English Department
Course Descriptions
My library was dukedom large enough.
~William Shakespeare, The Tempest
The proper study of mankind is books. ~Aldous Huxley
SPRING 2015
For the latest version of this booklet, go to:
http://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/english/
Oct 24, 2014
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ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SPRING 2015
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
NOTE TO MAJORS AND NON MAJORS
We have put together this up-to-date listing of all courses that will be taught by
members of the English Department in the Spring 2015 semester, and informal course
descriptions for each one, written by the faculty member who plans to teach the course in
the fall. English courses on all levels are open to both majors and non-majors alike. We
do ask that you complete the freshman writing requirement before you enroll in 200-level
English courses, and that you complete one of the pre-requisite courses (either 200, 201,
202) before enrolling in an upper level (300 or 400 level) course. Please note that there is
no distinction in level of difficulty between 300 level and 400 level courses. For more
information on any of the courses being offered, and for last minute information on
additions or changes to the schedule, please drop by the English Department, Wheatley
Hall, 6th floor, Room 052.
UNDECLARED MAJORS
If you would like to talk over the possibility of majoring in English, please make
an appointment to see a member of our Advising Committee (Wheatley Hall, 6th Floor,
Rm 52). Don't put off declaring a major, whether or not it is English. Declaring a major
enables you to get some personal attention from an advisor on the faculty, and to ask
some useful questions about organizing your studies. It does not limit your options.
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125-01
From CRIME TO SCI-FI: POPULAR LITERARY GENRES #6569
MWF 12:00-12:50p
O’CONNELL, H.
Science Fiction has been one of the most popular genres of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries, extending from a niche literary market into film, television, comics and even
music. Given its cultural pervasiveness, in many ways, science fiction has become the
key touchstone for popular culture. In this course, we will chart the development of
science fiction as a distinct popular cultural form, paying particular attention to its
defining characteristics. As such, we’ll study a wide range of themes and issue central to
science fiction literature: early narratives that champion a scientific sense of wonder and
possibility alongside others that articulate fears of technological destruction; the
development of the “first-contact” narrative that imagines meetings between humans and
aliens both positively and negatively; the alternating hopes and fears that characterize
utopias and dystopias; the dreams of an elsewhere captured in intergalactic space operas;
imaginative conceptions of temporality in time travel and alternate history narratives; and
the development of cyberpunk and the focus on the integration of human and cybernetic
technology and the possibility of artificial intelligence. Alongside this exploration of the
development of science fiction as a recognizable set of familiar narratives, we’ll also
study how these narratives relate to their own historical and cultural moments, expressing
particular hopes and fears, anxieties and desires. Readings will mainly be short stories
and films that we’ll supplement with some critical essays about the history and culture of
science fiction.
Note: this is a large lecture course; smaller group discussions will take place on Fridays.
181G
LITERATURE & THE VISUAL ARTS
G181-1 (#6437) MWF 11:00am-11:50am & F 10:00-10:50am KARLIS
G181-2 (#6438) MWF 2:00-2:50 & W 1:00-1:50pm KARLIS
This course explores the artistic aspects of literature by comparing it to the visual arts.
Students consider the nature of art—what it is, what it does, why it matters. The course
connects a variety of literary genres, including the short story and poetry, to visual media,
including film and the graphic novel. Come prepared to ask and experience questions
such as: How is reading similar to and different from viewing? How is a literary text
adapted into a visual text? What happens when images replace words or words try to
capture images?
Note: This course counts as a First-Year Seminar, a course that is required of all
students who enter the university with fewer than 30 credits. First-Year Seminars carry
four credits and meet for four hours a week. Students may not take more than one FirstYear Seminar.
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183G-1
LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
Tu/Th 11:00am-12:15pm & Th 12:30-1:20pm
#6439
STAFF
This course investigates the ways in which literary works represent a particular aspect of
society, such as work, education, aging, or war. The course features a close analytical
reading of literary works with special attention to a writer’s social context and the
writer’s choices of themes and forms that speak to that context. The course also
examines how readers in varying social contexts have read, understood, and used the
work.
Note: This course counts as a First-Year Seminar, a course that is required of all
students who enter the university with fewer than 30 credits. First-Year Seminars carry
four credits and meet for four hours a week. Students may not take more than one FirstYear Seminar.
200
UNDERSTANDING LITERATURE
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: AR
200-01 (#6440)
200-02 (#6441)
200-03 (#6442)
200-04 (#6443)
200-05 (#6444)
200-01CE (#5672)
MWF 9:00-9:50
MWF 11:00-11:50
TuTh 9:30-10:45
TuTh 11:00-12:15
TuTh 12:30-1:45
Tu 6:00-9:00
STAFF
STAFF
GOLEMAN
MEDOFF
BROWN
STAFF
What is literature, and how can we make sense of it? This course introduces students to
the practice and pleasure of literary analysis with an intensive focus on close reading.
