Loyola University Chicago

Department of English

Spring 2013 Courses

Interpreting Literature (UCLR 100)

Section: 01E #5307
Instructor:  J. Daniel
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 AM – 9:05 AM LSC

City Living/Living Cities

In this course, we will explore a wide variety of pieces, including poetry, drama, and prose fiction, to investigate the many ways literature generates meaning. To better see how formal characteristics contribute to making meaning, we will focus on the depiction of a common theme across our readings: the city. Does the city bring us closer together or push us farther apart? Does it include a place for nature or is it mostly machine? How are the boundaries between neighborhoods created, moved, and violated? To answer these questions (and many more!), we will learn and practice the skills of attentive reading in order to discover how our writers craft language to achieve different ends.

Section: 02E #5308
Instructor:  C. Kendrick
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20 AM – 10:10 AM LSC

This is an introductory course about how to read literature, which is to include works of poetry, drama, and fiction from different periods.  The syllabus, as currently planned, will include the following:  Dr. Faustus, Death of a Salesman, and August: Osage County (drama); Oroonoko, A Passage to India, and Disgrace (fiction); and poems by Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Alexander Pope, John Keats, Robert Browning, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Elisabeth Bishop, and Gwendolyn Brooks.  We will also read and discuss critical essays and reviews, most of them on the works we are reading.

Section: 03E #5309
Instructor:  T. Kaminski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 - 11:15AM LSC

The foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama, master key literary and critical terms, and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. In this section we will read such works as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and a wide variety of poetry from the English Renaissance through the 20th century. Students will write three papers and take two exams.

Section: 04E #5310
Instructor:  D. Guerra
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 LSC

In this course, we'll read literature across a variety of genres and periods in order to understand the broad value of "literary" thinking--that is, imaginative textual engagement that fixates on the productive forces of analogy, metaphor, style, and form. We'll begin with the witty and idea-centered short stories of Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders, Franz Kafka, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman before tunneling into the wordplay and rich emotional worlds portrayed in the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and T.S. Eliot. In the second half of the course, we'll think about the roles of perspective and dramatic context in Shakespeare's Hamlet as well as its meta twentieth-century follow-up, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead before closing on two beautiful and darkly insightful novels, Toni Morrison's Sula and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In the process, we'll hone our skills as analysts and interpreters, doing the important work of bringing artistic unreality into contact with the real.

Section: 05E #5311
Instructor:  H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 LSC

The aim of UCLR 100 is to introduce students to the methods and strategies of interpreting literary texts by requiring close reading and careful analysis of a variety of fictional, dramatic, and poetic works and a mastery of key literary and critical terms. In addition, the course addresses questions regarding canonicity and interpretation, form and genre, ideology and history, and provides students with training in the major developments in contemporary critical theory. This section of UCLR 100 will focus on colonial, postcolonial, and global works of literature from the 19th to the 21st centuries and will span the continents of Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe. Course requirements include two papers, two exams, and class participation.

This course meets the multicultural and post-1900 requirements of the English major.

Section: 06E #5312
Instructor:  L. Goldstein
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 PM – 2:30 PM LSC

In this course, we will read, discuss and write about a variety of literary genres. You will be introduced to multiple ways of considering and interpreting texts ranging from ancient authors to contemporary ones and including traditional and experimental forms. Materials will include: Plays Oedipus Rex, Othello and Angels in America, Novels Kindred and Aquamarine, Classical Poetry from William Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson, Contemporary Poetry from Harryette Mullen and Christian Bok among others. Writing assignments will include short responses, a midterm essay, and a final exam.

Section: 07E #5313
Instructor:  S. Masello
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30AM – 9:45 AM LSC

In this introductory course, “Interpreting Literature,” we will read a wide and varied selection of fiction, including poetry, short stories, short novels, and drama. Our readings will extend over a span of roughly two centuries of English and American literature, including acknowledged classics from the past, as well as contemporary works.  We will discuss, analyze, and write about these works, focusing on how each work engages and excites the reader, intellectually.

Section: 08E #5314
Instructor:  K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 LSC

The foundational course in literary studies will require students to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama, master key literary and critical terms, and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. This course will also explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study. What is literature? Why does it matter? How has it been conceived in different times and places? How do we envision the relationships among author, text, and reader or audience? Where does meaning come from in literature? What is literary interpretation and what role does it have in the production of literary meaning? How are literary works related to culture and society and how do they reflect – and reflect on – questions of value and the diversity of human experience?  Exploring these questions will help students develop the skills of analysis and interpretation needed to approach literature in a sophisticated manner.

We will begin with poetry, move on to short stories, a novel or two, a short and a long work of drama, and perhaps a film.

Section: 09E #5315
Instructor: S. Jones
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM LSC

Cross-platform Frankenstein

This foundational course in literary studies will require you to read closely and analyze carefully a representative variety of prose, poetry, and drama, master key literary and critical terms, and explore a variety of core critical approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literature. In this course we'll explore important conceptual questions about literature and its study, for example: What is literature? Why does it matter? How has it been conceived in different times and places? How do we envision the relationships among author, text, and reader or audience? What is the difference between reading a literary work in its historical context and in the light of our own contemporary time? Where does meaning come from in literature? What is literary interpretation and what role does it have in the production of literary meaning? How are literary works related to culture and society and how do they reflect–and reflect on–questions of value and the diversity of human experience?

In our class, we'll read Mary Shelley's iconic 1818 novel, Frankenstein, and various works related to it, including poems, dramatic and filmic adaptations, as well as digital hypertexts and comics, works produced from the Romantic period to the present day. We'll also attend a workshop performance of a new stage production, All Girl Frankenstein. Assignments will include class participation and attendance at film screenings and the theater workshop, short papers in the form of blog posts, quizzes, a final exam, as well as a final paper-with-slideshow presentation. Watch Jones's pages (http://stevenejones.org) for further details and a syllabus when they become available.

Section: 10E #5316
Instructor:  M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 PM – 3:45 PM LSC


Advanced Writing: Business (ENGL 210)

Section: 20W #2231
Instructor:  J. Tomas
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 WTC

Eng 210 explains the fundamentals of clear, concise, and well-organized prose with special emphasis on the writing expected of business professionals in performing their everyday duties. Assignments include summaries, memos, letters, letters of applications, reports and proposals.

Section: 60W #2233
Instructor:  J. Tomas
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM WTC

Eng 210 explains the fundamentals of clear, concise, and well-organized prose with special emphasis on the writing expected of business professionals in performing their everyday duties. Assignments include summaries, memos, letters, letters of applications, reports and proposals.

Section: 61W #4071
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 PM – 9:30PM WTC

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on particular types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience in reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including: memos, proposals, letters, and resumes. There will be individual and collaborative projects; you will also give a group class presentation.

ENGL 210.61W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 62W #5343
Instructor:  J. Janangelo
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30PM WTC

Our course covers the rhetorical principles of effective writing, focusing on particular types of discourse practiced in business and professional settings. You will gain experience in reading and writing texts pertinent to business communication including: memos, proposals, letters, and resumes. There will be individual and collaborative projects; you will also give a group class presentation.

