Summer 2007 Course Descriptions: Undergraduate Programs in English, University of South Carolina

This course, most appropriately, would be titled “Multicultural American Children’s Literature.” It will begin with an examination of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, published at the turn of the century, and will go on to examine other texts which are in some way related to central ideas of and about America and Americans. In the second half of the course, we will read books by and about Asian, African, Hispanic, Native, and other Americans.

This course will examine the treatment of gender, sexuality, race and the politics of class and color in
the works of some of the most popular African American authors today. The course will combine a
study of film, television, music and fiction by writers like E. Lynn Harris, Terri McMillian, Colin Channer,
Eric Jerome Dickey, Bebe Moore Campbell, Sheneska Jackson, Micheal Baisden, James Earl
Hardy, and Zane.

This course will take as its starting point culture’s seemingly endless capacity for violence. From the ultra-stylized violence of Pulp Fiction and Old Boy to the mythic savagery of Deadwood and Rome; from the lucrative market for “gangsta” rap to the seven-figure advance given to Vikram Chandra for his novel about mobster-life in Mumbai (or, depending on your taste, O’J,’s “If I did it”); from video games that simulate war with terrifying sophistication to war itself: our news, views, and media all point to a culture consumed by violence. Contrary to Matthew Arnold’s assumption that culture—“the best that has been thought and said”—provides an antidote to violence, it would seem that culture has itself become violence. Whether such representations serve to defuse, desensitize, highlight or heighten violence’s appeal will be one of the questions considered in this course. We will begin in the eighteenth century with the development of a modern, Enlightenment-based notion of culture and the examples of violence against which this culture was positioned. Texts for this part of the course will include works by James Macpherson, William Wordsworth, Anna Barbauld, and Francisco de Goya. From there we will leap forward to the contemporary and focus on the role violence plays in the formation and maintenance of culture. Readings here will include William T. Vollman’s “case study” accounts of terrorism and sectarian violence (in Yemen and Croatia), recounted in his Rising Up, Rising Down; stories of Bombay hit men and ultra-nationalist thugs as narrated in Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City; reflections on violent images by Susan Sontag, Mark Danner, and David Simpson; and modern-day tales of terror from Doris Lessing’s “Children of Violence” series to the recent South African film, Tsotsi.

This course studies comedies and melodramas from the first three decades of the sound era. Films will be analyzed in terms of features that define them as these kinds of films and in terms of their preoccupation with relations between the sexes. In light of these American "talkies," what constitutes a genuine marriage or makes such an alliance impossible? Do such questions require public and/or private responses? Films will include It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Adam’s Rib, Stella Dallas, Gaslight, Now, Voyager, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Vertigo, and North by Northwest. Some films will be analyzed in tandem with literary texts and film criticism. Grades will be based on regular journal entries and a final exam. Graduate students will be expected to read additional theoretical essays and to write a longer and more substantive final research paper.

In this class we will explore various ways that films construct narratives of gender identity and sexual identity--the ways that movies exemplify cultural narratives and images of how we become and how we live as sexed and gendered beings. We will also look at how certain films interrogate or examine constructions of gender and sexuality, especially etiological, developmental, and teleological narratives of gender and sexual identity, such as the oedipal and romance plots. Readings and films include Fay Weldon, The Life and Loves of a She‑Devil, Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge, Christopher Bram, Father of Frankenstein, Jack Schaefer, Shane, and a course packet of readings in gender and film theory. Grades will be based on response papers (on films and readings), a short memoir, a group presentation, class work and participation, and a final paper (6‑8 pages). Graduate students will be expected to write a longer and more substantive final research paper (8‑12 pages) and read 3‑5 additional theoretical essays.

ENGL 282-001 FICTION M-TH 1:00-3:15 AMLONG

Fiction from several countries and historical periods, illustrating the nature of the genre. For more information, contact the instructor.

Reading a variety of British texts that exemplify persistent themes of British culture. For more information, contact the instructor.

ENGL 285-001 THEMES IN AMERICAN WRITING M-TH 10:30-12:45 STAFF

Reading a variety of American texts that exemplify persistent themes of American culture. For more information, please contact the instructor.

This course provides an introduction to a range of American writers and works from the 17th to the 20th century, tracing the development of major literary forms and themes, as well as key historical and cultural trends. Given this broad scope, our readings and discussions will focus on the role of social, religious, and political dissent in the formation of an American democratic culture and the multiple communities within it. Requirements: 3 critical papers (5pp), weekly reading responses, class presentation.

Discussion of major works of literature: the Iliad, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Beowulf, romances by
Chrétien de Troyes, and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. Two papers and a mid-term. Daily quizzes
on the readings.

