Undergraduate Courses
200-level courses
300-level courses
400-level courses
Graduate level courses
ENG 001, 101: Writing Workshop; College Composition
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.
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.
(Fall 2008)
ENG 129: Topics in English, First Year Seminar
Prerequisites: First-year students only; may be taken before or after ENG 101 or concurrently with permission.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 129: Topics in English - Literature and Theories of Human Nature (Fall 2008, Callaway)
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.
Texts:
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.
ENG 129: Topics in English - Mystery, Murder, and Detectives in Fiction (Fall 2008, Minutolo)
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.
Texts:
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
Audio-visual materials:
Murder by Death (film; satire)
The Adventures of Guy Noir, Private Eye (radio broadcast; satire)
ENG 129: Topics in English - Introduction to Fiction (Spring 2008, Crouch)
This course will survey a sampling of short stories from diverse cultures written from the 1800s to the present. We will usually read one or two stories each week. The goals of the course are to analyse, write about, and better understand the meanings, techniques, and significance of short fiction, as well as to enjoy ourselves as we enter these diverse creative worlds.
Required Text:
The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction, by Ann Charters. Compact Seventh Edition. Bedford/St. Martins. (Available at the University of Maine Bookstore.)
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ENG 129: Topics in English - Writers of the Beat Generation (Fall 2007, Crouch)
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.
Possible Texts: Selected texts by Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder, Ferlinghetti, and others. I'm sure we'll use The Beat Reader by Charters (Penguin).
ENG 129: Topics in English - Reading Drama (Fall 2006, Brucher)
This division of ENG 129 is an introductory course in the nature and variety of drama, with a special emphasis on reading drama imaginatively. Through analysis of 12 or so plays, we'll explore how the elements of drama--language, gesture, character, plot, spectacle--work to create meaning. The course covers ancient and modern plays, but the emphasis is on language & form rather than on theatre or literary history. We'll read the plays as literature but with performance in mind. Consequently, we'll spend a lot of class time discussing effects of language, tone, and gesture on character and ideas. This course proceeds by discussion, demonstration, and frequent writing. Videos of some plays will be available for viewing in Fogler Library. Plan to attend Maine Masque and other local productions of plays.
Probable Texts:
Aristophanes, Lysistrata, translated by Douglas Parker (NAL/Mentor)
Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, adapted by David Mamet (Grove)
Caryl Churchill, Top Girls (Methuen)
R. S. Gwynn, editor, Drama: A Pocket Anthology (Penguin Academics/Longman)
Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author (Dover)
George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man (Dover)
ENG 129: Topics in English - Introduction to Fiction (Fall 2006, Rogers)
This class will serve as a basic introduction to fiction, focusing on the short story to practice close reading of literary texts and writing of critical discourse.
ENG 129: Topics in English - American Regional Writers (Spring 2005, Joseph Brogunier)
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.
ENG 129: Topics in English - American West in Fiction and Film (Spring 2005, Hakola)
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 and Tonto: Fistfight in Heaven (Harper)
Wister, Owen. The Virginian (VHPS - may be different publisher)
Clark, Walter. The Ox-Bow Incident (Random House)
Grey, Zane. Riders of the Purple Sage (Dover)
ENG 129: Topics in English - Representing Mothers (Spring 2005, Rogers)
In a variety of genres, from literature to film, this course will explore representations of the fundamental relationship between mothers and children.
ENG 129: Topics in English - American Regional Writers (Fall 2004, Joseph Brogunier)
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, though 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 Required Texts:
Robert Frost, A Boy's Will and North of Boston
Cormac McCarthy, The Orchard Keeper
Katherine Anne Porter, The Old Order: Stories of the South
William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses
Others to be selected.
ENG 129: Topics in English - Literature of the Sea (Fall 2004, Kail)
This seminar is about human identity as it is shaped through our contact with the sea. This course will introduce students to at least a few of the major writers who have taken the sea as their setting and, indeed, their primary character. Be prepared for bold voyaging on the tumultuous and sometimes dangerous seas of the human imagination!
Probable Required Texts:
Tania Aebi, Maiden Voyage
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and Other Stories
Eugene O'Neill, The Long Voyage Home and Other Plays
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Samuel Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Handouts of poetry and other readings.
ENG 129: Topics in English - Visions of Peace and War (Fall 2004, Nees-Hatlen)
How do we start, fight, survive, celebrate or criticize wars? What is a state of peace, and how can we best attain it? How can literature help us figure out our individual and collective answers to these questions? In this course, students will address these questions. They will be asked to use their life experience and their experience as readers to consider and reflect on a variety of stories, novels, and a few poems that focus on war or peace or some combination of the two. Class activities include an interactive electronic reading journal, peer responses, student-led discussions, and several revised papers, including at least one creative response to one of the readings (such as a screen-play treatment of a key scene).