ENGL 210.62W is a writing intensive class


Advanced Writing: Legal (ENGL 211)

Section: 63W #2234
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 PM – 9:30PM LSC


Theory Practicum Tutoring Writing (ENGL 220)

Section: 64W #5344
Instructor:  M. Meinhardt
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30PM LSC

English 220 is a seminar with a community-based service-learning component that explores Writing Center pedagogical theory and practice. Writing centers depend on the study of a rich heritage of literature, research, and science of the tutoring of writing, from the ancient Greeks to the modern college campus. Yet Writing centers also both inhabit and foster a unique and porous community within the university that uses community-service, professional development, leadership development, civic engagement, and cross-curriculum collaboration on a daily basis to continually improve the quality of the writing tutoring services. Class expectations include a community-based research project for submission to a disciplinary journal; written and oral analyses of literature, theory, and practice; and an independent or team programming initiative; but events, projects, and individual appointments are also part of the course. The service-learning component consists of a total of 20-25 hours of outside peer and mentor conferences (3-4 hours), session observations and analyses (4-6 hours), and scheduled independent tutoring (13-15 hours).


Exploring Poetry (ENGL 271)

Section: 01W #1472
Instructor:  J. Jacobs
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 PM – 3:35 PM LSC

Section: 02W #3030
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM LSC

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 Shakespeare will start with the formation of “Shakespeare” as a figure, often at odds with the “evidence” of the poems, of canonical standards throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a program that affected even the spelling of his poems.  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?  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.  Papers, exams, unlicensed dentistry.

Section: 03W #3031
Instructor:  F. Fennell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

Poetry is the oldest of all the arts.  Why has it been a part of all cultures in all places for so long?  In this course, we will form our own answers to that question and to the questions that follow:  why should we read—or rather hear—poetry, and how should we read, and what should we read in order for poetry to have its best effect on us?  The new title of this course is “exploring poetry,” which is exactly what we will do:  explore, and bring back the treasures we find.  In the process we will strengthen critical thinking skills, cultivate the intellectual virtues, and above all—since this course is writing-intensive—sharpen our ability to write clearly, persuasively, and gracefully.  Because of its writing-intensive nature the course will include a variety of shorter written assignments plus three not-too-long papers.

Section: 059 #3032
Instructor:  L. Janowski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM LSC

You are taking this course because you need to fill a core curriculum gap, or it fits your schedule – or you expect an easy A. Or maybe, just maybe, you have an attraction to words, to what they can and cannot do. Perhaps you heard a poem read at a wedding or funeral and it stayed with you, or have even memorized one. In many moments in life, people are drawn to poetry: the choice and arrangement of words on the page seems so powerful, able to capture feelings and experience in a more memorable, intense way. Exploring Poetry will capitalize on that attraction and your instructor will try to fan your attraction into flame. We will survey English poetry from its medieval beginnings through the 20th and 21st centuries, stressing poets who are actually living and breathing today. Along the way, you will learn the jargon and concepts with which we can speak intelligently about poetry. You will become engaged with the vibrant Chicago poetry scene and attend a poetry reading. There will be short reflection papers and one longer paper on a poet of your choice, homework, a midterm and a final. This course will change your life—if you let it.

Section: 060 #4072
Instructor:  L. Janowski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

You are taking this course because you need to fill a core curriculum gap, or it fits your schedule – or you expect an easy A. Or maybe, just maybe, you have an attraction to words, to what they can and cannot do. Perhaps you heard a poem read at a wedding or funeral and it stayed with you, or have even memorized one. In many moments in life, people are drawn to poetry: the choice and arrangement of words on the page seems so powerful, able to capture feelings and experience in a more memorable, intense way. Exploring Poetry will capitalize on that attraction and your instructor will try to fan your attraction into flame. We will survey English poetry from its medieval beginnings through the 20th and 21st centuries, stressing poets who are actually living and breathing today. Along the way, you will learn the jargon and concepts with which we can speak intelligently about poetry. You will become engaged with the vibrant Chicago poetry scene and attend a poetry reading. There will be short reflection papers and one longer paper on a poet of your choice, homework, a midterm and a final. This course will change your life—if you let it.


Exploring Drama (ENGL 272)

Section: 04W #2478
Instructor:  T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:45 – 2:20 PM LSC

This course of studies will include texts that actively critique the importance of religion on the creative imagination, in particular Catholicism. The quest for meaning, whether religious or secular, can lead to some interesting works of drama. Modernist theater, for instance, with its quest for newness, has sought to dramatize the problems associated with religious faith (Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot). While the depictions can sometimes be sympathetic, sometimes skeptical, there is an underlying affirmation, and legitimization of the immense influence religion has had on forming our understanding of life. In this class we will also explore the movement away from the classical form of drama towards what Brecht calls ‘epic theatre’.

Intro. to Drama covers literature from 20th Century and 21st Century

Section: 061 #3430
Instructor:  T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

(See above.)

Section: 062 #1473
Instructor:  R. Peters
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

This course will examine the issues central to contemporary American and British drama through the lens of addiction and disease. We will study plays and theatrical productions that explore the effect of illness on the body, and investigate the manner in which the affects of disease are reproduced on the stage. Similarly, we will examine the prevalence of addiction -- to alcohol, drugs and even more ephemeral substances -- in recent drama, and question how these portrayals of health, wellness, disease and addiction relate to larger issues regarding the health of a community or nation. We will study works by Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Margaret Edson, Tony Kushner, and Martin McDonagh, among others.


Exploring Fiction (ENGL 273)

Section: 05W #3035
Instructor:  K. Quirk
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 – 9:45 AM LSC

This course will take both a historical and formal approach to the study of prose fiction. We will begin with the emergence of the novel and short story in the 18th and 19th centuries and at the same time track important trends in formal conventions, especially the broad distinction between “realistic” conventions and anti-realist experiments. The course will follow this contrast between realism and experimentalism into the 21st century, and along the way may also consider the distinction between literary and popular fiction as well. Texts may include works by writers such as Denis Diderot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, William Dean Howells, Edith Wharton, Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, Jorge Luis Borges, and Junot Diaz.

Section: 06W #3036
Instructor:  A. Frantzen
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM LSC

Men’s lives as fathers and sons stand in the shadow of archetypes about Oedipus and Abraham. Oedipus killed his father, Laius, without knowing who he was, and subsequently married his mother, Jocasta, without knowing who she was either. Abraham intended to sacrifice his son, Isaac, an episode used to prefigure the Father’s sacrifice of his Son. These devastating paradigms have little to teach us about men and their experience as sons or fathers. Fathers do not ordinarily sacrifice their sons; sons do not often kill their fathers or seek to replace them in the marriage bed. Yet the archetypes haunt both fiction and criticism. We will examine, and pause to reconsider, the association of men with patriarchy and violence, links that have been essentialized in the popular imagination and in feminist criticism. Fiction will include Herman Melville’s Billy Budd; Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse; Edith Wharton’s A Son at the Front; William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying; Chaim Potok’s The Chosen; and (get ready!) Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. We will also read Victor J. Seidler, Rediscovering Masculinity. Requirements include class participation; quizzes and short writing exercises, graded and ungraded; two papers (one 7-8 pages, one 10-12 pages); a mid-term and a final examination. Books at Beck's.

Section: 07W #3033
Instructor:  S. Masello
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

In this course we will read a wide and varied selection of short fiction extending over a span of roughly two centuries.  Included in our readings will be the works of the acknowledged masters within the short fiction genre, such as Hawthorne, Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Bierce, Joyce, and Cather, among others, as well as contemporary voices such as Oates, Ford, O’Connor, Tan and many writers in between.  Most readings will be brief in length; others, such as Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych and Joyce’s The Dead, extend to novella length.  Class meetings will be devoted to discussion and analysis of the readings. In this writing intensive course, students will submit several brief essays on selected works.

