Spring 2014 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
AML 3031-10784: Periods of Early American Literature
Keith Cartwright
This course will consist of readings in American literature from the pre-colonial period to the Civil War,
with particular attention devoted to two distinct periods. We will consider the ways in which such
periods as "the colonial" or the "American Renaissance" are constructed.
AML 3041-10653: Periods of Later American Literature
LIT 4934-12580: Literature and the Empathic Imagination (Seminar)
Tru Leverette
We can look to literature superficially for entertainment or more deeply for its ability to illuminate life
and provide us with windows into diverse experiences. In exposing ourselves to other ways of being in
the world, we can spark our empathic imagination, increasing our awareness of and emotional response
to realities far different from our own. Our reading in this class will explore American fiction that we will
(hopefully) enjoy, but we will look to texts that allow us to explore the question "How will we be?" Our
texts will help us delve empathically into others' experiences in order that we question how people in
various contexts choose to structure their lives; what is privileged; and what values—both conscious and
unconscious—are used to shape lives, relationships, and communities. By extension, our exploration will
allow self-reflection on how we want to go about forming our own lives, relationships, and communities.
AML 3102-12535: American Fiction
Bart Welling
Was D. H. Lawrence right to claim that “[t]he essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, a killer”? Is
our country a melting pot, a mosaic, a salad bowl, a quilt, a giant poem, an empire, a “land that has
never been yet” (Hughes), or something else? How influential has “the American dream” really been in
shaping our lives and literature? Can one story drive an entire nation to war? Conversely, can the
stories we tell about who we are, and where we are, help us live more justly and sustainably on the
planet?
We will grapple with questions like these on a regular basis as we attempt to make sense both of
American places and American stories. America has always been a fertile place for fiction; as many
scholars have observed, “America” itself was a powerful fiction long before the establishment of the
United States, when only a tiny fraction of the lands of the western hemisphere had been claimed and
mapped by Europeans. In this class we will explore key schools and developments in the fiction of the
United States in the context of some of the larger cultural narratives that have inspired, shaped, and
often bedeviled our identities, values, and lifeways as inhabitants of a bewilderingly diverse “New
World.” Our goal will not simply be to use literature to deconstruct these master narratives (America as
Promised Land, the United States as America, Americans as Rugged Individualists, the U.S. as Bastion of
Freedom, and so on). That would be too easy. Rather, we will carefully track the complex interplay
between master narratives and historical realities, and between foundational group narratives and the
individual literary productions of some of our most talented writers of fiction. We will also frequently
turn back to scrutinize the contemporary American “storyscape,” asking how our private life stories
mesh with new master narratives, how cultural fictions that have been officially disavowed (such as
mythologies of white supremacy) continue to haunt us, how old narratives have adapted to new social
trends and technologies of expression, and how the most useful and beautiful American fictions may be
passed on to future generations.
AML 3621-11323: Black American Literature – Race and Genre
Tru Leverette
Black American Literature: Race & Genre Literary categories have long been nationalized, and the
literature of minority groups within nations has been sub-categorized based on authors’ minority status.
We might question why and on what basis categories such as black American literature exist.
Likewise, we might ask whether such categories should exist at all. Are there distinct literary
characteristics, specific tropes or certain styles and aesthetics, that can be said to distinguish black
American literature from other American literatures? Is the distinction solely racial? This course will
explore these and other questions through the study of texts, from slave narratives to contemporary
novels, written by African-American writers. We will also read literary criticism that questions the genre
of African-American literature within an increasingly globalized literary marketplace.
AML 4242-12536: Place, Race, and Gender in Modern U.S. Environmental Writing and Ecocriticism
(20th Century American Literature)
Bart Welling
Who cares about environmental writing? In an era of catastrophic oil spills, collapsing ocean
ecosystems, mass terrestrial extinctions, global climate change, worsening water shortages, evergrowing mountains of garbage and toxic waste, and ongoing problems with deforestation,
desertification, and out-of-control wildfires—all compounded by the fact that the world’s human
population is projected to keep expanding well into this century—it would make more sense to ask,
Who can afford not to read environmental writing? Far from merely celebrating rocks and trees,
authors who focus on questions about our place in the biosphere and our relationships with nonhuman
beings can challenge our most deeply help assumptions about who we are and how we live. Moreover,
they can help us envision a future defined not by scarcity and conflict but by greater abundance for all of
the world’s species and cultures. The literary tradition that Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854)
helped usher in has played a major role in the creation of national parks and the preservation of
wilderness areas, but it has also participated in key debates on issues that affect the lives of people in
the heart of the city: sprawl and overpopulation, smog and nuclear radiation, pesticides and organic
farming, homelessness and urban planning. Environmental writers will continue to light our way as we
move towards greener sources of energy, wiser systems of transportation, and cultures centering on
sustainability and compassion rather than hyper-consumption and techno-narcissism. In short, if you’re
interested in writing that has the potential to spark profound transformations in how people think,
work, eat, shop, build, get around, and even express themselves spiritually, then you should care about
environmental writing.
Despite the unfortunate fact that environmental issues tend to be coded as liberal concerns in
contemporary U. S. culture, this class is not designed to “convert” students to any one political
perspective. But it does aim to introduce students to a set of environmentally-oriented texts and new
ways of reading them—critical practices that have proliferated in recent years under the sign of
ecocriticism—that will involve everyone in non-partisan political activities of the best kind: engaging in
spirited dialogue with the authors on our list and each other; analyzing and producing environmental
and ecocritical rhetoric; getting our hands dirty as we leave the classroom to test and build arguments
about the everyday places we inhabit, and asking deep questions about how they might be transformed.
The class will also engage with the politics of ethnic, cultural, gender, sexual, and even human identity as
we explore points of convergence between environmental and ecocritical issues and the topics that
have dominated critical debates in literary studies since the 1960s. We will focus, in particular, on the
dialectic between experiences of place in the modern U. S. and our standpoints as readers and writers
who belong to diverse cultures, ethnicities, genders, socioeconomic classes, and other groups—but who
also dwell in a country marked by unique and powerful master narratives about nature and our nation’s
place in it.