Through the study of a diverse range of texts, including fiction, drama, film, and poetry,
we will develop the vocabulary to consider the aesthetic components of a work, such as
genre, narration, and point of view. We will ask: Why and how do writers utilize various
techniques, such as satire or stream-of-consciousness? What are literary conventions, and
what happens when authors break them? In conjunction with questions of form and style,
students will become acquainted with basic critical methods, which invite us to consider
the politics of representation. We will read closely and carefully in order to interpret a
wide range of challenging texts. The underlying goal is to increase your appreciation for
a well-crafted work of art and to develop the means to express that appreciation,
emphasizing critical thinking, critical reading, and critical writing.
201
FIVE BRITISH AUTHORS
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: HU
201-01 (#6445)
201-02 (#6446)
201-03 (#6447)
201-01CE (#5673)
MWF 11:00-11:50
MWF 1:00-1:50
TuTh 11:00-12:15
ONLINE
STAFF
STAFF
REMEIN
EGLE
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This course examines significant literary works by five of the most important writers
from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, including Chaucer and Shakespeare. These
writers provide an introduction to literary, philosophical, and humanistic studies, while
also offering insight into the leading ideas, assumptions, and values of their ages. The
course explores how these writers helped to create the very idea of “literature” for
English readers, writers, and thinkers.
202
SIX AMERICAN AUTHORS
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: HU
DIVERSITY: United States Focus
202-01 (#6448)
202-02 (#6449)
202-03 (#6450)
202-05 (#6452)
MWF 10:00-10:50
MWF 12:00-12:50
TuTh 8:00-9:15
TuTh 2:00-3:15
SAURI
SAURI
S. O’CONNELL
NURHUSSEIN
This course is not an American literature survey; rather, it seeks to introduce or revisit six
authors who helped shape a national literature, and particularly what is known as U.S.
modernism—a movement that has, in many ways, determined the shape of the American
literary canon since at least the mid-twentieth century. And indeed, we will see that the
question of a "national literature" – and of national culture more generally – emerges as a
primary concern for many of the writers discussed throughout this course. We should,
moreover, keep in mind that each of the works considered here was produced in a period
of extraordinary political possibility marked by the social upheavals resulting from a
world war and a catastrophic economic crisis. We will be reading each of these works,
therefore, with an eye to understanding how they attempt to define "American" national
culture and identity, an in so doing, lay bare the economic, political, and social tensions
that had defined this period. This, then, will require us to take into account the formal
qualities of individual texts – that is, to the ways in which the story is told – to see how
literature not only provides a means toward understanding a particular national situation
or historical moment, but also becomes the site of possible solutions to these same
tensions and conflicts. Authors considered in this course (tentatively) include William
Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, George Schuyler, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
and Wallace Stevens.
210
INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: AR
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
210-01 (#6453)
210-02 (#6454)
210-03 (#6455)
210-04 (#6456)
MWF 9:00-9:50
MWF 1:00-1:50
MWF 2:00-2:50
TuTh 8:00-9:15
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
5
210-05 (#6457)
210-06 (#6458)
TuTh 9:30-10:45
TuTh 4:00-5:15
STAFF
STAFF
An introduction to the process of thinking, reading and expressing oneself as a poet and
fiction writer for students with or without prior experience. Students will read and discuss
a variety of poems and short stories, including their own, from a writer's point of view.
We'll consider each author's use of language and form, and the role of conflict, narrative,
setting, and dialogue in both poetry and prose. Weekly reading and writing assignments.
211-1
CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY
#6459
MWF 2:00-2:50am
TORRA
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
An introduction to the process of writing your own poems and learning to be a cogent,
helpful reader of others’ work. Students become familiar with various examples of the
genre by reading a variety of poems from various literary periods, with an emphasis on
modern and contemporary work. During the course of the semester, students will be
writing in class and out of class, using individual and group exercises, free writing, and a
certain number of formal assignments. Students share work in a writing workshop during
the second half of the semester.
212-1
CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION
#6460
TuTh 9:30-10:45
STAFF
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
We will be reading recently published fiction, discussing what makes this work
successful, how we, as writers, can learn from it, and writing and workshopping our own
short fiction in a responsible and constructive manner. I expect the utmost seriousness
and attentiveness from each student, especially when responding to fellow students’
work. Everyone will be expected to present work to the workshop at least twice during
the term. While writing is serious business, it’s also fun. So come with a sense of humor
and a willingness to be a part of a dynamic community of fiction writers.
250-01
THE MONSTROUS IMAGINATION
TuTh 2:00-2:50
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: WC
DIVERSITY: International Focus
#TBD
EGLE
Literature not only creates monsters, but it also seems to enjoy the imaginative leap
needed to make "real" the obviously unreal monster. Why does literature use its
imaginative power, its ability to move beyond reality, to envision figures that are nonhuman, abnormal, or uncivilized and are disturbing, disruptive, or horrific in form? If we
examine these figures closely, one of the things that makes them both very human and
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very monstrous is their imaginative excess: they often have an imagination that is out of
control, overly-rebellious or engaged in too-powerful thinking. Thus, this class argues
that literature uses the figure of the monster to question the benefits, powers, and
downfalls of the imagination. By asking you to question why the imagination creates
monsters, this class asks you to question the nature of the imagination itself, especially
the imagination that creates and reads literature.