Section: 063 #3034
Instructor: D. Guerra
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 – 9:05 AM LSC

In this course we'll examine the function of fiction by following a range of authors who slant, skew, time shift, and otherwise disrupt the views and flow of modern life to stoke the imagination and force us to think deeply about our role in the world around us. We'll begin with masters of the dark and cerebral short story--Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O'Connor, Jorge Luis Borges, and George Saunders--and move on to the wry wit of longer works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip K. Dick. In the process, we'll hone our skills as analysts and interpreters, doing the important work of bringing unreality into contact with the real. To this end, we will learn how to approach fiction from a range of theoretical perspectives while also examining its basic structures.

Section: 064 #4073
Instructor: L. Wyse
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

This course aims to develop tools for reading fictional literature and for thinking, talking, and writing about it. We will begin by talking broadly about how narratives operate and how various critical approaches can be employed to analyze them. Students will encounter a wide variety of fiction in English, primarily from the United States, representing a broad historical range and a diverse array of voices. In addition, we will consider what “counts” as fiction and interrogate the complex generic boundary between fiction and nonfiction. We will read numerous short stories and at least two novels. Graded assignments will include several short papers, a midterm exam, and a culminating research essay.

Section: 065 #3431
Instructor: S. O’Brien
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

This course explores how narratives are constructed and mediated and how they influence us—with or without our knowledge or consent. Narrative fiction permeates our lives in a staggering variety of forms experienced live, in print, and on screens of all kinds. Through comparison of ‘old media’ and ‘new media’ narratives, we will investigate the literary, political, ethical, social, and technological dimensions of texts, such as war stories told in print, film, and video games; relationship stories told through stage and interactive dramas; and political fiction in novels and on Twitter. These comparisons will highlight the strengths, weaknesses, and cultural uses of media formats and put traditional narrative theory to the test. Analyzing narrative fictions by reading, viewing, playing, discussing, reading about, and writing about them, we will become more aware, articulate, and purposeful in our daily engagements with fictional and non-fictional narratives. Requirements include consistent participation, a short paper (4pp), a long paper (8pp), a discussion lead, a midterm, and a final.


Exploring Shakespeare (ENGL 274)

Section: 08W #1474
Instructor:  V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

This course refines students’ close reading and critical thinking skills through an intense engagement with a range of Shakespeare’s drama—his comedies, histories, tragedies, and later “romances.” We will examine Shakespeare’s language use and plots in the context of the early modern commercial theater (its material conditions and literary trends) and the poetic and rhetorical traditions disseminated through Elizabethan grammar schools. The plays selected are also indicative of the writer’s ongoing concern with the social functions, as well as the individual’s internalization, of the justice system’s language and processes (including trials and the evaluation of evidence, for example). Speaking directly to his own time in its own terms, Shakespeare raised perennial questions related to the use and abuse of law and power. Regular writing assignments and group discussions require students to stay on top of the reading.

Section: 09W #3432
Instructor:  J. Knapp
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This section of English 274 will offer an introduction to the major genres of comedy, history, tragedy and romance.  The course will place Shakespeare’s treatment of these dramatic genres in historical context.  Shakespeare’s England was a period shaped by a tumultuous religious reformation, the emergence of modern science, and shifting economic and political realities.  We will examine the development of Shakespeare’s art beginning with the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  We will then go on to look at how Shakespeare complicated the dramatic conventions he inherited.  In addition to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we will read the comedy The Merchant of Venice, the history Richard II, the tragedies Macbeth and Julius Caesar, and the romance The Tempest.  We will see Julius Caesar in performance at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier (a course requirement).  The primary text will be David Bevington’s edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, 6th edition.  As a writing intensive course there will be numerous writing assignments in addition to formal papers.  There will also be a midterm and a final.

ENGL 274-09W is a writing intensive class.

Section: 066 #5345
Instructor:  D. Wallace
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:35 PM LSC

In this course, we will read a selection of eight plays from the Shakespeare canon, representing the four genres of comedy, tragedy, history, and romance.  Discussion will focus on the plays in their historical setting, in an effort to understand how contemporary interests and events inform our understanding of Shakespeare’s drama. I will assign reading quizzes, group work, critical essay summaries, a research paper, and a final exam.  You may also be required to attend a live performance.

Section: 096 #6355
Instructor:  L. Wagner
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

Disorderly Bodies in Shakespeare

Shakespeare and his contemporaries maintained very different conceptions of the body than we do today. As modern methods of scientific inquiry were still in the process of formation, early modern people relied upon ancient philosophy, contemporary experts in the body’s “humors”, and prominent religious thinkers for ways to understand the body. In ideal situations, bodies could be orderly, well-defined, and controlled, but, on Shakespeare’s stage, we often find bodies that are messy, embarrassing, “leaky,” or even grotesque--external signs of internal disorder. This period in history was very anxious about controlling disorderly bodies, as their unruliness was believed to be closely linked to social order and control.

This class will consider the various types of bodies found in Shakespeare’s work in all their gritty glory: the bloody, decapitated, or “unsex[ed]” bodies of Macbeth; the gender-hopping bodies in Shakespearean comedy; the raced body of Othello; and the magical, luminous bodies of The Tempest, amongst others. We will read a few of the best-known of his plays, and a few lesser-known, and will attend at least one theatrical performance.


African-American Literature (ENGL 282)

Section: 067 #3038
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 8:15 – 9:05 AM LSC

This course meets the multicultural requirement of the English major.

Section: 068 #5346
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

This course meets the multicultural requirement of the English major.

Section: 069 #5347
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

This course meets the multicultural requirement of the English major.


Women in Literature (ENGL 283)

Section: 099 #3042
Instructor:  TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

Section: 11W #3043
Instructor:  S. Weller
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 1:40 – 2:30 PM LSC

Memoir, as a literary genre, has garnered much critical attention in the last decade (both positive and negative). But what exactly is memoir? What characteristics does it have that are different than fiction, or straight non-fiction and autobiography? If an author is writing from memory, and oftentimes memory is hazy, or at the least subjective, what is the 'truth' in memoir? Is there any material or issue that is still considered taboo when women write about their lives? These are some of the questions we will address during the semester while reading a selection of creative non-fiction memoirs by a wide range of contemporary female writers. One of the themes we will investigate is the concept of secrets and silence that pervade many of the texts we will focus on.

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.

Section: 070 #2353
Instructor:  M. Bradshaw
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

Revered and reviled, imitated and appropriated, divas are perhaps the most visible women in our culture. On the one hand, as a woman who stares down cameras and sings loudly and unabashedly, the diva represents empowerment: she is loud, courageous, and often outrageous. On the other hand, the diva is also a figure of extreme appropriation: consumed and absorbed into people’s lives, she is the object of obsessive fandom. In shaping her own identity, the diva often serves as a vehicle for shaping others’. Through fiction, drama, biography, autobiography, film, and performance theory, this class will explore the paradoxes and problems of the “woman with a voice” and her place in contemporary conceptions of femininity.

Section: 071 #5348
Instructor:  S. Eilefson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM LSC

Although women have participated in, been affected by, and written about war as long as there has been writing (or war), war literature is still perceived as a man’s domain. This course will examine the contention that war is a man's issue by analyzing the role of women in 20th and 21st-century war fiction.