Required Texts: (depending on availability)
Mary Lee Settle. O Beulah Land
Patrick O’Brian. Master and Commander
Stephen Crane. The Red Badge of Courage
Toni Morrison. Beloved
E.M. Forster. Howards End
Sebastian Faulks. Birdsong
Joseph Heller. Catch 22
David Guterson. Snow Falling on Cedars
ENG 129: Topics in English - Ghosts of Tom Joad (Spring 2003, Brucher)
The title of this course comes from Bruce Springsteen's 1995 album, which derives from the movie version of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Springsteen is also inspired by Woody Guthrie, who inspired and was inspired by Steinbeck. We'll examine some working-class literature in a variety of forms: films, novels, plays, and songs. We'll also look at some recent (1960s - 1990s) films of working-class heroism. This will be a writing-intensive course.
Texts:
Novels, stories and plays by John Steinbeck, Clifford Odets, Richard Wright, Tillie Olsen, and Dorothy Allison, among others; music by Woody Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen, and others; and films by Charlie Chaplin, John Ford, and Martin Ritt.
ENG 129: Topics in English - Science Fiction and Philosophy (Marks)
Much of science fiction can be divided into two main categories: Hard science fiction, which attempts to base itself on sound scientific ideas; and escapist “space opera” like the Star Trek and Star Wars novels. There is a third category, however, one that attempts to answer questions about existence that are beyond mere science, and one that is certainly not “escapist” fiction. That’s the type of thought-provoking science fiction that this course deals with. The goal of the course is to look beyond the surface of these texts to the philosophical, metaphysical and religious ideas that provide their focus and meaning, and which, ultimately, might make us look at the world around us in a different way.
Texts:
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Calculating God, Robert J. Sawyer
A Case of Conscience, James Blish
Valis, Philip K. Dick
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
Films:
The Matrix
2001: A Space Odyssey
ENG 131: The Nature of Story
Prerequisite: None.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements.
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. (Fall 2008)
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ENG 170: Foundations of Literary Analysis
Prerequisite: ENG 101 is strongly recommended for all sections. ENG 170 is a required course for all English majors.
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. (Fall 2008)
ENG 205: Introduction to Creative Writing
Prerequisite: ENG 101 (strongly recommended) and by permission only. Permission forms available at 304 Neville.
Satisfies the general education Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive requirements.
This course will function as a writing workshop. We will work primarily with prose fiction and personal narrative. 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. (Fall 2008)
ENG 206: Descriptive/Narrative Writing
Prerequisites: ENG 101 or equivalent.
Satisfies the general education Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive requirements.
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. (Fall 2008)
ENG 212: Persuasive & Analytical Writing
Prerequisite: ENG 101 and at least sophomore standing.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
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. (Fall 2008)
ENG 222: Reading Poems
Prerequisite: 3 Hours of English (above 101), English major, or instructor permission.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive requirements.
Recent offerings:
ENG 222: Reading Poems (Fall 2008)
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.
ENG 222: Reading Poems (Fall 2007)
This course, required of all English majors, focuses on helping students develop critical skills particularly suited to the interpretation and analysis of poetry. It is intended to prepare students to read and write about poems with intelligence and finesse. Readings will include poems from different eras in both traditional and innovative forms, and may cover a range of poetic practices and a variety of media: including, for example, poetry readings, little magazines and presses, digital texts, and poetic movements. By the end of this course students will be able to negotiate a variety of poetic devices, tropes, forms, and genres. They will also have read and/or listened to some of the most admired poems in the English language.
ENG 229: Topics in Literature
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English
Some courses satisfy the general education Western Cultural Tradition requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Canadian Women (Fall 2008, Hutchison)
Beginning with a study of pioneer narratives by the first women settlers, the course will cover some works by nineteenth century and early twentieth century women authors,and then focus on the modern and contemporary period in the works of authors such as Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. The purpose of the course will be to explore some distinctive features of Canadian literary identity, such as an obsession with the land and a focus on community, in the works of a wide range of women authors from Canada's diverse cultures, including Micmac, Inuit and, French-Canadian women, in English translation where necessary.
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Hopscotch to Oblivion: Dark Humor in American Fiction (Fall 2008, Kress)
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.
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
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Literature of the Vietnam War (Fall 2008, Whelan)
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.
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Scandalous Women in Literature (Fall 2008, Minutolo)
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.
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
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Writers of the Beat Generation (Fall 2008, Crouch)
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.
Possible Texts: selected texts by Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder, Ferlinghetti, and others. I'm sure we'll use The Beat Reader by Charters (Penguin).
