Course Descriptions
Undergraduate Courses
Zoom to Grad Course Descriptions
NOTE: Course offerings listed below are subject to change. All courses may not be listed here. Refer to the Fall 2005 schedule or glass case in front of English and Comparative Literature Department office for the most current listing.
CLT 270B: Naked, Loud & Broken: Comedy in World Literature and Film, 1500 to the Present Professor William Nericcio T/TH 9:30 to 10:45
Truth in advertising!
The SDSU catalogue touts this general education “Comparative Literature
class as World Literature, 1500 to the Present.” And while, difficult
as it is, your professor for this class will attempt to toe the line and
embrace the letter of the law with regard to the SDSU catalogue, you need
to know as well that there will be some irreverent adjustments. This
class is entitled, “Naked, Loud & Broken: Comedy in World Literature
and Film, 1500 to the Present,” and, as you can see, our focus will be
the jovial world of the comedic
The
final roster of texts is still being picked at this time but we will, for
sure, thrill to the delights of Cervantes (selected chapters from Don Quixote),
Voltaire (Candide), Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels), John Kennedy Toole
(Confederacy of Dunces), Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo) and Nathanael
West (Miss Lonelyhearts). But books will not be our only friends
in this class—after 1500 means after 1500 so don’t be surprised if Lucille
Ball, the Marx Brothers, Ernie Kovaks, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarrantino,
Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and Chris Rock, through their filmed work,
make cameos as well during the course of the semester. Comedy is
complex and not always funny—hence the phrase, “Naked, Loud, and Broken.”
Laughter may have the charm to warm the cockles of your heart, but it is
also a weapon from the mouths of adversaries out to break your soul—stereotypes,
for instance, those “bloodstains of nations in conflict,” are often time
funny as well and wickedly destructive at the same time. And that, truth
be told, is the power of Comedy as a genre, and the reason for its complexity.
This class is open to ALL majors—any human being with a willingness to
laugh and a healthy curiosity should have a blast.
CLT 440
African Literatures
L . Edson
An investigation
of African Literature from various countries representing the pre-colonial,
colonial, and post-independence periods. Texts to be read include Chinua
Achebe's Things Fall Apart (Nigerian), Flora Nwapa's Efuru (Nigerian),
Ferdinand Oyono's Houseboy (Cameroon), Ousmane Sembene's God's Bits of
Wood (Senegalese), Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood (Nigerian),
Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter (Senegalese), and Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous
Conditions (Zimbabwean).
CLT 514
Modern European Literature
M. Savvas
This class
will concentrate on representative works from the continent of Europe.
We will begin with Tolstoy, continue with Kafka, Joyce, Camus and Beckett
and Printer, and will touch on reading samples of a variety of literary
genres, from the novel to the short story and verse. It is imperative that
the students read the material in advance and bring their texts to class.
Quizzes, a midterm and a final.
CLT 561
Modern Fiction
L . Edson
An investigation
of the modern novel with special attention to narrative voice, strategies
of representation, the role of language, perception, and issues of truth
and authority. Texts to be read include Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart,
Buchi Emecheta's The Bride Price, Albert Camus's The Plague, Marguerite
Duras's The Lover, Michel Tournier's Friday, Maryse Conde's Desirada, and
Albert Camus's The Fall.
CLT 563
POETRY OF WITNESS
Professor Lynda Koolish
Tuesdays.
7-9:40 PM
---"O rain of stars in the darkness, constellation of dead brothers
I owe you my blackest silence, my resolve..."
--Victor Serge
Office hours
Adams Humanities 4178:
Tuesdays 5:15--7:00.
Wednesdays
3:00-3:30.
And by appointment.
Office phone:
594-5565
e-mail: lkoolish@mail.sdsu.edu
Course Description: In Angel of History, poet Carolyn Forché writes of what she describes elsewhere as "the moral imperative of historical remembering." She writes of her own inexorable moral complicity, expressing hope in the redemptive power of poetry. Like other poets of witness, only in rare moments does she write explicitly of politics and ideology.
Using as its central texts Angel of History and Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness (an anthology edited by Forché), as well as a course reader edited by me, this course will explore the work of some extraordinarily gifted poets who have commanded themselves to write, to bear witness, to call for resistance to the incendiary violence and cruelty that have marked the previous century. We will be reading, among others, poems by René Char, Guillaume Apollinaire, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Nelly Sachs, Paul Celan, Irena Klepfitz, Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska, Yehudi Amichai, Pablo Neruda, Roque Dalton, Eduardo Galeano, Rita Dove, Langston Hughes, Ishmael Reed, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Muriel Rukeyser, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Dennis Brutus, Lester Graves Lennon, and Carolyn Forché.
The course will be conducted as a seminar, with class participation not only encouraged, but essential. Even though the course will emphasize close readings of often difficult poems, I encourage you to consider enrolling, regardless of whether you have much of a background in the reading of poetry. I hope that part of the pleasure of the course for each of you will be the process of learning--in a supportive and non-competitive environment--how to fall in love with poetry, with language, how to pay attention to image, line and breath, how to discover your own intuitive gifts of imagination, empathy and intellect.
Requirements include two (7-8 pages) papers on topics of student's choice (but to be approved in advance by the instructor, and to focus on a more complex topic than a reading of a single poem ). If you are a graduate student, I will expect papers that are approximately 9-10 pages in length, rather than shorter page limits. Please include, stapled to your paper, a Xerox copy of any poems you discuss. Collaborative papers are encouraged. Freewrites on a single poem to be discussed in each week's reading are due as a Blackboard submission by noon the day before class, so that the instructor and other students will have the chance to read (and if they wish, respond) to what you have written. This assignment should take at most 30 minutes a week: 5-10 minutes to decided which poem you want to write about; 5 minutes to read the poem to yourself at least twice, and fifteen minutes (timed please) to type it directly onto your computer with no edits, spelling changes etc. This exercise is designed to help you feel comfortable responding to, thinking about, and writing about poems. They will not be individually graded or commented on, but in order to pass the class. you must complete all but two of the weekly freewrites on time, with one late freewrite allowed, and one skipped freewrite allowed (but not encouraged.) Students whose freewrites show consistent effort and energy will be given the benefit of the doubt if they are between grades. Because this class meets only once a week, students who miss more than two classes will have their grades seriously affected. There will be no exams.
