  NOTE: Course offerings listed below are subject to change. All courses may not be listed here. Refer to the Spring 2008 schedule or glass case in front of English and Comparative Literature Department office for the most current listing.
[Remember! our cool 500-level courses can be taken by both undergraduates and graduate students! See the catalogue for details!!] Comparative Literature Undergraduate Courses CLT 210 Introduction to Comparative Literature W. NERICCIO TTH 3:30-6:10pm Greatest hits! Cultural Studies! Gender Studies! Everything but the Kitchen Sink!!!! 
This wild and madcap Introduction to Comparative Literature will NOT, REPEAT, WILL NOT clarify the boundaries of Comparative Literature; in fact, it is our sublime hope that students will leave this class convinced that Comparative Literature is more process than product, more wave than stone, more explosive than sedentary. If anything, you can think of this experiment as a four-month odyssey guided by an oddly rigorous, eclectic wandering or, alternatively, as a months-long exercise in aesthetic and literary seduction. Part of this is owing to the course design: each weekly gathering features a different Professor and a different text--around these parts, the CLT 210 is known as the test- drive-a-professor seminar. The variety does not stop there, as some of our dynamic roster of scholars are not ONLY from the Department of English and Comparative Literature--we will draw our cohort of outstanding professors from across the College of Arts and Letters. The most delicious aspect of Comparative Literature as a "field" or "fields" is that it supports aesthetic, intellectual and cultural investigations that cross geographic and institutional boundaries--it is that branch of literary study most deeply invested in the collaborations that occur between literature and the "sister arts." So it is that Philosophers, Anthropologists, Editors, Poets, Historians, Biblical Scholars and maybe even a Performance Artist or two will enter our seminar this term to build bridges between their domain and ours. In the end we may find we share more than we understood to be possible. This class is open to all majors, and while it is a requirement for Comparative Literature majors, you may rest assured that all curious, dedicated literature-starved wanderers will find a home away from home here with us this semester. This class is open to ALL majors and is required for our very special undergraduate Comparative Literature majors! Graduate Students interested in auditing or taking this course for Special Study Engl 798 credit should make an appointment with chair of English and Comparative Literature. CLT 270B World Literature M. JAFFE MWF 11:00-11:50am 
CLT 270 B will explore themes embedded in Dystopian literature and film. Our principal focus will be on representations of "horrific" societies to interrogate the society in which we currently live—especially in relation to concepts of freedom, individuality, community, responsibility, "human nature," and scientific / technological innovations. Our texts and films will include the following: Nineteen Eighty-Four Brave New World The Handmaid's Tale Solaris Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Blade Runner Jennifer Government Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) The Invasion (2008) They Live! A Clockwork Orange Pink Floyd: The Wall CLT 405 The Bible as Literature P. KUHLKEN TTH 9:30-10:45am Catalog: Reading the poetry and prose of the King James Bible. This multidisciplinary, multimedia experience will cultivate an appreciation and understanding of biblical literatures in their historical, cultural, aesthetic, philosophical, and theological contexts. Using any preferred Bible translation and The Literary Guide to the Bible (eds. Alter/Kermode), we will consider the poetry, philosophy, story, and prophecy in both the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) and New Testament, with selections from the apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls. We will analyze the genres and strategies of biblical writing, the Bible’s historical and cultural context, and canon formation. 
As a foundation of culture—high or low—the Bible is impossible to ignore. Biblical literacy is an unstated assumption in much of literature (Homer, Shakespeare, Dostovevsky, Dickinson, Flannery O’Connor, C.S. Lewis), art (Rembrandt, Da Vinci, and Chagall), film (The Matrix), and TV (Desperate Housewives), and the source of over 1,000 references in Shakespeare alone. While it has admittedly held moral and religious sway over Judeo-Christian culture for centuries, consensus among its subjects has never been attained, nor will it be in this section. The goal is for students to recreate, experience, understand, and remember biblical stories as midrash, gaining insights about what is meaningful and memorable: story. Students will approach the Bible with new questions and gain a fresh, unbiased awareness about the enduring significance of this best-seller, unsurpassed in world literature, and undeniably present in our everyday realities. CLT 405 The Bible as Literature R. WHITAKER TTH 12:30-1:45pm Is the Bible literature? Who wrote it? When and why did they write it? How long did it take? Are there different types of biblical writings? Are the biblical characters real? Can one truly read it with understanding? These are just a handful of the questions this course will examine. To be sure, every serious thinker must not only think-through these questions, but also tackle the Bible itself. It is no accident that it tops the bestsellers list. Within its covers, contain tales of betrayal, sibling rivalry, murder, stories-within- stories, comedy, tragedy, horror, melodrama, character formation, sagas, end times, and romance. The Bible is a must read. This class is first and foremost an educational experience! It is truly a multidimensional, multidisciplinary, and multimedia engagement with the Bible as a literary piece of art. Besides exposing the interplay between biblical content/form, prose/poetry, and fiction/non-fiction, this class aims at making each of us better literary critics: deconstructing ourselves as we deconstruct the text. If one leaves the class thinking exactly the same way about the Bible as when they entered, then the class has not done its job. Although this is not a biblical theology class, however relevant religious motifs will be explored. That is, this class is not meant to support or repudiate personal convictions. The Bible will be studied as literature. New trends in literary theory and criticism of the Bible will be explored too – e.g. Marxism, feminism, and post-colonial theory. The Bible will be the primary reading. Individual books will be contextualized and analyzed; while not losing sight of how the parts construct the whole. CLT 513 Nineteenth Century European Literature L. EDSON TTH 9:30-10:45am An investigation of 19th century European literature that includes close analysis of novels by Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola, the poetry of Baudelaire, and the drama of Ibsen and Strindberg. Issues to be discussed include realist representation, the realist novel as portrait of society, the politics of the family, the nature of desire, naturalism, Symbolist poetry, and the semiotics of the theatre. In-class writing assignments, oral reports, mid-term and final exams. 
