ASU DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
4000- and 5000-LEVEL
EXTENDED COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
SPRING 2016
ENG 4200: Editing
Dr. Rosemary Horowitz — MW 2:00pm – 3:15pm
This course covers various concepts and methods of editing, basic editing skills, comprehensive editing processes
and principles, and management and production techniques. After completing the class, you will be able to
describe the breadth and diversity of editorial responsibilities, discuss the various types of editing and levels of
editing, exhibit basic and comprehensive editing skills, understand document management and production, and use
various desktop and electronic publishing applications.
Course requirements: a project in which you assume the role of acquisitions editor, copy editor, or production
editor in order to develop a set of brochures; a project in which you work in groups to publish a newsletter or
similar type of publication; an electronic editing research project; a number of in-class editing assignments; and two
oral presentations.
ENG 4300: Seminar in Professional Writing
Dr. Wendy Winn — TR 9:30am – 10:45am
ENG 4509: Junior/Senior Honors Seminar in World Literature
Camelots: The Arthurian Legend in World Literature
Dr. Germán Campos-Muñoz — MW 3:30pm – 4:45pm
In its paradigmatic role as transcultural narrative, the Arthurian Legend vividly exemplifies the complex character of
what we call “World Literature.” Firstly, it is worldly because the Narrative of King Arthur aspires to operate as a
full world in itself—with its own geography and seasons, its own social divisions and values, its own landscapes and
edifices, and its own laws and languages. Secondly, it is worldly because, in spite of its best efforts, the Legend
inevitably and distinctly reflects the world in which it is narrated—and thus becomes, at different times and in
different places, an expression of cultural anxieties with respect to the Greco-Roman legacy, the pseudohistorical
foundation of imperial projects, and the romanticized scenario of nostalgic
counterpoints to an industrial and bourgeois style of life. Thirdly, it is worldly
because it never remains fully localized: from its very first manifestations, the
Arthurian Legend crosses cultural, linguistic, and representational borders with
ease—from the Latin accounts of Medieval scholars to vernacular folklore in
Welsh, Tuscan, Hebrew, Castilian, and Anglo-Norman, and from 6th-century
monastic Scotland to 19th-century Victorian England, early 20th century
modernist Japan, and mid-20th-century US pop culture.
Our course will interrogate the history of the perennial iterations of King Arthur
and his Round Table in historiography, fiction, poetry, drama, performative
and visual arts, films and videogames, across multiple linguistic traditions and
periods. It will assess the importance of the Arthurian Legend in the formation
of English history and identity, but will also foreground its perennial
transgression of specific cultural borders, its constant reformulations, and the
irresolvable tensions created among these multiple versions. In addition to weekly reading and audiovisual
assignments, activities will include leading discussions, rhetorical contests, tests and written assignments, and a
collective Arthurian narrative.
ENG 4550: Senior Seminar on Flash Fiction
Abigail DeWitt — MW 2:00pm – 3:15pm
In this course, we will study the art of the very short story. This genre, which goes by many names—short shorts,
flash fiction, and sudden fiction, to name a few—has been endlessly debated; our first task, therefore, will be to
come up with a working definition that will serve us for the semester. We will consider how flash fiction (the term
currently in vogue) resembles and differs from other genres, and discuss the importance (or irrelevance) of these
distinctions. Every week, we will read a selection of published flash fiction and every week, students will compose
four short pieces of their own. We will free-write to generate rough drafts, and then discuss how to compress,
shape and polish those drafts into finished pieces. Out of the four short shorts you write every week, you should
plan on revising and polishing at least one, so that you end up with fifteen at the end of the semester. In addition
to sharing your preliminary revisions in workshops, you will have many opportunities to read first drafts aloud in
class and receive immediate, informal feedback. At the end of the semester, each student will compile his or her
fifteen final revisions into a chapbook.
Readings will be assigned from Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing
Flash Fiction, and occasional handouts. Students will also be asked to find, copy and distribute their own favorite
short shorts from the many anthologies, collections, and literary journals that publish these works. (Unfortunately,
all copying, whether of published pieces or for workshops, is at students’ own expense. Double-sided copying will
help, and, of course, published pieces that you’re distributing to the class do not need to be double-spaced. I
recommend typing up the published work you’re going to share, both because it will really sharpen your own
writing skills, and because you can cram more onto a single page that way.)
