First-Year Courses in EnglishConsult the new Course Guide at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_subjectlist/0,2030,8,00.html?show=20&termArray=f_04_1510&cgtype=ug This page was created at 12:59 PM on Wed, May 5, 2004. Fall Academic Term, 2004 (September 7 - December 23)ENGLISH 140. First-Year Literary Seminar.Section 001 — Late 19th-Century African American Fiction.Instructor(s): Xiomara A Santamarina (xas@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Only first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. First-Year Seminar Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. The last decades of the 19th-century (the 1880s and 1890s) is known in African American history as "the nadir" (lowpoint), because it witnessed the nation's post-Civil War retreat from Black equality and the escalation of violence against African Americans. In this course, we will study how Black writers addressed racial inequality and violence in their short stories and novels, and how they viewed the role of literature in national debates over the possibilities of African American citizenship. Authors include Charles Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, Pauline Hopkins, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Sutton Griggs. In addition to class participation, class assignments will include short responses, peer review of drafts and paper revisions.
ENGLISH 140. First-Year Literary Seminar.Section 003 — Native American Fiction.Instructor(s): Lincoln B Faller (faller@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Only first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. First-Year Seminar Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. All Americans know something about Native Americans — at least they think they do. Stereotypes abound and, for most of our history, most of them have been vicious. But all stereotypes are damaging to the people they include, even the most benign and supposedly positive. Where vicious stereotypes would silence and discredit those they target, stereotypes of the supposedly benign kind are all too ready to speak for them, preempting their own efforts to speak the truth as they see it. The course will involve a close study of some four works of fiction by Native American writers, all of which powerfully contradict the usual ways of imagining and thinking about "Indians." It will begin with an extended look at a work which is neither fictive nor entirely Native-authored, John Neidhardt's Black Elk Speaks; this will help us to identify certain crucial problems in the reading and interpretation of texts infused with Native American cultural values and emerging from Native American experience, from a perspective outside those values and that experience. Subsequent readings will include D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded, James Welch's The Death of Jim Loney, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, and Louise Erdrich's Tracks. Students will be required to make several class presentations, to write weekly response papers as well as two short essays, and to participate in a group research project culminating in an end-of-term presentation and a collaboratively written paper.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.
Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This advanced writing course focuses on the elements of evidence and argument. Unlike ENGLISH 325 with its emphasis on exploration and style, ENGLISH 225 encourages students to analyze the various components of a given issue and the writing conventions of different disciplines in order to explore and defend their positions, ideas, and beliefs in writing. In the process, they will concentrate on the testing of assumptions and claims, the questioning of beliefs, and the analysis and rigorous articulation of evidence in written discourse. The course stresses the compilation of strong evidence, specifically the use of outside sources and the smooth integration of such material into the prose of an essay. The readings are primarily non-fiction, and discussions and writing assignments emphasize considerations of style, rhetorical strategies, and revision as integral to precision in developing a line of argument for the purposes of reflection as well as persuasion. NOTE: It is department policy that students must attend both the first and the second class meetings. Failure to do so may result in the student being dropped from the course. Prerequisites are being enforced.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.
Section 011 — What's Wrong with this Picture?Instructor(s): LaTissia MitchellPrerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Is a photograph factual? Is it neutral? Is it objective? Can a photograph be political or manifest a political agenda? Through what established cultural filters do we assess, judge, and categorize what we see? Why are these relevant questions? This course will focus upon photography, and compare this visual medium to other media, in an attempt to understand how it functions and why we are so attached to it.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.
Section 013 — Argumentative Writing: How and Why We Do It.Instructor(s): Sridevi NairPrerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course will look at how to advance arguments with attention to the ways in which argumentative writing has been theorized and critiqued from different perspectives. A large part of this course will deal with thinking through our own strategies of persuasion and how they change in the context of different audiences. We will study how argumentative writing forms a central way in which we engage in scholarship and how we may best use argumentative writing to explore issues in contemporary culture. I always include grammar instruction and grammar exercises in my courses. I usually provide photocopied reading material rather than require a coursepack. A journal and a dictionary are mandatory. Attendance policies and writing requirements are fairly standard, and I will discuss them in detail during the first week of class. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions!
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.Section 023.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.Section 024.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.Section 030.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.Section 031.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.Section 032 — CSP.Instructor(s): Ralph D StoryPrerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
ENGLISH 225. Argumentative Writing.Section 032.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. No Description Provided. Contact the Department.
