30 am - 12:45 pm
TBA
Uses of the Supernatural in Medieval Literature
In this course we will examine medieval texts in the their social and historical contexts, focusing on how and why writers deployed elements of the supernatural. What cultural anxieties does the supernatural betray or allay? How does the supernatural reflect or conflict with Christian beliefs? The syllabus will include such texts as the Lais of Marie de France, some Breton lays, selected Canterbury Tales, and critical readings. Although some texts will be in modern English translations, the majority will be in the original Middle English.
Old English (ENGL 321)
Section: 093
Instructor: A. Frantzen
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am - 11:15 am
TBA
The Anglo-Saxon period lasted from about 600-1200 and produced literature, art, and cultural institutions of lasting importance. This course in the Old English language (which is also called Anglo-Saxon) will balance the close study of grammar and syntax with the translation of texts written in Old English, including both poetry ("The Dream of the Rood," "The Seafarer") and prose ("The Passion of King Edmund" and more). What does the Old English language look like? "Hwæt ic swefna cyste secgan wille." That's the first line of "The Dream of the Rood." Translation: "Lo, I wish to speak of the best of dreams." By the end of the course you will be able to translate sentences like that accurately and well. We will read Beowulf in translation and some parts of the poem in Old English, and also learn about performance traditions in this period from Benjamin Bagby's exciting DVD recitation of the poem. In addition, will explore relevant cultural contexts and become familiar with the electronic resources available for the study of early medieval culture. Requirements will include regular (weekly) quizzes, one two papers (6-7 pp. and 10-12 pp.), a mid-term, and a final exam. An expanded version of this description and the reading list will be made available at http://www.allenfrantzen.com this summer.
British Literature: The Renaissance (ENGL 325)
Section: 095
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 am - 11:15 am
TBA
In this course we will study the works of selected English authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, examining the intellectual and social contexts in which their poetry was produced as well as the literary traditions they employed and transformed.
Requirements will include participation in class discussion, papers, a midterm, and a final.
Plays of Shakespeare (ENGL 326)
Section: 096
Instructor: S. Gossett
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am -11:15 am
TBA
Shakespeare's Major Plays
Representative plays chosen to illustrate the major genres, tragedy, comedy, and history, and to show stylistic and thematic development. Special attention to Shakespeare's principles of dramatic construction, to the growth of the English stage, and to the historical and social context of the plays, for which students will use The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, Second Edition. Emphasis will be on close textual analysis and on different interpretive strategies (e.g. historicist, feminist, performative.) In this election season we will focus on plays in which Shakespeare explores how leaders are or should be chosen and how they succeed or fail. This issue surfaces in such apparently disparate dramas as the Roman plays Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra, the English histories Richard II and Henry IV, the tragedies Hamlet and King Lear, and the generically complex Measure for Measure and The Tempest. One project will allow students to consider the “relevance” of Shakespeare; another will emphasize the particular social and political context from which he wrote. The primary text will be the Norton Shakespeare. Papers, midterm, final.
Section: 610
Instructor: V. Foster
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
In this class we will read, discuss, write about, and view scenes from nine of Shakespeare’s plays, representing comedy, history play, tragedy, and tragicomedy. Plays will likely include As You Like It, Twelfth Night, 1 Henry IV, Henry V, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest. We will consider Shakespeare’s theatre, the relationship between text and performance, the varying reception of Shakespeare’s plays over time, dramatic genre, and topics such as family relationships and issues of race, class, and gender. We may attend a performance at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Requirements: three essays (including a research paper), brief in-class tests, final exam, class participation.
Studies in Restoration & 18th Century Literature (ENGL 333)
Section: 097
Instructor: T. Kaminski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am -11:15 am
TBA
Swift, Pope, and Johnson
This course will explore the achievements of three writers whose works embody the artistic principles and moral vision of the literary movement sometimes called Augustan Humanism. In Jonathan Swift we shall encounter the 18th century's greatest satirist, in Alexander Pope its greatest poet, and in Samuel Johnson its greatest essayist/critic. We shall read such works as A Tale of a Tub, Gulliver’s Travels, and Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift by Swift; The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad by Pope; and the Rambler essays, Rasselas, and selections from the Lives of the Poets by Johnson. Assignments: two papers, a mid-term exam, and a final exam.
