GradLetter 2010‐2011 Graduate Newsletter ∙ Department of English ∙ University of South Alabama Humanities Bldg. 240 ∙ (251) 460‐6146 http://www.southalabama.edu/english Dr. Ellen Harrington ∙ Graduate Coordinator ∙ (251) 460‐7326 ∙ eharrington@usouthal.edu Foreign Language Requirement All graduate students should plan to meet this require‐
ment in the FIRST YEAR of coursework, prior to register‐
ing for Thesis Hours or pre‐
paring for the Comprehen‐
sive Exam. This requirement can be met by taking the Foreign Language Translation Exam in an approved lan‐
guage or by taking approved coursework. For the exam, contact the Foreign Lan‐
guage department in the first four weeks of the semester to take the test anytime dur‐
ing the semester. See our policy on the website, and contact Dr. Harrington if you have any questions. Thesis Deadlines Fall Thesis Deadline: Defend by 10/18/10 Spring Thesis Deadline: De‐
fend by 3/14/11 Summer Thesis Deadline: Defend by 6/13/11 English students must defend by the deadline in order to make any required revisions in time for the Graduate School First Submission deadline. Welcome Welcome to the new graduate students who have entered since last fall: Martha Bennett, Katlin Bergman, Angela Bogdomas, Eliza‐
beth Butt, Natalie Cochran, Morgan Coffey, Michelle Finerty, Jed Grady, Katherine Hammet, Jennifer Harris, Catelin Kilcullen, Melis‐
sa Kmiec, Rachel D. Moore, Victoria Christine Pace, Jamie Poole, Nancy Ray, Jade Randall Reed‐Kreis, Paul Tierney, Emily Singh, and Heather Wilkins. Congratulations to our recent graduates: Summer 2010: Shannon Howard; Spring 2010: Kimberly Daniels, Amanda Gibson, Nicole Paulk, and Joseph Rider; and Fall 2009: Kenn Armstead, Amy Brown, Jessica Jones, P.T. Paul, Nicole Schlaudecker, and Amber Wingfield. Kimberly Daniels, Stephanie Evers, and Peggy Tran are recent alums who will serve as Instructor‐Interns for the English depart‐
ment this academic year. Accomplishments Current Students and Graduates of the English MA Program Frank Ard (M.A. in progress) attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop by invitation this summer. Frank is serving as Editor‐in‐
Chief of the Oracle Fine Arts Review. Karma deGruy (M.A., 2007) is beginning work on her dissertation at Emory. This summer she went abroad to serve as program assis‐
tant for the Emory British Studies program and to give a paper at the annual medieval studies conference at Leeds. Jeannie Holmes (M.A., 2008) published her novel, a dark tale of vampires and serial killers, Blood Law, the first in the Alexandra Sabian series, in July, 2010 with Dell. More information about the book is available at http://jeannieholmes.com/ 1
Shannon Howard (M.A., 2010) published her essay “Charles Gunn, Wolfram & Hart, and Baudrillard’s Theory of the Simulacrum” in The Literary Angel: Essays on Influences and Traditions Reflected in the Joss Whedon Series, edited by AmiJo Comeford and Tamy Burnett (McFarland). Shannon started in the doctoral program in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Louisville this fall. Christy Hutcheson (M.A., 2008) has been hired as an instructor at Lurleen B. Wallace Community College in Andalusia, AL. Matt Lambert (M.A., 2009) entered the English Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon University this fall. P. T. Paul (M.A., 2009) published poetry and essays from her master’s thesis in the book, To Live & Write in Dixie (Negative Capability Press, 2010). This fall, P.T.’s master’s thesis was chosen to represent the College of Arts and Sciences in the Humanties and Fine Arts in the CSGS Master’s thesis award competi‐
tion. Sharon Downey Varner (M.A. in progress) reviews the book The Sea Captain's Wife by New York Uni‐
versity historian Martha Hodes in the Journal of American Folklore in January of 2011. More news about recent MA graduates can be found on our Alumni Accomplishments web page: http://www.southalabama.edu/english/alumni.html Graduate & Teaching Assistants Graduate and Teaching Assistantships are competi‐
tive positions awarded each year by the department. Graduate Assistants for this academic year are Eliza‐
beth Butt, Natalie Cochran, Jed Grady, Katherine Hammet, Melissa Kmiec, and Heather Wilkins. GAs work in the Writing Center and assist in faculty re‐
search. Teaching Assistants for this academic year are Frank Ard, Emily Bingham, and Michael Mason. TAs are teaching EH 101 classes this fall. English Graduate Organization (EGO) EGO provides a forum for students to socialize, to plan events, and to petition the department to ad‐
dress concerns of graduate students. Offi‐
cers/organizers are needed. Thesis/Comprehensive Exam Requirements Students in the Literature Concentration can choose to write a Thesis or to take a Comprehensive Exam to complete the MA. All Students in the Creative Writing concentration must write a thesis. Please review the latest version of the Thesis Checklist (available on the English Graduate Website) for in‐
