Fall 2008 courses
ENGL 101. Seminar in Rhetoric & Culture
A writing-intensive introduction to cultural inquiry and the art of persuasion. Through the analysis of texts in various genres and through the production of their own written arguments, students will learn to recognize and employ appropriate strategies for effective communication. Students will also attend and respond critically to co-curricular cultural events, including art exhibits, concerts, films, lectures, and plays.
ENGL 102. Introduction to Literature (Labor)
This course is an introduction to literary appreciation and interpretive techniques, with emphasis upon creative reading followed by analysis and synthesis in classroom discussion and essay-writing. The principal aim in this course (in addition to honing writing skills) is to develop an educated appreciation for literature as art, an appreciation based upon understanding, and an understanding derived from the following:
1) close, sensible reading of the text;
2) structural and textural analyses of individual literary works;
3) study of the major genres of belletristic literature: the short story, the novel (or novella), poetry, and drama; 4) an introduction to significant critical theories and familiarization with some of the main approaches of literary criticism: e.g., traditional, formalistic, psychological, mythological and archetypal, feminist, etc.
ENGL 178. Introduction to Film Art (Glaros)
This course provides an introduction to the study and analysis of film. Students will learn the fundamentals of film form, style, and history. Topices include narrative structure, cinematography, editing, sound, and genre. This course also prepares students for more advanced study in film seminars as well as film and video production. This course meets six hours per week, three of which are devoted to screenings.
ENGL 219. Creative Writing (Strange)
An introduction to poetry and fiction, this course focuses on basic craft elements, the steady discipline of writing itself, and the skillful task of revision. We read much in this course so that we can better respond to previously published and peer-produced pieces, regularly writing and workshopping your own poems and prose as well.
ENGL 243. World of Jack London (Labor)
This course in an intensive study of the life and works of America's most widely read author. Study will include some attention to the era in which London wrote, one of the most dynamic periods in American history, and to the phenomenon of literary naturalism, with which London is most often identified. Considerable attention will also be given to the critical approach called "Mythological/Archetypal," since most of London's best work is informed by what C.G. Jung has called "primordial vision." How a writer acheives status as a "major author" and how his or her works gain admission to the literary canon will be considered.
ENGL 262. Shakespeare and Film (Shelburne)
This course is the meeting ground of the single most influential English author, Shakespeare, and the most distinctive and pervasive modern artistic form, the film. From its beginnings, film recognized Shakespeare as one of its most reliable and popular sources of material, and Shakespeare remains a potent presence in contemporary film. The course investigates this peculiar dedication to Shakespeare by considering both film versions of Shakespeare's plays ("Shakespeare on Film") and the frequent presence of Shakespearean material in films that have only the most tenuous connection to the actual playwright ("Shakespeare in Film").
ENGL 282. Multimedia Writing and Literature (Hamming)
Beginning with an historical overview of the "digitalization of literature" and ending with our own attempts to author multimedia texts, this course will look at cultural, communicational, and design concerns related to the reading and writing of multimedia. We will use rhetorical/cultural analysis to consider such issues as authorship, audience, usability, creative expression, interactivity, hypertexuality, and remediation.
ENGL 290. Playwriting (Kallenberg)
ENGL 314W. Advertising and Public Relations (Laffy)
This course makes a broad sweep through the related fields of advertising and public relations—what they are, why they exist, and what they do in contemporary culture. Students will analyze historical and contemporary instances and experiment with creating their own. The widest variety of media will be engaged to better appreciate and understand the visual and textual images used in these professions and much will writing will be done to hone the composition skills required for these specific tasks.
ENGL 329W. Studies in Contemporary Literature (Hendricks)
This course introduces students to a range of texts (primarily fiction and primarily American) written since the Second World War. Emphasis is twofold:
1) developing “close-reading” skills;
2) situating these works within an historical/cultural context loosely
called “the postmodern.”
Some questions to be explored within the course: How do different writers respond to the “idea” of “America”? Is the contemporary “self/I/protagonist/subject” different from earlier fictional “subjects”? What is the relationship between the contemporary “subject” and her “world”? What is the relationship of technology to contemporary fiction? Fiction to be explored includes Jack Kerouac, On the Road; Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar; Milan Kundera, The Incredible Lightness of Being; Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale; Don DeLillo, White Noise; Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country; Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2; A.S. Byatt, Possession; Donna Tartt, The Secret History; Shay Youngblood, Black Girl in Paris.
ENGL 351. Seminar in Women's Literature (VanHoosier-Carey)
"When you asked me to speak about women and fiction I sat down on the banks of a river and began to wonder what the words meant . . .The title women and fiction might mean . . women and what they are like; or it might mean women and the fiction that they write; or it might mean women and the fiction that is written about them; or it might mean that somehow all three are inextricably mixed together and you want me to consider them in that light." — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1928).
So what is women's literature and why do we need a "room of one's own" to study it? To begin to answer that question, we will read and closely examine a range of texts written by women writers, primarily British and American women writing over the last two centuries. Texts will include novels, short stories, essays, and poetry by Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and some of the following: Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Louisa May Alcott, Christina Rossetti, Marge Piercy, Jeanette Winterson, Bobbie Ann Mason, Bharati Mukherjee, and Eavan Boland. Students will read extensively, produce three analytical essays and participate in one oral presentation and regular class discussion.
ENGL 368. History of Film to 1939 (Hendricks)
A chronological survey of the cinema from its beginnings in the 1890s to the development of classical Hollywood cinema to 1939. Special attention is paid to major directors (Griffith, Eisenstein, Renoir), influential national cinemas (American, Russian, French, and German), and to dominant styles and genres (silent comedy, expressionism, Hollywood Gangster, and Western films).
ENGL 441. Tutorial in Literature (Hendricks)
Directed reading on a subject to be agreed upon by the student and faculty-tutor. May require presentation of pertinent materials in undergraduate courses under the direct supervision of an English Department faculty member.
ENGL 471. Senior Seminar in English (Hendricks)
A capstone course investigating topics in literary and communication theory, in which theoretical insights relate to practical experiences within the course. Specific course-related duties may include participating in a mentoring internship in the First-Year Experience or English 101, staffing the Centenary Writing Laboratory, and constructing a web-based portfolio.
ENGL 478S. Literary and Cultural Theory from Plato to the Present (Hendricks)
An overview of literary and cultural theory from ancient Greece to the contemporary world of multimedia narrative and design. Heavy emphasis is placed on theory and criticism emanating from the "theory explosion" of the past few decades, especially ideological, psychoanalytic, and gender analyses of texts.