CLT 4110-12538: Classical Backgrounds of Western Literature
Samuel Kimball
In this course we will read some of the major Greek works, along with one Roman epic, that are part of
the classical inheritance of Western literature. We will do so in order to understand how this literary
heritage has influenced the emergence and subsequent transformation of Western consciousness in
general and Western religious thought in particular. To this end we will focus on how Greek literature
and Virgil’s Aeneid represent the pagan Olympian gods, above all Zeus, compared with how selected
books of the Bible (Genesis, the Gospels, and Revelation) develop a monotheistic conception of a single
Godhead who, in the New Testament, sacrifices his only begotten son.
Our itinerary will begin with Hesiod’s Theogony, which depicts the origin and history of the Olympian
gods, and contrast this narrative with how Genesis envisions the creation and history of the world, with
how the Gospel of John reinterprets the Genesis account of God’s inaugural manifestation, and with
how Revelation anticipates an apocalyptic end to the history that begins with Genesis. We will then turn
to Homer’s Odyssey, which we will read in relation to René Girard’s signature work of anthropological
and cultural criticism, Violence and the Sacred, which traces the origin of human sociality to the
discovery or invention of sacrificial victimage and its institutionalization in ritual and its subsequent
commemoration in epic narratives and tragic drama. In tandem with this interpretive task, we will read
various Greek tragedies—Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, and Euripides’
The Bacchae—in relation to the Eucharist and the Crucifixion in order to suggest how Jesus offers a
critique of the Greek gods and the sacrificial worship they demanded. We will then extend our
comparison by returning to Aeschylus (specifically, the three dramas that make up his Oresteia) and to
Euripides (his Medea). We will conclude our investigation of the religious concerns that are central to
early Western literature by critically examining how Virgil envisions the founding of the Roman Empire
in his epic poem, the Aeneid.
As we proceed, we will endeavor to understand what it means to think critically about the sacred. What
is involved in this activity? How does one go about such critical thinking? How do Greek and Roman
literary texts themselves offer critical perspectives on their pagan tradition? What has Judeo-Christianity
inherited from these texts, how and why has it revised this inheritance, and to what extent has this
revision been a form of cultural critique? What is the relation between the sacred and the symbolic
order, including the ideological conditioning and social control of consciousness that the symbolic order
enforces?
As part of the theoretical framework for our discussions of these and other questions, we will read
Penelope Deutscher’s short book, How to Read Derrida. This introduction to Derrida’s thought will
provide a framework for examining to what extent Greek literature is able to deconstruct the
“logocentric” economy of the Greek mind that produces Greek culture, especially as Greek culture
makes the transition from orality to literacy. We will also read Derrick de Kerckhove’s essay, “Theory of
Greek Tragedy,” which examines how Greek drama participates in this momentous cultural transition.
To this end we will endeavor to understand how Greek literature addresses the intellectual problems
and especially the emotional challenges that arise for a polytheistic society that is learning how to adapt
its thinking to the new technology of alphabetic writing, a development that, for reasons we shall
explore, supports the rise of monotheism.
CRW 2201-11269: Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction
Mark Ari
The National Foundation for the Arts defines creative nonfiction as “factual prose that is also literary –
infused with the stylistic devices, tropes and rhetorical flourishes of the best fiction and the most lyrical
of narrative poetry.” Creative Nonfiction may use scenes, dialogue, and cinematic and sensory detail to
increase vividness of writing. But, in the words of Philip Lopate, it can also be “reflective writing where
thinking and the play of consciousness is the main actor.” In this class, we explore possibilities that
range from Gonzo to Tinker Creek, and everything between and beyond. The course further provides an
introduction to basic creative writing concepts and methods in the service of a radically subjective
narrative or lyrical approach to the factual. Experimentation is encouraged. Laughter is relished.
CRW 2930-12542: Horror Fiction Workshop
Will Ludwigsen
H.P. Lovecraft once wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and
strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” It may well be that the very first stories our hominid
ancestors ever told were as simple as jumping from the caves shouting, “Boo!” Horror is our way of
inoculating ourselves against the real horrors of the world, making them small and concrete and
portable in our hands. By the end of this course, you will understand the basic principles of writing
horror fiction in the short form, including: voice, character, plot, point of view, scene, description, and
revision; specific topics important to horror fiction writers including horror tropes and the different
subgenres of the form; and special issues of working with or against the long history and active culture
of genre fiction.
CRW 2930-12541: Makings of Memory – Writings of Remembrance and Oblivion
Clark Lunberry
What does memory have to tell us, to reveal to us, about the world, about ourselves? In this class, we
will read, view and discuss a variety of different types of memory-related materials, all of them united in
their focus upon remembrance and imagination, the shaping of a life as it is seen through re-collection,
as if through the rear-view mirror. The assigned readings for this class will be intended as starting-off
points for your careful reflection, our wide-ranging discussions and, then, your own engaged writing,
always moving us towards a more fruitful examination of our own memories and imagination. How are
memories made, and to what end? What does it, as Wittgenstein said, “feel like to remember”? How are
memories written, filmed and photographed (and, in the process, perhaps fabricated), and for what
purpose? What is the role of memory (and forgetful oblivion) in the creation, and sustaining, of identity?
And what happens to that identity, that sense of self, when memories falter or fail, as we recognize that
which “memory cannot contain,” as we, as Shakespeare counseled, “Commit to these waste blanks”?
CRW 3110-11271: Fiction Workshop
Mark Ari
Each of us, however long we’ve been writing, are wherever we are and hoping to get “better,” whatever
this means to anyone at a particular time. We are always, every one of us, “beginners.” In this
workshop, we write lies. Perhaps we do so in the service of some greater truth. I don’t know. You’ll
have to tell me and try to convince me. We tackle technical concerns and seek methods by which the
reliable resources of imagination can be tapped in the service of narrative fabrication. We read and
write fiction. We talk and write about the fiction written by others. We bite nails and open veins and
tend to the work at hand. Experimentation is encouraged. Laughter is relished.
