COURSE DESCRIPTIONS—FALL 2007
101 / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO WRITING. This course is a rhetorically-based, rigorous introduction to college level writing.
The course teaches students how to construct and develop arguments, use and represent sources, and revise and improve
their prose. Students consult a range of sources as they investigate an issue for an extensive research paper.
101A / General Description
INTENSIVE INTRODUCTION TO WRITING. Students must take ENGL 101A rather than ENGL 101 if their
TSWE score (a subscore of the SAT verbal) is 33 or below. This version of English 101 has smaller classes and gives
greater attention to language facility while meeting the goals of 101.
101C / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO WRITING. Restricted to students in the Civicus Program.
101S / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO WRITING. Restricted to students in the programs of College Park Scholars.
101X / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO WRITING FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS. The course is for students whose first
language is not English. It is also a rigorous introduction to college level writing. To register for English 101X, a student
must first demonstrate competence in English. The following information should be supplied to the student's
undergraduate advisor: (1) A TOEFL score of 550 with no section score below 50; or (2) A CELT score of 220 with no
subtest score below 50 and a rating of 5 or better on the writing sample; or (3) evidence of successful completion of
UMEI 005: Advanced English as a Foreign Language.
201 / General Description
LITERATURE OF THE WESTERN WORLD I: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL. An introduction to the origins and
genres of European (or "Western") literature. The course offers students the chance to see where our present culture and
ways of thinking came from, to observe ways of thinking about things which appear essentially alien to us, and to identify
patterns of thought and behavior which have not changed materially from ancient to modern times, either because they are
universal to human experience or because they have continued to form part of the Western-European/American world
view. The class will discuss ethical values implicit in the works, the literary conventions of each era, gender and class
roles assigned in the literature and the influences of these works on later Western societies. Students will read from the
central works of Greek, Hebrew and Medieval Christian civilization, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , Greek plays, the
Bible (studied as literature), Virgil's Aeneid , Dante's Inferno , The Song of Roland , Beowulf , and Sir Gawain and The
Green Knight .
202 / General Description
LITERATURE OF THE WESTERN WORLD II: RENAISSANCE TO MODERN. An introduction to European,
North and South American literature from the Renaissance to the present. Students will read from such diverse authors as
Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliere, Swift, Voltaire, Dostoevsky, Cervantes, Camus, Lorca and Paz. The class will discuss
ethical values implicit in the works, literary conventions of each era, gender and class roles assigned in the literature and
the influences of these works on later Western societies.
205 / Mack, Maynard
INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE. Why are we still reading plays written 400 years ago? What do they tell us,
or allow us to think about and explore? What makes Shakespeare's poetry such a powerful way to explore what it means
to be a human being in a complex, dramatic world? We will read 6 plays from throughout Shakespeare's career. Through
lectures and weekly discussion sessions, you will build your confidence as a reader of imaginative literature. Large
questions about life, death, marriage, parents, city, country, crime, punishment, magic, power, and second chances will
constantly reappear. Above all, however, we will work on close reading of spectacular plays and then writing about them
with precision and focus. We will explore how to bring words on a page to vital life and how to appreciate the particular
aspects of being human that drama gives us access to. Frequent quizzes, short papers, and an essay exam on all the plays
assigned. Typical reading: Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, The Winter's Tale, King Lear, and The
Tempest.
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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS—FALL 2007
211 / General Description
ENGLISH LITERATURE: BEGINNINGS TO 1800. This course offers students a survey of English literature from its
beginnings through the eighteenth century. Students will read texts from each of the major periods–Medieval (AngloSaxon and Middle English), Renaissance, Restoration and Eighteenth Century; those will usually include Beowulf and
works by Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Swift, and Pope.
212 / General Description
ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM 1800 TO THE PRESENT. Surveys the major literary movements of the period,
from Romantic to Victorian to Modern. Such authors as Wordsworth, Keats, Bronte, Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Joyce,
Woolf.
221 / General Description
AMERICAN LITERATURE: BEGINNING TO 1865. A survey of American literature written between the founding
of the colonies and the Civil War. Students will read works by such authors as Bradstreet, Taylor, Franklin, Freneau,
Jefferson, Irving, Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman and Melville. Class discussion will focus on close
analysis of texts, as well as on broad literary, intellectual and cultural developments in antebellum America
222 / Mallios, Peter
AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1865-PRESENT. A survey of US literature from the Civil War to the present. Students
will read from such authors as Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, DuBois, Cather, Faulkner, Hurston, Tennessee Williams,
Maxine Hong Kingston, and Leslie Marmon Silko. We will be considering literary periods, movements, and genres in
their historical and political contexts, and in relation to questions of race, gender, class, sexuality, and national and world
citizenship.
234 / Washington, Mary Helen
INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE. A survey of African American literature from the
late eighteenth century to the present.
241 / Auchard
INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL. This is a course for readers, and the reading will be substantial. This semester we
will consider in depth at least six novels, not in terms of chronological development (this is not a course on the history of
the novel) but rather in an attempt to see how different kinds of novels work in different ways. We will work with some
short and medium-length novels but we will read one major nineteenth-century novel (tentatively, Charlotte Bronte, Jane
Eyre) that gives a sense of the novel at its most elaborated. We will read several American and English writers, among
them authors Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf. At least one novel will come from
outside the US and the UK (if the order for the book is successful, the plan is to include The Concubine, by the Nigerian
novelist Elechi Amadi). Pop quizzes, mid-term, final, and a final paper.
