Course Descriptions (Last updated: 20 July 2000)
The following course descriptions have been written by individual instructors to provide more detailed information on specific section sthan that found in the General Catalog. When individual descriptions are not available, the General Catalog descriptions [in brackets] are used. (Although we try to have as accurate and complete information as possible, this schedule remains subject to change.)
Interested in Medieval Literature? In the history of English? In English language study? Look at this graduate course in Old English open to undergraduates:
304 YA (History of Literary Criticism & Theory II)
MW 7-8:50 pm
This class is an introduction to recent (post-structuralist) literary theory. We start with a look at some important precursors (Nietzsche, Freud, Saussure) against the background of the traditional assumptions of modern Western philosophy (Descartes). We then take a look at the major poststructuralist theorists of the 1960s and 1970s (including Barthes, Derrida, Lacan,
Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Irigaray, and Cixous) and end with a consideration of the legacy that these thinkers have left for us today. Books ordered will be supplemented by a course packet of additional readings from Derrida, Lacan, Irigaray, Cixous, and Deleuze & Guattari. Evening Degree students only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy; F. W. Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols; Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis; Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics; Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text; Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader; Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings.
307 A (Cultural Studies: Literature and the Age)
Jewish Literature: Biblical to Modern. For simplicity’s sake let’s call this 3000 years in ten weeks. In order to reduce that already vast reduction to a few words I will list the headings of sections of the course: Jewish Literature as Jewish History; Biblical Narrative; Martyrdom and Suffering; Destruction and Exile; Exile and Yearning; Messiah and the End of Days; Hasidism and Enlightenment; Zion rejects Exile; Exile in the New World; and a section on modern apocalyptic visions of the 1930s and 1940s. In this mammoth and, I hope, exhilarating task, we will see how a common culture coheres over time and how writers are obliged by the conditions of the world to depart from that coherence. All readings in a course packet; lecture, discussion and short essays.
310 A (The Bible as Literature)
317 A (Literature of the Americas)
Canadian Literature. We’ll read and discuss an assortment of long and short stories written by Canadian authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will be expected to attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments, and take part in open discussion. Written work will consist of a number of brief in-class essays, done in response to study questions handed out in advance. Texts: Rosemary Sullivan, ed., Oxford Book of Stories by Canadian Women in English; Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver, eds., New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories; Robertson Davies, Fifth Buisness; Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient; Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town; Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz; Alistair MacLeod, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood; Jack Hodgins, The Macken Charm; Margaret Atwood, Lady Oracle; Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women.
320 A (English Literature: The Middle Ages)
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the literature of medieval England. This means reading a selection of Old and Middle English texts (excluding Chaucer), mostly in translation. The first part of the course will focus on the warrior culture of the Anglo Saxons and the epic/heroic literature it produced. The second part of the course will focus on the romantic culture of the later period and its literary production. We will do a bit of the original language, especially in the latter part of the course, a bit of the wider European contexts of English literature (mostly Norse and French), and a bit of visual arts. In addition to the readings, there will be two pretty hefty papers, two short “quizzes” (factual identifications mostly), and a weekly e-mail “paper” on a topic relevant to class discussion. Some of our texts will be bought, others are available on the Net. English majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Middle Ages (Vol. 1a).
323 A (Shakespeare to 1603)
In this course we will look at an assortment of comedies and tragedies that characterize Shakespeare's earlier dramatic work. Students should expect to actively participate in discussion of texts. Two main papers, several short papers, midterm and final. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Romeo and Juliet; The Merchant of Venice; Hamlet; Daniell, Tyndale's New Testament.
324 YA (Shakespeare after 1603)
TTh 7-8:50 pm
Shakespeare’s career as dramatist after 1603. Study of comedies, tragedies, and romances. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Bevington, ed., The Complete Works of Shakespeare.
326 A (Milton)
Milton's early poems and the prose. Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, with attention to the religious, intellectual, and literary contexts. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Orgel & Goldberg, eds., John Milton.
