A complete up to date listing of English Department course descriptions can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/.
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, or you may take English 227 (Introductory Playwriting).
A more advanced course for creative writers is English 323 (Fiction
or Poetry), which is available after completion of the prerequisite, English 223. More experienced writers may apply for admission
to specialized sections of English 327 (Playwriting), English
423 (Fiction), English 427 (Advanced Playwriting), and English
429 (Poetry). Admission to these advanced courses is by permission
of the instructor, who may require writing samples.
INDEPENDENT STUDY:
Independent study in English must be elected under one of the following numbers: 226 (Directed Writing, 1-3 hours), 299 (Directed Reading, 1-3 hours), 426 (Directed Writing, 1-4 hours), 499 (Directed Reading, 1-4 hours). There is a limit to the total hours that may be taken under any one number. Students interested in independent study should obtain an application from the English Department office on the third floor of Angell Hall. Independent study proposals must be approved by a supervising professor and by the Undergraduate Chair of the department. The deadline for Independent Study in the Spring Term 1998 is May 15, 1998. The deadline for Independent Study in the Summer Term 1998 is July 10, 1998.
Take me to the Spring Time Schedule
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 101. Our primary goals in this class will be to think more analytically about the world around us and to communicate more effectively our observations about it. To this end, the course will focus on the skills of critical reading and writing. We will emphasize the principles of writing and revising essays, the organization of ideas and argumentation, and the use of appropriate grammar and style. We will experiment with a variety of genres, and you will be encouraged to try new things, take risks and expand your breadth as a writer. Requirements will include reading (Calvino, Gordimer, and others), writing (various drafts of four papers, a journal, other short assignments), participating (in class discussions and group workshops), and thinking (constantly). (Kodesh)
Section 102. Despite what the grapevine may have told you at some point or another, writing is not just for English majors and coffeehouse poets. It is a critical tool that we will all sooner or later need in order to convey our thoughts, intentions, and ideas to loved ones, graduate programs, and prospective employees. By the end of this half-term, we should all have succesfully refitted our writing abilites to better meet the needs and standards of the University and future circumstances, whatever they may be. I won't lie to you. This class is about writing, and there will be lots of it. We will be examining articles and artifacts on Popular Culture, a subject we are already very familiar with. These include screenings of South Park and the documentary Roger and Me. Our writing will be geared primarily towards examining the complex cultural, political, racial, and sexual intersections in popular expressions, so you'll need to engage with the assignmentw with a receptive mind and at point blank range. Expect four papers of varying length with a total of 20-30 pages of revised (polished) prose. (Silva)
Section 104 – Voyages of Discovery: Writing Across Cultures. Starting with a selection of Columbus' accounts of his voyages to the Americas and looking at a variety of texts which deal with different cultures coming into contact, this writing class will focus on how individual authors convey information, use different styles, and size up their audience. The first part of the class will concentrate on "primary texts" or the actual documents written by historical personages such as Columbus, freed slave Harriet Jacobs, and Mary Rowlandson, who survived being captured by Native Americans. A trip to the Clements Library on campus to look at archival material is planned. We will read several critiques of these primary texts in order to give a counter perspective, as well as to model the kind of analytical essay writing expected in the longer essay. Each student will produce an autobiographical essay (4-5 pages) as well as two longer essays (one 4-5 pages, the other 6-7 pages) which will be revised for a final portfolio. Each student will write critiques of other students' essays, and have their longer essay workshopped by the entire class. (Stitt)
Section 105. This course provides an introduction
to college writing and guidance through the writing process. Because
reading, thinking critically, and writing are interdependent, we will be honing all three skills during the course of the term.
The readings and discussions in this course will be centered around the objects, images, and issues that together form American culture
as we know it. As a generation, we have seen much change in our
society due to the information, education, and entertainment that
technologies have been able to provide. But, while technology
has been able to provide us with a plethora of stimuli, we seldom
step back from our environment long enough to digest, analyze, and create meaning out of it all. The readings for this course
have been selected to provide a variety of perspectives and aid
us in our discussions. In addition to the readings and discussions, you will be required to write and revise four essays during the
course of the term. You will also be asked to respond to each
others' essays in an effort to help the class as a whole grow
as writers. (Ha)
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Times, Location, and Availability
223. Creative Writing.
Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement.
(2). (CE). May not be repeated for credit.
