Fall 2008 Courses

Descriptions and teaching assignments occasionally change. Check InsideND for updates as well.

 

FALL 2008 Courses

(PDF ONLY)

Links below are under construction. Use only information contained in PDF above.

 


University Fine Arts Requirement

 

ENGL 20000

Introduction to Creative Writing

Section 1, Creative Writing Staff, MWF 9:35–10:25

Section 2, Creative Writing Staff, MWF 3:00–3:50

This course is an introduction to writing fiction and poetry, beginning with short exercises which will lengthen with the semester. Coursework will include outside reading in both fiction and poetry, coverage of basic critical terms, and in-class discussion of student work. Regular attendance and participation are essential; you will also be required to attend several readings on campus. Exams will be in the form of writing assignments.

ENGL 20013

Fiction Writing

Matthew Benedict

MW 11:45–1:00

Have you ever finished reading a novel or a short story and thought: “I wish I could do that”? Or: “I think I can do that”? Or: “I want to do that”? Well, this course is for you.

In this workshop-style course, we’ll explore the craft as well as the artistic aspects of writing fiction. We’ll read a wide sample of contemporary short fiction as “writers,”” meaning we’ll dissect the various techniques writers employ in the writing of their stories. We’ll also work on several in-class and out-of-class writing assignments (1–4 pages each) designed to practice those techniques. Students will then write three original short stories, which will be read and discussed by other members of the class. At the end of the semester,, students will complete a portfolio of revised work. And, in order to assist us in our explorations, we will be attending campus literary events,, to hear “up close and personal” from actively publishing writers. Writing is a journey. Ours begins now.

ENGL 20018

Fiction Writing

Valerie Sayers

MW 1:30–2:45

In the first half of the semester, we’ll read contemporary fiction in both traditional and experimental modes, and you’ll try out a variety of narrative voices in short exercises. In the second half, student stories will become the assigned texts and we’ll function as a workshop, responding to each other’s fiction in written responses and in class. You’ll turn in two complete stories, each 10–25 pages, and, as a final assignment, one complete rewrite. Throughout the semester, we’ll question the connections between content and form, pop culture and literary history, commerce, and art.

ENGL 20021

Fiction Writing: Writing Speculative Fiction

Sarah Micklem

MW 4:30–5:45

This course is for students interested in writing speculative fiction — whether historical, fantastical, or scientific — that gets beyond tired tropes of rocket ships and gadgets or wizards and dragons. Certain speculations are fundamental to many kinds of fiction, as writers ask themselves, with every sentence and scene they put on paper: What will these characters say and do, think and feel in a certain situation? How will they change? How will they change the situation? How is the story to be told? Who is telling it? Writers of speculative fiction must answer these questions at the same time that they pursue other questions that fascinate them (How does the nature of identity change if many people are duplicates? What will happen in New York City if the sea level rises four feet?). They must try to create convincing un-realities that immerse readers in what John Gardner called “the vivid and continuous dream” of fiction. Students will write short thought experiments, create interactive texts, and write two stories or novel chapters of 8–20 pages. We will read fiction by writers such as Borges, Le Guin, Lem, Butler, and Gibson to examine their themes and the fictional techniques they use to explore ideas. Guest lecturers from other fields (such as anthropology, law, physics, engineering) will visit the class to discuss issues raised by their research.

ENGL 20040

Poetry Writing

Joyelle McSweeney

TR 3:30–4:45

If you are looking for a dynamic, creative community in which to explore traditional and innovative poetry forms and genres, while sharing your work with peers, this is the course for you. We will focus on contemporary poetry, but we will be mindful of the traditional vectors which spur innovation, as well as the potential of poetry to form hybrid genres with fiction, drama, essays, film, history, and song. We will use course readings to generate new texts, and we will practice giving productive feedback on each other’s work. Readings will include new works by young American poets as well as modern and contemporary works in translation from Mexico, Korea, Scandinavia, and elsewhere. Expect to encounter and create texts in a variety of media, including books, chapbooks, magazines, webjournals and archives, broadsides, performances, and so on. Assignments will include weekly poems, brief responses to course texts and peer work, presentations and collaborations, and a final project.

 

University Literature Requirement

 

ENGL 20151

Literature of Sport

Matthew Benedict

MW 8:00–9:15

Sports and athletics have held prominent roles in human societies since the beginnings of civilization. Across centuries, nation states have used athletic competition for a variety of purposes, from paying homage to distant gods to demonstrating superiority over neighboring tribes and cultures. And the individuals, the “warriors,” who excel on those “fields of battle,” are venerated as heroes, champions, “gods.” In this course, students will analyze a variety of literary texts related to sports and athletics. From depictions of wrestlers on temple walls in Ancient Egypt, to the poetry of Rudyard Kipling, to Grantland Rice’s New York Herald Tribune “Four Horsemen” article, to films/novels/non-fiction (e.g., Fever Pitch by Nick Hornsby, Counting Coup by Larry Colton, Chariots of Fire, and Hoop Dreams), the investigation of the literature of sport will cover a range of topics — race, gender, class, globalization, and the purposes and functions of athletic competition — including the rise of the “super-star” athlete as a “god.” (The bulk of the texts will be from the latter half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. We will also make use of the Joyce Sports Research Collection in the Hesburgh Library.) The goal of such an “historical” approach is straightforward: to show how concepts (e.g., notions of the “professional” vs. the “amateur” athlete) have changed over time. Another, more subtle goal of the “historical” approach is to introduce students to more refined methods of serious literary inquiry: using literary texts that have “familiar” subject matters, i.e., sports and athletics, students will learn to “dig through” the obvious surface meanings of these “familiar texts” to more sophisticated correlative explications.

Required work: quizzes, two essays, “podtations,” midterm, final examination. Active class participation will be required of all students (the ongoing format of the course will be that of a “seminar” and not a “lecture”). In addition, students will be broken out into permanent “pods,” made up of 5–6 students each. At the end of each segment of the course, students will gather with their “podmates” and a single question will be posed to all pods. Each pod will, then, collectively compose an answer. Answers, “podtations,” will be given orally by one “spokesperson” from each pod to the entire class (spokespersons will change with each segment of the course). Once each pod has responded, all answers will be discussed in comparison. This “pod” approach will serve two key functions: to foster a collaborative learning environment among students and to encourage debate on different “interpretations” of the texts studied during that particular course segment.

 

ENGL 20214

Arthurian Literature

Dolores Frese

TR 3:30–4:45

The large body of history, chronicle, verse narrative and prose fiction gathered under the canopy-term "Arthurian Legend" represents one of the most enduring and complex literary phenomena of Western culture. In this class we will read a selection of Arthurian texts composed from the 10th to the 20th century. While our readings are drawn from texts written originally in medieval Latin, French, German, Welsh, Middle and Modern English, all linguistically less-accessible items from the Middle Ages will be read in Modern English translations.

In addition to the collective work of reading and reflecting on how and why this great body of myth and legend has managed to survive and thrive through such variant times and places (including contemporary film versions which we may view in whole or in part from time to time), each student will also choose a particular Arthurian hero or heroine [Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, Guinevere, Galahad, Merlin, Modred, Perdceval, Vivian, Morgan la Fey, etc.] and a particular mytho-poetic Arthurian theme [the Round Table, the Grail Quest, the uses of enchantment, magical objects, the culture of shame, etc.] for special study which should culminate in a term essay combining comparative literary history and textual analysis.

Texts will be drawn from early chronicle entries concerning Arthur; the Arthurian sections of Geoffrey of Monmouth's legendary History of the Kings of Britain; Chretien de Troyes' Perceval, or, the Story of the Grail, and selected Lais of Marie de France; some short prose fictions from the Welsh Mabinogion; Gottfried's Tristan; The Quest of the Holy Grail; the alliterative and stanzaic English poems describing the Death of Arthur; Sir Gawain & the Green Knight; Malory's late, great orchestrated compilation of these romance texts in Morte Darthur; Tennyson's Idylls of the King; and one 20th century Arthurian fictiion or film chosen in conference with the instructor.

