Department of English

University of Notre Dame

Spring 2010

Descriptions of Courses Satisfying the Literature Requirement

 

Please be aware that changes in course offerings, including times and locations, may occur. Please consult the class search page for the most recent updates.

Students seeking to fulfill the literature requirement may also take courses offered by other language and literature departments (Romance languages, Asian languages, Classics, etc.). To obtain a complete list of all of these courses go to the class search page, then select the "literature" attribute and press control (on a Mac command) shift and select all departments.

ENGL 13186-01
Reading and Making Sense
TR 12:30-1:45pm
John Wilkinson

This seminar seeks to foster skills in critical reading and writing, and to give pleasure by introducing some extraordinary literature. The seminar will discuss a Shakespeare play (Romeo and Juliet) including a visits to a performance, two contrasting novels (Jane Austen's Emma and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and movie versions of both), and work by two contrasting poets (William Wordsworth and Frank O'Hara).
While this course is designed for all first-year students, it may be taken in place of ENGL 30101, the prerequisite for the English major. In keeping with all sections of ENGL 30101, it will, therefore, 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, 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.

 

ENGL 13186 – 02
The Death and Return of God in Radical Poetry
TR 5:00-6:15pm
Romana Huk

This seminar will introduce students to university-level studies of literature by focusing on the development of – and recent theories about – two inter-connected genres: poetry and verse drama. Beginning with a refresher mini-course on reading poetry (which doubles up with discussion of the genre’s earliest roots in epic and lyric modes), the course will move through an extended segment on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (as performed on campus by The Actors from the London Stage), weaving its way toward some very surprising descendants of such works in twentieth-century poetry and drama. Students will be asked to read critical theory as it has developed alongside these changing forms, and formulate their own approaches to some of the newest forms of writing.

While this course is designed for all first-year students, this section may be taken in place of ENGL 30101, the prerequisite for the English major. In keeping with all sections of ENGL 30101, it will, therefore, provide 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, 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.

ENGL 13186-03
Contemporary American Literature
TR 2:00-3:15pm
Matthew Benedict

Our world has changed in fundamental and dramatic ways these last ten years. Here in the United States, we have been both a catalyst to as well as a recipient of much of that change. Artists in all mediums (photography, painting, music, etc.) have explored, and are exploring, how all this change has impacted us. Writers have done, are doing, this too, and so will we.
In this course, we will read a selection of poetry, fiction, and drama written during the 2000s, covering a range of styles and forms. We will also sample other media – television, film, newspapers, podcasts, etc. – as we, like many artists, try to come up with our answer to what all this profound change means. Texts may include (not finalized): Eric Coble, Natural Selection; Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Jennifer Egan, Look at Me; Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Poema; Peter Kuper, Sticks and Stones; Helen Schulman, A Day at the Beach; and Leanne Shapton, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry. Required work will include writing assignments of varying types and lengths (totaling 25-30 pages), a midterm, a group presentation, and participation in class discussions.

ENGL 13186-04
Popular Victorian Novels
TR 12:30-1:45pm
David Thomas

Here we explore great reads in Victorian fiction. Our first aim is simply to come to know a number of admired works from this central period in the history of the British novel. As we go along, however, we will also come to engage the manifold meanings of "popular" in literary history. Many educated Victorians, for instance, would have regarded it as absurd to study Charlotte Brontë or Charles Dickens in a university setting, the idea being that only Latin and Greek texts really merit such treatment. But then again, there were (and are) people who regard Brontë and Dickens as obviously worthy writers while insisting that we may neglect writers of "popular" trash--like Mary Elizabeth Braddon, whose Lady Audley's Secret is one prominent candidate for the bestselling novel of the whole 19th century. Our tentative list of principal authors includes Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, George Gissing and Oscar Wilde. Coursework includes response writings, three papers and revised paper, along with reading quizzes and participation.

ENGL 13186-05
Everybody’s Shakespeare
TR 11:00-12:15pm
Jacqueline Brogan

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.At the end of the course, you should have a firm grasp of several important literary works, from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century, a sophisticated idea of how literature both reifies and resists seminal literature which has come before it, and finally a sense of how the issues raised in this literary "confluence" are important in the actual world and in our lives.

ENGL 13186-06
Contemporary American Literature
TR 3:30-4:45pm
Matthew Benedict

Our world has changed in fundamental and dramatic ways these last ten years. Here in the United States, we have been both a catalyst to as well as a recipient of much of that change. Artists in all mediums (photography, painting, music, etc.) have explored, and are exploring, how all this change has impacted us. Writers have done, are doing, this too, and so will we.
In this course, we will read a selection of poetry, fiction, and drama written during the 2000s, covering a range of styles and forms. We will also sample other media – television, film, newspapers, podcasts, etc. – as we, like many artists, try to come up with our answer to what all this profound change means. Texts may include (not finalized): Eric Coble, Natural Selection; Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Jennifer Egan, Look at Me; Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Poema; Peter Kuper, Sticks and Stones; Helen Schulman, A Day at the Beach; and Leanne Shapton, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry. Required work will include writing assignments of varying types and lengths (totaling 25-30 pages), a midterm, a group presentation, and participation in class discussions.

