Courses
Fall 2008 undergraduate course descriptions
Please note: The courses described below reflect the most recent schedule changes as of 3/25/08. “Staff” means that no specific faculty member has yet been assigned to teach the course. We have used the descriptions from the General Bulletin, 2006-2008 for most courses, except when a special topic is being used. Each course entry lists the following information before the description:
- Course number, section, and title
- Instructor and course meeting times
- Campus (if other than Oxford or plus Oxford)
- A brief description of the course
Please consult the course listing on Banner for College Composition class schedules.
Graduate course descriptions can be found here.
H101 A (Honors) | Seasons Of Youth
Britton Harwood | TR | 9:30–10:45
No description available.
H101 B (Honors) | Staging The Nation: 20th-Century American Drama & Film
Kathleen Johnson | TR | 11–12:15
Throughout American history, theatre has become a discursive site for struggles of national and individual identity. This course explores how American dramas, performances, and films intersect with formative moments in the creation of the nation. In so doing, we will examine how the nation stages itself through various performances, and how this performativity is itself implicated in the project of nation-making. Readings include dramas, musicals, dance, critical essays, and screenings of films that speak to the heart of American identity: from the experiments of theatre spawned in turn-of-the-century nativist drama (Clyde Fitch’s The City), to the Tectonic Theatre Company’s anthro-docudrama, The Laramie Project; from the political theatre of the Federal Theatre Project (The Cradle Will Rock) to recent dramatic responses to the Iraq War (Stuff Happens); from the early work of Eugene O’Neill to the deliciously decadent and truly American form of the musical (and resistant readings of that genre). Students will write weekly Blackboard postings, write three critical papers, and complete a final project.
H101 C (Honors) | Elusive Past: History, Memory, Fiction
Timothy Melley | TR | 12:30–1:45
No description available.
H101 D (Honors) | Culture & Literature of the American South
Kay Sloan | TR | 12:30–1:45
No description available.
H101 E (Honors) | Representing The American City
Andrew Hebard | Tr | 12:30–1:45
No description available.
H101 F (Honors) | Everyday Hybridities
Stefanie Dunning | MWF | 1–1:15
No description available.
H101 G (Honors) | Political Rhetoric & New Media
Jason Palmeri | MW | 5–6:15
No description available.
H101 H (Honors) | Epidemics & Ethics
Madelyn Detloff | TR | 5–6:15
No description available.
H102 A (Honors) | Engaging Chinese Rhetorical Tradition
LuMing Mao | TR | 11–12:15
No description available.
H102 B (Honors) | National Identity
Susan Morgan | TR | 2–3:15
No description available.
H102 C (Honors) | Health, Spirituality & Writing
Mary Fuller | TR | 2–3:15
No description available.
108 A | English for International Students
Julia Ward | MTWF | 8–8:50
For students who need further work in English before enrolling in college composition. May be used as an elective, but not to meet the Miami Plan or the College of Arts and Science requirements.
Description taken from course bulletin.
108 B | English for International Students
Staff | MTWF | 8–8:50
For students who need further work in English before enrolling in college composition. May be used as an elective, but not to meet the Miami Plan or the College of Arts and Science requirements.
Description taken from course bulletin.
108 C | English for International Students
Staff | MTWF | 8–8:50
For students who need further work in English before enrolling in college composition. May be used as an elective, but not to meet the Miami Plan or the College of Arts and Science requirements.
Description taken from course bulletin.
109 A | English for International Students
Julia Ward | MWF | 9–9:50
Adaptation of ENG 111 for nonnative speakers; satisfies in part the Miami Plan requirement of six hours of composition and literature.
Description taken from course bulletin.
109 B | English for International Students
Staff | MWF | 9–9:50
Adaptation of ENG 111 for nonnative speakers; satisfies in part the Miami Plan requirement of six hours of composition and literature.
Description taken from course bulletin.
111 | College Composition
Please consult the course listing on Banner for the complete list of College Composition class schedules.
122 HA (MUH) | Popular Literature—Gothic Fiction
John Krafft | TR | 11:30–12:45
The terrifying, the mock–terrifying and the just plain tacky: Gothic fiction from its beginnings in the 1760s through the nineteenth century and possibly beyond. It’s fun, sure; but do haunted castles, fiendish fathers, captive maidens, ancient curses, vampires and aliens also speak to our psychological, sociopolitical, racial, gender and other anxieties, and to our desires? Read and see.
