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College of Arts and
Sciences
Course Descriptions
Prerequisites:The satisfaction of the English C050 requirement or its equivalent is a prerequisite for English courses numbered 50 or above.
Students are expected to work out with their adviser that sequence of introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses which meets their educational goals.
PREPARATORY LEVEL
0002. Essentials of English Grammar (3 s.h.) S
An introduction to and review of parts of speech, major sentence
parts, basic sentence patterns, sentence connections and voice
for students who want to acquire a systematic knowledge of basic
English grammar. Not primarily a linguistics course but reflects
the current state of the scientific study of English. Written
assignments include exercises, quizzes, and compositions.
0040. Introduction to Academic Discourse (4 s.h.) FS
Until students have completed their English 40 requirement,
they may not enroll in English C050/51 or R050.
English 0040 focuses on writing within a single theme and
disciplinary approach. students create a portfolio of their work
including at least 6 sequenced assignments culminating in a final
project made up of parts with independent due dates, and ungraded
assignments such as journal entries.
0041. Introduction to Academic Discourse (4 s.h.) FS
English 0041 is designed to accommodate the needs of the ESL
learner. Until students have completed their English 41
requirement, they may not enroll in English C050/51 or R050.
The guidelines for English 40 are followed in this courses, but
in the ESL writing classroom there are cross-cultural
implications both of what it means to do academic work and also
what it means to share historical and cultural knowledge. Oral
participation is encouraged as a way of encouraging fluency and
enhancing comfort with participation in American academic
settings. Classes are smaller than in English 40, and teachers
spend extended time in tutorial conferences with students.
LOWER LEVEL
These courses are intended for students with little or no background in literature.
C050.College Composition (3 s.h.) FS
English C050/51 or R050 is a prerequisite for Intellectual
Heritage X051 and X052 and any upper level courses in the College
of Arts and Sciences. English C050/51 or R090 may not be taken
for credit by students who have successfully completed English
H090.
English C050 takes a broader perspective than 40, requiring
students to explore a single theme from the point of view of a
variety of disciplines. In C050 students spend the first half of
the semester learning how to define terms and summarize arguments
they have read. In the second half they focus on articulating
specific positions and using evidence to support their claims.
English C050 requires at least one writing assignment involving
library work, citation, and bibliography.
R050. College Composition (3 s.h.) FS
English R050 is the same as C050 except that the readings
focus on the study of race. It meets the Core Studies in Race
requirement as well as the Core Composition requirement. English
C050/51 or R050 is a prerequisite for Intellectual Heritage X051
and X052 and any upper level courses in the College of arts and
Sciences. R090 may not be taken for credit by students who have
successfully completed English H090.
C051. College Composition (3 s.h.) FS
English C051 is designed to accommodate the needs of the ESL
learner. The guidelines for English C050 are followed in this
courses, but in the ESL writing classroom there are
cross-cultural implications both of what it means to do academic
work and also what it means to share historical and cultural
knowledge. Oral participation is encouraged as a way of
encouraging fluency and enhancing comfort with participation in
American academic settings. Classes are smaller than in English
C050, and teachers spend extended time in tutorial conferences
with students. English C050/51 or R050 is a prerequisite for
Intellectual Heritage X051 and X052 and any upper level courses
in the College of arts and Sciences. English C050/51 or R090 may
not be taken for credit by students who have successfully
completed English H090.
C056. American Literature (3 s.h.) (AC/D1) FS
Study of the complex variety of experience in America and how
American literature is structured by issues: Native, black, and
white; frontier and town; female and male; the individual self
and the democratic life; private and public; traditional and
radical. How literary works reflect historical, social,
political, psychological, and cultural settings as well as
specific periods and regional concerns.
0081. Introduction to Poetry (3 s.h.) (D1) FS
How to read and enjoy poetry. Students read various kinds of
poems written in English such as the sonnet, elegy, dramatic
monologue, and narrative, rather than survey the history of
English and American poetry chronologically.
W082. Introduction to Fiction (3 s.h.) (D1) FS
An introduction to various forms of fiction: tales, fables,
stories, and novels. Focuses on close reading and analysis to
develop an appreciation of creative works of fiction and skills
in critical reading.
