ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
SPRING 2016
COURSE NUMBER/NAME and DESCRIPTION
ENGL 221 - POETRY
PROFESSOR
FULFILLS
Dr. N. Finkelstein
Required
The purpose of this course is to develop the student’s understanding of English and American poetry. We will
study this poetry from a historical perspective; we will also consider it as an unfolding tradition of intertextuality, a
canon in which each poem and poet has a part. Furthermore, we will examine the formal or structural dimension of
this poetry (meter, rhyme, stanza structure and so on), its generic and discursive conventions, its figures of speech
(imagery, metaphor, etc.), and its ongoing themes.
ENGL 303 - HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM
Dr. L. Ottum
Required
Why read books? What counts as “good” literature? What books should every student read? These and similar
questions are at the heart of literary criticism, the art of responding to poetry, fiction, drama, and other literary forms.
ENGL 303 examines hot topics in contemporary criticism, tracing these debates to their historical roots. The course
emphasizes criticism written in English from the 1700s to today; unlike a typical 300-level English course, most of
the readings are argumentative nonfiction. ENGL 303 is useful for anyone interested in developing and learning to
defend their own views on literature, but is especially useful for English majors and minors. ENGL 303 fulfills the
theory requirement for majors.
ENGL 309 - CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY
Dr. K. Renzi
Elective/
Writing Minor
This course is designed to help expand your understanding of poetry—both in terms of your critical understanding of
other poets’ works and in terms of your own development as a writer. As such, we will aim to build on your previous
writing experience as we enhance both your excitement about language and your dedication to the craft of poetry.
We will spend time reading both individual poems and book-length works by other poets, as one of the best ways to
learn about poetry is to read widely. We will also spend time writing and developing your own poems through a
series of assignments, workshops, and revisions. Emphasis will be placed on sharing your work often with your
peers, at various stages of its development, and on providing meaningful critiques of your peers’ works as well.
ENGL 315 - COMPOSITION TUTORING
Dr. A. Russell
Elective/
Writing Minor
Students in this course will study and gain experience in the theory and practice of one-on-one conferencing in
writing, with a focus on the dynamics of the tutorial session, the writing process, rhetorical analysis, the study of
error, the logic of grammar, revision, ESL issues, and writing in the disciplines. Students put their study of writing
into practice by apprenticing as tutors for an ENGL 101 course throughout the semester. The materials and
assignments for this upper-level writing course additionally challenge students to develop their own knowledge and
craft of writing. Required of students before they may tutor in the Writing Center, the course is by no means limited
to English and Education majors/graduate students, for whom its benefits may be readily identified. Composition
Tutoring is a good elective for students pursuing careers that demand facility and proficiency in written expression
and the ability to work cooperatively with others. This course also counts toward the Writing Minor. Interested
undergraduates should exhibit a commitment to writing and have earned a grade of B or better in ENGL 101 or
ENGL 115.
ENGL 319 - WRITING AS SOCIAL ACTION
Dr. R. Frey
Elective/
Writing Minor
This writing intensive course will examine the history and practice of writing as social action, promoting the Jesuit
rhetorical tradition of eloquentia perfecta, the art of communicating well for the common good. This tradition
combines eloquence with reflection and discernment, and asks students to both analyze and create writing related to
social action across a variety of contexts, purposes, genres, and mediums. The goal of the course is to develop
students’ writing abilities while also asking them to reflect upon their deeper values and place within the larger
world. By cultivating qualities of compassion alongside building skills of written, oral, and digital communication,
students are encouraged to turn their rhetorical abilities toward social action in areas that are most meaningful to
them. This informed engagement will constitute the products of this course, as students compose texts meant to
intervene in the world around them, for the greater good, in solidarity with and for others.
ENGL 328 - GENDER, RELIGION, AND VIOLENCE
Dr. C. Winkelmann
Elective
This team-taught Humanities elective course looks at violence against women, girl children, and the LGBTQ
communities from the perspectives of theology (Professor Enriquez) and language studies (Professor Winkelmann).
Our topics include domestic violence, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and sexual violence as a strategy and
consequence of war. The theoretical approach of the course is intersectional (that is, with a view toward how
gendered violence is altered by race/ethnicities, religion, age, socio-economic factors, sexual orientation, etc.) and
our pedagogical approach is experiential (that is, designed to offer engagement and reflection opportunities). The
course focuses on the personal and structural changes necessary to adequately address its issues and to explore the
internal and external resources necessary to stand in solidarity with the survivors of violence. The aim is to use
theological, linguistic/literary, and community knowledge to effect student transformation.