Grading:
20% Active
class participation and freewrites
40% each,
two papers
About the reader: it should be available by the first week of class at Cal Copy, next to Starbuck's on College Ave.
It should go without saying that I expect all your written work to be your own, and written for this class, not recycled from another class. I have the same access to internet term paper mills as you do, and I have read a great deal of criticism on these writers. If you plagiarize, I am likely to discover that you have. If you need extra time or are having trouble with assignments, please come and talk to me. Do not risk failing the class by resorting to plagiarism.
ENGL 220
Literature and Social Crisis
P. Herman
In this class,
rather than introducing students to literature by having everyone read
examples of the various genres, I will show students that literature can
be defined through how it reflects and contributes to social crisis. As
we will see, at periods of immense stress, literature tries to capture,
reflect, and more often than not, encourage the sense that all is not right
in the world. Rather than passively reflecting a culture's values, literature
encourages its consumers to put those values into question. Along the way,
we will also show how flexible the definition of literature has been over
the course of history, and how shifts in the definition of literature often
accompany the social crises literature examines. Evaluation will consist
of tests and one short paper.
ENGL 250A
LITERATURE OF THE U.S. TO 1860
M. Borgstrom
This course
will survey some of the key texts that constitute the early American literary
tradition. We will explore the development of a national literature
by examining the work of both classic and newly-classic authors.
By focusing on a diverse selection of texts, we will analyze connections
and convergences among authors from widely varying backgrounds. We'll
pay particular attention to the underlying political tensions between the
desire to affirm a democratic self and the social realities of race, gender,
and class positions in culture. Class requirements will likely include
exams, an analytical paper, brief writing assignments, and active participation
in discussion.
ENGL 250B
LITERATURE OF THE U.S. 1860 TO THE PRESENT
R. Gervais
A survey of
U.S. literature from just after the Civil War to the present, covering
Realism (1865-1895), Naturalism (1895-19200, Modernism (1920-19500, and
the Contemporary Period (1950-present). Four in-class,
open-book, essay exams.
ENGL
260A
Articulating Identities: Self and “Other” From the Middle Ages Through
the 18th Century
E. Frampton
Within this survey course we will analyze a variety of significant literary texts written in the English language, from the 7th century’s earliest recorded poem, Cædmon’s Hymn, through works of the period that is commonly known as “the Enlightenment.” To enliven and unify our study of this long and diverse span of literary history, we will employ a thematic approach, focusing on the ways in which a sense of personal or cultural identity is created in relation to an “other,” on the basis of gender, race, class, religion, or alternative categories. For instance, we will consider the degree to which narratives of what it is to be a “man” or a “woman,” “civilized” or “barbarian” are formulated in binary terms, within a range of literary genres, including fiction, autobiography, poetry, the essay, and drama. Along the way, we will engage with the work of such writers as Aphra Behn, Geoffrey Chaucer, Olaudah Equiano, Margery Kempe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Alexander Pope, William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, and Phillis Wheatley. In addition to tracing the shifting perspectives and diverse techniques of these writers and others, you will be encouraged to relate what we read to your own experiences and knowledge of the world and to responses of other students, critics, and theorists.
ENGL 260B
British Literature from the Romantics to the Present
S. Ramachandran
We cover three
periods of English Literature in this course: The Romantic (1798-1832),
the Victorian (1832-1880), the Modern (1800-Present). We will spend
one-third of the semester on each period, reading texts by major writers
that reflect the conflicts and preoccupations of the times. The readings
are in three genres—poetry, non-fiction prose, and fiction. Some
of the writers covered are Blake, Wordsworth, Browning, Conrad, T.S. Eliot,
James Joyce, and Salman Rushdie. Course requirements include active
class participation, written and oral responses to readings, and two formal
papers. English 260B should be attractive to anyone who has an interest
in reading, thinking about, and analyzing literature—or an interest in
developing these skills. Daily attendance is required in this course.
ENGL 301
The Psychological Novel
R. Gervais
A study of
the psychological novel, which emphasizes the internal state and development
of the protagonist, rather than external action or plot, exploring characters
through their emotions, fears, dreams, and fantasies. In order to accommodate
more authors and themes, we shall be studying some of the most significant
novellas of modern Western literature, rather than full-length novels.
We shall study the psychology of approaching death in Tolstoy's The Death
of Ivan Ilych and Mann's Death in Venice, the psychology of encountering
horror in James's The Turn of the Screw and Conrad's Heart of Darkness,
the psychology of personal confessions in Dostoyevsky's Notes from the
Underground and Camus's The Fall, the psychology of darkly comic dysfunctional
families in Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. and
the psychology of a day in everyday life in Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Bellow's
Seize the Day. There is no expectation that students will be familiar with
psychological theory before taking the course. This is a course in literature,
not psychology, so theory will be kept to a minimum and used only as needed,
as we read and discuss the novellas. Five, in-class, open-book, essay exams.
ENGL 302
Introducing Shakespeare
M. Savvas
This introductory
survey will trace the dramaturgy of the Bard by focusing on six or seven
of his best plays. The lectures will emphasize the thematic, psychological
and literary strategies that comprise the greatness of the works. It is
imperative that the student read the plays prior to coming to class and
that he or she bring the text to class. Three quizzes, a final examination
and two written projects.
ENGL 308W
Literary Study Prof. Jerry
Griswold T/Th 12:30-13:45. COM 206
A course in
advanced composition where students improve their writing skills by composing
essays on selected literary works. Introduction to various techniques of
literary interpretation. Review of principles of grammar. How to write
research papers on literary topics.
ENGL 308W
Literary Study: Analysis, Research and Writing
Laurel Amtower
This course
is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of literary analysis.
The class will be very much “hands on”: We will master fundamental literary
terminology, learn strategies for analyzing poetry and short stories; study
the basics of literary criticism, and practice the techniques of basic
research. The course will culminate in a research paper; other requirements
include an in-class presentation, short written assignments, and workshop
participation. Texts: A Handbook to Literature, Literary Criticism: An
Introduction to Theory and Practice, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, The
Norton Introduction to the Short Novel. This course is required for
the English Major and satisfies the upper division writing requirement.
