Course Descriptions for Previous Semesters
: Spring 2005
ENG 101
Titles: College Composition
Instructors: Staff
Anticipated Size: 20 students per section, approximately 36
sections per semester.
Prerequisite: Entering students place themselves into either
ENG 001 or ENG 101. Guidelines to be used as the basis for this
decision are mailed to incoming students several months before
the start of fall semester. Students with extremely strong backgrounds
in writing may attempt credit by examination through Jerry Ellis
in the Onward Office.
Course Descriptions:
ENG 101: An introductory course in college writing in which
students practice the ways in which writing and reading serve
to expand, clarify, and order experience and knowledge. Particular
attention is given to analytic and persuasive writing. To complete
the course successfully, students must write all assignments
and must have portfolios of their best work passed by a committee
of readers other than their classroom teachers. Especially well-prepared
students will be encouraged to submit portfolios before the end
of the semester; if their work is of exceptionally high quality
they will be granted early completion.
ENG 129 (01)
Title: First-year Seminar in English: American
West in Fiction
Instructor: Hakola
Prerequisite: First-year students only.
Course Description: The American West in Fiction
and Film. One objective of this course is to provide opportunities
and contexts for students to examine what may seem to be a familiar
topic through a variety of lenses. Depending on one's perspective,
the American west is a geographic place whose boundaries are
not unanimously agreed upon: a construct of historians and social
scientists; a favorite subject in popular culture, such as firms,
television series, and the like; and an important element in
the American national myth. For many who have lived there, particularly
women and racial and ethnic minorities, it is often more a place
of discrimination and frustration than the locale of heroic exploits.
In this course we will read fiction and other prose and watch
a variety of films set in the west in order to explore the rich
and complex nature of what "the west" means. NOTE:
Each once-a-week class meeting runs from 3:30 to 6:15; students
must be able to attend the entire class.
Required Texts:
Crane, Stephen. OPEN BOAT AND OTHER STORIES (Dover)
Harte, Bret. LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER SHORT STORIES (Dover)
Alexie, Sherman LONE RANGER+TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN (Harper)
Wister, Owen THE VIRGINIAN (VHPS--may be different publisher)
Clark, Walter OX-BOW INCIDENT (Random House)
Grey, Zane RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE (Dover)
Evaluation: several short analytical and comparison papers,
a book and/or film review, intelligent participation in in-class
and electronic discussions, and a final project with class presentation.
ENG 129 (2)
Title: First-year
Seminar in English: Representing Mothers
Instructor: Rogers
Prerequisite: First-year students only.
Course Description: In a variety of genres, from literature
to film, this course will explore representations of the fundamental
relationship between mothers and children.
Evaluation: Frequent short papers, web log, quizzes, prelim,
final, presentation, and class participation.
ENG 129 (3)
Title: First-year Seminar in English: American
Regional Writers
Instructor: Brogunier
Prerequisite: First-year students only.
Course Description: An intensive study of literary works--of
fiction and poetry--by selected 20th-century American regional
writers. Regional literature thrives in its portrait of a particular
region and its people, with representations of their habits,
manners, language, history, folklore, and values. The focus is
usually on the community or the collective life of the region,
through individual characters and the weaving of their lives
is also important. Through class discussions and informal lectures,
the class will study the above subjects; the narrative voices,
literary forms, and expressive structures the authors wield to
convey them; and approaches to writing literary essays.
Probable Texts: Robert Frost, A Boy's Will and North of Boston
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
Katherine Anne Porter, The Old Order: Stories of the South
William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses
Others to be selected.
Evaluation: Class participation, and critical essays on the
literature.
ENG 131 (01)
Title: The Nature of Story
Instructor: Wilson
Anticipated Size: 350
Prerequisite: None.
Course Description: Explores the fundamental activity of why
and how we create, tell and read/listen to stories. An exploration
of the various ways storytelling enters our lives: through music,
art, literature, photography, history, film and song. We’ll
use a technology appropriate for navigating through the many
ways these arts weave their stories, from swing to blues, from
country to classical, from film to novels, from painting to architecture.
Using a textbook designed for the course as a platform, we shall
attempt to illuminate the centrality of storytelling to our culture.
In addition to the reading, then, we’ll view films and
other visual material and listen to stories in a variety of spoken
and musical forms--discussing it all as we enjoy the art of storytelling.
Six storytellers will perform for the class.