Midterm & final examinations. Term essay. Occasional reading quizzes and/ or short (1 page) response papers.

The large body of history, verse chronicle, heroic narrative, poetic romance, and prose fiction — all gathered under the canopy term “Arthurian Legend” — represents one of the most fascinating and most enduring literary phenomena of western culture. In this class, which will follow a lecture-discussion format, we will read a selection of writings that reflect the textual trace of Arthur from his earliest appearances in mytho-historical chronicles beginning in the sixth century and extending from the earliest medieval poetic and prose fictions featuring Arthur and the members of his court, through the great array of writers, past and present, who have tended these myths and legends with such imaginative care.

Our readings, which begin in the Middle Ages, will culminate with the “Arthurian revivals” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the latter extending to theatrical and film texts ranging from “Camelot” and Eric Rohmer’s Perceval to Monty Python and Indiana Jones in their post-modern questing for the Holy Grail. In addition to attending ways in which the sheer pleasures-of-the-text have been constructed by these gifted authors, our own “literary quest” will involve questions of historical and social context, gender and genre, the history of reception, modes of literary representation including techniques of symbolic and allegorical figuration, and ways in which the theoretical and/or ideological positions of both writers and their audiences constrain and inspire the works they produce. While pondering how and why this vast body of myth and legend, clustered around the figure of Arthur, has managed to survive and thrive through such remarkably variant shifts of time, place, and circumstance; and while reflecting thoughtfully on our own investment in — or resistance to — the variety of assigned readings, each student will choose for particular close study an Arthurian hero, heroine, or villain (Lancelot, Gawain, Guinevere, Galahad, Merlin, Modred, etc.), as well as some mytho-historical theme like the Round Table, the Grail Quest, the Sword-in-the-Stone, the Bride Quest, the Giant Combat, the Fatherless Boy, the Childless Queen, etc. etc., as this “character” or “motif” presents some specific problem in interpretation.

These “character studies” and thematic clusters will form the basis of two short essays, one due at mid term, one at end term. Specific topics, which will be shaped through individual consultation with the teacher, should, in the course of their critical argument, engage a variety of formal, stylistic, and rhetorical practices that have been employed by writers from the twelfth to the twentieth century as they conform to — and create fresh versions of — the plenitude of literary exemplars that characterize Arthurian Legend. Creative projects — individual or collective — are also welcome and, with the approval of the teacher, may be substituted for one of the essays. These alternative ways of investigating the materials of Arthurian Legend might include original poetic or prose compositions, dramatic presentations, graphic arts, videos, and/or musical performances, vocal or instrumental performances.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Attendance at all class sessions and intelligent participation in class discussion based on careful prior reading of the assigned material. Two short (8–12-page) essays, described above. Occasional reading quizzes (announced); midterm and final written exams.

TEXTS: [All readings in Modern English translation] Brief selections from the early historians of Britain, including Gildas (sixth century), Nennius (tenth century), and the Arthurian sections of Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (twelfth century); an Arthurian romance by Chrétien de Troyes and two or three short poetic tales from the Lais of Marie de France (both twelfth century); two prose fictions from the thirteenth-century Welsh Mabinogion (one of them represents the earliest Arthurian story that survives in written form); The Quest of the Holy Grail (from the great thirteenth-century “Prose Lancelot”); Arthur and Gorlagon (a short Arthurian werewolf fiction originally composed in Latin); selected “Books” of Malory’s Morte Darthur; Tennyson’s Idylls of the King; and one twentieth-century fiction, chosen in discussion with the teacher.

 

ENGL 20526 / IRST 30226

Writing Nations: Defining Englishness and Irishness in Victorian-Era Literature

Heather Edwards

TR 9:30–10:45

This course seeks to counter the view of English and Irish literature as unrelated during the Victorian period by exploring how both Irish and English writers of the period engage in the process of defining their respective countries and cultures. Certainly, in the Victorian era defining Ireland’s relationship to England was anything but simple. What becomes apparent by exploring Irish and English attempts to write about their respective “nations” is not only the divergence in ways Irish and English writers characterized the relationship between the two countries but also how the process of defining Irish and English realities ultimately took different forms. Therefore, this course will not only explore how individual writers go about writing “nations” but how the forms these writings take also reveal certain intersections and divergences between what characterizes Irishness and Englishness.

 

ENGL 20576

Victorian Poetry

Brooke Cameron

9:35–10:25 MWF

This course is designed to introduce students to Victorian poetry and culture. We will study poems by canonical figures such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Matthew Arnold, Oscar Wilde, A. C. Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, D. G. Rossetti, and Christina Rossetti. We will also look at poems by lesser-known figures such as Amy Levy, Alice Meynell, Charlotte Mew, Lionel Johnson, Augusta Webster, and Michael Field. Selections from Victorian prose will help us understand all of these poems in relationship to nineteenth-century developments in literary and aesthetic theory. This course will also pursue several organizing themes and topics that preoccupied much of the Victorian imagination, such as social reform, the woman question, the crisis of faith, evolutionary science, empire, self and society, aestheticism, and modernity.

We will not only read poetry in its historical context, but will also focus on how poetry — through aesthetic, formal, and intellectual innovations — transformed this cultural landscape that is the Victorian era. A range of assignments and classroom activities are designed to further foster students’ critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. Regular participation, including classroom discussion and four short in-class writing assignments (2 pages maximum), will allow students to position themselves within competing interpretations and arguments. Two formal papers (8–10 pages each) will give students an opportunity to apply their analytical and rhetorical skills as they develop their own interpretation of a text as situated within the relevant historical and cultural contexts. Ideally, this course will inspire students’ appreciation not only for Victorian poetry but also for the importance of literature and writing in their own lives. Course requirements: regular participation, two papers, a midterm exam, and a final exam. Required text: The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory, concise edition.

ENGL 20608:

“The Real Contemporary Novel: American Fiction 2000–Present”

John Hess

MWF 1:55–2:45

Many “Contemporary Fiction” classes conclude with works published around the time that you were born in the mid to late 1980s. This course focuses on novels published during the decade in which you are living and examines the interpretive difficulties raised by such works. Without being able to rely on an established history of scholarly criticism or their place among the so-called “great books” of civilization, the reader of contemporary novels must actively consider why these works are worth studying as well as how they function. The major aims of this course are to introduce you to these exciting novels and to provide you with the critical and interpretive framework for determining what contemporary literature is and why it matters. We will focus on eight novels and novellas examining the intersections between self and society and between literary art and the popular cultures of film, television, hip-hop, rock, and comic books. Readings include novels and novellas by Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Lethem, David Markson, and Toni Morrison. The course also includes a screening of the film adaptation of Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. Class discussion, student presentations, two 5–7-page papers and one 7–10-page paper are required.

