Summer 2009 Courses
271-202
Introduction to Poetry
MTWR 10:25am - 12:05pm
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: J. Wilson
Enhance your appreciation for the richness and diversity of poetry. The purpose of this course is to teach students how to read poetry from a variety of different angles. Students will develop the skills of literacy through reading, writing (formal/informal), and discussion. Reading from a small selection from a wide range of poets, students will explore the various conventions and techniques used by an array of contemporary American poets, as well as investigate the influential historical context their writing.
273-01W
Introduction to Fiction
MTWR 12:20pm - 2:00pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: TBA
Students learn the foundational understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction in this class. Course work will focus on studying 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 also learn to comprehend how fiction expresses ideas, feelings, and values and will acquire the critical and technical vocabulary that will enable them to describe, analyze, formulate arguments and interpret works of fiction.
283-62W
Women in Literature
MTWR 10:25am - 12:05pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: H. Mann
Adopting an international perspective, this course will examine the ways in which postcolonial women writers have portrayed gender and its historical, social, and ideological determinants. Drawing upon selected West Indian, African, and South Asian fiction, we will analyze how the multifarious voices of non-western women re-present traditional and patriarchal values and ideals and create women's culture; and we will consider whether women's experiences and concerns are universal, or whether they are culture-specific and based upon issues of nationality, religion, race, ethnicity, and class/caste. In addition, we will examine the role of contributing literary techniques, including setting, structure, language, narrative voice, and characterization, to arrive at comparative assessments of the varied voices of contemporary women writers.
Please note that this course satisfies 3 credits of the Core Curriculum requirements in Literary Knowledge and Experience or Societal and Cultural Knowledge. In addition, it meets 3 credits of the Writing Intensive requirement of the Core. Further, the course counts as a 200-level elective for both the English major and minor and meets the 3-credit multicultural requirement and the post-1900 period requirement of the English major.
289-61W
Society in Literature
TR 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: O. Hadziselimovic
This course examines the interaction between the individual and society in a number of works, both fictional and non-fictional: novels, short stories, 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 of shorter works in which authors offer a wealth of insights into the societies and cultures their characters inhabit. The methodological emphasis in the course will be close reading of texts, discussion, and writing about them, both in class and outside it. As this is a writing-intensive course, students will be taught how to communicate and express themselves clearly within the discipline of literary studies and criticism.
317-205
Writing of Poetry
TWR 1:10pm - 3:20pm
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: J. Wilson
This course will introduce you to creative writing approaches in poetry. Specifically, we will explore certain poetic techniques and examine various works by past and contemporary poets who are invigorating the terrain of poetry. In addition to assessing your own creativity, this course will offer you a space to appreciate the richness of literature more broadly. Introducing workshop elements, we will share our own writing and explore how good writing can take shape through class discussions, individual writing exercises, small group discussions, paired collaborations, and small group workshops with peers.
372-001
Studies in Fiction
MTWR 12:20pm - 2:00pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: H. Mann
This course will examine the issues of colonization and decolonization as depicted in selected twentieth-century fiction and film from Africa, the West Indies, Australia, and South Asia. To familiarize students with key issues in the field of Postcolonial Studies, the course will focus on the following: (a) the definition of postcoloniality; (b) the composition by postcolonial writers and filmmakers of fictional histories of their lands that challenge colonial and neocolonial narratives; (c) the use of English as a literary language, and the creation of experimental linguistic, textual, and filmic forms based upon indigenous traditions; (d) the effects of simultaneously addressing an indigenous and western audience; (e) the portrayal of religion, race, ethnicity, gender and class; and (f) the role of postcolonial literatures and films in the western academy. Authors to be studied include Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Jean Rhys (Dominica), Thomas Keneally (Australia), and Arundhati Roy (India); and the filmmakers include Ousmane Sembene (Senegal), Trinh T. Minh-ha (US/Vietnam), and Mira Nair (US/India), among others.
Please note that this section of the course meets the multicultural and post-1900 requirements of the English major.
394-002
Internship
TBA
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: TBA
Course description not yet available.
399-004
Special Studies in Literature
TBA
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: TBA
Usually taken as an independent study. Subject matter of this course will be designated by a subscript whenever the course is offered. Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the topic of the course, and of the research and critical skills necessary to analyze and discuss it. Students will produce a research paper under the direction of a faculty member.
210-60W
Advanced Writing: Business Writing
MW 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: W. Green
Business Writing focuses on the effective writing skills for the workplace. Students will analyze, write, and revise a variety of documents, including proposals, cover letters, apalogies, etc. The course uses in-class writings and discussions to explore the content and mechanics of writing. Out-of-class assignments apply these lessons and give students the opportunity to think critically and solve problems.
