University of Michigan - Flint

ENG 202  Introduction to Prose Fiction
MW  9:30-10:45 am
John Pendell

This course will introduce students to various forms of narrative prose fiction, from short (stories) to long (the novel), and some stops in between (the not-so-short story, or novella).  One major goal of the course is to explore the art of the storyteller in a wide range of cultural contexts and time periods.  Another is to gain familiarity with the array of narrative strategies authors use to draw readers in to unfamiliar worlds, to shock them, to upend or defy their expectations, and to engage with social, historical, and political issues in innovative ways.  The anthology includes works from major short story writers (Faulkner, Joyce, O’Connor, etc.) as well as more recent and experimental selections.  The novel is from a contemporary master of the genre.  Requirements include quizzes and exams, short analysis and research assignments, a class presentation, and regular participation in discussion. 

Required Texts
Cassill and Bausch, eds.  The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 7th ed. 
Coetzee, Disgrace

English 205 The Bible as Literature: The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Dr. Vickie Larsen

This course is an introduction to the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, and its vast and varied array of literary forms. We will encounter many of the famous, and some of the lesser-known, characters and narratives found in these ancient writings, with an eye toward understanding how biblical authors imagined the Israelite and Hebrew historical experience through poetry, story-cycles, songs, law codes, prophecies, wisdom literature, and other genres. While the Hebrew Bible is, in its current form, foremost a meditation on the fate of a single people over many long-ago centuries, two of the important objectives of this course are to examine the forms the Hebrew Bible has taken throughout its long history, and to discover new ways of reading it by modern literary-critical methods. Course requirements will include regular participation in class discussions, two tests, a presentation, a research assignment, and a final exam.

ENG/WGS 228 Women and Literature
TR 11-12:15 pm  (CRN10110 & 10109)
Dr. Jacqueline Zeff

This course is about what Toni Morrison named "author-ity," i.e., claiming the right to write.  We examine a selection of writings by British and American women who dared to evoke the power of words and who made women's experiences the center of their literary accomplishments. Texts: Jane Eyre (novel), "A Room of One's Own" (essay), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (autobiography), Mars & Her Children (poetry),  In the Time of the Butterflies (novel). Plus class handouts that amuse, startle, provoke, educate, and unsettle.  There will be two exams, a paper, and a take-home final.

ENG 241-01 Elements of Literary Analysis
MW 12:30-1:45 pm
Dr. Alicia Kent

Ever thought about why we read literature? In this course  we will read a variety of literary genres, focusing on short stories, poetry, and drama, in order to learn how to analyze literature. To this end, we will examine not only what the texts say, but how they are written, how authors choose and use words, and what effect these choices have on us. This course functions in part as a skills-based course in which you will learn methods of textual analysis, the formal elements of literary texts, and the vocabulary of literary analysis.

Throughout the semester, we will ask ourselves why we read literature, and while we may not come up with the answer, the many answers we develop will hopefully lead you to ask new questions about literature and to develop a new joy for analyzing texts of all kinds. By the end, you should emerge from this course with an expanded vocabulary of concepts for interpreting literature on the thematic and formal levels with a richer sensitivity to the nuances of literary texts and the range of questions that a literary text can pose.

Course Texts:
➢    The Seagull Reader: Literature 3-Volume Boxed Set (Stories, Poems, Plays), Second Edition. Ed. Joseph Kelly. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008.
ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93264-5
➢    Howl. Allen Ginsberg. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1956. ISBN-10: 0872860175
ISBN-13: 978-0872860179

ENG 241-02 Elements of Literary Analysis
T R 2:30 pm - 3:45 pm, 355 FH (CRN 10074 Section 2)
Dr. Jacqueline Zeff
 
This course is designed to: enrich your skills as an active reader of fiction, poetry, and drama; to familiarize you with  the main strategies and vocabulary of literary study; to develop your ability to think and write about literature in its several contexts and its diverse expressions; and to enhance your appreciation for the role of literature in the life of the mind and heart. Texts include Charters & Charters, eds. Literature and Its Writers, Compact 4th Edition with CD; Sophocles, Antigone (David Grene translation--purchase for yourself online); and Ernest J. Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men.  Lots of discussion, multi-media activities, and four short papers. Final exam.

