Winter 2010 Course Descriptions
ENG 202 Introduction to Prose Fiction
Instructor: Jacqueline Zeff
Winter 2010 T,TH 11-12:15
In the prologue to Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the narrator assures us that what follows “is the truth, even if it didn’t happen.” In this course we read a rich variety of stories, tales, and novels that “didn’t happen,” but that reveal many truths about human behavior, the nature of reality, and the diverse ways we perceive cause and consequence. Lots of discussion, group activities, two exams and two papers. Students also write their own original tale. Texts include: A. Charters, ed. The Story & Its Writer 7th Compact Edition; W. Collins, The Woman in White; T. O’Brien, The Things They Carried.
ENG 215-W1 Survey of African American Literature
CRN: 23564
ONLINE with Dr. Alicia Kent
This course provides an introduction to the rich and varied traditions of African American literature. We will look at literature in several genres, including novels, poetry, music, and autobiographical writing. In addition, we will examine the socio-historical context that influenced the writers whose texts we are reading. The course is arranged historically around the theme of migration. We will be examining both literal and metaphorical movement as we make our own semester-long journey. We will begin with the Middle Passage and examine representations of forced migration; then, we will examine the movement out of enslavement, the Great Migration, and the movement to attain civil rights. Finally, as our survey moves into the present, we will examine the role of the past in the present and the problems and possibilities of social change for the future.
Course Texts:
The Vintage Book of African American Poetry edited by Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walter
Vintage Books; ISBN: 0375703004
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
Dover Publications; ISBN: 0486284999
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles Waddell Chesnutt
Penguin USA; ISBN: 0140186867
Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen, Deborah McDowell (Editor)
Rutgers University Press; ISBN: 0813511704
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
HarperCollins; ISBN: 9780060838676 (10-digit ISBN: 0060838671)
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Beacon Press; ISBN: 0807083054
ENG 241-02 Elements of Literary Analysis
with 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 340: INTRODUCTION TO COMPOSITION THEORY
With Dr. Stephanie Roach
English 340 has two purposes. The first is to provide a broad overview of competing theories in the field of Composition and Rhetoric, including some historical views that have helped influence the teaching of composition and shape the academic field of Composition and Rhetoric as we know it today. The second purpose is to investigate the writing process of accomplished writers in order to better understand writing and the writing process from theoretical and practical standpoints. Students critically examine competing theories of composition and analyze writing and the writing process of scholars, professionals, peers, and self. Students come to know and apply principles of the field of Composition and Rhetoric by engaging in the history, theory, and practice of writing.
English 359: Medieval Women's Literature
With Dr. Vickie Larsen
This Course Meets The Early-Period Requirement For English Majors
This course introduces students to the literature written by, for, or about women during the Middle Ages. We will read romances, private correspondence, mystical and visionary texts, virgin martyr biographies, courtly literature, and treatises on women and their many "secrets." As we read, we will consider the role of writing and reading in constructing medieval understandings of gender and in organizing the female body. Nearly all course readings will be in modern English translation and no experience with medieval literature is required. Course requirements will include essays, oral presentations, exams, and enthusiastic participation in class discussion.
Texts will include:
Chaste Passions: Medieval English Virgin Martyr Legends
Medieval Writings in Female Spirituality
Selected Writings of Christine de Pisan
The Lais of Marie de France
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
The Paston Letters
Women's Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo Albertus
ENG 374-01 Major Themes in American Ethnic Literatures
CRN: 24137
Topic: Multicultural America
Tuesday, Thursday 11 am – 12:15 pm with Dr. Alicia Kent
Through novels, poetry, graphic novels, short stories, autobiographical writing, and film, we will examine multiethnic American literatures with a focus on contemporary American writers. This course conceives of America as a contact zone, where cultures come into contact with one another, blending and clashing but inevitably shaping and re-shaping one another. Questions we will seek to answer include:
· How has crosscultural contact shaped our lives, American literature and American culture?
· How can we create connections in an increasingly diverse America?
· How can we build a national community across differences?
Course Texts (plus poetry, short stories, film):
Maus I & II (autobiographical graphic novel) by Art Spiegelman
Pantheon Books; ISBN: 0679748407
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
Pantheon ; ISBN-13: 9780375714573
Down These Mean Streets (autobiographical novel) by Pirie Thomas
Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679781420
Native Speaker (novel) by Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead Books; ISBN: 1573225312
Tonto and Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven (short story collection) by Sherman Alexie
Grove Press; ISBN-13: 9780802141675
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (play) by Anna Deavere Smith
Anchor; ISBN-13: 9780385473767
ENG 400 Women & Fiction
T, TH 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Instructor: Jacqueline Zeff
“I am not at all in a humour for writing;
I must write on till I am.”
(Jane Austen in a letter to her sister,
Cassandra, 26 October 1813)
In this seminar we will examine a variety of women storytellers who write in many “humours” but all contribute to the re-imagining of prose fiction. Texts include:
J. Austen, Mansfield Park
V. Woolf, Orlando; A Room of One’s Own
M.H. Washington, ed., Black-Eyed Susans & Midnight Birds: Stories By & About Black Women
E. Jong, Fear of Flying
J. Alvarez, ¡Yo !
Plus student’s choice of a novel in one of the following genres: science fiction, mystery, young adult, western, gothic
ENG 431/531 American Novel I
Thursdays, 4:00-6:45
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 to 1900.
Texts:
James Fenimore Cooper The Last of the Mohicans (1826)
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Herman Melville Moby-Dick (1851)
Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
Stephen Crane The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
Kate Chopin The Awakening (1899)
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 II. (It was offered in fall 2009.)