University of Maine English Courses, Fall 2008
ENG 001: Writing Workshop
(300) MWF 12:10-1:00, 406 Neville (Mary Plymale)
(Offered to students in transition program only.)
(500) MWF 8:00-8:50, 406 Neville (Patricia Sithole)
ENG 101: College Composition
(001) TTh 9:30-10:45, 102 Jenness (Travis Baker)
(002) MWF 8-8:50, 313 Shibles (Elizabeth Payne)
(003) T 6-8:30, 227 Neville (Irene Jackson)
(004) MWF 11-11:50, 117 Stevens North (Megan Abbott)
(005) MWF 12:10-1:00, 209 Boardman (Jason Dodge)
(006) MWF 1:10-2:00, 102 Student Innovation Center (Margaret Lukens)
(007) MWF 1:10-2:00, 209 Boardman (Sarah Hill)
(008) TTh 12:30-1:45, 101 Bennett (Terry Crouch)
(009) TTh 11-12:15, 109 DP Corbett Business (Terry Crouch)
(010) TTh 11-12:15, 204 Neville (Robert Whelan)
(011) TTh 12:30-1:45, 121 Stevens North (Mark Tabone)
(012) MW 3:10-4:25, 202 Little Hall (Kate Wardwell)
(013) TTh 8-9:15, 206 Neville (Elizabeth Cockrell)
(014) MWF 10-10:50, 147 Hitchner (Evan Snider)
(015) TTh 2-3:15, 316 Shibles (Sara Speidel)
(016) MWF 9-9:50, 117 Stevens North (Bruce Pratt)
(017) MWF 11-11:50, 113 DP Corbett Business (Elizabeth Payne)
(018) TTh 9:30-10:45, 113 DP Corbett Business (Dylan Dryer)
(019) MWF 1:10-2:00, 102 Jenness (William Toner)
(020) TTh 9:30-10:45, 101 Bennett (Kimberly Almeida)
(021) TTh 2-3:15, 311 Shibles (Michael Davidson)
(022) MWF 1:10-2, 102 Bennett (Jason DiGioia)
(023) TTh 12:30-1:45, 228A Merrill Hall (Danielle Laliberte)
(024) MWF 12:10-1:00, 102 Jenness (Rachel Perry)
(025) MWF 11-11:50, 106 Jenness (William Yellow Robe)
(026) MWF 10-10:50, 117 Stevens North (Amy Jirsa)
(027) MWF 9-9:50, 123 Barrows (Pat Burnes)
(028) TTh 9:30-10:45, 123 Barrows (Leonore Hildebrandt)
(029) TTh 12:30-1:45, 202 Little Hall (Leonore Hildebrandt)
(030) MWF 10-10:50, 202 Little Hall (Amanda Hedrick)
(031) TTh 12:30-1:45, 102 Jenness (Travis Baker)
(032) TTh 12:30-1:45, 108 Jenness (Sarah Woehler)
(033) MWF 11-11:50, 102 Jenness (Sarah Breems)
(034) MWF 11-11:50, 147 Hitchner (Shaun Irland)
(035) TTh 9:30-10:45, 117 Stevens North (Meghan Dowling)
(036) TTh 6-7:15, 123 Barrows (Carrie Scheel)
(037) MW 3:10-4:25 227 Neville Hall (Michael Fournier)
(038) TTh 3:30-4:45 121 Stevens North (Alan Marks)
(039) MWF 9-9:50 102 Jenness (Emily Kohler)
(040) MWF 11-11:50 123 Barrows (Mary Plymale)
(300) MWF 10-10:50, 206 Neville (Robert Whelan)
(Offered to students in transition program only.)
(301) MWF 10-10:50, 335 Merrill (Jane Beecher)
(Offered to students in transition program only.)
(500) MW 3:10-4:25, 204 Neville (Regina Rooney)
(501) MWF 12:10-1:00, 107 Boardman (Emily Kohler)
(665) T 2:30-5:00, FHC (Judith Williams) (Hutchinson Center)
(666) Th 5:30-8:00, FHC (Dorathy Martel) (Hutchinson Center)
Anticipated Size: 20 students per session, approximately 36 sections per semester.
Prerequisites: 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 the semester. Students with extremely strong
backgrounds in writing may attempt credit by examination through Jerry Ellis in
the Onward Office.
Course Description:
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 approved 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 001 is a course for students who need to develop and practice the basic writing habits necessary for successful university-level writing. Successful completion of this course should enable students to do well in ENG 101. The course grants three semester credit hours, hours that do not count toward graduation but do count toward semester load.
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ENG 129 (001): Topics in English – Literature and Theories of Human Nature
4192 TTh 11-12:15, 107 Boardman
Instructor: Murray Callaway
Anticipated Size: 25 (7 spaces set aside for incoming English majors)
Prerequisites: Open to first-year students only. May be taken before or after ENG 101 or
concurrently with permission.
Course Description: This course will serve as a basic introduction to some of the major theories of universal human identity and to the ways in which literature can be used to enhance and to question our understanding of such theories. The course will use accessible texts and films selected for their entertainment value, as well as for what they can add to our understanding of the ideas of Plato, Christianity, Sigmund Freud, Conrad Lorenz, Jean Paul Sartre, B.F. Skinner, and Karl Marx.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Texts: This is a sample list only, but probable texts might include the following:
Leslie Stevenson. Ten Theories of Human Nature
Flannery O'Connor. Everything that Rises Must Converge
Jack London. The Sea Wolf
Aldous Huxley. Brave New World
Albert Camus. The Stranger
John Steinbeck. In Dubious Battle
Various short stories, poems, and films provided by the instructor.
Evaluation: Students will keep reading reaction notebooks, take regular reading quizzes, and write 3-4 interpretive essays.
ENG 129 (002): Topics in English – Mystery, Murder, and Detectives in Fiction
4194 TTh 2-3:15, 302 Shibles
Instructor: Audrey Minutolo
Anticipated Size: 20 (7 spaces set aside for incoming English majors)
Prerequisites: Open to first-year students only. May be taken before or after ENG 101 or
concurrently with permission.