ENGL 13186-07
Biography/Autobiography: One's Life Story
U 7:00-9:00pm
Edward A. Malloy

In the course of the semester, we will seek to understand the uniqueness of particular historical persons through an analysis of their stories as created either by themselves or others. We will also be interested in what can be learned about that person’s cultural and historical context. Attendance is expected at each class. The students in the course are expected to contribute to the seminar discussions and to write papers on each assignment. All regular papers are to be 2 to 3 pages long. The final paper is to be 5 to 7 pages long. It will provide an opportunity to tell one’s own story in light of the work of the semester. Readings will include Ernesto Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries; Antonia Felix, Condi; Felix Markham, Napoleon; Doris Pilkington, Rabbit Proof Fence; Malika Oufkir, Stolen Lives; John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage; Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa; and Roald Dahl, Boy: Tales of Childhood.

ENGL 20107

Satire: Henry VIII to Obama

Rachel Jurado

MWF 3:00-3:50

Is satire necessary to the health of society or a sign of its decline? In considering the role of the satire in society, students will read key texts from the Renaissance, eighteenth-century, and the present day. We will assess the literary and social significance of the formal and thematic continuities between the current satirical outpouring on television in South Park, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report and earlier texts by Thomas More, Erasmus, the Earl of Rochester, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Mozart/DaPonte, and others. We will discuss the strategies and limitations of satire in a wide variety of texts including novels, poetry, drama, blogs, and opera.

ENGL 20142

Autobiography and Subjectivity

Barbara Green

TR 2:00-3:15

 

Life-writing is a capacious term that can be used to describe a variety of private and public statements about the self.  Some of these are easily recognizable as artistic representations of subjectivity (for example, memoirs, diaries, letters, self-portraits) and some less so (for example, legal testimony, graphic novels, blogs, even medical forms have been read as part of the complex project of articulating subjectivity). This course will attend to a wide variety of forms of life-writing in order to trace shifting notions of what counts as a self and track the complex project of defining and representing subjectivity. A broad range of critical approaches to subjectivity and definitions of the autobiographical project will assist us as we attempt to map changing notions of the self. Many, but not all, of our primary materials will be drawn from the twentieth century, some from the current decade: texts may include selections of writings by Wordsworth and Rousseau, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Virginia Woolf’s Sketch of the Past, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, selections from Samuel Delany’s The Motion of Light in Water, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, photography by Cindy Sherman, Jo Spence and others, self-portraits by Frieda Kahlo, considerations of Web projects, My Space sites, political and legal testimony or “witnessing”, and other examples of autobiography “at work” will also be considered. Requirements: participation, short commentaries, and three essays: two around 5 pages, and one of eight to ten pages.

 

ENGL 20219

Heroic Quests

Joel Dodson

MWF 4:05-4:55

 

Stories of questing knights and unending, heroic landscapes have enjoyed popularity in recent film versions of The Lord of the Rings, The Chornicles of Narnia, and even Beowulf.  This course will explore the foundations of the heroic quest narrative in early British literature, focusing in particular on the transformations of the epic and romance genres in Medieval and Renaissance literature.  What ties heroic tales to a given nation or culture?  How do stories of knights, ladies, monsters, and faeries become vehicles for other ideas, such as religion, sex, and politics?  And what happens when these stories become reimagined in early “modern” genres of drama, satire, and the novel?  We will approach these questions by considering the epic ideal of the English warrior hero, and then follow it through the wanderings of the poetry, prose, and drama of Chaucer, Malory, Spenser, Shakespeare, and others.  While we will spend the majority of our time on earlier British literature, we will consider, in class discussions and student presentations, contemporary versions and film representations of English epic and romance.

 

ENGL 20223

The Book of Monsters: Monstrosity and Metamorphosis in Medieval Literature

Hilary Fox

MW 4:30-5:45

 

Cyclopes, blemmyae, giants, women with the tails of lions, fairies, Chthulu-like beings from the chaotic abyss: these creatures and many more occupied the margins of human geography for centuries. In ancient thought, monsters were not merely fantastical creations, but existed as important ways of talking about humans and their society: despite their distance—living as they did India, Africa, the depths of the sea or the burial mound, sometimes even on the moon—monsters and marvelous beings have been intimately involved with Western understandings of what it means to be a human being. While we will consider a few major works such as Beowulf and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, we will also look at stories of werewolves in Norse saga and French romance, madmen, Biblical and apocryphal tales of monsters and fallen angels, classical and medieval “travelogues” (including voyages to outer space), and other sources to acquire an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts that make medieval texts different—and yet similar to—our own. Secondary critical readings will help students toward a sense of the many different issues at play in the primary works, from historical context to more in-depth considerations of gender, geography, and race.