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - The Films of Alfred Hitchcock (Spring 2008, Phippen)
Called “The Shakespeare of the Cinema,” Alfred Hitchcock directed 53 films during his career in England and the United States. In this survey course we will be studying 12 of his best films, including at least one of his early English films and 11 American films from the 1940s, including Rebecca, Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Rear Window, and Psycho. Students will be expected to write about and critique a number of the films.
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Paganism/Christianity (Spring 2008, Wilson)
An exploration of the dynamic re-emergence of the classical pagan religious point of view in the nineteenth-century conflict between faith and reason, between the authority of the Renaissance and that of Medieval thought, between the Enlightenment and Fundamentalism in the context of Edward Gibbon and the following Victorians: Karl Marx, Thomas Carlyle, John Stewart Mill, Charles Darwin, Algernon Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, and Thomas Hardy.
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Literature & Medicine (Fall 2007, Marge Irvine)
Perhaps nothing is of more interest to us than ourselves--specifically, our bodies. What happens to us when we get sick? When we age? Who will care for us--and for whom will we have to care? Through the ages, writers have struggled to answer these questions, and in this course we will read and discuss the poetry and prose that has resulted. The reading list (which I'm still working on) will reflect many different perspectives, from those struggling with illness or disability, to their families, to their health care providers.
Possible Readings: On Doctoring, an anthology
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
Complications, Atul Gawande
Regeneration, Pat Barker
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Utopias (Fall 2006, Jacobs)
From the Plato’s Republic to Fruitopia, human beings are always imagining a better “someplace else.” Every culture has created utopian visions, whether in myths of paradise or the Golden Age, in political projections of the ideal republic, in works of utopian fiction, in architects' drawings of ideal cities, in advertisers' representations of happy consumers, or in concrete projects such as intentional communities. These imaginings come true with surprising frequency--sometimes in beneficial forms and sometimes in disastrous ones. In this course we will explore the social and personal functions of such social dreaming, read literary utopias and dystopias, learn about some intentional communities, and refine our own visions of "the good place" through encountering the visions of others. These powerful visions of hope and of fear can encourage us to see our own culture with new eyes and to consider the benefits and the dangers of utopian projection.
Likely Texts (subject to change):
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (Warner)
Thomas More, Utopia (Penguin)
Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time (Fawcett)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Pacific Edge (Tor)
A film, probably either The Truman Show or The Village
Tao Qian, "The Peach Blossom Spring"; Bernadette Mayer, selections from Utopia; Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas," and other xerox and Internet readings, to be announced.
ENG 229: Topics in Literature - Science Fiction and Philosophy (Marks)
Much of science fiction can be divided into two main categories: Hard science fiction, which attempts to base itself on sound scientific ideas; and escapist “space opera” like the Star Trek and Star Wars novels. There is a third category, however, one that attempts to answer questions about existence that are beyond mere science, and one that is certainly not “escapist” fiction. That’s the type of thought-provoking science fiction that this course deals with. The goal of the course is to look beyond the surface of these texts to the philosophical, metaphysical and religious ideas that provide their focus and meaning, and which, ultimately, might make us look at the world around us in a different way.
Texts:
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Calculating God, Robert J. Sawyer
A Case of Conscience, James Blish
Valis, Philip K. Dick
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
Films:
The Matrix
2001: A Space Odyssey
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ENG 231: Western Traditional Literature: Homer-Renaissance
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
An introduction to the foundations of the western literary and cultural tradition from Stone Age Europe and its matriarchal culture witnessed in the profusion of goddess figures; through the heritage of ancient Babylon and Gilgamesh; to the drama of ancient Greek art, literature, and culture; to the religious forces of the Hebrew and the Christian; and then to the power and vitality of the Roman Empire; ending with the push into the modern with Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Ancient Babylon, Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome will become the icons for this trip, one using WebCT and the other various technological resources so that we may both read the literature and view the art and drama of this period.
Enhancing the classroom work will be video lectures by UMaine specialists Tina Passman, Classics; Michael Grillo, Art; Jay Bregman, History, and Michael Howard, Philosophy. Additionally, we’ll view Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata on film.
We’ll explore these foundations within the context of their history and geography in an effort to come to some understanding as to the significance of these cultures and literature to the modern western world. (Fall 2008)
ENG 235: Literature & the Modern World
Prerequisite: 3 hours of literature or permission
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression and Ethics requirements.
A world in crisis: This course will study the modern period as an era of political, religious, sexual, social, environmental and artistic crisis. We will examine works of art as responses to the upheavals brought about by wars, rapid industrial and technological growth, new class structures, environmental degradation, and redesigned sexual roles. While the greater share of the course work will be devoted to twentieth-century literature (mostly fiction and poetry), we will also spend class periods looking at other artistic mediums including the visual arts and film. The course will likely focus reading a variety of texts from several different modes, such as war literature, literature of the American West, nature literature, feminist literature, detective literature, etc. (Fall 2006, Cowan)
ENG 236: Canadian Literature
Prerequisite: ENG 101
Satisfies the general education Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives, Artistic & Creative Expression, and Ethics requirements.