ENG 241-W1 Elements of Literary Analysis
Online
Dr. Frederic Svoboda

English 241 is intended to provide you with the basics on which to build more advanced literary study, or just appreciative reading.  We will cover three major genres, fiction, poetry and drama.  All English 241 sections are designed to increase your ability to write about literature with insight and appreciation; this on line section particularly does so since all of our interactions will be in writing.  

We will read from throughout literature written in English, primarily British and American.  In fiction we will read two to five short stories a week, in poetry quite a few individual poems per week, and in drama a total of seven plays, two short and five full length 

 A lot of what we do will be along the lines of "close reading," which means reading with attention to the ways in which all the specific elements of a work contribute to its overall effect.  If you haven't done this before you likely will find that there is more in many literary works of art than immediately meets the eye.  Most are carefully crafted and shaped to convey impressions and meanings to the reader.  This doesn't mean that there necessarily is one "correct" reading of a work, but that our opinions must take account of all that the writer provides to us.

Course work will include:

• Weekly written responses to the literature--and to others' ideas.
• On line quizzes to check the accuracy of your reading.
• A final paper examining yourself as reader of literature and built from earlier pieces that you wrote during the semester.

Course text: The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Ninth Edition.

Lin 284 Gender and Communication
TR 12:30-1:45       
Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing
Attribute S;  Cross-listed with COM 284 and WGS 284
Mr. Steve Johnson

Analysis of gender/communication issues, including how women and men use language differently, how women and men are portrayed in language, and how language reflects and recreates social identity.

ENG 298 Analysis & Criticism of Video Games
Dr. James Schirmer

This course will introduce students to writing about video games, including commentary, history, news, and reviews. A major goal of this course is to provide students with the necessary foundation to make quality contributions to this area of inquiry; another is to gain familiarity with prominent writers in the field. Students will also reflect on their own past and present gaming experiences. While the focus of the course is on playing and researching video games, supplemental readings (namely from Frans Mayra's Introduction to Game studies) will scaffold such activities. Additional requirements include bi-weekly reviews, class presentations, research assignments and regular participation in discussion.

Eng/Lin 299 Language and Human Nature           
Online
Dr. Kazuko Hiramatsu

We will be using Steven Pinker’s book The Stuff of Thought (2007) as a starting point for examining how language reflects human nature. What does language tell us about human conceptions of such things as space, time and causation? By looking at a variety of examples, including legal language, baby naming and swearing, we will explore how language relates to: thought, reality, community, emotions and social relations.

This course may be of interest to students studying English, Anthropology, and Psychology.

English 303 Medieval Literature
Dr. Vickie Larsen

This course will survey some of the oldest literary texts in English, beginning with the literature of the Anglo Saxons who conquered England after the “fall of the Roman Empire,” and ending a millennium later. Our readings will include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Canterbury Tales, and Morte de Arthur, and The Book of Margery Kempe. We will read from medieval chronicle, romance, travel narrative, epic and lyric poetry, fabliau, visionary literature, and street theater; and our readings will explore the anxious boundaries between pagan and Christian, mysticism and madness, Jew and gentile, noble and peasant, monster and man.  Students will be introduced to Old and Middle English as languages, but most texts will be in modern translation. Some reading and recitation in Middle English will be required. Course requirements will include one formal research essay, three shorter papers, collaborative work, participation in class discussion, and a final exam.
 
Required Texts
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Vol 1, The Medieval Period, Joseph Black et al, eds.