ENGL 331 - WORLD LITERATURE
Dr. T. Williams
Elective
The undergraduate version of this course satisfies the Diversity Curriculum Requirement insofar as it explicitly
addresses and examines the category of the “minority” vis-à-vis languages and cultural traditions as the latter
encounter modern political/cultural movements (e.g., British imperialism, National Socialism and Maoism). As we
will see, the category of the “minority” is never fixed since who or what is—and isn’t—a minority is very much a
matter of dates and places. Most important, several of these texts will demonstrate that the convenient dyad
minority/majority is a facile abstraction of more complex relationships among several (not between two) ethnic,
linguistic and cultural communities (the category of “race” is largely absent outside the United States, though the
adoption of U.S.A. simplistic racial categories will be evident in some of these works).
ENGL 364 - JANE AUSTEN: THEN AND NOW
Dr. J. Wyett
British Lit
This course will explore the historical context and enduring popularity of the works of Jane Austen. We will discuss
five of Austen’s six published novels, some of her juvenilia and letters, multiple film adaptations, a great deal of
scholarly criticism, and some other recent adaptations of her work. We will focus on analysis of Austen’s work in
relation to the social and cultural conditions of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain and its place in
the development of the English novel, still a new genre at the time. But we will also consider its continued relevance
to our lives. Thus we will examine not only the ways in which Austen’s work responds to and reflects the major
social issues of her time (the Napoleanic wars, the abolition of the slave trade, gender inequity in property laws and
customs, the human costs of maintaining the landed gentry, etc.), but also the ways in which modern adaptations
either incorporate or, more often, ignore these themes by looking closely at how and why Austen’s work is adapted
for modern audiences. This class serves as a British Literature elective for English majors and minors, a British
Literature OR Women’s Literature course for secondary education Language Arts certification students, fulfills the
university undergraduate Humanities Elective requirement, and serves as an elective for the Gender and Diversity
Studies major/minor.
ENGL 429 - RENAISSANCE DRAMA
Dr. N. O’Leary
British Lit
In Renaissance England, twenty-five thousand people a week went to the theater, but only some of these attended
Shakespeare’s plays. The majority paid to see plays by his many rivals. This course explores the dramatic works of
these competitors, including Kyd, Middleton, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Webster, and focusing in particular on the
extremely popular genre of revenge tragedy. Is revenge a dish best served cold? Should the punishment fit the crime?
And how exactly does one die by means of poisoned coins? These questions and more will inform our exploration of
the gory, violent, excessive, sometimes hilarious, and often disturbing genre of revenge tragedy. In addition to
participating in class discussion, students will be required to prepare a research paper and presentation, write several
short response papers, two critical essays, and a comprehensive final exam. The course will emphasize cultural,
philosophical, and linguistic elements in the texts, focusing especially on problems of interpretation. All of the
coursework is designed to strengthen students’ critical reading, writing, and thinking skills.
ENGL 491 - AMERICAN TEXTS AND ADAPTATIONS
Dr. J. McFarlane
Harris
Amer Lit
This upper-division course features 19th-century American texts paired with contemporary adaptations of these
“classic” literary works. We will begin with selected poems by Emily Dickinson, together with Adrienne Rich poems
where Dickinson “appears.” Then we will turn to one of the most beloved—and most adapted—American novels:
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1869). In addition to watching a film adaptation and listening to snippets of the
Little Women opera and musical, we will read the Pulitzer Prize winning March by Geraldine Brooks (2005). A
compelling piece of historical fiction, March uses the absent father from Little Women to take us on a poignant
journey through the Civil War; we also meet a character inspired by Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative. Next we will
focus on Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting seafaring tale, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838),
alongside Mat Johnson’s phantasmagoric metafiction about an American literature professor who ends up on an
unlikely journey to the Arctic in search of a Poe character: Pym: A Novel (2011). As we delve into the nuances of
genre and adaptation, we will pay careful attention to the functions of social categories such as gender, sexuality,
race, socioeconomic class, and religion in American literature. To that end, we will also examine a variety of
scholarship on intertextuality, sentimentality, and historical contexts for these lineworks.
ENGL 499 - SENIOR SEMINAR: Language and Identity in
Twenty-First Century African Fiction
Dr. J. Cline-Bailey
Required
Many writers who are classified as African were born outside of the continent and have lived most
(sometimes all) of their lives in diaspora. These circumstances often raise questions about identity and the
classification of literature based on outdated concepts of what it means to be considered of a certain place,
country, or continent. We will study the ways in which twenty-first century fiction writers associated with
Africa by critics address issues of identity in their use of language among other things. Authors studied will
include Binyavanga Wainaina, Noviolet Bulawayo, Olufemi Terry, and Chimamanda Adichie.