A survey of Canadian literature from 1850 to the present. Interpretations and analysis of the poetry and prose of major literary figures. (Fall 2007)
ENG 237: Coming of Age in America
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English or permission.
Satisfies the general education Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirement.
The course explores stories of coming of age in American fiction, nonfiction, and film from WWII to the present. As we engage the struggles of several protagonists to discover themselves and come to terms with their given circumstances, we will examine also the increasing tensions between America’s prevailing myths and the ground-level realities of its children. (Spring 2008)
ENG 238: Nature and Literature
Prerequisite: 3 hours of English.
Satisfies the general education Ethics requirement.
Looks at the many different ways people have looked at nature and examines the philosophies and values which inform humans'
interactions with their environment. Authors will be drawn from traditional literary figures, American nature writers, environmentalists and
especially, authors from Maine. Assignment may include field experience. (Cowan, Fall 2003)
ENG 241: American Literature Survey 1 - From the Beginnings to the Romantics
Prerequisites: 3 Hours of literature or permission.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
Recent offerings:
ENG 241: American Literature Survey 1 - From the Beginnings to the Romantics (Fall 2007, Lukens)
An overview of American literature from before the first English settlements to just before the Civil War, this course has two objectives. First, it traces the historical development of the first 250 (or more) years of American prose and poetry in English by focusing on representative works from the successive eras of that chronological period. Second, it emphasizes some recurring themes, persistent attitudes, and chronic concerns that characterize this diverse literature and define it as peculiarly American.
Required Texts:
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, volumes A & B (5th edition), Ed. Paul Lauter, et al. Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Work with these texts will be supplemented by other textual resources and visual images available on The Heath Anthology of American Literature website and other sites.
ENG 241: American Literature Survey 1 - From the Beginnings to the Romantics (Fall 2006, Friedlander)
This course will serve as an introduction to the study of American literature and culture before the Civil War. We will read major works of poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction prose from colonial America and the early national period through to the 1860s and sample visual arts and music from the same period. We will also read a contemporary collection of stories drawn from Native American oral traditions and see an early-twentieth-century adaptation for film of one of our primary texts. Classes meet at the same time as HTY 103, taught by Prof. Liam Riordan, and our groups will combine for joint lectures on several occasions during the semester.
ENG 242: American Literature Survey - Realism to the Present
Prerequisites: 3 hours of literature or permission. ENG 170 is recommended.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
Spring 2008.
ENG 243: Topics in Multicultural Literature
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English.
Satisfies the general education Ethics, Western Cultural Tradition and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements.
Recent offerings:
ENG 243: Topics in Multicultural Literature (Spring 2008, Sithole)
This course is an exploration of African culture through literature from the African continent written in English. The renowned post-literary writer and critic, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, advocated for "moving the center" in a bid to challenge the age-old idea of a fixed western literary canon. This course will heed that call by examining a selection of literary works from four regions of Africa. We shall attempt to analyze (through these works) how various countries and cultures have dealt with their post-colonial/post-independence experiences as historically defining cultural moments. Some issues around which this course will be organized are nationalism, race, cultural identity, and feminism as well as concepts like hegemony, empire, center, margin, ideology and post-colonialism/neocolonialism.
Required Texts:
No Sweetness Here by Ama Ata Aido
Nervous Conditions by Tsistsi Dangarembga
Sozaboy by Ken Saro-Wiwa
Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiongo
Fantasia/An Algerian Cavalcade by Gjebar Assia
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
Maru by Bessie Head
ENG 243: Topics in Multicultural Literature - Culture and Identity in Contemporary American Writing (Spring 2005, Bishop)
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.
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ENG 244: Writers of Maine
Prerequisite: ENG 101 or permission of instructor.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression and Ethics requirements.
The Maine scene and Maine people as presented by Sarah Orne Jewett, E.A. Robinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Ellen Chase, R.P.T. Coffin, Kenneth Roberts, E.B. White, and others.
Recent offerings:
ENG 244: Writers of Maine (Fall 2008, Margery Irvine)
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?