CLT
530
Topics in Asian
Literature (Women in Modern Chinese and Japanese Lit.) W. ROGERS TH 3:30-6:10pm CLT 530 will explore how Chinese and Japanese writers in the 20th century (both female and male) have used the short story to present/express/contest “woman” and “woman’s place” in their societies. The critically-inflected question to be considered, story by story, is how two (highly literate) Asian cultures have constructed gender roles and how writers have either replicated or challenged those roles. All students with curiosity about non-western cultures and literatures (and a sense of adventure!) should find much in CL 530 to engage them, both conceptually and esthetically, since the chosen stories are rich in human drama and incident. Particular background or expertise in Asian culture by students is NOT assumed by the instructor. Requirements: will include two examinations (one of which will be take-home), a research essay, short written responses, and active participation in class discussion.  CLT
561
Fiction
L. EDSON TTH 11:00-12:15am 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' The Plague, Toni Morrison's Sula, Marguerite Duras' The Lover, Michel Tournier's Friday, and Albert Camus' The Fall. In-class writing assignments, oral reports, mid-term and final exams.  CLT
561
Fiction
J. FARBER W 7:00-9:40pm (European Children’s Fantasy Fiction) Let’s define terms. “Fantasy” here is to be understood in the broad sense: not just epic fantasy, but fantasy in general. “European”: we’ll be reading fiction from Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Austria (tentative list). “Children’s”: All of the works on our list will be novels that were written for young readers, and we’ll be reading them in the context of the history of children’s literature and in relation to some of the principal issues that have been raised in the academic study of children’s literature. I hope that this course will be worthwhile both for people who are pursuing a specialization in children’s literature and for people who are just looking for a really good comparative fiction course. 
CLT
580
Concepts in Comparative (Studies Books in the Mirror: Literature- Inspired Literature) TTH 12:30-1:45pm M. BORGSTROM How do texts respond to other texts? How do thematic concerns translate across time and genre? How might an author's personal identity affect literary influence and inspiration? This course will examine these issues (and several others) by comparing three pairs of texts. Each pairing will include one work from an earlier period (the Renaissance, the late nineteenth century, and the early twentieth century) and one work from the current era of American letters. Our readings will include the following pairings: Shakespeare's King Lear and Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres; Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Jon Clinch's Finn; Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours. We may also read literary criticism devoted to these works (particularly analyses that address the issue of textual influence). Assignments will likely include two essays, midterm and final exams, and regular written responses to the readings.  COMPLIT 594
Bruce Springsteen and Postmodernism L. McCAFFERY TH 7:00-9:40pm  What
is rock music and where did it come from? What are the defining
features of rock--its aesthetic--and how have these evolved since an
infinitely hot and dense hillybhilly cat (Elvis Presley) created rock
music's "big bang" during the mid-1950s? What is "postmodernism"? Why did this term arise in the
1970s to describe the sort of radically innovative literature and other
cultural forms that had emerged during the 1970s? What was the
relationship between postmodernism and the great modernist program that
dominated aesthetic innovation throughout most of the 20th
century? What relevance does the concept of postmodern have for
contemporary art, which is emerging under very different circumstances
than those responsible for the experimentalism of art four decades ago?These are some of the questions this class will explore. But the main question I will be examining throughout this semester is: is it possible to apply postmodernism to an art form such a rock music, which originated only in the 1950s and (hence) presumably never went through a 'modernist' phase at all? And in particular, IF postmodernism can be applied to rock music, then why should Bruce Springsteen be seen as postmodernism's MOST exemplary figure? During this class, we will be focusing on 5 Springsteen albums–Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, the Rising, and Magic. We'll also be examining a wide range of works by musicians and filmmakers who have influenced Springsteen (eg., songs by Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Elvis, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Robert Wise's Westside Story, Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, Louis Malle's Atlantic City, Terrence Malick's Badlands, John Ford's The Searchers and The Grapes of Wrath). Readings for the class will include Greil Marcus's Mystery Train, stories by Flannery O'Connor, excerpts from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and Racing in the Streets--the Bruce Springsteen reader Class requirements--lots of reading and listening, class presentations, one term project, and a willingness to examine rock music from a variety of perspectives you probably won't be familiar with. Be forewarned: this class really will be mainly focusing on Springsteen, so if you're looking for a class featuring Jameson, Baudrillard, and Derrida, look elsewhere. English Undergraduate Courses ENGL 220 Introduction to Literature Q. BAILEY MW 12:00-12:50pm  “Sex, death, and literature”: A flying tour of some of the greatest depictions of sex and death in Western literature. From the passionate “friendship” between Achilles and Patroclus, described by Homer in The Iliad, to the deaths of adulteresses like Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina, literature has fixated on moments of desire and death. As Wes Craven’s Scream pointed out in 1996, such moments are the pivots on which stories turn. Some of these scenes have got writers prosecuted and books banned; others – like Don Juan – have become part of the cultural fabric of our lives. This course will look at these scenes and many more, pulling on the resources of film, music, and painting, to explore the emotions provoked by these works and the literary techniques which produced them. ENGL 220 Introduction to Literature T. CUMMINGS TTH 2:00-3:15pm Want to be old-fashioned? Want to be revolutionary? Let's be both. 