Course Description: In this course, students will examine the literature that tempts our fascination with murder mysteries and the detectives who solve them. The course will focus on developing students’ understanding of texts that fall within the genre of detective fiction from 1841, the beginning of the genre, through WWII. We will focus on close literary analysis of the fiction of the time period and work with historical contexts so that students have a better understanding of the literature and the social and cultural influences of the period. Although this is not a course in forensic science, students will walk away knowing “whodunit.”
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Reading List:
Edgar Allan Poe, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “Marie Roget,” and “The House of Usher”
Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express
Susan Glaspell, “Trifles”
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction
Additional A/V materials:
Murder by Death (film; satire)
The Adventures of Guy Noir, Private Eye (radio broadcast; satire)
Evaluation: Frequent short response papers and longer critical essays, including a final paper.
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ENG 131 (001): The Nature of Story
4196 TTh 12:30-1:45, 100 DP Corbett Business
Instructor: Jack Wilson
Anticipated Size: 350
Prerequisites: 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 to navigate 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 an anthology of world literature 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.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements.
Required Texts: An anthology of world literature; other material will be provided by the instructor. Please see website: http://www.umaine.edu/victorianlinks/
Evaluation: Ten short papers and a midterm and a final, all taken electronically through WebCT.
ENG 131 (002): The Nature of Story
4198 MWF 11-11:50, 102 Murray
Instructor: Robert Whelan
Anticipated Size: 105
Prerequisites: 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, and film. Readings will come primarily from the modern world, from the western cultural tradition and from Vietnamese culture.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition, Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives and Artistic & Creative Expression Requirements.
Required Texts: To be announced
Evaluation: Nine quizzes (lowest three grades dropped), two short response papers (two pages), one prelim and a final.
ENG 131: The Nature of Story
4200 (990) Web-based
4202 (995) Web-based
Instructor: Jack Wilson
Anticipated Size: 65, 10
Prerequisites: None
Course Description: Forthcoming.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition, Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives and Artistic & Creative Expression Requirements.
Required Texts:
Evaluation:
ENG 170: Foundations of Literary Analysis
4204 (001) MWF 9-9:50, 204 Neville (Jeff Evans)
4206 (002) TTh 9:30-10:45, 218 Little Hall (Harvey Kail)
38675 (500) TTh 12:30-1:45, 109 DP Corbett Business (Sara Speidel)
Anticipated Size: 20 (7 spaces are set aside for incoming English majors)
Prerequisites: ENG 101 is strongly recommended.
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: To be selected.
Evaluation: Frequent papers; participation. There may some quizzes as well.
ENG 205: Introduction to Creative Writing
4210 (001) TTh 9:30-10:45, 115 Bennett (Alan Marks)
4212 (002) TTh 2-3:15, 310 Shibles (Ken Norris)
4214 (003) TTh 11-12:15, 104 Jenness (Kathleen Ellis)
4216 (004) TTh 12:30-1:45, 216 Boardman (David Kress)
31862 (005) MWF 1:10-2:00, 406 Neville (William Yellow Robe)
Anticipated Size: 18 (2 sections (004 and 005) have 7 spaces set aside for incoming English majors)
Prerequisites: ENG 101 is strongly recommended. For this semester only, no permission
necessary.
Course Description: This course will function as a writing workshop. We will work primarily with fiction and poetry. The workshop format will call on students to function both as writers and as thoughtful responders to the work of fellow workshop members. Attendance and active participation at all scheduled class sessions is absolutely essential.
Satisfies the General Education Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive Requirements.
Required Texts: TBA
Evaluation: An end of term portfolio of work will receive a letter grade.
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ENG 206 (001): Descriptive/Narrative Writing
4220 TTh 11-12:15, 227 Neville
Instructor: Jim Bishop
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisites: ENG 101 or equivalent.
Course Description: The course focuses on autobiographical narrative. How do we translate the materials of our own experience, tell our stories, in ways that are true to ourselves and compelling to others? To that end, students are encouraged to experiment with forms and modes of expression. Students will be asked to select areas of focus from their experience and, increasingly, to generate their own writing assignments. Students will share their work with others in a constructive collaborative workshop format. A serious commitment to engaging the materials of one's own experience and to the workshop format is required.
Satisfies the General Education Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive Requirements.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: Participation and extensive writing.
ENG 212: Persuasive and Analytical Writing
4222 (001) MWF 1:10-2:00, 117 Stevens North (Henry Garfield)
4224 (002) TTh 3:30-4:45, 102 Jenness (Stephen Wicks)
4226 (003) TTh 2-3:15, 123 Barrows (Marge Irvine)
4228 (004) TTh 9:30-10:45, 106 Jenness (Henry Garfield)
4230 (005) TTh 12:30-1:45, 218 Little Hall (Alan Marks)
4232 (006) TTh 2-3:15, 202 Little Hall (Carla Billitteri)
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisite: ENG 101 and at least sophomore standing.
Course Description: Designed for students wanting to practice in those forms of expository, analytical, and persuasive prose required in writing answers to essay test questions, term papers, research projects, and extended arguments.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive Requirement.
Required Texts: To be announced
Evaluation: An end of term portfolio of work will receive a letter grade.
ENG 222: Reading Poems
4234 (001) TTh 11-12:15, 217 DP Corbett (Laura Cowan)
4236 (002) MWF 1:10-2:00, 115 Boardman (Ben Friedlander)
31014 (003) MWF 12:10-1:00, 123 Barrows (Kathleen Ellis)
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English. English major or permission of the instructor.
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.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression, and Writing Intensive Requirements.
Required Texts: To be announced
Evaluation: To be announced
ENG 229 (001): Topics in Literature – Writers of the Beat Generation
4238 TTh 9:30-10:45, 375 Stevens
Instructor: Terry Crouch
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English.
Course Description: The Writers of the Beat Generation (1940s-1960s) were one of the most influential literary movements of the 20th Century. Rebellious, non-conformist, street wise, and passionate, these authors helped to change the course of American fiction and poetry, and their influence can still be felt strongly today. This class will examine selected texts from the major Beat authors—Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Burroughs, Snyder, and others—to see where these writers came from and how their legacy is still alive in such artists as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and others.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition requirement.