ENGL 20609

Chicago in Words

Todd Thorpe

MWF 11:45–12:35

Early twentieth-century Chicago was famous for its railways and stockyards, jazz and gangsters. The city saw the creation of great industrial fortunes and the birth in 1905 of the Industrial Workers of the World. The literature taken up in this class brings the dynamic contradictions of the Chicago experience to life. We will look at work by Jane Addams, Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, Gwendolyn Brooks, John Dos Passos, Carl Sandburg, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Ward, and Richard Wright, covering a range of literary expression from impassioned journalism, to poetry, novels, and drama. Each genre brings with it its own tradition, conventions, and representational strategies. We will accordingly pay close attention to questions of literary form as well as content. The class will reflect on the differences between genres as well as the relation of Chicago literature to the journalism, social advocacy, sociology, and the emerging urban theory also being written during this period. We will consider the relation of modernism to realism. We will look at the ways in which Chicago capitalism altered nature, challenged traditional forms of identity, and created new forms of urban community. We will spend a week exploring Chicago’s jazz and blues, while we will also look at the 1932 gangster film Scarface, screenplay by Chicago journalist and Oscar winner Ben Hecht. Chicago is a city of tremendous vitality and shocking brutality that has reinvented itself time and again, and the writers we will read have taken up this task of urban invention with a shared urgency and a wide range of voices. Students will be expected to contribute consistently to class discussion, to read poems aloud as we explore the connections between meter, poetic form, and jazz, and to present in small groups of 4–5 a dramatic scene from Big White Fog. The dramatic presentation will involve performing a section of the play and offering the class an imaginary staging of the play, with ideas concerning set design, lighting, and costumes.Course requirements: active class participation, short response papers, creative responses (poems), a class presentation of a scene from Big White Fog by Theodore Ward, and an 8–10-page paper.

 

ENGL 20707

American Novel

John Staud

MWF 9:35–10:25

We will read, discuss, and study selected novels of significance within the American literary tradition. As we explore these novels within their historical and cultural context, we will consider the various reasons for their place within the canon of American literature. Indeed, we will scrutinize the very nature of this literary canon and self-consciously reflect on the inevitably arbitrary nature of this, or any,, reading list. Even so, we will see, I hope, that these authors share deep engagement with ideas and themes common to American literature and do so through their art in ways that both teach and delight. Required Texts: Moby-Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Awakening, The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, The Old Man and the Sea, The Bluest Eye.

 

ENGL 20709

God and Evil in Modern Literature

Thomas Werge

MWF 10:40–11:30

A study of selected modern writers whose concern with God and evil, faith and despair, and the reality and significance of suffering animates their writings. In considering the relationships between the religious imagination and experience and its expression in literature, we will discuss the ways in which writers envision the nature and purpose of narrative and of language itself --as efficacious and even sacred or as ineffectual. Before dealing with particular modern writers, we will reflect on the presuppositions of the Bible and medieval thought and literature in relation to truth, faith, and narrative. Readings will be selected from the following: St Francis, Little Flowers; Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov; DeVries, The Blood of the Lamb; Melville, Billy Budd; Greene, The Power and the Glory or The End of the Affair; Flannery O’Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge or The Violent Bear It Away; Hammarskjold, Markings; Roth, Job; Kazantzakis, Saint Francis; Weil, Waiting for God; Hawthorne, Selected Tales; Wiesel, Night; and narratives by Primo Levi, Dinesen, and Updike.

ENGL 20726 / CLAS 30022

Roman Literature and Culture

Hildegund Müller

MWF 1:55–2:45

This course surveys the leading works of ancient Roman literature and examines the cultural contexts in which they were written, received, and transmitted. Students read poetry and prose from many genres, and sample works from six hundred years of literary versatility that combined enormous originality with a literary tradition inherited from the Greeks. Among the authors introduced are Plautus, Lucretius, Catullus, Cicero, Horace, Livy, Lucan, Tacitus, Apuleius, Ammianus, and Augustine. Special attention is paid to the formal structures of Roman literary works, the cultural issue they raise, and the lasting value of Latin literature to the modern age. The course prepares students for more advanced study in classical literature and culture. Offered annually.

ENGL 20727 / MELC 20020

Revelation to Revolution: Arabic Literature in Global Context


Joseph Amar

MWF 3:00–3:50


This basic introduction to Arabic literature links the phenomenon of “literature” to the larger world of Islamic studies. The course 
emphasizes connections between Arabic literary tradition and that of 
other Semitic and western traditions. Topics include the idea of 
scripture, “Falasuufs” and the Renaissance, the literature of 
empire, Al-Andanus–Muslim Spain, mytho-poetics, rogues, and 
scoundrels. All readings are in English.

ENGL 20760

Twentieth-Century American Drama

Julieann Ulin

MW 4:30–5:45

This class will focus on key works of modern and contemporary American drama from three plays by Eugene O’Neill (Desire Under the Elms, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day’s Journey into Night) to Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize winning 2003 play Anna in the Tropics. In addition to critical readings and selected European plays on reserve, focal playwrights include Edward Albee, Sam Shepherd, Paula Vogel, Amiri Baraka, Luis Valdez, David Mamet, August Wilson, Josefina López, Yellow Robe, Anna Devere Smith, Eve Ensler, and Moisis Kaufmann. Requirements will include group staged scenes, journal entries on selected plays, and three 4-page papers. In addition, students are required to attend one campus play over the course of the semester and write a written critique of the production and performance.

ENGL 20952 / LLEA 33317

The Samurai in Classical Japanese Literature

Michael Brownstein

MW 1:30–2:45

The sword-wielding samurai warrior is perhaps the most familiar icon of pre-modern Japan, one that continues to influence how Japanese think of themselves and how others think of Japan even in modern times. Who were the samurai? How did they see themselves? How did other members of Japanese society see them in the past? How did the role and the image of the samurai change over time? To answer these questions, we will explore the depiction of samurai in various kinds of texts: episodes from quasi-historical chronicles, fourteenth-century Noh plays, seventeenth-century short stories, and eighteenth-century Kabuki and puppet plays (many Kabuki plays, a theater of live actors, were first written for the puppet theater). While some of these texts emphasize themes of loyalty, honor, and military prowess, others focus on the problems faced by samurai in their domestic lives during times of peace. The last part of the course will be devoted to the most famous of all stories, “The Revenge of the 47 Samurai.” Students will read eyewitness accounts of this vendetta, which occurred in 1702, and then explore how the well-known Kabuki/puppet play Chushingura (“A Treasury of Loyal Retainers,” 1748) dramatizes the conflicting opinions surrounding it. All readings will be English translation and no previous knowledge of Japan is required. This course satisfies the University Literature requirement.

ENGL 20953 / LLEA 33103

Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature

Liangyan Ge

MW 11:45–1:00

In this course we will read English translations of works in twentieth-century Chinese literature, especially short stories and plays written from the May 4th Movement in 1919 to the beginning of the Reform in the early eighties. We will discuss the literary expressions of China’s weal and woe in modern times and of the Chinese people’s frustrations and aspirations when their country was experiencing unprecedented social changes. No prior knowledge of the Chinese language or Chinese culture is required for taking the course.

ENGL 20954 / LLEA 33101

Heroism and Eroticism in Chinese Fiction

Liangyan Ge

MW 3:00–4:15

In this course we will read works in Chinese fiction from the late imperial periods. We will discuss the aesthetic features of such works and their cultural underpinnings, especially the infusion of Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist meanings. Particularly, we will focus on heroism and eroticism as two major themes in Chinese fiction and their specific expressions in each work. We will consider the transition from heroism to eroticism as a shift of narrative paradigm, which coincided with a general trend of “domestication” in traditional Chinese fiction. Through the readings and discussions, the students are expected to become familiar with pre-modern Chinese narrative tradition and acquainted with some aspects of Chinese culture. All the readings are in English translation, and no prior knowledge of China or the Chinese language is required.

