For all English classes, registered students must be present at each of the first two meetings to claim their places. Any student who does not meet this requirement may be dropped from the course. NOTE: If you must miss a class due to religious observances, contact the instructor or leave a message for the instructor with the department (764-6330).
WRITING COURSES:
After taking or placing out of Introductory Composition, students may elect either English 224 or 225 for further practice in the fundamentals of expository and argumentative prose. English 325 offers the opportunity for work in argumentative and expository prose at a more advanced level.
Several sections of English 223, the beginning course in creative writing, are available each term. The work is multi-generic, and two of the following will be covered in each section: fiction, poetry, and drama. A more advanced course for creative writers is English 323 (Fiction or Poetry), which is available by permission of instructor and completion of the prerequisite, English 223. More experienced writers may apply for admission to specialized sections of English 227 (Playwriting), English 423 (Fiction), English 427 (Playwriting), and English 429 (Poetry). Admission to these advanced courses is by permission of the instructor, who will require writing samples.
124. College Writing: Writing and Literature. ECB writing assessment. (4). (Introductory Composition).
By connecting the two terms of its title, Writing and Literature aims to help prepare the student to produce the range and quality of expository prose expected in college courses. Works of literature will be considered for their effective use of language and argument. They will serve as reference points for thinking and writing strategies. Characteristically, sections of English 124 will involve the writing of a minimum of five essays, with considerate attention given to the preparation of drafts and to revision. The literary works which will serve as points of reference will vary from section to section and from term to term. Section descriptions can be found on the department's Web page or in 3020 Angell Hall.
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Section 052 - Literary Responses to Bigotry. The subject of this course is the relationship between bigotry and literary art. Its material is imaginative literature written by and about bigotry's victims, divided into the following four groups: (1) Native Americans: The Education of Little Tree (Carter), Love Medicine (Erdrich); (2) Japanese North Americans: Obasan (Kogawa); (3) Gay Americans: The Zoo Story (Albee), Giovanni's Room (Baldwin); (4) African Americans: Beloved (Morrison). Each work will be the subject of a two-page paper, and each cultural era that produced the four categories of texts will be the subject of brief research papers and presentations by members of the class. Approximately half the class meetings will be devoted to discussion of texts; the other half will concentrate on the technology of writing. No midterm and no final. Cost:3 (Fader)
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Section 053. In this first-year seminar we will view eight films by major directors, all of which deal with political or social issues, as the basis for discussion and writing. The earliest film is D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), the latest, Akira Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August (1991). Other directors and films include: Charles Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux; John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath; Orson Welles, Citizen Kane; Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove; Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now; and David Lean, A Passage to India. We will also read some of the sources for these films. Frequent writing with opportunities for revision. Paper topics will be drawn both from the films themselves (e.g., the styles of different directors), and from some of the issues they deal with. Cost:2 (Howes)
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125. College Writing. ECB writing assessment. (4). (Introductory Composition).
No one ever finishes learning to write, so this course focuses on helping students further develop their unique potentials as writers, readers, and thinkers. By analyzing texts from a variety of academic disciplines, students will come to understand the conventions writers follow to present their ideas effectively to their chosen audiences. What rhetorical strategies are common in different disciplines - and why? How and when might we use those strategies in our own writing? For instance, what writing strategies would we call upon for a lab report, and would we use any of those strategies for a philosophical speculation, a history exam, a love letter? Throughout the term, students will work to identify the writing skills they most need to develop, and they'll invent and refine a personal style of expression that can be adapted to different audiences and purposes. Course requirements include at least 40 pages of writing, including at least 20 pages of revised, polished prose. Section descriptions can be found on the department's Web page or in 3020 Angell Hall.
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140. First-Year Literary Seminar. (3). (HU).
Section 002 - Trading Places. What is identity? How do we know what we or other people are? By looking at them? Listening to how they describe themselves? Why does it matter? We think we know someone if we know his or her gender or race or ethnicity or position in society. Increasingly, however, we recognize that these identities are permeable, open to question and challenge. In this course, we will consider a range of time periods and genres - novels, short stories, fairytales, folktales, films - in which characters exchange identities. Men become women or women become men; Black and white people trade places; humans become animals or vice versa; Jews and Christians are mistaken for one another; rich and poor switch identities. Among the works we will explore are: Trading Places, The Parent Trap, Switch, Gentleman's Agreement, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, Kafka's Metamorphosis. Course requirements include lively class participation and frequent writing assignments. (Norich)
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230. Introduction to Short Story and Novel. (3). (HU).
Rather than a comprehensive survey of the short story and novel, this course offers an introduction to the basic techniques of analyzing prose fiction. Beginning with short stories, students learn to define questions of narrative construction, voice, characterization, theme, and style. As critical facility increases, the course will consider more challenging and in some cases experimental fiction. At least three novels will be read in addition to numerous short stories. Student should expect to read substantial amounts of fiction, to participate in class discussions, and to write several short literary analyses. Section descriptions can be found on the department's Web page or in 3020 Angell Hall.
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245/RC Hums. 280/Theatre 211. Introduction to Drama and Theatre. No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in RC Hums. 281. (4). (HU).
See Theatre and Drama 211. (Brown)
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267(326). Introduction to Shakespeare. Completion of Introductory Composition. (4). (HU).
Section 001. This course will concentrate on the movement and development of Shakespearean tragedy by studying "the grand style" of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. But in doing so we will also consider the origins of this tragic mode in the earlier tragedies and its later manifestations in Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. There will be a midterm, a final, and a series of short written assignments. Cost:1 (Brater)
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270. Introduction to American Literature. (3). (HU).
Section 001. One of the major themes in American literature is the "Americanization" of members of the various racial, religious, and ethnic groups. This section of English 270 will follow the theme of Americanization beginning with pieces from Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the writers in the traditional American canon, and continuing with novels and short stories from other American voices and talents including women, Chicano, Asian-, African-, Native- and European-American writers, selections which more fully represent "American" or United States literature. The class will be a mix of lecture and discussion, and all students are expected to read and be fully prepared to discuss the works in class and on CONFER, a computer conferencing system. Requirements also include a final and a 7-8 page paper. Cost:2 (Kowalski)
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274/CAAS 274. Introduction to Afro-American Literature. (3). (HU).
This course introduces African American thought and literary expression through close examination of cultural products, both written and oral: poetry, essays, drama, speeches, spirituals, slave narratives, and novels. Through our readings of African American creative works from the eighteenth century to the present, we will trace a number of themes, including the legacies of slavery; the African heritage in African American literature and culture, gender, and African American creative expression; and the relationship between "high" and "low" culture in the African American tradition. Throughout the course, we will be analyzing the formal and stylistic choices African American writers have made and the ways in which these formal strategies interact with narrative content. Critical essays will accompany our readings of primary texts, and we will view two contemporary African American films as well. (Keizer)
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285. Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature. (3). (HU).
We will consider how a variety of writers reflect and respond to the major historical, social, political, philosophical, and moral issues and preoccupations of this 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 to read some representative works of modern thought and literature, our purpose to sharpen the insight with which we approach some probing "documents" of our time. We will emphasize equally what these works say and how they say it. Reading: some standard works; some idiosyncratic selections. Possible authors include: Camus, Dürrenmatt, Bellow, Kosinski, D.M. Thomas, P. Levi, Kafka, 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 5-7 pp. papers and a final exam. (Bauland)
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