327 A (English Literature: Restoration & Early 18th Century)
The writers and literature of England from 1660 to 1750. We will be reading plays, prose, and poetry, chosen to illustrate the variety as well as the creative force of the written word in this period, bringing to life (for instance) the urban horrors of Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, the aristocratic dreamworld of Pope’s Rape of the Lock, big people and little people in Gulliver’s Travels, or the cheerful crooks of The Beggar’s Opera. Major authors covered: Dryden, Congreve, Defoe, Swift, Pope, Gay, Fielding, Thomson, with emphasis on careful reading for understanding and enjoyment of this literature in its social and cultural context. Two papers with revision, weekly one-page reading responses, mid-term, final. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1C (The Restoration and 18th Century).
328 A (English Literature: Later 18th Century)
added 4/12/00 (sln: 8973)
We will be reading and discussing late eighteenth-century English writers, among them Samuel Johnson, Wollstonecraft, Smollett, Blake, Sterne, Paine, and Austen. Readings will include novels, essays, poems, travel books, and a play, and we will be thinking about them in the context of history, ideas, and literary forms—comedy, satire, apologue, irony, etc. Close reading, good preparation, and class discussion are important. There will be some in- and out-of-class essays, hour exams, and a final portfolio. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility; William Blake, Songs of Innocence; Songs of Experience; Samuel Johnson, Rasselas; Thomas Paine, Common Sense; R. B. Sheridan, The School for Scandal; Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey; Voltaire, Candide; Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary and The Wrongs of Women.
329 YA (Rise of the English Novel)
TTh 7-8:50 pm
[Study of the development of this major and popular modern literary form in the eighteenth century. Readings of the best of the novelists who founded the form, and some minor ones, from Defoe to Fielding, Richardson, and Sterne, early Austen, and the gothic and other writers.] Evening Degree students only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; Journal of the Plague Year; Samuel Richardson, Clarissa; The Marquis de Sade, The Misfortune of Virtue and Other Early Tales; Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels; Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas Prince of Abissina; Michel Tournier, Friday.
331 A (Romantic Poetry I)
This course will focus on a close study of the deeply conflicted and remarkably intimate literary relationshiop between Coleridge and Wordsworth, and on Blake's poetry and art. It will also investigate the impact of the French Revolution on these authors' political philosophy and offer a broad overview of major developments during the romantic era in religion (the attack on Christianity), philosophy (the revolt against empiricism), aesthetics (the popularity of the aesthetics of the picturesque, beautiful and the sublime), science (the attack on Newtonian science). Requirements: two papers, a final exam, and oral reports. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Blake, Poetry and Prose; Songs of Innocence and of Experience; America: A Prophecy and Europe: A Prophecy; Coleridge, The Oxford Authors: S. T. Coleridge; Wordsworth, The Oxford Authors: William Wordsworth; M. Butler, Burke, Peirce, Godwin and the Revolution Controversy; Stephen Gill, Wordsworth: A Life.
333 A (English Novel: Early & Middle 19th Century)
Six novels, three from the Romantic period, three from the Victorian, will be studied. Attention will be given to the way that novelists convey ideas, and to the relation between form and content in these books. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; Shelley, Frankenstein; C. Brontë, Jane Eyre; E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Dickens, Oliver Twist.
335 YA (English Literature: The Age of Victoria)
MW 7-8:50 pm
Readings in the prose, poetry, and fiction of the Victorian age. Short (5-7 pp.) papers, midterm, final. (Evening Degree students only, Registration Period 1.) Text: Henderson & Sharpe, eds., The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 2B: The Victorian Age.