ENG 315 Shakespeare in History
MW  12:30-1:45
John Pendell

This course will cover a selection of Shakespeare’s plays, at least one from each of the major genres—history, comedy, tragedy, and romance—focusing on the historical context of his plots, language, and performances in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as well as their continuing relevance and popularity today.  We will seek depth instead of coverage, reading a small group of plays fairly slowly, in order to best understand Shakespeare’s language and explore important performance issues such as staging, casting, humor, and audience expectations.  Our engagement with the plays will also be driven by a range of modern literary critical approaches, such as gender and sexuality studies, the politics of power, psychological and sociological issues, and others.  Requirements include quizzes and exams, some short research assignments, and class presentations.  Students must also be willing to a bit of in-class performance of play scenes—no acting experience required.   

Required Texts
Bevington, ed.  The Necessary Shakespeare, 3rd ed.
Widdicombe, Simply Shakespeare

ENG 336: History and Principles of Rhetoric
MW 4:00-5:15
Dr. Stephanie Roach

Curious about RHETORIC? Interested in the STUDY OF LANGUAGE? Want to learn how FAMOUS THINKERS have thought about the RESPONSIBILITIES OF READERS AND WRITERS
and the POWER OF LANGUAGE?
 
Take ENG 336: History and Principles of Rhetoric

•    Explore landmark ideas about language from the ancient to the postmodern western world

•    Consider the implications of rhetorical theories for the work of writers and readers

•    Survey the influence of the history of rhetoric on modern composition theory and practice

•    Examine current and historical definitions of rhetoric

•    Engage in discussions about language and power

•    Analyze scholarship in the field of rhetoric

•    Apply rhetorical concepts

ENG 336 is as an introduction to rhetorical theory that surveys the history of rhetoric from the Greeks to the 20th Century.  ENG 336 examines current and historical definitions of rhetoric and explores the evolution and development of some of the historical thinking about language that has influenced modern composition theory and practice.  ENG 336 helps fulfill the “Composition Theory” requirement for those majoring in English with a Specialization in Writing but is taken by anyone interested in a historical look at how and why we use language.
 
Contact Dr. Stephanie Roach for additional information.

English 354 Public and Professional Writing
 M/W 2:30:-3:45 pm in FH 557 (computer writing classroom)
Janelle Wiess

Whether you are looking to land a job or continue your education, ENG 354 will give you the tools you need to be competitive. In 354 we will learn strategies for success in writing for a variety of public and professional settings. Special emphasis will be placed on tough style writing, résumés, cover letters, personal statements, and interviews. This course will teach skills for adapting to particular readers and disciplines, because whether we are writing an academic article or posting on a social networking site, we need to be aware of the expectations of our audience. Course materials will come from a variety of sources and mediums, including guest speakers from local employers. Those with credit for ENG 112 and at least junior standing are eligible to take the course.

Required Texts
Write This Way: A Job Seeker’s Guide to Employment
Robert W. Barnett & Philip T. Greenfield
(available in electronic copy)

Recommended Texts
A Pocket Style Manual
Diana Hacker
5e with 2009 MLA Update
ISBN: 0-312-59324-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-59324-7

ENG 357-01 American Literature, 1914-1945
MW 2:30-3:45 pm
Dr. Alicia Kent

This course focuses on American literature and culture between 1914 and 1945. Bookended by two world wars, this period saw unprecedented changes in the world and in American life. In turn, these dramatic and dizzying transformations resulted in fundamentally altered perceptions of reality, which led to, among other things, radical experimentation with language and a reexamination of literary representation itself.

This course provides a literary survey of the first half of the twentieth century, with a focus on novels and poetry. We will read canonical Modernist writers (e.g., T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck), more recently recognized figures (e.g., Willa Cather, H.D., Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, and Anzia Yezierska), and literature by those outside the traditional literary canon (including Native Americans, immigrants from Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, and newly Americanized Mexican residents). We will also explore the Harlem Renaissance alongside Modernism to deepen our understanding of the literature of this period.