ENGL 22513 and ENGL 22514 / IRST 30371 and IRST 18033

Introduction to Irish Writers

Sean O’Brien

MW 10:40–11:30 Lecture

F 10:40–11:30 Lab

This course is an introduction to selected Irish writers from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, including Swift, Edgeworth, Stoker, Joyce, and Yeats. Along with Irish writing in English, we will also look at several Irish-language works in translation. We will read the writers with special attention to Irish history, to Anglo-Irish relations, to the question of Irish identity and identities, to the emergence of nationalism, and to the rise of the modern Irish state and the crisis in the north. Since the excitement of the course is in the readings themselves, each student is expected to read the assigned texts and to come to class prepared. Each student is also expected to come to the weekly Friday group not only prepared, but prepared to say something intelligent, indeed, to do anything short of public mayhem to contribute to the discussion and to make the group a body unto itself. Each student will also take two tests along with a final, and write a short paper. Students who enroll in this course must also enroll in the corequisite discussion section, ENGL 22514, which is scheduled for Fridays at 10:40–11:30.

 

 

Introduction to Literary Studies


ENGL 30101
Introduction to Literary Studies

Section 1, Jesse Lander, MW 11:45–1:00

Section 2, Stephen Fredman, MW 1:30–2:45

Section 3, Orlando Menes, TR 2:00–3:15


This course provides beginning English majors with experience in the analysis, interpretation, and appreciation of literary works of different kinds and eras. Texts assigned will vary from one section to another, but all sections will include attention to poetry and at least one other genre (fiction, drama, and non-fiction prose). Frequent writing about works studied will introduce students to the practice of critical argument and consideration of how to read criticism as well as literature critically.

Note: English 30101 is a prerequisite for all English major-level electives, but not for 301XX Literary History courses such as "American Literary Traditions" and "British Literary Traditions."

Literary History A, B, and C Courses

ENGL 30110

British Literary Traditions I, Section 2

Susannah Monta

TR 11:00–12:15

This course fulfills the Literary History A requirement.

This course is an intensive survey of literary history in England
from the seventh to the seventeenth centuries. Early British
literature is anything but dull: dragon fights, scatological humor,
scheming devils, cross-dressing, seduction poetry: it's all here.
You'll learn about major periods and authors during this long
history, about changes in the English language, about the development of genres, and about key questions with which writers struggled. You will also learn how to read poetry well. To accomplish these goals, you must make three commitments: to read carefully with an openness to the power and pleasure of early literature, to express freely your thoughts about what you read, and to write (and rewrite) with passion and precision. Course requirements will likely include several 4-5 page essays, short take-home written assignments, occasional quizzes, an oral class presentation, and a final examination.

ENGL 30115

American Literary Traditions I

John Staud

MWF 12:50–1:40

This course fulfills the Literary History B requirement.

The purpose of this course is pleasure, broadly construed.  This course surveys American literature from its emergence to the Civil War.  We will read, discuss, and appreciate (I hope!) texts representing a variety of genres, including sermon, history, autobiography, essay, short story, poetry, and novel, with an eye toward understanding better the works themselves and exploring several recurring themes of particular concern for authors of the time (religion, democracy, American identity and national destiny, slavery and the problem of race, to name a few).  We will give particular attention to writers of the nineteenth century, when the questions of what constitutes an American literature preoccupied many authors seeking to fashion a specifically American tradition.  Required Texts:  Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volumes A and B; Moby-Dick; Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Assignments:  Students are expected to attend class prepared to discuss the assigned reading.  Please note that class participation will be assessed as an important part of your overall performance.  We will focus on writing as both a process of learning and as a product of clearly conveyed thought.  Course requirements include four 3- to 4-page essays and a final exam. 

ENGL 30116

American Literary Traditions II

William Krier

TR 11:00–12:15

This course fulfills the Literary History C requirement.

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

              — Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”

What are we to make of these “ambiguous undulations”?  This course is a survey of American literature with an emphasis upon writers from the twentieth century, writers struggling to discover or invent a life that might be called meaningful.  How does a life in America become meaningful, particularly in a century characterized by almost constant war as well as escalating racial, ethnic, and gender conflicts?  There will be two exams, and a paper.  In the readings we will give careful attention to the works of Henry James, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, T.  S.  Eliot, and Ralph Ellison along with the following novels:  Kate Chopin, The Awakening; Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; F.  Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five.

English 30120

Satire: Jonathan Swift to Jon Stewart

John Sitter

TR 12:30–1:45

This course fulfills the Literary History C requirement and can also count as an English major Elective.

A study of literary satire from the early eighteenth century to the present with some attention to visual satire and current popular culture.  Authors to be studied will certainly include Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Voltaire, William Blake, Lord Byron, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, Nathanael West, and Langston Hughes, and probably one or more of the following:  Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Don DeLillo, and C. T. Boyle.  Some of the questions we will consider are:  Does great satire, which is often highly historical, complicate ideas of art as timeless or universal?  How does satire differ from comedy and irony, while frequently incorporating both?  Is satire fundamentally a form of moral engagement or anarchistic play? What links aggression and laughter in verbal art?  What do traditional satires tell us about recent phenomena such as The Daily Show and Colbert Report — and vice versa?

Students may be asked to screen two or three films together or individually throughout the semester.  Possibilities include Dr. Strangelove, The Great Dictator, Bamboozled, No Man’s Land.  Some 2-page response papers and other short essays (about 4 to 5 pages each), one of which may be an original satire.  Midterm and final examinations.

Electives for English Majors

ENGL 30850, Section 1

Fiction Writing for English Majors

Matt Benedict

MWF 9:35–10:25

Between my finger and my thumb,

The squat pen rests. 

I’ll dig with it. 

              — Seamus Heaney, “Digging”

This class will be a workshop on student prose writing, designed for and limited to English majors.  In the first segment of the course, we will be looking at several contemporary short stories.  “Looking at” in terms of how a fiction writer “looks at” short fiction.  We will examine how the stories are (and are not!) constructed, what narrative techniques are (and are not!) employed by their authors, what the authors are (and are not!) “saying” in their works.  The second segment of the course will be a workshop in which student-generated stories will be discussed.  There will be short (1–4 pages) writing assignments at the beginning of the semester; afterwards, students will be expected to produce two (possibly three) full-length short stories.  Active class participation will be expected, as will oral and written critiques of student work.  At semester’s end, students will submit a portfolio of their revised work.  We will also be attending campus literary events as announced.  This course fulfills either the Fine Arts requirement or the English major Elective requirement. 

ENGL 30850, Section 2

Fiction Writing for English Majors

Frances Sherwood

TR 2:00–3:15

An intensive fiction workshop exclusively for English majors.  In this course, using a comfortable workshop forum, we will write and discuss our own short stories with emphasis on character, theme, setting, and plot.  We will also read and critique published stories which exemplify each of these elements. 

ENGL 30852

Poetry Writing for Majors

Cornelius Eady

TR 3:30–4:45

An intensive poetry workshop exclusively for English majors.  This class is a reading and writing workshop.  You will be required to write and revise your work with your classmates.  Good poets take in the world, and through the poets we will read, and the prompts and exercises you will be given, you will be encouraged to go out and examine it.  Students will be required to write and revise poems, leading to a portfolio of revised work as a final project, keep a writers’ journal, write response papers to the books we read (there will be at least four, plus hand-outs), attend at least one reading, and commit to memory a poem to be recited by the end of the semester.  This course fulfills either the Fine Arts requirement or the English major Elective requirement. 

ENGL 40009

Media Culture

Brett Paice

MW 1:30–2:45

Crosslisted from FTT 40437

This course will trace the career of auteur filmmaker David Lynch from his early short films, through his motions pictures, his momentous television work, and finally, his recent shift into the medium of digital video.  We will discuss Lynch’s productions in relation to mainstream cinema and television, and how in his late work, Lynch positions himself against the notion of filmmaking as a commercial endeavor. This course will foster the critical skills necessary for you to evaluate and advance your own arguments about David Lynch’s artistic practices, addressing his work at the level of aesthetics, politics, ideology, and economics.  We will posit Lynch’s work in film and television as an intersection of various genres and traditions, from film noir, to melodrama, to surrealist film, to horror cinema. Our examination of Lynch’s work will include engaging Hollywood as a cultural space/icon that is both glamorous and equally treacherous, network television’s culture of conformity, the social impact of fetish in Lynch’s work, and Lynch’s production of horror.  Screenings will include: Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and INLAND EMPIRE.