ENGL 410
Literature and the Passions
H. Polkinhorn
T 1530-1810
Where did
we get the notion that "love hurts?" The swooning swain, Dido impaling
herself on Aeneas's sword, the delirious madness of Sappho's inflamed imagination,
Plato's connection of love with the world of eternal forms, the highly
refined posturing of the medieval knights being "tried" before the bench
in Eleanor of Aquitane's "court of love," Snow White's long sleep, the
short incandescence of Romeo and Juliet: these and other texts (including
Mozart's "Don Giovanni") will carry us through an
examination
of the torture and bliss of love. There will be one mid-term essay exam
and the final comprehensive essay exam. In addition, students will write
10 responses in class to the readings we will be discussing.
ENGL 494
Modern Fiction of the U.S.
R. Gervais
A course in
fiction from around the time of World War I to the present. We shall start
with a survey of short stories by such authors as Cather, Fitzgerald, Porter,
Steinbeck, Malamud, Updike, Oates, O'Conner, Carver, O'Brien, and Lahire,
and read them chronologically to get an over-view of this long stretch
of literary history and a sense of the distinctive periods within it. Then
we will read two significant short novels, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying from
the Modern Period (1920-1950) and McCarthy's All th Pretty Horses from
the Contemporary Period (1950-Present). Five in-class, open- book, essay
exams.
English 501
Children's Literature
A. Allison
This class
focuses on the literary study of writings for children, using picture books,
fables, and fiction. Aesthetic and textual as well as psychological,
sociological,
historical,
feminist, and reader response perspectives are the basis for class work.
By the end of the term, students will have developed a literary vocabulary
and methods interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating literature for children.
Student papers include library and internet assignments and five 2 pp. analytical papers (study questions) which comprise 30% of the grade; a midterm and final are 30% each. These tests are part objective, part essay. The other 10% of the grade is based on class participation.
ENGL 501
Literature for Children
A. Allison
English 501
explores diverse kinds of children's picture books, poetry, folklore, and
fiction while developing students' critical and expository capacities.
You will apply literary language and perspectives to both books and works
of criticism. At the end of the session, you will have developed an understanding
of the richness of children's literature and the ability to comment confidently
and knowledgeably upon it.
ENGL 520 African American Literary Tradition Professor Lynda Koolish TUES THURS 2-3:15
Office hours
Adams Humanities 4178:
Tuesdays 5:15--7:00.
Wednesdays
3:00-3:30.
And by appointment.
Office phone:
594-5565
e-mail: lkoolish@mail.sdsu.edu
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Henry Louis
Gates, Jr., ed. The Classic Slave Narratives (Mentor)
(includes Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
and Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by
Herself)
Zora Neale
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ralph Ellison,
Invisible Man (Vintage)
Toni Morrison,
Beloved (Plume)
Kevin Quashie,
Joyce Lausch, Keith Miller eds. New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers
in America (Prentice Hall)
Lynda Koolish,
ed, Required English 520 Course Reader of poems and short stories and essays
available at Cal Copy (next to Starbuck's on College Avenue.)
Please try to use the specified editions if you can, as it will make it easier for everyone to find passages which we are discussing.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
1. Active, thoughtful participation in class discussion.
This course will be conducted as a seminar, with class participation not only encouraged, but essential. The course will involve close readings of classic African American texts, with a goal of gaining a sense both of the individual works, and of the African American literary tradition. In order to have stimulating discussions, it is important that you have completed reading each novel or class assignment--and have thought about it-- before the first day we discuss it in class.
2 * One thoughtful, provocative, interesting, discussion-engendering, open-ended discussion questions for each week's readings, no longer than one page, or a freewrite on a single poem or on the novel to be discussed for the current week's reading is due as a Blackboard submission by noon the day before class, so that the instructor and other students will have the chance to read (and if they wish, respond) to what you have written. The discussion questions will help guide the direction of class discussion. As either a discussion question or as a freewrite, this assignment should take at most 30 minutes a week. For the freewrite: 5-10 minutes to decide what you want to write about; 5 minutes to read the poem (or passage from the novel or whatever theme you wish to explore) to yourself at least twice, and fifteen minutes (timed please) to type your response directly onto your computer with no edits, spelling changes etc. This exercise is designed to help you feel comfortable responding to, thinking about, and writing about literature. They will not be individually graded (although if we have a relatively small class, I hope to have the time to comment on many of the freewrites and discussion questions), but in order to pass the class, you must complete all but two of the weekly freewrites or discussion questions on time, with one late freewrite/discussion question allowed, and one skipped freewrite/discussion question allowed (but not encouraged.) Students whose freewrites /discussion questions show consistent effort and energy will be given the benefit of the doubt if they are between grades. I will bring examples of both discussion questions and freewrites to the first day of class. It is your choice each week which of these options you decide on for your weekly Blackboard assignment. Students who miss more than three classes will have their grades seriously affected. There will be no exams.
3. Two 7-8 page papers of thoughtful, (and hopefully heart-connected) literary criticism on topics of student's choice (but to be approved in advance by the instructor). Your essays must have a thesis, an argument, a point of view. Essays that are plot summaries or anything remotely resembling plot summaries will be returned without a grade, and you will be invited to resubmit a different paper. Late papers will not be accepted without a valid reason.
GRADES:
Papers: 40
% each
Class participation
(includes discussion questions and freewrites) : 20 %
It should
go without saying that I expect all your written work to be your own, and
written for this class, not recycled from another class. I have the
same access to internet term paper mills as you do, and I have read a great
deal of criticism on these writers. If you plagiarize, I am likely
to discover that you have. If you need extra time or are having trouble
with assignments, please come and talk to me. Do not risk failing
the class by resorting to plagiarism.
ENGL 522:
LITERATURE OF THE U.S. 1800-1860
M. Borgstrom
This course
will survey some of the key texts of the era commonly identified as the
American Renaissance, a term that designates a moment in America's literary
history in which the texts considered to be the nation's "classics" first
appeared. Until fairly recently, however, study of this period excluded
a body of work that is indispensable to a complex understanding of the
era, a group of texts now referred to as "the other American Renaissance."