In this Introduction to Literature class, we will use ancient myths to understand contemporary change. We'll read four myths and four recent novels. Each myth depicts a stunning change; each novel depicts a dramatic social change. The changes include how we think about war, sex, race, the environment, and the role of women. To help us explore the myths and novels, we'll use the ideas of Paul Ricoeur, Julia Kristeva, and Carl Jung. Ricoeur says we know ourselves through the stories we tell. So, these myths and novels will help us understand how we talk about our society's changes. Kristeva will help us dig deeply into the comedic novels we'll read because she explores how revolution requires comedy. Finally, Jung believed that being human means we share experiences -- we live, we grow, we change. That's an old fashioned idea, but it and the others will help us organize our thinking about these amazing novels and place them in an ethical, local context. Our goal in this class will be to rise above any simple formulations about change and to deepen our understanding of our society through studying the literature of Morrison, Murray, Winterson, and O'Brien. Requirements: response papers, discussion, creative project, two formal essays. ENGL 220 Introduction to Literature P. HERMAN TTH 12:30-1:45pm (The Literature of Terrorism) 
The purpose of this class is to introduce students, whether English majors or not, to literature through an examination of how literature has confronted the question of terrorism. According to the catalogue copy, the point of this class is to ask about the basic nature of literature. What purpose does it serve in our cultural life? This class will seek to answer these questions by examining how various writers and artists have dealt with the pre-eminent question of our time: terrorism. How has mainstream literature in the West represented terrorism? How have contemporary novelists, filmmakers, and songwriters confronted 9/11 and similar events? What makes terror “terror”? What does it do and how does it do this? In the mainstream Western tradition, terrorism is something outside of us, something beyond the limits of civilizations and its institutions and values. Terrorism is what threatens us from beyond, be it a supernatural monster, as in Beowulf, or from a cave in Afghanistan. But literature is also supposed to envoice the “Other”; it is supposed to take us outside ourselves and experience viewpoints other than our own. What happens when that viewpoint is that of someone, or something, labeled “terrorist”? We will read such authors as William Shakespeare, John Milton, John le Carrè, and Don DeLillo, view a movie about terrorism, and hear Bruce Springsteen, Toby Keith and Leonard Cohen. ENGL 220 Introduction to Literature C. RICHEY TTH 8:00-9:15am English 220 provides an inquiry into the basic nature of literature. What is literature? Why do we read literature? Why do we study literature? What prompts humankind to the creation of imaginative literature? What purposes does literature serve in the cultural life of humanity? What are its social, philosophical, spiritual, and aesthetic values? We will be looking at four genres: short prose, poetry, plays/dramas, novels. We will also consider the techniques and major critical theories, but the focus will be the students’ response and understanding of the text. Grades will be assessed by examinations, pop quizzes, a group presentation and a critical essay. The required texts include the following: The Norton Introduction to Literature Reader Oedipus Rex A Doll’s House Master Harold . . . and the boys (video) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Picture of Dorian Gray Their Eyes Were Watching God Things Fall Apart ENGL 220 Introduction to Literature C. SHUMATE MWF 9:00-9:50am 
I take to heart a quote from the Greek philosopher Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and this from Marcel Proust in Time Regained: “Real life, life at last laid bare and illuminated—the only life in consequence which can be said to be really lived—is literature.” How is a 200- year-old book relevant to those of us living in the 21st Century, and what does it have in common with a current popular television show? How can a classic fantasy novel help us in our individual journeys through life, and in adapting this novel for the silver screen, did the filmmakers remain faithful to its themes? These are some of the topics I will introduce while we examine novels, stories, poems, and plays for “lives worth living.” Works to be included: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Books I & II) Selection of stories, poems, and a play in Course Reader available at Cal Copy This course requires CPS Clickers for attendance, class participation, quizzes, and tests.  ENGL
250A Literature
of the
U.S.
J. BROOKS MWF 9:00-9:50am Forget Betsy Ross: early America was a strange, treacherous, and fascinating place. This course introduces students to literature written in the Americas from before the arrival of Columbus through the Civil War. We will read writings by slaves, pirates, fortunetellers, soldiers of fortune, coquettes, freedom fighters; men and women; Black, white, and indigenous. Required texts: Heath Anthology of American Literature, 5th edition, volumes A & B. Requirements: attendance and participation, response papers, midterm, final. ENGL 250B Literature of the U.S. R. GERVAIS MWF 1:00-1:50pm A survey of U.S. literature from just after the Civil War to the present, covering Realism (1865-1895), Naturalism (1895-1920, Modernism (1920-1950, and the Contemporary Period (1950-present). Four in-class, open-book, essay exams.  ENGL
260A
English
Literature
E. KUGLER M 7:00-9:40pm (Inventing Identities: creating individuals, others and nations in literature of the British Isles) In this survey course, we will explore a variety of literary texts written in the British Isles from the Anglo-Saxon culture that produced Beowulf through works of the eighteenth century. One of the central questions of this course will be how a text both reflects as well as shapes it culture. What values does it hold as positive? How does it define the members of its culture, and how does it mark others as outsiders. Many of the texts went on to actively shape their societies and still impact our popular culture today. Looking at these texts, we will analyze how they "invented" different terms of identity: what qualifies as "human" in these texts; how do they define binary terms such as "men" and "women," "civilized" and "barbarian," "native" and "alien;" what does it mean to be an "individual"? In addition, we will connect these questions to their historical contexts, especially to the on-going conflicts over religion, state power and individual rights as the fragmented, tribal British Isles changed into a set of nations (with England emerging as the most powerful) and finally into an imperial power. In addition to examining the texts in relation to each other and their historical contexts, you will be encouraged to link this work to your own interests and perspectives. ENGL 260B English Literature (English Literature from the 19th through the 21st Centuries: Narrative and Identity) MWF 12:00-12:50pm E. FRAMPTON This survey course introduces a variety of significant British literary texts, produced between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. Our reading will include a range of genres, including fiction, poetry, essays, and drama, which we will historically and culturally contextualize, attempting to come to terms with the immense social and ideological shifts of this vast period. We will structure our exploration of this diverse span of literary history by focusing our analysis on the relationship between narrative and identity, asking why and how certain kinds of stories are told, what kind of characters they represent, and what 
kind of readers they, in a sense, create. As a part of this undertaking, we will interrogate the traditional periodization that divides the literature of these centuries into the “Romantic,” the “Victorian,” the “Modernist” and the “Postmodern.” The primary text through the semester will be the concise edition of The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Volume B, but the course will conclude with an examination of the 2005 multicultural, transatlantic, intertextual novel On Beauty, by Black British writer Zadie Smith.  ENGL
301
The Psychological
Novel
R. GERVAIS MWF 10:00-10:50am 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’ 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
T. CUMMINGS TTH 3:30-4:45pm Who is that guy? What happens when you meet someone? You introduce yourself, have a conversation, and find out a little bit about each other. If you're engaged by the conversation you had, you decide to spend more time together. That's the main goal of this class: to introduce ourselves to Shakespeare and to inspire such engaging conversation, we'll want to get to know him well. We'll read seven plays by Shakespeare. We'll talk about his characters, plunge into his sometimes amusing, sometimes shocking plots, and we'll learn how to understand his language. Since most people who are intimidated by Shakespeare say his language pushes them away, we'll listen to recordings of his works. This is the best entry into his language, and it will let us explore how he charges his words with rich, enduring meaning. It's this meaning that will encourage us to move past introductions and into a lifelong friendship. Requirements: response papers, discussion, creative project, and two formal papers. ENGL 306A Children’s Literature and Advanced Composition “For Liberal Studies Majors” MWF 9:00-9:50am M. GALBRAITH 
"Children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world, that memory sinks lower and lower." (Hiyao Miyazaki) The finest works of children’s literature capture the predicament of a child in the face of a huge older world—the world of previous generations, living and dead. Next semester I want to approach and ponder the “presenting of the past” in children’s literature. Some of the books planned (mostly available at the public library): Holes--Louis Sachar The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--Mark Twain Howl’s Moving Castle--Diana Wynne-Jones (also the Miyazaki movie) Ender’s Game--Orson Scott Card Grandfather’s Journey--Allen Say Where the Wild Things Are--Maurice Sendak The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--C S Lewis Me in the Middle—Ana Maria Machado The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963—Christopher Paul Curtis ENGL 306A Children’s Literature P. SERRATO TTH 12:30-1:45pm To your amusement, fascination, dismay, horror, and/or surprise, this semester we will explore the fascinating complexity of children’s literature. We will begin by acquainting ourselves with some classics, such as Heinrich Hoffman’s Struwwelpeter and E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Then we will look at some more recent works, including David Levithan’s Marly’s Ghost, Juan Felipe Herrera’s Downtown Boy, and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Prietita and the Ghost Woman. With the books that we encounter we will of course talk about race, gender, and sexuality—the standard holy trinity of critical approaches that students and I take in my classes. We will also explore how different genres create different reading experiences for young people and we generally will test your preconceived definitions of what constitutes a “good” book for children. By the end of the course you will wield a terrific expertise in children’s literature that will allow you to think, talk, and write about children’s literature in wonderfully sophisticated—and perhaps unusual—ways. Requirements: Include one paper, 2 exams, a final exam, frequent in-class writing, and a presentation. 