Studies in the Romantic Period (ENGL 338)
Section: 098
Instructor: S. Jones
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
TBA
The Shelleys In Italy
This course examines the works and lives of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley during the years they spent in Italy, 1818-1822 (and, in the case of Mary Shelley, beyond). We’ll read their poetry and prose in the context of biography, European history, and the highly charged location that Shelley referred to as the “paradise of exiles, Italy.” The condition of the exile, the expatriate, and the foreigner (straniero), and the issues of nation and identity raised therein, will be important topics for the course. Cities where these two writers lived and traveled–-Rome, Livorno, Pisa, Florence, Venice, on the Ligurian coast–-appear in their works as figures, settings, but also in and out of their works as real places, sites of inspiration and refuge, positions from which to address England and the rest of the world in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Special attention will be given to textual and publishing history and books will include Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition), ed. Fraistat and Reiman; Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Collected Tales (Johns Hopkins), ed. Charles Robinson; The Last Man by Mary Shelley (Broadview). Grades for the course will be based on participation, in-class presentations, and a final term paper focused on textual, historical, or geographical questions. Other readings will be found on reserve or online. Watch Jones’s blog for a detailed syllabus when it becomes available.
British Literature: Victorian Period (ENGL 340)
Section: 099
Instructor: F. Fennell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
TBA
Further information about this course will be posted as soon as it is available.
Contempory Critical Theory (ENGL 354)
Section: 100
Instructor: P. Jay
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm
TBA
This course introduces students to a range of contemporary theories about literature, literary criticism, and cultural studies. We will explore recent innovations in how we think about texts, authorship, and reading, and review a typical range of contemporary critical approaches (formalist, political, cultural, deconstructive, feminist, postcolonial, etc.). The course is designed to explore the substantive and stylistic elements of theoretical writing in the humanities and to consider different ways in which such writing informs the practice of literary and cultural analysis. Materials for this course will include a textbook on contemporary theory, some fiction and poetry, and at least one film. Requirements include two critical essays, a mid-term, and final.
Studies in Poetry (ENGL 362)
Section: 101
Instructor: J. Cragwell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 am - 12:20 pm
TBA
Polite Satanism and Enthusiastic Devilry
An exploration of the cultural history of the demonic in seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century Britain. Few figures were more important to the age’s intellectual history than John Milton’s Satan, who towered over respectable poetry, and was reinvented by radical thinkers as a model for righteous rebellion, rational anarchy, and even a transcendent moral authority that annihilated God and the Christian religion. Meanwhile, the Devil dominated popular culture, as tens of thousands of men and women fell into screaming fits at Methodist revivals, while Joanna Southcott met him at tea-time, exclaiming, “Thou infamous Bitch!” Southcott’s language was earthy, but as Lord Byron remarked, as his own very different Cain was successfully prosecuted for blasphemy, how else was “the first rebel and the first murderer” to talk? While much of our focus will be on poetry – Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Browning – we’ll also read quite a bit of prose, including Frankenstein, Dracula, and a host of enthusiastic struggles with the Devil, such as George Whitefield’s Short Account, and Southcott’s A Conversation Between The Woman and The Prince of Darkness.
Studies in Fiction (ENGL 372)
Section: 102
Instructor: J. Wexler
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm -3:45 pm
TBA
This course will examine how writers dealt with the crisis that T. S. Eliot described as “the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.” With the demise of religious faith, secular systems of belief such as psychology, aestheticism, nationalism, and political ideologies competed to fill the gap. We will compare texts written at key points in the century, including novels by Conrad, Lawrence, Woolf, Grass, Rushdie, and Naipaul. Requirements include response papers, essays, and a final exam.
This course fills the post-1900 and Multicultural requirements.