CRW 3930-11939: New Media Writing
Mark Ari
What is creative writing in a post-paper world? What new inspiration might we find in its freedoms and
constraints? With these questions in mind, we will examine the exciting possibilities suggested by new
methods of communication and the genre-busting potential of new technologies. As writers, our focus
will be on tapping the reliable sources of imagination to discover opportunities for new strategies and
forms of fiction and/or creative nonfiction. Students may, if they chose, incorporate other genres
(poetry, songwriting, drama) and forms (film making, visual art, music, sound, design, etc.) This is not a
course in creating content for websites. It is one that explores how we can find inspiration and artful
expression in a new era of real-time creation, publication, and interaction. Collaboration is possible.
Experimentation is encouraged. Laughter is relished.
CRW 4924-11932: Ghostwriting
Mark Ari
Prerequisite: Permission of the Instructor (email - mari@unf.edu). This class will focus on the art of
writing someone else’s story. Students will learn interviewing techniques and prepare transcriptions of
recorded interviews. They will review the raw material gathered, deriving and shaping story to create
drafts that will be revised and polished into finished manuscript. Exercises and mini-projects will be
used to learn and practice for the main work of the class which will focus on a single subject, an
individual from our community who has lived a unique and varied life. Our manuscripts will tell this
person’s story. Since all of the elements of successful storytelling will be addressed (point of view,
characterization, voice, etc.), this course is especially useful to students who write creative nonfiction
and fiction, those seeking careers in editing, publishing, or ghostwriting, and those who simply want to
tell the stories of interesting people.
ENC 2451-11329: Medicine in Narrative and the News
Chris Gabbard
Per capita, Americans spend far more on health care than do the people of any of the other advanced
industrialized nations. Health-care spending at the current rate is not sustainable. And yet, the results
are disappointing: in terms of health outcomes (life expectancy, infant mortality, recovery from curable
diseases, etc.), the U.S. ranks down in the pack.
U.S. health-care delivery systems are undergoing major change. The Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a.
Obamacare, has gone into effect. While these mandates represent major reform, they constitute only a
part of the transformation. This course will explore some of the big issues and pressing problems in how
medical care is delivered in the U.S. It also will examine how medical care operates in other advanced
nations. Students will read about the issues, write summaries, refresh themselves on the basics of
grammar and mechanics, and engage in a substantial research project (investigating a topic of their
choosing) using APA method.
ENC 2460: Writing for Business
Brenda Maxey-Billings
This course introduces students to rhetorical components of business writing and to strategies for
successful research-based writing in diverse academic and non-academic situations within business. This
course familiarizes students with expectations for business documents, including formatting, content,
and style. Students practice writing in a variety of genres, including the argumentative essay, and
address a variety of audiences, using research strategies relevant to business and related professional
communities. The class focuses on four cornerstones of effective professional communication: (1)
Surface correctness; (2) “Plain English” style; (3) Logical, Appropriate, and Ethical Content; and (4)
Document Format and Design.
ENC 3250 (online): Professional Communication - Business
Brenda Maxey-Billings
In this distance-learning class, students work toward improving the quality and content of their
professional writing and familiarizing themselves with various document formats. Thus, the class
focuses on four cornerstones of effective professional communication: (1) Surface correctness; (2) “Plain
English” style; (3) Logical, Appropriate, and Ethical Content; and (4) Document Format and Design.
The coursework requires students to investigate rhetorical and visual features of communication;
research and formulate strong documents; master “Plain English” stylistic skills; demonstrate
comprehension of written instructions; improve their writing’s grammatical, mechanical, and syntactical
correctness; and gain practice in the conventions of professional writing. During the term, each student
produces several professionally formatted documents/texts (correspondence, employment materials,
technical writing, case studies, etc.), and one formal online “presentation” to the class.
ENC 3250-11845: Professional Communication
Tim Donovan
When you begin a profession many of you will spend a great deal of your time writing--nearly 40%. Yet
until recently you have had little, if any, experience in the kind of writing required for a technical or
business profession. Your writing assignments generally have been research projects, literary essays, or
short lab reports directed to an audience that is more knowledgeable about the subject matter: your
professor. Professional Communication is an intermediate course that prepares students for the types
of written communication found in professional settings. Rather than mere information transfer,
professional communication generally translates and mediates highly complex details efficiently for a
colleague, supervisor, client, or a less expert audience. Likewise, the professional reports you will be
writing on the job will address more complex audiences and have more instrumental purposes; unlike
your professor, these audiences are dependent on the precision and clarity of your written work. Thus,
the importance of this course is finding the ways of making this communication effective and
meaningful to these varied audiences.
ENC 3310-10173: Writing Prose
James Beasley
ENC 3310 is described as "writing of various kinds, such as speculation, reports, documented articles or
criticism, with emphasis on persuasion as the object." The purpose of this class is to first of all
demonstrate how that object of persuasion is culturally constructed in American academic institutions in
the 21st century. The second purpose of this course is to demonstrate the kind of thinking that writing in
an American academic institution allows writers to do, and conversely, to demonstrate the kinds of
thinking that writing in an American academic institution in the 21st century does not allow writers to
do. To this end, we will focus on the modern nature of this writing, the overtly masculine nature of this
writing, and the American nature of this kind of writing. By taking this class, you will become critically
conscious of the artifice and constructed-ness of writing in American academic institutions in the 21st
century, which after many years of uninterrupted and unexamined practice, may have become opaque
or invisible to you.
ENC 3930-12559: The Essay
James Beasley
This course will examine the history and philosophical journey of the essay form. The French word for
essay is not a noun, but a verb—to essai, to experiment, to try. Students will examine the essay's
beginnings in the age of exploration, its mid-twentieth century maturation, and its postmodern
reinvigoration. Students will not only analyze the beginnings of these movements but also examine
contemporary essayists whose experimental natures embody the essay's exploratory nature.