We will look at representations--by both men and women--of women in WWI, Vietnam, and more recent conflicts. Course materials include historical and critical texts, short stories, novels, films and a graphic novel. We will analyze literature's form, voice, and purpose and will learn to contextualize fiction in its particular political, ethical, social and technological era. Requirements include two short (4 pp) papers, one long (8 pp) final paper, which will have a small research component, and a midterm.

This course meets the post-1900 requirement.

Section: 072 #5349
Instructor:  B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM LSC

“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- and  21st-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. Analyzing representative works of fiction written by women authors, this course will investigate the important cultural and gender scripts and psychological dramas encoded in the works read, paying special attention to the various ways the authors represent coming of age, the female body, romantic love, mother-child relationships, and female friendship in their works.  The authors covered will include Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, and Toni Morrison.  There will be oral presentations, papers, a midterm and a final exam.

Section: 202 #5350
Instructor:  V. Bolf
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

Description: To paraphrase a famous question, what happens when people stop being polite and start being transgressive? Whose idea of “woman” (and, inevitably, “man”) is challenged by transgressive identities? What kinds of borders and boundaries do such identities cross? This course will introduce students to important ideas and developments in feminist thought, including the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and Eve Sedgwick, as well as a variety of canonical and non-canonical 20th- and 21st-century texts and film.  Requirements include regular written responses to the reading, two short papers (2-3 pages), a longer paper (5-6 pages), and a final exam.


Nature in Literature (ENGL 288)

Section: 12W #2479
Instructor: M. Delancey
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

"Nature” as we typically use the term is a relatively recent invention. Something like our current notion of Nature first came into being as the counterpart of the “self” or “I” of Modernity (the historical period, beginning very roughly around 1600, which brings the Middle Ages to a close and which continues to define our lives even in our own “Postmodern” reaction against it). This course will look beyond Modernity to consider first a series of texts representing some of the most important ways in which cultures and historical periods different from our own have construed “Nature.” We will also consider a series of texts that can be seen as inaugurating, falling within, or responding to “Modernity.”  Our first aim will be to understand these various constructions of “Nature” in their specificity—what they are in themselves and how they differ from one another. We will also try to understand how they are related to one another. Finally, we will ask whether and in what sense our own notion of nature may be understood as developing out of the earlier notions of nature. The general aim of the course is to put ourselves in a position to reflect intelligently on what we and other cultures and historical periods mean by “Nature.”  Readings include the Bhagavad Gita, Plato’s Phaedrus, the Book of Job, St. Paul’s Letters, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a selection of Wordsworth’s poetry, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. This is a writing intensive course, so special emphasis will be placed on problems and issues related to the task of writing about works of literature.

Section: 602 #5352
Instructor: M. Delancey
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC

"Nature” as we typically use the term is a relatively recent invention. Something like our current notion of Nature first came into being as the counterpart of the “self” or “I” of Modernity (the historical period, beginning very roughly around 1600, which brings the Middle Ages to a close and which continues to define our lives even in our own “Postmodern” reaction against it). This course will look beyond Modernity to consider first a series of texts representing some of the most important ways in which cultures and historical periods different from our own have construed “Nature.” We will also consider a series of texts that can be seen as inaugurating, falling within, or responding to “Modernity.”  Our first aim will be to understand these various constructions of “Nature” in their specificity—what they are in themselves and how they differ from one another. We will also try to understand how they are related to one another. Finally, we will ask whether and in what sense our own notion of nature may be understood as developing out of the earlier notions of nature. The general aim of the course is to put ourselves in a position to reflect intelligently on what we and other cultures and historical periods mean by “Nature.”  Readings include the Bhagavad Gita, Plato’s Phaedrus, the Book of Job, St. Paul’s Letters, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a selection of Wordsworth’s poetry, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.


Human Values in Literature (ENGL 290)

Section: 099 #5353
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

Section: 14W #5354
Instructor: M. Shapiro
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

Human beings are social creatures. While some individuals avoid the company of others or prefer to live in small family groups, recorded history indicates that people prefer to form clusters of varying sizes, ranging from tribes and clans to tribes, towns, and cities.  Despite the obvious advantages of aggregate living for purposes of defense, economic specialization, to say nothing of greater efficiency in hunting, gathering, agriculture, child-care, and crafts, human history also records persistent conflict both between and within societies.  Indeed, conflict is so prevalent in the human record that one might conclude that human beings, gregarious though they may be, also have an innate capacity for finding enemies outside as well as within their own social groupings. During such conflicts, the values that those very same societies have developed and cherish are often tested: they can be ignored or violated, but they can also be active and empowering.

These two sections of English 290 will approach the topic of the course through literature, both fiction and non-fiction, rather than through social science.  The literary works we will read and discuss—short stories, novels, plays, and memoirs—offer a variety of perspectives on what happens to human values in times of social conflict.  Sometimes the perspective is that of an individual or family caught in the maelstrom of intra- or inter-societal violence.  Sometimes the violence is entirely or largely below the surface and may not erupt into open adversarial confrontation. In each situation the conflict and the fate of human values are of course different, complicated by a host of historical and political circumstances.  Assigned readings will explore conflicts and values in various periods and in various parts of the world.  

We will probably start with a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Story of My Dovecote,” which presents itself as the eye-witness account of a pogrom, that is, an anti-Jewish riot, in Eastern Europe. The list will include a novel by James Welch, Fools Crow, which imagines how Native Americans responded to threats to their civilization represented by the intrusion of European Americans and a play by Athol Fugard, Master Harold and the Boys, which is set in South African during the time of apartheid, or strict racial segregation. We will also read Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, his account of his years in a Nazi concentration camp, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, set in 19th century tribal Nigeria, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which explores issues of slavery and racism in 19th-Century America, and Palestine’s Children, a collection of short stories by Gasson Kanafani, a Palestinian writer, which explore the current conflict in the Middle East.  Social conflict in Northern Ireland is addressed in Hope, a play by Terry Boyle.

There will be three papers, some revision work, a midterm and a final exam, and the possibility of occasional short quizzes and various writing exercises and activities in and out of class, inasmuch as this section is designated Writing Intensive.

Section: 15W #5355
Instructor: P. Jay
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 AM – 11:15 AM LSC

This course will focus on the treatment of human values in contemporary global fiction. We will be particularly interested in exploring how contemporary fiction writers from the United States, Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia dramatize the inevitable conflict of values that takes place in the context of colonialism, postcolonization, and globalization. We will pay some attention at the outset of the course to how critics and philosophers treat “value” as a conceptual category, and we’ll consider how it is connected to related terms like “rights” (including “natural” and “human” rights), “moral,” and ethics.” We’ll be broadly interested in the clash between modernity and tradition in the texts we read, looking at how they deal with the relative value of indigenous identities and religious and cultural practices, on the one hand, and modern, Western ones on the other, and at how these issues are often treated in the context of forms of economic development that offer economic progress at the cost of disrupting traditional ways of life. Required texts will include Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (India), Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican Republic, the U.S.), Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness (Africa), and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (Europe, Bangladesh). Requirements will include two short critical essays (5-6 pages) and a longer final paper (12-15 pages).

Section: 074 #5356
Instructor: M. Shapiro
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 10:25 – 11:15 AM LSC

Human beings are social creatures. While some individuals avoid the company of others or prefer to live in small family groups, recorded history indicates that people prefer to form clusters of varying sizes, ranging from tribes and clans to tribes, towns, and cities.  Despite the obvious advantages of aggregate living for purposes of defense, economic specialization, to say nothing of greater efficiency in hunting, gathering, agriculture, child-care, and crafts, human history also records persistent conflict both between and within societies.  Indeed, conflict is so prevalent in the human record that one might conclude that human beings, gregarious though they may be, also have an innate capacity for finding enemies outside as well as within their own social groupings. During such conflicts, the values that those very same societies have developed and cherish are often tested: they can be ignored or violated, but they can also be active and empowering.