Consequently, this course will focus on the work of both classic and newly-classic
authors of the period. We will pay particular attention to the underlying
political tensions between the desire to affirm a democratic self and the
social realities of slavery and gender inequity. Class requirements
will likely include exams, analytical papers, brief writing assignments,
and active participation in discussion.
ENGL 523:
Lit. of the U.S. 1860-1920
R. Gervais
Fiction from
the age of Realism-Naturalism, when literature turned away from what was
felt to be the fantasies and delusions of Romanticism toward what was thought
to be the more truthful treatment of material, with detailed portrayals
of everyday people, intricate attention to the immediate surroundings,
and ordinary events seen in their true significance (Realism), but also
with a dark sense of determinism by the forces of nature, society, psychology,
and economics (Naturalism). We will read works by Mark Twain, Henry James,
Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, and Willa
Cather. There will be four in-class, open book, essay exams.
ENGL 524
Literature of the U.S. 1920-1960
C. Wall
The plays
are Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine, for the course’s beginning, and Thornton
Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, a World War II play, for its end. We will
read works by a dozen or more poets in The Anthology of Modern American
Poetry (Oxford University Press). In fiction, we will compare Edith Wharton’s
The Custom of the Country (in which Undine Spragg is on the make just like
a comparably motivated young woman today) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby for dynamics of society’s powers and those of the individual.
Another
comparison
and contrast will come from the pairing of Willa Cather’s Sapphira and
the Slave Girl and William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses; land-owning Sapphira
tries to “ruin” a mulatto slave girl, but her daughter spirits the girl
away. In Faulkner’s book, Isaac McCaslin tries to free himself from the
legacy of his family’s shameful slave-holding. A dozen of Eudora Welty’s
short (and long) stories will give a very different view of social and
individual powers. I will probably assign three five-page papers and give
three exams.
ENGL 525
Literature of the U.S. 1960 to present
H. Polkinhorn TTH 1400-1515
Students will
read and discuss a variety of primary texts to gain an overview of contemporary
American literature. Because of the dynamic qualities of the literature
of our own period, no selection of texts can be representative of the whole.
Class discussions will focus on fiction and poetry by Robert Duncan, Jack
Kerouac, N. Scott Momaday, Charles Olson, Ezra Pound, Leslie Silko, Gerald
Vizenor, and a selection of texts from a compilation of U.S. Hispanic literature.
There will be one mid-term essay
exam and the
final comprehensive essay exam. In addition, students will write 10 responses
in class to the readings we will be discussing.
ENGL 525
Literature of the U.S. 1960 to the Present
C. Wall
We will focus
on works dealing with social movements, disturbances and progress
in American
life, in this period. Plays include James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie,
Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God, about rights for the deaf, and
David Mamet’s American Buffalo, about men “buffaloed” by the American business
and social creed. These are the novels: John Irving’s The World According
to Garp, about the impact of the women’s rights movement; Philip Roth’s
The Human Stain, a query into what justifies an American’s making an opportunity
for himself to step aside from history and other givens and create a new
life for himself; Carole Maso’s The Art Lover, about a woman’s relationships
with her father and a gay friend and the AIDS epidemic; Alfredo Vea, Jr.’s
La Maravilla, about a mestizo boy growing up outside Phoenix with his Spanish
Catholic curandera grandmother and his Yaqui shaman grandfather; and Ann
Patchett’s Bel Canto, about an American soprano’s becoming a hostage (along
with dozens of businessmen and diplomats from many countries in a South
American country and the relationships that grow up between the hostages
and the insurgents holding them captive. We will read works by more
than a dozen poets in The
Anthology
of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press). I will probably assign
three five-page papers and give three exams.
ENGL 526 BLACK WOMEN WRITERS Professor Lynda Koolish WEDS 3:30-6:10
Office hours
Adams Humanities 4178:
Tuesdays 5:15--7:00.
Wednesdays
3:00-3:30.
And by appointment.
Office phone:
594-5565
e-mail: lkoolish@mail.sdsu.edu
REQUIRED TEXTS:
* Harriet Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , ed. Jean Fagin Yellin (Harvard
* Nella Larsen,
Quicksand and Passing (Rutgers)
* Zora Neale
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (HBJ)
* Gwendolyn
Brooks, Selected Poems
* Alice Walker,
The Color Purple (Washington Square Press)
* Sherley
Anne Williams, Dessa Rose (Berkley Books)
* Toni Morrison,
Beloved (Plume/NAL)
* Audre Lorde,
The Black Unicorn (W.W. Norton)
* Audre Lorde,
Zami
* Lynda Koolish,
ed, Required English 526 Course Reader of poems and short stories and essays
available at Cal Copy (next to Starbuck's on College Avenue.) The reader
and anthology includes short fiction by Toni Cade Bambara and Alice Walker,
and poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Toi Derricotte, Lucille Clifton,
and Jewelle Gomez.
* Three texts which are highly recommended, but not required are Barbara Christian's Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976, Frances Smith Foster's Witnessing Slavery and Hazel V. Carby's Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. There are several copies of these available in the bookstore, and I will also put them on reserve in the library.
* Please try to use the specified editions if you can, as it will make it easier for everyone to find passages which we are discussing. I do have some extra copies of some of these books, so if you are short on funds, check with me about borrowing some books. (Please return them at semester's end, so I can continue to have copies to loan out to other students!!)
* Also, please don't panic about the reading. It is heavier in the first several weeks. With a once a week schedule that loses a week for Thanksgiving, the only way to actually get to six novels, a narrative, and two collections of poems with enough breathing space around the weeks that papers are due, and so that we can actually devote a full two weeks to Beloved, and a week and a half to Hurston, was to jam things up a bit in the beginning.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Requirements
include one shorter (6-7 pages) and one longer (8-9 page) paper
on topics of student's choice (but to be approved in advance by the
instructor). If you write about poetry, please include a xerox of any poem(s)
you discuss. Collaborative papers are encouraged. Graduate students
will be expected to write two 9-10 page papers, each counting for 40% of
your grade. Please respect the minimum and maximum lengths. Your
essays must have a thesis, an argument, a point of view. Essays that
are plot summaries or anything remotely resembling plot summaries will
be returned without a grade, and you will be invited to resubmit a different
paper. If you feel in any way unclear about paper topics, please
either come see me in office hours, or raise the subject in class, OK?