ENC 4930-11943: Research Methods in English
James Beasley
ENC 4930, Research Methods in English, is designed to introduce final-year undergraduate students to
the various methods of research methodologies available to them by examining examples of archival
methodology, case study research, and by examining discourse analysis testing. The purpose of this
introduction is to help prepare students for graduate school research, to prepare for teacher-generated
action research, and to aid humanities students in being more thoughtful consumers of research reports
and papers.
ENC 4930-12560: Literary Theory
Nicholas de Villiers
This course introduces students to a set of key critical terms and approaches in literary theory and
interpretation—author, reading, subjectivity, culture, ideology, history, space/time, postmodernism,
poststructuralism, postcolonialism, gender, race, class, sexuality—using Nealon and Giroux’s The Theory
Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the New Humanities as our guide, along with a few literary theory essays.
Students will learn how to use these terms and approaches through classroom discussion, close reading,
and critical writing about different literary forms including a novel (Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider
Woman), a published diary, and a few short stories.
ENG 4013-10174 & 10175: Approaches to Literary Interpretation
Alex Menocal
ENG 4013 introduces students to an array of critical concepts and interpretative approaches that should
help students improve their abilities to read literature critically. Throughout the semester, in lectures,
discussions, and close readings of four novels, we’ll explore some “familiar” literary concepts and
questions. For example, how does the author develop characters (i.e., characterization)? What
important motifs or patterns structure the narrative? What is the narrative’s point of view, and how is it
significant? In addition to these concepts and questions, though, we’ll explore some “unfamiliar”
concepts and approaches. For example, how is the author of a text always already dead? How are we
subjects of language or of ideology? How is identity or desire produced through imitation? Academics
often characterize these sorts of questions as “theoretical” because they formulate some general
principles about a subject: language, narratives, authors, identity, subjectivity, desire, and where texts
begin and end, to name a few. We will examine some of these theoretical statements over the semester
as time permits.
ENL 3333-10176: Shakespeare
John Chapman
This course will examine eight of Shakespeare’s plays in literary, historical, and artistic contexts.
Students will explore early modern thought, poetry, and drama. In addition, the course will examine
how Shakespeare’s work has had profound influence on our conception of what a human being is, of
human psychology, and of human relationships. Indeed, many of his plays almost presciently address
social issues that still dominate the modern cultural landscape. Studying Shakespeare in this light will
increase the intellectual maturation and clarification of our own values through examination of ideas
and attitudes in literary/cultural contexts and especially through articulation of these notions in
academic discourse. Response papers and exams will help students develop skills in verbal analysis,
critical thinking, and detection of subtlety through reading, discussion, and writing about these great
works. The readings in this course will cover two comedies (Much Ado About Nothing, Measure For
Measure), two histories (The Tragedy of King Richard III, The Life of King Henry the Fifth), two tragedies
(Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Othello, the Moor of Venice), and one romance (The Tempest).
ENL 3501-10177: Periods of Early British Literature (“The Restoration in Film”)
Chris Gabbard
In English cultural history, the Restoration (1660-1689) was a wild and licentious time, one the English
spent the next two-hundred-and-fifty years trying to forget. The era’s reputation explains why it has
been a favorite cinematic subject. With a critical eye we will screen four films set in the period: The
Libertine (2004; Johnny Depp, Samantha Morton, and John Malcovich), Stage Beauty (2004; Billy
Crudup, Claire Danes, Rupert Everett), The Last King (2003-4; Rufus Sewell, Robert Graves, Diana Rigg),
and Restoration (1995; Robert Downey Jr., Sam Neill, Meg Ryan, Ian McKellen). We will screen these
films in conjunction with reading Samson Agonistes by John Milton, Absalom and Achitophel by John
Dryden, and various poems by John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester). We also will read three plays (William
Wycheley’s The Country Wife, George Etherege’s The Man of Mode, Aphra Behn’s The Rover) and fiction
from the period.
Students will take midterm and final exams and daily reading quizzes, and they will participate in
producing group websites. The class will require no major papers.
ENL 3503-10654: Periods of Later British Literature
Alex Menocal
This course will survey some of the major literary works produced in England between 1789 and 1918,
works representing the Romantic Period, the Victorian Period, the fin de siècle, and Modernism. Over
the semester we’ll set out (1) to specify the conventions of the works that have come to be linked with a
particular period and (2) to examine how these works engage with some of the social, cultural, and
political issues of their time: for example, the French Revolution, the Poor Laws, industrialization and
urbanization, the professionalization of knowledge and society, the rise of the middle class, education,
the moralization of work, Darwinism and degeneration fears, World War I and nationalism, Empire and
colonialism, and others. Students will read some poetry, a few short stories, and two novels.
ENL 3503-10654 (online): Periods of Later British Literature
Marnie Jones
We will read classic literature from the Victorian, Modern, and Post-Modern periods, focusing on how
each period portrayed the quest for self-understanding in response to rapid cultural and historic
changes: time changes everything—or does it? We will consider each period’s characteristic features,
while also examining the relations between them, attending to what the UNF course catalog describes
as the “aesthetic, linguistic, and cultural changes by which periods are constructed.” Students will read
Dickens’ Great Expectations, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Conrad’s The Secret Sharer,
Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Eliot’s Four Quartets, and Barnes’ Sense of an Ending. In an anonymous survey at
mid-term Fall 2013, all respondents said 1] the course was well structured; 2] the mini video lectures put
the literature in cultural context; 3] they learned as much as they would in a traditional class. They also
encouraged me to tell you it is challenging: that the only way to succeed in an online class is to be
disciplined. Grades are based upon weekly discussion posts, a journal, weekly quizzes, and three exams.
ENL 4230-12561 (online): Restoration/18th Century Literature (“Spectacles of Physical Deviance”)
Chris Gabbard
The course’s readings both respond to and facilitate the transition from a religious to a scientific
mindset unfolding in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. To better understand this
transition, the course will focus on bodies in literary texts, specifically, those that are monstrous,
deformed, or defective. Such bodies increasing were coming to be seen less as demon possessed or
signs of God's wrath and more as indicators of scientific pathology—as accidents of nature. Rosemarie
Garland Thomson describes this period as witnessing "a movement from a narrative of the marvelous to
a narrative of the deviant," one in which "wonder becomes error."