C083. Introduction to Drama (3 s.h.) (AR/D1) FS
How to read plays and enjoy them in the theater, how to recognize
their cultural and human values; and how to use principles of
dramatic criticism. Readings from Sophocles through the moderns.
X084. Introduction to Literature (3 s.h.) FS
A general introduction to the main types of literature (fiction,
poetry, drama) with the goal of teaching the critical enjoyment
of a variety of reading. Discussion of some major ways of
addressing works of literature. Required for English majors.
H090. Introduction to Literature and
Composition-Honors (3 s.h.) FS
An introduction to various forms of literature and to the
rhetorical principles in composition. A combination of reading
and writing assignments (5000 words minimum). Taken together with
Intellectual Heritage X090 and X091 in sequence, this course
fulfills the College Composition requirement.
Honors Sections: For description of Honors sections of Core Courses (C056, C083, X084), see Honors Program Guide.
UPPER LEVEL
Courses numbered 0100-0199 are primarily for students with
some (though not necessarily extensive) experience in the
techniques of literary analysis.
Courses numbered 0200-0399 are designed primarily for students
who have demonstrated a firm grasp of the fundamental techniques
of literary analysis and composition and who have taken at least
one literature course at the 100 level.
W101. Developing Prose Style (3 s.h.) FS
Prerequisite: College Composition C050 or equivalent. For
students who feel secure in the fundamentals but want additional
instruction beyond the introductory composition courses to
improve their writing.
Develops powers of analysis and expression as well as awareness
of what constitutes effective writing. Readings assigned in
accordance with these goals. Students write a total of about 5000
words.
W102. Technical Writing (3 s.h.) FS
Prerequisite: College Composition C050 or equivalent. For
students in engineering and related fields.
Covers style, organization, and mechanics of technical papers,
with emphasis on special problems that face the technical writer:
analyses and descriptions of objects and processes, reports,
proposals, business correspondence, and research papers. Students
write a number of short reports and one long research paper. By
the end of the course, professional standards of accuracy in
mechanics and presentation are expected. Some impromptu writing
exercises.
W103. Writing the Research Essay (3 s.h.) FS
Prerequisite: College Composition C050 or equivalent.
Designed to improve writing skills in general and teach students
to use library resources, conduct research, and organize and
present the acquired information effectively. Readings may be
assigned, but class and conference time are devoted principally
to analysis and discussion of research and writing problems.
Students write a total of approximately 5000 words in essays and
exercises related to a research project.
W104. Writing for Business and Industry (3 s.h.) FS
Prerequisite: College Composition C050 or equivalent. Meets
the writing needs of people in business and industry and students
who plan professional careers.
Extensive practice in various forms of writing appropriate to all
levels of management, including reports, proposals, memoranda,
and letters. Instruction in research techniques and the writing
of a formal researched report on a business topic. Job
applications, letters of inquiry, and resumes. Some impromptu
writing exercises.
0107. Creative Writing: Poetry (3 s.h.) FS
An introduction to the craft of writing poetry. Form, metrics,
imagery, and other aspects of poetry expression discussed in a
workshop atmosphere. In addition to producing original work,
students may be asked to examine contemporary poetry critically.
0108. Creative Writing: Fiction (3 s.h.) FS
Workshop in which students read and discuss one another's
material and develop skills as both writers and readers.
Beginning writers welcome, but thorough grounding in the
conventions of grammar, spelling, and punctuation essential.
R110. Language and Race (3 s.h.) S
The course will investigate language and race in order to
evaluate accurately and objectively many common beliefs about the
connections between the two. We will demonstrate how all
languages systematically organize sounds, grammar, and meanings
with a special emphasis on the structure of African American
English. We will investigate how particular ways of speaking may
or may not affect one's thought patterns or social identity, and
study public policy issues involving language and race.