ENG 244: Writers of Maine (Spring 2008, Hakola)
One of the functions of good literature is to "complexify" readers' understanding of a subject. Certainly "Maine" generates enough simplistic, stereotyped images that it is a subject in need of "complexifying." Through readings in a variety of genres and class discussion of relevant topics, we will use the "complexifying" approach to achieve these objectives:
To broaden our understanding of the state and its peoples by reading about and discussing its past and present in a variety of contexts;
To deepen our understanding of the state and its peoples by examining the conflicts and contradictions which are characteristic of life in Maine;
To identify in Maine literature the interplay of the specific—situations and issues peculiar to life in Maine—and the universal— situations and issues that affect us all as human beings;
To recognize and appreciate the skill with which Maine’s writers use their talent to help us achieve these objectives. (Spring 2008)
Required Texts:
Maine Speaks, Jeff Fischer, ed. (Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance)
The Funeral Makers, Cathie Pelletier, Scribner Paperbacks
Wednesday’s Child, Rhea Côté Robbins (Rheta Press)
The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett (Dover Thrift Editions)
Icebound, Own Davis (electronic reserve; no need to purchase a copy)
For more information, please visit here.
ENG 244: Writers of Maine (Spring 2005, Callaway)
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.
Texts: Maine Speaks: An Anthology of Maine Literature, (from The Maine Literature Project). Four or five book-length works to be selected.
ENG 245: American Short Fiction
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English.
Satisfies the general education Ethics, Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
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. (Fall 2008)
ENG 246: American Women’s Literature
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English.
Satisfies the general education Ethics, Western Cultural Tradition, and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements.
A survey of the main traditions and writers in American women's literature from the origins to the present. (Spring 2008)
ENG 248: Literature & The Sea
Prerequisites: 3 hours of literature or permission.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition requirement.
This seminar is about human identity as it is shaped through our contact with the sea. This course will introduce students to at least a few of the major writers who have taken the sea as their setting, and indeed, their primary character. Be prepared for bold voyaging on the tumultuous and sometimes dangerous seas of the human imaginations! (Fall 2006, Kail)
Required Texts:
Tania Aebi, Maiden Voyage
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and Other Stories Eugene O’Neill, The Long Voyage Home and Other Plays
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Samuel Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Handouts of poetry and other readings.
ENG 249: American Sports, Literature and Film
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English.
Satisfies the general education Ethics and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
Recent offerings:
ENG 249: American Sports, Literature and Film (Spring 2008, Peterson)
Uses readings in fiction, poetry, drama, essays and films to explore social, humanistic, ethical and aesthetic issues in sports and its literature. Examines ways writers capture physical action and the role of sports in various genres and media.
Texts: Two anthologies (Aethlon and Full Court) and three novels (The Natural, End Zone and A River Runs Through It).
ENG 249: American Sports, Literature and Film (Spring 2004, Hakola)
Although sports are regarded by most people as pastimes, whether one participates or enjoys watching others participate, this is a course with a serious purpose: to use literature - fiction, poetry, essays, journalism, and films - to illuminate and refine our understanding of the impact of sports on our personal and social lives. We will look at the nature of sport itself and of individual sports; the role of sports in American life and values; the effects of competition; the consequences of glorying the body; and other areas of interest. Although the subject matter of the course is usually associated with relaxation and good times, the course itself should not be taken lightly. Students will be expected to read extensively, write frequently, and participate intelligently in class discussions.
Required Texts:
Sport Lit. Assn., Aethlon, vpl. XIV:1 Fall 1996
Malamud, Bernard, The Natural
DeLillo, Don. End Zone
MacLean, Norman. A River Runs Through It
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ENG 251: English Literature Survey – From the Beginnings to Neoclassicism
Prerequisites: 3 hours of literature or permission of the instructor (ENG 170 recommended).
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
The major patterns of development within the English literary tradition, with emphasis on the cultural and historical forces which have shaped this tradition. (Fall 2008)
ENG 252: English Literature Survey - Romanticism to the Present
Prerequisite: 3 hours of literature or permission.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
The major patterns of development within the English literary tradition, with emphasis on the cultural and historical forces which have shaped this tradition. (Spring 2008)
ENG 253: Shakespeare, Selected Plays
Prerequisites: 3 hours of literature or permission.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition, Artistic & Creative Expression, and Ethics requirements.
Recent offerings:
ENG 253: Shakespeare, Selected Plays (Fall 2007, Brucher)
This course introduces Shakespeare's drama through close analysis of ten or so plays. We'll distinguish the conventions of comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances; determine the nature of major literary themes (including revenge, honor, justice, and love); and see the texts as both performance and cultural documents. We'll use videos of plays to demonstrate staging and interpretation possibilities, but we'll spend considerable time reading Shakespeare's language.
Possible text: The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, 1997).
ENG 253: Shakespeare, Selected Plays (Spring 2006, Norris)
An introductory level course in Shakespeare. We'll be reading comedies, histories, problem plays, tragedies, and romances.
Probable Texts:
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Twelfth Night
Measure for Measure
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
King Lear
MacBeth
Pericles
The Winter's Tale
ENG 256: British Women's Literature
Prerequisite: 3 hours of college literature or permission
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives requirements.