Primary readings include William Shakespeare's Richard the Third, John Milton's Samson Agonistes,
Aphra Behn's "The Dumb Virgin" and “The Blind Lady a Beauty," Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels,
Sarah Scott's Millenium Hall [sic], William Hay's Deformity: An Essay, and other texts. Students will take
midterm and final exams, participate in weekly online discussions, and write two short papers.
FIL 2000-11024, 11026: Film Appreciation
Jason Mauro
This course will focus on examining exactly what kind of strange and contested space the film screen
is. By alternating between formalist and film texts, we will open up our eyes to how various film
practitioners and critics regard the seemingly unproblematic phenomenon of a white rectangle. Is the
film screen a frame, a window, mirror or a filter? Does this white plane hold within it other geometries,
like white light holds within it all other colors? Are there hidden resources within this seemingly simple
surface that we ignore at our peril? The purpose of this course is to introduce you the basic terms and
questions of film analysis, and to prepare you for more advanced courses in film studies.
FIL 3006-12564: Analyzing Films
Nicholas de Villiers
This course introduces students to key terms for interpreting film, including important concepts and
trends in the field of cinema studies. Students will learn how to watch films with a critical eye, how to
discuss cinematic form and meaning, and how to write coherent and persuasive essays analyzing film.
This course provides an important foundation for more specialized courses in the film studies minor, but
will benefit anyone who wants to better understand how movies affect us, and how to put that
experience into words.
FIL 3828-12565: International Film
Jillian Smith
Don’t leave college without exposing yourself to the beautifully strange and profound experience of
foreign cinema: it transports you not only to different worlds, but different time, space, and being. It
becomes a part of who you are forever. In this course we will watch some of the most watched films in
the history of international cinema by focusing on national film movements, movements that have been
recognized for their influence on the development of cinema world wide—American Romantic Realism,
German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, French New Wave, and more. In the process we will learn film
vocabulary, film style, film technique, and some film theory. We will also read about historical context to
get a sense of the politics of film. Students will be expected to read essays, write reflections on the films,
and engage in other exercises to improve film comprehension and analysis. Satisfies the survey
requirement for film minors. Satisfies awesome educational experience for non-film minors. THERE ARE
NO PREREQUISITES—anyone having difficulty registering should contact Dr. Jillian Smith,
jlsmith@unf.edu
FIL 3300-11646: Documentary Studies
FIL 4932-11647: Advanced Documentary Studies
Jillian Smith
The art of documentary is in to capturing and giving form to the narratives that circulate around us
every day. In this course we will be practicing this art through the technique of the interview, which will
provide the heart of the films we make. We will also learn styles and techniques of documentary film in
order to move beyond traditional documentary and into creative documentary. By the end of the course
students will have made a digital documentary film by learning how to interview, shoot video, record
audio, and edit a short documentary using Final Cut software. Students who are interested in filmmaking
of any kind will find this course to be invaluable, and students who are primarily interested in watching
film will find that their film viewing skills are strengthened considerably. Students who have already
taken the course are welcomed, as are newcomers. Be prepared for a fluctuating workload and for
logging some hours outside of class to shoot and then edit your documentary. THERE ARE NO
PREREQUISITES ‐ anyone having difficulty registering please contact Dr. Jillian Smith, jlsmith@unf.edu .
LIN 3930-12566: Sociolinguistics
Jeanette Berger
The goal of this course is an introduction to sociolinguistic theory. We will examine issues of power and
solidarity through the relationships between language and gender, race, class, and ethnicity. These
relationships will focus on the different subcategories of sociolinguistics and the sociology of language
and on the social varieties of English spoken today. Sociolinguistics encompasses a wide variety of
approaches to the study of language. This course sets aside the Chomskyan construct of an ideal
speaker-hearer in a homogeneous speech community in order to examine real speakers in real speech
communities. Course requirements include a weekly sociolinguistic journal, article presentation,
fieldwork project, midterm and final exam. This course requires a significant amount of reading—both
foundational and contemporary texts in sociolinguistics.
LIT 3213-10932, 11950: The Art of Critical Reading
Tim Donovan
Our task in this course is to learn the techniques necessary to read and write critically. All of us know
how to read and write. We have been doing it since primary school or earlier. This course however will
stretch and strengthen that readied strength. Readers often say, “I loved that book!” But what do they
mean? What analysis underlies this enthusiasm? That is our task. Therefore, we will be reading with
pleasure (or not), reading critically and reading with sophistication.
We’ve all learned basic reading skills, but just as any technician does, we must repeat and refine our
background and skill. Literary interpretation is not merely a technical art limited to literature. Rather, it
is a foundation for sophisticated critical thinking within history, philosophy, culture, politics, media, arts,
and even sciences. For we not only “read” poems, but also films, advertisements, textbooks, equations,
timelines, faces, weather, traffic, emotions, intentions.
More than anything, our art requires basic tools whose use we will continue to refine (for example,
character, point of view, paradox). Think of the class as a beginning carpentry class where we will learn
how to use tools functionally and then artistically. Everyone thinks s/he can use a hammer, until his or
her thumb and fingers are painfully swollen. Often, we misuse hammers because we don’t understand
the difference between hammers, and the technique to propel the heft and force of the tool. This is
similarly the case with literary tools. Everyone thinks they understand and use simple concepts of
character, plot and more while reading. But more often than not this understanding is rudimentary or
simplified.
To test your understanding of literary tools we will also be writing a lot. Once, we learn which hammer
to choose, its heft, its force, the best swing, then, we will be able to build something artful with strategy,
skill, and substance. Our art in this class will manifest in written interpretations of fiction. Critical
Reading is also, perhaps primarily, a writing class. And in the weeks that we have together we will be
focusing on our writing intensively. We will read, and re-read. And we will write, and re-write.
