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Transfer Student Courses in EnglishThis page was created at 7:28 PM on Mon, Jan 21, 2002. Winter Academic Term, 2002 (January 7 - April 26)Open courses in English Wolverine Access Subject listing for ENGLISH Winter Academic Term '02 Time Schedule for English.
ENGLISH 325. Essay Writing: The Art of Exposition.
Section 006 – Writing the Social WorldInstructor(s): Stefan Senders (ssenders@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).
Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. In this class we will explore a variety of approaches to writing about society. Writing about the social world is notoriously difficult, as notions we tend to take for granted, such as our understandings of causality or human agency, are hard to support in rigorous argument, and they often seem to resist portrayal in vivid prose. Yet, society is something most of us are interested in talking and writing about. It is a topic that is as important as it is elusive, and to write about it well we will need to hone our analytical and authorial skills. Our readings will include classic academic articles from anthropology, sociology, and psychology, as well as works of fiction and non-fiction journalism. Students will be required to write three major papers, and to practice basic skills, such as interviewing, argumentation, and exposition. Students will also be expected to work closely with the instructor in the revision of papers. The class will be of particular interest to aspiring fiction writers, and those planning to work in the social sciences, journalism, or law.
ENGLISH 408 / LING 408. Varieties of English.
Section 001 – Middle English. Meets with English 503.001. Satisfies the Pre-1600 Literature requirement for English concentrators.Instructor(s): Thomas E Toon (ttoon@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This term we will examine (often with the aid of parallel translations) works in early Middle English, as well as the better known and more frequently studied major authors – Chaucer, Gower, Piers, the Pearl poet. Readings will include selections from prose and poetic histories, mystical writers; contemporary social and political documents (laws, recipes, medical texts, chronicles, charters). We will examine a wide range of early Middle English texts as we develop an appreciation for the roles written English played in medieval England and the cultural and political consequences of the ability to read and write. [Although this course follows up on material covered in English 407 (reading Old English), 407 is not a prerequisite.]
ENGLISH 417. Senior Seminar.
Section 002 – The Culture of Enlightenment.Instructor(s): Richard Feingold (berkeley@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Senior concentrator in English. May not be repeated for credit. (4). (Excl).
Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. The terrible events of September 11 and thereafter provide a pertinent and tragic context for this course. For the makers of the culture of the Enlightenment – the scientists, philosophers and imaginative writers whose remarkable work was done in the two centuries spanning the years 1600 to 1800 – either lived in or knew of a Europe that had been devastated by political conflict fueled by fierce religious passions. Taken together, the tendency of their work was to seek for a better way. Directly or by powerful implication their work amounted to a piercing criticism of the claims of religious authority and had in sight the reconstruction of human life on entirely secular grounds – on the basis, that is, of what could be known from our experience of this world, and not from what was revealed in the supernatural heavens. About the supernatural heavens and their inhabitants the skeptical thinkers of the Enlightenment didn't believe anything much could be known, but they did know that claims to such knowledge, especially when allied to political ends, could create havoc on earth. Among the results of their effort are some of the elements of modern life that we most value: religious toleration, freedom of speech, political democracy, immense advances in the scientific understanding of our natural environment, technological mastery of that environment, and greater material well-being and personal freedom than mankind had ever known before. Scientists, historians, psychologists, political theorists, philosophers all created the Enlightenment – Galileo, Gibbon, Locke, Hume – and we will read significant segments of their works. But, as is appropriate to an English course, our primary focus will be on how the literary imagination flourished in this revolutionary environment: Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson will be central to the course, with important corollary reading in the French writers, Voltaire and Diderot, and the American, Benjamin Franklin. Moreover, we will find room in this course for some work with John Milton – a writer who responded with ardent enthusiasm to the political and intellectual ferment of his time and who is of interest to us in this course precisely because his enthusiasm for the revolutionary environment of the Enlightenment seemed to him entirely compatible with religious convictions and commitments that other Enlightenment thinkers were more reserved about or hostile to. In working with Milton, we will focus mainly on Areopagitica, Milton's grand but troubled argument for freedom of the press, and I will expect students to know his Paradise Lost, either through previous course work or their willingness now to get to know it independently. All along we will be interested in those critiques of enlightenment culture – assessments of the costs associated with all its benefits – articulated by its own most interesting creators and by those who were to come later – including such major imaginative writers as Dostoyevsky, and such twentieth-century thinkers as Michel Foucault and Thedore Adorno. In the course of the term, students will write two or three short papers of about 3 pages each, and will prepare a term paper of about 20 pages which will require some study of recent scholarship. Each student will also make at least two presentations to the class. The course will be conducted primarily through class discussion, but from time to time I will give an informal lecture.