This is an introduction to literature by women of Britain and former British colonies from the Middle Ages to the present day—a group including some of the classic writers in English. We’ll look at their poetry and fiction not only for their intrinsic pleasures and insights, but also to gain a sense of how literary conventions and gender ideology have interacted with women’s experiences to shape and inform their writing. Some discussion of women’s history will be included. (Fall 2006, Rogers)
Required Texts:
The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women
Two novels to be selected.
ENG 271: The Act of Interpretation
Prerequisite: ENG 170.
Satisfies the general education Western Cultural Tradition and Writing Intensive requirements.
An introduction to critical theory. Study of individual critics or schools of literary theory. Application of these interpretative strategies to literary texts.
Recent offerings:
ENG 271: The Act of Interpretation (Fall 2008, Steve Evans)
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.
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.
ENG 271: The Act of Interpretation (Fall 2008, Billitteri)
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.
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.
ENG 271: The Act of Interpretation (Spring 2005, Billitteri)
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? 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
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ENG 280: Introduction to Film
Prerequisites: 3 hours of English or permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the general education Social Contexts & Institutions and Artistic & Creative Expression requirements.
Recent offerings:
ENG 280: Introduction to Film (Fall 2008, Jeff Evans)
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.
Texts: Louis Giannetti, Understanding Film, Latest edition. (Prentice Hall). The narrative films themselves are the primary texts.
ENG 301: Advanced Composition
Prerequisites: ENG 101 and 212 or permission.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 301: Advanced Composition (Fall 2008, Dryer)
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.
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.
ENG 301: Advanced Composition (Spring 2008, Nees-Hatlen)
This course focuses on stylistic choices for writers who work in creative non-fiction,
academic argument, professional writing, journalism, or creative fiction. To make the best choices, writers
need to stock their tool-kits with as many good options as possible, so part of this course will consist of
surveying and practicing some resources the English language provides, chiefly choices in diction and in
sentence- and paragraph- structure, in order to build that tool-kit. In class, we will discuss numerous short
exercises in semantic, syntactic, and rhetorical choice, as well as explore the potential of these tools to meet
the goals of writers in the class. Regular attendance, timely on-line submission of work, and a willingness to
engage in collaborative exploration will be necessary.
To choose which tools to use, each writer in the class will need a commitment to revise an existing prose
work in a genre of his or her choice, and a passion for making meaning for readers and keeping their
attention. Writers who want "A" grades will, in addition, need to be thinking about the style of a published
writer they admire, someone working in their genre. Periodically, writers will be revising and/or analyzing
their own work or that of the published writers they choose to get to know closely. (Spring 2008)
Texts:
Joseph Williams. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
Francine Prose. Reading Like a Writer. Harper Perennial. 2007.
ENG 301: Advanced Composition (Fall 2007, Wilson)
A workshop focusing on: 1., the development of analysis and argumentation typical of academic writing, 2., the type of writing common to the student’s major, 3., the students’ individual style. Using the resources of WebCt and up-to-date classroom technology, students will generate a series of drafts on a topic of their choosing culminating in a final essay that will be published online in the instructor’s website.
Text: Writing the Academic Essay.
ENG 307: Writing Fiction
Prerequisites: ENG 205 or 206 and permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 307: Writing Fiction (Fall 2008, Alex Irvine)
The writing of fiction, for students of demonstrated ability. Submission of writing sample required.
Text: Hoffman and Murphy. Essentials of the Theory of Fiction (3rd ed.)
ENG 307: Writing Fiction (Fall 2007, Kress)
This course will be part workshop, part exploration of the form and theory of fiction writing, with particular emphasis on language, style, and perspective.
Texts and Writing Projects: Readings will include both published fiction and essays on the practice and structure of fiction. Weekly writing will include experiments in voice, character, situation, point-of-view, etc. Students will also produce a final portfolio of 25 pages of polished fiction.
ENG 308: Writing Poetry
Prerequisites: ENG 205 or 206 or 307 or permission.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 308: Writing Poetry (Spring 2008, Norris)
Writing poetry, reading poetry, learning structure by doing.
ENG 308: Writing Poetry (Spring 2006, Norris)
Writing poetry, reading poetry, learning structure by doing.
Possible Texts:
Imagination Verses, Jennifer Moxley
Lunch Poems, Frank O'Hara
News & Smoke, Sharon Thesen
The Cinnamon Peeler, Michael Ondaatje
Sheeps Vigil By a Fervent Person, Eirin Moure
Poppy, Austin Hummell
ENG 308: Writing Poetry (Spring 2005, Moxley)
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.