Late papers will not be accepted without a valid (i.e. family or health)
reason.
* One thoughtful, provocative, interesting, discussion-engendering, open-ended discussion questions for each week's readings, no longer than one page, or a freewrite on a single poem or on the novel to be discussed for the current week's reading is due as a Blackboard submission by noon the day before class, so that the instructor and other students will have the chance to read (and if they wish, respond) to what you have written. The discussion questions will help guide the direction of class discussion. As either a discussion question or as a freewrite, this assignment should take at most 30 minutes a week. For the freewrite: 5-10 minutes to decide what you want to write about; 5 minutes to read the poem (or passage from the novel or whatever theme you wish to explore) to yourself at least twice, and fifteen minutes (timed please) to type your response directly onto your computer with no edits, spelling changes etc. This exercise is designed to help you feel comfortable responding to, thinking about, and writing about literature. They will not be individually graded (although if we have a relatively small class, I hope to have the time to comment on many of the freewrites and discussion questions), but in order to pass the class, you must complete all but two of the weekly freewrites or discussion questions on time, with one late freewrite/discussion question allowed, and one skipped freewrite/discussion question allowed (but not encouraged.) Students whose freewrites /discussion questions show consistent effort and energy will be given the benefit of the doubt if they are between grades. I will bring examples of both discussion questions and freewrites to the first day of class. It is your choice each week which of these options you decide on for your weekly Blackboard assignment. Because this class meets only once a week, students who miss more than two classes will have their grades seriously affected. There will be no exams.
It should go without saying that I expect all your written work to be your own, and written for this class, not recycled from another class. I have the same access to internet term paper mills as you do, and I have read a great deal of criticism on these writers. If you plagiarize, I am likely to discover that you have. If you need extra time or are having trouble with assignments, please come and talk to me. Do not risk failing the class by resorting to plagiarism.
GRADES
* Shorter paper:
35%
* Longer paper:
45%
* Class participation
(class discussions, freewrites/discussion questions): 20%
ENGL 527
The Epic
Laurel Amtower
This course
will focus on the great epics and heroes that have inspired the European
literary imagination. We will read The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Iliad,
Vergil's Aeneid, the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, as well as the great German
epic The Nibelungenlied; Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Spenser’s first book of
the Faerie Queene, and possibly some epic tales from the Celtic tradition.
We'll study theories of the epic genre, track allusions and authorial influences,
and focus on how these stories address issues such as war, gender, leadership,
the afterlife, fate, responsibility, and desire. This class will contain
heavy reading assignments, but will provide an important foundation for
your study of western literature and film. Assignments will include a research
paper, reading quizzes, and a final exam.
ENGL 533
Shakespeare
M. Savvas
A survey course
mostly on the tragic vision of William Shakespeare. The assignments will
begin with ROMEO & JULIET and will end with KING LEAR. Textual analysis
of the plays at home and in class is our approach to deciphering the assigned
works. It is advisable that students read the assigned material in advance
of lecture and that they bring their text to class.
ENGL 537
Milton
P. Herman
When students
think of Milton, all too often they think of someone whose works are boring
at best, incomprehensible at worst. In this course, we will see that neither
is in fact the case. Milton, as I will to demonstrate, is deeply fascinating,
deeply relevant, and deeply wonderful. The bulk of this course will
consist of an in-depth reading of Paradise Lost, and we will situate this
epic in its various political, literary, philosophical and theological
contexts. Along the way, we will examine some of the major prose, usually
in conjunction with and as background for the relevant sections of Paradise
Lost. We will also see how newer approaches to literature, e.g.,
feminism and New Historicism, revise and enrich previous interpretations
of Milton. Students are advised that this will not be a class in
either theology or worshipping the transcendent text. We will not
be looking at Milton as the culmination of a seamless and apolitical Christian
tradition, but as a historically situated author whose works intervene,
and were meant to intervene, in the politics of his time. Furthermore,
we will not look at Paradise Lost as a statement of religious dogma, but
as a poem that continually puts into question its own claims to truth.
In other words, we will see how Paradise Lost is animated by a poetics
of incertitude, as Milton uses this poem to confront his doubts after the
failure of the English Revolution. Evaluation at this moment is uncertain,
but will definitely include a research paper.
ENGL 540B
English Fiction: 19th Century
Dr. Jane Robinett
This course
addresses the development of English fiction during the 19th century.
Objectives include increasing the student's understanding of the development
of the forms, themes and conventions of English fiction during the 19th
century, expanding critical thinking skills, developing sensitivity to
literary uses of narrative structure and voice, and mastering the conventions
of literary criticism. We will be looking at the development of the
novel as a literary form, at the representations of social constructions
(the estate, the village, the town, the family, values within those), at
the development of the regional novel and its widening scope, and at the
rise of realism.
Austen,
Pride and Prejudice
Bronte, Jane
Eyre
Conrad, Joseph
The Heart of Darkness
Dickens, Charles
Hard Times
Eliot, George
The Mill on the Floss
Hardy, Thomas
The Return of the Native
Shelly, Mary
Frankenstein
ENGL
541B
Masculine/Feminine Performances: English Drama 1660-1800
E. Frampton
In this course,
we will explore a variety of plays written in English between the time
when Charles II returned from exile and the monarchy was restored, in 1660,
through the end of the eighteenth century. We will consider a range
of both literary and performance issues, examining the ways in which aspects
of culture, society, and the theatre are reflected, perpetuated, or subverted
within these dramatic texts. While addressing a broad survey of concerns,
including contemporary debates around the role of theatre in society, we
will focus on the central theme of gender, sexuality, and the politics
of marriage, asking how notions of masculinity and femininity are constructed
in dramatic works of the period that came to be known as “the Enlightenment.”