ENGLISH 417. Senior Seminar.
Section 004 – Protest and Patience in Late Medieval England.Instructor(s): Catherine Sanok (sanok@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Senior concentrator in English. May not be repeated for credit. (4). (Excl). Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Late medieval England witnessed tremendous political, economic, and religious upheaval, including the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the heretical Lollard movement, and the troubled kingship of Richard II and his deposition by Henry IV. This class explores the literature that responded to – and sometimes participated in – these and other crises, looking both at works that protest contemporary social conditions and those that advocate patient endurance of them. At this early moment in the English tradition, how does imaginative literature intervene in the world of political event and social ideology? What is the relationship between polemical works and self-consciously literary ones? We will read texts that address changing and contested understandings of political authority, religious practice, gender ideology, and class mobility; these will include Lollard texts, several of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Book of Margery Kempe, works from the Piers Plowman tradition, and some urban drama. Course requirements: active participation in class discussion; reading journal; one 20-minute oral presentation; 15 pp. seminar paper.
ENGLISH 417. Senior Seminar.
Section 005 – Land, Money, & Identity in 17th & 18th Century England.Instructor(s): Mark A Koch (markkoch@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Senior concentrator in English. May not be repeated for credit. (4). (Excl). Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. What does it mean that the protagonist of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, upon first viewing the grounds of a country manor remarks that to be mistress of that estate "might be something!" When Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine says, "Give me a map; then let me see how much is left for me to conquer all the world," what relationship is suggested between maps and such conquering heroes? This class will examine how the literature, cartography and other printed geographic texts of 17th and 18th century England created ideas of place and space. We will further consider the how these texts are linked to new conceptions of land; money and wealth; and national, local, and individual identity. We will read three novels by Daniel Defoe including Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe, and The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, as well as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Additional readings, in a fairly full course pack, will include several recent essays on critical cartography, a few travel accounts from the period, and a number of poems. Course work includes two exams, weekly contributions to an online discussion, a brief class presentation, and a single, sustained, and substantial sixteen-page term paper.
ENGLISH 433. The Modern Novel.
Section 001.Instructor(s): John A Whittier-FergusonPrerequisites & Distribution: (4). (Excl). Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course will examine developments in English fiction from the turn of the century to the mid-1940s. We will explore the ways in which the twentieth-century novel, rather than being driven primarily by plot, attempts to trace, in Joyce's words, "the curve of an emotion" or to incorporate, as Lawrence desires, philosophy and fiction in the novel. Virginia Woolf tells us that "human nature changed" in the first decade of the 1900s. Certainly the way novelists constructed human nature altered dramatically. We will discuss issues that repeatedly manifest themselves in these novels: how do men and women in the twentieth century respond to or initiate the radical redefinitions of sex roles that characterize the modern period? How do the wars of the first half of the previous century shape and deform the novels written at that time? How does this body of fiction address (and fail to address) the volatile issues associated with race and class in the first half of the twentieth century? We will also pay close attention to the variety of ways each author positions her/himself in relation to a past: how does the modern stand in relation to history? Readings will include a substantial course pack and the following texts: Gertrude Stein, Three Lives; James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; and Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man. Course requirements are three essays (two five-page papers and a final, more substantial essay that's seven to nine pages long). There will be a final exam.
ENGLISH 441. Contemporary Poetry.