formation about how to form a committee, sign up for Thesis Hours, submit a Prospectus, and prepare for the Thesis Defense. Please contact Dr. Harrington for assistance with thesis and exam procedures. Literature Mid‐Program Reviews The Literature Mid‐Program Review takes place when a student in the literature concentration has completed at least one‐half of the coursework (at least 18 hours) for the M.A. degree, and it is re‐
quired to proceed with the degree. The student must request the review from his or her thesis direc‐
tor or comprehensive exam mentors in the first month of thesis hours or examination preparation. At the LPR, the student and faculty members will discuss a representative paper that the student submits, the student’s progress, and strategies for completing the Master’s degree in English. The LPR will help each student assess her or his strengths and any weaknesses; additionally, it allows each student to discuss grades, faculty comments, and other con‐
cerns such as post‐degree options. Please contact Dr. Harrington for more information. Graduate Classes Course Descriptions Spring 2011 course descriptions are listed on the last pages of the GradLetter. Check the English website for the most recent list of grad class descriptions: http://www.southalabama.edu/english/programs/gr
ad_class.htm You can get current schedule informa‐
tion and register through the PAWS website: paws.southalabama.edu 2
Oracle Fine Arts Review Plan to be a part of Oracle 2011 as a contributor or by serving on an editorial board. USA's literary and fine arts magazine publishes student and community work in areas including Fiction, Painting, Creative Non‐Fiction, Illustration, Poetry, Photography, Stage or Screenplay, Printmaking, Essay, and Sculpture. Students are needed to serve as editorial board members. Submissions for the next issue are due on October 15. Look for more information at www.southalabama.edu/oracle/ or contact Editor‐
in‐Chief Frank Ard. Sigma Tau Delta USA has a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society. Please contact Dr. Kern Jackson for more information about the organization and its ser‐
vice work. Writing Outreach The Freshman Composition Program within the De‐
partment of English at USA sponsors free‐of‐charge information sessions for students and others who need additional assistance with particular writing skills. The goal of the Writing Outreach program is to reinforce necessary skills that are often not covered in class discussions due to time constraints. Writing Outreach is open to all university students, staff, and faculty, as well as interested members of the com‐
munity. English graduate students help organize this series each semester. More information available on the English website. 2009‐2010 Events & Activities 2010 Hamner Lecture: Carolyn Haines: “Tell Me a Story: The Art of Publishing and Why I Write” Carolyn Haines delivers the eighth Eugenie L. Ham‐
ner Lecture for the Graduate Program in English on Thursday, October 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Library Auditorium. A reception will follow in the library. All students are encouraged to attend and support our program! This lecture recognizes the great intellectual contri‐
butions of Dr. Eugenie “Genie” Hamner, retired fac‐
ulty member, to USA’s English department and to the Mobile community. Each fall, a member of the Graduate Faculty in English delivers the lecture. Poetry Theatre Poetry Theatre will continue this year on the last Tuesday of the month at 5 p.m. at Satori. IMC The Independent Music Collective (IMC) is a student organization at U.S.A. dedicated to improving Mo‐
bile's music scene. Each semester the IMC hosts several concerts, attracting regional and national acts that otherwise might not stop in Mobile. The organization is actively soliciting new members, and officer positions are available. Please visit http://www.musicinmobile.org/ for more informa‐
tion on the IMC. IMC Concerts On Thursday, October 28th, Hurray for the Riff Raff will be appearing at Satori (7pm), and on Saturday, December 4th, Through the Sparks will be appearing at the Blind Mule (8pm). USA Horror Club Graduate students and faculty are invited to join the USA Horror Club. Look for more events this year. Contact Horror Club Faculty Advisor Dr. Annmarie Guzy for more information. Conferences and Contests The Association of College English Teachers of Ala‐
bama (ACETA) sponsors two academic honors: the Calvert and Woodall Awards. The Calvert prize hon‐
ors a paper on a scholarly or theoretical topic in Eng‐
lish studies; the paper for the Woodall prize must focus on a pedagogical topic in English studies. See the website for more details about these competi‐
tions, which are open to college English teachers and graduate students in English: www.samford.edu/groups/aceta 3
Louisiana State University hosts the Mardi Gras Graduate English Conference in Language and Lit‐
erature during Mardi Gras week each year. Check for web updates at english.lsu.edu/dept/orgs/egsa University of Florida English Graduate Organiza‐