ENGL 40116

Greek and Roman Epic Poetry

Catherine Schlegel

TR 9:30–10:45

Crosslisted from CLAS 40355

This advanced course in literature provides detailed study of the major epic poems of the classical literary tradition — the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, the Aeneid of Virgil, and the Metamorphoses of Ovid.  Discussion centers on the cultural contexts in which the works were written or produced, and the literary conventions on which they rely for their ever-appealing aesthetic and emotional power.

ENGL 40118

Philosophy and Literature Seminar

David O’Connor

MW 11:45–1:00

After starting off from ancient Greek debates about poetry, tragedy, and philosophy, this course will focus on issues raised by philosophy’s relationships to literature in Romanticism and its aftermath.  The ancient debates are renewed and transformed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often with Shakespeare as a central topic of conversation.  Common readings for the seminar will include Sophocles, Oedipus the King; Plato, Phaedrus; Aristotle, Poetics; William Shakespeare, Hamlet; Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy; and shorter selections from Percy Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, T. S. Eliot, Henry James, Martin Heidegger, Wallace Stevens, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stanley Cavell, and William Bronk.  The course will be a true seminar.  Student papers, distributed to the seminar participants in advance, will often be the focus of discussion.  Some class meetings will also be used for tutorials with one of the faculty members, two students at a time.  There will be at least 20 pages of writing, and probably an oral final exam.  This intensive four-credit seminar is the gateway course for the Minor in Philosophy and Literature.  Some priority will be given to students intending to participate in the minor, but other interested students are encouraged to apply.  To apply for the seminar, or for further information about the course or the minor, please email Professor Affeldt (Affeldt.2@nd.edu) or Professor O’Connor (doconnor@nd.edu).  Registration is by permission only.  Students who have been selected for the seminar will be contacted no later than November 18, before sophomore registration begins. 

ENGL 40127

Love and the Novel

Margaret Doody

MW 3:00–4:15

Love has been a constant subject of the novel from antiquity. Its representation in fiction has been constantly criticized as a dangerous or vulgar distraction. Eros, like a character in his own right, seems a disturber of the social order, never entirely comfortable.

       Beginning with Plato’s Symposium, a basic text on erotic love and other loves, we move to two different novels about youthful lovers, love and marriage, Chariton’s Kallirrhoe ( also known as Chaireas and Callirhoe; c. 50 B.C.E.) and Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe

( c. 200 AD).. We will then inquire into the representations of Eros in the Early Modern and modern periods. The struggles that  may arise around gender roles and the social and psychological functions of love may be seen  in three great novels of the eighteenth century: Prévost’s Manon Lescaut, Richardson’s  Clarissa and Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther. Erotic passion may be attributed  to the witchcraft or harlotry of a woman, as in Manon Lescaut, and erotic charm clings dangerously to rakish figures like Richardson’s Lovelace and Brontë’s Mr. Rochester.

        Characters in novels (like ourselves) search for love, but their desires may be chaotic and the object forbidden. Love is often figured as war and strife. Many relationships are not-- or not yet --sanctified by religion, custom, or the solidity of the state. Eros is constantly reprobated or  feared; sexuality is apparently approved of in marriage, but within marriage it may be problematic, introducing into the union the bitter effects of  prior loss and subjugation, as in Tender is the Night. What happens when sexual activity itself inspires loathing in the person who wishes to enter into a sexual relationship? McEwan’s On Chesil Beach tells us something about this, and the way in which cultural forces and habits form and shadow lovers.

              Is desire for narrative intertwined with erotic desire –and are both disconcerting? We may think we like Love, but–do we? Love, sometimes represented as a rose (with thorns), often seems a kind of weed to be rooted out. Yet, as the novels richly demonstrate, Eros refuses to be counted out of issues of psychology or politics, and slides into the heart of philosophical enquiries. Prose fiction consistently represents love in both its charming and its disturbing aspects–including its comic side. And all stories about erotic love include other loves too, the relationships to family, friends and self

TEXTS: Plato,  Symposium; Longus, Daphnis and Chloe; Chariton; Chaireas and Kallirrhoe; Prévost, Manon Lescaut;  Samuel Richardson, Clarissa (first part); Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers);  Brontë, Jane Eyre; F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night; Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach.

ASSIGNMENTS: Two essays during the course of the semester and a longer paper in lieu of examination after the end of classes. There will be a mid-term test and one short quiz.

ENGL 40209

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Dolores Frese

TR 9:30–10:45

This course will be devoted to one text, the Canterbury Tales, from which we will frequently read aloud in Chaucer’s original Middle English.  No prior experience with Middle English is needed.  Indeed, one of the intellectual pleasures of the class may well be the surprising ease with which you will tune your ear to the rhythms of the English language at a slightly earlier stage of its developmental history, as employed by one of the great comic artists of the western world.  Chaucer’s comic genius will shape our approach to the text which has been carefully constituted by its author as a virtual anthology of medieval fictional forms.  Everything from bawdy stories to saints’ lives engaged Chaucer’s most mature imaginative energies in this, his last great work, and we will work our collective way toward an appreciation of the kaleidoscopic subtleties involved in his poetic shaping of this wide, deep, and humanely envisioned textual world.  Through close reading of the Tales we will attempt to enter Chaucer’s richly detailed world of sinners and saints, sometimes as strangers, sometimes as surprised familiars.  Both the shock of “otherness” and the shock of recognition will engage us as contemporary readers of this medieval masterpiece.  Ideally our pilgrimage of story will begin in the delight, and end in the wisdom, of what one critic has wittily referred to as “the Comedy of Eros.”  In addition to a careful reading of the Tales and participation in class discussion of them, each student will prepare a term paper, a researched essay of 15–20 pages on a literary-critical topic, chosen in consultation with the teacher.  There will also be ongoing opportunities during the semester to present — individually, in pairs, or small groups — your own creative projects originating in the pleasures of the Chaucerian text.  Text:  Larry Benson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer.  Occasional brief supplementary readings on reserve.

ENGL 40211

History of the English Language

Tom Hall

TR 3:30–4:45

This is a course on the history of the English language from its elusive but largely reconstructable roots in Indo-European some five or six thousand years ago to more or less the present, with a heavy bias towards the earlier pre-modern periods.  The goals of the course are to acquaint students with the development of English morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics, graphics, and vocabulary, and to explore the cultural and historical contexts of the language’s transformation from the Anglo-Saxon period onward.  In working toward these goals, we’ll spend ample time rooting around in the dustbins of English etymology, lexicography, onomastics, and dialectology, and we will explore some current problems in usage and idiom.  From this it should be clear that the course is by nature unavoidably heavily linguistic, which is to say we’ll be spending a lot of time talking about language, grammar, and the forces that act upon spoken and written English.  While this is not a grammar course per se, it does assume a basic grasp of the structure and conventions of present-day English, and it is fair to predict that the course will bring about a radical and irreversible change in the way you think about the English language.  If all goes as planned, you can expect to achieve a basic understanding of the cultural and linguistic phenomena that have shaped the language we now speak and write; you will become versed in the fundamental methodology and terminology of historical and descriptive linguistics; you will learn to effect a reasonably credible pronunciation of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English (incuding Shakespeare’s probable pronunciation); you will discover the true meanings of your own given name and surname; and you will gain experience researching a couple of aspects of the language that interest you.  In addition to regular reading and workbook assignments, the course’s requirements include two exams, three essays (an etymology exercise, an onomastics project, and an exploration of current American usage), and responsible attendance.

ENGL 40222

Medieval Drama

Katherine Zieman

TR 12:30–1:45

This course will examine the staging of plays in England, from the earliest records of the late-fourteenth century to the founding of the first public playhouses in the sixteenth.  Students will gain familiarity with the extant repertoire of early English drama — cycle plays, saints’ plays, morality plays — and will read about how such plays were funded and staged, who performed them and for whom they were performed.  Our survey will be contextualized by videos of modern adaptations, as well as readings about medieval forms of public performance, such as mummings, liturgical ceremony, and civic spectacle, as we learn about the place and function of drama in late-medieval culture.  Requirements will include several short papers on dramatic texts and a final exam, and the course will culminate in a public performance of a medieval play for the Notre Dame community.  To this end, each student will undertake a short research project on costumes, sets, staging, or some other aspect of medieval performance practice, to help inform our performance.

ENGL 40231

Renaissance Woman

JoAnn Della Neva

TR 2:00-3:15

Description will be posted when it is available

ENGL 40251

Everybody’s Shakespeare

Jacqueline Vaught Brogan

TR 2:00–3:15

In this course we will read several of Shakespeare’s plays (including tragedies, comedies, and romances), as well as a number of contemporary “re-visions” of those works by authors of varying cultural, ethnic, or gender backgrounds.  The purpose of this course will consequently be fourfold: first, to gain an in-depth understanding of one of our most important writers, particularly in relation to his own time period; second, to discover what qualities, vision, dilemmas, and/or artistry keep this author very much alive; third, to examine the various ways in which contemporary authors are modifying, if not codifying, Shakespeare’s work in their own important new works; and last, to develop the critical skills and vocabulary for discussing and writing about these issues and texts.  In terms of the latter goal, we will learn how to do the most effective research through the MLA Bibliography (and a few other research indexes which our university offers on-line).  Texts: William Shakespeare, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, and King Lear; Amira Baraka (Le Roi Jones), Dutchman and the Slave; Toni Morrison, Tar Baby; Alice Walker, The Color Purple; and Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres.  In addition, please get for yourself either Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day or John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire (both of which rely on Shakespeare’s The Tempest) or Richard Wright’s Native Son.  Requirements: In addition to class attendance and participation, you may be asked to attend a few out-of-class engagements, such as visiting a museum, attending a play, or watching a film.  Written assignments will include an initial close reading of an individual work (4 to 5 pages), followed by a comparative essay bringing one contemporary play and one of Shakespeare’s into play (6 to 8 pages), then another comparative paper involving research (also 6 to 8 pages), and a highly focused reading of one work of your choice, again including research (6 to 8 pages).  The last assignment will ask you to apply what you have learned in this course to the text you have chosen to read independently and will therefore draw upon any of the other works we have read, as well as relevant criticism.

ENGL 40312

The Nineteenth-Century Novel

Nathan Elliott

TR 3:30–4:45

This course is intended to introduce you to the nineteenth-century novel.  We will read six representative novels from six representative authors:  one from the Romantic era and five from the Victorian period.  We will discuss the development of the novel as a genre, and we will also examine the development of sub-genres of the novel, such as the industrial novel, the marriage plot novel, and the historical novel.  We will also discuss the broader careers of the novelists that we read, and briefly cover the careers of novelists that we do not have time to read.  We will also cover the nineteenth-century historical and cultural events that influenced these novelists and novels.  Our tentative reading list includes Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, and Middlemarch by George Eliot.  Three papers and an informal presentation are required.  Students are advised that the reading pace will be brisk. 

ENGL 40511

National Cinema: Film, Literature, and Irish Culture

Luke Gibbons

TR 11:00–12:15

This course will examine some of the dominant images of Ireland in film and literature from the Celtic Twilight to the Celtic Tiger, and will place recent transformations of Irish culture in a wider historical context.  Comparisons between film, literature, and other cultural forms will feature throughout the

course, and key stereotypes relating to gender, class, and nation will be analyzed, particularly as they bear on images of romantic Ireland and modernization, landscape, the city, politics, religion, violence, family, and community.  Particular attention will be paid to questions of emigration, the diaspora, and Irish-America, with a view to looking later in the course at issues relating to contemporary Ireland as a host country for immigration, refugees, and asylums seekers.  In terms of film and literature, key figures such as Yeats, Synge, and Joyce, and contemporary writers such as Brian Friel, John McGahern, Seamus Heaney, William Trevor, Seamus Deane, Patrick McCabe, Alice McDermott, and Roddy Doyle will be discussed.  The resurgence of Irish cinema and new forms of Irish writing in the past two decades will provide the main focus of the second part of the semester, tracing the emergence of new distinctive voices and images in an increasingly globalized and multi-cultural Ireland.  Students are also required to register for ENGL 41005, “Lab: National Cinema: Film, Literature, and Irish Culture,” which is scheduled for Tuesdays evenings at 6:30–9:00.  The course will require two assessments: one mid-term short review (1500–2000 words) and an end-of-term discussion paper (ca. 3500 words).

ENGL 40514

The West of Ireland—An Imagined Space

Bríona NicDhiarmada

TR 3:30–4:45

Crosslisted from IRLL 40109

This course will interrogate and examine representations of the West of Ireland in various twentieth-century texts, focusing in particular on the role of “the West of Ireland” in state formation and legitimization during the early decades of independent Ireland and its role in the construction of an Irish identity.  We will look at how images of the West of Ireland were constructed in various utopian or romanticized formulations as well as examining more dystopian versions.  This course will take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the visual arts and film as well as on literary texts in both Irish and English.  Irish-language texts will be read in translation.

ENGL 40518

Gender and Identity in Contemporary Irish-Language

Bríona NicDhiarmada

TR 12:30–1:45

Crosslisted from IRLL 40309

This course will interrogate issues of gender and identity in the work of contemporary Irish-language writers.  We will examine the ways in which contemporary writers in Irish writing from a constellation of identities, sexual, cultural and linguistic question explore these issues as they articulate them in specific cultural forms.  Drawing on recent theoretical work in gender studies and postcolonial studies the course will look at texts which question and problematize essentialist notions of cultural identity.  It will explore in particular some of the tensions inherent in the articulation of a cross-cultural sexual identity and the specificity of linguistic and cultural inheritance in contemporary writing in Irish.  We will read, among others, texts from writers such as Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Biddy Jenkinson, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Pearse Hutchinson, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Seán Mac Mathúna, and Micheál Ó Conghaile.

ENGL 40520

Reading Ulysses

Cyraina Johnson-Roullier

TR 11:00–12:15

How do we read James Joyce’s Ulysses?  In this course, we will learn how to read literature by focusing on a postcolonial/culture studies approach to understanding Joyce’s most famous text.  Along the way, we will also consider such issues as censorship, nationality, colonialism, literary canons, language and signification, the Irish Literary Renaissance, late nineteenth-century Irish politics, modernism, exile and much more.  Digging deeply into Joyce’s text, we will discuss the meaning and significance of literature and literary study, while gaining a deeper understanding of the ways in which a particular approach to reading can enhance our appreciation of a text.  And we will, certainly, accomplish all of this while having great fun.  Course Text:  One—Ulysses.   Course requirements:  Two 10-page essays, in-class writing, mini-presentation, group presentation.

ENGL 40526

Beckett, Theater and Visual

David Lloyd

TTH 11:00-12:15

In this course we will read and watch Samuel Beckett's plays, read some of his art criticism and view work by artists he admired--where possible, we will seek out paintings by these artists in the L.A. area. As a dramatist, Beckett makes extensive use of painterly effects, both in stage design and in direction. We will be able to watch both TV productions of plays like Krapp's Last Tape, Not I, and Eh Joe that Beckett himself closely supervised, and the newly completed film versions of his plays (including Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days) by directors that range from Neil Jordan and Atom Egoyan to Damien Hirst and David Mamet. Artists we will look at will include the Irish painter Jack B. Yeats (brother of W. B. Yeats), Bram Van Velde, the Dutch abstract painter, and Avigdor Arikha, the Israeli figurative painter and close friend of the writer from the late 1950s. We will, accordingly, read Beckett as dramatist in the context of the visual arts and their influence on his work, and learn to read visual material--painting, film, plays. We will try to understand Beckett both in the context of Irish drama and art (reading a little of the drama of Synge and W. B. Yeats) and in the context of the international avant-garde of which he was part. The dramas and visual material will be supplemented by a small number of critical works that will aid students in understanding Beckett's works. Students will be expected to do response papers and one longer research paper.

ENGL 40606

Mark Twain

Thomas Werge

MWF 10:40–11:30

A study of Twain’s life and writings in light of the history of ideas and the literary, political, philosophical, and religious currents of nineteenth-century American culture.  We will also consider such figures as Harte, Stowe, Douglass, and Lincoln, who illuminate Twain’s style and social and moral preoccupations.  Special concerns:  Twain’s place in the tensions between conventional literary forms and the emerging American vernacular; his vision and critique of American democracy, slavery, “exceptionalism,” and later geopolitical expansionism; his medievalism, including Joan of Arc, and larger interpretations of history; his treatment of women, individualism, and the family; and the later gnosticism of No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger.  We will also address the current (and perennial) discussions of unity and pluralism in American culture, as in Garry Wills’s delineation of an underlying American identity in Under God, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s fear of “balkanization” in The Disuniting of America.  Readings:  selected shorter works, including Diary of Adam and Eve; Innocents Abroad; Life on the Mississippi; Tom Sawyer; Huckleberry Finn; A Connecticut Yankee; Pudd’nhead Wilson; No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger; and selections from the Autobiography.  Students will be expected to write a series of brief, incisive papers and a longer critical paper.

ENGL 40713

Literature as Contemporary Art

Steve Tomasula

TR 12:30–1:45

If first-wave postmodern literature can be seen in terms of formal experimentation, and if second-wave postmodern writing can be seen as a conversation between authors and theorists, then third-wave postmodern literature can be seen as a kind of contemporary writing that has absorbed this earlier literary history even as it moves beyond it:  fiction, poems, electronic and print hybrids, whose authors have adopted much of the idioms, rhetorical strategies, or styles of earlier conceptual work, either self-consciously or not, as they move further from assumptions about the singularity of an author’s voice and vision, and/or the oppositional stance of the avant-garde.  From the collaborative flash poems of Heavy Industry, to the visual-text hybrids of Johanna Drucker, to the reworking of pulp “Nurse Betty” novels by Stacey Levine, the materials and forms of what counts as conceptual literature have never been more varied.  Sometimes called experimental, conceptual, avant-garde, hybrid, postmodern, innovative, extreme, alternative, e-, anti-, or new literature, writing conceived as a contemporary/ conceptual art rather than as a craft or commercial product makes these materials and forms part of its meaning in the way that conceptual visual art makes its materials part of its message.  If traditional novels are symphonies, or windows-on-the-world, these works are techno, rap or plastic-surgery-as-performance-art.  In this course we’ll be reading a sampling of these works and assaying what they say about our moment in literature and the world outside the book.  A brief sampling might include The People of Paper (by Salvador Plascencia); Frances Johnson (Stacey Levine); Electronic Literature Collection <http://collection.eliterature.org/1/> (Hayles et al., eds.); Love in a Dead Language (Lee Siegel); selections from Poems for the Millennium (Rothenberg and Joris, eds.).


ENGL 40727

The American Novel 1929–Present

Juliann Ulin

MW 11:45–1:00  

This seminar will explore representative works of U.S.  fiction ranging from modernist classics through post-WW II works and contemporary novels emphasizing issues of multiculturalism.  The course will be reading-intensive, and will emphasize close reading skills, theoretical perspectives, cultural analysis and historical contexts for each novel.  Students will write three papers that are expected to perform literary analysis and integrate historical readings and/or literary theory from library reserves.  As always, drafts are welcome and encouraged.  Possible course texts:  Ernest Hemingway, Farewell to Arms; William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita; Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony; Don DiLillo, Libra; Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies; Philip Roth, American Pastoral; Ha Jin, A Free Life.

ENGL 40728

Homeland Security: Surveillance, Terror and Citizenship in America

Antonette Irving

TR 12:30–1:45

This course explores the relationship between popular myths about the American experience and the actual experience of marginalized subjects in American society.  It serves to make concrete a theoretical discussion of citizenship in the context of American Individualism and explores the relationships among social stratification, institutional coercion, and national narratives.  As a

long view of the last century, Homeland Security considers old forms of terror and surveillance evident in African American literature that anticipates and mimics the fear and anxiety in the nation after September 11.  We will consider themes such as space, place, border, home, community, protection, and nationalism.  The literature and critical essays under consideration straddle

regional, class, gender, and social boundaries to facilitate our understanding of how African Americans within the nation create narratives of cultural fragmentation, exile, and alienation.  In the process we will explore the condition of African American migration — from early-twentieth-century movements to urban centers, to early-twenty-first century migrations as a result of Katrina — and

consider the way mobility may inform new landscapes of hope and displacement.  Some of the texts we will read are Passing, The Street, Invisible Man, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, The Color Purple, and Eva’s Man.  These texts may be considered counter-narratives in the way that they stress exploitation, failure, disillusionment, and exile, but they intervene in formative debates about how to define a national identity and, to echo Langston Hughes, they too sing America.  Course requirements:  one oral presentation (15%); three 2-page response papers (10% each); one paper proposal; one 10–12 page essay (35%); class participation (20%).

ENGL40737

The Rhyming Apparatus: African American Poetics from Phillis Wheatley to Mos Def

Ivy Wilson

TR 3:30–4:45

This course is comprised of two parts.  The first component offers an understanding of African American literary history from the beginnings to the present through the specific genre of poetry.  The second theoretical component analyzes the ways that the manipulation of poetics signals a larger social crisis of in the U.S.  that too often reduces the body to a fragmented functionality as a discourse

voice-over, splitting the corpus from its very own conceivable acts and actions.  After the initial overview of African American poetry, the course will focus on five different poets and certain musical forms including, among others, work songs, blues, jazz, rhythm-and-blues, and hip-hop.

ENGL 40742

Migrating Melodramas: Latino/a Literature and Popular Culture

Belkys Torres

TR 12:30–1:45

Crosslisted from ILS 40305

This course examines how various forms of popular culture from Latin America and the Caribbean migrate to the U.S.  and are reappropriated by Latina/o cultural producers.  Focusing particularly on theories of melodrama as a feminine discursive space, we will analyze several works of Latina/o literature which underscore women’s active interpretation of music, film, and television.  While this is a literature-based course, students will also examine how hybrid cultural products such as contemporary boleros, films, and telenovelas produce a transnational imaginary that connects Latinas/os in the U.S.  with Latin America and the Caribbean.  We will read novels such as Loving Pedro Infante by Denise Chavez, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos, and Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago.

ENGL 40755

California Culture at Mid-Century

Stephen Fredman 

MW 3:00–4:15

This course explores how poetry took a leading role among the arts in California at mid-century, creating a California culture that through the Beats and the Hippies became a national and international phenomenon.  We begin by looking at collage, the dominant form of the arts in California, and then consider how collage meets up with four main elements of the California aesthetic:  Surrealism, mysticism, jazz, and anarchism.  The primary poets we will read and hear are Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman, and D.  J.  Waldie.  Alongside these poets, we will look at Jack Kerouac’s novel The Dharma Bums, artists like Jess, Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, Joan Brown, and Jay DeFeo, and filmmakers like Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage.  Students will gain the ability to do interdisciplinary work in the arts, to read complex contemporary poetry, and to relate art movements to the culture that surrounds them.  Requirements include essays and a final exam.