All sections of 223 teach the writing of two of the following three genres: fiction (including personal narrative), drama, and poetry. Different sections will emphasize the individual genres
to varying degrees. Classwork involves the discussion of the process
of writing and the word of a few published authors. Students will
do exercises meant to develop a sensitivity to language and a
facility with evocative detail, voice, form, and so forth. Most
classroom time, however, is devoted to reading and discussion
of student writing. A final portfolio of revised finished work
of 35-50 manuscript pages may be required.
Section 101. This course is structured to foster the beginning writer's imagination and artistic potential. Emphasis will be on developing an alertness to the observed world and a feel for the vividness and accuracy of language. Our work will center on fictional and autobiographical traditions. While we will primarily focus on student work, we will also read short stories and essays by Anton Chekov, James Baldwin, Michael Ondaatje, Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O'Connor, and Lucy Grealy. Class time will consist of close, critical realding of student work, writing exercises, and discussion. In addition to reading assignments, students are responsible for a final portfolio, weekly writing "sketches," at least one student-teacher conference, and consistent class attendance. There is no final exam. Required Texts: The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction, Ann Charters, editor, and a course pack. (Stanton)
Section 102. Ever thought of English as a toolbox?
You will now. We will roll up our sleeves and, through close readings, discussions, exercises, drafts, edits, and revisions of prose
sentences and poetic lines, delve into diction, syntax, grammar, form, rhythm, image, narrative structure, metaphor, and more -
not as abstractions, but as concrete tools you will come to understand and utilize in articulating vision and voice. The emphasis will
be on your own writing, with a significant portion of class time
spent in workshop. Students will be asked to read assigned poems
and stories, to keep a writer's journal, to complete writing exercises, and to complete and significantly revise four poems and 10-15
pages of fiction. Required texts available at Shaman Drum Bookstore.
(Kremer)
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Times, Location, and Availability
225. Argumentative Writing.
Completion of the Introductory Composition requirement.
(3). (HU).
This course furthers the aim of English 124 and 125 in helping
writers to analyze the various claims of a given issue and to
develop ways of exploring and defending positions, ideas and beliefs.
Careful attention will be paid to the process of reasoning, the
testing of assumptions and claims, the questioning of beliefs, and the discovery of ideas and evidence through analysis and rhetorical
articulation. The course will also focus on considerations of
style, formal strategy techniques, and revision as integral to
precision in making points and developing argumentative ideas
for the purposes of both individual reflection and of audience
persuasion.
Section 101 – Seeing is Believing: Voices and Images in
Visual Culture. This argumentative writing class will be
organized around the theme of visual culture, public images, ways
of reading the image, and the practice of writing about it. Some
topics to look at might include representations in the news media, entertainment such as South Park, debates about pornography, or advertising and the arts. Students will be expected to read
approximately one essay weekly that addresses arguments in or
ways of thinking, reading and writing about different aspects
of visual culture. In addition to reading, the writing process
will be inspired by visual aids and images from the everyday to the absurd. Writing will include four formal essays, constant
rewriting, and about thirty pages of informal assignments. (O'Brien)
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Times, Location, and Availability
239. What is Literature?
Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program
and in Honors. (2). (HU).
This class is designed to stimulate your thought about issues that should prove central to all your subsequent engagements with
literature, inside and outside the classroom. The course is designed
to help you formulate productive questions about the nature of
literary study and the changing meanings of "literature"
itself. Often ranging over a wide variety of genres and historical
periods, sometimes including the study of film or other visual
arts, 239 asks students to consider texts in a comparative, analytical
light. Sections of 239 often devote some time to talking about the social and historical forces that shape a culture's ideas
of what constitutes literature. Students in 239 also often address
questions of literary value and evaluation. Though discussions
often prove theoretical in nature, they are usually tied to particular
texts. 239 is designed to help students develop skills that will
be crucial to further work in the English concentration: discussion, writing papers about texts, reading critically and with an eye
for detail.
Section 101. "What is literature?" It's
what we study in literature departments. As you read, discuss, and write about works by Flannery O'Connor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, William Shakespeare, and August
Wilson, you can decide whether my rather flip response to the
question posed by this course's title holds up. You'll also get
to ask many more questions about literature and try on a number
of critical personas. While we'll focus on the work of the authors
listed above and a few others, you'll have a considerable amount
of freedom to choose what you read during the term as you select
from among the many other writers in the course text and/or "bring
in" the work of writers not included in the text. Expect
plenty of reading – but it's great (I mean this subjectively)
stuff – and regular "in-class" assignments. Also, I'll
ask you to write two short papers. (Kassner)
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Times, Location, and Availability
240. Introduction to
Poetry. Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular
Program and in Honors. (2). (HU).