258-01
INTRO TO WORLD CINEMA
TuTh 4:00-5:45
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: WC
DIVERSITY: International Focus
#13120
HAMBLIN
This course offers an introduction to the study of contemporary cinema in a global
context, focusing on films made since the millennium. As such, we will explore the
technological, aesthetic, economic, and geopolitical development of cinema as it
circulates globally and think about how film represents places, peoples, and histories to
the rest of the world. Together, we will trace the historical development of world cinema,
considering both mainstream films and smaller independent movements, and their
relationship to larger historical and cultural issues. As well as examining the place of film
in global culture we will explore the idea of film as a fundamentally global art form,
asking questions like, how did narrative cinema become the dominant mode of
filmmaking? How did the techniques of storytelling develop differently in different parts
of the world? How and why did Hollywood emerge as the most famous and powerful
film industry? How has Hollywood influenced other national traditions and how are they
different to it? We’ll also spend some time thinking about contemporary issues in world
cinema, including the rise of multinational media conglomerates, the effect of migration
and immigration on national film cultures, and the role of international co-productions
and finance structures in developing a global film style and culture.
262G
ART OF LITERATURE
262G-01 (#6462)
262G-02 (#6463)
262G-03 (#6464)
262G-04 (#6465)
262G-05 (#6466)
262G-01ce (#4426)
MWF 8:00-8:50
MWF 9:00-9:50
MWF 1:00-1:50
TuTh 9:30-10:45
TuTh 12:30-1:45
ONLINE
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
KARLIS
In this course, we will explore the world of literature—the imagination as it finds creative
expression in language. Why do we call some writing “literature”? What makes us label
something “art”? By examining fiction, poetry, and drama, we will learn about literary
forms and devices and develop an appreciation for the writer’s craft. This course may be
counted towards the English major or minor.
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Note: This course counts as an Intermediate Seminar, a course that is required of all
students who enter the university with fewer than 90 credits. Students may not take more
than one Intermediate Seminar.
272G
ART OF POETRY
272G-01 (#6467)
TuTh 11:00-12:15
272G-01ce (#4518) ONLINE
BUDDEN
BUDDEN
Why do we convey who we are and what we do through storytelling, sharing stories
about work, family, and our inner selves? Why do we create fictional—fake and
artificial—worlds, rather than focus only on reality? Why do we amuse ourselves with
storytelling in movies, on TV, and on Youtube? This course grapples with these
questions while providing an introduction to various critical approaches to the
understanding and appreciation of fiction. Close reading of short stories, novels, and
graphic novels, with special attention to the language and forms of fiction, as well as the
writing of critical and interpretive papers. This course may be counted towards the
English major or minor.
Note: This course counts as an Intermediate Seminar, a course that is required of all
students who enter the university with fewer than 90 credits. Students may not take more
than one Intermediate Seminar.
273G
ART OF FICTION
273G-01 (#6468)
273G-02 (#6469)
273G-03 (#6470)
273G-04 (#6471)
273G-05 (#6472)
MW 5:30-6:45
MWF 10:00-10:50
MWF 12:00-12:50
TuTh 9:30-10:45
TuTh 2:00-3:15
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
STAFF
Why do we convey who we are and what we do through storytelling, sharing stories
about work, family, and our inner selves? Why do we create fictional—fake and
artificial—worlds, rather than focus only on reality? Why do we amuse ourselves with
storytelling in movies, on TV, and on Youtube? This course grapples with these
questions while providing an introduction to various critical approaches to the
understanding and appreciation of fiction. Close reading of short stories, novels, and
graphic novels, with special attention to the language and forms of fiction, as well as the
writing of critical and interpretive papers. This course may be counted towards the
English major or minor.
Note: This course counts as an Intermediate Seminar, a course that is required of all
students who enter the university with fewer than 90 credits. Students may not take more
than one Intermediate Seminar.
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274G
THE ART OF DRAMA
274G-01 (#6473)
MWF 9:00-9:50
275G-02 (#6574)
MWF 11:00-11:50
FINN
FINN
An intermediate seminar in the study of Dramatic Literature and Theatre History, this
course provides an introduction to drama. In this course we will read plays from Ancient
Greece, Elizabethan England, the Neoclassical France, and some of the greatest works
from European and American playwrights of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries including
Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Wilde, O’Neill, Williams, Miller, Brecht, Beckett, Kushner, and
Wilson, among others. We will pay close attention to themes, forms, styles, staging, and
performance. What this means is we will have an exciting opportunity to consider the
uniqueness of dramatic literature, in that it exists both on the page and for the stage.
Playwrights must consider not only literary elements such as theme, style, and narrative
structure, but also staging, performance, audience reception, and other conventions
unique to the theatre. Plays are written to be read, but also to be performed: witnessed by
audiences, embodied by actors, interpreted by directors and designers. We will take all of
these creative aspects of drama into consideration when dealing with these plays. Come
prepared to discuss not only the playwright’s intent, but also your own unique creative
vision of how these plays might be performed today.
Note: This course counts as an Intermediate Seminar, a course that is required of all
students who enter the university with fewer than 90 credits. Students may not take more
than one Intermediate Seminar.