Finally, students participating in a senior writing seminar are expected to be passionate about writing and
committed to the process of revision, both in their own work and in the work of their fellow students. It is a tenet
of this course that a useful workshop must begin and end with a discussion of a story’s strengths, rather than a
catalogue of its imperfections. At the same time, it is understood that you will turn in your best pieces for
discussion, pieces that you have revised and proofread many times. If you are genuinely interested in revision and
willing to engage with your fellow students’ work, you should do well in this class.
ENG 4560: Adolescent Literature
Dr. Mark Vogel — MWF 12:00pm – 12:50pm
Explores the exciting field of literature for and about adolescents. The course will trace the historical
development, noting pivotal books and authors, and investigating themes and issues surrounding adolescent
literature. The student will read at least 14 adolescent novels, and then link the texts to response-based teaching.
Students will explore theories of adolescent development, read widely in adolescent literature, participate in webbased discussion, develop curriculum for teaching adolescent literature, and link adolescent literature with classic
texts. If attempts to register online produce a Restriction, please contact me (vogelmw@appstate.edu) and I will
let you in.
ENG 4560: Adolescent Literature
Dr. Elaine J. O’Quinn — MW 2:00pm – 3:15pm
This course is designed to give prospective and practicing English teachers, as well as those involved with the
selection of adolescent texts, a familiarity with the literature adolescents relate to, enjoy and choose. It also
presents the reasons why teenage readers make the choices that they do. In addition, the course reviews the sources
of materials that teenagers will read with pleasure. Most important, it is planned to help the teacher develop a
positive attitude toward this kind of literature and understand the consequences of various aspects of Adolescent
Literature in curricular choices.
ENG 4580/4581 : Studies in African American Literature
Dr. Grace McEntee — MW 3:30pm – 4:45pm
This course will look at a variety of ways that African
American writers have used—or have resisted using—race
and/or racism to inform their art. Some of the authors we’ll
read use their literary talents to examine racial injustices and
their consequences; others write stories so steeped in black
culture that the influence of the white world is present only
as a distant backdrop; still others focus on emotions, place,
or the human condition without regard to race. We will
study a variety of genres—some classics, some newly
written—that illustrate this range of approaches and that
span emotions from deep-seated anger to joyful
celebration.
I’m still working on a reading list, but probable works include Toni Morrison’s Beloved (or perhaps Jazz) and
Playing in the Dark, David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident, essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a James Baldwin story
or two, and a selection of contemporary poems by Yusef Komuntakaa, Natasha Trethewey, and Toi Dericotte.
ENG 4590, Topics in World Literature: Virtual Worlds
Dr. Germán Campos Muñoz — MW 2:00pm – 3:15pm
What do we call a “virtual world”? When does a world become virtual? We typically assume that a virtual world
operates in such a way that it detracts us from the tangible or immediately verifiable world—that is, the “real
world.” Such apparent divide between “virtual” and “real,” however, often mask the inextricable, even symbiotic
relationship between these two categories. Indeed, virtual worlds not only operate as critical examinations of the
real world: they often seek to define it, to transform it, and ultimately to substitute it altogether. With the arrival of
new media and audiovisual system, the question of the virtual becomes particularly important, as we are further
pressed to reflect upon the cultural significance of the technologies we use every day and the way they absorb us
into their own logic, their own space and time dynamics, and their own codes.
This course addresses the predicaments of the virtual and the real across time and geographies, putting immensely
popular videogames (e.g. World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto) widespread social network platforms (e.g.,
Twitter, Facebook, or Vimeo), and celebrated fantasy fictions (e.g. Game of Thrones or The Matrix) into a
historical, literary, and philosophical perspective. We will explore a highly heterogeneous collection of fictional and
non-fictional cultural artifacts, including literary, philosophical, and scientific texts; films, video-clips, animations,
and TV shows; compositions, songs, and lyrics; sculptures, paintings and comic books; board games and video
games; public spaces and quotidian objects, etc. These various items will be drawn from very different epochs,
places, and linguistic traditions, in order to historicize, analyze, explain, and compare multiple instantiations of
virtual worlds. In addition to class activities and comparative exercises, students will participate in a collective
virtual world project, and also conduct research on their experiences of immersion in such worlds as part of the
course.