243 / Collier, Michael
INTRODUCTION TO POETRY. This course will introduce students to the way poetry works. Class discussion will
focus on style, subject, rhythm, voice, technique and structure. It will examine a great variety of verse forms and
conventions, and consider how the language of a poem immerses us in the world of a unique individual consciousness as
well as the texture of another time.
244 / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA. A broad survey of drama including diverse types of drama (such as classical comedy
and tragedy, melodrama, romance, and black comedy). Students will read works by a wide range of playwrights from
classical writers such as Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, through Shakespeare and Moliere to modern writers such as
O'Neill, Pinter, Beckett and Albee.
245 / Miller, Joseph
FILM AND NARRATIVE TRADITION. The centuries-old tradition of story-telling has presented us with a variety of
narrative structures: comedy, drama, tragedy, and the historical epic. Cinema has taken up these familiar modes, adding to
their literary manifestations the visual and aural languages that we attend to in order to infer meaning. Some films:
Shadow of a Doubt, Dr. Strangelove, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Unforgiven, Quiz Show.
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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS—FALL 2007
250 / Smith, Martha Nell
INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE BY WOMEN. An introduction to writing by women designed to explore the
literary and political issues which emerge, including gender, genre, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality and the place of
women in literary history. Students read widely across centuries, genres, and cultures.
262 / Berlin, Adele
THE HEBREW BIBLE: NARRATIVE. An introduction to the narrative sections of the Hebrew Bible with emphasis on
their main themes and concepts and their literary structures. Selections will be taken from Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy,
Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth, and Esther. We will examine what these texts meant to their ancient audience
and how modern scholars interpret them. No previous study of the Bible is required.
265 / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO LESBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL LITERATURE. A study of the pervasiveness of
homoeroticism in literature from the Renaissance to the present. Emphasis on recurrent themes and motifs and the
struggle to find voice within a context of stigma, suppression, and silence. Writers might include Shakespeare, Walt
Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Willa Cather, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich.
278A / Fahnestock, Jeanne
INTRODUCTION TO NONFICTION. A survey of the major genres of nonfiction prose including biography and
autobiography, nature and travel writing, history, the essay and new journalism. Focus on historical development of each
genre and effective prose style.
278C / Russell, V.
INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING: AFRICAN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE. An introduction to
creative writing using works of African-American authors. You will be taught the history of Black Writing in the U.S.,
learn about some of the great works and introduced to 4 genres of creative writing - creative essay, prose, poetry,
drama/performance. You will be introduced to the workshop process/critique for reviewing, analyzing, revising your own
work.
278W / Staff
LITERATURE IN A WIRED WORLD. An introduction to the changing nature of books, texts, and narrative in the
Information Age. Students will explore the history of computers and writing, the role of the book in relation to other
media, emerging forms of digital narrative, and the influence of computing on contemporary literature and culture.
Readings will range from medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary electronic fiction and poetry. Students will
also learn practical skills ranging from how to evaluate and cite electronic resources to personal Web publishing. No prior
technical knowledge is expected or assumed, but an interest in working with computers is a must. Assignments will
include presentations, at least one online project, a mid-term and a final exam.
280 / Coleman, Linda
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. English 280 is intended to introduce students to the facts and
phenomena of the English language. Students will gain a basic knowledge of the structure and history of the English
language, its rhetorical and poetic patterns, and the kinds of variation it presents, including national "Englishes," as well as
regional and social dialects. Topics for discussion will also include forms of discourse, the writing and sound systems of
the language, and the ramifications of its status as a world language. Course work will include exams and regular
homework assignments.
282 / Staff
INTRODUCTION TO RHETORICAL THEORY. Basic elements of rhetorical theory. Classical and contemporary
perspectives on the nature, functions, and scope of rhetoric. Potential texts for analysis include non-fiction prose, novels,
short fiction, philosophical treatises, autobiographies, biographies, and speeches.
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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS—FALL 2007
294 / General Description
INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING. This course is designed to give students an occasion for writing
fiction or poetry, some practical guidance, and a sympathetic critical audience on whom to try out their work. A series of
exercises and workshop discussions will explore the tactical problems writers encounter. The course will also address the
meaning of the "creative process" and the nature of literature.
296 / General Description
BEGINNING FICTION WORKSHOP. This course will focus primarily on student work. Through in-class "workshop"
critiques, exercises, written comments and individual conferences, students will examine how successful fictions operate.
The course will stress habit, discipline and revision. Particular emphasis will be placed on elements of craft, such as
structure, tone, point of view, tense, imagery, metaphor, and voice.
297 / General Description
BEGINNING POETRY WORKSHOP. For students wishing to learn the fundamentals of poetic composition. This
course will focus on a series of weekly writing and reading exercises designed to introduce the student to different aspects
of the craft of poetry, such as image, metaphor, rhythm, tone and form. Models taken from the range of the genre will be
discussed, and selected readings will provide an overview of poetic technique. The workshop method will be used to
discuss student writing and foster critical thinking.
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