Possible Texts: selected texts by Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder, Ferlinghetti, and others. I'm sure we'll use The Beat Reader by Charters (Penguin).
Evaluation: To be determined
ENG 229 (002): Topics in Literature – Hopscotch to Oblivion: Dark Humor in American Fiction
31077 TTh 11-12:15, 126 Dunn Hall
Instructor: David Kress
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English.
Course Description: This class will explore fictional works that are both funny and disturbing, texts that make us laugh and then make us wonder what is so funny. Sometimes written for social critique, other times in order to explore rarely traipsed aspects of the human psyche, and others still just for a lot of fun, thee works are challenging and provocative: in other words, they produce thought via laughter. As a special treat, we will also devote one week to viewing Stanley Kubrick’s darkly humorous movie, Dr. Strangelove.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition requirement.
Required Texts:
Lord Timothy Dexter, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Ring Lardner, You Know Me Al
Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Jim Thompson, Pop. 1280
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Requirements/Evaluation: Student grades will be based on attendance/participation and writing:
Attendance/Participation: 30%
Writing: 70%
The writing component of the course will involve three short papers (each worth 20%) as well as weekly question/critiques worth 10%.
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ENG 229 (860): Topics in Literature – Literature of the Vietnam War
4240 W 4-6:45 PM, 237 Stevens North
Instructor: Robert Whelan
Anticipated Size: 50
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English
Course Description: This course is designed to allow the student to gain an understanding of the literature that has grown from the war in Viet Nam. In this regard, it will focus on the responses of the human imagination to war, specifically the American and Vietnamese experiences in Viet Nam. The course will explore the tension between despair and hope that is created as the imagination attempts to reconcile facts of war and earlier lessons regarding humanity, goodness and truth. It will also explore reactions of both participants and non-participants in the aftermath of the war. To the extent possible in a course focusing on literature, students should gain an appreciation of the social, cultural and historical context of the war. Additionally, the course will provide students with tools to use when critically reading works of fiction.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition requirement.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: Since there will be two out-of-class writing assignments, as well as a prelim and a final which will provide an opportunity to write in a classroom setting, it seems fitting that a final objective should be to improve written expression, using essays of moderate length to do so.
ENG 229 / WST 201: Topics in Literature – Scandalous Women in Literature
31035 (990) Asynchronous/Online
31036 (995) Asynchronous/Online
Instructor: Audrey Minutolo
Anticipated Size: 25, 5
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English;
Cross-listed with WST 201
Course Description: This course examines the women in British and American literature who caused a stir in their social sphere and were forevermore depicted as immoral. Students will discuss and analyze the literature as well as the historical contexts in which the texts were written and will also examine the political, social, cultural, and religious history of the period to better understand the women, or their characters, whose “eccentricities” ostracized them from their communities.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition requirement.
Reading List:
Julian of Norwich, The Book of Showings (excerpted)
Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
Geoffrey Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Tale
Aphra Behn, The Disappointment
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
May Sinclair, Where Their Fire is Not Quenched
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
George Eliot, “The Lifted Veil”
Selected Readings – Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties
Evaluation: Frequent short response papers and longer critical essays, including a final paper.
ENG 231 (001): Western Traditions in Literature – Homer to the Renaissance
4242 TTh 9:30-10:45, 204 Neville
Instructor: Alex Irvine
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English.
Course Description: Survey of the major writers in the Western literary tradition. The development of our cultural heritage and the evolution of major literary forms. (This course is identical to MLC 231.)
Satisfied the General Education Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: To be announced.
ENG 244 (001): Writers of Maine
4250 TTh 12:30-1:45, 202 Shibles
Instructor: Marge Irvine
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English.
Course Description: I've heard living in Maine compared to living in a corner, or living on the edge, or living on an island. If any of these descriptions is valid, our geography must have affected our writers and our literature. Accordingly, in this course we'll read essays, novels, short stories and poetry in which the setting figures predominantly; we'll try to determine in what ways that setting has left its mark. Students will also, I hope, gain a greater appreciation of our state's rich literary heritage. Finally, we'll take a look at the recent controversy in Maine fiction: what is the REAL Maine, and who's writing about it?
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression, and Ethics requirements.
Required Text: To be announced.
Evaluation: Two prelims, two short essays, one research project.
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ENG 244 (665): Writers of Maine (Hutchinson Center in Belfast)
4252 W 5:30-8:00, FHC
Instructor: Sanford Phippen
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English.
Course Description: Forthcoming.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression and Ethics requirements.
Required Text: To be announced.
Evaluation: To be announced.
ENG 245: American Short Fiction
31869 (990) Web-based
31870 (995) Web-based
Instructor: Murray Callaway
Anticipated Size: 45, 10
Prerequisites: 3 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: A study of American short fiction from Irving to the present. The class will proceed chronologically, concentrating on those formal developments that have made the short story a particularly American genre.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression and Ethics requirements.
Texts: American Short Stories (7th edition). Eugene Current-Garcia and Bert Hitchcock, eds. (Longman, ISBN 0321080564, Dec 2001)
Evaluation: Reading reaction notebook, term project(s), and three mid-term exams.
ENG 251: English Literature Survey – From the Beginnings to Neoclassicism
W 1-3:45
4258 (981) 207 Shibles
4260 (985) FHC – Hutchinson Center
Instructor: Tony Brinkley
Anticipated Size: 38, 10
Prerequisites: 3 hours of literature or permission of the instructor (ENG 170 recommended).
Course Description: The major patterns of development within the English literary tradition, with emphasis on the cultural and historical forces which have shaped this tradition.
Satisfies the Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: To be announced.
ENG 271 (001): The Act of Interpretation
4264 TTh 2-3:15, 335 Merrill Hall
Instructor: Steve Evans
Anticipated Size: 24
Prerequisites: ENG 170
Course Description: The catalog description of this course reads simply: “An introduction to critical theory. Study of individual critics or schools of literary theory. Application of these interpretative strategies to literary texts.” In this particular section of the class, we will read, discuss, and write about a variety of consequential texts from the history of literary hermeneutics, poetics, and cultural studies, starting with Plato and Aristotle and extending to our own day. The central questions we will explore are: What is language? What makes an interpretation valid? Who is authorized to speak? What is ideology and how does it work to confer identity on subjects? In addition to our work with the printed word, we will be applying hermeneutical principles to the analysis of pop songs selected by students in the class.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition and Writing Intensive requirements.