tion’s Annual UF‐EGO Interdisciplinary Conference takes place in Gainesville each fall: www.english.ufl.edu/ego/conference.shtml The South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, Novem‐
ber 5‐7, 2010. The conference features a special fo‐
cus on The Interplay of Text and Image. SAMLA is one of the Modern Language Association’s regional conferences. Look at the conference website for more details about the panels (www.samla.org). If you are interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in English, consider joining MLA or SAMLA. The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference will be held in San Antonio, April 20‐23, 2011. Proposals in a wide range of topic areas are due on December 15, 2010. Please see the website for more information: http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php Congratulations to Shannon Howard, Winner of the Graduate Essay Contest, 2010! “Protean Orphans in a Postmodern World: The Talented Mr. Ripley and the Shift from Depth to Surface” In Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, the protagonist as an orphan is seeking material posses‐
sions in place of a family's love. Although Highsmith initially presents Tom Ripley's orphaned state as an archetypal journey of self‐discovery, one perhaps similar to earlier stories of a child seeking accep‐
tance in a corrupt society, she subverts this expecta‐
tion by revealing scenes in which Tom continually seeks the acquisition of things rather than people. My project explores Highsmith’s narrative as one whose mastery lies in its deceptiveness and its re‐
fusal to adhere to classic tales of self‐discovery. –S.H. This seminar paper was written during a course titled "The Cinematic Novel," taught by Dr. Raczkowski. English Graduate Faculty Research Dr. Nicole Amare Nicole Amare’s focus right now, broadly, is visual rhetoric. Technical Editing in the 21st Century (writ‐
ten with Barry Nowlin and J. Weber) will be pub‐
lished by Prentice Hall in 2011. Dr. Amare is revising a book proposal for Baywood Press about effective and ethical visual rhetoric. She just finished a chap‐
ter for a designing texts collection, also for Baywood, about the emotional impact of color and form on cross‐cultural audiences. Analyzing the rhetorical effect of visuals has led her to investigate how visuals are used to buffer or otherwise provide ap‐
propriate indirectness in bad news messages. Dr. Larry Beason Larry Beason’s areas of specialization include com‐
position, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, and science fic‐
tion. He currently directs the Freshman Composition Program. In spring, he presented a paper (“Arma‐
geddon, Don’t Leave Home Without It: Creating a Sense of Place in Post‐Apocalyptic Narratives”) at the annual conference of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association. He is currently revising his grammar textbook for a new edition and writing on an essay on the perceptions of grammar in online forums. Dr. Pat Cesarini Patrick Cesarini's research and teaching are in American literature from the colonial period to the Civil War. This fall he will deliver a paper at the South Central Modern Language Association confer‐
ence on the relationship between Walt Whitman and Futurism. He is pursuing projects on the litera‐
ture of native Christianization and on the revaluation of Revolutionary poet Philip Freneau, and he is be‐
ginning to assemble an anthology of neglected short stories written in the United States in the antebel‐
lum period. Dr. Cesarini continues to serve the Eng‐
lish Department as Interim Chair for 2010‐11. 4
Agent, and Chance and in a larger project on Conrad. She will be on a research sabbatical in Spring 2011. Dr. Richard Hillyer Richard Hillyer’s primary interests are Shakespeare, Auden, poetry, prosody, and the history of ideas (with particular reference to key words). He recently published the book Sir Philip Sidney, Cultural Icon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and two arti‐
cles, “Authorization and the Royal Society” in ANQ and “Let Me Weigh the Counts: Auden’s Horatian Syllabics” in Versification. He is teaching EH 502: Graduate Writing in English “From PoMoPooh to Tempest‐Tossed” this fall. Dr. Cristopher Hollingsworth Cristopher Hollingsworth is the author of Poetics of the Hive: The Insect Metaphor in Literature and is editor of the recent collection Alice Beyond Wonder‐
land: Essays for the Twenty‐First Century. He is cur‐
rently writing a book on Wonderland and the twen‐
tieth century. Dr. Hollingsworth is on a research sab‐
batical in Fall, 2010. Dr. Becky McLaughlin Although not all of the courses Becky McLaughlin teaches have the word “gender” attached to them, they might as well, for what she takes as her subject matter (both in the classroom and in her research) is the touchy and sticky matter of gender, which of necessity opens its polyvalent arms to embrace a number of terrifically‐snarled topics, concerns, is‐