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300-400 LEVEL COURSES
PRE-REQUISITE: 200, 201, OR 202 IS REQUIRED FOR ALL 300/400 COURSES
300
INTERMEDIATE CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHEOP
#6475
MWF 9:00-9:50
O’GRADY
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have
learned to dance.” So you think you can dance? Assuming that most students registering
for this course will have picked up at least a few metaphorical dance steps in one or more
of the 200-level Creative Writing courses, we will spend the semester refining those
literary moves by engaging mostly with the writing of lyric poetry and short fiction. To
that end, the class will alternate between and among weekly writing assignments, in-class
workshopping of student writing, discussion of “craft” essays on formal and stylistic
aspects of poetry and fiction, and engaged reading of work by established authors to see
up close how some of the “fancy footwork” of writing is performed.
301
ADVANCED POETRY WORKSHOP
W 7:00-9:45pm
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
#5705
TORRA
This is an advanced workshop for students who have completed an introductory and/or
intermediate creative writing course (E210, E211, E212, E300) and who have had some
experience writing poetry. Students will continue to develop elements of language,
imagery, sound, and line to shape their individual poetic voice. Focus will be on creating
and revising new work, peer review, reading and discussing contemporary poetry, then
reading and writing some more. Assignments include keeping a reading journal, making a
class presentation, attending a poetry reading, and submitting a final portfolio.
PERMISSION OF INSTRUCTOR IS REQUIRED AND ENROLLMENT IS
LIMITED. STUDENTS ARE ADVISED TO APPLY EARLY—DURING THE
FIRST WEEK OF MAY—FOR PERMISSION TO REGISTER. PLEASE EMAIL A WRITING SAMPLE OF 3-5 POEMS TO PROF. TORRA AT:
Joseph.torra@umb.edu
302
ADVANCED FICTION WORKSHOP
F 2:00-4:45
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
#6477
FULTON
This course will focus on fiction writing from two perspectives—craft and process. In
our discussion of our own and published fiction, we will explore how writers construct
character, voice, suspense, story, etc. We will also discuss the more hazy area of process,
with which every writer must finally struggle. I will encourage you to develop an
awareness of what works for you and what doesn’t. I will ask you to think about what
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sort of risks are important for you to take in your work and what material inspires you to
take these risks. What is most compelling, important, fun, and scary for you to write
about? While writing is serious business, it’s also fun. So come with a sense of humor
and a willingness to be a part of a dynamic community of writers. PERMISSION OF
INSTRUCTOR IS REQUIRED AND ENROLLMENT IS LIMITED. STUDENTS
ARE ADVISED TO APPLY EARLY—DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY—
FOR PERMISSION TO REGISTER. PLEASE LEAVE A SAMPLE OF YOUR
WRITING IN PROFESSOR FULTON’S MAILBOX (W-6-052, in the English
Department Office). BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WITH
YOUR WRITING SAMPLE.
306
ADVANCED NONFICTION WRITING
#6478
TuTh 9:30-10:45
ANDERSON
English Major/Minor: Creative Writing Concentration
Professional Writing Concentration
This is a class for serious writers in various nonfictional modes, such as description,
narration, expository or informative writing, and written argument. It is a rich, exciting,
malleable genre in which to work. In this workshop-based course, we will experiment
with nonfiction in creative and critical ways. While there will be some emphasis on the
art of writing, everything read and discussed will have a practical as well as theoretical
function, with particular attention given to the composing process. Activities will include
interactive discussion, both formal and informal writing, and workshops focused on
revision. Much of our work in class will involve the group as a community, working
together in discussion and the sharing of ideas to achieve our common goal of becoming
better writers. Learning to respond thoughtfully, respectfully, and critically to both your
own work and the work of your classmates will be of great importance.
307ce-01
WRITING FOR THE PRINT and ONLINE MEDIA
#3352
Sat 11: 45a-2:45p
CLARK
English Major/Minor: Professional Writing Concentration
An advanced course where strong writers can gain proficiency in major types of writing
for the public, including journalism, promotional writing, and business and informational
prose. Assignments connect to read campus, job, and community events and situations,
with the expectation that some writing will be publishable. In conjunction with English
308, this course provides a strong preparation for editors and writers in all settings.
308
PROFESSIONAL EDITING
English Major/Minor: Professional Writing Concentration
308-01 (#6479)
308-01ce (4381)
MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm
Sat
11:45am-2:45pm
MITCHELL
MITCHELL
11
An intensive exploration of the skills needed for editing various kinds of writing for
various purposes. Instruction covers such topics as advanced grammar, usage, and
diction; mechanical and content editing; editorial judgment; and workplace context. In
conjunction with English 307: Writing for the Media, this course provides a strong
preparation for editors and writers in all settings.
329
NARRATIVE IN THE NOVEL AND FILM
TuTh 11:00-11:50a
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: TN
#13206
BROWN
Emphasizing formal and stylistic renditions of 20th- and 21st-century narrative art, this
course focuses on experimental aspects of fiction and film. The storytelling structures of
fiction and film are compared through close attention to written texts, visual and graphic
media, and critical readings. Materials include fiction by authors such as Woolf,
Faulkner, and Coetzee, and films by directors such as Eisenstein, DeSica, and Resnais.