Required Texts: a textbook written for the class by the instructor;
other material will be provided by the instructor.
Evaluation: Three short quizzes spaced throughout the semester
and one final quiz, all taken electronically through WebCt.
ENG 131 (02)
Title: The Nature of Story
Instructor: Whelan
Anticipated Size: 105
Prerequisite: None
Course Description: Explores the fundamental activity of why
and how we create, tell and read/listen to stories. Readings
may include selections from short stories, novel, film, song,
and poetry. Readings will come primarily from the modern world,
from the western cultural traditions and from a variety of other
cultures. (Satisfies the General Education Human Values and Social
Context Western Cultural Tradition and Cultural Diversity and
International Perspectives Requirements.)
Required Texts: To be announced
Evaluation: Eight quizzes, prelim and final, two reaction papers.
ENG 170 (01) & (02)
(See University course schedule for CED offerings)
Title: Foundations of Literary Analysis
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisite: Eng 101
Course Description: This course is designed as a close reading
of literary texts for students preparing to become English majors.
We will explore how conventions of genre, form and style work
in literature and develop a vocabulary for understanding and
communicating ideas about literature. We will write regularly
throughout the semester to practice the critical discourse expected
of English majors.
Required texts: Still to be selected.
Evaluation: Three short papers (two to four pages), one longer
paper (five to seven), reading quizzes, and attendance.
ENG 205
(See University course schedule for CED offerings)
Title: Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Staff
Prerequisite: ENG 101
Course Description: An introduction to the writing of poetry
and fiction. Students will be expected to complete a body of
work during the semester. Student writing will be workshopped
in class.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: An end of term portfolio of work will receive a
letter grade.
ENG 212
Title: Persuasive and Analytical Writing
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 20 per section
Prerequisite::(s): ENG 101 and at least sophomore standing
Course Description: ENG 212 focuses on writing argument: formulating
well-defined claims and supporting them clearly, correctly, and
convincingly.
Required Texts: A Rhetoric of Argument and a reader of the instructor's
choosing.
Evaluation: ENG 212 students write approximately 5 essays over
the course of the semester and are graded primarily on the quality
of their writing.
ENG 222 (01)
Title: Reading Poems
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 25 students
Prerequisite: ENG 101 or equivalent
Course Description: Required of all English majors, this is
an introduction to the art of poetry for readers. The course
focuses on helping students develop critical skills particularly
suited to the interpretation and analysis of poetry. We will
examine the function of poetic conventions--including figures
of speech, meter, rhythm, and rhyme--in a variety of different
poetic forms--both traditional and innovative--from many eras.
We will also discuss the rhetorical stances that poets assume
and the responses that poets seek to evoke in their readers.
The goal of the course is to instill a lifelong love of poetry
in its students.
Required Texts: The Heath Introduction to Poetry, edited by
Joseph DeRoche
Writing Poems, by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace
A standard dictionary
MLA Handbook
Evaluation: Your grade will be based on attendance and participation,
five or more quizzes, four papers, and a final.
ENG 242 (01)
Title: American Literature Survey
Instructor: Evans, J. Realism
to the Present
Anticipated Size: 55
Prerequisite: 3 hours of literature.
Course Description: A survey of major fiction and poetry from
the Civil War to the present to identify and analyze those subjects,
themes, and techniques that define our literature as American.
Required Text: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
George McMichael, Anthology of American Literature, Vol. II
Evaluation: hour exams, short papers, class participation.
ENG 243 (01)
Title: Topics in Multicultural Literature: Culture
and Identity in Contemporary American Writing
Instructor: Bishop
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisite: 3 hours of literature or permission
Course Description: What is the relationship between culture
and personal identity? How do any of the cultural narratives
we inherit imprint themselves on our belief systems, our codes
of behavior, our relationships with "other", and on
our ways of understanding our place in the world? We will explore
these questions and others through close attention to the works
of several contemporary American writers.
Required Texts: Readings to be announced.
Evaluations: Response papers, 2 exams, class participation.
ENG 244 (01)
Title: Writers of Maine
Instructor: Callaway
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English
Course Description: Moderated by a twenty-five year resident
outsider "from away," this section of the course will
survey the famous and the not-quite-so-famous writers of Maine
and will study qualities that bond them into a distinct set of
voices worth studying. The course studies native and non-native
residents whose writing about Maine has added to our understanding
of the myths and realities that make up Maine's sense of self.
