Special Topics Courses & Seminars - Spring 2008
Spring 2008 Coourse Offerings | Catalog Course Descriptions
ENGL 350.001 - The Beat Writers
Valerie Frazier
In this course we will study the Beat Writers, who, as a counterculture movement, transformed the meaning of “beat” from being tired or worn down to being “on the beat” and connected to the pulse of a new generation. The Beats galvanized conservative post World War II America, spreading a message of non-conformity, innovation, and freedom of expression. Often loved, derided, or parodied, Beat Writers, and the culture that sprung up around the movement, took hold in the media, art, music, and literary landscapes. In the course will look at the writings important figures in the movement such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, and Denise Levertov. In addition, we will explore the popular culture influence of the Beats in art, music, film, and print media.
* Counts as a post-1900 American literature course for majors
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ENGL 395.001 - Arthurian Literature
Trish Ward
This course will focus on the origins of Arthurian legend with emphasis on the Arthurian literature of the British Isles in the Middle Ages. Works will include Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, the Welsh Mabinogion, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from Chretien de Troyes’ Arthurian romances, and Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur
* Counts as a pre-1700 English literature course for majors
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ENGL 395.003 - Writing Short Fiction: Form, Shape, Style
Anthony Varallo
This is a course in narrative forms, with special emphasis on short-short fiction. Students will read from a variety of texts, giving special attention to “experimental” short story forms (micro-fiction, flash fiction, sudden fiction) as well as experimental styles (meta, fabulist, speculative). Selected texts could include works by George Saunders, Judy Budnitz, Lydia Davis, David Foster Wallace, and others. The course will function as part lecture, part workshop. Students will be required to produce a portfolio of original short fiction. Some attention will also be given to submitting manuscripts for publication.
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ENGL 395.090 - 19th Century American Women Writers
Alison Piepmeier
This is a course in which we will be studying some of the most important, and most neglected, written work of the nineteenth century: writing by women. Through our readings and class conversations, we will develop an in-depth understanding of the range of American women’s writing in the nineteenth century. We will also become familiar with the common literary theoretical approaches to this writing, and we will develop interpretive frames of our own.
* Counts as a pre-1900 American literature course for majors
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ENGL 395.091 - Poetry: Sound, Form, Poetry
Paul Allen
Description forthcoming.
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ENGL 395.092 - Late 19th-Century American Literature
J. Michael Duvall
Students will read a wide range of literary texts produced between the end of the Civil War and 1900 and investigate the literary genres of regionalism & local color, realism, and naturalism. The course will emphasize the complex relationships between literary genres/texts and the culture of the late 19th century in the United States. Issues of special concern will include the literary markets of the late 19th century, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, urbanization, immigration and assimilation, capitalism, technology, and nationalism.
* Counts as a pre-1900 American literature course for majors
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ENGL 400 - Seminar: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and Postmodern Cultural Discourse
Doryjane Birrer
Seminar on Philip Pullman’s subversive postmodern fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. We will analyze how Pullman’s fictional narratives draw on, critique, and/or revise particular literary and cultural narratives in order to explore the power of narrative—for good and for ill—in shaping human experience. Additional readings will include traditionally literary texts (Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Milton’s Paradise Lost; Keats’ letters; Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) and more broadly cultural texts (Christian apocrypha, philosophical essays, quantum theory). We will also situate His Dark Materials within the conventions of the literary fantastic, and within contemporary literary canons.
* Enrollment is by approval of the instructor, with preference going to those with junior or senior English major status.
** Counts as a post-1700 English literature course for majors
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