Poetry? Poe-tree. Everything we love and hate about it. It
stores the language of the heart, the psyche, the mind in dreaming
contact with every living thing. What is sacred, what endangers, what voices carry us across time? We'll read poetry from a wide
historical range to discover its power to speak in all languages
of what matters, its tendency to shape shift and spill into new
forms, and its capacity for infinite beauty and strife. We will
meet live poets and dead ones, too. We will read, write, talk, and perform poetry. There will be several short papers. (Agee)
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Times, Location, and Availability
Primarily for Juniors and Seniors
301. The Power of Words.
(3). (Excl).
Section 101. Effective communication is the goal of all writing.
But communication is rarely as simple as it sounds. Writing must
negotiate, first and foremost, the basics – grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics. We will remind ourselves of such imperatives with
various exercises that stress the finer points of these 'rules'.
However, the main focus of the class will involve negotiating the dictates of specific writing tasks. How might we establish
credibility in the cover letter of a resume? What kind of tone
should we use to respond to a threatening memo from a co-worker?
In essence, we will build effective rhetorical strategies for
establishing authoritative and credible presentations of your
written voice. Assignments include four papers (4-6 pages) and numerous short writing exercises. Class participation will be
a significant factor in determining final grades. (Ray)
Section 102. The central argument of this course is that the power of words derives principally from a writer's ability
to motivate a reader to share in a new perspective. We will rigorously
analyze various expressive media (music, film, television, poetry, philosophy, among others) that mobilize the power of words to
dramatic effect; we will seek to understand how a given piece
of writing achieves its desired goal, whether that goal is persuasion, illumination, critical intervention, or imaginative expression.
We will discuss writing strategies that will allow students to
make optimum use of the power of words to create their own strong
perspective in verbal expression. Focus will be on modes of critical
and analytical writing beyond the university, but this practical
writing will be grounded on a sound understanding of the function
of motivated language in a variety of contexts. Reading assignments
will include short, theoretical pieces as well as models of effective
analytical and expository writing that we will discuss as a means
of establishing criteria for effective writing. We will study
individual words with great intensity and work on developing our
vocabulary as a reservoir for tapping into the shared cultural
beliefs that words embody. Formal writing assignments will include
an analytical description, two pieces of evaluative criticism, and an analysis of a current news story. In lieu of a final, students
will present a public address to the class on a topic of their
own devising related to their future interests. (Kinch)
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Times, Location, and Availability
319. Literature and Social
Change. (2). (HU). May be repeated for credit with
department permission.
Section 101 – The Beat Generation. I saw the best minds
of my generation destroyed by/madness, starving hysterical naked,/dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn/looking for an angry
fix . .. That's how Allen Ginsberg described his Beat Generation.
The innovations of the 1950s Beat writers were paralleled by Action
Painters and Bebop jazz musicians. We will explore these three
outsider art worlds, listen to recorded jazz, poetry and fiction, and look at documentary photographs of the major players – while
reading On the Road, Howl, Naked Lunch, etc., and viewing
slides of Abstract Expressionist paintings. Students are encouraged
to attend a live jazz performance. This course incorporates multimedia
video and audio presentations. Designed to appeal both to non-concentrators
and to students who think they might dig being English majors.
This course meets the American Literature requirement for English
concentrators. (Tillinghast)
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Times, Location, and Availability
325. Essay Writing: The
Art of Exposition. (3). (Excl).
This is an upper-level composition course for students interested
in improving their writing. All classes will proceed on the assumption that these basic principles inform good writing: that writing
is thinking, that writing well requires attention to issues of
audience; that revision is a necessary part of the writing process;
and that all writing reflects the writer's view of the world.
Class discussion will include a consideration of student writing.
To focus discussion and to provide subject matter for writing
assignments, readings by professional writers will be assigned.
You will write one paper (4-5 pages) per week.