Evaluation: This will be a student-centered class, in which
reader-reaction papers and journals, autobiographical sketches,
independent reading projects, and student-led discussions predominate.
Texts: Maine Speaks: An Anthology of Maine Literature, (from
The Maine Literature Project). Four or five book-length works
to be selected.
ENG 271 (01)
Title: The Act of Interpretation
Instructor: Billitteri
Prerequisite::s: ENG 170
Course Description: This course explores the meaning, scope,
and processual dynamics of the act of interpretation through
primary readings in structuralism, semiotics, hermeneutics, and
phenomenology. We will approach the act of interpretation as
a rule bound, historical specific activity, and address a few
foundational questions subtending modern and contemporary literary
theory: How do we account for our acts of interpretation? What
cultural and ideological frameworks do we consciously and/or
unconsciously bring to these acts? What is the discursive object
of interpretation: textual or authorial meaning? Does interpretation
entail a "recovery" or a "discovery" of [textual
and/or authorial] meaning?
Goals: This course aims at developing the students’ awareness
of the methodological and interpretative consequences carried
by different theoretical positions. To this end, theoretical
texts are flanked by literary texts to allow for practical application
of key concepts.
Texts: (please note this list is subject to change): Ferdinand
de Saussure, selections from Course in General Linguistics; Roman
Jakobson, selected essays (TBA); Sergej Karcevskij, selected
essays (TBA); Jan Mukarovský, selected essays from The
Word and Verbal Art; Wolfgang Iser, selections from The Act of
Reading; Philip August Boeckh, selected essays (TBA); Laura (Riding)
Jackson, The Poems of Laura Riding; Sherwood Anderson, The Egg
and Other Stories.
Evaluation: Class attendance and participation, weekly responses,
mid-term and final paper.
ENG 308 (01)
Title: Writing Poetry
Instructor: Moxley
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisite: ENG 205 or 307, plus a writing sample of 5-10
poems submitted to the instructor.
Course Description: This is an intermediate level course for
serious creative writing students who want to refine their craft
and become further acquainted with the history of their art.
Required Texts: Twentieth-Century American Poetics: Poets on
the Art of Poetry, ed. by Gioia/Mason/Schoerke; Plus several
shorter volumes by contemporary writers TBA.
Additional Readings: As needed.
Evaluation: Letter grade based on quality and improvement of
poems, earnest participation in critique of other’s work,
attendance, and in-class presentations on the outside reading.
ENG 3l7 (01)
Title: Business and Technical Writing
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 20 per section (15 sections)
Prerequisite: ENG 101 or equivalent; juniors and seniors in
declared majors only.
Course Description: This course helps prepare students to communicate
effectively in the workplace. Students become familiar with the
processes, forms, and styles of writing in professional environments
as they work on memoranda, business correspondence, instructions,
proposals, reports and similar materials. Special attention is
paid to the fundamental skills of problem solving and analyzing
and responding to purpose and audience. Some sections may incorporate
electronic communication, such as First Class.
Required Texts: Technical Communication: A Reader-Center Approach.
5th ed. by Paul Anderson.
Evaluation: Several short written assignments, homework, participation,
quizzes, and one major project.
ENG 405 (01)
Title: Directed Writing (Creative)
Instructor: Hunting
Anticipated Size: 15
Prerequisite::(s): previous creative writing courses
Course Description: Individual projects in novel, short fiction,
poetry, for seriously committed students. Steady production is
a must. May be repeated for up to 6 hours. Students are generally
Juniors or Seniors concentrating in writing.
Required Texts: None
Additional Readings: Independent reading.
Evaluation: Letter grade based on quality of work and commitment.
ENG 406 (01)
Title: Advanced Creative Writing
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 15
Prerequisite: Permission only.
Course Description: A workshop in fiction and poetry at the
advanced level.
Required Texts: None
Evaluation: Letter grade based on quality of work and commitment.
ENG 417 (01)
Title: Advanced Professional Writing
Instructor: Staff
Prerequisite: 6 credits in writing, ENG 317, and permission
Course Description: Advanced strategies for researching and
analyzing communication problems in the workplace and for adapting
documents to a multiple audience. Each student will undertake
a major communication project resulting in a professional document.
Texts: to be determined.
Evaluation: to be determined.