ENG 400-01 Seminar: The Harlem Renaissance
Mondays 5:30-8:15 pm
Dr. Alicia Kent

Known as “The New Negro Movement” and later as the Harlem Renaissance, the period from roughly 1920 to 1940 saw an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among African Americans in all artistic fields. In the midst of legalized segregation and heightened anti-black violence, African Americans in larger numbers than ever in American history responded by reclaiming the right to represent themselves in a wide range of artistic media.

This seminar will examine plays, novels, short stories, and poetry by canonical and non-canonical Harlem Renaissance figures including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Richard Nugent, Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Gwendolyn Bennett, Anne Spencer. We will also explore the cultural and historical conditions that produced this cultural revolution, the effects of which were felt around the world and have since left a rich cultural legacy that continues to shape American and international literature.

ENG 432/532 American Novel II
Wednesdays, 4:00-6:45 in 329 FH
Dr. Fred Svoboda

The American novel as a unique literary form developing its own traditions; its relationship to its own native culture and to that of Europe. Critical analyses of works by important American authors; literary movements from 1900 to the present.

Texts
Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises (1926)
William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar (1962)
Toni Morrison Song of Solomon (1977)
John Updike The Witches of Eastwick (1984)
Gish Jen The Love Wife (2004).
 
Course Design and Goals: Enrollment permitting, the course will run as a seminar.  Students should expect to read and to report to the class on at least one additional important American novel.  There will be one short and one longer paper, plus occasional brief "comments" using a Blackboard on line course companion.  No exams as such, but students should expect to be able to demonstrate their mastery of individual works and of the continuing concerns of American writers.  Students need not have taken American Novel I. (It will be offered in winter 2010.)

ENG 513 Digital Rhetorics, Digital Identities
Dr. James Schirmer

This course will introduce students to various online communicative technologies, from blogs and wikis to social bookmarking and networking sites like Digg and Twitter. One major goal of the course is to explore the potential of these technologies for pedagogical and rhetorical purposes; another is to gain familiarity with how identities are constructed and fragmented online. While the focus of the course is on technological immersion, supplemental readings will scaffold such activity. Additional requirements include short analysis and research assignments, class presentations and regular participation in discussion.

English 522: Medieval Devotional Literatures
Dr. Vickie Larsen

Literatures designed to transform the reader by (re)directing his or her emotions were the best sellers of late medieval England, particularly among women readers.  These medieval self-help books, and the reading practices they prescribed, promised to transform their readers by teaching them how to see themselves, shape their emotional lives, direct their libidinal desires, manage their bodies, accommodate suffering, and find compassion. We will read Middle English Marian lyrics, community theater, mystical meditations, pilgrimage journals, autobiographies, Books of Hours, the biographies of saints, and confessional manuals; and we will examine medieval devotional iconography. As a course in the history of reading, this course will be interested in the aligned emotions, lifestyles, and reading habits of medieval nuns, monks, and laity.
 
Possible Texts:
George Bataille, Eroticism: Death and Sensuality
William Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions
Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast Holy Fast
Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Susan Marti (eds), Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries  
Eaman Duffy, Marking the Hours
Julian of Norwich, Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love
Robert Mannyng, Handlyng Synne
Margery Kempe, The Book
Ancrene Wisse
Egeria's Travels
Middle English Legends of Women Saints
Middle English Marian Lyrics

EDR 585/ENG 588 & EDR 485/ENG 400
Special Topics: Reading the works of Christopher Paul Curtis
Dr. Rose Casement

This course will provide an opportunity for an in-depth look at the work of award winning author, Christopher Paul Curtis, Winegarden Visiting Professor for the '09-'10 academic year.

We will also look at works by other outstanding authors, Jacqueline Woodson and Gary Schmidt.

The class will be a Tuesday, 4:30-7:15 (mix mode) and will meet face-to face on September 8th, 22nd, October 6th, 20th, November 3rd, 17th, & December 1st, 8th.