American Literature to 1865 - 1914 (ENGL 376)
Section: 613
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
This course examines the work of selected American writers from the Civil War to World War I, paying particular attention to theories of Realism, to associated Regional forms, to literary naturalism, and to the contribution of literary works to emerging notions of "the modern." Students will write response papers, two papers of medium length (5-6 pages), a mid-term exam, and a longer final paper (8-10 pages). Authors will include Howells, Twain, Harper, Chopin, Hopkins, James, Crane, Dreiser, Wharton, Chesnutt, and Gilman.
This course satisfies the English major's pre-1900 requirement.
Theology and Literature (ENGL 383)
Section: 104
Instructor: M. Bosco
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am - 11:15 am
TBA
The Catholic Literary Tradition
This course looks at the historical development and aesthetic contours of late 19th century and 20th century literary texts that embody the philosophical and theological discourses of Roman Catholicism. An intensive reading course, we will read works by poets and novelists, including John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Annie Dillard, and John L’Heureux. Students will be required to prepare response papers to these works and write a term paper.
African-American Literature (ENGL 384)
Section: 105
Instructor: B. Ahad
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 pm - 2:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
NOTE: The section listed above fulfills the Multicultural Requirement for the English major.
Advanced Seminar: (ENGL 390)
[Prerequisite for ENGL 390 is permission]
Section: 17W
Instructor: F. Fennell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am - 11:15 am
TBA
ENGL 390 17W is a writing intensive course.
Further information about this course will be posted as soon as it is available.
Advanced Seminar: Romance & Religion in Medieval European Studies (ENGL 390)
[Prerequisite for ENGL 390 is permission]
Section: 18W
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm
TBA
ENGL 390 18W is a writing intensive course
This course will examine the rich cross-fertilization of religious and romance narratives in the medieval period. We will discuss how the structures and motifs of biblical and hagiographic literature were adopted and adapted in romance, and how late medieval religious literature also deployed romance conventions. Readings will include such texts as the romances of Chretien de Troyes, Dante’s Inferno, saints’ lives, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from Malory’s Morte Darthur, and related critical readings. Although some works will be in modern English translation, others will be in the original Middle English.
Teaching English to Adults (ENGL 393)
[Prerequisite for ENGL 393 is permission, and variable credit agreement form]
Section: 01S
ENGL 393 01S is a service learning class.
Instructor: J. Heckman
1.0 - 3.0 credit hours Internship
MW 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
and
Section:02S
ENGL 393 02S is a service learning class.
Instructor: J. Heckman
1.0 - 3.0 credit hours Internship
TR 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
ENGLISH 393: Teaching English to Adults Meets at the Loyola Community Literacy Center, 6576 North Sheridan Road
This course offers training and practical experience in tutoring adults in written and spoken English in a volunteer literacy program at the Loyola Community Literacy Center at 6576 N. Sheridan Road. Students tutor adults, most of whom are recent immigrants to the United States, and help them acquire the language skills they need to participate more fully in the economic, social, political, and educational activities of US society. The Center is open M-Th evenings. Students may take the course for 1-3 credit hours. They must attend an orientation and attend bi-weekly class meetings. Students are required to keep a journal of their experiences, examine journal articles concerned with literacy and adult education, write five papers throughout the semester, and prepare a final paper or project. More information can be found at www.luc.edu/literacy.
Internship (ENGL 394)
[Prerequisite for ENGL 394 is permission]
Section: 092
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Internship
Prerequisites: UCWR 110, junior standing, six English courses.
This course provides on-the-job experience for majors in adapting their writing and analytical skills to the needs of such fields as publishing, editing, and public relations. The English Department is able to provide a small number of referrals, but most students find their own internships (Career Services has an internship program). Students work a minimum of 120 hours, keep a weekly journal of their activities, meet with the Director of Undergraduate Programs at least twice, and at the end of the internship, submit a portfolio of writing samples, a ten-page paper on their internship experience, and a supervisor evaluation form. In this paper, students will able to analyze their experience in terms of the skills they brought to their jobs, what they learned about the fields they worked in, and what new skills they developed as a result of their experiences.