336 A (English Literature: The Early Modern Period)
352 YA (American Literature: The Early Nation)
MW 7-8:50 pm
Conflicting visions of the national destiny and the individual identity in the early years of America's nationhood. Evening Degree students only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Margaret Fuller, The Essential Margaret Fuller; Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; Henry Thoreau, The Portable Thoreau; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Portable Hawthorne; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
354 A (American Literature: The Early Modern Period)
We’ll read and discuss an assortment of novels and short stories by American authors writing in the first half of the twentieth century. Students will be expected to attend class regularly, keep up with reading assignments, and take part in open discussion. Written work will consist of a number of brief in-class essays, done in response to study questions handed out in advance. Majors only, Registration Period 1 Texts: William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls; Richard Wright, Uncle Tom’s Children; John Steinbeck, The Long Valley; Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio; Eudora Welty, Thirteen Stories; Sinclair Lewis, Babbit.
354 B (American Literature: The Early Modern Period)
Meridel LeSueur, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright undercut stereotypes about politics, race, and gender in the art of the late 1920s and 1930s. In the process they encourage us to raise questions about the politics of canon formation. We will then turn to William Carlos Williams, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner to probe the art, outlook, and changing status of three masters of the old canon. Throughout, we will stay alert to the relation between art, politics, cultural politics, and history. I hope for lively discussion of the texts and the issues they raise. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: LeSueur, Salute to Spring; Hughes, Good Morning Revolution; Wright, Native Son; Williams, Imaginations; Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!; Zinn, Twentieth-Century America.
358 A (Literature of Black Americans)
359 A (Contemporary American Indian Literature)
[Creative writings—novels, short stories, poems,--of contemporary Indian authors; traditions out of which they evolved. Differences between Indian writers and writers of the dominant European/American mainstream.] (Meets w. AIS 377A.) Majors only, Registration Period 1
360 A (American Political Culture: to 1865)
368 A (Women Writers)
370 A (English Language Study)
This course is an introduction to major issues in English language study. The emphasis is on the links between language and society. Major topics include socially patterned language variation, language acquisition, and language in the schools. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Text: Clark, et al., eds., Language: Readings in Language and Culture, 6th ed. NOTE: In Winter 2001, ENGL 370 will be taught in conjunction with ENGL 373; concurrent enrollment in both ENGL 370 and 373 will be required. Students wishing to take ENGL 373 in Winter 2001 should not take ENGL 370 in Summer or Autumn, but wait and sign up for both ENGL 370 and ENGL 373 in Winter.
374 A (The Language of Literature)
381 A (Advanced Expository Writing)
If you are eligible to take this "advanced" course, it means that you already know a fair amount about writing effectively. But what makes writing more than merely effective? What makes it striking, persuasive, even elegant? How does context, audience, and purpose affect the impact of the style choices you make? We will examine questions of style and rhetorical purpose by experimenting with writing four distinct types of arguments--an editorial, a manifesto, a memoir, and an essay. Models will be provided for each genre, which we will analyze for audience, context, tone, diction, etc. Students will have some lattitude in selecting the topics they want to write about, but will be required to explore the same (or a very similar) topic in at least two of the assignments. Students should expect to engage in challenging, diverse readings, and to attend thoughtfully to language on the level of the word, the sentence, and the paragraph. Majors only, Registration Period 1
381 B (Advanced Expository Writing)
This class considers debates and issues of multiculturalism through an extensive study of one novel and several readings in a course packet. Majors only, Registration Period 1. Texts: Americo Paredes, George Washington Gomez; Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar; photocopied course packet.
383 A (Intermediate Verse Writing)
Intensive study and practice of the ways and means of making a poem. .Class sessions will derive from reading, exercises, and discussion. Prerequisite: ENGL 283.] Texts: David Young, ed., The Longman Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry: 1950 to the Present, 2nd ed.
383 B (Intermediate Verse Writing)
[Intensive study of the ways and means of making a poem. Further development of fundamental skills. Emphasis on revision. Prerequisite: ENGL 283.] No texts.
384 A (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
Reading and rereading, writing and rewriting, short stories, with very strong emphasis on short short stories. Prerequisite: ENGL 284.Text: photocopied course packet.
384 B (Intermediate Short Story Writing)
Reading and rereading, writing and rewriting, short stories, with very strong emphasis on short short stories. Prerequisite: ENGL 284. Text: photocopied course packet.