These two sections of English 290 will approach the topic of the course through literature, both fiction and non-fiction, rather than through social science.  The literary works we will read and discuss—short stories, novels, plays, and memoirs—offer a variety of perspectives on what happens to human values in times of social conflict.  Sometimes the perspective is that of an individual or family caught in the maelstrom of intra- or inter-societal violence.  Sometimes the violence is entirely or largely below the surface and may not erupt into open adversarial confrontation. In each situation the conflict and the fate of human values are of course different, complicated by a host of historical and political circumstances.  Assigned readings will explore conflicts and values in various periods and in various parts of the world.  

We will probably start with a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Story of My Dovecote,” which presents itself as the eye-witness account of a pogrom, that is, an anti-Jewish riot, in Eastern Europe. The list will include a novel by James Welch, Fools Crow, which imagines how Native Americans responded to threats to their civilization represented by the intrusion of European Americans and a play by Athol Fugard, Master Harold and the Boys, which is set in South African during the time of apartheid, or strict racial segregation. We will also read Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, his account of his years in a Nazi concentration camp, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, set in 19th century tribal Nigeria, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which explores issues of slavery and racism in 19th-Century America, and Palestine’s Children, a collection of short stories by Gasson Kanafani, a Palestinian writer, which explore the current conflict in the Middle East.  Social conflict in Northern Ireland is addressed in Hope, a play by Terry Boyle.

There will be three papers, some revision work, a midterm and a final exam, and the possibility of occasional short quizzes and various writing exercises and activities in and out of class.

Section: 075 #5357
Instructor: J. Frey
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:45 PM LSC

We often think of social status as an issue of-- what else-- society, but separating the social from the individual can efface agency from social and political matters. To forget that the social body is comprised of individuals' bodies is to foreclose the opportunity for social change. This course will examine how society, with its changing hierarchies, impacts the individual and his or her values. In particular, we will read Chaucer and Shakespeare in order to consider the relationship between the two, as well as the relationship between medieval and early modern social hierarchies. In so doing, we will seek to historicize not only the past but also the present in order to question how social organization impacts individuals today.

Section: 076 #5358
Instructor: A. Coleman
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 8:30 – 9:45 AM LSC

Where & Who We Are

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari wrote that "writing has nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying, mapping, even realms that are yet to come." From houses and cities to asylums, bars, and gardens, authors have used physical space to "map" ideologies, institutions, and identities in their work. This course will consider literature in terms of the spaces humans construct and inhabit and the ways in which those spaces reflect human values and desires. We will both analyze texts to understand the significance of such spaces and reflect on the relationships between our own identities and the spaces we inhabit. Readings will include works by Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Gibson, and others, and assignments will include essays, blogs, and presentations.

Section: 622 #5359
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC


English Grammar (ENGL 303)

Section: 077 #3052
Instructor: C. Fitzgerald
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

The goal of this course is to explore English grammar not only as a list of rules and regulations that govern linguistic behavior but also as a means for students to more clearly convey their ideas in speech and writing.  The rules of English grammar are not as strict as they once were, but there is still a noticeable difference between standard and substandard English.  The ability to discern this difference can improve the image one projects as well as one’s career advancement. This course will examine all elements of English grammar from parts of speech and how they function in a sentence to proper punctuation and how it enhances clear and precise prose.  While studying proper usage, students will discover that words commonly used in one context may not be appropriate in another. This course will also promote an appreciation for the English language and investigate techniques for utilizing language effectively in speech and writing. This course is required for students planning to teach high school English, but it is also open to others. 


Irish Literature (ENGL 309)

Section: 078 #3054
Instructor: T. Boyle
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

Since the late 19th Century to the present day, Irish writers have sought to reflect, critique and critically examine significant cultural changes; increasing secularization, economic prosperity and political shifts in power. In just over a century the social and political landscape of Irish society changed dramatically. We will explore how these writers respond to these developments. In particular we will analyze how religion has played a part in informing the imagination of Irish authors. Whether the Church is regarded as a medieval institution, plagued with superstitious rituals, or an over bearing monolith of spiritual corruption, or simply a cultural reference point, there is no doubt that it has made its presence felt within minds of Irish writers.

The quest for authenticity, identity, becomes politicized in the imagination of the Irish writers. Early modernists such as Joyce, Johnston and Yeats vigorously work to debunk prevailing ideas of romantic nationalism. This exciting period of literary change closely mirrors the advancement of social and political changes in Ireland and England; we read the works of these authors in light of these cultural and social movements.

Irish Lit. covers literature from 19th, 20th, and 21st C.


The Writing of Poetry (ENGL 317)

Section: 079 #1562
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

This course offers practice and instruction in the techniques and analysis of poetry through reading, writing, discussing, and revising poems. We will give particular attention to the unique challenges and opportunities  facing  beginning poets as we first seek to channel our  ideas and life experiences into poetry, to find and then develop our  own voices in relation to not only our own impulses but to “the tradition” and the aesthetically diverse,  complicated, and fascinating  world of contemporary poetry. What draws us to poetry in the first place? Why did it ever occur to us to do something like this? What does writing poetry offer us that nothing else can?  Poets who have recently published their first books of poetry will visit our class to reflect on these matters with us. The poems you write will be carefully read and critiqued by both your classmates and the instructor. The culmination of the course will be to compile a portfolio of  the work you have written over the term.

Section: 080 #1563
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM LSC

Section: 602 #5361
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC


The Writing of Fiction (ENGL 318)

Section: 082 #1565
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

Section: 083 #5362
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 PM – 5:15 PM LSC

Section: 603 #5363
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM LSC


Writing Creative Nonfiction (ENGL 319)

Section: 084 #3055
Instructor: TBA
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC


Chaucer (ENGL 322)

Section: 085 #4623
Instructor: A. Frantzen
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM LSC

We will read The Canterbury Tales with a focus on masculinity in the Middle Ages. Chaucer's poetry should be one of the high points of the English major, but many students avoid the course or dread it because Chaucer's works are read in Middle English rather than in translation. However, most students quickly realize that Chaucer was a remarkable writer and that translations cannot capture the power of his language or his culture. Learning enough Middle English to handle Chaucer's poetry takes work, but in a few weeks your translation skills will be up to the task. We will study the formation of masculinity in three contexts: the court (tales told by the Knight, the Wife of Bath, the Manciple); the working world (tales told by the Miller, Reeve, the Pardoner), and the learned world (tales told by the Man of Law, Clerk, and the Prioress). We will discuss other contexts and other tales as well. Requirements include class participation; a series of quizzes, weekly during the first half of the course weeks, two papers (one 6-7 pages, one 8-10 pages), and a mid-term and final examination. Texts: The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry Benson. Books at Beck's.


Studies in Medieval Literature (ENGL 323)

Section: 086 #5376
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This course will trace the history of English drama from its Latin roots through the Middle Ages and into the sixteenth century. Readings will include examples of liturgical drama, cycle drama, saints' plays, morality plays, and humanist drama, as well as relevant literary criticism. The course will also examine each type of drama in light of the conventions and practices that governed its original production. Although some texts will be in modern English translation, many will be in the original Middle English. Requirements will include active class participation, weekly responses, one short essay, one oral report and a related research paper, and a final essay.