ENG 4591: Theory and Practice in the Teaching of High School English
Dr. Elaine J. O’Quinn — MW 3:30pm – 4:45pm
This course emphasizes issues of teaching secondary English within the context of whole language theories of
reading, writing and other forms of literacy. Students will engage in many of the practices that are discussed,
including the work of theoretical and pedagogical foundations of teaching English. A culminating product of the
class will include sample unit plans, mini-lessons, philosophical statements, technology competencies, and various
other artifacts essential to an emerging understanding of who the student is as a teacher. Reflective statements
about each of these pieces will also be required. The intent of the course is to ready students for the student
teaching experience and what lies beyond.
ENG 4620: Language, Gender, and Power
Dr. Donna L. Lillian — MWF 12:00pm – 12:50pm
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Do men and women really speak differently?
Is there such as thing as gayspeak?
What challenges & opportunities does language present for transgender people?
Is the English language sexist?
What is the relationship between sexist discourse and other types of discriminatory discourse?
How do people use language to gain and maintain power over one another?
How can we resist others’ attempts to control us through language?
This Topics in Language class will explore these and other issues, through readings, class discussions, assignments,
and exams. This course assumes no prior study of linguistics, although one or more courses in language, grammar,
or linguistics may be helpful.
ENG 4660: History of the English Language
Dr. Donna L. Lillian — MWF 10:00am – 10:50am
ENG 4710: Advanced Studies in Women and Literature: “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
Dr. Kristina Groover — TR 11:00am – 12:15pm
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was one of the foremost figures of literary modernism. In
this course we will study Woolf as writer, as reader, and as a cultural icon who has
inspired plays, novels, films, songs, and portraits. We will analyze literary texts – those
she wrote, those she read, and those she inspired – not only through close reading, but
also by understanding the various biographical, historical, and cultural contexts in which
they were created.
The course will be conducted as a seminar, with students taking an active role in leading
class discussion. Students will conduct research presentations and write a series of short
critical essays as well as a final seminar paper. Contact the instructor at
grooverkk@appstate.edu if you have questions about the class.
ENG 4730: The Novel
Dr. Alex Pitofsky — TR 12:30pm – 1:45pm
ENG 4760: Literary Criticism
Dr. James Ivory — TR 12:30pm – 1:45pm
This course will examine, discuss, and interrogate literary theoretical approaches beginning with Plato and
concluding somewhere in the twenty-first century. Examples of theory include but are not limited to
deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, new Historicism, cultural studies, queer theory, and postcolonialism, and post-humanism.
Literary criticism will investigate the tools and approaches to literary studies. We will begin with some loosely
defined ideas, such as: What do we mean by “literature”? Can we ever agree or know exactly what we mean or
what someone else means by it? And how do terms in “critical theory” and “literary theory” construct or influence
meaning and thought? We will focus and develop what and how we think about the history of thinking about
literary production. An emphasis on strategy of thinking will help us read texts more carefully and critically. We
will strengthen our foundations by looking at some earlier ideas on what the literary craft has meant morally and
aesthetically. Emphasize will be more on contemporary or progressive theories from structuralism to poststructuralism. Since labels can be confining, inflexible paradigms, problematic, and burdensome, we will suggest
many moves beyond or through the at times difficult language of theory. What do those worrisome prefixes (post-,
meta-, neo-) mean anyway? Is there only one way to deploy these ideas? And what about those unnerving suffixes,
like “isms” this and “isms” that? The primary goal will be to help you become more comfortable with the
playfulness (jouissance) in the language of theory and ideas in critical theory. While travelling primarily
diachronically, this course is not organized around a specific literary period or theme, but interconnected by diverse
literary and non-literary texts where we might investigate and apply the ideas and approaches in both praxis and
theory.