Required TextsHeinrich Hoffman, Struwwelpeter (Dover; ISBN 0486284697) E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web (HarperTrophy 0064400557) David Levithan, Marly’s Ghost (Puffin 014240912X) Laurence Yep, When the Circus Came to Town (HarperTrophy 0064409651) Polly Horvath, When the Circus Came to Town (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 0374483671) Juan Felipe Herrera, Downtown Boy (Scholastic 0439644895) Carolyn Keene, The Mystery at Lilac Inn (Grosset & Dunlap 0448095041) Gloria Anzaldúa, Prietita and the Ghost Woman (Children’s Book P 0892391677) Roald Dahl, The Witches (Puffin 014241011X) Jim Murphy, An American Plague (Clarion 0395776082) ENGL 308W Literary Study: Analysis, Research and Writing TTH 8:00-9:15am T. CUMMINGS What is everyone talking about? Do you turn your head like a dog trying to triangulate on a sound at the baffling things people are saying about literature? Do you wonder what people really mean when they say the author is dead. . . but one just gave a talk on campus? Have postcolonialist studies scared you off even more than cultural studies? Or felt that the New Historicists are incredibly old-fashioned? Well, now's your chance to sort through all these confusions and questions. In this class, we'll use the model of see one, do one, teach one in order to help you master contemporary critical theory and your own writing process. It's going to be a strangely exciting class. We will read a couple of novels to share the same ground on which to talk about these theories. We'll also use Lois Tyson's accessible text, Critical Theory Today, to study about ten different ways to approach writing about literature. Having read Tyson's text, it will be easier to read the original material that generated the theory. Each student will choose a theory from the text to 1) write in the style of and 2) teach to the class. Don't worry, you will only teach us after we've "seen and done" the theory. Besides, you will choose the text that you will teach us about, and your choices can be anything from Harry Potter to Virginia Woolf. Requirements: Discussion, response papers, a presentation, and a formal paper. ENGL 405 The Bible as Literature R. WHITAKER TTH 12:30-1:45pm Is the Bible literature? Who wrote it? When and why did they write it? How long did it take? Are there different types of biblical writings? Are the biblical characters real? Can one truly read it with understanding? These are just a handful of the questions this course will examine. To be sure, every serious thinker must not only think-through these questions, but also tackle the Bible itself. It is no accident that it tops the bestsellers list. Within its covers, contain tales of betrayal, sibling rivalry, murder, stories-within- stories, comedy, tragedy, horror, melodrama, character formation, sagas, end times, and romance. The Bible is a must read.  This class is first and foremost an educational experience! It is truly a multidimensional, multidisciplinary, and multimedia engagement with the Bible as a literary piece of art. Besides exposing the interplay between biblical content/form, prose/poetry, and fiction/non-fiction, this class aims at making each of us better literary critics: deconstructing ourselves as we deconstruct the text. If one leaves the class thinking exactly the same way about the Bible as when they entered, then the class has not done its job. Although this is not a biblical theology class, however relevant religious motifs will be explored. That is, this class is not meant to support or repudiate personal convictions. The Bible will be studied as literature. New trends in literary theory and criticism of the Bible will be explored too – e.g. Marxism, feminism, and post-colonial theory. The Bible will be the primary reading. Individual books will be contextualized and analyzed; while not losing sight of how the parts construct the whole. ENGL 405 The Bible as Literature P. KUHLKEN TTH 9:30-10:45am Catalog: Reading the poetry and prose of the King James Bible. 