273-02W
Introduction to Fiction
TWR 1:10pm - 3:20pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: TBA
Students learn the foundational understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction in this class. Course work will focus on studying 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 also learn to comprehend how fiction expresses ideas, feelings, and values and will acquire the critical and technical vocabulary that will enable them to describe, analyze, formulate arguments and interpret works of fiction.
283-203
Women in Literature
MTWR 10:25am - 12:05pm
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: S. Weller
This course will focus on influential writings by women, beginning with contemporary writers and moving back through history to trace the origins and evolution of a woman's intellectual tradition. Readings from The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women will include a wide variety of poems, ranging from Stevie Smith to Phyllis Wheatley; of fiction, ranging from Flannery O’Connor to Charlotte Brontë; and of essays, ranging from Virginia Woolf to Mary Wollstonecraft.
284-204
Introduction to Film History
MTWR 2:15pm - 3:55pm
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: A. Bonvicini
This summer’s lineup of blockbusters will feature science fiction aplenty: battles between giant robots from space, catastrophes and derring-do on the final frontier, and human resistance in a world otherwise terminated by technology run amuck. This course will concern such science fiction films, particularly summer blockbusters. In addition to learning the vocabulary of film form, students will view – either in full or in excerpted form – science fiction films from the Cold War to the present. How do these films respond to an audience’s needs, desires, or anxieties? How do they refigure or alter an audience’s needs and desires? What are the elements that make science fiction its own genre? When does it “cross over” into other genres – which ones, and how do we know? In learning the vocabulary of film form, the definition of film genres, and the possible expectations of a given viewing audience, students will develop keen eyes as viewers and critics of the motion picture as a unique art form. Our viewing list will include The Thing from Another World (1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Gattaca (1997), The Matrix (1999), Renaissance (2006), Iron Man (2008), and excerpts from the Battlestar Galactica television motion picture (2003). Requirements include several written commentaries on the films (3-4 pages), as well as short weekly quizzes.
290-63W
Human Values in Literature
TR 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: O. Hadziselimovic
This course will examine representations of some fundamental human values in a number of works—novels, short stories, poems, and essays. We will consider the role of religion, tradition, ideology, politics, nationalism, race, ethnicity, gender, and class in individual lives and in society at large. The course will encourage students to address the question of human values in their own lives; to discern parallels between other cultures, periods, and/or nations and their own society; and to recognize the interdependence of the world. Authors include Kurt Vonnegut, E.M. Forster, Susan Sontag, John Donne, Julian Barnes, Danilo Kiš, W. H. Auden, and Meša Selimović, among others. The methodological emphasis in the course will be close reading of texts, discussion, and writing about them, both in class and outside it.
318-206
Writing of Fiction
TWR 3:35pm - 5:45pm
Water Tower Campus
Instructor: L. Krughoff
In this course, students will be introduced to a number of fundamental techniques of fiction writing. We will read, discuss, and analyze the work of master short story writers, and students will submit original fiction manuscripts throughout the semester. Students will learn the skills of careful, critical reading and listening; reflective, accurate observational writing; prolific, dynamic, generative writing; and various strategies for revising fiction and editing prose. All skill levels are welcome in this class, and every student will be challenged to identify personal strengths and weaknesses as a fiction writer, hone technical writing skills, and develop the critical eye necessary to be a good reader of his or her own work as well as the work of fellow students.
326-600
Plays of Shakespeare
MW 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: T. Pillai
‘May Not An Ass Know When the Cart Draws the Horse?’: Foolish Wisdom in the Plays of Shakespeare
This course will trace the unlikely fellowship of Shakespeare’s clowns and kings through seven plays, ranging from comedies and tragedies to romances and problem plays. Specifically, we will address the interrelations between moral certitude as it is presented through the voices of fools, clowns, and other lowly characters and the politics of uncertainty that are embodied by the heroic protagonists of the texts. By means of close reading and interpretation, we will arrive at an understanding of the various social, political, economic, and cultural milieu that inform the universe of Shakespeare’s plays and the audience.
Students will write two essays and take a final examination to fulfill the course requirements. They will also make oral presentations on assigned topics, which will be stated clearly on the course schedule.
Required Text: The Norton Shakespeare. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et al. Second Edition. ISBN: 978-0-393-92991-1
394-003
Internship
TBA
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: J. Biester
Course description not yet available
399-005
Special Studies in Literature
TBA
Lake Shore Campus
Instructor: J. Biester
Usually taken as an independent study. Subject matter of this course will be designated by a subscript whenever the course is offered. Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the topic of the course, and of the research and critical skills necessary to analyze and discuss it. Students will produce a research paper under the direction of a faculty member.