Graduate English Courses
Summer and Fall 2007

Go to Detailed Listings for Maymester, 2007
Go to Detailed Listings for Summer I, 2007
Go to Detailed Listings for Fall, 2007

Maymester, 2007

Summer I , 2007

Fall , 2007

Maymester 2007

ENGL 566M The Mating Game in Classic Hollywood Movies                    Rhu  MTWTHF  11:00-1:45
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 comedies, melodramas, and thrillers 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.

ENGL 795 Teaching of Business & Technical Writing                               Rivers  MTWTHF 8:00-10:45
The purpose of this course is to introduce you (as future composition teachers) to the special demands placed on language and writers in the worlds of work and science and to help you prepare to teach these courses at the college level.  The course will include a careful and critical examination of the principles of business writing, the effectiveness of various rhetorical strategies and language patterns in writing, the relationship of ethics and language in the business world, and the bibliographical tools and information sources available for research in technical and scientific disciplines.

Summer I 2007

ENGL 650H   Reading and Writing Children’s Literature                         Johnson  MTWTH 8:00-10:15
This course is designed for students who want to become familiar with children’s literature as a field of scholarly inquiry and who want to write children’s literature as well.  Thus, the course will consist of reading primary works (mostly twentieth-century American children’s and young adult literature), examining recent criticism in the field, and writing and critiquing original manuscripts.  This course is not for those who think of the field as “kiddie lit” or imagine beginning their lives as writers with children’s books and then “graduating” to adult lliterature.

SLIS 797B  Intro to Special Collections Librarianship                               Scott MTWTH 10:30-12:45
An introduction to skills, materials, resources, and career paths in special collections libraries.  Further information available from instructor. 

Fall 2007

ENGL 600 Seminar in Verse Composition                                                              Dings  TTH 2:00-3:15   

ENGL 602 Seminar in Prose Composition                                                         Barilla TTH 12:30-1:45
This course is an intensive workshop in the writing of the creative nonfiction essay. We will explore the boundaries, aesthetics and traditions of the genre, beginning with memoir and building toward experiments in structure and content as the course progresses. As this is a workshop, the bulk of our time in class will be spent discussing student writing, but the course will also include exercises in craft and the close examination of interesting work in the field.

ENGL 610 Writing the Novel                                                                                     Hospital  T 3:30-6:00
English 610 is the first part of a full year course in which students produce a book-length manuscript (a novel, a memoir, or a tightly interconnected set of stories).  The course involves a number of assigned readings which will be analyzed in class.  Special attention will be paid to techniques of structure, narrative voice, tone, characterization, plot pacing, and style.  Students will be guided in blocking out an outline of the projected book, and will submit 30 revised and polished pages of the manuscript at the end of term.  Two chapters of the manuscript will be workshopped in class.

ENGL 680 Survey of Linguistics                                                                                 Chun W 5:00-7:30
(crosslisted LING 600)                                                                                                              
This course introduces students to the field of linguistics, the scientific study of human language. It provides a survey of various aspects of language structure and language use to help students develop analytical skills that are useful to both linguists and non-linguists interested in language issues. We will explore different levels of language structure analyzed by linguists in the subfields of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. We will also examine other major subfields of
linguistics, including pragmatics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics.

ENGL 700  Intro to Graduate Study of English                                                 Stern  TTH  11:00-12:15
An introduction to the profession of English.  Topics include the history of the field; approaches to reading and textual analysis; research methods; compositional strategies for various academic documents; funding opportunities and publishing fora; and the job market.  This course is designed to be both intellectually provocative and practically, even prosaically, utilitarian.

ENGL 701A Teaching of Composition                                                    Muckelbauer   MW 10:10-11:25
Unlike the practicum courses offered in many graduate programs, this is a regular course that carries three full hours of graduate credit.  Accordingly, it has a strong academic component in addition to its practical focus.  During the semester, we'll explore some of the best current theories, research, and teaching practices in composition and rhetoric. We'll also bring in experienced professionals in the field to discuss approaches that work well for them and to help you assess and apply their ideas. But just as important, we'll use part of each class to discuss the day-to-day challenges you face in your own classrooms. By the end of the term, you will have built a solid academic background in writing pedagogy and developed an assortment of practical teaching strategies that can inform your future work in the classroom.