ENG 4770: Early American Literature
Dr. Colin Ramsey — TR 11:00am – 12:15pm
ENG 4785: American Literature: 1865-1914
American Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism
Dr. Carl Eby — MW 3:30pm – 4:45pm
Explore American literature during the Gilded Age — the age dominated by
literary realism, regionalism, and naturalism. In addition to a few shorter works by
writers such as Stephen Crane, Jack London, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Charles
Chesnutt, we’ll read Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,
Henry James’s A Portrait of a Lady, William Dean Howells’s The Rise of Silas
Lapham, Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister
Carrie. We’ll try to place these texts against a historical background of explosive
industrial growth, the emergence of vast wealth and terrible poverty, the
urbanization of America, rampant political and corporate corruption, the failure of
Reconstruction in the South, the closing of the frontier, and the emergence of the
U.S. as a global (some would say, imperial) power. We will explore how such
forces shaped national, racial, class, and gender identity for Americans during the
period, and we will consider the intellectual influence on American literature of
some of the major thinkers of the period: Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Karl
Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and William James.
Required texts with ISBN numbers: Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court (978-0520268166); Henry James, A Portrait of a Lady (9780393966466); William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (9780451528223); Edith Wharton The House of Mirth (0451527569); and Theodore
Dreiser, Sister Carrie (978-0140188288). Please be especially careful to get the correct editions of A Connecticut
Yankee and A Portrait of a Lady!
ENG 4795: Contemporary American Literature: 1960-Present
Dr. Zackary Vernon — MW 2:00pm -3:45pm
This course will explore significant trends in American literature since 1960. In
particular, we will study developments in postmodernism—anti-formalism,
fragmentation, pastiche, anarchism, paradox, deconstruction, fabulation, selfreflexivity, rhizomatic knowledge structures, anti-narrativism, petite histoire, irony,
parody, post-humanism, magical realism, multiculturalism—by analyzing short
stories and novels from a range of authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas
Pynchon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Donald Barthelme, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Leslie
Marmon Silko, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Cormac McCarthy. We will also read and discuss critical and theoretical works
by writers such as Fredric Jameson, Ihab Hassan, Jean Baudrillard, Umberto Eco, Donna Haraway, and bell hooks.
ENG 4810: Advanced Folklore
Dr. Cece Conway — T 6:00pm – 9:00pm
ENG 4840: Nature and the Unnatural in Shakespeare’s Later Plays
Dr. Susan C. Staub — TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm
“Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles,” the
doctor says in Macbeth after observing the obsessively
compulsive Lady Macbeth trying, futilely, to wash the
blood off her hands. But how do we define what is
unnatural in Shakespeare’s world, and even more
importantly, how did Shakespeare and his
contemporaries interpret nature? What is the
relationship between the human and the non-human
world? What did it mean to be a part of that world—to
interact and coexist with it? To protect it? To violate it?
Is it possible to read Shakespeare with an eye to
contemporary environmental issues, to “green” his
plays? This course will consider a selection of
Shakespeare’s plays (among them Hamlet, The Tempest,
The Winter’s Tale, Antony and Cleopatra, and King
Lear) in an attempt to answer these questions.
Millais, Ophelia: "like a creature native and endued unto that element"
ENG 4840: Shakespeare: Later Works
Dr. David Orvis — TR 12:30pm – 1:45pm
ENG 4850: Renaissance Literature
Dr. David Orvis — TR 3:30pm – 4:45pm
ENG 4860: Credit and Credibility in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century England
Dr. Jennifer Wilson — MWF 12:00pm – 12:50pm
Established in 1694, the Bank of England was incorporated by private investors to finance the nation’s government.
Half of the sponsors’ initial outlay of £1.2 m. was devoted to rebuilding the Royal Navy. As England used this
investment to accumulate mercantile and imperialistic power in the eighteenth century, the metaphor of financial
credit and its circulation gained increasing currency in social and
literary as well as economic circles. Thus, in addition to
speculating on lottery tickets or joint stock offerings such as
those of the South Sea Company, the public enjoyed speculative
tales of adventure and intrigue such as criminal lives, “strange
but true” stories, and travel accounts. One side effect of the
parallel circulation of money and texts was cultural anxiety
about who could be trusted in a swiftly changing world.
Eighteenth-century narratives abound with questions of whom
and what we can credit and where we should invest our time
and attention. These are the narratives we will focus on in the
spring 2016 section of ENG 4860/61. Readings will include
Daniel Defoe’s Roxana, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, Jane
Austen’s Northanger Abbey, as well a number of shorter
selections from the Longman Anthology rental text. We will write two papers, one a close reading and the other a
longer research project, and the class will include two tests as well as lively daily discussion.