0111. Introduction to Linguistics (3 s.h.) (D4) FS
The nature and structure of human language: the universal
properties of language, how languages resemble each other, how
children learn languages, how sound and meaning are related to
each other, how the mind processes language, and how geographic
and social factors affect language. Attention to the scientific
methods linguists use to test hypotheses. Not recommended for
students who have had Speech-Language-Hearing 0108, Anthropology
0127, or the equivalent. Only one of the courses,
Speech-Language-Hearing 0108 or English 0111, may be credited
toward the B.A. degree.
0114. Survey of English Literature: Beginnings to 1660
(3 s.h.) FS
Required for all English majors. Should be taken before most
0200-level courses. A study of major works of English literature
from the middle ages and the renaissance in their historical and
social settings. Analysis of individual characteristics and
lasting literary value. Readings include Beowulf, Chaucer, and
Sir Gawain; Sidney, Jonson, and the Metaphysical Poets (Donne,
Marvel, and others), as well as Shakespeare and Milton.
0115. Survey of English Literature: 1660-1900 (3 s.h.)
FS
Required for all English majors. Should be taken before most
0200-level courses. A continuation of English 0114. Covers
themes, genres, and major literary works in their historical and
social settings from the restoration through the 18th century,
the romantic, and the Victorian periods. Readings: Dryden, Pope,
Johnson, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Dickens, and Wilde.
W116. Survey of American Literature I (3 s.h.) (D1) FS
Required for all English majors. Readings in the colonial and
federalist periods and in the New England renaissance of the
mid-19th century. The literary forms include diaries, letters,
sermons, poetry, fiction, travel narratives, and historical
chronicles. Authors include Bradstreet, Taylor, Edwards,
Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, Freneau, Irving, Bryant, Hawthorne,
Melville, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, and Emily Dickinson.
0124. American Playwrights (3 s.h.) F
American Playwrights from Eugene O'Neill to the present.
Principles of dramatic analysis, the distinctively American
qualities of the plays and their debt to the best of Modern
European drama. Authors may include Williams, Miller, Mamet,
Rabe, Shepard, Hellman, Maria Irene Fornes. Includes film-viewing
and play going.
R125. Afro-American Literature I (3 s.h.) F
A chronological survey of African-American literature from its
beginnings-poetry, prose, slave narratives, and fiction-including
the works of authors such as Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick
Douglass, W. W. Brown, Harriet Wilson, Frances E. W. Harper,
Charles Chesnutt, B.T. Washington, J.W. Johnson, and W.E.B.
DuBois. An examination of racial consciousness as a theme rooted
in social and historical developments, with special emphasis on
national, cultural, and racial identity, color, caste,
oppression, resistance, and other concepts, related to race and
racism emerging in key texts of the period.
R126. Afro-American Literature II (3 s.h.) S
A survey of African-American literature from 1915 to the present,
including poetry, prose, fiction, and drama. Analysis of
developments in racial consciousness, from "race pride"
to the Black Aesthetic and the influences on literature brought
about by interracial conflicts, social and historical concepts
such as assimilation and integration, and changing notions of
culture. Authors such as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude
McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Sterling Brown, Nella Larsen, Richard
Wright, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Ralph Ellison,
including contemporary writers Baraka, Morrison, and others.
W133. Shakespeare (3 s.h.) (D1) FS
Major plays of Shakespeare chosen from among the comedies,
tragedies, and histories. Focuses primarily on the plays as
literature: their poetic forms, themes, and values. Teaches
appropriate principles of literary analysis. Some attention to
social and intellectual background and Elizabethan stage
techniques.
0150. Special Topics (3 s.h.) S
Each section of this course explores a carefully- defined theme,
topic, or type of literature.
0154. Modern Fiction (3 s.h.) S
Themes and techniques in the work of several major modern
writers, such as James, Conrad, Lawrence, Joyce, Faulkner,
Proust, Mann, and Kafka. Literary devices and psychological and
philosophical implications that make modern fiction
representative of modern consciousness. Themes include the role
of the artist in society, the alienation of the individual, and
the importance of the unconscious mind.
0155. Modern Drama (3 s.h.) S
Representative themes and techniques of modern drama in the works
of such playwrights as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Pirandello,
O'Neill, Shaw.