Section 101 – Writing Biography. In a culture enthralled with 'true' stories such as Titanic and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the genre of biography raises pressing questions. To what extent must biographies be 'true'? When is it necessary to invent? Whose lives get written about, and how? Who is most often left out, and why? In this course on biographical writing we investigate the relationship between literary questions of narration (realism, drama, portraiture) and political questions of identity (racial, sexual, and class identities). In particular we focus on the interplay between biographer and subject. What is the difference between writing about someone you know versus an historical figure? And what counts as 'evidence'? Four essays are required, including a final biographical piece. Reading includes Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, James Baldwin, Sigmund Freud, Carolyn Steedman, David Henry Hwang, and others. Students interested in gay and lesbian, African-American, and women's studies are especially encouraged to enroll. (Gordon)
Section 102. How is the world of a piece of writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, constructed? How do writers involve their readers in their worlds? How is writing an act of persuasion, and how is reading an act of assent or dissent? How do we become more conscious, in our own writing, of such factors as argument and audience? In this upper-level composition course we will read a variety of essays and works of literature, and these will provide us with material for our own writing. The reading list will involve us with works in a variety of styles and genres, including novels (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, for one), short stories (including some science fiction!), essays (Virginia Woolf and Walter Benjamin come to mind), and contemporary reporting (but no Presidential scandals). Course requirements will include writing four essays (totaling 25-30 pages of writing), some shorter writing assignments, responses to other students' writing, and constant, relentless, highly vocal class participation. (Roberts)
Section 103 – Writing Ourselves. In this class we will work together in a collaborative writing environment conducive to exploration and development of our individual voice, style, expression and tone. While honing our critical thinking and argumentation skills, we will learn to make our writing a persuasive and exciting account of our ideas and beliefs. Specifically, we will consider issues of identity (individual, communal, national) and the ways in which we express that identity, represent or perform ourselves, our opinions, and our pasts. We will be reading a wide variety of essays from a course pack as well as analyzing films, photographs, advertisements and television programs that help us to question expressions of self. Course requirements include four papers in several drafts (two shorter papers and two longer ones), short writing assignments, and daily "observation" exercises. Grades will be determined according to four papers, final portfolio presentations of selected assignments from the term and active, engaged participation in class. (Lieberman)
Section 104 – Explorations in the Making of Meaning.
The general course guide describes English 325 as emphasizing
"exploration and style," for the purpose of helping
students "develop new writing skills." While these descriptions
will essentially be true of this section of English 325, the course
really works on a level beyond mere notions of writing as style
and skill. Writing is a way of knowing; it is part of our human
process of constructing knowledge. It's not just about strengthening
skills and exploiting tricky new formats. What we are trying to
do, ultimately, is understand how we come to know things – how
we make meaning – by expanding our notions of what constitutes
an essay. To this end we will be cracking open the traditional
essay to explore things in useful ways which the traditional essay
cannot do. For instance, the multigenre essay combines a variety
of genres in innovative ways to capture what cannot be captured
in a traditional format. The course, ultimately, is designed to
allow students to explore areas of their own interest. Course
load consists of four papers (4-7 pages in length) with multiple
rewrites, daily response logs, and a variety of short responses/sketches/ etc.
At least one of the papers will require research. Students will
work in peer groups and conference with the instructor on at least
two essays. All reading material will be found in a course pack.
(Murnen)
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English 370, 371, & 372
Each of these courses will range over the materials of the periods indicated below in one or more of a variety of ways. Some may be multi-generic surveys; some may focus on the development during the period of specific genres; some may be topical, others formal in their principle of organization. All sections will emphasize the development of student skill in writing essays analyzing the materials and evaluating the approaches in question.
372. Studies in Literature, 1830-Present. (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit
with department permission.