Required Texts:
Leitch, et al. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Norton, 2001. (ISBN 0393974294)
Freud, Sigmund. Interpretation of Dreams. Avon, 1980. (ISBN 0380010003)
Proust, Marcel. Swann’s Way. Penguin, 2004. (ISBN 0142437964)
You can expect to read approximately one hundred pages per class meeting (and sometimes more). Much of this reading will be of an advanced nature, involving concepts and references unfamiliar to you – you will want to allow ample time for re-reading.
Recommended Texts: It is assumed that students in this class have access to the most recent edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, edited by Joseph Gibaldi.
Assignments and Evaluation:
- Short writing assignments: Reading and class notes, “mark-ups,” in-class presentations, and position papers (30%)
- Two formal papers (20% each)
- Cumulative final or project (20%)
- Attendance and participation (10%)
As this is a writing-intensive course, written work may be revised and resubmitted.
ENG 271 (002): The Act of Interpretation
4266 TTh 12:30-1:45, 327 Neville
Instructor: Carla Billitteri
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisite: ENG 170
Focus of this course: Acts of interpretations are historical-specific acts of cultural intervention, shaped by the cultural horizon of the reader. This is granted, and even axiomatic, but equally granted is the fact that the reader’s horizon is always informed and deeply transformed by the encounter with literary texts. In other words, acts of interpretations are historical-specific acts of cultural intervention that bring the interaction between text and reader to a temporary, if significant, resolution. The dual constitution of this interaction and the dialectics of its processual unfolding will be the focus of our course.
Course Description: ENG 271 looks closely at significant works of literary theory, combining classic works of individual critics to clusters of works by individual schools, in our case, he5rmeneutics, poststructuralism and semiotics. The close and systematic study of literary theory is meant to enhance the students’ awareness of the shaping function of theoretical perspectives in interpreting literary texts, and to facilitate the encounter with the rich complexity of the philosophical foundations of literary interpretation.
Satisfies the General Education Western Cultural Tradition and Writing Intensive requirements.
Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: Attendance, participation in workshops, three short papers, final exam.
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ENG 280 (001): Introduction to Film
4268 MF 1:10-2:00, W 1:10-3:00, 227 Neville
Instructor: Jeff Evans
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: The course will examine the medium of film from its inception at the end of the l9th century to the present. Emphasis is placed on a beginning understanding of film techniques and analysis. The course will concentrate on how films make their meanings.
Fulfills the Social Contexts and Institutions and Artistic and Creative Expression General Education Requirements.
Likely Texts: Louis Giannetti, Understanding Film, Latest edition. (Prentice Hall). The narrative films themselves are the primary texts.
Evaluation: Exams, exercises, out-of-class final, participation.
ENG 301 (001): Advanced Composition
4270 TTh 2-3:15, 406 Neville
Instructor: Dylan Dryer
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisites: ENG 101 and ENG 206 or 212 or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: This course is primarily for writers who are and will be working primarily in academic argument, although writers of all genres and professions will benefit from its attention to
developing meta-cognition about writing practices and theories. That is, we will be reading and writing primarily about reading and writing itself; moreover, class discussion will largely consist of
close-reading, careful discussion, and experimental revisions to the documents students produce for the course. Consistent attendance, an ability to meet regular deadlines, a willingness to engage in collaborative work, and a commitment to becoming what Min-Zhan Lu has called "a responsible and responsive user of English" will be essential.
A final course grade will be based on a portfolio of work from the entire course, as well as its author's ability to reflect on the composing decisions and compromises that shaped its production.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Texts: A coursepacket compiled by the instructor consisting of articles from the field of composition studies, including but not limited to readings from David Bartholomae, Paul Kei Matsuda, Min-Zhan Lu, Linda Brodkey, Bruce Horner, Nedra Reynolds, and John Mauk.
Evaluation: To be announced
ENG 307 (001): Writing Fiction
4272 TTh 12:30-1:45, 406 Neville
Instructor: Alex Irvine
Anticipated Size: 16
Prerequisites: ENG 205 or 206 and permission of the instructor
Course Description: The writing of fiction, for students of demonstrated ability. Submission of writing sample.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Text:
Hoffman and Murphy. Essentials of the Theory of Fiction (3rd ed.)
Evaluation: Quality of work, demonstrated progress, attendance and participation.
ENG 309: Writing Creative Nonfiction
4274 TTh 9:30-10:45, 200 Lord Hall
Instructor: Marge Irvine
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisites: ENG 205 or 206 or 212 or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: Sometimes called “The Fourth Genre,” creative non-fiction uses the strategies of fiction (plot, dialog, characters, etc.) in writing about factual subjects: autobiography, biography, travel, science/nature, cultural issues, current events. We’ll read creative non-fiction and also write it.
Satisfies the General Education Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive requirements.
Required Texts: To be selected.
Evaluation: 5 essays and class participation.
ENG 317: Business and Technical Writing
31871 (001) MWF 9-9:50, 228A Merrill Hall (Charlsye Diaz)
4276 (002) MWF 1:10-2:00, 228A Merrill Hall (Jane Beecher)
4278 (003) W 5:30-8:00, 111 DP Corbett Business (Jane Beecher)
4280 (004) MWF 2:10-3:00, 206 Neville (Murray Callaway)
4282 (005) Th 5:30-8:00, 111 DP Corbett Business (Sanford Phippen)
4284 (006) MWF 12:10-1:00, 111 DP Corbett Business (Murray Callaway)
4286 (007) M 5:30-8:00, 111 DP Corbett Business (Scott Peterson)
4288 (008) TTh 9:30-10:45, 318 Boardman (Mary Bartosenski Bowden)
4290 (011) TTh 9:30-10:45, 217 DP Corbett (Leon Raikes)
4292 (012) TTh 11-12:15, 124 Barrows (Mary Bartosenski Bowden)
4294 (013) TTh 2-3:15, 111 DP Corbett Business (Leon Raikes)
38689 (500) TTh 9:30-10:45, 205 Little Hall (Deborah Levine)
38690 (501) TTh 8-9:15, 204 Neville (Leon Raikes)
4300 (665) T 5:30-8:00, FHC (Judy Williams) (Hutchinson Center)
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisites: 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 be taught in a computer-equipped classroom and some may incorporate electronic communication, such as FirstClass.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Texts:
Lannon, John M. Technical Communication (11th ed.), New York, Pearson Longman, 2008.