This multidisciplinary, multimedia experience will cultivate an appreciation and understanding of biblical literaturesin their historical, cultural, aesthetic, philosophical, and theological contexts. Using any preferred Bible translation and The Literary Guide to the Bible (eds. Alter/Kermode), we will consider the poetry, philosophy, story, and prophecy in both the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) and New Testament, with selections from the apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls. We will analyze the genres and strategies of biblical writing, the Bible’s historical and cultural context, and canon formation. As a foundation of culture—high or low—the Bible is impossible to ignore. Biblical literacy is an unstated assumption in much of literature (Homer, Shakespeare, Dostovevsky, Dickinson, Flannery O’Connor, C.S. Lewis), art (Rembrandt, Da Vinci, and Chagall), film (The Matrix), and TV (Desperate Housewives), and the source of over 1,000 references in Shakespeare alone. While it has admittedly held moral and religious sway over Judeo- Christian culture for centuries, consensus among its subjects has never been attained, nor will it be in this section. The goal is for students to recreate, experience, understand, and remember biblical stories as midrash, gaining insights about what is meaningful and memorable: story. Students will approach the Bible with new questions and gain a fresh, unbiased awareness about the enduring significance of this best-seller, unsurpassed in world literature, and undeniably present in our everyday realities. ENGL 491 Contemporary Topics in Literature Gender Study Masculinities: (Órale, Waas Sappening?: Masculinity in Chicano/a Literature and Culture) M 7:00-9:40pm P. SERRATO 
This course explores the depiction, construction, and deconstruction of various forms of masculinity in an array of Chicano and Chicana texts. While developing a critical acquaintance with the multifarious ways that masculinity has been defined and embodied in texts that range from the actos of Luis Valdez to the Homies line of bubblegum machine figurines to the MySpace pages of contemporary Chicana rappers, we will open up an intriguing critical history of Chicano/a cultural formations and productions that realizes that within these formations and productions, masculinity has been both a shifting concept as well as an increasingly contested issue. Requirements: Include one paper, an exam, a final exam, and frequent in-class writing. Note: Prior knowledge of or experience with Chicano/a literature or culture is not required or assumed. Some of the Texts We Will Likely Cover: Agustín Escobar, The Campaign of ’46 against the Americans in California Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude Luis Valdez, Actos Born in East L.A. Luis Alfaro, Down Town Carla Trujillo, What Night Brings Luis J. Rodríguez, Always Running Luis J. Rodríguez, It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way Juan Felipe Herrera, Downtown Boy Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood MySpace pages of Chicana rappers (including Esa Wicked Chula, OG Traviesa, Mz. Gatiz, and Morenita) Rey Mysterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero, and other professional wrestlers (especially members of the LWO/Latino World Order) ENGL 494 Modern Fiction of the U.S. R. GERVAIS MW 2:00-3:15pm A course in fiction from around the time of World War I to the present. We shall start with a collection 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 the long stretch of literary history and a sense of the distinctive periods within it, then we shall read two significant short novels, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying from the Modern period (1920-1950) and McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses from the Contemporary period (1950-present). Five in-class, open-book essay exams. ENGL 502 Adolescence in Literature A. ALLISON MW 2:00-3:15pm English 502 explores international fiction in which key characters are adolescents, as well as works that have been specifically written for adolescents, primarily the contemporary Young Adult novel or short story. Adolescence is a time during which cognitive functions such as argumentative capacity, identity, ego, sexual relationships and love, societal and authority relationships, friendships, justice and conscience, bodily image, career, education--and of course much more--are developed, challenged, outgrown. All this makes for vibrant and timely reading, discussion, and analysis. Likely books include: Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat Buchi Emecheta, The Slave Girl Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog… Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust Nancy Farmer, The House of the Scorpion Yann Martel, The Life of Pi Anchee Min, Red Azalea W.D. Myers, Fallen Angels Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen videos: Master Harold and the Boys, Osama short stories by Chekov, Joyce, Boyle, Updike, and Oates Requirements: Four 2-3 pp. study question responses and 3 quizzes, an in-class midterm, and a final. This class is required for English Single Subject majors.  English 503: Children’s Poetry, Spring 2008Professor Joseph Thomas Are you a fan of Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein? How about Maurice Sendak, Mother Goose, or the many anonymous authors of playground poetry (“Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, Miss Lucy went to heaven, the steamboat went to…)? If so, then enroll in Dr. Joseph Thomas’s course in Children’s Poetry (ENG 503)! We’ll be approaching the giants of children’s poetry: Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Gary Soto, Gwendolyn Brooks, John Ciardi, Edward Gorey, even old man Robert Frost! We’ll be reading poetry for adults and children, poetry written for and about childhood, and we’ll be reading these works as poetry, as picture books, as cultural artifacts, employing a variety of theoretical approaches from cultural studies to psychoanalysis to Marxism to postmodernism. Rigorous and fun, this course engages some of the most compelling literature ever written in English! English 503: Children’s Poetry is on the cutting edge of critical discourse. Join the fun! ENGL 508W The Writing of Criticism E. FRAMPTON MWF 11:00-11:50am (Literature, Theory, and the World) This course explores theories and practices of literary criticism, emphasizing both the work of established critics, theorists, and authors and the development of your own critical writing. We will begin by addressing general questions raised by critics and theorists about the nature of literature generally and the history of literary criticism. We will then move on to an examination of various schools of critical and theoretical thought, considering, for instance, new criticism, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and deconstruction. To help us understand the issues taken up by literary scholars and others, we will analyze exemplary fiction and poetry from different analytical perspectives. There will be a series of short written assignments leading up to a longer research essay, at the end of the semester. ENGL 577 Screenwriting T TH 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. N. KENDRICKS  In ENGL 577, the instructor will lead adventurous students on an exploration of the screenwriters' creative process, techniques, discipline and vital role in shaping the content and thematic concerns of contemporary cinema. The course's lively discourse will delve into reading such award-winning screenplays as comic-book- artist-turned-screenwriter Dan Clowes and Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World, Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and other powerful examples of contemporary screenplays that dare to make viewers' experiences of the cinema into an active engagement for both the intellect and the senses.  