ENG 308: Writing Poetry (Spring 2004, Norris)
Writing poetry, reading poetry; learning structure by doing.
Texts:
Lunch Poems, Frank O'Hara
News and Smoke, Sharon Thesen
His Life, A Poem, George Bowering
Debriefing the Rose, Mary de Michele
Murder in the Dark, Margaret Atwood
Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda
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ENG 309: Writing Creative Nonfiction
Prerequisite: ENG 205 or 206 or 212 or permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the general education Artistic & Creative Expression and Writing Intensive requirements.
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. (Fall 2008)
ENG 310: Writing and Careers in English
Students research, write and revise scholarly projects in language and literary study, using methods and sources common to the profession while exploring issues in the future of the discipline. (Spring 1999, Nees-Hatlen)
ENG 317: Business and Technical Writing
Prerequisite(s): ENG 101 or equivalent; juniors and seniors in declared majors only.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
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. (Spring 2008)
ENG 395: English Internship
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.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
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. (Fall 2008)
Text: Ken Bruffee, A Short Course in Writing
ENG 405: Topics in Creative Writing
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor only.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 405: Topics in Creative Writing - Altered Texts (Fall 2008, Kress)
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.
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.
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.
ENG 405: Topics in Creative Writing - Workshop in Critical Prose (Fall 2007, Friedlander)
This workshop, a 400-level writing course for English majors in the literary-critical writing track, will focus on the compositional skills particular to scholarly prose. Students will share both works in progress and already completed essays that they wish to expand and revise, with the aim of completing a substantial, polished piece of work by semester's end. The course is ideally suited for students working on their capstones or honors theses, but any student with an interest in graduate school or in writing criticism would benefit. All prospective students should begin the course with a project already in mind.
Required Texts: A small number of readings of recent academic essays with attention fixed specifically on style.
ENG 405: Topics in Creative Writing - Directed Creative Writing (Fall 2005, Hunting)
This is an upper-level creative writing course primarily for senior English majors with an emphasis in creative writing. In this course, I meet one-on-one with each student once a week to go over the work. Generally, a student in ENG 405 is working on his or her final manuscript which is a requirement for creative writing students.
ENG 406: Advanced Creative Writing
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 406: Advanced Creative Writing (Fall 2007, Moxley)
A poetry workshop at the advanced level. We will explore poetic form and technique, and work on refining poetic gestures and skills. Students may want to use this course to complete their capstones.
ENG 406: Advanced Creative Writing (Fall 2006, Kress)
English 406 will focus on fiction writing at the advanced level and will include a variety of experiments and exercises in fiction, readings of fiction by published authors (as well as writing about fiction by fiction writers), and regular workshops for student fiction. Each class member will write a 25-30 page portfolio of fiction
Required Texts:
Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics
Ben Marcus, ed., The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories
Christina Millettti, The Religious and Other Stories
Numerous handouts from instructor
ENG 408: Advanced Poetry Writing
Prerequisites: ENG 308, writing sample and permission of the instructor.
Recent offerings:
ENG 408: Advanced Poetry Writing (Fall 2008, Moxley)
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).
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ENG 417: Advanced Professional Writing
Prerequisites: 6 credits in writing, ENG 317, and permission.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
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. (Spring 2005, Adams)
ENG 418: Topics in Professional Writing – Technical Editing and Document Design
Prerequisites: 6 hours of English, including ENG 317 and permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive requirement.
Recent offerings:
ENG 418: Topics in Professional Writing – Technical Editing and Document Design (Fall 2008, Diaz)
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
ENG 418: Topics in Professional Writing – Technical Editing and Document Design (Fall 2007, Diaz)
This course prepares students to write workplace proposals and reports. Students will spend approximately four weeks analyzing proposals--including grant proposals--and reports. Students will spend the next eight weeks researching and writing a grant proposal, a project proposal, or an analytical report. When possible, students will work on projects for campus clients. The last three weeks of the semester will focus on exploring visual and audio reports, including designing electronic materials that support oral presentations and preparing audio reports using podcast technology. This course will be taught as a workshop with student writers sharing drafts, providing peer feedback, and working as collaborators. This course is appropriate for senior students in the Technical/Professional Writing track; for graduate students; and for professionals interested in examining the genre of report writing.
ENG 429: Topics in Literature
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of instructor.
Recent offerings:
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - Apes, Angels, and Victorians (Fall 2008, Wilson)
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 429: Topics in Literature - Listen! Poetry in the Age of the MP3 (Fall 2008, Steve Evans)
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.