Plays of Shakespeare (ENGL 326)

Section: 087 #1571
Instructor: V. Strain
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM LSC

This course refines students’ close reading and critical thinking skills through an intense engagement with a range of Shakespeare’s drama—his comedies, histories, tragedies, and later “romances.” We will examine Shakespeare’s language use and plots in the context of the early modern commercial theater (its material conditions and literary trends) and the poetic and rhetorical traditions disseminated through Elizabethan grammar schools. We will also consider Shakespeare’s status as an icon of English-speaking culture and as the poster-boy for the arts. To what extent does Shakespeare’s reputation rest on his texts and on posthumous performance, critical, pedagogical, and political traditions? While we will begin the course by focusing on the historical circumstances surrounding the composition of Shakespeare’s plays, we will end with a creative assignment that asks students to investigate the value of his works for present culture. Combining the texts of Shakespeare and the techniques of “guerilla” artists, students will explore the relationship between their reading life and contemporary life in a project that adapts, repurposes, or defamiliarizes their environment. Regular assignments and group discussions require students to stay on top of the reading, while the final assignment asks students to engage in intellectual risk-taking outside the classroom.

Section: 604 #1573
Instructor: J. Knapp
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC

This course will focus on a selection of Shakespeare’s plays in all the major genres (comedy, history, tragedy, and romance).  We will read the plays through a variety of critical approaches, taking into account the historical context in which they were produced.  To emphasize the importance of drama as intended for theatrical performance students will attend a production of Julius Caesar at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier.  Throughout the course of the semester we will focus on the development of drama in England, the material history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, and the political and cultural place of the theater in Shakespeare’s England.  Plays will include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Henry IV part 1, Julius Caesar, King Lear, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. The primary text will be David Bevington’s edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, 6th edition.  There will be papers, a midterm and a final.


Studies in the Renaissance (ENGL 328)

Section: 088 #2480
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 12:35 – 1:25 PM LSC

 

This course will focus on the earlier seventeenth century (1600-1660), and examine texts in various genres (poetry, prose, and drama), with an emphasis on material not covered in English 297 or English 325. Among the topics we will consider are: the functions of literature in the culture of late Renaissance England; the relationship between the authors' aspirations as poets and as participants in political events; the relationship between the authors' gender and their literary products; and the literary, intellectual, and political contexts in which their work was produced. Requirements will include two papers, a midterm, and a final. This course fulfills the pre-1700 requirement for the English major.


British Literature: Romantic Period (ENGL 335)

Section: 089 #1575
Instructor: J. Cragwall
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the most powerful earthly king was beheaded, the institution of monarchy annihilated, and a God who had been heretofore supposed “Almighty” overthrown.  “The French Revolution,” conceded even Edmund Burke, its greatest British opponent, was “all circumstances taken together … the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world.”  We’ll study this time of exuberance, dispute, and outburst, in which every inherited piety and orthodoxy seemed debatable.  We’ll read poets and novelists, of course—but we’ll also read lunatics and prophets, opium addicts and slave traders, peasant bards and the “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Lord Byron.  In William Wordsworth, we’ll find the first poetry created out of a “language really used by men”; in Percy Shelley, we’ll be seized by an art that announced itself a “sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it”; in John Keats, we’ll delight in verse dismissed as “mental masturbation.”  We’ll follow the rise of Napoleon, the fall of the Slave Trade, and the foundation of Australia—in newspapers and magazine articles, political pamphlets and diaries, as well as the parlors of Jane Austen.  Fulfills 1700-1900 requirement.  Papers, exams, floggings.


Studies in Victorian Literature (ENGL 343)

Section: 090 #2013
Instructor: F. Fennell
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 AM – 11:15 AM LSC

In this course we will study the literature of another age, but with a view toward seeing how it offers a fascinating commentary on our own times.  So many of the issues we are concerned about today—sexual equality, poverty, ecology, race relations, war as an instrument of  power—are issues that the Victorians, especially the Victorian novelists and poets, also cared about and wrote about, and we will uncover some hopeful and some disturbing relationships between their times and ours.  Authors we will read include the Brownings, Christina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, “George Eliot” (Marian Evans), Gerard Manley Hopkins, and others.  Two papers, a midterm, and a final.


Studies in British Literature: 20th Century (ENGL 348)

Section: 091 #5377
Instructor: J. Wexler
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

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.” This course will ask how writers responded to contemporary violence in a secular age, beginning at the turn of the 19th century and continuing to the postcolonial period at the end of the 20th century. Requirements include response papers, essays, and a final exam.

This course fills the post-1900 requirement.


Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 354)

Section: 092 #3056
Instructor: P. Jay
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

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, narration, writing, and reading, review a variety of approaches to critical analysis and interpretation, and consider the social, cultural, and political dimensions of critical theory and literary analysis. Required texts for this course include Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, by Jonathan Culler, Critical Terms for Literary Study (ed. Lentricchia and McLaughlin), a novel (Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), and some poems and short stories. Requirements include 2 shorter critical essays, regular quizzes, and a final longer paper.

Section: 093 #5378
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 2:30 PM – 3:45 PM LSC

In this course students will become familiar with the wide range of questions that critics bring to bear on literary works when those critics write literary criticism. Students will learn to read and understand the philosophical and historical bases of certain theoretical questions, to recognize these questions lying behind the literary criticism they read, and to compose literary analyses with these theories serving as a foundation for their work.


Literature From a Writer’s Perspective (ENGL 357)

Section: 094 #1577
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 2:30 – 5:00 PM LSC

LITERATURE FROM A WRITER’S PERSPECTIVE: EXISTENTIALISM IN FICTION`
Existentialism is a mostly twentieth century philosophic response to the problems of alienation, rootlessness, and sense of meaninglessness in modern life. Some of the philosophers associated with it (e.g., Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre) were also fine fiction writers; other fiction writers who weren’t philosophers (e.g., John Fowles and Richard Wright) were profoundly influenced by its ideas and tried to dramatize them in their work. This course will examine how existentialism impacted various writers’ fictions, looking particularly at the question, Can philosophic ideas be meaningfully dramatized and so avoid seeming ideologicalor didactic? Can such fiction avoid seeming sentimental or “wooden” in characterization and plot? If so, how do different writers do it? We will read fiction by writers such as Sartre, Camus, Walker Percy, Fowles, Kenzaburo Oe, Wright, and William Golding;class work will consist of a series of response papers, quizzes, class participation, a longer short story based on existential motifs, and a final. Important Note: Since significant written work will consist of student-written fiction, the prior taking of English 318, Introduction to Fiction Writing, is highly desirable and highly recommended.


Studies in American Literature (ENGL 379)

Section: 095 #3440
Instructor: S. Bost
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM LSC

Special Topic: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. Latina/o Literature

This course will examine how race, gender, and sexuality intersect in contemporary texts by U.S. Latina and Latino writers (Chicana/o, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and Dominican American, in particular). We will consider the range of formal and aesthetic modes used by these writers as we analyze the politics of identity that their texts imply.  Expect intense discussion about topics such as cultural nationalism, language, mestizaje, masculinity, feminism, and queerness.  Assignments will include regular in-class exercises, three formal papers, and an in-class presentation.  The authors we will study include Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, Arturo Islas, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Piri Thomas, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Cristina García, and Junot Díaz. 

NOTE:  This section fulfills the Multicultural Requirement for the English major.  It is also “tagged” as an elective in the Latin American Studies and Women’s Studies and Gender Studies programs.


Theology & Literature (ENGL 383)

Section: 073 #6246
Instructor: M. Bosco
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 AM LSC


Advanced Seminar: (ENGL 390)

Section: 16W #4108
Instructor: T. Kaminski
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 9:20AM – 10:10 AM LSC

This course will offer a broad survey of the writings of Jonathan Swift, the great Anglo-Irish satirist and political writer of the early eighteenth century. We will read the great satires (A Tale of a Tub, Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal), but we will also read some of Swift’s poetry and letters, as well as essays on the relation of politics to religion and on the political and economic state of Ireland. Because Swift’s writings are often deeply engaged with the political events and personalities of his day, this class will require some reading in the political history of the period. The assignments will include several short response papers, two oral reports, a term paper (done in two drafts), and a final exam.

Section: 17W #4109
Instructor: C. Kendrick
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 11:30 – 12:20 PM LSC

Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction

The seminar will discuss works from what can be considered the utopian literary tradition.  We will focus on two main generic questions:  the relation between utopias and dystopias (some have argued that they are generically the same, others that they are quite different), and the ways in which some science fiction works extend and take part in the utopian tradition.  Works will tentatively include:  More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, Diderot’s  Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville, some writing by Charles Fourier (excerpted), Morris’ News from Nowhere, Wells’ The Time Machine, Orwell’s 1984, Dick’s Ubik, Leguin’s Always Coming Home, the Strugatskis’ Roadside Picnic if we can get it, Callenbach’s Ecotopia, Mieville’s The Scar, Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.  There will also be critical readings, theoretical and practical.  Requirements include a short paper (5-7 pages), a longer paper (12-15 pages), and two class "leads" (leading a discussion rather than giving a formal presentation).

Section: 18W #4110
Instructor: H. Mann
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MWF 2:45 – 3:35 PM LSC

"Into Other Worlds:" Post-9/11 Global Fiction

In his essay "A Failure of the Imagination: Diagnosing the Post-9/11 Novel," Michael Rothberg criticizes the sentimental, domestic cast of much 9/11 American fiction. Instead he calls for a radical "deterritorialization" through "a fiction of international relations and extraterritorial citizenship," a "centrifugal mapping that charts the outward movement of American power. . . . into other worlds" if we are to "grapple seriously with the contemporary context of war and terror" and plumb "the context out of which the terror attacks emerged in the first place."

Looking to such "extraterritorial literature of our new age of war and terror," this section of English 390 will examine selected novels by non-western, chiefly Muslim writers--including (tentatively) Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown (2005), Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows (2009), Laila Halaby's Once in a Promised Land (2007), H.M. Naqvi's Home Boy: A Novel (2009), and Kazim Ali's The Disappearance of Seth (2009)--to explore the authors' analysis of the following issues: the links between American power and the disaffection of those whom Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk describes as "the damned of the world"; the connection between the long, centuries-old history of colonial terror and twenty-first century postcolonial terror; the parallels between Self and Other, between the perpetrators and targets of terror; the political, sociological, and economic causes of global unrest and terrorism; and the linkage between global migration and global capitalism on the one hand and nationalism and fundamentalism on the other hand. For contextual information, there will be required readings in political history, prose commentaries on 9/11, and theoretical and critical essays. Graded assignments will include a midterm paper (5-6 pages), a final paper (9-10 pages), a class presentation and leading of class discussion, and conscientious class participation.

This course meets the multicultural and post-1900 requirements of the English major.

Section: 19W #5379
Instructor: B. Bouson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM LSC

This section of English 390 will focus on the depiction of shame in selected works by 20th- and  21st-century authors.  Often referred to by affect theorists as the “master emotion,” shame is “a multidimensional, multilayered experience,” observes Gershen Kaufman.  “While first of all an individual phenomenon experienced in some form and to some degree by every person, shame is equally a family phenomenon and a cultural phenomenon.  It is reproduced within families, and each culture has its own distinct sources as well as targets of shame.”  This course will provide students with a brief introduction to and overview of shame theory, including psychological accounts of shame and its related feeling states (such as embarrassment, humiliation, and lowered self-esteem) and the classic defenses against shame (such as contempt or arrogance or shamelessness).  The authors we will read include Kafka, Bellow, Morrison, Moore, and Allison. There will be oral presentations, papers, and exams.


Teaching English to Adults (ENGL 393)

Section: 01S #1620
Instructor: J. Heckman
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MTWR 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM LSC

This course offers an excellent opportunity for service learning and practical experience in tutoring adults in written and spoken English at the Loyola Community Literacy Center, located in Dumbach Hall on the Lake Shore Campus in Rooms 05 and 06.  No previous tutoring experience is necessary.  Students tutor adult learners, some of whom are native English speakers preparing for the GED or improving their literacy skills.  Other learners are immigrants or refugees whose skills in their native language range from their being highly educated professionals to being perhaps functionally illiterate, and who may know some English or no English.  The Center is open M-Th evenings during the fall and spring semesters from 7-9:30 pm.  Students may take the English 393 course for 1, 2, or 3 credit hours; when taken for 3 credit hours, the course fulfills the Core Engaged Learning-Service Learning Internship requirement.  Students must attend an orientation as well as bi-weekly class meetings (5 class meetings total; a 6th meeting for those students taking the course for 3 credit hours and Core credit).  Students tutor one or two evenings a week, depending on the number of credit hours for which they are registered.  Students are required to keep a weekly journal of their experiences, examine a textbook and journal articles concerned with literacy, language, and adult education, submit ten journals and four papers throughout the semester, and prepare a final paper or project.  Core students have an additional reading and written report.  More information can be found at www.luc.edu/literacy; follow the links to "tutoring" and then "course credit tutoring" for a complete description of the requirements for each of the credit hour electives. 

Section: 02S #1621
Instructor: J. Heckman
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MTWR 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM LSC

(See above.)


Internship (ENGL 394)

Section: 097 #1623
Instructor: B. Ahad


Honors Tutorial: (ENGL 395)

Section: 30W #3441
Instructor: P. Shillingsburg
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 10:00 – 11:15 AM LSC

Victorian Autobiography

We will study actual and fictional autobiographies to 1)  try to develop an idea of what Victorians through of themselves or 2) wanted their readers to think they thought of themselves or 3) how to get past what they wanted their readers to think to something that they might have revealed inadvertently;  and to make observations on the similarities and differences between fiction and whatever autobiography might be; and to see how autobiography is structured and how that might or might not be like structuring one's self.  One objective of the course will be to develop a way to negotiate the distance between the ethos of a historical period and our own\to develop a scholarly way to deal with an inability to be objective or completely disinterested.

Tentative reading list\we won't read all of them. Students with alternative suggestions should submit them to the instructor before the beginning of the semester.

Annie Wood Besant Annie Besant: An Autobiography (autobiography) 1893
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre; an Autobiography [as Currer Bell] (novel) 1847
Samuel Butler The Way of All Flesh (novel) 1903
Thomas Carlyle Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh (prose) 1833-34
Charles Darwin The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1929;
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography 1873
John Ruskin's Praeterita 1885-89
Autobiography of Mrs. Oliphant 1899
Elizabeth Missing Sewell Autobiography 1907
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield 1848- 49
M. Thakceray, Pendennis 1849-50

Section: 31W #5380
Instructor: S. Jones
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 11:30 – 12:45 PM LSC

The Emergence of the Digital Humanities

In this collaborative seminar we'll explore the interdisciplinary field of the digital humanities from the perspective of literary studies. This new field, or the new version of it, has emerged in the past 7-8 years at a significant moment in the larger culture’s attitude towards networked technology, a shift captured in novelist William Gibson’s claim that “cyberspace is everting”—turning itself inside out and colonizing the physical world. We’ll read and interpret with an eye to exploring this moment of eversion and its theoretical and cultural implications, including the rise of the new digital humanities. Texts will include fiction by authors such as Ernest Cline, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Vernor Vinge, and theoretical and critical selections in the volumes A Companion to the Digital Humanities and Debates in the Digital Humanities, as well as selected works of new media including video games and films. Course requirements include participation in seminar discussions, media presentations, and a final paper with a practical or "built" component. Prerequisite: an engaged, hands-on, scholarly curiosity about the future of the humanities. Watch Jones's pages (http://stevenejones.org) for further details and a syllabus when they become available.


Advanced Writing Workshop: Poetry (ENGL 397)

Section: 32W #2015
Instructor: A. Baker
3.0 credit hours Lecture
F 2:45 – 5:15 PM LSC

In this advanced poetry workshop, we will seek to deepen our engagement with poetry as an art form—both as readers and writers. Through reading, writing, and workshopping, we will grow more familiar with the anatomy and texture of poetry: image, word, voice, syntactical configurations, rhetorical devices— stanza, line, punctuation, and page. Your work will be given a great deal of individual attention in our workshops, and you will be offered the opportunity to work very closely with the    instructor as you write and revise your final project for the course—a portfolio of your best work.

ENGL 397-32W is a writing intensive class


Advanced Writing: Fiction (ENGL 398)

Section: 33W #1625
Instructor: D. Kaplan
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM LSC

A fiction writing workshop for those who have already taken English 318, which builds upon concepts of fictional art and craft studied there. Students will write three original stories, which will be discussed and critiqued by the instructor and by one's fellow writers in a supportive workshop environment. Students will also read the work of master fiction writers, such as Steven Milhauser, Haruki Murakami, Joy Williams, Richard Ford, and others. Class participation is emphasized. Note: English 318, Introduction to Fiction Writing, is a prerequisite for this workshop.


Special Studies in Literature (ENGL 399)

Section: 098 #1626
Instructor: B. Ahad

Students arrange for this course on an individual basis by consulting a faculty member who agrees to supervise the independent study.  When the student and the faculty member have agreed on the work to be done, the student submits the plan to the director of undergraduate programs for approval and registration.  Usually students will work independently and produce a research paper, under the direction of the faculty member.





GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSES

Teaching College (ENGL 402)

Section: 800 #1637
Instructor: V. Anderson
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC

In English 402, we will examine the practices of teaching college composition and the theories that undergird those practices. We will begin by examining the way in which writing programs are positioned within Departments of English and within the university and then move to an exploration of major pedagogical movements in the discipline. Your thoughtful encounters with the theory/practice nexus will result in your own informed teaching philosophy.

Section: 813 #6289
Instructor: M. Bradshaw
3.0 credit hours Lecture
M 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC

(See above.)


History of the Book (ENGL 412)

Section: 805 #
Instructor: E. Wheatley
3.0 credit hours Lecture
W 7:00 – 9:30 PM LSC

This course will examine the history of written and printed texts from their beginnings to 1800, including such topics as book production and distribution, early ideas about textual editing, literacy, copyright, and censorship. Students will make use of the rich collections of primary source materials in the Newberry Library as the basis for much of their research. (Students based near the Lakeshore Campus can reach the Newberry easily by taking the free shuttle bus to the Water Tower campus and walking about 10 minutes to the library at 60 W. Walton St.)

Assignments are: a project based on one of the Newberry’s medieval manuscripts with a presentation to the class which will be written up as an essay of 10-12 pages, an oral report on a historical topic relating to book history that will be written up as a paper of at least 10 pages; and a final project on a topic of the student’s choice that will be presented to the class and written up as an essay of 15-20 pages.


Postmodernism (ENGL 428)

Section: 801 #
Instructor: P. Caughie
3.0 credit hours Lecture
TR 4:15 – 5:30 PM LSC

The main point of the course is to come to terms with the term "postmodernism" and its various uses:  as a literary period, as an aesthetic style, as an historical moment, as a cultural problematic, and as a theoretical imperative. The focus of this course is on western fiction and theory since World War II that can be discussed in terms of this powerful contemporary discourse. Taking it as a given that postmodernism is an object of contestation for various strains of theory (Marxist, feminist, poststructuralist), we will trace out some of those portrayals in the work of a handful of theorists and writers who have developed influential characterizations of postmodernism. We will investigate a complex of aesthetic, social-historical, political, and theoretical issues which inform postmodern literature and culture, and, in doing so, we will take up that vexed issue of the relation between postmodernism and modernism.  We will discuss postmodernism in relation to other art forms--architecture, painting, photography, film--as well. Our goal, in short, will be to map out the discursive domain of the postmodern era, keeping in mind that "postmodern" does not mean "contemporary."


Topics Early Modern Literature Culture (ENGL 450)

Section: 802 #5381
Instructor: J. Biester
3.0 credit hours Lecture
MW 4:15 – 5:30 PM LSC

This course will examine magic and the representation of magic in the literature and culture of the early modern period, or Renaissance, when ideas about magic overlapped with ideas about nature and science, religion, social and political hierarchy, gender, and crime. To explore how magic intersected with these various spheres of the culture, and how writers envisioned their art in relation to magic, we will read texts in a variety of genres, including plays, poems, ballads, witchcraft pamphlets, and selections from treatises on magical practices, and consider a variety of approaches to the study of magic. Requirements will include short and long papers, presentations in class, and possibly a take-home final exam.


Victorian Novel (ENGL 478)

Section: 803 #5382
Instructor: M. Clarke
3.0 credit hours Lecture
T 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM LSC

In this course we will explore the development of secularism as a central component in the social imaginary of Victorian culture.  We will employ Charles Taylor’s definition of secularism to elucidate debates regarding Catholic, Protestant and Jew; scientific discourse, positivism, reason and faith; and an expanding understanding of the holy accompanied by an increasing emphasis on what Huxley termed “the physical basis of life.”   

Primary Texts:  Charlotte Brontë, Villette; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone; Charles Dickens, Bleak House; George Eliot, Middlemarch; Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas.

Supplementary readings:  Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; Carlyle, from Sartor Resartus and Past and Present; Arnold, from Culture and Anarchy, selected poems; (brief) selections from Darwin, Huxley, Gosse, Pater, Hopkins, Newman, and Browning.

Criticism and Theory:  Charles Taylor, from  A Secular Age; Gauri Viswanathan, “Secularism in the Framework of Heterodoxy,” in PMLA: The Changing Profession, 2008: 466-477, and others, tba.


American Realism (ENGL 493)

Section: 804 #5383
Instructor: J. Kerkering
3.0 credit hours Lecture
R 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM LSC

This course examines both the theory and practice of literary Realism as it is manifested in the criticism and fiction of a variety of writers from the period of 1875-1915. Special emphasis will be placed on the manner in which literary Realists defined their work by distinction to competing modes of writing (for example sentimentalism, regionalism, and naturalism) and by association with contemporary forms of labor (including wage labor and market speculation). In addition to primary literary and theoretical sources, students will read secondary critical accounts of particular works and current critical assessments of Realism as a cultural and ideological practice.