We will concentrate on classic British works, such as Walpole’s Castle of Otronto, Radcliffe’s Sicilian Romance, Lewis’s Monk, Austen’s mock–Gothic Northanger Abbey, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Wells’s Island of Dr. Moreau and Stoker’s Dracula. If we can, we will also work in a poem or two and a few short stories, including American and twentieth–century ones. Keeping up with the reading will be essential.
Three medium–length papers and a take–home final essay.
For a sample syllabus, see http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/eng122.html.
123 A | Introduction To Poetry
Staff | MWF | 1–1:50
Exploration of the wide range of literature and oral performance called poetry. Study of critical terms used to discuss and write about poetic conventions, forms, and sub-genres. Description taken from course bulletin.
124 A | Introduction To Fiction
Staff | TR | 2–3:15
Study of basic characteristics (narrative design, character, point of view, style, and tone) and essential forms (short-short story, story, novella, and novel) of the genre of literary fiction. Description taken from course bulletin.
124 HA (MUH) | Introduction to Fiction
Whitney Womack Smith | MW | 11:30–12:45
In Introduction to Fiction we will examine the varieties of literary fiction, reading short stories, novellas, novels, and graphic novels. We will pay particular attention to the elements of fiction (characterization, point of view, etc.) and to different types of narrative design (epistolary novel, frame narrative, multiple narrators, etc.). Our readings will transcend historic periods and national borders and may include such texts as Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness, Mrs. Dalloway, The Hours, The Things They Carried, Beloved, Nervous Conditions, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Persepolis, and The Kite Runner. Course requirements will include a series of response essays, a longer critical essay, midterm and final exams, and active class discussion. Please feel free to contact me with questions or to request a complete syllabus (womackwa@muohio.edu; 785-3029).
131A | Life & Thought In English Literature
Staff | MWF | 9–9:50
132A | Life & Thought In English Literature
Staff | MWF | 10–10:50
132C | Life & Thought In English Literature
Staff | MWF | 11–11:50
133A | Life & Thought In English Literature
Nalin Jayasena | TR | 3:30–4:45
Selected major texts and issues in English literature and culture from the beginning to 1660, including The Civil War and Paradise Lost, with attention to historical context reflected in religious, philosophical, political, and social perspectives and issues such as gender, class, ethnicity, and canon formation; (MPT 132) British literature from 1660 to 1901, with attention to issues of class, race, and gender in the context of accelerating economic, social, environmental, political, and religious change; to developments in education, psychology, philosophy, science, and technology; and to relations with other literatures and arts; (MPT 133) selected British fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama from 1901 to present with special attention to the impact on literary imagination of two global conflicts and loss of Empire.
Description taken from course bulletin.
134A | Introduction to Shakespeare
Cynthia Klestinec | MWF | 12–12:50
Introduction to Shakespeare’s works. Gives students who are new to collegiate-level literary studies an overview of the range of Shakespeare’s works and the variety of approaches to those works.
Description taken from course bulletin.
141A | Life & Thought In American Literature
Staff | TR | 12:30–1:45
142A | Life & Thought In American Literature: 1865-1945
Staff | TR | 11–12:15
142C | Life & Thought In American Literature: 1865-1945
Staff | MW | 5–6:15
Introduction to multiplicity of voices in American culture as expressed in literary texts written in and about America from 1865–1945.
Description taken from course bulletin.
143A | American Literature 1945–Present
Staff | MWF | 8–8:50
143B | American Literature 1945–Present
Staff | TR | 12:30–1:45
Introduction to multiplicity of voices in American culture as expressed in literary texts written in and about America from 1945 to present.
Description taken from course bulletin.
144HA | Major American Authors
Jerome Rosenberg | TR | 2–3:15
Introduction to American literature and culture through the study of a small group of important writers. Selected authors represent a range of traditions and may include writers as diverse as Bradstreet, Franklin, Dickinson, Douglass, Whitman, Melville, Wharton, Twain, Cather, Baldwin, Faulkner, and Morrison.
Description taken from course bulletin.