Honors Tutorial: Textual Studies & New Media (ENGL 395)
[Prerequisite for ENGL 395 is permission]
Section: 19W
Instructor: S. Jones
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 am - 11:15 am
TBA
ENGL 395 19W is a writing intensive course
In this honors seminar we’ll look at what textual studies—with its theories of the material production, transmission, and reception of texts—has to tell us about recent forms of new media. Conversely, we’ll consider the ways that media in the digital age might test and challenge theories of textuality, forms of media ranging from born-digital electronic literature, to scholarly editions of literary works “translated” from print, from social-networking “Web 2.0” software platforms and fan-based networks based on TV shows such as Lost, to Alternate Reality Games and video games across various platforms. Readings will include textual studies works by authors such as Gerard Genette, D. F. McKenzie, Jerome McGann, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Steven Jones, and Peter Shillingsburg (on such topics as the paratext, the social text, textual forensics, and script act theory), as well as media theory by authors such as Henry Jenkins, Katherine Hayles, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling. Assignments will include regular collaborative seminar presentations, individual course blogs, and a final textual-studies project. Watch Jones’s blog for a complete syllabus when it becomes available.
Advanced Writing Workshop: Poetry (ENGL 397)
Section: 30W
Instructor: J. Wilson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
F 2:45 pm - 5:15 pm
TBA
ENGL 397 30W is a writing intensive course
As an advanced writing workshop in poetry, this course will focus on different approaches to making, revising, re-thinking, and re-working our own poems. This course will be informed largely by our readings of drastically different contemporary authors, with an emphasis on contemporary women poets who are pushing the boundaries of poetics in myriad ways. Rather than narrow in on mastery, this class will attempt to unearth new methods for writing poetry befitting the complexities of our experiences—zeroing in on influence, music, formal constraints, collage, and a variety of experimental exercises. As a corollary, we’ll draw heavily from poetics statements by some of the 20th Century’s most noted and various poets.
Advanced Writing Workshop: Fiction (ENGL 398)
Section: 31W
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:45 pm - 5:15 pm
TBA
ENGL 398 31W is a writing intensive course
Course description not yet available
Special Studies in Literature (ENGL 399)
Section: 093
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TBA
TBA
Course description not yet available
Introduction to film history (ENGL 284)
Section: 206
Instructor: A. Bonvicini
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 am - 12:20 pm
TBA
How should we talk about cinema? What should we know before we analyze a different form of storytelling? This course will be an introduction to the history of cinema, its main movements, genres, and directors, and to the vocabulary of film analysis, mechanics, and theory. Readings will come from our course text, Film Art (8th Ed.), with supplemental handouts. Viewings will include illustrative film excerpts and several films in full; students will occasionally be asked to view films outside of class. Requirements include, but are not limited to, mid-term and final examinations, a short paper at mid-semester (3-4 pages), and a guided final research paper on a director or genre of the student’s choosing (8-10 pages).
Society in Literature (ENGL 289)
Section: 63W
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Chaucer (ENGL 322)
Section: 609
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Seminar
T 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 354)
Section: 611
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Seminar
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
We will examine several important critical theories including Feminism. Marxism. and New Historicism. We will apply our knowledge of them to a range of written, aural and visual texts. We will also study ways that theory can inform artistic creation and everyday life. Our course is a workshop; we will discuss our readings and viewings in class. There will be two papers, exams, and a journal.
American Literature to 1865 (ENGL 375)
Section: 612
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Studies in American Literature (ENGL 379)
Section: 623
Instructor: M. Jarenski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Advanced Seminar: Religion, Race, and Conspicuous Consumption (ENGL 390)
Section: 65W
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
ENGL 390 65W is a writing intensive course
This course examines how racial identity serves as a marker of elevated class status by enabling "conspicuous consumption," or the social display of wealth and leisure. Commencing with recent accounts of this phenomenon, the course then turns to the American 1890s, the period when the drive for conspicuous consumption first began to make identity a luxury item. The first identities to be consumed as luxuries were the regional identities marketed to the leisure class through regionalist fiction. In the work of later African-American writers, this course will suggest, the conventions of literary regionalism were adapted to display the identity not just of place but also of race, thereby making racial identity available as an object of conspicuous consumption. Authors studied will include Charles Chesnutt, W.E.B. DuBois, Pauline Hopkins, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Thorstein Veblen. Secondary critics will include Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Kenneth Warren, Adolph Reid, Richard Brodhead, and Roberto Dainotto. Students will make in-class presentations, write two 5-6 page papers, and one 10-12 page paper.