Individual instructors may require additional resources.
Evaluation: Short written assignments and one major report.
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ENG 395 (001): English Internship
4302 TTh 12:30-1:45, 220 Little Hall
Instructor: Harvey Kail
Anticipated Size: 15
Prerequisites: ENG 101 or equivalent and at least one other writing intensive course, a
recommendation from a faculty member, submission of writing sample and
permission.
Course Description: Students in English internship will learn how to become effective peer writing tutors. Students will first experience collaborative work among themselves involving essay writing, critical reading of peers' essays, log-writing, and discussion. The second phase of the course will involve supervised peer tutoring in the English Department's Writing Center.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Texts: Ken Bruffee, A Short Course in Writing
Additional Readings: Selected essays on composition theory and practice.
Evaluation: Students will be evaluated on four to five argumentative essays and the written peer critiques that are part of the collaborative, peer review process.
ENG 405 (001): Topics in Creative Writing – Altered Texts
4304 TTh 9:30-10:45, 406 Neville
Instructor: David Kress
Anticipated Size: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor only.
Course Description: Given language as a ready-made, something that pre-exists our encounter with it, can we nevertheless create texts that are somehow “ours”?
4000 years ago, Egyptian poets complained that they had “arrived too late” to create anything original or new, and yet writing has continued unabated, constantly testing the adage, continually looking for a sign that it—or we—aren’t too late. But, although we like to think our writing “original,” a work of art that allows us to speak in our “own voices,” the truth of the matter is, as the saying goes, “there is nothing new under the sun”—and that includes our ideas and our voices.
With these ideas in mind, this course will explore possibilities for creative writing through such suspect literary techniques as plagiarism, collage, cut-up, found poetry, Markov chains, Japanese Rengu poems and other group writings, Rimbaud’s derangement of the senses, dub and sampling fiction, fold-ins, email piracy, and other methods for altering “available” texts.
Although our other 400-level creative writing courses are centered in poetry or fiction, this course is should be intriguing to students in both creative writing concentrations.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Assignments and Writing Projects: Assignments will include extensive reading, both in the theory and practice of altered texts, in-class writing experiments, and a final project.
Besides a wide-ranging series of in-class writing assignments—both creative and critical/analytical—each student will create a twenty-five page “altered book” of poetry, fiction, or some new hybrid for a final project.
Possible Texts: I will provide most of the readings in the form of hand-outs, but we will also be using several outside texts that may include texts like or such as Kathy Acker’s Empire of the Senseless, William S. Burroughs’ Nova Express, Tom Phillips’ A Humamanet, collage novels and/or poetry by Rosemarie and/or Keith Waldrop, and so on.
Evaluation: Evaluation will be based on the quality of written work, passion and depth of thought, and class participation.
ENG 408 (001): Advanced Poetry Writing
30974 TTh 11-12:15, 327 Neville
Instructor: Jennifer Moxley
Anticipated Size: 15
Prerequisites: ENG 308, writing sample and permission of the instructor.
Course Description: A poetry workshop at the advanced level. This is the advanced level course for poets in the English concentration in creative writing, and should be taken in tandem with ENG 499 (capstone experience).
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: Letter grade based on workshop participation, writing exercises, original poems, sound reviews, response to critical and creative reading assignments, recitation, and final manuscript.
ENG 418 (001): Topics in Professional Writing – Technical Editing and Document Design
4308 T 5-7:30, 111 DP Corbett Business
Instructor: Charlsye Diaz
Anticipated Size: 20
Prerequisites: 6 hours of English, including ENG 317 and permission of the instructor.
Course Description: This course focuses on print and online editing, including the use of traditional proofreading marks and online techniques, document layout and design, principles of copywriting, and the study of style manuals. The course follows two lines of study: one of editing/text crunching practices and one of print document design principles and practices related to the editing of documents. The cornerstone of the course is producing a newsletter for a client.
The goals of this course include the following:
- Writing and editing, and copyediting stories using a journalistic style
- Identifying parts of speech
- Understanding and responding well to issues of grammar and usage
- Providing tactful feedback
- Identifying good examples of page design
- Using InDesign to create effective layouts and page designs
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Texts: To be announced
Evaluation: Grammar and punctuation test; major writing and design project for on- or off-campus client; homework; quizzes.
ENG 429 (001): Topics in Literature – Listen! Poetry in the Age of the MP3
4310 TTh 2-3:15, 220 Little Hall
Instructor: Steve Evans
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: In this course we'll explore the sonic archive of modern and contemporary poetry, focusing on the art of interpreting poems not just as printed texts but as voiced structures whose meaning can be "sounded" as well as seen. In addition to hearing, seeing, and reading a wide variety of poetry, we'll make use of secondary literature from the fields of literary criticism, poetics, linguistics, prosody, speech pragmatics, and the new media to fashion a supple critical vocabulary for the description, interpretation, and evaluation of poetry soundfiles. We'll also work with sound editing and analysis software applications (Audacity, Praat) that allow us to visualize the sound shape of poetic language. In addition to conventional writing assignments, students can also expect to program a radio segment and to make regular postings to a course blog.
Required Texts: To be announced
Evaluation: To be announced
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ENG 429: Topics in Literature – Apes, Angels, and Victorians
4318 (990) Web-based
4320 (995) Web-based
Instructor: Jack Wilson
Anticipated Size: 60, 10
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Course Description and Required Texts:
(Please visit the website at http://www.umaine.edu/victorianlinks/victorian/429apessyllabus.htm)
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. We’ll concentrate on the following major ideas: empiricism, rationalism, laissez-faire, the relationship between the State and the Individual, “common sense,” humanism, the origin of ideas, pleasure as the sole good, and human equality.