201A | Language Awareness & Communication
Gwendolyn Etter–Lewis | TR | 12:30–1:45pm
Introduces various ways of looking at language: sociological, psychological, and formal. Students study how language plays a role in every human activity, from gender and racial stereotyping to the development of automata. Note: Crosslisted with COM 201.
Description taken from course bulletin.
225A | Advanced Composition
Staff | MWF | 11–11:50
Practice in various types of expository and narrative writing.
Description taken from course bulletin.
226A | Intro to Creative Writing: Short Fiction & Poetry
Staff | TR | 9:30–10:45
Techniques and principles of creative writing with special application to the short story and to poetry.
Description taken from course bulletin.
226B | Intro to Creative Writing: Short Fiction & Poetry
Brian Roley | TR | 11–12:15
Techniques and principles of creative writing with special application to the short story and to poetry.
Description taken from course bulletin.
226C | Intro to Creative Writing: Short Fiction & Poetry
David Schloss | TR | 11–12:15
Techniques and principles of creative writing with special application to the short story and to poetry.
Description taken from course bulletin.
226D | Intro to Creative Writing: Short Fiction & Poetry
Staff | TR | 12:30–1:45
Techniques and principles of creative writing with special application to the short story and to poetry.
Description taken from course bulletin.
226E | Intro to Creative Writing: Short Fiction & Poetry
Margaret Luongo | TR | 2–3:15
Techniques and principles of creative writing with special application to the short story and to poetry.
Description taken from course bulletin.
226F | Intro to Creative Writing: Short Fiction & Poetry
Staff | TR | 5–6:15
Techniques and principles of creative writing with special application to the short story and to poetry.
Description taken from course bulletin.
231A | The Short Story
Staff | TR | 12:30–1:45
Study of the short story as a literary genre with its own unique conventions. Examples from both early and present–day masters.
Description taken from course bulletin.
238A | Narrative & Digital Technology
Laura Mandell | TR | 2–3:15
No description available.
247H A (MUH) | Appalachian Literature
Kelli Johnson | MW | 2:30–3:45
ENG 247 is a great course for students interested in regional literature and American Studies. ENG 247 is a survey of published Appalachian fiction, poetry, drama, and non–fiction from the mid–nineteenth century to the present. The course addresses migration experiences, identity, landscape, and regionalism. We will emphasize an interdisciplinary approach to the study of literature, drawing on history, sociology, ecology, and current trends in American literary studies. Contemporary Appalachian writers include Lee Smith and Silas House.
251A | Life & Thought In European Literature
Staff | TR | 5–6:15
Selected masterpieces of European literature: (251) from the beginning to 1800; (252) from 1800 to the present.
Description taken from course bulletin.
254A | Latino/a Literature and the Americas
Staff | MWF | 12–12:50
Study of fiction, poetry, and non–fiction by Chicano/a, Cuban–American, Puerto Rican, and Central American writers, with an emphasis on the various cultural and historical contexts that influence and are represented in the writings. Specific study of writing in transnational communities situated in more than one part of the Americas.
Description taken from course bulletin.
258A | Copywriting: Electronic Media
Robert Long | MWF | 10–10:50
Writing for radio, television, and new media with emphasis on commercial, non-commercial and promotional copywriting, announcements. Cross-listed with COM 258.
Description taken from course bulletin.
261A | Modern Drama
Kerry Powell | TR | 12:30–1:45
Introduction to major dramatists of the modern era, from birth of modernism to performance art. Exploration of plays as written texts and performances.
Description taken from course bulletin.
262A | Children’s Literature
Mark Bernheim | TR | 12:30–1:45
262B | Children’s Literature
Mark Bernheim | TR | 3:30–4:45
Broad study of children’s books, with emphasis on acquiring skill to evaluate children’s literature. Practice in the literary analysis of prose and poetry with emphasis on the impact of good literature for children.
Description taken from course bulletin.
262MA | Children’s Literature/Middle Childhood
Staff | TR | 3:30–4:45
Study of literature for grades 4-9 with emphasis on literary analysis and interpretation. Literary themes and social issues pertinent to this age group will be considered, as will the selection and evaluation of literature for upper–elementary and middle school grades. Notes: open only to Middle Childhood Language Arts majors who have completed the college composition requirement. Credit for graduation will not be given for more than one of ENG 262 and 262M.