ENGL 705  The Soul of Chaucer                                                                      Crocker  TTH  3:30-4:45
After surveying some of the most relevant ancient and medieval theorizations of the soul, this course will focus on the Canterbury Tales in its entirety.  Along with considerations of the (dis)continuity of this sprawling poem, we will discuss the different ways in which Chaucer constructs and questions the soul as a defining locus of individual identity in the late Middle Ages.  What social pressures are emerging in late fourteenth-century England that might alter or challenge longstanding philosophical models of the soul?  How do our more recent critical considerations of subjectivity complicate Chaucer’s representations of the human soul?  How do differences in complexion, temperament, or habituation affect the disposition of the soul?  Do our notions of rank, sexuality, or gender intersect with or detract from medieval distinctions regarding the human soul’s condition?  Finally, how does the larger motif of pilgrimage give structure to a narrative account of the soul?  Requirements include a research presentation/bibliography and a longer argumentative paper (approximately 15 pages).

ENGL 715  English Non-Dramatic Lit of the Earlier 17th Cent                            Richey  TTH 9:30-10:45
We will study the poetry and prose of the seventeenth century through the restoration, tracing the historical and political contexts in which it was written as well as the models upon which it was based.  We will listen to the writers of this time in conversation with one another about their power as subjects, especially as they consider patronage, exploration, love, art, religion and political change.  Because the struggle for liberty was, during the seventeenth-century, at once socially gendered and a question of spiritual, ecclesiastical, and political rights, we will consider how men and women articulated their views regarding the liberty of the subject before, during, and after the Civil War.  Course Requirements:  one short 5 page paper, one 10-15 page paper with annotated bibliography, a daily commentary on readings posted on Blackboard, and a final exam.

ENGL 720  The English Novel Before 1800                                                      Jarrells  TTH 12:30-1:45
The aim of this course will be to introduce students to the features, contexts, conditions, and “rise” of the novel in the eighteenth century.  We will begin by looking at a few of the many genres that contributed to and competed with the novel: scandal fiction, spiritual autobiography, travel narrative and “newes” from abroad, criminal biography, essay, lyric, satire, conduct literature, and romance.  We’ll then turn to novels themselves – by Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Burney.  Alongside these works, we will survey the rich field of criticism on the genre.  A good deal of such criticism came from the eighteenth century, as writers like Johnson, Kames, Fielding, Reeve, Barbauld, and Austen sought to describe, delimit, defend, and decry this novel form.  The debate continues today, and a host of new theories have entered the fray.  We will look at classic statements from Watt, McKeon, Armstrong, and Gallagher, and at more recent projects and debates – from Franco Moretti’s ambitious, multi-volume, The Novel, to articles in current issues of scholarly journals.  Requirements for the course include reading a lot, weekly written responses, a review of critical work done on a given text, problem, issue, or question, and a 10-15 page paper that makes a contribution to that critical field.

ENGL 726  Victorian Poetry                                                                              Thesing MW 12:15-1:30
Survey of major and selected minor Victorian poets; emphasizes the development of Victorian poetic theory and the contemporary critical response.  Some poets that we are likely to study will include: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, G.M. Hopkins, Thomas Hardy as well as E B Browning, Christina Rossetti, Amy Levy, Charlotte Mew, Michael Field, and several others.   Some general themes to be considered will include: Victorian poetry and the city, religion, science, social and historical issues, gender relationships, and art.  Supplementary xerox packets and materials will be available at Universal Copies.  Students should not purchase any textbooks until the final, definitive list is distributed at the first class meeting.  Feel free to contact the instructor if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns.
            Assignments: oral reports on critical books and articles (one 5-page paper version); final essay exams; a 10-12 page term paper suitable for delivery at a conference or for publication (assistance from instructor will be offered to all students).

ENGL 733 History of European Literary Criticism                                                    Rhu  TTH 2:00-3:15
(Cross-listed CPLT 701) 
This course will center upon a series of topics both theoretical and practical that may include the following or other equally central issues in the history of literature and criticism until 1700:  classics and canons, the Bible and traditional exegesis, Homer and Plato, Aristotle and genre theory, Dante and allegory, Renaissance theories of poetry.  Both poetics and poetry will claim our attention.  Students will be urged to read or reread ancient poetic works referred to by the above critics (e.g. Homer's epics, Oedipus tyrannus, the Aeneid) as well as later examples of literary practice that conformed to or defied the theories examined.

ENGL 738A Topics in American Women Writers:                                                  Davis  TH 5:30-8:00
Sentimentalism and its Legacy (Cross-listed WOST 738)
What makes a text sentimental? And how and when did sentimentalism–a discourse in which readers are moved by others’ imagined suffering–lose its cultural power and perceived literary value?  This course will survey the American literary tradition of sentimentalism in women’s writing from its emergence in the late-eighteenth century to its peak in the antebellum period. We will also examine the ways in which sentimentalism resurfaced, reformed, or was repudiated in the decades after the Civil War. We will attempt to find common elements among the wide variety of American texts that define themselves through and against sentimentalism, and to reconcile their appeal with their exploitative potential.  Our authors will include Foster, Cummins, Fern, Southworth, Stowe, Jacobs, Alcott, Davis, Dickinson, Stoddard, Jewett, Wharton, Harper, and Chopin. Criticism will range from the classic (Tompkins and Douglas) to the contemporary (Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Shirley Samuels, Elizabeth Dillon, Marianne Noble, Laura Wexler). Student responsibilities will include active participation; an annotated bibliography;  in-class presentations on reception, context, and unassigned texts; and a 15-page research paper.