We will focus on three distinct historical/cultural periods
- Victorian, modern, and postmodern – and explore the dominant
ideas about individualism, gender difference, and aesthetic form that characterize each of these periods in radically different
ways. Our goal is to define the fundamental shifts that have shaped
cultural development over the last century and a half. Course
materials will include both novels and films. Probable texts include
novels by Donald Barthelme, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf, and Charles Dickens, as well as
2-3 films. Midterm, final paper. This course fulfills the New
Traditions requirement for English concentrators. (Kucich)
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Times, Location, and Availability
Take me to the Summer Time Schedule
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 201 – From Dead Dudes and Dames through Lively Lads and Ladies. This class is a workshop in which we will undertake a practical introduction to critical reading, writing, thinking, and expression for ourselves, each other, and the university. The concerns of the texts we will be reading (from Nietzsche, Freud, Woolf, de Beauvoir, Baldwin, Cisneros, Rock ...) are both radically diverse and strangely familiar – opening up the experiences and perspectives of a host of characters, thinkers, readers, and writers exploring the cultural assumptions of their particular times and places. More importantly, these works of the recent and not-so-recent past will help us to sharpen our own critical perspectives as both readers and writers, giving us the chance to explore and to challenge contemporary cultural norms, manners and myths – From where have they come? How have they developed? What did they mean then, and what effects do they produce now? Requirements: Four formal papers (including pre-writing, drafts, and revisions), peer critiques, short reading response papers, readings. (Geldenbott)
Section 202 – Writing and Cultural Performance. What
do Shakespeare, football games, weddings, and Budweiser frogs
have in common? They are all "cultural performances"
- activities or spectacles which encourage us to think and behave
in certain ways. In this class, we will try to understand the
persuasive power (or "rhetoric") of cultural performances
by writing about them. Our guiding assumption will be that writing
about culture is not only interpretation but intervention: each
time we send a letter to the Michigan Daily, share a
poem with a friend, or fill out a class evaluation, we affect the world through our writing. This class offers the analytic
and rhetorical tools to improve the various kinds of writing you
will do in future by developing your confidence, range, and clarity
of expression. Since this is a writing class, you should expect
to do a good deal of writing throughout the semester! Our short
assignments will include a letter to the editor, an editorial, and a brief persuasive speech. Longer assignments will include
analyzing a social ritual and a popular culture "text."
Class time will be devoted to discussing assigned readings and to presenting and workshopping work in progress. Please note that
extensive class participation is a requirement of this course.
Each student will be expected to give class presentations and participate in class discussion, office hours, and peer workshops.
(Sofer)
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Times, Location, and Availability
239. What is Literature?
Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular Program
and in Honors. (2). (HU).
Our world seems less and less literate every day, as advertising
images, video, and music become our principal means of expression, but we continue to speak to one another in words, and literature
is made up of words. In what ways are words relevant to your daily
life and to your attempts to understand and to be understood?
This is another way of asking the question "What is literature?,"
and it will guide our thinking about how language is central to
everyday existence. Our accent will be on storytelling and its
basic components (ideas about narrative, character, and plot).
Our goal will be to understand why it is important for everyone
to know what a story is. Our readings will be chosen from among the writings of Isak Dinesen, Adrienne Kennedy, Gabriel Garciá-Márquez, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Requirements include short weekly writing
assignments, two 5-7 page papers, and exams. (Siebers)
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240. Introduction to
Poetry. Prerequisite for concentrators in the Regular
Program and in Honors. (2). (HU).
Section 201. The first third of this course will concentrate
on prosody – the techniques of verse, how poems are put together
and how they work. The second third will be devoted to the study
of a few major poems as they represent various periods/styles
in English and American literature (e.g. baroque, romanticism, modernism). Finally, the last third of the course will be determined
by class consensus – whatever you (plural) would like to read.
The text will be The Norton Anthology of Poetry. I will
probably assign you a short paper (2-3 pages) each week and most
likely will give a final exam, although if everyone does a super
job all term long, I might forget it. (Beauchamp)
Section 202. Work in class will be devoted to discussion
of particular poems selected The Norton Anthology of Poetry.
The aim of the discussion will be to increase your understanding
and appreciation of poetry. The first course objective will be
to develop some common questions or assumptions about poetry.
The second objective will be to find ways of answering such questions
or testing such assumptions, and we will spend the greater part
of the course reading poems in an effort to accomplish this. In the final weeks of the course we will read a number of poems by
one poet. There will be a midterm, a short paper or two, in-class
exercises, and a final. Cost:1
(Lenaghan)
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Times, Location, and Availability
Primarily for Juniors and Seniors
325. Essay Writing: The
Art of Exposition. (3). (Excl).
