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English 528: Creative Writing--Collage
Professor Kenneth Bernard
This course is an experimental workshop class with titleernating
weeks of writing discussion and collage exercises. The former consists
of close reading of student writing with emphasis on grammar, logic,
rhetoric, and effectiveness. The latter consists of formal exercises
that attempt to parallel writing problems. One is a rigorous examination
of all aspects of writing. The other is an open-ended exploration
of creative process in which a student might feel less inhibited
than with writing. No egos, no sissies, and no text.
English
574: Twentieth Century English Novel
Professor Howard Silverstein
As the powerful tradition of Victorian fiction—moral,
realistic, popular—began to die, something different and more
complex came to emerge: the tradition of what we now name the “modern”
novel. In place of the preoccupation of the Victorian novel with
a detailed social world, early twentieth century fiction developed
a more subjective view, a concern with the action of the mind and
sometimes with the unconscious motivation of human behavior. As
fiction turned inward in its subject matter, the novelists became
more experimental in their handling of point of view, narrative
structure and often formed a new view of time. The course will place
special emphasis on the authors who shaped the modern British novel:
Henry James (The Aspen Papers). Joseph Conrad (Under Western
Eyes), Ford Madox Ford (The Good Soldier), D.H. Lawrence
(Sons and Lovers), James Joyce (Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man),and Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway). During
the semester, assigned readings will include the criticism of H.
G. Wells, E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, articles occasioned by
the literary war over the modern novel.
English
580: Postmodern American Fiction
Professor Michael Bennett
If earlier depictions of the Beautiful and the Sublime
from Kant through the Modernists focused on Nature as the locus
of feelings of overwhelming aesthetic power, contemporary depictions
are more likely to focus on the domain of Technology. In an attempt
to understand this development, Frederic Jameson and others have
tried to provide a cognitive map of what they call the “technological
sublime”: the sense of awe that overtakes us when we
try to comprehend the increasingly complex cultural and socio-economic
manifestations of Postmodernism: the internet, hypertexts, international
finance, global capitalism, and other technological developments
of the Information Age that can hardly be grasped by the human mind.
In his already-classic work Postmodernism; or, the Cultural Logic
of Late Capitalism, Jameson traces the development of the technological
sublime in several areas: culture, ideology, video art, architecture,
literature, economics, and film. Following Jameson’s lead,
we will begin with one of his essays on each of these areas and
look at each topic from a variety of perspectives, grounding our
discussion with the critical analysis of a particular work of American
fiction (including four novels, listed below, and various short
stories and other types of writing).
Texts: Gibson, William. Mona Lisa Overdrive;
Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism; or, the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism; Morrison, Toni. Beloved; Pynchon, Thomas.
The Crying of Lot 49; Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo;
Handouts.
Requirements: Your grade will be based on participation
(including attendance, contributions to class discussion, and one
or two class presentations) and one substantial class project (
a 15-20 page term paper, or an equivalent creative writing project,
or other substantial cultural production—video, hypertext,
etc.). There will also be a short response to the reading due at
the beginning of each class.
English
625: Nineteenth Century American Literature
Professor Kenneth Bernard
This course is a discussion of some standard American writers,
including Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Hawthorne, Melville,
Poe, James, Dickinson, Cooper, and Twain. The course isolates two
distinct strains in American literature and culture, which continue
to the present, and uses the metaphor/model/paradigm of Community/Territory
as an aid to understanding them.
English 700: Teaching Composition
Professor Patricia Stephens
This course is designed to introduce teachers to the theory
and practice of writing instruction in a variety of settings: college
composition courses, high school English courses, and writing center
tutorials. Intended as both a source of support and a forum for
discussion for new teachers as well as teachers with some experience
in the classroom, the course will explore the dynamic and often
complicated relationship between theory and practice in the teaching
of writing. Overall, the course aims to help students expand their
repertoire of theoretical and pedagogical knowledge and become more
thoughtful and self-reflective teachers. During the first half of
the semester, we will concentrate on readings that explore theories
and practices appropriate for various levels of teaching writing
(college, high school, and one-to-one tutoring). Writing assignments
for the course are intended to encourage teachers to respond to
issues raised and problems posed both in the readings and in hands-on
work with student writers. Around mid-term, students will select
an area of focus for a final research project intended to explore
in depth an area of interest in the teaching of writing for a particular
setting. Students may choose to work independently or collaboratively
on research projects. Possible texts include: The Writing Teacher’s
Sourcebook (4th edition), edited by Tate, Corbett,
and Meyers; In the Middle Way: New Understandings
about Writing, Reading, and Learning, by Atwell;
and Teaching One-to-One: The Writing Conference,
by Harris. A course reader, distributed by the instructor,
will excerpt work from key figures in composition studies.
English
707: Methods of Research and Criticism
Professor Patrick Horrigan
This
course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of
literary criticism and research. Some of the readings in literary
theory will be challenging. However, these readings will be balanced
with literary texts that ground our discussions of criticism and
give the class a common set of examples on which to test out and
examine differing literary approaches. For example, we might read
a text like Jane Eyre and examine its treatment over the
course of time at the hands of various critics from the nineteenth
century to today. In this way, the course is designed to give students
an overview of the development of literary criticism as a field
as well as the diversity of literary theory as it is practiced today.
In addition, students will also be introduced to research skills
and the practical knowledge needed to navigate the library. Ultimately,
the goal of this course is to appreciate literary criticism not
simply as a practice reserved for experts or done merely as a required
exercise but as an engagement with literature that enriches us both
as readers and teachers.
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