By the end of the course you will have the critical facility with many literary techniques. You should be
able to identify, define, and use these techniques and tools for the problem-solving art of literary
interpretation. You will be expected to craft well composed, analytical interpretations that put these
tools and techniques to work. You will be expected to write organized essays, driven by analytical
methods, that use controlled sentences and college-level diction and that demonstrate conceptual
coherence. What’s more, your ability to interpret literature will further train you to interpret film,
culture, politics, and the media.
LIT 3213-11951: The Art of Critical Reading
Marnie Jones
“The best stories invoke wonder.” So says Andrew Stanton, writer of the Toy Story movies, director of
WALL-E & Finding Nemo, in his Ted Talk. By the end of this course you will have a better understanding
of the power of reading, how stories evoke wonder, and how literary and non-literary texts work.
Dickens’ Bleak House incorporates all of life and several literary genres, as it weaves an amazingly
intricate plot. We will analyze the pleasures it provides; we will study the sophisticated literary
techniques that drive story, making us care about characters and issues while offering truth about the
human experience. In an anonymous survey at mid-term Fall 2013, all but one of the students
expressed surprise at how much they were enjoying the reading. Representative comments include
“glad we are reading it” to “appreciating it” to the most frequent response: “loving it.” [Examples of the
latter: “I absolutely love it”; “I have grown to love it”; “I “love it, especially as it gains momentum.”] All
the students spoke of having a feeling of “accomplishment”; all said that class discussion was both
extremely helpful and enjoyable. Grades are based upon the application of literary terms in discussion,
quizzes, exams, and a presentation that results in a Final Paper. Text: Norton Critical Edition, Bleak
House (required).
LIT 3213-12568: The Art of Critical Reading
Jillian Smith
Literary interpretation is an art. And it is a foundation for sophisticated critical thinking and writing
within the contexts of history, philosophy, culture, politics, media, arts, and even sciences. Yet, this
sophisticated thinking is grounded in basic techniques. This course is dedicated to teaching students to
define, identify, and apply basic literary tools and techniques. Metaphor, paradox, setting, point of
view, symbol—these techniques that we tend to identify and use loosely, we will learn to use with
precision and purpose. The goal of the class is to teach you how to read literature, and thus any text,
with intensity. You will leave with knowledge of literary terms and techniques and the ability to write
clearly and analytically about them. By the end of the course you should have mastery of the
foundational components of a critical essay. English majors should run to this course, creative writers
often find it invaluable, and all majors are welcome. (This course, because of its coverage of narrative
technique and textual analysis, fulfills a requirement for film minors.)
LIT 3331-10953 (online): Children’s Literature
Mary Baron
In this course we will read classic and contemporary literature considered suitable for elementary and
middle school students, as well as literary criticism, developmental psychology, and pedagogical theory.
As we move through the course we will ask the following questions, among many others: What do we
mean by childhood? What is its history? What are the functions of childhood in our culture? How does
childhood happen in other cultures? What are the tasks of childhood? How is childhood different for
females and males? What characteristics place a text within the field of "children’s literature"? What are
some characteristic themes and concerns of the texts? What are the major sub-genres in the field? Does
children’s literature serve one or more social functions? What ethical issues do teachers, librarians, and
others face?
As a result of this course, students should be able to: Understand the significant features of literary
media and genres, evaluate evidence to support an insightful interpretation of a text or tale, understand
the social and political impact of literatures, write clear, critical, creative, convincing reports that analyze
primary and/or secondary sources, make an informative presentation or report, supporting their
position with appropriate literary and scholarly evidence.
LIT 3333-10180: Adolescent Literature
Sandra McDonald
LIT 3930-12570: Inventing Death
Jason Mauro
We begin with and form this class around Ernest Becker’s landmark book, The Denial of Death. The
claim he makes is difficult in every possible way: in response to our mortality (the fact to which we are
both horrifyingly sensitive and yet profoundly numb) we create the culture(s) we have. This class is
dedicated to exploring the implications, the applications and the extent of that claim. In order to do so
we will be reading through material that is intellectually and psychologically difficult. Our discussions
will be devoted to how our texts critique what we regard as normalcy, and will therefore likely tread on
some of our most reflexive or cherished assumptions and beliefs. I would wish for this gathering a
supportive, encouraging and sensitive environment within which this critique can emerge.
LIT 4650-12571: Comparative Literature
Keith Cartwright
We will be reading First Coast writing. This will include writing from our own north Florida "First Coast"
region as well as writing from other historic "contact zones" across the South, and the Americas, with a
couple of readings even reaching across the Atlantic to Africa. Most of what we read from these first
coasts of cross-cultural experience and imagination will be 20th and 21st century texts (writers like Toni
Morrison, James Weldon Johnson, Patrick Chamoiseau, Zora Neale Hurston, Lydia Cabrera, Eudora
Welty, Joy Harjo, and a number of contemporary New Orleans poets. But we will also be reading a few
folk narratives and selections from a series of travel narratives (from North Florida) that offer samplings
of cross-cultural encounter across the centuries (from Bartram to Cabeza de Vaca). We will explore the
depths and challenges of intensely cross-cultural writing from spaces (like our own) of deep crosscultural experience. Samplings of music and film will be integral to this course's holistic approach as we
seek to move beyond the First Coast's gated communities--and across certain disciplinary and
conceptual gulfs.
LIT 4930-12573: Fairy Tales Now and Then
Mary Baron
Not all Fairy Tales have happy endings. Many classic European tales depict curses, murder, rape, and
cannibalism; later retellings often continue and even extend these topics. Some scholars believe the
tales speak about the deepest fears of human beings; abandonment, loss, and death, in order to prepare
us for the inevitable. We will read classic, contemporary, and post-modern tales which circle around
these topics. We will study their contexts, their cultures, and their narrative structures in an attempt to
discern their utility in the past and today. Students will take a very active role in course design and class
discussion. Evaluation will include blackboard postings, a student-written midterm, and a final
paper/project. The ability to write evidence-based persuasive papers is essential to success in the
course.