Section 001 – Contemporary Poetry.Instructor(s): Richard L Hilles (rhilles@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course will provide you with an overview of the major aesthetic directions in American poetry since 1945 and introduce you to the various critical traditions devised to explain them. To this end, Contemporary American Poetry (7th Edition) will serve as the basis for studying the key poets of this period. We will also look at the full careers of three poets: Sylvia Plath, Stanley Kunitz, and Robert Hass (who will deliver the Hopwood Lecture in February). Also, we will look at two recent volumes by "newer poets," two books of criticism, and a coursepack of supplementary readings. Students will be required to give one presentation and write two research papers.
ENGLISH 444 / THTREMUS 322. History of Theatre II.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Leigh Woods (lawoods@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).
Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. See Theatre and Drama 322.001.
ENGLISH 444 / THTREMUS 322. History of Theatre II.
Section 002.Instructor(s): E.J. Westlake (jewestla@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).
Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. See Theatre and Drama 322.002.
ENGLISH 473. Topics in American Literature.
Section 002 – The Conquest of America.Instructor(s): Michael StaubPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit with department permission. Credits: (3; 2 in IIIb). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course introduces students to the literature of the early Americas. There will be units on Conquest and Contact, Captivity Narratives, and Capitalism and the Invention of Race. We will read literature produced by Europeans about their real or imagined encounters with the peoples of the Americas, as well as reports on Native peoples' responses to the Europeans. We will read the testimonies of Africans and African Americans about the Middle Passage and enslavement, as well as European-authored antislavery narratives and stories of cross-racial romance. We will also consider both literary and historical scholarship on the early histories of conquest and slavery, as well as analyze more recent cultural products – including fiction and film – reimagining this era. Assigned texts include: Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions; Jill Lepore, The Name of War; Caryl Phillips, Cambridge; and Giles Gunn, Early American Writing. Grades in the course will be based on active class participation, two exams, and short writing assignments.
ENGLISH 479 / CAAS 489. Topics in Afro-American Literature.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Michele Simms-Burton (mlsimms@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: English 274 and CAAS 201 and/or 320 strongly recommended. (3). (Excl). May be repeated for a total of six credits.
Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course will examine how certain fictional narratives by twentieth-century African American writers represent race, class, gender, and sexuality. We will be reading works by Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Pauline Hopkins, Andrea Lee, Ntozake Shange, and Paule Marshall, to name a few writers.
ENGLISH 482. Studies in Individual Authors.
Section 003 – Dickens and Wilde.Instructor(s): David W Thomas (dwthomas@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit with department permission. Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. Charles Dickens was the Shakespeare of Victorian Britain, a prolific creator of memorable characters and incidents, at once comic and tragic. He also reflects that notorious Victorian value – earnestness. And Oscar Wilde is, well, the Wilde of Victorian Britain. In his writings and in his own life, he was so dazzling that even those who wished to hate him had to give up and laugh with him. But his life also took a classically tragic form after his public humiliation and imprisonment for homosexual offences. This double-author course showcases these two different literary stylists; it explores the historical differences between the early- and mid-Victorian moment of Dickens and the Late-Victorian, fin-de-siècle moment of Wilde; and it considers the critical uses to which these two authors are put today. I anticipate that we will discover the genuine complexity of Dickens' human vision and the surprising earnestness of Wilde's. Two papers; two examinations.
ENGLISH 484. Issues in Criticism.
Section 001 – Rhetoric & the Achievement of Women's Rights.Instructor(s): Alisse S Theodore (alisse@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term). Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alisse/ENGL484w02/index.html Most nineteenth-century American women had little or no access to political leaders, higher education, or even the wages they earned; they were not allowed to vote, sign contracts, or own property in the United States. Despite these rigid constraints and tremendous opposition, over a span of eight decades American women generated massive social and political changes. How? By using the only tool available to them: language. Clearly, what we say, how we say it, and to whom it is said can – and does – change the world. In this class, you'll learn to use rhetorical theory as a way to critically examine persuasive appeals while we study texts from the nineteenth-century woman's rights movement. Together, we will consider the power of language to define, reform, and even revolutionize politics and society. Work for the course includes class participation, quizzes, and two exams. For waitlist and attendance policies, visit the course website.
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