Playwrights covered will include Aphra Behn, William Congreve, Hannah
Cowley, John Gay, David Garrick and George Colman the Elder, Oliver Goldsmith,
Thomas Southerne, and William Wycherley. Recent appropriations of
their work, by present-day writers such as Jeffrey Hatcher and April De
Angelis, will also be explored, in our effort to find the links between
our world and that of “the long eighteenth century.” We will have
the opportunity to attend a live performance together one Saturday afternoon
and there will be the chance to perform brief scenes and monologues in
class
ENLG 543
The Romantic Tradition
Professor David Matlin Tuesday 7:00-9:40pm
The great
Blake scholar, Northrop Frye, wrote in the preface of his study Fearful
Symmetry, “Today … reactionary and radical forces alike are once more in
the grip of the nihilistic psychosis that Blake described so powerfully
in Jerusalem.” Frye composed his study during the darkest hours of World
War II and in the darkening hours since that time can we ask whether the
savageries, the griefs, the ordeals of rage, the ordeals of renewal, the
inflammations of what Shelley called the new Sphinx riddles never known
by previous civilizations might help us to compose a map of necessary readings
before the unknowns we face in this time of hazards and trouble. With this
sense of both urgency and care the course proposes to examine not only
classic British Experimental Romantism but how this tradition vitally influences
the most advanced experiments of the present. The course will require a
commitment to reading.
ENGL 544
Empire and Warfare: British Literature 1890-1918
S. Ramachandran
This course
examines the literature of transition from the “Victorian” 19th century
to the “Modern” 20th century. The British Empire was at the height
of its power at the end of the 19th century, but this was also a period
of growing conflict as women, the working classes, and “uncivilized” colonies
organized mass movements to demand democratic rights. The course
will focus on how technological advances, imperialist conquest, and warfare
shaped the literature of this exciting, dangerous, and tragic period in
history. Some of the writers covered are Rudyard Kipling, Joseph
Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Thomas Hardy, E.M. Forster, George
Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, and the World War I poets. Course
requirements include active class participation, written and oral responses
to readings, and two analytical papers.
ENGL 570
Techniques of Poetry
Sharon Bryan MW
Book for the
course:
Writing Poems,
Robert Wallace and Michelle Boisseau, FIFTH EDITION.
You can get
it used, so it will be cheaper than the newest edition.
You need this
one rather than any other because they’ve changed substantially from one
edition to the next, and we all need to be on the same page, so to speak.
The book covers a wide range of topics, from metaphor to line and line
break, to speaker of the poem. It also includes many published poems
as examples, and some student work.
Students will
turn in a poem each week, almost always in response to a specific assignment.
Poems and topics from Writing Poems will be discussed on Mondays and student
poems on Wednesdays. I’ll make written comments on all student poems
each week, but class size will determine how often each student’s poems
are discussed in class. All student work will be discussed anonymously--you’ll
miss your fifteen minutes of fame, but will probably feel freer as you
write the poems.
This is also
to keep our discussion focused on the draft of the poem rather than on
its author.
If you’re thinking about this class you’ve probably written some poems and want to write better ones. The course is intended to teach you some of the elements of craft that will make that possible.
ENGL 571
Techniques of the Short Story
Professor David Matlin
Thursday 7:00-9:40pm
What is a
narrative that lets the lived world in, thinking, moving, restlessly aware,
not entirely sure of its destination, filled with humor and beauty and
specifically alive? Think of the story space as a place where
you might belong filled with a humane deeply present knowledge; a small
intimate space that tinkers with and makes consciousness available
and real, nothing grandiose, and faithful to the world it attempts
to bring alive filled with what it must have; gossip, rages,
perception, graces, hates, saving wonders, summations of deceit;
the world
as it is extraordinarily attractive and hateful at every unpredictable
turn. The workshop will as well include required reading, writings, and
class discussion.
ENGL 580
Writing of Poetry
Sharon Bryan
Book for the
course:
Writing Poems,
Robert Wallace and Michelle Boisseau, FIFTH EDITION.
You can get
it used, so it will be cheaper than the newest edition.
You need this
one rather than any other because they’ve changed substantially from one
edition to the next, and we all need to be on the same page, so to speak.
The book covers a wide range of topics, from metaphor to line and line
break, to speaker of the poem. It also includes many published poems
as examples, and some student work.
Students will
turn in a poem each week, almost always in response to a specific assignment.
Poems and topics from Writing Poems will be discussed on Mondays and student
poems on Wednesdays. I’ll make written comments on all student poems
each week, but class size will determine how often each student’s poems
are discussed in class. All student work will be discussed anonymously--you’ll
miss your fifteen minutes of fame, but will probably feel freer as you
write the poems.
This is also
to keep our discussion focused on the draft of the poem rather than on
its author.
If you’re thinking about this class you’ve probably written some poems and want to write better ones. The course is intended to teach you some of the elements of craft that will make that possible.
Prerequisite: English 570 or permission of the instructor.
ENGL 581W
The Writing of Fiction
J. Meschery
TH 1530-1810,
AH 3140:
A workshop
in which participants study and apply the techniques of fiction writing
to their own work, as well as in their reading and discussion of the fiction
of other workshop members. In addition, to class exercises and reading,
each participant will write two short stores and one revision.
ENGL 581W
The Writing of Fiction
Professor David Matlin Wed 7:00-9:40pm
Creative writing
workshop in Fiction. Emphasis on the disciplines of writing.
Concentration
on process, awareness of the word-by-word formation of texture, tone,
the intricate
close work of balancing life events and language and how these instances
of possibility might be intensely combined into the tangles of perception;
wonders that might be able to include the currents of a lived world as
the expressive reservoirs of language and narrative might discover,
quick, without prediction, never standing still. The emphasis will
include required readings, writings, and workshop participation.
ENGL 581
Fiction Writing
Dr. Hal Jaffe
AH 3114,
Office Hrs.:
5:30-7:00, Tuesday and Thurs.
Office phone:
594-5469
E-Mail: hjaffe@mail.sdsu.edu
This course
is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, English
majors and other majors, who are writing fiction. Each student will be
required to submit six short fictions, five of which will be graded. The
story assignments are graduated in difficulty, each text concentrating
on a different aspect of the medium, such as dialogue, characterization,
point of view, and plot. A few of these exercises will be begun in class
and completed at home.
I will also supply several writing “prompts.”