This course will grapple with realism as a mode of representation by focusing on its premier vehicle, the novel. We will begin with two classic realist texts, Honore Balzac’s Pere Goriot and Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilych.” The rest of the course will be spent reading novels that bend, critique, or otherwise subvert classic realism: Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World, Pauline Melville’s The Ventriloquist’s Tale, and Marguerite Duras’ The Ravishing of Lol Stein. In addition to the novels, readings will include canonical critical statements by Georg Lukacs, Roland Barthes, Erich Auerbach, Sandy Petrey, and Peter Brooks. If there is time, we will watch Vittorio DeSica’s The Bicycle Thief. Requirements for the course include weekly written summaries/critiques, one good essay, a creative project, and a final exam.

Introduction to the field of linguistics with an emphasis on English. Covers the English sound system, work structure, and grammar. Explores history of English, American dialects, social registers, and style. For more information, contact the instructor.

A close textual study of the works of the major African American authors of the last fifty years with close attention to recent African American writers. It will include writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurtson, Jean Toomer, James Baldwin and others. Evaluation: Three essays, one research paper, in class presentations and a final exam. TEXT: Norton Anthology of African American Writers, ed., Henry Louis Gates.

Representative works written by women. For more information, contact the instructor.

An intensive survey of English grammar: sentence structure, the verbal system, discourse, and transformations. Also discussed are semantics, social restrictions on grammar and usage, histories of various constructions, etc. Please read Chapter 1 of the textbook before the first class meeting. REQUIREMENTS: one midterm, one final. TEXT: Dorothy Disterheft, Advanced Grammar: a manual for students. Prentice-Hall.

Extensive practice in different types of business writing, from brief letters to formal articles and reports. For more information, please contact the instructor.

ENGL E463-300 BUSINESS WRITING M-TH 6:00-8:15 STAFF
Extensive practice in different types of business writing, from brief letters to formal articles and reports. For more information, please contact the instructor.

Fiction from several countries and historical periods, illustrating the nature of the genre. For more information, contact the instructor.

ENGL 283-001 THEMES IN BRITISH WRITING M-TH 8:00-10:15 STAFF

Reading a variety of British texts that exemplify persistent themes of British culture. For more information, contact the instructor.

This course explores the complex relationships among words and images in American popular culture and how these relationships shape our individual identities, beliefs, desires, and possibilities. It will also examine how words and images affect the social dynamics and power relationships that compose our communal, political, cultural, and economic lives, as well as how the words and images of popular culture foster or hinder the democratic vision of the common good. In other words, through critical engagements with literature, film, art, and other popular media (e.g., MySpace, video games, television), we will ask ourselves how words and images shape public life, human identities, and the possibilities of democracy. The overarching aims of the course are for students to: (1) develop an understanding of words and images as social, rhetorical, and historical phenomena; (2) gain an enhanced awareness of the functions of words and images in American culture and how they affect our possibilities for co-existing and interacting; and (3) cultivate analytical skills that foster thoughtful, critical, and creative engagements with words and images in popular culture.Texts used in this class will likely include the following (in complete form or short selections): Fiction: Don DeLillo, Mao II; George Saunders, In Persuasion Nation. Film: Michael Moore, Bowling for Columbine; Gus van Sant, Elephant; Richard Linklater, A Scanner Darkly; James McTeigue, V for Vendetta. Television, Video Games, Internet: Cable News, MTV-VH1, Serial Dramas (24, The OC, Friday Night Lights) SimCountry.com; MySpace, Facebook

British poetry, drama, and prose from the 18th century to the present. For more information, contact the instructor.

We will explore the social energy--the "stir in the mind"-- that Shakespearean Theater creates within an audience of watchers and readers, thinking especially in terms of Renaissance anxieties over political power, race, gender, and sexuality. In considering these issues we will come to terms with some of the cultural practices which separate us from Elizabethan audiences as well as some which join us irrevocably to them. We will consider in class A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Richard II, and Henry IV, part 1.

Requirements: Action News Reports, In-class group work, (both theatrical and critical), two 5-6 page papers, some discussion of criticism, a midterm, and a final exam. Action News and group work, worth 10%, Papers 25%, Exams 20% Required Textbooks: The Norton Shakespeare (You absolutely must bring this to class since we read, perform, and analyze texts; unless you have it memorized, you need it.

Representative works of Southern writers. For more information, contact the instructor.

Reading and evaluating representative works appropriate for the adolescent reader. For more information, contact the instructor.

The present and in-depth reading of four international masters of the form: Anton Chekov, Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and Jorge Luis Borges. This class will concentrate on close reading, analysis, and interpretation of individual stories, on the cultural contexts of the works, and on theories of narrative. Texts: R.S. Gwynn, ed. Fiction: A Pocket Anthology; A. Chekov, Short Stories; K. Mansfield, Selected Stories; J. Joyce, Dubliners; J.L. Borges, Ficciones.Papers (2): a brief diagnostic essay (c. 2 pp.) and a comparative critical essay (c. 5pp. ea.). Examinations (2): short answers (possible), identifications, and analytical essay(s). Format: mix of informal lecture and class discussion, with emphasis on the latter.

Extensive practice in different types of business writing, from brief letters to formal articles and reports. For more information, please contact the instructor.