LIT 4930-12574: Dirty Souths – Sex & Satan, Blues & BBQ
Keith Cartwright
This is a course dedicated to study of the music and literature of the Dirty South--from the early
twentieth century to the present. The full title is “Dirty Souths - Sex & Satan, Blues & BBQ.” Each class
will begin with focus upon a musical recording from the US South, paired with an assigned reading from
southern literature. We will be discussing the licit and the illicit in postplantation spaces, the sacred and
the profane, southern spaces as zombifying surveillance states and as musicating (and often culinary)
sites of soulful suppleness and reanimation. Texts will include work by Jean Toomer, James Weldon
Johnson, Lillian Smith, Stetson Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Natasha Trethewey, Joy Harjo, Andrew
Hudgins, and more, as well as samplings of movies such as The Help, Beasts of the Southern Wild,
Mississippi Masala, and Mud. The course’s musical focus will draw from artists such as Louis Armstrong,
Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Loretta Lynn,
Sun Ra, James Brown, the Allman Brothers, Michael Jackson, the Dixie Chicks, Ludacris, Goodie Mob,
Driveby Truckers, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, among others. The arts from southern spaces--with
their long history of apartheid and of spiritual division of sheep from goats--must be approached
holistically, and sometimes even against the grain of what our institutions have accredited or approved.
We will launch these discussions, respectfully with each other, but in holistic readings that seek to move
beyond or under or through the gated communities that surround us.
LIT 4930-12575: Literature/Survival
Bart Welling
Zombies. Meteor impacts. Cannibal death cults. Bioengineered global mega-plagues. Nuclear
apocalypse, alien attacks, cyborg revolutions, terminal power blackouts, out-of-control nanites,
catastrophic drought and famine, howling subzero super-storms, and homicidal genetically engineered
animals running amok. If you’ve watched any popular movies lately or read any bestselling books
published since World War II, you’ve probably encountered all of these end-of-the-world scenarios and
more. Surely no culture in history has spent as much time as ours imagining and, perhaps, anticipating
its own demise (along with the collapse of human civilization in general). By the same token, no culture
has had so much knowledge and power and, simultaneously, so little political will to combat such
plausible game-ending threats as global warming, the depletion of the world’s oil reserves, and a major
flu pandemic that, according to public health experts, is overdue by several decades.
What’s going on? Why are we so invested in speculating about, and maybe even celebrating, our own
impending doom? (When I wrote these words, the Hollywood zombie thriller World War Z had grossed
over half a billion dollars globally, and books in the evangelical Left Behind series had sold enough copies
to fill over sixty institutions the size of Carpenter Library). At the same time, why are most of us
apparently so uninterested in having an honest national dialogue about preventing, or at least preparing
for, the disasters that are most likely on the horizon? Does the recent explosion of post-apocalyptic
narratives in American popular culture represent a) a means of bracing ourselves for what we suspect
will be a much less comfortable life in the future, b) widespread longing for a “reboot” of modern
human culture, c) a mass purgation of long-repressed guilt for what we have done to the planet and to
other cultures, d) the last gasps of a terminally ill society that can no longer find pleasure in anything but
dehumanizing spectacles of chaos and carnage, trashed ecosystems, and sexual victimization, e)
something else, or f) all of the above?
In this class we will situate post-apocalyptic literature and film historically, analyzing the relationship
between end-of-the-world narratives and some of the more frightening developments of the last few
decades, from the birth of the atomic era to 9/11 to the melting of the Arctic. But our historical
investigations will reach back far beyond the modern era as we study what scholars have been saying in
the last few years about the evolutionary origins of narrative and what might be called the survival value
of literature. How did stories help our ancestors negotiate the everyday challenges posed by large
predators, unpredictable weather, disease, and hostile fellow humans? How does modern literature
reflect this evolutionary background? How has narrative helped keep endangered cultures alive in real
“post-apocalyptic” environments, such as indigenous lands in the Americas in the centuries after
European conquest? How might certain contemporary post-apocalyptic narratives, instead of merely
entertaining us, or paralyzing us, help us rethink some of our most dangerous apocalyptic attitudes and
world-destroying behaviors? In what forms might literature itself survive in the future? While the
books and films we will explore are of recent vintage, we will be participating in an ancient dialogue
concerning some of the most basic and profound questions regarding human identity, community, and
our rightful place in a dynamic and unpredictable “more-than-human” world.
LIT 4930-12577: Being Bored - Literatures of Radical Boredom
Clark Lunberry
Boredom was invented in the 19th century (or so), and its creation continues to afflict and entertain us
to this day. We have, of course, a love-hate relationship with boredom; or it (like a virus) has a
relationship with us. We just can't seem to shake it, to find a cure for this curiously modern condition of
being bored. Ever since its infectious spread, writers and artists have found boredom irresistibly
interesting as a topic, as it crops up again and again in their works. So much so that one might wonder if
boredom is a fundamental fact for being modern, a diagnosed symptom of our tiresome and tedious
age: boredom, being bored, being bored with being; or even, as the 19th century playwright Henrik Ibsen
wrote of Hedda Gabler, of her “one real talent in life … Boring [herself] to death.” Our focus in this class
will be upon a variety of materials, from modern and contemporary fiction, theater, poetry, painting and
performance, where boredom is often at the chilled heart of the matter presented, setting in motion
events that threaten at any moment to collapse beneath their own exhausting weight. How has such
boredom, such dis/ease, been represented in literature and the arts? Why did it arise and how has it
endured as a representable theme? And finally, perhaps paradoxically, how can boredom, “radical
boredom,” be such a rich, revealing and, yes, fascinating focus for writers, artists and readers alike?
LIT 4934-12579: Gender, Sexuality, and Culture (Seminar)
Nicholas de Villiers
Why are the gendered body, sexual desire, and eroticism so heavily invested with significance—so
meaning-laden—in our culture? Why are many women hesitant to call themselves “feminists”? What is
the history of the symbiotic and mutually exclusive concepts of “homosexual” and “heterosexual”? Has
“queer” culture become mainstream? This course creates a space where these much-contested issues
can be approached in an atmosphere of free and open inquiry. We will examine the history of
feminism’s “waves,” and the history of gay and lesbian studies, as well as what has been called the New
Gender Politics concerned with transgender, transsexuality, and intersex. We will also consider the
intersections between gender, sexuality, and other vectors of oppression such as class and race. We will
read important works in feminist theory, gender studies, and queer theory, and consider how they can
help us read works of literature, film, visual art, and popular culture. This senior seminar is designed as a
capstone experience emphasizing undergraduate research, so students will develop, write, and
workshop a short research paper drawing on the course themes and additional library research
according to their areas of interest.