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. We’ll read this novel as a dramatization of the emergence of homo economicus and modern capitalism. We’ll also explore the relationship of the individual to capitalism and of Protestantism to rationalism and empiricism.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract. Major ideas: democratic political theory; a new view of nature, of humankind, of the child; the “Golden Age”—a communal state; the innate goodness of man, egalitarianism, civilization versus nature; the nature of society.
The impact of Locke, Defoe, and Rousseau on the Victorian world.
Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present. We’ll use Past and Present as an opening into the question of the relationship of empiricism, rationalism, science, and religion as it specifically relates to the “Condition of England Question.” We’ll ask ourselves whether Carlyle’s use of the medieval monastery as a template for his historical understanding of the social ills of the early Victorian period could work. This formulation by Carlyle of a basic social question—that of man’s social obligations—will prepare us for Marx’s analysis and raise questions about the role of science, reason, and the empirical butting up against the human issues of poverty and class, especially within the context of the newly industrialized technological society of England of the 1830s and ‘40s. (Carlyle, unlike Marx, for example, bases his answer on a religious but not Christian model. [He gave up his Christianity after reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.] Does Carlyle imply in his religious choices a return to the paganism of the society the British most wanted to emulate, the Roman?)
Karl Marx, vol. one of Capital; the Manifesto of the Communist Party, as well as various shorter works. Major ideas: Marx’s romantic and rationalistic basis for his philosophy; his dialectical materialism (unlike Carlyle’s medieval romanticism); his economic determinism (hence his development of a scientific (rational) religion (romantic); his idea of work and of surplus value; his critique of capitalism.
John Ruskin, Unto This Last. The focus here will be on Ruskin as a “sacramental humanist,” attempting in his social writing to address the same problems as Marx but basing his answer on humanism, socialism, and an increasingly pagan religious point of view. (Born into a conservative evangelical Protestant family, he gave up his belief in orthodox Christianity after a “conversion” in a chapel in Turin, Italy in 1858.) Ruskin and Carlyle share a similar world view.
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. Major ideas: the emergence of biology as a science; his theory of natural selection and its implied rejection of a teleology; his emphasis on the empirical, the objective, the phenomenal, on, in short, the inductive method; Darwin not a metaphysician but an epistemologist. Darwin’s world: amoral, relativistic, emphasizing process and change.
John Henry, Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. The antithesis to Darwin, Newman presents the absolutist, dogmatic Catholic Christian position, arguing from faith rather than reason, from tradition rather than experience, from revelation rather than phenomena. Views science as an adjunct to other and greater sources of truth.
William Morris, News from Nowhere—a socialist romance. Morris presents a practical acceptance of science and technology, and of socialistic ideas, but weaves them together with pagan religious ideas. In many ways, then, the utopian News attempts to reconcile the many forces and conflicts we’ll have been looking at in the course.
Finally, we’ll attempt to bring all of this together with the implications for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
ENG 430 (001): Topics in European Literature –European Avant-Garde Theater
31068 TTh 11-12:15, 316 Dunn Hall
Instructor: Carla Billitteri
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: European avant-garde theater, in its different manifestations (expressionist, symbolist, dada, futurist, absurd drama, theater of cruelty, epic theater, political theater) rejects the artistic conventions of naturalist and realist drama, and (by extension) all "aesthetic values and materialistic ideals ... associated with the bourgeoisie" (Christopher Innis, "The Politics of Primitivism"). Through the shock-effects of their formally innovative gestures, the theatrical avant-gardes have successfully sought the politicization of drama as a literary genre and rethought the boundaries between art and politics -- often by way of radical intellectual assaults on their audience’s expectations.
We will read the most important plays of the European avant-garde, peruse a few historical studies on the subject of twentieth-century avant-garde (so as to better contextualize our readings), and study all pertinent avant-garde theoretical manifestoes on the politics of theater (by Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Jarry, Tzara, Artaud, Brecht, Ionesco, and Handke) that changed the landscape of twentieth-century European theater.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive and Ethics requirements.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: To be announced.
ENG 436 (001): Topics in Canadian Literature
4322 TTh 12:30-1:45, 123 Barrows
Instructor: Ken Norris
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor
Course Description: An intensive study of a major Canadian writer or a small group of Canadian writers, or an examination of a major theme in Canadian literature.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive and Ethics requirements.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: To be announced.
ENG 445 (001): The American Novel
4326 MWF 11-11:50, 119 Stevens North
Instructor: Jeff Evans
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: The class will examine closely themes, attitudes, and techniques that contribute to the development of the American novel of the 19th and 20th centuries. The classes will emphasize discussion and class participation. Particular attention will be paid to narrative techniques. The emphasis throughout is on close analysis of the texts.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Sample Texts: We will read eight or nine substantial works; some past readings are indicated below:
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Norton Critical)
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Willa Cather, My Antonia (Houghton Mifflin)
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (Vintage)
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (Vintage)
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (Dell)
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (Harper)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon (Scribners)
Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Norton Critical)
Harold Frederic, Damnation of Theron Ware
Additional Readings: Hibbard & Holman, A Handbook to Literature (on library reserve)
Evaluation: Attendance, participation, class activities, papers.
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ENG 453 (001): The Works of Shakespeare
31050 MWF 12:10-1:00, 313 Shibles
Instructor: Richard Brucher
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor
Course Description: We'll read 14 or so plays by Shakespeare, exemplifying the various periods of his career and modes in which he worked--comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. Class discussions will try to illuminate the expressive range of Shakespeare's language, the significance of the dramatic forms he used, and the social, political, and intellectual structures that shaped his work. We'll pay some attention to performance issues.
This version of 453 will emphasize several Roman plays, including Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, several "problem" plays, including Hamlet, Measure for Measure, and All's Well That Ends Well. Other texts will likely include The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, Richard the Third, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and The Winter's Tale.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive and Ethics requirements.
Required Texts: The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, 1997).
Evaluation: Two comparative take-home preliminary examinations, a long paper/project, and a final exam. Performance may be substituted for some written work.
ENG 457 (001): Victorian Literature and Culture
31080 TTh 9:30-10:45, 206 Rogers
Instructor: Jack Wilson
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor
Course Description: Victorian Romanticism and the Visual Imagination:
• The Eighteenth-Century “Grand Tour”: Roman ruins and the British sensibility.