Eng 429 (01)
Title: Topics in Literature:
Instructor: Moxley
The Symbolist Movement in Literature
Mondays 3:30-600, DPC 105
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature or permission
Course Description:
In the nineteen century a group of renegade French poets created
a revolution in poetry called Symbolism. Since that time both
their aesthetic ideas and their poetry have had an enormous influence
on anglophone writers—from W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Pound,
Stevens, and beyond. In this course we will examine the origins
and main tenets of this crucial movement in western literary
history as well as trace its influence on 20th c.anglophone poetry.
Required Texts:
Rimbaud Complete by Arthur Rimbaud
The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire
To Purify the Words of the Tribe: The Major Verse Poems of Stephane
Mallarmé, trans. by Daisy Aldon
Mallarmé in Prose, edited by Mary Ann Caws
Paul Verlaine, Selected Poems
The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Vol.
1
Evaluation: Atttendance & participation, weekly or bi-weekly
creative responses, and one 20 page final paper.
ENG 429 /(02) HTY 398
Title: Introduction to American Studies
Instructors: Friedlander, Riordan
Course Description: This interdisciplinary, team-taught course
will bring together students in English, History, and other fields
to examine diverse aspects of American society and culture from
the present day to the seventeenth century, from 9/11 to King
Philip's War. Objects of study will include comics, photography,
poetry, oral history, museum exhibits, film, and scholarly writing.
In addition to regular reading, discussion, and writing assignments,
students will engage in a number of hands-on projects using the
interpretive methods studied over the course of the semester.
Required Texts:
Frances Chung, Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple
Sean French, The Terminator
Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins
of American Identity
George Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the
Culture of Opposition
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives
Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers
John Szarkowski and Richard Benson, A Maritime Album: 100 Photographs
and Their Stories
Evaluation: To be determined.
ENG 430 (01)
Title: Topics in
European Literature: Art and Power: Materials from the Soviet
Era
Instructor: Brinkley
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature or permission
Course Description: We will be looking at a number of texts
from the Soviet Era: poems by Osip Mandelstam, fiction by Mikail
Bugakov, art criticism by Pavel Florensky, literary criticism
by Mikhail Bahhtin, music by Dimitri Schostakovich, film by Sergei
Eisenstein and Andrew Tarkovsky.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: A journal, short papers, and a final project.
ENG 442 (01)
Title: Native American Literature
Instructor: Lukens
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature or permission
Course Description: The course focuses on textual productions
by Native American writers; our readings will illustrate the
enormous importance of who "gets to tell" the story.
We will attempt to take an ethnopoetic approach, which recognizes
the centrality of the author's cultural context in the interpretation
of literature. You will be asked to supplement literary critical
methods ordinarily exercised in a literature class with research
in history, anthropology, religious studies, and other disciplines.
Our research will be guided by this central question: what information
do we need in order to understand a work of literature if we
are outsiders to the culture that produced it?
Possible
Texts: Leslie Silko,
Ceremony
D'Arcy McNickle, The Surrounded
William Apess, A Son of the Forest
Rita Joe, Song of Rita Joe
Ssipsis, Molly Molasses and ME
Tomson Highway, The Rez Sisters
Louis Owens, The Sharpest Sight
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among the Piutes
Additional Readings: Group presentations will require some library
research.
Evaluation: Reading finished by first day of discussion; class
attendance and participation; frequent informal writing--a weekly "worksheet";
group research and oral presentation; 2 short papers (4-6 pp);
proposal for final paper/project (one page); final paper/project
8-10 pp.
ENG 444 (01)
Title: Contemporary American Fiction
Instructor: Staff
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature or permission
Course Description: A survey of major trends in American fiction
since 1945, such as the continuing tradition of realism, black
humor, metafiction and postmodernism, magical realism, hyper-realism,
and fiction from African-American, Asian-American, and Native
American writers.
Texts: to be announced
Evaluation: To be determined.
ENG, 446 (01)
Title: American Poetry
Instructor: Hatlen
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisite: 6 credits in literature
Course Description: We will spend about four weeks on 19thCentury
American poetry, with special emphasis on Longfellow, Whitman,
and Dickinson. We will then spend five weeks on the works of
the classical American modernists: Pound, H.D., Moore, Williams,
Stevens, Crane, and Cummings. In the final section of the course,
we will explore American poetry since World War II. Throughout,
we will be looking at the principal traditions within American
poetry and the ways in which American social and cultural history
has shaped these traditions. In addition to readings from the
assigned anthologies, each student will be asked to select one
post-World War II poet, to read widely in the works of this poet,
and to present a report on this poet in the last three weeks
of the course.