ENGLISH 239. What is Literature?Section 003 — Seas of Stories.Instructor(s): Jennifer Wenzel (jawenzel@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program and in Honors. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Our approach to the question "what is literature?" will focus more specifically on narrative: what it is and how it works. We'll work from the assumption that one of the simple joys that literature offers is a good story. But our discussions will aim toward a more complex understanding of the ways in which narrative appeals to readers, as well as the aesthetic, social, and political implications of judging a story to be a "good" one. Tackling questions of literary value will allow us to confront assumptions about what literature is or is supposed to be, and how those assumptions vary over space and time. The subtitle, seas of stories, refers to two aspects of narratives and the relationships among them: first, the notion of individual stories as "rivers" that form a vast ocean of related tales. In this course, "sea of stories" also refers to a group of stories that share a common theme or setting: the Atlantic Ocean, which joins both American continents to Europe and Africa. Our texts will be (mostly) by twentieth century authors from Africa, India, the Caribbean, and the U.S.: Jamaica Kincaid, Caryl Phillips, John Edgar Wideman, Carter Revard, Leslie Marmon Silko, Salman Rushdie, Nuruddin Farah, Abdulrazek Gurnah, Zakes Mda, Tsitsi Dangarembga, J.M. Coetzee, Olaudah Equiano. Short writing assignments, both formal and informal, will facilitate critical engagement with the texts.
ENGLISH 239. What is Literature?Section 005 — [Honors].Instructor(s): Susan Scott Parrish (sparrish@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program and in Honors. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. The aim of this course is to give you exposure to a range of interpretive methods as we read a number of literary forms taken from three distinct periods in English, Atlantic, and U.S. literature. For example, as we read William Shakespeare's The Tempest, we will look at how modern critics and artists have analyzed the play in terms of: historical context, race and colonial or post-colonial theory, ecology, and gender; we will think about acting, staging, directing, and filming as forms of interpretation, and we will act out some of the scenes ourselves as well as watch parts of three filmic adaptations. Other texts will be Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative, a late eighteenth-century Atlantic slave autobiography, Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, a short story/novella about a slave ship, and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, a modernist novel with four separate narrators set in the early twentieth-century U.S. south, and a number of essays. We will therefore encounter a long historical sweep, and numerous different forms: the play, the autobiography, the short story, the essay, and the novel. You will bring in stellar reading questions to every class, write an analytical paper during three of the sections, and an autobiographical essay during the other section.
ENGLISH 240. Introduction to Poetry.
Section 002.Instructor(s): Richard D Cureton (rcureton@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program and in Honors. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. The aim of this course is to introduce you to the art of poetry so that you can read and discuss any poem with understanding and delight. During the term, we will move from a general survey of poetic techniques and forms to a more detailed study of the work of a selection of authors from the Renaissance to the present. For the former, we will use Western Wind by John Frederick Nims. For the latter, we will use a course pack of selected poems. Formal writing will include three (ungraded) exercises in poetic analysis and four (graded) papers (3-5 pages) on individual authors and poems.
ENGLISH 240. Introduction to Poetry.Section 003 — [Honors].Instructor(s): Laurence A Goldstein (lgoldste@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program and in Honors. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. In this course, we shall study closely a variety of poems written in English from about 1600 to the present. The task of the course is a pleasurable and progressive understanding of how poems work, that is, what techniques poets use to articulate their visions of experience. We shall pay close attention to the language, forms, figures, and themes of verse, to literary-historical conditions that influence poetic craft, and to the intertextual connections that create constellations of poems across the centuries. The textbooks, Norton Introduction to Poetry (seventh edition) by J. Paul Hunter, and Poetic Meter and Poetic Form by Paul Fussell, will be our chief reading, in addition to handouts. Because this is a discussion class, regular attendance and participation are required. Other requirements include a series of short papers, supplemented by a reading journal, a midterm, and a final examination.
ENGLISH 240. Introduction to Poetry.
Section 008.Instructor(s): Andrea Patricia Zemgulys (zemgulys@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program and in Honors. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course aims to equip students with the skills necessary to writing and talking about poetry. We will cover a broad range of poems, from the sixteenth century to the twentieth, and think about them through critical topics such as meter, figurative language, and stanzaic forms. Students will be expected to write three essays (15 pages total) and eight (8) paragraphs over the course of the academic term, to keep a reading journal in preparation for class discussion, and to lead a discussion. There will be a final exam. Note: Students who miss either of the first two classes will be dropped from enrollment.
ENGLISH 245 / RCHUMS 280 / THTREMUS 211. Introduction to Drama and Theatre.
Section 001.Instructor(s):Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in RCHUMS 281.
Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted.
ENGLISH 267. Introduction to Shakespeare.