• The English garden: From Versailles, to the Picturesque, to Burke and the Sublime.
• Rousseau and Blake.
• Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough.
• Horace Walpole and the gothic and the pagan.
• Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800. William Blake.
• Paintings of Joshua Reynolds, John Constable and William Girtin.
• The 1840s: the emergence of photography, especially in the work of Henry Fox Talbert.
• Ruskin’s Modern Painters.
• Paintings of J. M. W. Turner.
• Dickens’s Pickwick Papers.
• The Pre-Raphaelites—in poetry and art—with an emphasis on D. G. Rossetti, William Holman
Hunt, John Everett Millais, Algernon Swinburne, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and
J.W. Waterhouse.
• The journey to inner nature, the landscape of the mind: The “aesthetic” end of the century:
Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and Aubrey Beardsley: decadent and perverse? Does Freud belong
here?
Using the resources of the Web and the technology of WebCT and PowerPoint, we’ll explore,
first, the creation of the Eighteenth-century platform from which the British romantics launched
their verbal and visual pyrotechnics, and then explore the Victorian reaction in image and word
to the romanticism of Blake, Keats and Wordsworth and their view of the natural world.
Satisfies the General Education Ethics requirement.
Evaluation: weekly electronic interactive responses to the reading; final paper of about fifteen pages—all on WebCT. Chance to have the final paper published on my website.
ENG 459 (001): Contemporary British Literature
31083 TTh 9:30-10:45, 126 Dunn Hall
Instructor: Laura Cowan
Anticipated Size: 25
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: The course begins with a review of modernism and its place in the English tradition. It will continue with a consideration of postmodernism and the various trends in English literature since the 1930's. Readings will include fiction, drama, poetry, and essays. The course involves reading and writing about literature.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive and Ethics requirements.
Required Texts: To be selected.
Evaluation: Your grade will be based on attendance, participation, weekly quizzes, one or two short papers, two medium length papers, class presentations, midterm, and a final.
ENG 480: Topics in Film- The Camden Film Festival
Saturdays, 9:00-4:00
4334 (665) FHC (Hutchinson Center)
4336 (860) Web-based
Instructor: Tony Brinkley, Michael Grillo, Michael Scott
Anticipated Size: 5, 60
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature.
Course Description: Attendance is required throughout the entire Film Festival in Camden and Rockland on September 25-28, 2008. This includes films screenings and events beginning Thursday evening through Sunday evening.
Satisfies the General Education Writing Intensive requirement.
Required Texts:
Evaluation:
ENG 499 (001): Capstone in English (4340)
Instructor: (Naomi Jacobs)
Anticipated Size: 50
Corequisite: Admission to ENG 400-level literature course, ENG 395 and 405, 407, or 408
Course Description: The senior capstone requirement applies to all students in all concentrations. Any one of the following courses or experiences may be used:
• ENG 395 and one semester of tutoring in the Writing Center.
• 400 level literature course in which a student writes a seminar-level research paper.
• ENG 405, ENG 407 or ENG 408 and the approval of a finished manuscript.
• ENG 496 (at least 3 credit hours of field experience).
• Approval of an Honors thesis with a topic in an area of English studies.
Students using ENG 395, a 400 level literature course, ENG 405, 407 or 408 as a Senior Capstone Requirement must also register for the zero (0) credit hour ENG 499. This is an accounting mechanism for Student Records to track the completion of the Senior Capstone Requirement.
Required Texts: None
Evaluation: None
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ENG 508 (001): Graduate Workshop in Poetry
31721 T 3:30-6:00, 406 Neville
Instructor: Jennifer Moxley
Anticipated Size: 15
Prerequisites: English master’s degree candidates concentrating in Creative Writing. All
others must submit a writing sample to obtain instructor permission.
Course Description: A graduate poetry workshop for M. A. students concentrating in creative writing.
Required Texts: To be announced.
Evaluation: Letter grade based on original poems, workshop participation, response to assigned readings, and revision.
ENG 529 (001): Staging History
4344 Th 3:30-6:00, 406 Neville
Instructor: Richard Brucher
Anticipated Size: 13
Prerequisites: Graduate standing in English or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: This course examines how history has been staged at different times, beginning with Shakespeare’s invention of the chronicle history play near at the end of the 16th century and ending with August Wilson’s and Susan-Lori Parks’ search for a dramatic form that reclaims African-American history near the end of the 20th century. The course interprets history broadly to accommodate a variety of social, political, and cultural issues. We’ll pay particular attention to how the plays use historical materials dramatically to examine social and political anxieties of the times in which the plays are written. The first half of the course covers English and European plays, using Shakespeare’s early history plays to establish conventions and motifs, and then pursuing those motifs (for example Joan of Arc and peasant revolts) into 20th-century plays by Shaw, Brecht, Churchill, and Stoppard. The second half of the course emphasizes American plays that sometimes use history (and sometimes one another) to examine recurring issues in American culture.
Possible Texts:
Bertold Brecht, Mother Courage (Grove)
Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, adapted by David Mamet (Grove)
Caryl Churchill, Plays, One (Methuen)
T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral (Harcourt)
Adrienne Kennedy, The Adrienne Kennedy Reader (U of Minnesota Press)
Tony Kushner, Angels in America (TCG)
Eugene O’Neill, Three Plays (Vintage) and Long Day’s Journey into Night (Yale)
Susan-Lori Parks, The America Play and Other Works (TCG)
George Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan (Penguin)
William Shakespeare, Henry the Sixth (3 parts) and Richard the Third (any edition)
Tom Stoppard. The Coast of Utopia (3 parts) (TCG?)
August Strindberg, Erik the Fourteenth (photocopy)
Naomi Wallace, In the Heart of America (TCG)
August Wilson, The Piano Lesson (Penguin/Plume)
Evaluation: Grades are based on two oral presentations, 2 short (4-6 pp.) papers, and a longer (12-15 pp.) project.