0156. Satire (3 s.h.) F
Satiric literature from the Romans to the present with some
attention to satire in such nonliterary forms as the visual arts
in an attempt both to master individual works and to understand
the motives, strategies, and efforts of satires.
0157. The Short Story (3 s.h.) S
A reading of the best of the major short story writers, European
and American, classic, modernist, and experimental, considering
the form, the technique, the art of the stories, and the way in
which they refract experience rather differently from other
literary kinds.
0158. Children's Literature and Folklore (3 s.h.) S
An introduction to the world of childhood and its relation to
literature and culture: how the idea of childhood has changed
through history; how children's literature is shaped by, and
shapes, notions of gender, race, and class. Readings in classics
and not-so-classics from the Brothers Grimm to Judy Blume.
W160. Women in Literature (3 s.h.) F
A study of selected literature by and about women. The course is
cross-listed with the Women's Studies Program.
0170. The Art of the Film (3 s.h.) S
Conducted on the premise that a film can be discussed in terms of
its structure and components (such as sound and image, shot, and
scene) and also placed in wider contexts (such as cultural
movements, historical events, conventions, and critical
concepts). Basic elements of film language with constant
reference to larger issues and concepts relevant to the
understanding of each individual film. No previous knowledge of
the technical aspects of filmmaking required.
R170. Art of the Film (3 s.h.) F
This course will explore the portrayal of black characters in
American films from the racist portrayals in The Birth of a
Nation, the "Stepin Fetchit" films, and Gone
with the Wind through the black exploitation films like Shaft
and Superfly. The course will culminate in a
discussion of the new black cinema, beginning with Melvin Van
Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song, and progressing
to the work of African-American directors, Spike Lee and John
Singleton. We will view Do the Right Thing, Jungle
Fever, Malcolm X, and Boyz 'n the Hood.
Films will be shown once a week and will range from short films
like the 1903 Uncle Tom's Cabin to
longer works. Students will also write, produce, and direct a
non-racist film as a course project. This section satisfies the
Studies in Race Core Curriculum requirement.
ADVANCED LEVEL
0200. Career Internship (3 s.h.) FS
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. On-the-job training
in positions in business, industrial, or cultural institutions
for juniors and seniors with a grade point average of at least
3.0.
Includes a seminar which meets regularly. One semester may be
counted toward the English major. For additional information
consult English Department Advising Coordinator, 1030 Anderson
Hall.
0201. Advanced Composition (3 s.h.) S
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Designed to help students
improve at composing understandings of academic culture by
reading and writing about texts important to contemporary study
in the humanities and social sciences.
0202. Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction (3 s.h.) S
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor and successful completion
of one lower level writing course and one upper level literature
course. Intended to help writers develop their techniques and
familiarize themselves with theories of fiction as well as
producing fiction in a workshop setting.
0203. Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry (3 s.h.) F
Prerequisites: Successful completion of one lower-level writing
course and one upper-level literature course. Workshop intended
to help advanced writers develop their techniques and familiarize
themselves with contemporary writing.
W211. English Syntax (3 s.h.) S
Why wouldn't English speakers say "The boots that he died
with on were made of cowhide," even though it makes sense?
Course investigates English syntax to see how the structure of
English actually works and includes some philosophical and
psychological questions in linguistic theory, such as, "What
do people know about language that allows them to make judgments
about sentences like that one above?" No previous courses in
linguistics required.
0212. Linguistics and Grammar (3 s.h.) F
A review of traditional grammar-parts of speech, subordination,
pronoun case, parallelism, modifier placement, punctuation, etc.
using the theories and techniques of modern theoretical
linguistics. Students perfect their own grammatical knowledge by
writing and by exploring linguistic analyses of common writing
errors and how to correct them. The linguistic properties of
effective prose also discussed.
0213. History of English Language (3 s.h.) F
How and why did the language of Beowulf become, successively, the
language of Chaucer, of Shakespeare, of Swift, James, and
Hemingway? In surveying the historical development of English
language and style, this course will focus where possible on
literary texts, and seek to demonstrate how useful a historical
grasp of language can be to the appreciation of literature.