332-01ce
COMEDY
#TBD
TBD
FINN
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: AR
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: **, TN
English Major/Minor: Literary History Concentration
Comic literature from different cultures and periods, ancient through modern, illustrates
the recurrence of different comic modes: satire, irony, romantic comedy, comedy of
manners, and comedy of the absurd. Essays about theories of comedy aid students in
evaluating the literature and forming their own ideas about the nature of comedy.
333
TRAGEDY
#6480
MWF 2:00-2:50p
FINN
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: AR
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: *, TN
English Major/Minor: Literary History Concentration
The course explores both the changing and the enduring aspects of tragedy by examining
tragedic works of different ages, from ancient Greece to modern times. Readings may
include such works as Oedipus, Thyestes, Dr. Faustus, Macbeth, The White Devil, King
Lear, Samson Agonistes, Desire Under the Elms, and Death of a Salesman, examined in
the light of essays about the vision of tragedy, the nature of tragic action, the tragic hero,
the tragic times, for example. Students are encouraged to evaluate theories against one
another and against their own experience of the literature, in order to formulate their own
ideas about the nature of tragedy.
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334
SCIENCE FICTION:
Genre, Tradition and Global Reboot
TuTh 2:00-3:15
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: TN
#6481
H. O’CONNELL
As genre literature, science fiction is comprised of an overlapping series of familiar
subgenres and master-narratives. Primary examples of subgenres include the cozy
catastrophe, the space opera, utopias and dystopias, time travel, cyberpunk, and alternate
history, all of which developed alongside and through master-narratives that include
accounts of first contact, post-humanism, afro-futurism, the terraforming/colonizing of
new worlds, and the emergence of artificial intelligence and the singularity (of course,
these are only a few of the most well-known). The continual recycling and refining of
such formal and genre narrative elements allows science fiction texts to ceaselessly
explore profound questions of social organization through a host of changing historical
and cultural conditions. In this way, science fiction texts constantly reimagine the
relationship of human/self to alien/other, the effect of new technology and scientific
discovery on society, the relationship of the gendered/racialized/sexualized self to
society, the nature of warfare and political dominance, cultural and social
in(ter)dependence, environmental responsibility, and ultimately what it means to be
human within evolving techno-socio-scapes. In this course we’ll examine a set of texts
that both work within and complicate these traditions. While developing a working
knowledge of these familiar aspects of science fiction studies, we’ll pay particular
attention to how recent texts rethink such familiar science fiction conventions through the
lens of globalization (both in the sense of how the advent of economic-cultural
globalization affects these narratives, as well as how science fiction itself has become a
more global genre, extending well beyond the previously dominant national traditions of
the US, UK and Soviet Union, including burgeoning postcolonial traditions, and nonwestern and global south writers). While part of this course is concerned with recent
developments in science fiction cultural production and scholarship, no familiarity with
science fiction is assumed or needed; newcomers to science fiction are welcome (and
indeed encouraged) to enroll.
335
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
MWF 1:00-1:50pm
#11730
TAN
The study of literature for children, including criticism and the history of the
development of literary materials written specifically for children. The works studied-by
such authors as Lewis, Grahame, Wilder, and Milne-are explored in the context of the
historical and cultural settings in which they were produced, and the texts are analyzed
both as works of art and as instruments of cultural and didactic impact.
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345-01ce
LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH
#6483
W 6:00-9:00p
HASRATIAN
A study of the literary renaissance of the American South from 1920 to the present in
works by such authors as Faulkner, Hurston, Wright, Warren, Ransom, Tate, Welty,
Porter, Styron, O'Connor, Kenan, A. Walker, M. Walker, and S. Brown.
352L
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
MWF 12:00-12:50p
GEN-ED DISTRIBUTION: HU
DIVERSITY: US
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: TN
#6580
TOMLINSON
This course focuses on major texts of the Harlem Renaissance within contexts of
modernism, history, and the development of an African American literary tradition. The
course will examine how literature creates and represents real and "imagined"
communities and will explore the diverse and often contradictory roles that literature
plays in shaping, resisting, and reinforcing cultural discourses.
363
MODERN AMERICAN POETRY
TuTh 12:30-1:45
#6485
NURHUSSEIN
In this course, we will read verse and essays by and about American poets of the first
two-thirds of the twentieth century. Our starting point will be the years immediately
preceding the emergence of “High Modernism,” when Imagism became “Amygism”
(Ezra Pound’s disparaging name for a school he helped found but thought later was
debased by Amy Lowell’s influence). The poetries of interconnected modernisms are
often considered as distinct literary movements—the Harlem Renaissance poetry of
Langston Hughes, the experimental compositions by Gertrude Stein, the American strain
represented by William Carlos Williams—but, contextualizing them historically, we will
attempt to uncover the affiliations between them and develop a nuanced account of the
landscape of American poetry in the early to mid-twentieth century. We will end the
course with some of the products of the 1950s and 1960s, including the New York School
and Confessional poetry. Students will be required to write three essays (two short, one
long) and to deliver an oral presentation.
365
BRITISH NOVEL AND 19th CENTURY
#6486
TuTh 9:30-10:45
PENNER
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: **
ENGLISH MINOR/CONCENTRATION CATEGORY: Literary
History concentration
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A study of social, technological, and cultural changes in nineteenth-century Britain as
reflected in the large-scale novel of social life that reached its peak of popularity as a
literary form in several modes including historical fiction, romance, and realism. Novels
by such authors as Scott, Austen, the Bronte, Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, Hardy,
Meredith, and Conrad.