During the course, the instructor will screen excerpts from films (along with select feature-length and short films to be screened in their entirety) to further examine the screenplay's function in primarily narrative-driven films. These examples will also facilitate engaged class discussions on how great screenplays help to establish a solid foundation of compelling storytelling that makes remarkable filmmaking possible. In addition to looking at the screenplays of established filmmakers, this experiential course will incorporate a workshop where students will develop and write their own, original short-film scripts, following the format and techniques used by working screenwriters and auteurs alike. Students will also write either a treatment for a feature-length, narrative film or a documentary proposal for a non-fiction film project. During the course's workshop sessions, students will share their writing, as well as receive and offer feedback to their fellow budding screenwriters. Throughout the course's investigation of the screenplay's central role in the filmmaking process, as well as students crafting their original short-film scripts, ENGL 577 will also look at how the other arts – literature, painting, photography and other creative disciplines – often impact the cinema and screenwriters' ambitious quests to create compelling and insightful, moving and illuminating, cinematic worlds. ENGL 521 Early American Literature J. BROOKS MWF 10:00-10:15am 
This class examines literature written in and about the Americas before 1800. Since this is such a massive body of literature, we’ll focus our inquiry around women’s writings. What did it mean to be a woman in the Americas before 1800? How were the pivotal and tumultuous eras of colonization and early national formation experienced by Native American, Anglo-American, African-American, and Latin American women? Find out by reading their own narratives, poems, essays, and novels of the seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. This class surveys the literary presence of women in the early Americas, as well as representations of early American women. Required Texts: Catalina de Erauso, Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World Aphra Behn, Oronooko, The Rover, & Other Works Phillis Wheatley, Poems Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol A. Requirements: Attendance and participation, response papers, research paper. ENGL 523 Literature of the U.S. 1860-1920 R. GERVAIS MWF 9:00-9:50am 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 526 Topics in Literature of the U.S. J. CUMMINS-LEWIS TTH 9:30-10:45am (Jewish American Literature)  In this class we’ll explore how various authors respond to and create Jewish American experiences through their writing. We’ll study the interaction between this literature and the major historical events that affected it, including immigration, assimilation, discrimination, the Holocaust, the Rosenberg trial, the establishment of Israel, religious revivalism, etc. We will see what connects various Jewish texts to one another as well as what might separate them, which might include an author’s gender, ethnicity, politics, and sexual identity. We’ll determine if w7e are able, ultimately, to construct a coherent definition of Jewish American literature or if it is a genre that must be marked by division and discontinuity.  While this is a course primarily concerned with literary texts, we might also examine film and popular culture. A preliminary list of authors includes Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Kate Simon, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, E.L. Doctorow, Cynthia Ozick, Allegra Goodman, and Art Speigelman, among others. ENGL 526 Topics in Literature of the U.S. L. KOOLISH T 7:00-9:40pm (Black Women Writers) Required Texts: 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, The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison, Beloved (Plume/NAL) Audre Lorde, Zami Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah * 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, Edwidge Danticat and Alice Walker, and poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Toi Derricotte, Lucille Clifton, and Jewelle Gomez. (Material in the reader will be indicated by an asterisk (*) in the syllabus.  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). Collaborative papers are encouraged. Graduate students will be expected to write two 9-10 page papers, each counting for 40% of your grade. Your essays must have a thesis, an argument, a point of view. Late papers ordinarily will not be accepted without a valid (i.e. family or health) reason. One thoughtful, provocative, interesting, discussion- engendering, open-ended discussion question or freewrite for each week's readings 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. Grades Shorter paper: 35% Longer paper: 45% Class participation (class discussions, freewrites/discussion questions): 20% ENGL 533 Shakespeare M. Grattan W 7-9:40pm Power hungry dukes, war-loving monarchs, murderous thanes, sex crazed twenty-somethings, naughty bishops, liars, adulterers and cross-dressing women: there is something for everyone in Shakespeare's plays. In the comedies, everyone gets married and it all works out in the end (or does it?), and in tragedies we are glad it isn't us whose severed head is being pranced across the stage (or are we?). In the problem plays (Measure for Measure), we aren't really sure how to feel. In this course, we will get our lit-crit hands dirty sifting through the delicious muck and mire, as well as the beauty and delight, of Shakespeare's dramatic work. Who knows, perhaps we will even get in a sonnet or two.  Throughout the semester we will read a number of plays (ten or so) from a range of genres to get a sense of the incredible capacity for expressing the human experience possessed by William Shakespeare. Along the way, we will develop our understanding of the variety of techniques employed by the playwright—his manipulation of language, imagery, dramatic conventions, social issues, audience expectations, etc., —so that we can better explore important themes and issues that arise in the plays. As we will discover, the plays of Shakespeare have been and continue to be fertile ground in which audiences and readers find topics relevant to their own lives. They remain, after all these years, living things. This is in no small measure due to the fact that they were composed as performances, and in addition to reading the texts we will be viewing segments of the plays in class and independently. Among the plays to be covered: (List subject to slight modification.) A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Measure for Measure. ENGL 533 Shakespeare C. FIELD TTH 11:00-12:15pm In this course, we will read eight plays by the Renaissance playwright, William Shakespeare (1564-1616). We will start with two comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado about Nothing. We will look at how the comic storyline (involving mistaken identity and jealousy) in Much Ado turns to tragedy in Othello, a play obsessed with ways of “seeing,” “seeming,” and “being.” We will read Hamlet, a tragedy whose hero poses the question of how to live, exist, or “be” within the confines of an unjust, “rotten” Denmark. We will then read Twelfth Night, a play that in its celebration of drinking, eating, and cross-dressing seems to provide an answer to Hamlet’s dilemma. We will read one history play, Henry V, and we will read All’s Well that Ends Well, a so-called “problem play” because of its uneasy, difficult ending and the predatory nature of its heroine, Helena. We will end with one of Shakespeare’s late plays, a romance called, The Winter’s Tale, which tries to resolve the opposing elements of comedy and tragedy, in its tale of Perdita, a lost woman found. In this course, we will gain a sense of Shakespeare’s imaginative range as a writer, dramatist, thinker, and poet. Specifically, we will analyze his plays in terms of genre, poetic language, and historical context. We will look at the ways Shakespeare’s characters comment on and challenge the cultural, social, and political realities of their time (and our own). We will be doing close reading of these texts as well as seeing them translated in performance on film. The goal of this course is to teach you how to read and understand Shakespeare’s writings as literary texts, as historical artifacts of a particular time and place (Elizabethan and Jacobean England), and as vehicles for performance. You will become familiar with Shakespeare’s complex use of the English language, and you will meet some of his most famous characters and critically analyze their varied (and often conflicting) motives, needs, and desires. ENGL 536 British Literary Periods, Beginning to 1660 (Gender, Food, and Culture: Food, Writing, and Identity: Readings From the Renaissance to the 21st Century) TTH 2:00-3:15pm C. FIELD 