Required Texts: Nineteenth-Century American Poetry, ed. Spengemann
(Penguin)
Anthology of Modern American Poetry, ed. Nelson (Oxford)
(Note: used copies available from Amazon at $26.00)
Twentieth-Century American Poetics, ed. Gioia et al. (McGraw-Hill)
Evaluation: 1. Weekly informal response papers. 2. An oral report
on “your” poet. 3. A course project, which may be
any of the following: a critical essay (7 to 12 pages) on one
or more works by one or more of the poets studied in the course,
a lesson plan for teaching the works of one of these poets, or
a collection of poems with an introductory essay exploring the
relationship of your poetry to the major American poetic traditions.
ENG 453 (01)
Title: The Works of Shakespeare
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature or permission.
Course Description: Readings in the plays of Shakespeare, with
some additional attention to his sonnets and narrative poems.
Texts: To be determined.
Evaluation: To be determined.
ENG 460 (01)
Title: Major British Authors
Instructor: Staff
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature or permission.
Course Description: An in-depth study of from one to three major
British writers. Topics vary, depending on the professor; student
writing and revision will be emphasized. May be repeated for
credit.
Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: To be announced.
ENG 465
Title: The British Novel
Instructor: Jacobs
Prerequisite::s: 6 hours of college literature; the time and inclination
to read about 200 pages a week.
Description: This offering of The British Novel focuses on the
nineteenth century. During this period, England was transformed
from a largely agrarian and rural nation to a major industrial
and colonial power, with accompanying shifts in literacy levels
and reading preferences, class relations, family structures,
religious faith, and gender roles. We'll consider how the novel,
as the dominant literary form, asked questions about these social
changes and sought solutions to resulting social problems. But
we'll also look at classic works of fantasy and horror fiction,
showing another side of nineteenth-century imaginary life.
Students who have taken 465 with Professor Rogers, with an
emphasis on the eighteenth century, may take this course under
an alternate number. Contact Professor Jacobs to arrange.
Likely readings (subject to change):
One of the following Bronte novels (your choice):
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (Penguin)
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (Penguin)
Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin)
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (Bantam)
Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (Oxford)
*Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (Broadview)
*Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Broadview)
*Bram Stoker, Dracula (Broadview)
Evaluation: class participation, a couple of short papers, in-class
and on-line writings, a researched term paper.
ENG 471 (01)
Title: Feminist Literary Criticism
Instructor: Staff
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature
Course Description: An examination of the major theoretical
tendencies in contemporary feminist criticism, stressing connections
with Marxist criticism, Freudianism, existentialism, and poststructuralism.
Includes a section on feminist aesthetics.
Texts: Warhol, Robyn R. and Diane Price Herndl, eds. Feminisms:
An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism
Evaluation: To be determined.
ENG 477
Title: Modern Grammar
Instructor: Bauschatz
Prerequisite: INT 410 or Permission
Course Description: The course examines recent developments
in generative-transformational theory and universal grammar.
It considers how contemporary grammatical theory has derived
from earlier approaches to grammar and how it is developing in
the present day. Students learn grammatical theory by analyzing
sentences both in English and in other languages, and by employing
theoretical concepts.
Texts: Carnie, Andrew. 2002. Syntax: A Generative Introduction,
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
Evaluation: a positive attitude, participation in class, and
grammatical exercises involving practice in and out of class.
ENG 480 (01)
Title: Topics in Film
Instructor: Evans, J.
Prerequisite: 6 hours of literature
Course Description: Major Directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Martin
Scorsese, Fritz Lang. The course will cover in detail some of
the major works by Hitchcock, Lang, and Scorsese. We will also
study aspects of film history, production, technique, and aesthetics,
and we will interrogate the auteur theory of film creation.
Evaluation: a combination of papers, one test, and a project
presentation.
ENG 496 (01)
Title: Field Experience in Professional Writing
Instructor: Staff
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisite: 9 hours of writing including ENG 317 and permission.
In special instances, some requirements may be waived.
Course Description: Students work with businesses, professions,
and other organizations approved by the department. The work
in the course varies with each student enrolled and with the
needs of the cooperating employer but normally involves either
research, public relations, reporting, editing, interviewing,
indexing, or other allied activity requiring skill in reading
and writing. May be repeated for credit up to 6 credit hours.
Required Texts: to be determined.
Evaluation: to be determined.
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