371
ADOLESCENT IN LITERATURE
TuTh 4:00-5:15
#6488
NELSON
An examination of works featuring adolescents as protagonists, with attention to why
American literature in particular has celebrated the adolescent (and pre-adolescent)
experience. Consideration of assumptions held about adolescence, about authorial
intention, about literary analysis, and about education. Authors may include Twain,
Salinger, Updike, Eugenides, Angelou, Baldwin, Bambara, Morrison, and Allison.
372L
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
TuTh 11:30-12:15p
DIVERSITY: United States Focus
#11732
EDELSTEIN
American women’s writing has a bad reputation. Nathaniel Hawthorne denigrated the
“damned mob of scribbling women,” and the notion that women’s prose is sentimental
and derivative has not entirely faded from the popular imagination. Keeping such critical
assessments in mind, this course will examine the tradition of American women’s writing
from the early republic through the twenty-first century with particular attention to how
these writers depict domesticity and maternity, reform and activism, and authorship itself.
We will discuss why this set of texts has been simultaneously the most popular American
literature and the most derided. In addition to focusing on generic and formal
developments, we will use theoretical frameworks to enrich our study of the aesthetic
strategies and thematic concerns that unite these texts. Ultimately, we will ask whether
“women’s writing” truly exists and what kinds of assumptions as well as possibilities
such a category engenders. Authors will likely include Louisa May Alcott, Toni
Morrison, Sylvia Plath, and Alison Bechdel.
373-02
WORKING CLASS LITERATURE
TuTh 12:30-1:45p
GEN-ED: ARTS
English Major Category: TN
#13162
MEDOFF
This course examines representations of people from working-class backgrounds,
concentrating on American literature and fulfilling the U.S. Diversity requirement. We
will spend a good deal of time in the 20th century (perhaps a bit in the 19th) and end in
the 21st, reading traditional forms of literature like short stories, novels and poetry but
also examining how the working class is presented in oral histories, autobiographical
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works and other genres. Some of our topics may include: the American Dream, the
concept of the working-class hero, the consequences of social mobility (or lack thereof),
variations in working-class experiences among cultures, races, genders, sexualities and
age groups, and what happens when personal experience is converted into an art form.
Particular emphasis will be placed on developing close reading techniques, as well as
critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. The course relies heavily on in-class
discussions and various forms of teamwork, with less emphasis on lectures and note
taking. You will be expected to compose a number of in-class and at-home assignments,
and to write several formal papers. An important project during the semester will be to
interview and write about someone in your life who is from a working-class background.
Some of the authors we may be reading are: Walt Whitman, John Steinbeck, Tilly Olsen,
Toni Cade Bambara, John Updike, Alice Walker, Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, Joe
Torra, Junot Diaz, Toni Morrison and Dorothy Allison.
379-01
SPECIAL TOPICS:
Pre & Posthuman Condition
MWF 10:00-10:50a
#13156
HASRATIAN
Coming soon!
379-02
SPECIAL TOPICS:
#13163
New Media & Professional Writing
DAVIS
English Minor/Concentration: Professional Writing Concentration
TuTh 12:30-1:45p
This course introduces students to rhetorical, literary, and critical approaches to studying
and producing writing as they play out across a range of contexts—in print and digital
media, in the workplace, in journalistic and artistic venues, and in academic settings. The
course will also pay attention to the role of editing and publishing in text production.
Framing writing in terms of genre, purpose, audience, and compositional practice, the
course will introduce students to aspects of writing that span different situations:
collaborative writing, visual and verbal design, and research practices. Other topics
include learning about the range of career opportunities in English studies and primary
and secondary research methods.
380
SPECIAL TOPICS:
#6493
Shakespeare Among Others
MAISANO
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: *
English Minor/Concentration: Literary History Concentration
TuTh 11:00-12:45p
The general theme for this year’s Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference, to be hosted at
Bentley University in April 2015, is “Shakespeare Among Others,” with the “others”
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referring both to cultural/religious/ethnic/gendered others or other playwrights of the
period. This special topics course will prepare students to present papers at that
conference by going to a place that Shakespeare and other playwrights of the period
imagined to be teeming with cultural/religious/ethnic/gendered others: Venice. Venice on
the London stage was like Vegas in Hollywood movies: “Sin City,” a place to get drunkmarried and, if you’re lucky, kidnap a tiger. Our semester will begin with 2 plays by
Shakespeare himself: The Merchant of Venice, an Elizabethan comedy, and Othello, The
Moor of Venice, a Jacobean tragedy. After that, we’ll turn to Ben Jonson’s Volpone, a
Jacobean comedy about a malingering millionaire and the avaricious heirs to his fortune;
John Marston’s The Insatiate Countess, a scintillating “sex tragedy” about a recently
widowed woman who, instead of mourning her husband’s death, falls in love with
another man, then another, then another; Marston’s Antonio and Mellida and Antonio’s
Revenge, a farcical romantic comedy and its (revenge tragedy) sequel; Thomas Decker
and/or Thomas Middleton’s Blurt, Master Constable, or, as I prefer to think of it, Paul
Blart, Mall Cop circa 1601; Richard Brome’s The Novella, which has drawn the attention
of theorists of race, class, gender, and sexuality for its infamous “bed trick” featuring an
African eunuch; and James Shirley’s The Gentleman of Venice, about which it was said,
exactly 100 years ago, “the repulsiveness of this second action… warrants, perhaps, the
silence with which Schelling treats the entire play.” What’s so “repulsive”? You’ll have
to take the class and travel to the mythical Venice of the English Renaissance imagination
to find out. Since several of the plays we’ll read during the second half of the semester
have been out of print for some time, a final project for the course might involve
constructing critical editions for Blart, The Novella, and The Gentleman of Venice to rival
those of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Volpone. In addition to the plays
mentioned above, we will also read selections from Coryat’s Crudities, a popular turn-ofthe-seventeenth-century travelogue with its own account of Venice. Finally, UMass
Boston not only had more students selected to present papers than any other college or
university at last year’s Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference but also walked away
with a cash prize for the best paper. This year, I’m looking for us to become the first
“repeat conference champions.”