sues, and questions— most importantly, perhaps, those of love and sexuality. The story of gender is an ongoing drama brimful of broken bones and hearts, incest and adultery, lechery and cuckoldry, romance and revenge, perversion and power struggles. It is a story that never gives us the satisfaction of mastery, but the voices of its storytellers leave their marks. They burn us. These voices recount a loss suffered, the loss we all suffer, and they are voices full of de‐
sire for more than what the dry, cracked ground of the Symbolic offers us—ecstatic voices that want to fly in the way the mystics do but that sometimes do not quite get off the ground. These are the voices that Dr. McLaughlin finds most compelling to exam‐
Prof. Carolyn Haines Carolyn Haines is the 2010 recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writing. Her most re‐
cent novel is Bone Appetit (St. Martin Minotaur), the 10th in the Sarah Booth Delaney Mississippi Delta mystery series, which was published in June. As part of the book launch she helped teach a cooking class at the Viking Range school in Greenwood, Missis‐
sippi. In the spring, Delta Blues (Tyrus Books), a col‐
lection of short stories by some of the finest writers working today, was published. Prof. Haines edited the anthology, which includes a foreword from Mor‐
gan Freeman, and she launched the book with a blues band performance at Mr. Freeman's club, Ground Zero, in Clarksdale. The book raised over $15,000 in donations to help support literacy pro‐
grams in the Mississippi Delta. This summer her short story, "The Cypress Dream," was published in Florida Heat Wave. In November, another story, "Neighborhood Watch," will be published in Damn Near Dead 2, a collection of "geezer noir." Prof. Haines will give the Hamner lecture for the English Department on October 14, 2010. Dr. John Halbrooks John Halbrooks works on medieval literature. This fall he published an essay entitled "P. D. James Reads Beowulf" in the Boydell & Brewer Publication Anglo‐Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination. He is currently at work on a book on heroism as an anachronistic concept in constructions of the Middle Ages. Dr. Ellen Harrington Ellen Harrington’s research examines gender in nine‐
teenth‐century popular fiction and the influence of these genres and criminal anthropology on the work of Joseph Conrad. She presented the paper “‘Dead men have no children’ in Conrad’s ‘The Idiots’ and ‘Amy Foster’” at the Conrad under California Skies conference in January, a version of which will be published in an anthology sponsored by the Joseph Conrad Society of America (Texas Tech University Press). Currently, she is continuing work on Conrad’s heroines in an article on “The Idiots,” The Secret 5
ine in her own research, and thus she will publish a paper on love and female mysticism in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. This paper will appear in Volume 2 of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, to be edited by Kenneth Moreland and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. She has also had accepted for publication “Chaucer’s Cut,” which will be included in the MLA’s new edi‐
tion of Approaches to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, edited by Peter Travis and Frank Grady. “Chaucer’s Cut ” is a paper that maps out a psychoanalytic ap‐
proach to teaching the Canterbury Tales. She also writes fiction and creative nonfiction, and she cur‐
rently has under review an essay called “ da.” For Dr. McLaughlin, one of the high points of this semester will be attending a film conference featur‐
ing Laura Mulvey as the keynote speaker. At that conference Dr. McLaughlin will be giving two papers: one, a shorter version of the love and mysticism pa‐
per mentioned above and the other, a paper on the Lacanian breast as represented in Cronenberg’s film Crash. She will also be chairing a panel at this year’s SCMLA conference on the relationship between po‐
etry and psychoanalysis. Dr. Christopher Raczkowski While continuing work on an article‐length essay on the Harlem Renaissance and what he is terming "ver‐
tical modernity," Christopher Raczkowski gave a pa‐
per on William Dean Howells's development of a type of negative dialectics in the Rise of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes at the American Lit‐
erature Association in San Francisco. He also had an essay titled "Metonymic Hats and Metaphoric Tum‐
bleweeds" on the noir aesthetics of Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski published in an anthology on the Coen Brothers. Dr. Justin St.Clair Justin St.Clair teaches courses in postmodern and contemporary fiction. Much of his research occurs at the intersection of contemporary fiction and me‐
dia studies. Three of his recent articles will be pub‐
lished this spring: “Soundtracking the Novel: Willy Vlautin’s Northline as Filmic Audiobook” (forthcom‐