This course will survey writings from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century to explore how we construct (and make sense of) our individual, social, and communal identities in relationship to food. We will begin with texts from the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries: William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (which celebrates feasting, drinking, and cross-dressing), Book IX of Milton’s Paradise Lost (Eve tempts Adam with the forbidden apple), and Addison and Steele’s Tatler essays on chocolate, tea, and women’s fashion. We will then look at food in Charles Dickens’s famous short story, A Christmas Carol, and we will read an excerpt from Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Other texts may include Laura Esquivel’s romantic fable, Like Water for Chocolate, Mark Twain’s The Invalid’s Tale, and Isak Dinesen’s Babette’s Feast, as well as excerpts and recipes from contemporary cookbook authors, Nigella Lawson and Alice Waters. In all of these texts, we will look at how the discourses of food, identity, and pleasure are linked (or not), and we’ll explore these writers’ various cultural stances towards food (as sacred, taboo, fetish, or other). At the end of the course, we will also watch clips from two recent films about food as art: the German film, Mostly Martha, and the animated film, Ratatouille. ENGL 537 John Milton P. HERMAN TTH 11:00-12:15pm 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 theology or in worshipping the transcendent text. We will not be looking at Milton as the culmination of a seamless and apolitical Christian tradition, or as an exemplar of orthodoxy. Instead, this class will look at John Milton 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 will include short papers and a substantial research paper. ENGL 540A English Fiction (English Fiction Through the Long-18th Century: Home and Beyond) W 7:00-9:40pm E. FRAMPTON 
Within this course, we will analyze a variety of significant English fiction, written between 1660 and the turn of the eighteenth century. In order to lend unity to our study of this long and diverse period, we will maintain a focus on the ways in which different narratives either imagine the space of “home” or, alternatively, construct a sense of the world beyond that sphere. We will thus consider how various writers either consolidate or subvert ideas about national identity, through their representations of Britain, colonial America, and Africa, within this time of intense exploration, nation building, and institutionalized slavery. We will also test the hypothesis of literary theorist Homi Bhabha, that “the recesses of the domestic space become the sites for history’s most intricate invasions.” Our reading will include both well-established writers, such as Daniel Defoe, Frances Burney, and Jane Austin, and those who have only, in more recent decades, begun to attract critical attention, such as Aphra Behn, Olaudah Equiano, and the pseudonymous Unca Eliza Winkfield. ENGL 543 British Literary Periods, 1800-1900 (Victorian Literature: Faith, Doubt, Affirmation, and Change) W 3:30-6:10pm W. ROGERS The Victorian Age is very much “in” today. Film, stage, and musical versions abound of works by novelists who wrote during the long reign of Victoria Regina (1837-1901). A lulling aura of nostalgia persists about a time when “family values” and “respect for authority” were supposedly the law of the land.  At a critical and analytical level of discourse an intense scholarly and critical examination of the era finds that it struggled with many of the same issues that have extended into the present—the possibility of a vibrant religious faith in age of scientific reductionism; the consequences of bewildering technological change and environmental degradation; the rights of man—and definitely of woman—in an age of bureaucratization and centralized control; the maintenance of democratic ideals in a society with deep social and economic divisions. For the Victorians themselves, self-conscious to a fault, their age appeared to be one of “transition”—from the immemorial ways of the past to an uncertain and problematic future. The focus of English 543 will be on the fundamental issues of this dynamic age—those of faith, doubt, affirmation, and change, as seen in such writers as Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mrs. Gaskell, Matthew Arnold, T.H. Huxley, John Ruskin, and Lewis Carroll. Requirements: Will include two examinations (one of which will be take-home), a research essay, short written responses, and active participation in class discussion. ENGL 544 British Literary Periods, 1900 – Present (Technology and Literature) MW 2:00-3:15pm L. AMTOWER 
This course examines the theme of technology and its effect on literature, the self, creativity, and society. We will read traditional works, but we will also look at emerging forms of narrative through games, interactive fiction, and other new media, and we will experiment with the tools for generating these narratives. Because of the nature of the medium, the assignments in this course may be substantially more challenging than you may be accustomed to. Please be prepared for a potentially steep learning curve. Texts: H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man; C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength; William Gibson, Pattern Recognition; Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; Marge Piercy, He, She, and It; Stanislaw Lem, The Futurological Congress; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World. ENGL 549 Topics in English Literature: J. FARBER TTH 12:30-1:45pm (British Poetry and Its Medium) 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 will be a useful course for anyone with a special interest in poetry, and it should also be very helpful—I would hope, even transformational—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 Shakespeare, Pope, Keats, Christina Rossetti, Hopkins, Yeats, and Dylan Thomas. ENGL 563. Literature and Culture: The End of the Essential Black Subject in Diasporic Literature and Cinema S. Meigoo Mondays 3:30-6:10 Course Description In this course, we will consider the literary and cinematic representation of culture, race, and ethnicity following what cultural theorist Stuart Hall has called "the end of the essential black subject." Reading novels as well as screenplays, and viewing films as well as television series episodes (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm), we will focus our attention on the literary works of selected writers from the Jewish, Caribbean, and South Asian diasporas: Mordecai Richler;  V.S. Naipaul; Salman Rushdie; and Hanif Kureishi. These four writers have received much acclaim and criticism alike for their satirical representation of their respective cultures. Introspective at best and cynical at worst, their literary works and the films that have been based on them can be said to mark the loss of a political innocence that is often presumed to have been conferred by racism and colonialism on the diasporic subject. In thus approaching the end of the innocent diasporic subject in the works of Richler, Naipaul, Rushdie and Kureishi, we will pose the following questions among others: Do black or diasporic artists bear a special responsibility to represent their cultures or communities? 