ENGL 759  Southern Literature After 1900                                                       Brinkmeyer T 5:30-8:00
This course will survey the major writers of the American South in the twentieth century, with a focus primarily–but not exclusively–on fiction.  Writers we will look at include William Faulkner, Jean Toomer, Erskine Caldwell, Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, Richard Wright, Katherine Anne Porter, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy.  We will explore these writers in both literary and cultural context, with an emphasis on matters concerning regionalism and regional identity in 20th-century America.  Assignments: weekly reading responses to secondary criticism (1-2 pages each); oral report; 12-15 page research paper.

ENGL 760  American Poetry Since 1900                                                           Dings TTH 11:00-12:15
This course will focus on an in-depth experience with the poetry of Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop, two mid-2oth C major American poets who are also representative of two dominant aesthetic strains in American poetry.  Most of the semester will be spent studying the work of these two poets, but we will also discuss a few of their contemporary poetic "sons and daughters" (in Harold Bloom's sense).

ENGL 790 Survey of Composition Studies                                                           Friend TTH 9:30-10:45 
This course is designed to introduce students to and prepare them to undertake scholarly work within the field of composition and rhetoric. While it is a requirement for composition and rhetoric majors and minors, interested students from other areas of English studies and related fields are welcome. We will read about and discuss key moments in the contested history of the discipline, focusing on texts that have had a powerful influence in shaping the way composition scholars research, teach, and construct their field.
We’ll also survey major intellectual movements in the field and consider the current status of the discipline in U.S. colleges and universities. In addition, we’ll hear from guest speakers working in various areas of the field and students will share their course projects in progress. Assignments: weekly reading responses (1-2 pages each), a book review, an oral presentation, and a research paper or bibliographic essay (15-20 pages). Readings: TBA.

ENGL 794  Modern Rhetorical Theory                                                                     Smith W 5:30-8:00
(Cross-listed SPCH 794)
This graduate seminar will involve more than its name suggests, inasmuch as rhetorical theory in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries overlaps with and draws from literary, cultural, feminist, psychoanalytic, poststructuralist, neo-pragmatist, queer, postcolonial and other theories. We will read and collectively engage texts from a number of these theoretical “schools” of thought. In so doing, we explore the problematics of language, image, subjectivity, power, agency, sociality, politics, culture, and the production, circulation and operation of rhetorical and literary artifacts and events. In addition to the aforementioned problematics, we will discuss whether the traditional disciplinary boundary between rhetoric and literature is conceptually defensible or is a consequence of contingent, and thus mutable, institutional, historical, and disciplinary dynamics. Whatever our respective responses to this question might be, the course will close with a discussion of what the future of English studies might look like.

This course will be of interest to students in rhetorical, literary, cultural, and composition studies. Students will be required to: write very brief weekly response papers; perform one in-class book review presentation; and write a 15 – 20 page research paper. A background in theory – rhetorical or otherwise – will be helpful but is not required.

ENGL 796G  Teaching Shakespeare to Undergraduates                                         Miller W 5:30-8:00
Objectives:   This class will prepare you to teach a one-semester survey of Shakespeare’s plays at the undergraduate level.  You’ll get an intense introduction to several of Shakespeare’s plays as well as to the basics of teaching literature at the college level, from text selection to evaluating written work.  You’ll experiment with and be exposed to a wide range of teaching styles and assignments, and you’ll leave the course with your own teaching portfolio, including a number of well-researched lesson plans.  Requirements:   The main requirements for this class will include attending the practicum (a section of ENGL 405), preparing and offering a practicum teaching unit, and submitting a series of written assignments to be gathered into a final portfolio.  Practicum:  All students enrolled in 796 will be required to attend a section of ENG 405 that serves as the practicum for the course.  This section meets MW, 1:25 – 2:40 pm. 

It will be imperative for students enrolling in 796 to hold open a place on their schedules for the practicum, and to attend regularly.  The practicum requirement involves a significant commitment of time and energy, but it is the unanimous recommendation of students and faculty and who have been through the course.   For this reason the course will carry 4.0 credit hours in Fall 2007, and Wednesday seminar sessions will run from 60-90 minutes rather than the full 150 minutes scheduled.  Students in 796 will form teaching teams of 2-3 students each.  These teams will design and then teach one-week units in the practicum sections.  Your plans will be discussed in advance, and we will regularly evaluate one another’s performances.