Every student will get at least one opportunity to have her/his story Xeroxed and read aloud. Each class session will consist of four or more Xeroxed stories to be read aloud. Then two (rotating) student-critics will each deliver a fairly brief (five to ten minutes) commentary on the particular story. Finally the class and instructor will comment on the text. Each student will have written her/his commentary, and these comments (signed), along with the instruc-tor's, will be passed on to the writer whose story has been critiqued.
Besides reading
and critiquing your fiction, we will discuss stories and texts from the
reader (Create Unacceptable Images) which bear on your writing. And we
will discuss questions of writing, art and culture which seem relevant
to our concerns as fiction writers.
ENGL 601:
Literary Study in a Multicultural World
L. Edson
An investigation
of selected issues in literature, cultural criticism, and theory of the
postcolonial age. Focus on the intersections of class, ethnicity, gender,
and race; exploration of literature as the site where social and cultural
values are inscribed and produced. Authors to be read include Chinua Achebe
(Nigerian), Jean Rhys (Caribbean), Michel Tournier (French [Algeria]),
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peruvian), Marguerite Duras (French [Indochina]), Mariama
Ba (Senegalese), and Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenyan).
ENGL 604B:
Arthurian Literature
Laurel Amtower
The story
of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table holds a universal fascination,
attracting artists, poets and fiction writers, dramatists, and even composers
who have been intrigued with an epic world of splendor, love, spiritual
quest, and personal tragedy. This course will trace the figure of Arthur
from the obscure Welsh chieftain we find in the earliest Celtic poetry
to the mythic figure who dominates the second millennium’s romantic imagination,
as well as a couple of the well-known Arthurian heroes who also come to
define the legend: Tristan, Erec, Gawain, and the like. We will examine
a range of disciplines and cultures as we develop our sense of the Arthurian
evolution, and will historicize the literature we read by examining the
contexts that demanded an idealization of court culture and its artificiality.
Readings will include the historical chronicles, the tales of Chretien
de Troyes, Malory, and the Gawain Poet; the French Vulgate; the later writings
of Tennyson and William Morris; and a few modern treatments of Arthur and
the chivalric ideal: Steinbeck, Italo Calvino, and Jane Yolen.
ENGL 624:
Eighteenth-Century British Literature
G. J. Butler
In this period,
which for our purpose extends from the rise of the stock market to the
beginning of Romanticism, we see perhaps the greatest clash between old
and new in literary works written in our language. This is a conflict useful
to study because it can help to show us, in highly dramatic terms, what
it means to be modern. We will examine to a greater or lesser degree a
number of writers, though we will try to keep the work demanded for the
course possible by only reading some of these at length. Our examination
will include fiction of popular women writers like Eliza Haywood, novels
of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Jane Austen. We will also consider
Swift's satires, and, to some extent, the periodical essays of Addison
and Steele as well as some poetry, Gay's comedy, the criticism of Johnson,
and the narrative of the former slave Olaudah Equiano. There will be a
final (essay) exam on the reading and a research paper--due in final form
on the last evening of classes--on a topic of your choice that is relevant
to the course. For the first seven or eight weeks, we will discuss the
readings; then, for the remainder of the semester, you will present in
an informal way to the class the progress of work on your own topic of
research.
ENGL 630:
The Form and Theory of Poetry
Professor Sandra Alcosser
Open to all
graduate students and may be repeated with new content.
Wednesday
4-6:40
Theodore Roethke
wrote: Imitation, conscious imitation, is one of the great methods, perhaps
the method, of learning to write. In form and theory we will study the
collaboration that takes place between a poet and that poet's literary
ancestors. Participants will be asked to explore the layers of this influence---for
instance, what have William Matthews, Anthony Hecht, and Carol Muske, three
radically different poets, learned from Horace; who influenced Ovid, and
how did Ovid influence Shakespeare, as well as twenty-first century poets;
how did Asian poetry shape the poetics of Modernists like Stein, Pound,
Eliot, H.D., and Niedecker. Poets will be asked to: give a presentation
which they turn into a paper; assemble a chapbook of their own conscious
imitation; submit a combined reading journal and practice book.
ENGL
700:
Chasing Derrida
Professor William Nericcio
With the work
of Jacques Derrida we will have been, from the beginning, always already,
chasing—pursuing the elusive shadow of a brilliant mind that has already
anticipated our coming. He wants us to chase, or, (better put, as he has
recently left the realm of this chaotic planet), he wanted us to chase.
Jacques Derrida: the wily flirt, and we, his adoring suitors. This graduate
seminar will dedicate itself to a hunt, a safari, a quest for Derrida and
his major works, but it will focus on the later writings--sometimes at
the expense of his earlier operatic odysseys. So we will read Memoirs for
Paul de Man, Memoirs for the Blind, Derrida (written with Geoffrey Bennington),
Given Time, and Archive Fever—leaving us no time for the vagaries and delights
of GLAS and Of Grammatology. The early Spurs may make the final roster,
but I have not made the final call on texts. Rest assured we will
not spend all our time wrestling with ponderous philosophical tomes. Derrida
was and is a sensualist, an autobiographer, a film star(!), and a celebrity.
And to chase him will mean that we will, at times, have to ignore him,
in order to get him, and really, between you and I, that is deconstruction
in a nutshell. Derrida was a big flirt, really, and the only way to snag
our quarry, we be to go the other way, to give our handsome prey the brush-off,
ignore the seductive charms of his alluring trace. To that end, the
class includes films by director Hal Hartley (Flirt) and screenwriter Charlie
Kaufman (either Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, or Eternal Sunshine of
a Spotless Mind) and Kirby Dick/Amy Ziering Kofman (Derrida), whose cinematic
visions cleverly parse the sinewy, luscious labyrinths of Derridean architecture.
Sometime during the semester, we will also read Derrida for Beginners to
gauge our expanding command of Derrida’s work. This class is open
to all graduate students in all disciplines; adventurous undergraduates
are also welcome to take the course for E499 credit with the permission
of your resident Derrida channeler for this holy philosophical quest, Bill
Nericcio (memo@sdsu.edu). This seminar is for students who have an
open mind to intellectual history and philosophy, especially with regard
to the way these fields intersect with literature and her sister arts.
If you are curious and love to read, this class will be a pleasure—chasing
Derrida may become a lifelong avocation. Slackers, however, will experience
all the joy of a root canal as the readings will come fast and furious
and this is NOT the kind of class where you can only do SOME of the readings.