This course satisfied the English major's multicultural requirement and its post-1700/pre-1900 requirement.
GRADUATE COURSES
NOTE: All students who wish to take graduate courses must preregister with the English Department's Director of Graduate Programs, Dr. Pamela Caughie.
Introduction to Graduate Studies (ENGL 40)
Section: 800
Instructor: P. Shillingsburg
3.0 credit hours
W 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Course description not yet available
Theory to Composition (ENGL 403)
Section: 801
Instructor: J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours
MW 4:15 pm - 5:30 pm
TBA
Our course will examine ways that scholars have debated and theorized Composition over the last thirty years. In addition to examining their findings, we will look at how scholars have framed their arguments and discuss what they have defined or dismissed as valuable approaches and discernible “evidence.” Moreover, we will examine what it means to theorize Composition now. How do formative theories, often based on print technologies and on essayistic writing as the only viable indicator of literacy performance, relate to new media? How do they relate to contemporary and often very public means of communication and persuasion?
We will apply these questions to a range of topics including: writing as a mode of learning; audience analysis; revision; textual coherence and cohesion; theories of “basic” writing; collaboration; and the composing processes of multilingual writers. We will also review professional resources including print and online journals, scholarly web sites, organizations, and listservs.
Students will write several papers involving research on selected topics in Composition scholarship. You will also give a class presentation.
Textual Criticism (ENGL 413)
Section: 802
Instructor: S. Gossett
3.0 credit hours
T 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm
TBA
The major objective of this course is to introduce graduate students to the methods and applications of textual criticism. Literary theory has famously inquired, “What is a text?”; textual critics ask questions like, “How can we tell what a text is?”; “How can a text be ‘bad’”?; “Can one tell the author from the text?”; “What is an editor?”; “Does the medium (e.g. cybertext) affect the content?” Because Shakespeare has traditionally been treated as the most important English author and because dramatic works pose particular textual problems, since the eighteenth century much of the significant practical and theoretical textual scholarship in English has been devoted to his works. On the basis of assumptions formulated within the history of Shakespeare scholarship, by the middle of the twentieth century a general consensus on text-critical norms had apparently been reached. However, the history of textual scholarship in the ensuing half century has consisted in reevaluation and even rejection of this consensus, as textual criticism has been applied to materials in different genres or from periods with different assumptions about such matters as the relation between author and printing house, or single versus multiple circulation of the text(s). The goals of editing or “unediting” have been reevaluated, while electronic possibilities have further complicated views of “the text.”
This course will give students the necessary grounding in traditional methods of textual scholarship (including various types of bibliography) as well as an introduction to new methodologies (e.g. book history) and to major contemporary controversies. Written work will include two short assignments based in early modern drama and a long paper in which students may apply methods of textual criticism or textual theory to literary material from any period or genre. Possible topics include editing (including on-line editing), theoretical analysis, historical bibliography, book history, analysis of a major printed text, or discussion of the relation between text and interpretation in a work of literature.