Section 001 — Shakespeare's Many Faces.Instructor(s): Lillian L Back (lillianb@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Completion of Introductory Composition. (4). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. We will, in this course, take a contemporary perspective on a varied selection of Shakespeare's plays. We begin by watching productions of the plays as represented on videos and continue our exploration with a close reading and conversation about the plays themselves. We want to compare the way in which directors, producers, actors, and various audiences (us included) revisit the great drama of the High Renaissance in England. For example, when we watch HAMLET as performed by Kenneth Branagh or Ethan Hawke, how do our individual perceptions of the play become enhanced? Or, as we watch Al Pacino's contemporary exploration of society's response to RICHARD III, how can we come to understand the very strange interpretation of the play by Ian McKellen's production? And how can our discussions help us come to grips with the brutal but brilliant Julie Taymor's production of TITUS ANDRONICUS? We want to do all that we can to understand the range of possibilities which Shakespeare's drama allows. We will continue our analysis of Shakespeare's drama by including the following plays in addition to HAMLET, RICHARD III, and TITUS ANDRONICUS: the very controversial MERCHANT OF VENICE; the joyful but bittersweet TWELTH NIGHT; the disturbing OTHELLO; and the exciting and suspenseful MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. The course will be all about discussion and more discussion. We will spend three hours a week discussing the plays in the class; in addition, we will need to watch the videos of all the plays outside of class — I will schedule the same showing two nights/wk, (Tuesday and Wednesday evenings approx. from 7-9:00 pm) so you will have a choice of the night that is convenient for you. The Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet production will be a four-hour production. The videos will also be on reserve in the video and media library (ugl/second floor) a week previous to the discussion — also almost all of the video stores carry productions to be rented on your own. Our task will be to come away from the class in the end with a sense of a personal Shakespeare who will remain our life-long mentor in shaping order into life from the chaos of experience; studying Shakespeare's work forces us into the beauty and the pain of the human range of emotional challenges. In addition to class and video watching, students will respond each week with a short one-page essay about each of these plays. The subject will be determined by the student as she or he finds an unresolved conflict to explore about the text. Papers will be discussed in class and I will offer my response to them. I would hope that feedback each week will give you confidence to take up the challenge of writing a longer even more analytical paper toward the ending of the season (6-8pp.). We will be using the Oxford School editions, exclusively sold at Shaman Drum on State Street.
ENGLISH 270. Introduction to American Literature.
Section 001 — Home.Instructor(s): MARIA SANCHEZ (maricarl@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Narratives that center upon the home are important to U.S. literature, whether that home is understood as a physical structure, a geographic locale, or a spiritual setting. Perhaps because the United States is an immigrant country, questions of belonging (feeling at home, finding or coming home, seeing one's self or group as having ownership, authority, or precedence) permeate our history from its inception. In this course we will look at a variety of texts that span centuries and genres, and use questions concerning the home as a means of learning about U.S. literature. The class will be a mix of lecture and discussion, and all students are expected to read and be prepared to discuss the works in class. Requirements also include weekly reading responses, a final, and two short 4-5 page papers. Authors may include: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Jacobs, Edgar Allen Poe, Willa Cather, Dorothy West, Ralph Ellison, John Phillip Santos, and Michele Serros.
ENGLISH 285. Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Peter M Bauland (pbauland@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. We will consider how a variety of writers reflect and respond to the major historical, social, political, philosophical, and moral issues and preoccupations of the 20th century. The works we will study are eclectic and arbitrarily chosen; there is no attempt to be all-inclusive, nor will we limit ourselves to English and American authors. Our subject will be some representative works of modern thought and literature. We will place equal emphasis on what these works say and how they say it. Our purpose is to sharpen the insight and intelligence with which we read and analyze some of the probing "documents" of our time. Candidates for the reading list [availability of texts and reasonableness of prices will be factors] include works by Albert Camus, D.M. Thomas, E.L. Doctorow, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Friedrich Duerrenmatt, Jerzy Kosinski, Margaret Atwood or several others. Informal lecture and discussion, the amount of which will be influenced by the size of the class. Thoughtful, active participation "counts." Two papers [ca. 5-7 pp. each] and a final exam.
Consult the new Course Guide at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_subjectlist/0,2030,8,00.html?show=20&termArray=f_04_1510&cgtype=ug This page was created at 12:59 PM on Wed, May 5, 2004.
University of Michigan | College of LS&A | Student Academic Affairs | This page maintained by LS&A Advising Technology (webmaster_saa@umich.edu), G255-E Angell Hall Copyright © 2004 The Regents of the University of Michigan,
Trademarks of the University of Michigan may not be electronically or otherwise altered or separated from this document or used for any non-University purpose. |