What role do stereotypes play in literary and cinematic representations of culture, race, and ethnicity? How does literary representation differ from cinematic representation? To what extent are the Jewish, Caribbean, and South Asian diasporic experiences comparable to each other? Although we will focus on the assigned readings by Richler, Naipaul, Rushdie and Kureishi, class discussions may also draw on literature, film and television, visual and plastic arts, and music and performing arts from outside our course. ENGL 570 Techniques of Poetry T 4:00-6:40pm J. THOMAS 
In English 570, Techniques of Poetry, we will explore, as the name suggests, various poetic techniques, ranging from traditional rhyme and meter, to the experimental forms of the historical and contemporary avant-garde. The class will be conducted as a hybrid seminar/workshop. We will be reading and discussing the work of poets as varied as John Hollander, Lyn Hejinian, John Cage, Harryette Mullen, Gertrude Stein, Christian Bok, Juliana Spahr, Ara Shirinyan, and Kenneth Goldsmith. Students will write one critical paper on poetics, give two in-class presentations, compose a portfolio of their own poetry, and read and critically engage the work of their classmates.  Engl
576 Literary Editing &
Publishing
Bruce BostonT 3:30-6:10 Principles and Practices of Editing and Literary Publishing This course, taught by the Managing Editor of Poetry International, will offer students an in-depth approach to the process of publishing a literary journal from solicitation and evaluation of manuscripts through the development of special features, art selection, editing, layout, design, and marketing. The class will undertake individual and collaborative projects culminating in the students' publication of their own literary journals. Occasional guest speakers will address specific areas of their expertise. ENGL 581W The Writing of Fiction J. MESCHERY W 4:00-6:40pm A workshop in which participants study and apply the techniques of fiction to their own work, as well as in their reading and discussion of the fiction of other workshop members. ENGL 581W The Writing of Fiction D. MATLIN TH 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 can be intensely combined into the tangles of perception; wonders that might 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 583 Writing Long Narrative D. MATLIN T 7:00-9:40pm English 583 will concentrate on the processes and disciplines involved in the writing of a novel. The course will explore the multiple layers of a novel’s development, and the resources that are necessary to carry the writer into the commitment required and demanded by the art. The focus will consist of a creative writing workshop where the writers will read and discuss their works in progress, their researches, and problems they confront in the evolution of the story-life and narratives which are at once being imagined and made. What is the act of imagining and making and how does the writer make him or herself susceptible to the forms or form which must be brought to breath and life and necessity. The workshop will examine the on-going work of writing and crafting. The course is designed to help students realize the permissions, staminas, and risks which are the groundwork of a novel and the living interest it holds. The course also includes a series of defined readings of both prose and poetry which are designed to help the writer to, among other specific processes, find consistency of voice, fundamental senses of identity which arise from the human/social experience of the narrative center, “tuning” the direct transmission of the story. Narrative can certainly be thought of in terms of traditional building codes, as the great story teller David Antin says, “that keeps metaphorical inflections of discourse at bay,” or more variously “as a multigenre strategy of summoning the unexpected and the unimaginable, the unpredictable and the uncanny – ultimately as a modality of tracing the dynamic, culturally controlled production of the self.” What transformation or transformations does narrative enact and what are the parts and events that shape transformation or the promise of transformation? These are some of the questions we will explore over the next fifteen week period. NOTE: Course offerings listed below are subject to change. All courses may not be listed here. Refer to the Spring 2008 schedule or glass case in front of English and Comparative Literature Department office for the most current listing. "ENGL 594" Bruce Springsteen and Postmodernism L. McCAFFERY TH 7:00-9:40pm This class is actually a COMPLIT 594 class--click here for the skinny! English and Comparative Literature Graduate Courses E  NGL
600
Introduction to Graduate
Study
M. BORGSTROM TH 3:30-6:10pm This course will introduce students to fundamental aspects of advanced literary study. As Professor Brooks noted in her description for this course in the fall semester, the goal for this class is to help you think of literary criticism as a long conversation that has taken place across the centuries. English 600 aims to prepare you to join this conversation with an understanding of its basic critical terms, a sense of its rules, forms, and customs, as well as a healthy sense of your own interests, instincts, and goals as a reader and critic. Our readings will allow us to approach the work of literary criticism both in theory (through a review of the big questions and important terms that have structured contemporary literary inquiry) and also in practice (through sustained analyses of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Morrison's Sula). Assignments are yet to be determined, but they will likely include two papers (one of which will be a conference paper), an annotated bibliography, and class presentations. ENGL 601. Literary Study in a Multicultural World S. Meigoo Mondays 7-9:40pm Course Description  In this course, we will approach the "postcolonial condition" of the contemporary world by reading literature not only across different cultures but also across different genres – fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, travel writing and autobiography, history and philosophy. We will consider the concept of the "arrivant" as it figures in the diverse literary works of selected writers from the English Caribbean and French Algeria: Edward Kamau Brathwaite; V.S. Naipaul; Hélène Cixous; and Jacques Derrida. These four diasporic writers have provided us with a powerful sense of the arrivant who is "always arriving" and yet has "never arrived," disturbing the conceptual order of identity, community, nationality, and citizenship. The arrivant is the migrant, the creole, the woman, the enigma of the other who cannot be assimilated to the experience of the same. In considering this concept of the arrivant in the works of Brathwaite, Naipaul, Cixous and Derrida, we will also critically attend to the significant disparities between their respective literary and political projects. We will pose the following questions, among others: To what extent is the Caribbean diasporic experience comparable to the Jewish diasporic experience?  How is racial difference related to sexual difference? Is it feasible for the arrivant to sustain an absolute alterity? What is the relationship between the arrivant, the exile, the stranger, and the traveller? Although we will focus on the assigned readings by Brathwaite, Naipaul, Cixous and Derrida, class discussions may also draw on literature, film and television, visual and plastic arts, and music and performing arts from outside our course. ENGL 602 Literary Theory and Critical Practice J. ROTHER T 3:30-6:10pm Given the much publicized collapse of Literary Theory over the last decade and a half, the primary emphasis of this course will fall upon what is left of the second half of the course title, “critical practice,” in the wake of the devolution of literature and literary studies into “cultural studies,” or “whatever in the various media turns you on and can claim more than six individuals as a fan base.” We will at least pretend that a reconstitutable core of texts and critical approaches has survived the recent debacle involving Theory, its hard-corps adherents and resident ideologues, and over a space of fifteen weeks we will attempt to lay out the basis for a white paper on what that surviving basis might be. We will examine, via individual student reports and lively discussions arising out of them, what schools of criticism have come and gone, which hang on for dear life and which fail to cling even to Jean Baudrillard’s simulacrum of life, as the sun finally sets on the age of postmodernist giants like Derrida and, well, Baudrillard. The dinosaurs that roamed the earth during the Jurassic Park-days of what used to be called the “New Criticism” will not be off bounds to us; nor will a number of other unorthodox approaches to understanding what it means to “understand literature” and come back to write about it, with intelligence, unexampled insight, and a fresh take on what Hamlet called “words, words, words.” Requirements: Three critical papers (approx. 8-10 pages each) and a full-length graduate paper on an individually chosen research topic. Required Text: David Richter, ed., The Critical Tradition, 3rd edition. St Martin’s Press. 2003. ENGL 604B SEMINAR: British Literature Q. BAILEY W 7:00-9:40pm (Romantic Period: European Romanticism) 
Although this course will focus on the major writers of the British Romantic Age, it will do so from the perspective of literary and historical events in France and Germany as much as from those in England and Scotland. When Coleridge and Wordsworth left England for Germany in 1798 – possibly because of fears that they might be arrested as radicals – they wanted to learn more about the tradition that had already inspired some of their finest work. The course will therefore commence with a look at the early work of Goethe and Schiller, whose pre-Romantic writings fired a literary revolution, and trace their effects on the British Romantics in general and Wordsworth in particular. In the final section, we will look at the culmination (and end) of Romanticism in the work of the French writers Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire. ENGL 604D SEMINAR: Children’s Literature |