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - The Grail in Medieval Literature and 20th Century Film (Spring 2008, Moxley)
As a central chapter in the Arthurian Cycle, the quest for the Holy Grail has captured the Western imagination for nearly nine centuries. In this course we’ll discuss the various possible origins of the symbol, read the Medieval Romances in which the grail first made its appearance, and watch 20th century films that attempt to capture its mythos. In addition, we’ll explore the connections between the medieval imagination and the 20th century cinema. Students who enroll in this course can expect to do a lot of reading of very old texts and to engage both the texts and films historically and structurally.
Required Texts:
Romances, Chrétien de Troyes
The Holy Grail, Imagination and Belief, Richard Barber
The Quest of the Holy Grail (translation of Le Queste del Saint Graal)
Parzival, Wofram van Eschenbach
Le Morte D’Arthur, Malory
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - Native American Drama (Fall 2007, Yellow Robe)
This course examines the expression of First Nations and Native Americans’ voice through the Euro-American art medium of theater. Students are required to read selected plays dealing with contemporary issues expressed in the literary form of drama and then write analytical responses to the printed material. In-class work with additional historical, cultural, and political sources, and theatrical criticism relevant to the dramas will provide a clearer understanding of the world of indigenous dramatic literature.
Required Texts:
Staging Coyote’s Dream: First Nations’ Drama in English
Seventh Generation: New Native Drama
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - The State(s) of the Novel in World English (Fall 2007, Kress)
Even though English is an international language spoken and written in every part of the globe, many students may not be familiar with fiction written in English that is not American, Canadian, or Irish/British. In a related way, many students may not be familiar with the history of English or with its development and spread around the world.
The course will explore the current state(s) of English as a world language in two ways. Part of the course will study the history of English from its Anglo-Saxon roots to its present status as a world language. Concurrent with this historical approach, the course will explore contemporary novels from countries where English is the native language, non-native national language, and/or semi-native language. In Nigeria, Hong Kong, Trinidad, the Philippines, India, and many other nations/states, older
regional and “native” languages have given way to English—or as the course will try to show, to Englishes—and novelists have emerged in these cultures writing literature in these newer Englishes.
The intent of the course is thus two-fold: to enable students to understand the roots and progression of English and to explore and experience the variety of English in fiction today.
Texts and Projects:
Robert Crum: The Story of English
Chris Abani: GraceLand
Murray Bail: Holden's Performance
Michelle Cliff: No Telephone to Heaven
Edwidge Danticat: The Farming of Bones
Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions
Timothy Mo: The Redundancy of Courage
Wilfrido D. Nolledo: But for the Lovers
Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses
Ken Saro-Wiwa: Sozaboy
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - The Academic Novel (Fall 2005, Peter Hoff)
Some of American and England's finest contemporary writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates, have turned their attention at times to the world of academia, writing about what "really" goes on in colleges and universities. This course will have a dual focus. It will explore the nature of the academic world: student life, professorial culture, the politics and sociology of universities. And it will explore the literary craft of these great modern writers. Expect to read (the course is not for people who don't like to read), to have your ideas and your stereotypes challenged, to learn more about the craft of writing and become a better thinker and writer yourself, and to emerge from the course knowing things about universities that only their presidents know.
Readings will include five or six novels drawn from the works of Stephen King, A.S. Byatt, Philip Roth, Richard Russo, David Lodge, Michael Malone, Kingsley Amis, Saul Bellow, Jane Smiley, and Tom Wolfe.
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - Introduction to American Studies (Spring 2005, Friedlander and Liam Riordan)
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
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - The Symbolist Movement in Literature (Spring 2005, Moxley)
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
ENG 429: Topics in Literature - The Vital Word (Fall 2003, Steve Evans)
This advanced undergraduate seminar will address the question, "what is contemporary poetry"? A primary resource in our investigation will be the UMaine New Writing Series, which has brought more than fifty poets to campus over the past three years, and which will again bring a diverse and exciting group of poets to Orono (and to our classroom) this fall. We will work with a variety of materials (poems, little magazines, essays, live and taped readings) and in as many media - new and old; digital and analog; making use of glowing screens, sound waves, and ink-scratched pages - as can be thoughtfully brought to bear on our exploration. Topics of discussion will include the relationship between poetry and politics, the shifting place of poetry in a rapidly evolving media environment, the role of translation in the creation of genuinely international poetry communities, and - that perennial source of poetry itself - desire!
Texts:
Telling It Slant: Avant-Garde Poetics of the 1990s. Ed. Mark Wallace and Steven Marks.
U of Alabama.
Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word. Ed. Charles Bernstein. Oxford UP.
Postmodern American Poetry. Ed. Paul Hoover. Norton.
Shiny 12 (magazine)
The Germ 5 (magazine)
Tripwire 5 (magazine)
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ENG 430: Topics in European Literature
Prerequisites: 6 hours of literature or permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the general education Writing Intensive and Ethics requirements.
Recent offerings:
