Fall 2020 Course Descriptions

Below is a partial listing of English Department courses色视频下载攂oth ENGL and WRTG色视频下载攆or the Fall 2020 semester. Learning formats were subject to change depending on the . View the descriptions for .

ENGL F200X, FH1
World Literature: Detective Fiction色视频下载擡ast Meets West
Instructor: Gerri Brightwell
TTh, 11:30色视频下载1:00pm
This course will take us through some of the big names of detective fiction, from Arthur Conan Doyle to Agatha Christie. We'll look in particular at how they portrayed the East, and will match their texts with detective stories by writers from Japan, India and Japan. Things will get messy and murderous as we examine how villainy is constructed, and by whom, and why.

ENGL F270, UX1
Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Daryl Farmer
Online
Students in this class can expect to do a great deal of writing and reading as they produce essays, stories, and poems, analyze their own work, and respond to other writers in the class. First and foremost, our purpose together will be to explore and expand  imaginative powers, and to learn methods of expressing them in language. Writing is one of the best ways to learn about ourselves and others色视频下载攁bout our hearts, our passions, our dreams, about what it is that motivates us, drives our emotions, makes us persevere against all obstacles, causes us to feel. In short, what it is that makes us human.

ENGL F270, F01
Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Joseph Holt
Online (asynchronous)
In this class, we色视频下载檒l work toward sharpening our perception as readers, with the ultimate goal of improving as writers. We色视频下载檒l learn key terminology and apply it to the published works in our textbook (Serious Daring: Creative Writing in Four Genres by Lisa Roney). Then we色视频下载檒l also produce our own creative work色视频下载攑oetry, creative nonfiction and fiction色视频下载攁nd introduce it to one another in workshops, discussing how to effectively critique and how to utilize criticism. This course should prepare you for intermediate and advanced creative writing courses, which are often specific to particular genres.

ENGL/WGS 433, FXA
CRN: 76788 (ENGL);  76741 (WGSS)
WGS in Language, Literature and Culture色视频下载擰ueer Theory
Instructor: Chris Coffman
T Th, 3:40-5:10 PM by synchronous videoconference (online)

This interdisciplinary course will survey the ways queer theorists have thought about the diverse forms gender and sexuality take and have taken in different contexts; the ways that gender and sexuality intersect with other influences, such as race, ethnicity, ability, and the environment; the psychical and social aspects of LGBT life in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; and the methodological challenges attending efforts to speak and write about genders and sexualities from divergent historical periods and political formations. We will critically examine essay-length and book-length examples of queer theories with the aim of gaining a sense of the field色视频下载檚 origins and current trajectory.  We will also discuss one novel (Feinberg色视频下载檚 Stone Butch Blues, 1993), two short stories (Zitkala-Sa色视频下载檚 色视频下载淭he Trial Path色视频下载 and 色视频下载淎 Warrior色视频下载檚 Daughter色视频下载), and two films (Livingston色视频下载檚 Paris is Burning, 1990; and Weissman色视频下载檚 We Were Here, 2011) in light of these theories. We will conclude the semester with a post-Thanksgiving unit investigating queer discourse surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic. Much as our readings position themselves in relationship to one another, both this syllabus and our classroom discussion will form an ongoing dialogue that seeks to understand色视频下载攁nd to shape色视频下载攂oth the history and the future of queer theory. Over the course of the semester, you will be asked to compare and contrast different queer theories; critique them in ways that will reveal their strengths and limitations; and use them to advance your own intellectual interests. (The course will be offered by synchronous videoconference;  the link will be available on Blackboard for enrolled students by the day before class first meets.)

Texts:

  • Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. New York: Vintage, 1990. 0-679-72469-9.
  • Donald E. Hall and Annamarie Jagose, eds. The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2013. ISBN 978-0-415-56411-3.


ENGL F435, F01
Authors: Toni Morrison
Instructor: Eric Heyne
MWF, 9:15色视频下载10:15am
Is Toni Morrison the greatest novelist America has ever produced?  She came late to her vocation after a blue-collar upbringing, publishing her first novel at the age of 39.  But she went on to have one of the most distinguished careers of any American writer, including winning the Nobel Prize in 1993.  She died in 2019, but her brilliant explorations of racism and African-American history could not be more timely.  We will read her early fiction, including the short novels The Bluest Eye and Sula, some of the great works of her maturity, including Song of Solomon and the Beloved trilogy, her influential collection of essays Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, and her final novel God Help the Child.

ENGL F460, F01
Studies in Comparative Literature色视频下载擲candinavian Fictions
Instructor: Rich Carr
MWF, 11:45色视频下载12:45pm
Fictions from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland色视频下载攖he Scandinavian countries色视频下载攚ill provide the focus for the semester色视频下载檚 literary journey. The syllabus includes classic and popular works, the internationally celebrated (two Nobel laureates) and the nationally venerated, the comic and the tragic, the provincial and the universal. Familiar authors色视频下载擧ans Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsen色视频下载攚ill mix with writers who may be new to you色视频下载擪nut Hamsun, Sigrid Undset, Sjon. Beginning with selections from Norse mythology and the famed Icelandic work, Njal色视频下载檚 Saga and moving into the modern era, we will take a snapshot of fiction, drama, and film from these distinct cultures linked through language and history. Vikings, reindeer, mountains, fjords, dark winters, bright summers, lutefisk, lefse, trolls色视频下载攖hese are only the most familiar of associations with the Scandinavian world. This course will expand your sense of this region, the cultures, and the history, and give you the opportunity to read entertaining, absorbing, memorable literature.

Those enrolled will write two response papers, a book review of a work not on the syllabus, a cultural essay, and a final paper on (a) work(s) or topic(s) linked to the course focus. Students will also deliver an oral essay色视频下载攁 short talk色视频下载攐n one of the assigned works. By the end of the course you will have discovered a whole new captivating world of art and may be ready to book passage for Nordic Europe. Tusen takk!

ENGL F470, F01
Topics in Creative Writing: Environmental and Nature Writing
Instructor: Daryl Farmer
Tuesdays, 11:30色视频下载1:00pm via Zoom, + asynchronous online assignments
This course will focus on writing about the natural world and how to use writing to deepen our understanding of the local and world ecology. We will spend as much time as we can outdoors, watching, listening, learning to identify. Along the way, we will read work by nature writers and explore some of the related philosophical and ethical issues inherent in this type of writing. By semester's end, students should have a sense of how to record their experiences and observations in narrative, poetic, and reflective forms. Text, Environmental and Nature Writing, eds. Sean Prentiss and Joe Wilkins.

ENGL F607, F01
Studies in 19th-Century British Literature: The 19th-Century Novel, or The Best Storytellers Ever
Instructor: Rich Carr
Mondays, 2:15色视频下载5:15pm
When Waverley was published anonymously in 1814, the novel caused an immediate sensation. Readers all over Britain色视频下载擡ngland, Scotland, Wales, Ireland色视频下载攇obbled it up. Who knew that a story色视频下载攁 novel!色视频下载攁bout the last great effort by Scots rebels to restore the Stuart monarchy to the throne would engage so many readers? And who wrote the book anyway?

Sir Walter Scott, already established as a poet, was later revealed as the author; he would go on to become the most widely read writer of the 19th-century worldwide. And with Waverley he could contribute to moving this fictional form from something suspect, dangerous even, to art.  The seminar will begin with Scott色视频下载檚 ground-breaking work and sample some of the lasting figures of the century: Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, (Anne) Bronte, Mrs Gaskell, Eliot, Hardy.  As the century passes, as we see how printing presses and faster transportation allow for speedy creation and distribution of reading matter, we will see how writers become public figures, how their work matters to the nation and beyond. We will explore as well the particular skills of these writers, the means by which they kept audiences begging to know what happens next and insisting that the writers produce more.

Seminar participants should expect to write two response papers, an essay discussing the craft of a selected writer, and an extended investigation of one of the works or authors or issues pertaining to 19th-century writers and writing. Come色视频下载攄iscover anew or for the first time the storytelling power and art of these 19th-century greats. Probable text include Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Adam Bede by George Eliot, Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, Waverley, or 色视频下载楾is Sixty Years Since by Sir William Scott, and Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray.

ENGL F611, F01
Studies in American Literature 1865-1918:  California Here We Come:  The Birth of Left-Coast Literature
Instructor: Eric Heyne
Wednesdays, 2:15色视频下载5:15pm
We will read early fiction (and some poetry and nonfiction) about the U.S. West Coast, primarily California but including some Washington and 色视频下载.  We色视频下载檒l read The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, The Luck of Roaring Camp, Ramona, The Land of Little Rain, The Spoilers, Burning Daylight, and Mrs. Spring Fragrance, among other things.  We色视频下载檒l talk about San Francisco and Seattle, gold mines and haciendas, deserts and snowy mountains, and everything that went into the mythology of an American utopia at the end of the westward trail.

ENGL F671, FE1
Writers' Workshop
Instructor: Joseph Holt
Wednesdays, 6色视频下载9 p.m. via synchronous videoconferencing (online)
In this graduate-level course, we will write and critique original works of fiction, nonfiction and possibly poetry or other forms. Students will submit two or three full-length works (i.e., 8色视频下载30 pages), as well as some shorter, more experimental exercises. We'll conduct weekly readings from a craft book or creative anthology. Students will also complete a professionalization assignment like presenting a guest lecture, composing a book review, or writing a job letter. Our two required texts will be Robert Boswell's The Half-Known World and The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019). Our ultimate goal in the workshop is to improve as readers, writers, critics and literary citizens.