Section 201. This is a writing course and its goal, as you
might expect, is to help you write better. To that end you will
write a paper every week and the writing cycle – preparation, writing, peer editing, revision, submission, and return – will
determine how class time is spent. To provide some common focus
we will read Shakespeare's Richard III and see McKellen
and Pacino films. The course grade will be calculated as the average
of the individual paper studies. (Lenaghan)
Section 202 – Big Ideas About Small Talk: Looking
for the Roots of Literary Narrative in Everyday Chatter. This
course will present students with a number of challenging questions
regarding the relationship between written language and everyday
oral narratives. What, for example, do such elements of daily
conversation as gossip, jokes, stories, modern folklore (those
strange but "true" stories we hear and pass on), various
small talk, etc., have to do with the narrative structure
of novels, short stories, drama, film, etc.? This course
will also address such burgeoning issues as the current and future
relationship between verbal, interpersonal narratives, and "chatting"
in cyberspace; that is, will the Internet (still in its infancy)
help human language to evolve into spoken/written hybrid, or is this just wishful thinking? Naturally, students should be prepared
to do quite a bit of verbal sharing in class and be ready to postulate
answers to these and other tough questions, both during in-class
discussion, and in several polished essays. (Melanson)
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Times, Location, and Availability
367. Shakespeare's Principal
Plays. (3). (HU).
Section 201. This is a course that will concentrate on the
Shakespearean tragedy by focusing on "the grand style"
of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear.
But in doing so, we will study 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
and an final exam. This course satisfies the Pre-1830 Literature
requirement for English concentrators. Cost:2
(Brater)
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Times, Location, and Availability
English 370, 371, & 372
Each of these courses will range over the materials of the periods indicated below in one or more of a variety of ways. Some may be multi-generic surveys; some may focus on the development during the period of specific genres; some may be topical, others formal in their principle of organization. All sections will emphasize the development of student skill in writing essays analyzing the materials and evaluating the approaches in question.
370. Studies in Medieval
and Renaissance Literature. (3). (Excl). May be repeated
for credit with department permission.
This course will introduce you to some of the best medieval
literature from England and Western Europe. A tentative list of
texts includes Beowulf, the Arthurian Romances
of Chretien de Troyes, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , the Old Norse Grettir's Saga, and a selection of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. We will read, discuss, and write about these works from a wide variety of perspectives, but I will be
paying special attention to the way in which they construct ethical
systems by means of literary conventions. Requirements include
a willingness to participate actively in class discussion, and three medium-length papers (6-8 pp.). This course satisfies the
Pre-1600 requirement for English concentrators. (Tanke)
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Times, Location, and Availability
372. Studies in Literature, 1830-Present. (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit
with department permission.
Section 201 – Introduction to Fantastic Literature. Romanticism
was a movement of poetic lyricism, artistic rebellion, and personal
idiosyncrasy. Fantastic literature enshrines differences and peculiarities
of all kinds, highlighting those aspects of experience that venture
beyond the strictly human toward a supernatural realm. In fantastic
literature, then, the visionary poetics of the Romantic generation
and the superstitious nightmares of common people converge, affirming
idiosyncrasy, originality, and irrationality on all fronts. This
course will descend into the maelstrom of fantastic violence, irrationality, and rebellion to ask how such apparently marginal
phenomena prove to be not only central to the nature of literature
itself but remarkably stimulating to the modern mind. Works include the short fiction of Hawthorne, Henry James, Poe, Washington Irving
and the European writers, Nikolai Gogol, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Guy de Maupassant. Requirements include a few short papers, some
exams, and class participation. This course satisfies the American
Literature requirement for English concentrators. (Siebers)
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Times, Location, and Availability
449/Theatre 423. American
Theatre and Drama. (3). (HU).
See Theatre and Drama 423.
This course satisfies the American Literature requirement for
English concentrators. (Brater)
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473. Topics in American
Literature. (3 in IIIA, 2 in IIIB). (Excl). May be
repeated for credit with department permission.
Section 201 – Class and Money in American Fiction. This course
will explore the interrelationships of class and money in some
American fiction. These will range from the rags-to-riches success
formula of Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick of the 1880's
to Tom Wolfe's satire of the glitzy get-rich 1980s, Bonfire
of the Vanities. In between we will read W.D. Howells' A
Traveler from Altruria, Henry James' The American,
Jack London's Martin Eden, Theodore Dreiser's Sister
Carrie, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, F. Scott
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt,
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus. Grades in the course will be based
on three hourly exams and one essay (or perhaps two). This also
satisfies the American Literature requirement for English concentrators.
Cost:3 (Beauchamp)
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Take me to the Spring/Summer Time Schedule
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