ENG 4880: Literature of the Victorian Period
Dr. Jill Ehnenn — TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm
This course will examine the intersections of art and life in Victorian England, focusing on visual and literary texts
associated (both directly and tangentially) with British Aestheticism. Through our study of texts in various media
and genres, we will look at the ways architects, painters, poets, craftspeople, socialists, feminists, and novelists
sought to combat the effects of an Industrial Age in a world that was becoming increasingly mechanized, and as
some felt, increasingly ugly. Our study will also address Victorian fascination with the art and culture of ancient
Greece and Rome and Renaissance Italy, as well as late-19th-century panic as art for art’s sake and pleasure for
pleasure’s sake blurred the boundaries between Victorian Aestheticism and fin-de-siècle Decadence.
Overall, our goal will be twofold: (1) to establish a solid understanding of some of the literature of the mid and
late 19th-century; and (2) to explore how Victorian conceptions of beauty had profound political, social, and
economic implications—creating intersections between aesthetics and contemporary notions of gender, sexuality,
class, race and empire.
ENG 4895: 20th Century British Literature, 1945 – Present
Dr. James Ivory — TR 3:30pm – 4:45pm
In thinking about events following the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st, we will think critically about
cultural historicity. This cultural historicity might be defined as post-imperial, postmodern, postcolonial, and posthuman. Post-imperial explores cultural hegemony through writers who “talk back” to the diminishing powers of
the British Empire. We will investigate how writers view their relationship to empire as contentious and complex.
While some although not all of these national writers embrace some forms of Englishness, their writings often reveal
that to write in English does not mean to celebrate Britain’s cultural arrogance or to collaborate in its global or local
hegemonic practices. Postmodernism looks into narrative strategies and subject matter that interrogate the
categories and practices of classical or canonical texts. Post-colonialism considers writers who investigate and
interrogate Britain’s imposed language, educational, and ideological systems. These writers emerge from a number
of former colonial sites, like Kenya, Nigeria, India, and the West Indies, and others. Post-human raises difficult
question about the “body’s trajectory along the lines of gender, queer, technology, and dis/abled studies. Engaging
in the complexities found in these writers’ fictions, we should better understand the importance of global
communities, economies, and national diversity. Maybe now more-than-ever in post 9-11, “post Empire”, an
understanding of multiculturalism is essential to becoming a better-educated citizen.
R_C 5100: Composition Theory, Practice, & Pedagogy
Dr. Kim Gunter — TR 12:30pm – 1:45pm
R_C 5121: Teaching Basic Writing
Dr. Bret Zawilski — M 1:00pm – 1:50pm
R_C 5121: Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum
Dr. Bret Zawilski — W 1:00pm – 1:50pm
ENG 5150 — Teaching Literature
Dr. Jennifer Wilson — MW 2:00 – 3:15
This class will conduct a wide-ranging consideration of the
goals and techniques, philosophies and practices of teaching
literature. We will especially consider the general education
literature class -- whether organized thematically or by
historical survey and whether featuring British, American, or World Literatures. Readings and discussion will
include methods of constructing a syllabus, planning class sessions, facilitating discussion, composing writing and
research prompts, and responding to student assignments. For further information, please feel free to contact me
at wilsonjp@appstate.edu or during office hours.
ENG 5520: Technical Writing
Dr. Wendy Winn — TR 11:00am – 12:15pm
ENG 5650: Gender Studies: Gender and Animals
Dr. Kathryn Kirkpatrick — T 4:00pm – 7:00pm
Cow. Bitch. Beast. Savage. Vermin. Pig. Modern cultures have often constructed non-human animals as abject,
violent, and dirty: these social constructions may have very little to do with the actual pig (who prefers to be
clean) or chicken (who fiercely protects her young) or gorilla (who is a shy herbivore). But these constructions are
routinely used to degrade women and other human Others in what eco-feminists have identified as the intersection
of multiple oppressions. We will read ecofeminist and posthumanist theory alongside literary works, paying
particular attention to writers of magical realist and speculative fiction. Readings will include Virginia Woolf’s
Flush, Ursula Le Guin’s Buffalo Gals, and Other Animal Presences, J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, and Margaret Atwood’s
Oryx and Crake. Requirements include short essays, a presentation, and a final paper.