ENG 542 (001): Multicultural American Literature
31066 T 6-8:30, 406 Neville
Instructor: Margaret Lukens
Anticipated Size: 13
Prerequisites: Graduate standing in English or permission of the instructor
Course Description: This is a course establishing some familiarity with a range of plays written by Native American and First Nations playwrights, but concentrating mainly on the production of critical and contextual writing about these plays and their potential audiences. Special emphasis on the development and application of theoretical approaches to intertribal theater, and on documenting the intersection of intertribal theater with both Native and non-Native communities. Some attention to the history and development of Native theater troupes will be included in the course; students will also seek out information on performance history and critical reception of plays in production. As necessary, these readings will be contextualized by instruction, research, and further reading on history and cultures of Native American and First Nations peoples and playwrights.
Required Texts:
A Stray Dog and other plays of the blood quantum, by William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. Ed. Margo Lukens (forthcoming)
American Indian Theater in Performance: a Reader. Ed. Hanay Geiogamah and Jaye T.
Darby (2000) UCLA.
Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing. Tomson Highway (1989) Fifth House.
Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism. Craig S. Womack (1999) University
of Minnesota Press.
Seventh Generation: an Anthology of Native American Plays. Ed. Mimi Gisolfi D’Aponte
(1999) Theatre Communications Group.
Staging Coyote’s Dream: an anthology of First Nations drama in English. Ed. Monique
Mojica and Ric Knowles (2003) Playwrights Canada Press
Stories of Our Way: an Anthology of American Indian Plays. Ed. Hanay Geiogamah and
Jaye T. Darby (1999) UCLA.
The Rez Sisters. Tomson Highway (1988) Fifth House.
Where the Pavement Ends: five Native American plays. William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.
(2000) University of Oklahoma Press.
Beyond the texts listed above, you will be expected to do research on criticism of Native drama, as well as on performance history and critical reception of performances.
Assignments:
Students will meet initially to read and discuss primary works (plays) by Native playwrights; you will be expected to produce an informal written response to each play we read and discuss. These informal writings provide an opportunity to explore and create ideas for the more formal project.
Each student will be expected to initiate discussion on a particular play or playwright or thematic grouping; discussion may be based on one or more critical articles.
Based on reading and other experiences in the course, students will propose term projects of their own design. Term projects should focus on the production of theoretical, literary critical, or contextualizing papers about the practice and reception of intertribal theater, and its relationship to both Native and non-Native communities.
Evaluation:
Attendance and participation are vital; graduate courses meet once per week, and therefore each class meeting counts. Additionally, evaluation is based upon weekly informal writing, discussion preparation, term project proposal, and completed project.
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ENG 549: Studies in Gender and Literature – Emily Dickinson
31071 W 3-5:30, 406 Neville
Instructor: Ben Friedlander
Anticipated Size: 13
Prerequisites: Graduate standing in English or permission of the instructor.
Course Description: This seminar will focus intently on the collected poems of Emily Dickinson as published in R. W. Franklin's 1998 variorum edition. For context, students will also read a small selection of poems by Dickinson's American contemporaries. No prior skill in reading poetry is required: students will get a crash course in the basics, with particular attention paid to the workings of figurative language. Issues to be taken up over the course of the semester will include textual editing, the construction of literary history, the intelligibility of experience, the autonomy of language; student interest will dictate other directions. Our discussions will be helped along by sample readings from the critical literature.
Required Texts:
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Variorum Edition), ed. R. W. Franklin (Harvard UP, 1998),
3 vols.
I may also assign the Library of America anthology of nineteenth-century American poetry (college edition). Unfortunately, this book does not include much work by ante-bellum "poetesses," which makes it only half serviceable for our purposes. Photocopy handouts would be the alternative.
The class as a whole will read a few essential essays in photocopy handout. Students will otherwise be reading individually chosen or assigned works of literary criticism, to be drawn from the course reserve at Fogler Library.
Evaluation: Weekly responses (including two critical notes, one on a poem, another on a work of literary criticism) and a final project.
ENG 556: English Romanticism
31064 M 6-8:30 PM, 406 Neville
Instructor: Tony Brinkley
Anticipated Size: 13
Prerequisites: Graduate standing in English or permission of the instructor
Course Description: Studies in Romanticism with emphasis on the legacy of English Romantic poetry and prose in post-romantic literature. We will consider, for example, how Wordsworth's originality influenced such writers as De Quincy, Baudelaire, Proust, and Walter Benjamin. Or, to trace a different tradition, Whitman and Wallace Stevens. Or, still another tradition, Woolf and Lawrence.
Required Texts: Still to be chosen.
Evaluation: To be determined.
ENG 606 / CMJ 606 (001): Rhetorical Theory
31165 W 6-8:30, 424 Dunn Hall
Instructor: Nathan Stormer
Anticipated Size: 5
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor only.
Course Description: Survey of basic issues in and the contributions of major theorists, historical and contemporary.
Required Texts: To be determined.
Evaluation: To be determined.
ENG 693: Teaching College Composition
4358 TTh 11-12:15, 406 Neville
Instructor: Pat Burnes
Anticipated Size: 10
Prerequisites: Graduate standing and appointment as a teaching assistant in the department
of English.
Course Description: A seminar in the theory and practice of teaching ENG 101, College Composition. Seminar participants actively review their understanding of the conventions and contexts of academic writing, practice and critique ways of responding to student writing and of planning sequences of writing assignments, and begin to read in the discipline of composition studies. They pay particular attention to current scholarship on processes of writing, on reading and writing as functions of academic discourse communities, and on the institutional setting of writing instruction. Throughout the semester, they keep teaching journals, plan assignments sequences with theoretical justifications and present these to their peers, compile annotated bibliographies on topics of interest, and write position papers on selected aspects of their teaching.
Required Texts: To be decided.
Evaluation: Teaching journal, assignment sequence with accompanying rationale, annotated bibliography with critical introduction, two position papers, and seminar presentation: both oral and written.
ENG 697: Independent Reading/Writing (4360)
Instructor: Steve Evans)
Anticipated Size: 10
Prerequisites: 6 hours of graduate study in English and permission of Graduate Coordinator
Steve Evans.
ENG 699: Graduate Thesis (4364)
Instructor: (Steve Evans)
Anticipated Size: 30
Prerequisites: 6 hours of graduate study in English or permission of the instructor
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