English Department Topics Courses for Fall 2014
Fall Semester 2014
ENG 220 (3 cr) Multicultural American Lit: African American Literature
Michlitsch
Students will delve into the rich African American literary tradition. Since Phillis Wheatley’s poetry of the American Revolution, African
American writers have contributed in major ways to the literature of United States. In this class, we will read slave narratives by Frederick
Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, poetry by Langston Hughes and Harryette Mullen, essays by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Alice Walker, and short
stories by Nella Larsen and Octavia Butler.
ENG 220 (3 cr) Multicultural American Lit: Crossing Into America – Recent Immigrant Literature
Forsythe
While the U.S. has from its inception been a land of immigrants, the nearly 40 million immigrants (mostly from non-European countries) making
their home in the U.S. today have become the focus of contentious political debates. Often not heard are the stories of the immigrants
themselves, stories about why they come and what they experience as they try to claim a new home. This course will focus on those stories:
the novels, memoirs, essays, poems and films that tell the immigrants’ own stories.
ENG 220 (3 cr) Multicultural American Lit: Literature of Immigration
Cumberland
One of the goals of this course will be to identify the immigrant narrative as a defining story of American culture and to recognize its relations
to the "American Dream" and other multicultural narratives and identities. Possible authors will include Willa Cather, Upton Sinclair, Diana AbuJaber, Nahid Rachlin.
ENG 221 (3 cr) Topics in Literature: World Mythology
Eddy
This course provides a survey of the world's oldest literature from Gilgamesh to the Ramayana to The Aeneid. We will look at origin myths,
various philosophies of religion and strategies for understanding mythology and literature from several ancient (and some surviving) world
cultures.
ENG 221 (3 cr) Topics in Literature: European Fiction
Buttram
With reading selections that span six centuries and languages, this class will center on novels, stories, and other types of prose fiction from the
European tradition and will offer not only artistic pleasure, but also intellectual exploration. Works by such figures as Cervantes, Voltaire, and
Tolstoy will give students an opportunity to approach prose fiction from diverse angles, including the perspectives of cultural dynamics, social
contexts, and literary histories.
ENG 227 (3 cr) Topics in Language: Language, Culture, and Variation
Larsen
This course aims to study English language varieties in different cultures as well as language variety within cultures, such as regional and social
dialects. Students will examine language variety in its general sense and through this develop knowledge of the many uses of language
including political, social and cultural implications of language planning.
ENG 471 (3 cr) Seminar in British Lit: Contemporary British Drama
Weber
Students will study works by prominent post-World War II playwrights from Great Britain and Ireland. Authors include Harold Pinter, Carol
Churchill, Tom Stoppard, Sarah Kane, Conor McPherson, and Martin McDonagh.
Film Courses:
FILM 240 (3 cr) Film Genres: The War Film
Johnson
Melodrama may be the most pervasive – and misunderstood – of film modes. Emphasizing exaggerated emotions, interpersonal conflicts, and
plots that rely on contrivance and stereotype to project a moral universe demarcated clearly into forces for good and evil, film melodrama is
primarily a style of excess, evident in its mise-en-scène, music, star iconography, and performance techniques. The original sense of the term
has its origins in theater (“drama with music”), and thus melodrama can be seen as intrinsic to the cinema from the silent era to the present
day. It has been and continues to be essential to the way that film speaks to and connects with popular culture. In this class, we will study both
the melodramatic mode not only in the classic works of directors such as Max Ophűls, Douglas Sirk, and Nicholas Ray, but also in more
contemporary films by John Singleton, Pedro Almodovar, Todd Haynes, and Darren Aronofsy. Likely films include Sunrise, A Song of Two Humans
(1927, F. W. Murnau); Stella Dallas (1937, dir. King Vidor); Black Narcissus (1947, dirs. Powell & Pressburger); Rebel without a Cause (1953, dir.
Nicholas Ray); Written on the Wind (1957, dir. Douglas Sirk); Imitation of Life (1959, dir. Douglas Sirk); Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974, dir. Rainer
Werner Fassbinder); Rocky (1976, dir. John Avildsen); Boyz N the Hood (1991, dir. John Singleton); Talk to Her (2002, dir. Pedro Almodovar); Far
from Heaven (2002, dir. Todd Haynes), and The Wrestler (2008, dir. Darren Aronofsky). GEP Goal 6 (Humanities).
FILM 250 (3 cr) Introductory Filmmaking: Living History Project
O’Callaghan
The goal of this course is to familiarize students with filmmaking technique and practice. Students will be introduced to the techniques and
tools of cinematic narrative storytelling. Students will examine the genres, styles, practices, and ethics of film production as they collaborate
on short films for public distribution and exhibition. Students’ final projects will be distributed and exhibited publicly in various venues and
forums as warranted. In the specific instance of this One-Time Course Offering, the short films will be exhibited in a premiere sponsored by the
Retiree Center. Course counts towards the FILM Minor as well as GEP Goal 6b: Fine Arts.