LIT 4934-12581: Magic and Realism (Seminar)
Jennifer Lieberman
Realism is an influential movement in American literary history. It is also a concept readers invoke to
describe the feeling of disbelief successfully suspended: how many times have you heard or uttered the
compliment, “that story just felt so real”? Even fantastic narratives can elicit this feeling: they can
transport readers into their own reality, or they can illuminate actualities that seem to confound
“realistic” description.
This course will investigate the ideal of realism by engaging with literary texts and with critical studies of
the genre. We will discuss why realism emerged as a literary value, why readers continue to use words
like “realistic” to judge literary merit, and why authors may deviate from the conventions of realism in
order to communicate broader truths about human life. We will read works across the spectrum from
mimetic realism through magical realism, including pieces by Stephen Crane, Jorge Luis Borges, Maxine
Hong Kingston, Jonathan Safran Foer, and others. During the semester, students will construct creative
and analytical projects that explore the potentials and limitations of realism as a literary mode. At the
end of the semester, we will debate why magic has infiltrated American literary realism: do we need
magical tropes to express certain “realities”? Or do magical narratives strive to communicate something
else entirely?
LIT 4991-12931: The Problem of Evil
Mary Baron
Readings primarily in literature, but also in psychology, sociology and theology, the course is an
exploration of ideas about the origins and causes of evil. We will grapple with many serious questions:
Is evil a universal concept, or is it culturally defined? How can we know if a person, place, or thing is
evil? What is an appropriate response to evil? Who decides? Is God involved?
THE 3111-12584: History of Drama II
Alex Menocal
This course will examine two important movements in modern drama: realism and avant-garde theater.
Specifically, we’ll examine how these forms revolutionized the theatre. The realism of Ibsen and
Strindberg, for example, sets out to replace melodramatic representations of character and plot with
“naturalistic” or “realistic” portrayals of characters and actions that may take into account the
psychological, biological, and social forces which determine human behavior. Avant-garde theater,
however, will reject the attempts of realism to reproduce the illusion of reality—a slice-of-life--on the
stage. First, we’ll trace the development of realism and naturalism in the theater from its inception in
the works of the founders of Modernism (Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg) through to its transformation
in the works of American playwrights (Williams, Miller, and Hansberry). Finally, we’ll examine 20th
century rejections of realist tenets in Brecht’s epic theater, Beckett’s Theater of the Absurd, and
Pirandello’s meta-theater.
THE 4524-12578: Theater for Social Change
Pam Monteleone
This course is a hands-on, participatory workshop that will introduce you to a collection of games,
techniques, and exercises for using theater as a vehicle for social and personal change. You will be
introduced to the techniques of Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre, a revolutionary form of participatory
theater that transforms real community concerns into invigorating theatrical dialogue. The class will
create Forum performances that empower participants to collectively investigate thorny issues and
rehearse problem-solving strategies to implement in the real world. No theater experience or training is
necessary. You will be asked to bring with you a desire to play, learn, and grow in an intimate, highly
personal setting. Dr. Pam Monteleone, pmontele@unf.edu, or 904-704-3207.
THE 4923-10181: Production – Romeo and Juliet
Pam Monteleone
This course offers practical experience in the design and/or execution of a major department
production. This semester the Department of English is producing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Students will be involved in the practical exigencies of translating a script into a theatrical event.
Students will engage in various aspects of theater production, including research, publicity and
promotion, and/or set construction, lighting, sound, and costuming. Students will be expected to
demonstrate professionalism as exhibited in communication, time-management, leadership,
organizational and teamwork skills. This course is offered for variable credit and may be repeated for up
twelve (12) credits. Department permission is required prior to registration.
Dr. Pam Monteleone, pmontele@unf.edu, or 904-704-3207.
TPP 4155-12968: Performance – Romeo and Juliet
Pam Monteleone
This course is for students interested in acting in a major department production. This semester the
Department of English is producing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The course focuses on preparing
students for a role on stage. It includes script analysis, character development, and vocal and movement
techniques associated with acting Shakespeare. Students will develop tools for exploring heightened
language, speech structure and rhythm, scansion, and phrasing, not as ends in themselves but as a
means to creating the physical, verbal, and emotional lives of complex characters. “Words are meant to
delight, to disturb and to provoke,” says Cicely Berry, “not merely make sense.” Students will learn the
rehearsal process and living in the moment as part of an ensemble. They will be expected to
demonstrate professionalism and teamwork. A commitment to substantial rehearsal time is required.
This course is offered for variable credit and may be repeated for up twelve (12) credits.
Department permission is required prior to registration. Auditions will be held on Friday, January 17 and
Saturday, January 18. Students interested in acting must attend auditions and be cast in a role.
Dr. Pam Monteleone, pmontele@unf.edu, or 904-704-3207.
TPP3103-11958: Acting II - Doing Shakespeare in the Schools and on the Stage
Pam Monteleone
Will you be asked to teach Romeo and Juliet? Julius Caesar? Macbeth? Do you feel prepared?
Confident? Ready? This course is for prospective teachers, actors, and anyone who loves “doing”
Shakespeare. The aim is to put students at ease with the language. We will focus on the vocal and
physical techniques necessary to bring the characters and stories to life. Students will develop tools for
exploring heightened language, speech structure and rhythm, scansion, and phrasing, not as ends in
themselves but as a means to creating the physical, verbal, and emotional lives of complex characters.
“Words are meant to delight, to disturb and to provoke,” says Cicely Berry, “not merely make sense.”
Prerequisite: TPP 2100 or permission of instructor. Dr. Pam Monteleone, pmontele@unf.edu, or 904704-3207.