Description taken from course bulletin.
271A | Southern Literature
Kay Sloan | TR | 11–12:15
Focuses on the culture and literature of the South as a region unique within the United States. Studies the complex ways Southern authors present their world views through fiction—and the ways political passions are manifested in a tumultuous society such as the American South in the era prior to, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement. Musical forms of expression such as the blues will also be studied.
Description taken from course bulletin.
280A | Language in the USA
Jacquelyn Rahman | TR | 12:30–1:45
No description available.
283A | Modern Poetry
Keith Tuma | TR | 11–12:15
Major modern poetry in English, from the late 19th century to the present.
Description taken from course bulletin.
298A | Intro to Literary & Cultural Study
Katharine Gillespie | TR | 12:30-1:45
298B | Intro to Literary & Cultural Study
Stefanie Dunning | MWF | 3–3:50
Introductory skill-based course to be taken within one semester after declaring literature major. Covers critical and interpretive terms and basic concepts of literary genre; develops skills of close reading, interpretation, and critical analysis; provides instructions in techniques of research and citation; and introduces various critical methods and approaches.
Description taken from course bulletin.
298H A (MUH) | Intro to Literary & Cultural Study
Kelli Johnson | TR | 2:30–3:45
This gateway course to the English major introduces students to important trends, techniques, and schools of thought in current literary studies. Students will practice the use of tools they need to analyze literary and cultural texts: critical vocabularies, reading strategies, theoretical approaches, and research methods. Texts include Green Grass, Running Water; The Tempest; and Mama Day.
301A | History Of English Language
Staff | TR | 3–4:50
Linguistic and cultural history of British and American English, and other varieties of English around the world.
Description taken from course bulletin.
302A | Structure of Modern English
Staff | MW | 11–12:50 |
302B | Structure Of Modern English
Staff | MW | 2–3:50
Linguistic structure of American English with specific reference to application in teaching.
Description taken from course bulletin.
303A | Introduction To Linguistics
Staff | TR | 2–3:50
Scope of linguistics: fundamental concepts and methods of linguistic science in its descriptive and historical aspects. Cross-listed with ATH 303, SPN 303 and GER 309V.
Description taken from course bulletin.
304A | Backgrounds to Comp Theory & Research
Jason Palmeri | MWF | 2–2:50
Theoretical foundation of composition theory and research, emphasizing structure of writing, composing process, contemporary rhetoric, and linguistic based theories of composition.
Description taken from course bulletin.
304B | Backgrounds to Comp Theory & Research
Mary Fuller | TR | 11–12:15
In this class, students will read widely in contemporary theories of literacy, writing assessment, and pedagogy, as well as in teacher research scholarship. They will also mentor middle school students and first–year composition students in online literacy circles. They will develop their own writing skills and create portfolios of personal and professional writing.
311A | Contemporary Fiction
Staff | MWF | 10–10:50
In-depth study of contemporary fiction for creative writing majors. Works studied come from both the United States and abroad, with emphasis on works published within the last 25 years, usually within the last decade.
Description taken from course bulletin.
313 | Intro to Technical Writing
Multiple sections—please check the course listing on Banner for schedule.
Most instructors of this course use Paul Anderson’s text, Technical Communication: A Reader Centered Approach to introduce students to the importance of focusing on audience and purpose as they develop communications in basic genres, such as letters, reports, and instructions. Students will design a resume and letter of application, a set of instructions, and a long group report. Often students are asked to complete a web page or site. Multiple drafts based on peer reviews are emphasized; class takes place in a 22-station PC computer classroom. Grades are based on completed written assignments and class participation.
315 | Business Writing
Multiple sections—please check the course listing on Banner for schedule.
Instructors in this course generally use Kitty Locker’s Business and Administrative Communication. Course and text focus on considering the impact of a communication on a business audience. Both written and oral communication is emphasized. Students usually write a resume and letter of application, memos, letters, and a collaborative group report on a topic chosen by the group. A multi-national project is usually the final assignment. Some courses include a web-based project. Grades are based on the success of these documents.
320A | Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction
Staff | MWF | 1–1:50
320B | Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction
Staff | MWF | 2–2:50
Techniques and principles of narrative writing with special application to the short story. May be taken twice, but not with same instructor. Prerequisite: ENG 226. Description taken from course bulletin.
327A | Medieval Literature
Patrick Murphy | MWF | 11–11:50
Study of English literature from Beowulf to the poetry of Dunbar, especially in translation.
Description taken from course bulletin.
328A | The Renaissance: Nondramatic Literature of the 16th Century
Cynthia Klestinec | MWF | 2–2:50
British 16th century nondramatic literature: More, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, and others.
Description taken from course bulletin.
330A | Intermediate Creative Writing: Poetry
Staff | MW | 5–6:15
Intermediate course in theory and practice of poetry writing with seminar study of relevant contemporary materials and criticism of student work in class and conference. Assigned exercises in techniques and forms. An average of 10 to 15 poems due each semester. May be taken twice, but not with same instructor. Prerequisite: ENG 226.
Description taken from course bulletin.
336A | African American Writing 1746–1877
Michelle Taylor | TR | 12:30–1:45
Survey of the beginnings of African American literature to the end of Reconstruction. Among the various writers discussed are Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglas, Frances E.W. Harper, William Wells Brown, Linda Brent, and Harriet Wilson. Particular attention given to the origins of poetry, fiction, slave narratives, and drama as well as to the relative importance of speeches, political tracts, newspaper writing, and folk forms of literature. Cross-listed with BWS 336.
Description taken from course bulletin.
338A | African American Writing 1946–Present
Cheryl Johnson | TR | 2–3:15
Survey of African American writing since World War II, with special attention to literary and cultural contributions of such writers as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. Cross-listed with BWS 338.
Description taken from course bulletin.
342A | Writers: Later Romantic Period
Laura Mandell | TR | 11–12:15
British literature from the Regency to the accession of Queen Victoria.
Description taken from course bulletin.
343A | English Literature of the Early Victorian Period, 1830–1860
Anita Wilson | TR | 12:30–1:45
British prose and poetry from 1830 to 1860.
Description taken from course bulletin.
344A | English Literature of the Later Victorian Period, 1860–1901
Kerry Powell | TR | 9:30–10:45
English prose and poetry of the later Victorian period, from 1860 to Victoria’s death in 1901.
Description taken from course bulletin.
353A | American Literature: 1865–1914
Andrew Hebard | TR | 3:30–4:45
Intensive study of issues animating American culture from the Civil War to World War I, as articulated in selected texts from a variety of literary forms.
Description taken from course bulletin.
354A | American Literature: 1914–1945
Timothy Melley | TR | 9:30–10:45
Intensive study of issues animating American culture between 1914 and 1945, as articulated in selected texts from a variety of literary forms and traditions.
Description taken from course bulletin.
356A | Contemporary Jewish Fiction in Eurasia
Sven-Erik Rose | TR | 11–12:15
Fiction and autobiography from the 1970s to the present by Jewish authors of diverse European backgrounds. Emphasis on national identity and changing relationships to the Holocaust. Readings and discussions in English. Cross-listed with FRE/ GER 356.
Description taken from course bulletin.
369A | Colonial & Postcolonial Literature
Nalin Jayasena | TR | 5–6:15
Intensive introduction to theories of colonial and postcolonial identity through the study of South Asian Literature and Culture from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Readings include R. K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Shyam Selvadurai, Sara Suleri, Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy and their contemporaries.
Description taken from course bulletin.
370A | Literary and Cultural Theory
Staff | MWF | 10–10:50
Surveys significant movements in recent critical theory, such as formalism, structuralism and poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, Marxism and historicism, feminism, race and ethnic studies, gay and lesbian studies, and cultural studies. Attention also given to applying particular methods to one or to several literary texts. May be repeated once for credit when content changes.
Description taken from course bulletin.
372A | Shakespeare’s Principal Plays
Staff | TR | 2–3:15
Critical study of plays from the early period.
Description taken from course bulletin.
383A | By or About Afro Brazilian Women
Paula Gandara | MWF | 1–1:50
Addresses questions about gender, race, class and stereotype of women’s bodies in 20th century Brazil. Crosslisted with BWS/POR/ WMS 383.
Description taken from course bulletin.