383
SHAKESPEARE’S LATER WORKS
#6493
MWF 9:00-9:50a
TOBIN
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: *
English Minor/Concentration: Literary History Concentration
Shakespeare’s problem plays, major tragedies and late romances. The course emphasizes
critical interpretations of individual plays, and it assumes that students will have had
some experience of Shakespearean plays, such as those in ENGL 382. But this course
may be elected without such experience.
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391
JAMES JOYCE
#11733
MWF 10:00-10:50a
O’GRADY
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: Irish Literature Concentration
James Joyce was an artist. He has said so himself.
—Flann O’Brien
He fancied to himself the English lecture and felt, even at that distance,
restless and helpless.
—Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Any man who can explain Joyce must be very old and very wise.
—Groucho Marx
While this course will include close critical reading of James Joyce’s first two works of
fiction—Dubliners (1914) and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)—the
ultimate focus will be on his “damned monster-novel” Ulysses (1922). More specifically,
the course will trace from early in Joyce’s career the development of his literary vision
and technique that make the body of his work both one of the great challenges and one of
the great rewards for readers of modern fiction. Most specifically, keeping in mind how
Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus describes “The cracked lookingglass of a servant” as “a symbol
of Irish art,” we will focus on how Joyce himself holds up his “nicely polished lookingglass” to Irish society and culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Thus, while
inevitably some attention will be given both to Joyce’s personal background and to the
general literary context in which he worked, discussion will center more directly on the
texts and on critical strategies for appreciating how Joyce’s writing engages his readers
both thematically and stylistically.
396
JANE AUSTIN
#6497
MWF 11:00-11:50
FAY
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY:**
English Minor/Concentration: Literary History Concentration
Why Austen? The increasing number of films (both Hollywood and BBC adaptations)
made from Austen’s works, and now about her, the large number of fan clubs and
amateur societies (including a Jane Austen blog!) devoted to studying her life and works,
as well as the increasing number of contemporary novels based on her oeuvre—from
continuations of Pride and Prejudice, to mystery novels starring Austen as detective, to
novels about Jane Austen reading clubs—beg the question of Austen’s relevance to
American culture today. Why would a novelist from Regency England, who saw
Napoleon’s rise to power and his defeat, who worried about the fate of military men,
unmarried women, and social hypocrisy, and yet who confined her plots as much as
possible to small villages and small matters, spark our imaginations in such a rich way?
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Does Austen signify nostalgia for more romantic times, similar to Arthurian tales? Does
her work hint at better solutions to gender inequities than those we find ourselves
engaged in now? Why aren’t we similarly interested in her contemporaries such as Ann
Radcliffe, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft, all of whom were better known
writers and who vastly outsold her? Even Wollstonecraft, so important to our modern
conception of feminism, does not inspire movies, fan clubs, or new novels. This course
will explore this and other questions as we work our way through Austen’s oeuvre and
consider what she was reading herself in terms of philosophies of mind and sensibility,
and in terms of some of her literary peers.
401
MEDIEVAL PERIOD
#6570
TuTh 12:30-1:45
REMEIN
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY:*
English Minor/Concentration: Literary History Concentration
This course considers important texts from Middle Ages in light of major trends in
contemporary literary criticism and the continuing influence of the medieval on
contemporary literature and thought (including attention to medievalism in twentiethcentury and contemporary avant-garde literature). We will read Beowulf and other Old
English poems, Chaucer, Arthurian Romances, Celtic literature, and Icelandic Sagas
(including accounts of the Viking explorations of North America) alongside critical
perspectives on gender and sexuality, translation, temporality, and ecology in medieval
literature. Certain medieval texts will be read in comparison with shorter modern texts by
Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Robert Glück, and Caroline Bergvall. There will be instruction
and practice in reading Middle English, and we will read, in translation, texts from Old
English, Old French, Old Norse, and Latin.