ENGL 20513

Introduction to Irish Writers

Christopher Fox

MW 10:40-11:30

 

As the visit to campus of the most recent Irish winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature suggests, this small island has produced a disproportionate number of great writers. Designed as a general literature course, the class will introduce the student to a broad range of Irish writers in English from the eighteenth century to the present. Writers will include Jonathan Swift, Maria Edgeworth, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Brian Friel, and John McGahern. We will also look at recent film versions of several of these writers' works, including Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest. Themes to be explored include representations of "national character" and the relationships between religion and national identity, gender and nationalism, Ireland and England, and "Irishness" and "Englishness." Students can expect a midterm, a paper (5-6 pages typed) and a final.

 

ENGL 20613

American Short Story

William Krier

TR 12:30-1:45

 

A carefully detailed look at the history of a particular form of American narrative. Along the way we will construct a methodology for reading stories, a series of critical questions that can serve to open a story to our understanding and appreciation. At times we will give our attention to one or two remarkable stories by a particular writer, stories like Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” and Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”. At other times we will work through a collection of stories to highlight the aspects of a writer’s particular vision and craft. These collections might include John Updike’s ”Pigeon Feathers” and Ernest Hemingway’s “In Our Time” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Mosses from an Old Manse” and Richard Brautigan’s “Trout Fishing in America”.

 

There will be mid-term and final exams and a seven page study of one story chosen by each student.

 

ENGL 20709

God & Evil in Modern Literature

Thomas Werge

01: MWF 10:40-11:30

02: MWF 12:50-1:40

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; Hawthorne, Selected Tales; Wiesel, Night; and narratives by Primo Levi, Dinesen, and Updike.

 

ENGL 20715

Modern American Poetry

Heather Treseler

TR 3:30-4:45

 

This course considers a range of major postwar and postmodern poets whose influence is still felt in American poetics today. Students will learn how to read and interpret poetry, building a vocabulary for literary analysis and honing the skills of close reading. In studying an era noted for the dynamism and diversity of its literary styles, schools, and iconoclasts, we will evaluate each poet in his or her biographic (and geographic) particularity, while tracking the trends in form and innovation that also mark this genre.

 

ENGL 20721

Modernist Poetry & Fiction

Craig Woelfel

TR 11:00-12:15

 

“We had the experience, but missed the meaning.”  So wrote T. S. Eliot, reflecting on a 30-year period that saw virtually the entire Western world experience a simultaneous and monumental spiritual, emotional, and intellectual crisis.  Eliot’s is just one of a tremendous variety of literary responses to a radically changing world that makes up the period called “modernism,” in which both the world and how it was written about changed dramatically.  This involves engagement with questions that are central to everyone’s life – from the nature of God, love, friendship, race, sex, gender, and war, to drinking, laughing, shopping, cows, crabs, and puppy dogs (seriously).  We’ll be reading a variety of texts - both British and American, poetry and fiction, bridging the period between the two Great Wars (Yeats, Pound, Williams, Loy, Eliot; Ford, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Forster, Woolf, Rhys) - that, for various reasons and in myriad ways, experiment with preexisting conventional notions of genre, narrative, point of view, and language.  By engaging these texts alongside short readings by the authors about their own writing, the goal of the course is to gain confidence working through texts that might otherwise be too intimidating to read in other contexts by tending to basic questions first: what did these writers and poets say themselves that they were doing, and why did they do it?  Such basic questions will provide the necessary background against which the innovation and astonishing beauty of these works can take shape.  As importantly, you will be introduced to an interpretive framework through which to understand literature and to think about why it matters in terms of larger social, cultural, and even personal contexts.  No prior knowledge is assumed.  We will cover in class methodological instruction devoted to the skills such as poetic scansion, close reading, note taking, etc. that are necessary to read, interpret, and discuss literary texts in terms of their formal elements as well as their connections to larger social, cultural, and literary contexts.  The broader goal is to develop new ways of thinking about human experience and especially language that will remain long after the surface data of names, dates, and terms has faded, and to gain the confidence and skills necessary to make you feel like you can read, and think through, anything.

 

ENGL 20759

The Democratic Muse: Whitman and the shaping of the American Voice (Contemporary American Poetry)

Cornelius Eady

MW 3:00-4:15

 

How do poetry and the concept of American Democracy blend? Using Emerson and Whitman as a starting point, this course will attempt to connect the dots. Poets we will be reading will include Emerson, Whitman, Neruda, June Jordan, Ginsberg, and others. We will land somewhere at the start of the present era, with the poets who have their beginnings with the slam: Paul Beatty, Patricia Smith, among others. Students will be responsible for writing reports of the books read and the era they represent (some of this may be in the form of a team video report), and for a long paper tracing either the influences that shaped one of the poets studied or on one aspect presented by our readings.

 

ENGL 30101

Introduction to Literary Studies

Sara Maurer

01 TR 2:00-3:15

02 TR 3:30-4:45

 

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, 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.