405A | Advanced Linguistics
Jacquelyn Rahman | TR | 2–3:15
Advanced study of contemporary linguistic theories on syntax, semantics, and/or phonology. Though largely situated within a generative-transformational framework it also explores other contemporary approaches to linguistic theories, especially as a context for the development of generative-transformational theory. Students learn how to discern patterns within language data, to form hypotheses about the underlying structures of language, and to choose from among competing hypotheses. Prerequisite: ENG 303 or equivalent.
Description taken from course bulletin.
411A | Visual Rhetoric for Technical & Scientific Communicators
Staff | TR | 2–3:15
Several texts will be used to introduce you to the theory and techniques of visual rhetoric. Specific attention will be paid to how these techniques are used by technical and scientific communicators. You will cover the elements of page layout and design and consider the uses and effects of typography and graphics. As you learn the basics of design as they are influenced by audience, purpose, and medium, you will design or re-design various print and non-print communications and learn the software tools to achieve the effect you desire. The course, taught in a 23-station PC classroom, will include homework, reading, and several projects.
413A | Writing Reports and Proposals
Marianne Cotugno | TR | 3:30–4:45
In this course, you will study the principles and processes involved with researching, writing, and editing technical and scientific reports and competitive proposals. You will work with clients to develop persuasive strategies for writing communications of a competitive nature. In addition, you will learn to write within page limitations and specifications set by a foundation or organization. Major projects involve creating empirical research and feasibility reports, writing grants to foundations, and, possibly, learning about the government proposal writing process.
420A | Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction Workshop
Staff | MW | 5–6:15
420B | Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction Workshop
Brian Roley | TR | 2–3:15
Study and practice in various forms of creative and imaginative writing with emphasis upon the problems and the craft of fiction. Analysis of examples from contemporary literature accompanies class criticism and discussion. Prerequisite: ENG 320 and permission of instructor.
Description taken from course bulletin.
430A | Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry Workshop
cris cheek | TR | 12:30–1:45
Practice in writing poetry with emphasis on development of style. Advanced course in the theory and practice of poetry writing with seminar study of relevant contemporary materials and criticism of student work in class and conference. Prerequisite: ENG 330 and permission of instructor.
Description taken from course bulletin.
440C A | Major Writers: Milton
Katharine Gillespie | TR | 9:30–10:45
Intensive study of individual major writers in the British and American literary traditions. May be repeated once for credit when content changes.
Description taken from course bulletin.
440S A | Major English &American Writers: Woolf
Mary Jean Corbett | TR | 12:30–1:45
This course considers Virginia Woolf’s writing of both literary history and women’s history as critical elements of her modernist project. We’ll begin with selections from A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Orlando (1928), reading these touchstone texts alongside her essays on early modern and eighteenth–century writers. In a more intensive exploration of her representations of the Victorians in A Room and Orlando, we will read Night and Day (1919) and To the Lighthouse (1927) as revisionist fictions that depart from and return to Woolf’s own Victorian past. A third unit on Three Guineas (1938) and The Years (1937) examines Woolf’s effort to historicize the experiences of real and fictional nineteenth–century women and men through her research and storytelling about the past. We will end by reflecting on the continuities and disjunctions between the Victorian and the modern, reading Mrs Dalloway (1925) with the final sections of Orlando and A Room. In addition to taking a midterm and a final, students will write two five–page papers, one of which they will expand into a fifteen–page essay.
440Y A | Major English & American Writers: From Provincetown to Pulitzer: Eugene O’Neill in Context
Kathleen Johnson | TR | 2–3:15
For decades, drama critics have identified Eugene O’Neill as the first American playwright who could rival European dramatists. Still heralded by theatre historians as the first American playwright of literary merit, critics have overlooked other playwrights of note who were writing during this formative time. This course examines O’Neill in context; from his early experimental beginnings in Provincetown to his later masterpieces on Broadway. We begin by reading O’Neill’s very earliest writings, which were influenced by his brief study in the first theatre class in Harvard. Next, we’ll consider his early plays (“Anna Christie”, The Hairy Ape) cultivated with the experimental theatre group, the Provincetown Players. At the same time, we’ll read plays by other Provincetown theatre artists, such as Susan Glaspell and George “Cram” Cook. We’ll look at other plays by O’Neill in relation to plays by other American playwrights. For instance, we’ll examine how O’Neill’s portrait of African Americans (Emperor Jones & All God’s Chillun Got Wings) intersected with the rise of African American drama. Finally, we’ll look at O’Neill’s later works in the context of the rise of realism on the American stage.
460A | Capstone: Issues In Creative Writing
cris cheek | TR | 9:30–10:45
Integrates reading and writing of poetry and fiction at the highest levels. The issue or problem organizing the course is applicable to both fiction writers and poets; readings in both poetry and fiction illustrate, problematize and/or offer solutions to the issue under discussion. Students read and think as writers and respond to the issue or problem in both an analytic and creative manner. Specific requirements vary according to instructor and topic. Prerequisite: ENG 226 and at least two of the required upper-level writing courses; four of the five literature courses; one of the other two theory and practice courses; at least one foreign language or literature in translation course; senior standing.
Description taken from course bulletin.
470A A | Black Feminist Theory
Gwendolyn Etter–Lewis | TR | 3:30–4:45
Intensive examination of one or more schools, methods, or significant writers of literary and cultural theory, such as structuralism, poststructuralism, Marxism, and feminism. May be repeated once for credit when content changes.
Description taken from course bulletin.
481A | Writing Center Consulting
John Tassoni | T | 7–9 pm
No description available.
490R A | Landscape and Literature in Eighteenth–Century Britain
Alison Hurley | TR | 2–3:15
It is tempting to imagine that our relationship with the natural world has been one of the few constants of human history. But rather than describing universal truths, representations of nature reveal the peculiarities of the cultures that produce them. Landscapes (whether literary, pictorial, or physical) are always the creations of a historically influenced human imagination. Our primary goal in this class will be to learn to read landscapes as manifestations of the anxieties, desires, and belief systems of the culture that constructed them. Specifically, we will examine a variety of British landscapes produced during the eighteenth century when persistent foreign wars politicized Briton’s perceptions of their homeland; exotic landscapes infiltrated the British consciousness; and traditional land-based power structures waned, leaving the elite to look for new ways of using landscape to represent their “natural right” to rule.
495C A | Capstone: Globalization and the Production of U.S. Multiethnic Fiction
Yu-Fang Cho | TR | 5–6:15
This course examines the production of selective U.S. multiethnic fictional texts in 20th-century transnational contexts of labor and race relations. Our discussions of course materials will be guided by the following questions: what exactly does “multiculturalism” mean in the 20th– and 21st–century U.S. context? In response to what historical tendencies, ideologies, and political economic situations did the rhetoric of multiculturalism emerge? How do assumptions of race, ethnicity, culture, identity, and social relations shape the construction of multiculturalism? How do U.S.–based fictional writers address the various contradictions within the assumptions and effects of multiculturalism? When considering these questions, we will draw upon recent debates about U.S. multiculturalism and cultural theories of globalization, race, and ethnicity to explore how fictional texts register, negotiate, and imagine social relations and identity categories. We will also discuss the historical and political forces that have shaped the key vocabulary and frameworks that critics have developed to interpret theses fictional texts, such as hybridity, immigration, diaspora, citizenship, nation, and empire.
495E A | Capstone: Literary/Cultural Studies
Martha Schoolman | TR | 11–121:15
Intensive study, including reading and independent research. Specific course requirements vary according to instructor and topic, but all Capstones include extensive reading, writing, and discussion. Students read and think as informed readers and respond to issues or problems in an analytic and creative manner. Capstones in literature are selected annually from proposals submitted by faculty. Prerequisite: senior standing. Notes: Topic: 1860s,1960s Literature of Social Engagement
Description taken from course bulletin.
511A | Visual Rhetoric/Technical & Scientific Communication
Staff | TR | 2–3:15
Provides an introduction to the theory and techniques of visual rhetoric used by technical and scientific communicators. Covers elements of layout, design, and typography, giving students practice with short and longer print texts and nonprint media. Prerequisite: ENG 215 or 313 and junior standing.
Description taken from course bulletin.
513A | Writing Reports and Proposals
Marianne cotugno | TR | 3:30–4:45
Advanced study of theories and practices involved with the production of user documents in both print and other media. Prerequisite: ENG 215 or 313.
Description taken from course bulletin.
481A | Writing Center Consulting
John Tassoni | T | 7–9:40 pm
No description available.