ing in Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies, edited by Matthew Rubery), “Borrowed Time: Tho‐
mas Pynchon’s Against the Day and the Victorian Fourth Dimension” (forthcoming in Science Fiction Studies), and “Binocular Disparity and Pynchon’s Panoramic Paradigm” (forthcoming in Pynchon’s Against the Day: A Corrupted Pilgrim’s Guide, edited by Jeffrey Severs and Christopher Leise). Dr. Sue Walker Sue B. Walker has recently signed a contract with Mellen Press for the publication of her critical book on James Dickey: The Chiastic Deep Ecology of James Dickey. Her book, She Said was released by River's Edge Press in July. She has published a critical article: “Boring Into the Mine / Mind of James Dickey” in the James Dickey Review (XXV(I‐II) Spring, 2010, 16‐23), a short story, "Good Grief" with the Dead Mule of Southern Literature, two long narrative poems and an interview with Connotation Press, a poem in Val‐
ley Voices, a poem in Vineyards, and a poem in the Slash Pine Poetry Anthology. She has given poetry readings at the Newnan Center for the Performing Arts in Newnan, Georgia, at Gnu's Room in Auburn, at the Kathryn Tucker Wyndham Museum in Mon‐
roeville, Al, at the Deltona Arts Center in Deltona, Florida, at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Al, at the Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery and will be reading at the Florida State Poetry Confer‐
ence on October 23. 6
level reading, writing and research. Towards that end, we will undertake a semester long study of the Harlem Renaissance as a literary historical forma‐
tion, an object of 20th century literary representa‐
tion and as a collective inquiry into (and debate about) the relations between race, artistic culture and politics. This literary, theoretical and historical content will serve as the critical object that organizes the readings, the various research activities, essays, abstracts, bibliographies, presentations and final research project that we will collectively discuss and develop over the course of the semester. Required of all M.A. students in their first year of work. EH 506 Composition Theory & Research Methodol‐
ogy Dr. Nicole Amare Students in EH 506 will become familiar with founda‐
tional work in composition studies through two cru‐
cial areas of study. In the first part of the course, students will study and discuss readings that trace the development of major theoretical movements in composition over the last 50‐100 years and the ways in which these readings inform contemporary theory in the field. In the second part of the course, stu‐
dents will investigate both qualitative and quantita‐
tive methodologies used in composition research, including discussion of how and why such methods are used. EH 534 Late Romantics Dr. Cristopher Hollingsworth A study of late romantic poetry and prose, with em‐
phasis on the poetry of Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. EH 573 Contemporary Fiction Dr. Justin St.Clair This graduate seminar offers students three snap‐
shots of the current literary landscape. Our first unit, “McSweeney’s Empire,” considers the cultural force that is Dave Eggers’ hipster imprint. We will begin by reading Eggers’ debut novel A Heartbreak‐
ing Work of Staggering Genius (2000), which not only put him on the literary map, but also largely enabled his quixotic publishing venture. We will also read an issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, an issue of The Believer, and several shorter works pub‐
lished by McSweeney’s Press, including Robert Coo‐
Graduate Classes: Spring 2011 EH 501 Introduction to Critical Theory: Everyday Theory Dr. Becky McLaughlin The aim of this course is to help you understand critical theory not as an esoteric practice but as a strategy for making sense of the world as you ex‐
perience it in your courses, at your job, and when you’re being reflective about your life, family, com‐
munity, and your position in an increasingly global environment. I have chosen to title this course Eve‐
ryday Theory to suggest the paradox inherent in theory: if theory is capable of mystifying, it is equally capable of demystifying. And if it causes confusion, it also creates clarification. This is precisely the beauty of theory. One might reasonably ask the fol‐
lowing question, however: is mystification ever a good thing and, if so, when? The answer is that mys‐
tification can be helpful when we have become too enamored of certainty and the arrogance that often accompanies it. Mystification, like doubt, can inject a bit of curiosity and humility back into a society that has become too sure of itself. My hope is that you will leave this course with a strong desire to examine and evaluate the textual objects you encounter in the world around you, in‐
cluding cultural attitudes, practices, and events; an ability to speak and write about what you see with elegance, thoughtfulness, generosity, and creativity; and a confidence that you’ve gained insight into your own position vis‐à‐vis the theoretical conversations taking place before you. Perhaps our biggest chal‐