ENG 5710: Advanced Folklore
Dr. Cece Conway — T 6:00pm – 9:00pm
ENG 5760: Studies in American Literature
Dr. Holly E. Martin — TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm
From interstate super highways, to small-town routes, to dirt tracks
crossing rivers and mountains, the image of “the road” figures
prominently in a number of works of American literature. This course
will look at 20th and 21st century literature that utilizes the symbolic
potential of the road in a myriad of times and situations. Whether the
purpose is to travel in pursuit of a quest or to flee from trauma, the road
offers adventure, terror, and much time for inner contemplation. The
journeys we will read about are as diverse as the characters and capture
both the lure and the necessity of “taking to the road.” Texts include:
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, The Wayward Bus by John
Steinbeck, Beloved by Toni Morrison, On the Road by Jack Kerouac,
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
Major assignments include oral presentations, reaction papers, and an article-length paper (18-25 pages).
ENG 5870: Romantic Period
Dr. William D. Brewer — W 4:00pm – 7:00pm
In April 10, 1815, the largest volcanic explosion in modern
history occurred at Mount Tambora in Sumbawa (in modernday Indonesia) and volcanic dust spread throughout the
globe. During the resulting “year without summer” of 1816,
Lord Byron, Byron’s physician John Polidori, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, Shelley’s lover Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley),
Percy and Mary’s son William, and Byron’s lover Claire
Clairmont moved into lodgings near Lake Geneva in
Switzerland. After the incessant rain and cold temperatures
drove them indoors, Byron wrote his apocalyptic poem
“Darkness” and recited part of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s unpublished Gothic poem Christabel to the group,
traumatizing Shelley; they read horror stories to each other from a collection titled Fantasmagoriana; and Byron
proposed that that they all write a ghost story. The two most important products of the ghost story contest were
Polidori’s The Vampyre (derived from an unfinished novel by Byron) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Later in the
summer, Matthew “Monk” Lewis visited Geneva and orally translated Goethe’s Faust, which heavily influenced
Byron’s dramatic poem Manfred.
In 2016, Romanticists will be celebrating the bicentenary of the haunted summer, and in English 5780, The
Romantic Period, we will pay particular attention to the Geneva-inspired writings of Byron, Polidori, and the
Shelleys, as well as to Lewis’s classic horror novel The Monk and Ann Radcliffe’s reply to The Monk, The Italian
(both novels feature corrupt monks). In addition, we will read Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman (an
important literary precursor to Frankenstein), a dramatization of The Vampyre by James Robinson Planché, and
selected works by the major Romantic writers who influenced Byron and the Shelleys.
Course requirements: a short paper, a longer paper, two oral presentations, class participation, and a final
examination.
ENG 5930 – Transnational Literature: Literature in Flight
Dr. Başak Çandar
“Transnational literature” does not have a set definition or canon, unlike
the nationally or linguistically described literatures like American or French
Literature. Through a study of literary texts that complicate and transgress
national and linguistic boundaries, in this course we will reflect upon and
try to understand the notion of “transnational literature.” When we say
“transnational literature,” we introduce the possibility of writing outside
or beyond national frameworks. And who better suits this description than
the figure of the traveler, the wanderer, the émigré? Although this traveler
appears in modernist narratives as one who sets out for foreign lands by
choice, today the stateless refugee best embodies this in-betweenness,
constantly in motion through borders, traveling not by choice but by
necessity.
We will explore narratives of exiles, stateless peoples, people in-between
languages and cultures, of refugees and migrants. The class will approach
transnational literature as a field of contradictions: a field that posits the
possibility of resistance against the violence of nation-states, but a field
that is simultaneously made possible by this violence.
Although the bulk of our readings will be novels, we will supplement these works with theoretical readings as well.
Novels might include The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz; Borderlands/La Frontera: The New
Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa; The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy; Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee; Senselessness
by Horacio Castellanos Moya; Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and poems by Mahmoud Darwish.
Theoretical works might include texts by Hannah Arendt, Edward Said and others.