Middle English Literature (ENGL 443)
Section: 803
Instructor: A. Frantzen
3.0 credit hours
T 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Medieval Masculinity
Medieval masculinity and medieval textuality have been configured distinctively in every phase of writing in English since the Middle Ages. Studies of medieval masculinity range from analysis of the cultural processes through which boys learned to be men (e.g., chivalry, university education, training in skilled crafts) to queer theories about "becoming male." We will investigate theoretical developments about masculinity and survey Old and Middle English texts in the new Broadview anthology, The Medieval Period, which includes Old English texts in translation and a few Middle English works in both the original language and in translation. Please note that no previous work with medieval texts or languages is required; medievalists should plan to work in the original language in their Middle English projects. Gender-related work from other courses will be useful. There will be two critical papers (one 7-9 pages, the other 15-18 pages, both involving gender theory and masculinity) and a textual project (a critical bibliographical study). The shorter paper will assess textual evidence using a specific theoretical approach, medieval or modern, to masculinity. The textual project, which will prepare for the longer paper, will focus on the life of a single medieval text, working back from the Broadview's anthologized version to earlier editions and then focusing on one edition, which can come from any period and/or culture you choose, and its ultimate manuscript source. The textual projects can focus on representation (the book object that contained the text) or on interpretation (editorial transformations of the language and the text). No prior experience in textual studies will be necessary to make this project relevant to any period or field in which the department offers courses. The reading list will be posted at AllenFrantzen.com by mid-summer.
Victorian Novel (ENGL 478)
Section: 804
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours
M 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
Far from being the “loose baggy monster” that Henry James accused it of being, the Victorian Novel represents a brilliant development in the history of the genre. In this course we will read examples of the Victorian Novel at its height: William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair; Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights; Charles Dickens’ Bleak House; Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone; George Eliot’s Middlemarch; and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. The class will be run as a seminar, in which each student will be responsible for occasionally leading class discussion and presenting a report and a draft of a seminar paper. Lectures will include materials on the history of the novel and on the essentials of novel criticism.
Contemporary Literature (ENGL 485)
Section: 815
Instructor: P. Jay
3.0 credit hours
R 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
TBA
In this course we will study the transnationalizing of contemporary literary production in English and the pressures it is putting on how we define the academic field of “English.” Both these transformations have their roots in a set of historical developments related to the collapse of European colonialism, the migration of formerly colonized peoples to the metropolitan centers of colonial power (and their ability to move back-and-forth between those centers and their home countries), the establishment of complex diasporic communities in the West, and the explosive forces of economic and cultural globalization around the world. Shaped by these forces, recent fiction in English has become increasingly transnational in terms of its geographical scope, the subjects it treats, and the kinds of experience it dramatizes. English literature is now being written in a host of nations in South Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa, and by a range of writers in Britain and the United States who have migrated from these areas (or who are the sons and daughters of immigrants from these regions). This literature is transforming the way with think about “English,” and it deals explicitly with the personal, cultural, and political effects of decolonization, migration, globalization, and cross-border experience. We will read a range of critical texts that model a variety of approaches to the study of English in a transnational context (postcolonial, black Atlantic, border, diaspora, and globalization studies) and use them to study literary works that trace how identities are shaped in the context of travel, displacement, migration, and exile (they will include Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist, Derek Walcott’s Omeros, Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao). Requirements will include two short critical essays and a final seminar paper of about 20 pages.
American Literature (ENGL 490)
Section: 806
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours
TR 4:15 pm - 5:30 pm
TBA
American Women Writers: Being in Place
This seminar will study the intra-action between bodies and environments, identities and places in the works of canonical and non-canonical American women writers. What kinds of investments in place are particular to the history of women in America? How are the boundaries of “the domestic” gendered? How are the boundaries of the nation, the region, or the city gendered? How are the bodies and identities of women shaped by tensions between place and space, home and house, built and natural environments, and public and private spheres?
The idea of “being in place” emerges from the works of feminist theorists, disability theorists, environmental theorists, and phenomenologists like Susan Bordo, Elizabeth Grosz, Judith Butler, Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, Tobin Siebers, Karen Barad, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Our literary works (19th-century to contemporary) may include the poems of Emily Dickinson, Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona, Jane Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull House, Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the essays of Jovita González and Eudora Welty, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, Judith Ortiz Cofer’s Silent Dancing, Sandra Cisneros’ House on Mango Street, Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints, Nancy Mairs’ Waist-High in the World, and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange. We will also consider the relationship between the textual and the visual with analysis of paintings, photographs, maps, and performance. Assignments include regular response papers, a mid-semester reflection paper, a presentation of criticism for one of our authors, and a final seminar paper.