The probable list of plays to be covered in the practicum is Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Othello, and King Lear.    

Portfolio:  Written assignments for the course will be gathered into a teaching portfolio similar to those many institutions require their faculty to submit.  Suggested contents for the portfolio include a formal statement outlining teaching philosophy, goals, and strategies; a 15 week course syllabus; a text selection essay (5-10 pages); a set of lesson plans (six detailed daily plans); written assignments (essay or exam assignment sheets); a narrative and self-assessment of the practicum teaching experience; and copies of practicum evaluations.  Sample portfolios from previous sections of this course may be consulted in the instructor’s office.

ENGL 810B  "Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation":                                Gieskes M 5:30-8:00
The Literature of Profession in Early Modern England
Early modern theologians, legal theorists, and social thinkers all were interested in questions of calling, vocation, and profession and their interest also appears in the literary production of the period.  This course will examine the theory of profession in the period (and in later sociology) and how emergent notions of professionalism shape the drama, poetry, and prose fiction of the period.  Texts are likely to include William Perkins' *Treatise on the Vocations and Callings of Men,*  Harrison's *Description of England,* encomia of the law and other callings in the period, prose works by Greene, Dekker, and Middleton.  We will likely read parts of *The Shepheard's Calender,* the *Faerie Queene,* Sidney's *Defense* and his sonnets and parts of the Old Arcadia.  Plays to include *King John,* the Henriad, Jonson's *Poetaster,* and a sampling of city comedy.

We will frame our discussions with important texts in the sociology of the professions and
with the work of social historians like Christopher Brooks and Keith Wrightson.

ENGL 841C  Exploration & Empire in 19th Century American Lit                          Walls MW 4:00-5:15
Recent theoretical work setting American writers into a global framework requires a reassessment of 19th century American literature. This course will attempt such a reassessment by viewing American literature through the global competition for North American territory that took place from the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 through the purchase of Alaska in 1867. This period is characterized by two contradictory ideals, republican revolution and imperial power. As American revolutionary ideals generated an increasingly reactionary politics both here and abroad, these contradictions play themselves out vividly in American literature. My thesis is that writers in this era were not turning inward to define a new nationalism so much as turning outward, identifying the United States as a new kind of transitional state, one that, when fully realized, would transform the entire world order, politically, economically, and culturally. (Were they wrong?)

Students of American literature will find this course recasts their subject into a new transnational framework; students of British literature will find the story of the British Empire complemented by this American parallel. Course readings will include selections from the literature of scientific exploration as well as key texts by Poe, Melville, the Coopers (father and daughter), Irving, Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau (Cape Cod and “The Allegash and East Branch”), and Whitman, among others. Requirements will include one short paper exploring the problem of genre, and a research paper applying this problem to an extended reading of Literature as/against “science.”

ENGL 843F  Slavery & the American Literary Imagination                                    Whitted W 2:30-5:00          
This course interrogates the ways in which colonial and antebellum slavery is represented in American autobiography, fiction, essays, and other documents. Our in-depth analysis places nineteenth-century sources in conversation with twentieth-century modern and postmodern literary engagements that explore the material, psychological, ethical, and rhetorical legacies of enslavement. Through a rigorous reading schedule and discussion-based instruction, students will examine the symbolic images, characterizations, and narrative strategies that are commonly associated with slave narratives and their literary offspring in the neo-slavery sub-genre. Readings also investigate the mythic origin and influence of literary figures, real and imagined, such as Uncle Tom, Nat Turner, and Margaret Garner. Experimental forms and perspectives will be given special attention, as will questions of creative freedom and historical interpretation: who has the authority to represent slave life and culture, and what are the limits of such representations? Authors under investigation include Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, Henry Bibb, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Robert Hayden, William Styron, Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison. Assignments include weekly written responses (including one with an annotated bibliography), a short close-reading paper, and a final research paper of publishable quality (20 pages minimum).

SPCH 790A : Rhetoric & Ethics                                                                          Gehrke  M 5:30-8:00
This course provides graduate students an opportunity to explore the intersection of rhetorical studies and ethics in the writings of major thinkers from the Continental European tradition, including Kant, Hegel, Levinas, and Foucault, among others.  With each of these theorists representing a particular approach, we will examine how their writings propose inchoate rhetorical theories and how their ethics might apply to the practice and study of rhetoric.  Throughout the seminar writings from major rhetorical scholars of the past three decades will be placed in coversation with the works of these theorists.

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