"You can't cook eggplant too long." Nobody who speaks
English has any trouble understanding that sentence. However, it
can mean both one thing (perhaps that eggplant is best eaten
rare) and its opposite (eggplant can be cooked indefinitely long
with no bad effects). This course on meaning in language will
investigate meaning that arises from the structure of sentences
and their use, as well as the meanings of words and phrases.
0216. Masterpieces of European Drama (3 s.h.) FS
A reading and analysis of the best of continental European drama.
Students will become familiar with a wide range of playwrights
and plays as the works selected will be representative of such
great ages of drama as classical Greek and Roman, French
neoclassic, and modern. These may include plays by Aeschylus,
Euripides, Terence, Calderon, Racine, Moliere, Goethe, Ibsen,
Chekhov, Brecht, and Beckett.
0221. American Romanticism (3 s.h.) F
The development of a distinctively American character in American
literature from 1830-1865. Traces the literary expression of
America's growing consciousness of its own identity; the literary
romanticism of Poe and Emerson, the darker pessimism of Hawthorne
and Melville, the affirmative optimism of Thoreau and Whitman.
Technical innovations in the essay, novel, and poetry, including
that of Emily Dickinson.
0222. American Realism and Naturalism (3 s.h.) S
A study of the diverse styles, subject matters, and theories of
prose fiction in the late 19th century in terms of their
challenge to and/or incorporation of earlier prose styles.
Included will be the early realists (Chestnutt, Davis, Cahan,
Sedgwick), later realists (James, Jewett, Howells, Garland,
Chopin, Cable), and the naturalists (Crane, Norris, Wharton,
Frederic, Dreiser).
0223. 19th Century American Fiction (3 s.h.) F
The development of the American novel and short story from their
genesis after the Revolutionary War through the age of the
romance in Mid-Century to the growth of realism and naturalism
(1870-1900).
0224. American Literature and Society (3 s.h.) F
Centers on the social issues expressed in U.S. literature and the
social context in which literature is produced. Variable topic;
description will be available in the English Department before
priority registration.
0225. Modern American Fiction (3 s.h.) FS
Technique and subject -- the "how" and the
"what" -- of a group of American novels from the first
half of this century, by such writers as Stein, Anderson,
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hurston, West, and H. Roth.
0226. Contemporary American Fiction (3 s.h.) S
A reading and analysis of the brightest and most provocative
fiction since the fifties, some of it realistic, some
experimental, some mid-way between, leading to a sense of the
options available to a writer now. Texts will include Bellow,
Updike, Barth, Elkin and several such writers as Maureen Howard,
Paul Auster, Renate Adler, Thomas Berger.
0230. Old English (3 s.h.) S
An introduction to the language, literature and culture of
Anglo-Saxon England. Short poems, excerpts from sermons, Bede,
the Bible and Beowulf. All works read in the original Old
English.
0231. Literature of the Medieval Period (3 s.h.) S
Literature of the Middle English period, as well as the relation
of the literature to the traditions of medieval literature
throughout Western Europe. Works may include The Owl and the
Nightingale, Pearl, Piers Plowman, Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, and selections from the mystery
and morality plays, all usually read in the original in
well-annotated texts. No previous knowledge of Middle English
necessary.
0232. Chaucer (3 s.h.) F
This study of the first major poet of the English tradition will
focus on the theoretical as well as practical problems he poses
for the modern reader. Readings include early dream visions and
the Canterbury Tales and selections from Chaucer's
sources and contemporaries to help students understand literary
and social contexts. No previous experience with Middle English
required.
0233. Advanced Shakespeare I (3 s.h.) F
Shakespeare's early career, including histories, comedies, and
tragedies, among them Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet,
and Julius Caesar. Close textual analysis, social trends, and
philosophical background. (Assumes completion of at least one 100
level literature course.)
0234. Advanced Shakespeare II (3 s.h.) F
Will concentrate on developing students' critical reading of a
small number of late plays by Shakespeare, all of which have
presented special critical problems to scholars, general readers,
and performers alike. Course examines how such problems define
critical perspectives on the plays. Students will be encouraged
to work toward their own readings of Shakespeare's plays that
will take into account the cultural characteristics of their own
culture, and some current critical modes of reading Shakespeare.