lenge will be to turn ourselves into active and self‐
aware producers of meaning rather than remaining passive consumers of a ready‐made, hermetically‐
sealed product. In order to meet this challenge, we will encourage one another to think of the world around us as a text to be read and evaluated. Re‐
quired of all M.A. students in the Literature Concen‐
tration in their first year of work. EH 502 Graduate Writing in English: Harlem Renais‐
sance Dr. Chris Raczkowski The primary goal of this course is to serve beginning graduate students as an introduction to graduate‐
7
ver’s Stepmother (2004) and George Saunders’ The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (2000). Our second unit, “Planet Oprah,” addresses the for‐
midable force that is one particular television per‐
sonality. As we make our way through Toni Morri‐
son’s Paradise (1999), Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom: A Novel (2010), and as many of James Frey’s Million Little Pieces (2003) as we can stomach, we will exam‐
ine Oprah’s influence on the publishing industry, while simultaneously engaging a host of related is‐
sues (i.e., literary fiction vs. popular fiction, the fac‐
tual vs. the factitious, and the minefield that is memoir). Finally, our third unit considers the contemporary avant‐garde. Readings will include Ben Marcus’ The Age of Wire and String (1995), Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions (2006), Anne Carson’s Nox (2010), and Tom McCarthy’s C (2010). EH 577 Studies in Genre: Writing the Environment Dr. Sue B. Walker Through a combination of writing workshops, select readings, a workshop on photographing the Delta and writing the scene, as well as environmental fieldwork—trips to the Mobile‐Tensaw Delta, Blake‐
ley State Park, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Five Rivers Resource Center, the shores of damaged sands, stu‐
dents will explore via fiction, poetry, creative nonfic‐
tion, non‐fiction, and drama, the influences of the natural world and the environmental imagination. World renowned environmentalist, Edward O. Wil‐
son says that the Mobile Tensaw Delta is a sanctuary of nature and spirit. He says that “to know the land and its people [. . .] is to give value to the living world into which people intrude and which they con‐
tinuously modify to their own ends.” This course will provide and original and intensive opportunity to document, meditate on, mourn, and celebrate the complexities of our transforming natu‐
ral world. The aim of the course will be to produce a publishable text that we can submit to a publisher. This work will consist of essays, stories, poems, etc. The class will be offered Tuesdays from 5:00 – 7:30 p.m. and will include some Saturday field trips. EH 583/584 Grad Fiction Writing Workshop I/II Prof. Carolyn Haines Special individual instruction in fiction writing. This course requires special permission. EH 590: Special Topics: Early American Literature Dr. Patrick Cesarini This course will combine a broad survey of early American texts from about 1600 to 1820 with a more intensive focus on several important writers from the early national period, such as Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Charles Brockden Brown, and Washington Irving. Part of our project will be to trace the connections between the political forma‐
tion of the United States and the development of a national literary culture, and part will be to follow the development of cultural concerns that were vital both before and after the Revolution: concerns about national identity (whether English or Ameri‐
can), about peoples and places whose American status was contested (such as Indians, or the English colonies of the Caribbean), and about large abstrac‐
tions such as religion, nature, and progress. Students will be required to write brief responses to each week's reading, a short essay on a set topic, and a longer research essay. This class will satisfy literature students' requirement for a pre‐1800 course. EH 590: Special Topics: Screenwriting Prof. Thomas Lakeman This hands‐on course will guide students through the process of writing an original screenplay ‐‐ story structure, character development, script analysis, and scene technique. Along the way, we will investi‐
gate the highly visual vocabulary of film and televi‐
sion by studying classic scripts, with an eye to devel‐
oping core skills and disciplines: how to isolate story problems, activate lifeless scenes, externalize con‐
flict, and engage the audience. In keeping with the highly charged nature of film, we will focus on how to write at speed with an awareness of production challenges and marketing opportunities. The major course project will be the development and writing of an original first‐draft screenplay. EH 599 Thesis Please see Dr. Harrington if you would like to regis‐
ter for thesis hours and have not already discussed your committee, graduation requirements, etc. 8