ENGL 700:
Seminar: Mark Twain
Prof. Jerry Griswold
Tuesdays,
1530-1810. COM 206
The Man in
the White Suit. “The Lincoln of our literature.” Samuel Clemens, the author
with the doubled moniker. We’ll do close study of the Mississippi writings
(Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Puddn’head Wilson, and possibly Life on
the Mississippi) as well as one other novel (The Prince and the Pauper).
We’ll spend an equal among of time on the texts and on literary criticism
about the works. Essays on individual works and a theme in Twain. Students
are asked to read (before class) Justin Kaplan’s biography Mr. Clemens
and Mark Twain, which we’ll take up the first day and makes fine summer
reading.
ENGL 724:
British Poetry and Its Medium
J. Farber
This course
will focus on British poetry from the early sixteenth through the early
twentieth centuries in relation to its aesthetic medium. In other
words: poetry as poetry. We'll be looking at versification, imagery,
diction, figurative language, structure, density, tone, and resonance.
This course should be useful for graduate students with a special interest
in British poetry, and useful as well for those who feel that they haven't
yet made, but would very much like to make, a strong aesthetic connection
with the British poetic tradition. We’ll be reading the work of a
great many poets, beginning with Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, and Sidney
(and including often neglected poets such as Anne Finch, Charlotte Smith,
and Jane Taylor), but there will be particular emphasis on the work of
seven poets: Shakespeare, Pope, Keats, Christina Rossetti, Hopkins, Yeats,
and Dylan Thomas.
This is not a course in prosody, but prosodic analysis will play an indispensable role in it. It’s OK if you come in knowing next to nothing about meter, rhyme, poetic forms, etc. That’s no problem; we’re going to start from scratch. But we’re going to move along very quickly, so that everyone in this class will need to have advanced knowledge of this subject by the mid-point of the semester and will need to be adept at applying what they know to specific poems.
ENGL
725:
RE-EXAMINING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
M. Borgstrom
This course
will examine several of the works that constitute what is traditionally
called "The American Renaissance," a period in the mid-nineteenth-century
in which many of the texts considered fundamental to the American literary
tradition first appeared. As a scholarly designation, however, the
term "American Renaissance" has in recent years been the subject of intense
debates about the formation of the American literary canon and its exclusion
of minority authors, characters, and issues. Accordingly, this course
will consider the work of both canonical and newly-canonical authors, with
particular attention paid to their representative roles within these debates.
Primary authors are likely to include Hawthorne, Stowe, Melville, Fuller,
Douglass, Thoreau, Jacobs, Wilson, Poe, Dickinson, Whitman, and Emerson.
We will also discuss recent scholarship by, among others, Jonathan Arac, Michael Colacurcio, Valerie Smith, Lauren Berlant, Jane Tompkins, Wai-Chee Dimock, Donald Pease, and Priscilla Wald.
ENGL 750F:
MFA Seminar: Fiction Writing
J. Meschery
W 1600-1840,
AH 3127
An advanced
fiction workshop devoted to participants' writing and rewriting.
Workshops will involve discussion of fiction presented in an atmosphere
of constructive suggestions, support, and encouragement of experimentation
and risk-taking. Each participant will submit two short stories or
novel sections and one revision.
ENGL 750F:
MFA Seminar: Fiction Writing
J. Meschery
TH 1900-2140,
AH 3140
An advanced
fiction workshop devoted to participants' writing and rewriting.
Workshops will involve discussion of fiction presented in an atmosphere
of constructive suggestions, support, and encouragement of experimentation
and risk-taking. Each participant will submit two short stories or
novel sections and one revision.
ENGL 750P:
MFA Poetry Workshop
Sharon Bryan
M
It Don’t Mean
a Thing if it Ain’t Got that Swing
Well, it’s a workshop, so we’ll be talking a fair amount about student poems. But I always like to have some common ground and some sort of thread running through the class. What I want to do this time is focus on music in poetry, from traditional meter to one of the greatest inventions ever: free verse. I think it’s important to have some historical context for how you think about line and line length in your poems. We’ll also spend time listening to poems read on tape and on reading aloud in class. How do hear the music of a poem you read? Of a poem you want to write? How do you get it on the page?
Please buy these books:
The Making
of a Poem, ed. Eavan Boland and Mark Strand
Selected Poems,
Robert Creeley
Collected
Poems, William Carlos Williams
ENGL 750P:
MFA Poetry Workshop
Professor Sandra Alcosser
Thursday 4-6:40
The writing
that you present to us will be the primary focus of this workshop. Each
person is expected to submit at least six poems during the semester. Each
poem will then be discussed in workshop and revised as needed for a culminating
portfolio .You will have two private conferences with the instructor during
the semester to discuss your poetry.
ENGL 750F:
M.F.A. Seminar:Fiction Writing
Hal Jaffe
AH 3114, Office
Hrs.: 5:30-7:00, Tuesday, Thurs.
Office phone:
594-5469, E-Mail: hjaffe@mail.sdsu.edu
This course
is designed principally for MFA students who are writing short or extended
"serious" fiction. Each participant will be required to submit a minimum
of two individual texts, or self-contained segments of a lengthier work.
In addition, there will be occasional brief texts generated by "prompts."
These texts can also be distributed electronically to save on the copying
expense.
A characteristic session will consist three Xeroxed fictions to be read aloud. Then a student-critic will deliver a fairly brief (five to ten minutes) commentary on the particular text. Finally the class and instructor will comment on the text.
Each class participant will have written her/his commentary, and these comments (signed), along with the instructor's, will be passed on to the writer whose text has been critiqued. (The critical commentaries may also be sent electronically to the author).
Specifically, each participant will be obliged to comment carefully and at reasonable length on each Xeroxed fiction. The commentary (which also includes the oral commentary) may be playful and "meta"; but it must also accomplish three overlapping purposes: describe the text appears to be doing, address those aspects of the text that work in its favor, and offer remedial suggestions where necessary. Everyone will send me a copy of his or her commentary as a word attachment, so that I can read them. That will constitute one of the requirements for the course.
*It is possible
that we will alter the reading and critiquing format, depending on input
from the class.