Plays for this semester will be all or some of the following:
"Troilus and Cressida," "Measure for
Measure," "King Lear," "Antony and
Cleopatra," "The Tempest," and
"Cymbeline." A midterm, a final, two short papers, and
announced quizzes.
0235. Seventeenth-Century Comedy (3 s.h.) F
The golden age of English comedy was the seventeenth century.
Although the two halves of the period are conventionally taught
in separate courses, we will see through the reading of a baker's
dozen of the plays the continuity and development (for better or
worse) of dramatic comedic traditions. Among the plays:
"Much Ado About Nothing," "The Wild-Goose
Chase," "The Man of Mode" and "The Provoked
Wife."
0236. Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (3 s.h.) S
Best known plays of the late 16th and early 17th centuries,
excluding those of Shakespeare. Such dramatists as Kyd, Marlowe,
Jonson, Middleton, Webster, and Ford.
0237. Renaissance Writers (3 s.h.) F
Studies in Tudor and Stuart literature. May focus on a single
author or group of authors or be organized generically or
thematically. Possible topics include: Spenser, Elizabethan
courtly literature, lyric, pastoral, and prose fiction.
0238. Milton (3 s.h.) F
A study of Milton's poetry and prose in its cultural and
historical context.
0240. Restoration and 18th Century Literature (3 s.h.)
S
The major literary developments of the period 1660-1800 in drama,
poetry, and journalism; the productions of such writers as
Dryden, Congreve, Pope, Swift, and Johnson.
0241. English Novel to 1832 (3 s.h.) F
A study of the major novelists of the 18th century, beginning
with Defoe, extending through Richardson, Fielding, and Stern,
and ending with Mary Shelley and Jane Austen, considering the
cultural background of each work, its technique, its thematic
significance, and its art.
0242. English Romanticism (3 s.h.) S
First and second generation romantics, especially Blake,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats; their literary,
historical, social, and cultural milieu; and the ideas and issues
that contributed to shaping their imaginations and their work.
0243. Victorian Literature (3 s.h.) S
Introduction to masterpieces of Victorian poetry and prose
(excluding the novel) from the works of Tennyson, Browning,
Carlyle, Arnold, Pater, Dante, Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris,
Oscar Wilde, and Ruskin.
0244. Victorian Novel (3 s.h.) F
Study includes Bronte, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot,
Meredith, and Hardy, among others. These writers wrote novels
intended to entertain and instruct, and were not above appealing
to laughter and tears or causing their readers to share their
moral fervor or indignation. The goal is an understanding of the
social and artistic significance of these works in light of the
world in which they emerged.
0245. Modern British Fiction (3 s.h.) F
A reading of great novels from the first quarter of the 20th
century, the high point of English modernism. May include
Conrad's Lord Jim, Woolf's To the Lighthouse,
and Joyce's Ulysses. A reevaluation of the achievement
of modernism from the perspective of the post-modern age with the
focus on kinds of modernism, kinds of irony, the importance of
form, and the works' social and moral implications.
0246. Contemporary British Fiction (3 s.h.) S
Studies in the British novel since World War II. Figures include
Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, Joyce Cary, Samuel Beckett, Graham
Greene, Henry Green, Barbara Pym, Iris Murdoch, and John Fowles.
0250. Modern British and American Poetry I (3 s.h.) F
The major works and writers of the first phase of modernism, from
the beginning of the century through the 1920s. Such poets as
Yeats, Eliot, Stein, Williams, Pound, examined in their social
and political contexts, and with reference to their contributions
to the development of modernism.
0251. Modern British and American Poetry II (3 s.h.) S
Study of the second wave of modernism and the beginnings of
postmodern poetry-from the beginnings of World War II through its
aftermath in the fifties. Includes major later works by the first
generation of modernists (Eliot, Stein, Williams, etc.), as well
as work by later poets (Olson, Creeley, Ashbery, etc.).