ENGL 40850

Advanced Fiction Writing

William O’Rourke

MW 11:45–1:00                                                                     

This writing course is intended for students who have already taken a Fiction Writing course (or the equivalent) and who are seriously interested in writing fiction, and graduate students who are not in the Creative Writing program.  The expectation is that the student is beyond the point of requiring assignments to generate stories.  Over the semester, in a workshop setting, student stories will be taken through various stages:  due attention will be paid to revision, rewriting, polishing, editing, with a goal that the stories be brought as close as possible to the point of submission as finished work.  Practical as well as theoretical issues will be investigated; there will be assigned readings.

ENGL 40871

Advanced Poetry Writing: Poetry Now

Johannes Göransson

TR 2:00–3:15

This is a class about poetry right now.  Poetry is constantly mutating in response to a changing world.  We will engage with these permutations by reading a wide variety of collections published by U.S.  and foreign writers over the past few years, and delving into some of these poets’ predecessors and lineages.  Students’ own writings will be a significant part of the class.  By writing and discussing new work and exploring a variety of techniques and subject matters, we will participate in the realtime transformation of poetry.  Books will include sexoPUROsexoVELOZ by Dolores Dorantes (Mexico), Remainland by Aase Berg (Sweden), Tonight’s the Night by Catherine Meng (U.S.), and others.

ENGL 40950

Men and Women in Modern Japanese Literature

Deborah Shamoon

MW 1:30–2:45

Crosslisted from LLEA 33315

n twentieth-century Japan, as old roles such as samurai and geisha waned, both men and women had to re-define the characteristics and meaning of masculinity and femininity.  This course will look at constructions of gender in modern Japanese literature by both female and male authors.  As we discuss both normative and deviant depictions of male and female roles, some topics we will address include men and women at work and at war, marriage and family life, homosociality and homosexuality.  We will also cover some of the major authors, genres, and literary movements of modern Japanese literature.  The primary goal of this class is to become familiar with major works of modern Japanese fiction, and to analyze those works in terms of feminist, queer, and gender theory.  In addition to the primary texts, we will also read some short selections by prominent theorists in these fields.  The secondary goal is to practice writing analytically about what you have read, and to learn how to incorporate critical theory into your writing.  All readings will be in English.  Texts will include Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, Confessions of a Mask by Mishima Yukio, Diary of a Vagabond by Hayashi Fumiko, and short stories by Higuchi Ichiyo, Kono Taeko, and Oe Kenzaburo.  Knowledge of Japanese is not required.


Senior Seminars

ENGL 43201

Senior Seminar: The Pearl Poet

Dolores Frese

TR 12:30-1:45

Although a majority of literate citizens are now familiar with the great medieval Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — Marie Boroff’s Modern English translation has for years been included in the Norton Anthology of English Literature — far fewer know three other spectacular poetic narratives included with Gawain in a unique manuscript produced in the north of England in the late fourteenth century.  These four fictions, read in good Modern English translations, will constitute the basic texts of this Senior Research Seminar.  In addition to the courtly Arthurian romance that is Gawain, we will read Patience (the whimsical, pre-Pinnochio-and-Gepetto paraphrase of the story of Jonah and the Whale), Cleanness (a series of homiletic reflections of great power, beauty, grim wit, and compassionate insight centered on varying conceptions of “purity”), and Pearl (the elegiac dream-vision that begins with the mourning father who has lost a young daughter, then moves with amazing grace from the garden where he grieves into a richly envisioned earthly paradise where he is astonished to re-encounter his lost “Pearl,” who then leads him to the vision of a New Jerusalem whose post-apocalyptic landscape is populated exclusively by throngs of beautiful maidens).  We will begin with careful, close reading and collective seminar discussions of this poetic quartet, for each individual work contains an amazing wealth of psychological, sociological, historic, and religious content, embedded in notably inventive poetic forms, genres, and imaginative structures that also constitute worthy objects of study.  We will also address issues of manuscript production in the late Middle Ages:  for whom was this book created, and by whom?  Who drew and colored the dozen illustrations contained in the book?  Was there a poetic plan or purpose guiding the sequence of fictions, or are these created and arranged as isolated compositions, gathered into an interchangeable order?  Does it matter?  What meaning are we to adduce from the recurrence of certain poetic themes, ideas and images that surface, submerge and reappear throughout the four distinctly different works of art?  By closely studying these four fictions, we will come to understand some enduring aspects of creative artistry in any age; simultaneously, we will cultivate “depth vision” into certain particulars of medieval “post-modern” imagination that may constitute striking connections to our own contemporary milieu.  In addition to regular short seminar reports on topics connected to the current readings, members of the seminar will each produce a 15–20 page research paper, envisioned as a publishable essay.  The essay will combine the critical skills of textual interpretation and comparative analysis, along with directed literary research centered on some problem of interest to the student, chosen in consultation with the teacher, arising from the reading of one or more of these texts.

ENGL 43210

Senior Seminar: Shakespeare’s Religions

Jesse Lander

TR 2:00–3:15

Though recent scholarship has once again taken up the question of Shakespeare’s religious identity, this course will focus not on the vexed issue of Shakespeare’s personal faith but on the various religious practices and discourses represented in the plays.  Written during a time of turbulent religious change, Shakespeare’s plays evince an almost anthropological interest in the varieties of religious experience.  Depictions of pagan rites, of the old religion, and of the new learning associated with the Reformation all find a place on Shakespeare’s stage.  Arguably Shakespeare’s willingness to display a multiplicity of religious orientations both registers and contributes to a momentous shift in European culture:  the splitting of the once unitary and singular notion of religion into a plurality of religions.  Plays read will likely include Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, Lear, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and King Henry VIII.  Students will be expected to produce a research paper of approximately 20 pages.  A key part of this project will be original research using EEBO (an electronic database of early modern books) and other archival sources.  In addition, everyone will be asked to give a short in-class presentation on their research topic.

ENGL 43325

Senior Seminar: The Literature of British India

David Thomas

TR  9:30–10:45

This course explores the literature of British India from the 1870s through the 1930s, a period that sees the British Empire coming into its peak and also entering into its decline.  In many respects, the course functions as a survey, taking in canonical figures in the British tradition (such as Kipling, Forster, and Orwell) and some writers remembered generally for their skill as portraitists of British India.  We will emphasize, however, those literary works that posterity has highlighted as having the greatest literary merit.  I anticipate a special focus on Rudyard Kipling, including his stories, his Jungle Books, the novel Kim, and a recent biography of Kipling.  Assignments will include a short early paper and a longer research paper, supported by exercises in topic selection, source location, bibliographic annotation, and workshopping.

ENGL 43706

Senior Seminar: Literatures of Immigration: The Latina/o Trans-National and Intra-National Experience

Javier Rodriguez

MW 1:30–2:45

The literature of Latina/o immigration and migrancy brings together a range of contemporary concerns, from identity, to the transnational, to definitions of the literary.  How does international movement inflect notions of American identity?  How do writers create and describe communities in constant movement?  These are only two questions that can be posed to the literatures of Latina and Latino transnational and intra-national movement.  In this course, we will read a range of recent materials dealing with immigration between Mexico and Latin America and the United States, and with intra-national migrancy.  Key texts will include Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway, Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, Tomas Rivera’s …and the Earth did not devour him, and Elva Treviño Hart’s Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child.  In addition, we will draw upon various critical readings focusing on transnationalism, displacement, and new theories about contemporary globalization.  Students will write three short essays and a final exam and will be required to participate actively in class.