0253. Contemporary Drama (3 s.h.) S
European and American drama since 1940, with equal attention to
dramatic and theatrical values. May include Wilder, Miller,
Williams, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, Brecht, Duerrenmatt, Shepard,
and Mamet.
0254. Irish Literature (3 s.h.) F
Four modern Irish writers, emphasizing close reading,
psychological concepts, and cultural history. Major figures are
Yeats and Joyce. Also includes works by Flan O'Brien and Seamus
Heaney.
0258. Issues in Modern Literature (3 s.h.)
A study of selected literary, cultural and political issues as
they affect recent writing in diverse cultures and nations;
offered variously as postcolonial literature, resistance
literature, literature of exile, and the like.
0257. Modern World Fiction (3 s.h.) F
A study of significant literary works and developments in fiction
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Representative authors
range from Flaubert, Balzac, and Dostoevski, to Mann, Proust,
Camus, and Brock.
0259. Advanced Contemporary Literature (3 s.h.) F
Post-modernist literature; such figures as Barth, Pynchon,
Beckett, Robbe-Grillett, Butor, Sarraute, Gombrowicz, Kundera,
Garcia Marquez. May also include authors from other areas.
W260. Themes and Genres in Women's Literature (3 s.h.)
S
A variable content course which studies in depth the ideas,
languages, and cultural stances in literature written by women. A
specific theme or genre will be taken up each semester; detailed
description will be available in English Department office before
priority registration.
0270. Advanced Film (3 s.h.) F
This course will focus the study of film on particular issues and
questions related to cinema history, culture, and theory. Topics
might be a specific period in movie history (such as "German
Expressionist Cinema"), an interdisciplinary topic (such
"Women and Film"), or a textual problem (such as
"The Development Film Narrative"). Students should
therefore refer each semester to the particular description of
the course offered by a instructor during the period.
W275. Feminist Theory (3 s.h.) S
Many contemporary theorists describe how the values of a culture
are encoded in its language, and they analyze the difficulty of
escaping the "prison house of language." In this
course, we will examine how gender-roles are created in and
enforced by our symbol systems. Along with theoretical readings,
we will consider feminist applications of these strategies in
politics, literature, music, and film. Throughout the course, we
will work to develop insights into how specific discourses
change, how those changes can be facilitated, and how a new
discourse is then read.
0276. Contemporary Criticism (3 s.h.) S
Comparative study of literary theories from the 1960s to the
present. Introduction to several contemporary critical schools,
which include deconstructionist, neo-psychological, neo-Marxist,
new historical, feminist, sociological, and aesthetic criticism.
0281. Special Topics I (3 s.h.) FS
Variable content. Advanced study in a specific area,
concentrating on pre-1900 works. Course description available in
English Department.
0282. Special Topics II (3 s.h.) FS
Variable content. Advanced study in a specific area,
concentrating on post-1900 works. Course description available in
English Department.
R283. Images of Blacks in Afro & Euro-Amer. Lit.,
Drama, & Mass Media (3 s.h.) F
Prerequisite: An American literature course and preferably at
least one semester of African-American literature.
This course will explore representations of racial difference in
the fiction and drama of Afro-American and Euro-American authors.
Primary texts will be read in conjunction with screenings of
films, to examine the role of visual media in shaping
perceptions. How image-making in theatre, film, and television
has influenced the way racial difference is characterized in
literature will be a crucial question, with an emphasis on the
relationship between criticism and creative process.
0288. Independent Study (2-3 s.h.) FS
Allows students in their junior and senior year to pursue
serious independent research in a subject too specialized or too
advanced to appear as a regular course offering. Proposals must
be worked out with a supervisor and submitted to the
Undergraduate Committee by November 20 for spring semester
registration and April 15 for summer or fall.
W300. Senior Seminar (3 s.h.) FS
All 300-level courses are senior capstone courses designed
for advanced English majors or for other students who have had
previous coursework in the particular area. These variable
content courses make a close study of a defined body of literary
work, using current critical methods. Students should be engaged
in independent reading and critical thought. All English majors
are required to take one senior seminar before graduating.
Detailed course description will be available from the English
Department before priority registration. Registration is by
Special Authorization only.
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