437
READING THE GOTHIC
#13046
MWF 11:00-11:50
JACKSON
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY:TN
English Minor/Concentration: Literary History Concentration
Headless horsemen, executed witches, and cursed bloodlines. As Toni Morrison has
observed, “for a people who made much of their ‘newness’ – their potential, freedom,
and innocence – it is striking how dour, how troubled, how frightened and haunted our
early and founding literature truly is.” This course reveals that from the nation’s
inception, American authors have imagined the new world to be haunted by histories of
patricidal revolution, human trafficking, and nature defiled. Beyond the US context, we
will consider the transnational trajectory of this genre, from English prototypes to
postmodern Caribbean revisions.
448
PERSPECTIVES ON LITERACY
TuTh 2:00-3:15pm
SATISFIES ENGLISH EDUCATION LICENSURE
LANGUAGE-BASED REQUIREMENT
#6500
DAVIS
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This course will examine the theories, practices, materials, and importance of literacy in
two ways. First, we’ll read a number of texts from the field of literacy studies. We’ll read
theories of how humans began to connect language and tools and technology; we’ll read
studies of school literacy, of small community literacy, and of literacy in digital
communities; we’ll look at how those studies understand the political, social, and
ideological dimensions of different forms of meaning-making. Second, we’ll engage
literacy by participating in a service-learning program that provides an opportunity to
promote literate practice outside the classroom. As part of the course, you will choose a
literacy program in the Boston area, volunteer as a writing tutor, coach, or teacher, and
put into practice your developing understanding of what literacy means.
457
UNDERGRADUATE COLLOQUIUM (one-credit)
#6507
Times TBA
VON MORZE
Through a series of workshops led by a representative from Career Services, students in
the English Colloquium will refine their writing and communication skills in ways
intended to benefit them after graduation. Two areas of career development will be
emphasized: 1) identifying a vocation that capitalizes on your skills and abilities and/or
2) enhancing your self-presentation to prospective employers through work on cover
letters, résumés, interviewing and networking skills, and so forth. Workshop times will be
determined by a poll in early January, so please sign up early!
Note: This course counts for 1 credit only.
461
ADV. STUDIES IN DRAMA:
#6509
Shakespearean Scene Writing
TuTh 9:30-10:45
MAISANO
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: CAPSTONE, *
ENGLISH MINOR/CONCENTRATION: Literary History
Concentration
Are there limits—and alternatives—to what criticism and commentary can teach us about
Shakespeare? What if knowing why Shakespeare made use of adaptations, allusions,
asides, backstory, characters, costume, cued parts, dancing, dialogue, disguise, duels,
dumbshows, eavesdropping, ekphrasis, entrances and exits, flora and fauna,
foreshadowing, ghosts, hendiadyes, insults, irony, letters & messengers, midline
switches, music, noise, pacing, parody, plays-within-plays, plots, props, prose, proverbs,
puns, short lines, silence (or implied pauses), songs, time schemes, even lacunae and
cruces as he did depended on learning how (or at least trying) to do it ourselves? Drawing
on humanist methods of imitatio and early modern “maker’s knowledge traditions,” this
capstone course will ultimately require students to create new “Shakespearean” scenes
with period-specific diction, grammar, and iambic pentameter. The first half of the
semester will be spent reading and studying four plays by Shakespeare with added
attention to diction, grammar, and rhetorical figures of speech (including but not limited
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to anaphora, antimetabole, isocolon, and parison) and to why and how Shakespeare
conveys some events through mimesis (action or showing) and others through diegesis
(narration or telling). The second half of the semester will find students diving into
sources Shakespeare himself adapted (or could have adapted—Rabelais anyone?) for the
theater, including but not limited to Holinshed’s Chronicles, Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, Cinthio’s Hecatommithi,
and whatever hidden gems we find while searching the Early English Books Online
(EEBO) database. Secondary sources will likely include Jonathan Hope's Shakespeare's
Grammar, R.W. Dent’s Shakespeare’s Proverbial Language, Sujata Iyengar’s
Shakespeare's Medical Language: A Dictionary, Keith Johnson’s Shakespeare’s English:
A Practical Linguistic Guide; Ben and David Crystal’s Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary
and Language Companion, Simon Palfrey’s Doing Shakespeare, Simon Palfrey and
Tiffany Stern’s Shakespeare in Parts, and (though it’s half a century old) Brian Vickers’s
The Artistry of Shakespeare’s Prose.
Final projects for the course will consist of one or more written scenes of new
“Shakespearean” drama, an editorial apparatus (introduction and notes) for same, plus
performances and/or readings (interpretations) of classmates’ scenes. Admittedly, this
sounds like a risky pedagogical gambit but prospective students might take comfort (or
consolation) in knowing that the same instructor will be leading a workshop with the
same title, objectives, and exercises as part of the annual meeting of the Shakespeare
Association of America in April of 2015.
465
ADV. STUDIES IN LITERATURE & SOCIETY:
Victorian to Modern Sexuality
MW 4:00-5:15
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: CAPSTONE, **
#6512
EGLE
Coming soon!
470L
NEW ENGLAND LITERATURE & CULTURE
#6568
TuTh 12:30-1:45
S. O’CONNELL
ENGLISH MAJOR CATEGORY: CAPSTONE, **
A study of the New England literary tradition from about 1850 to the near present. How
have writers and critics contested their differing versions of native grounds and
reinvented the New England idea in their works? Consideration of such topics as Native
American culture, Puritanism and Transcendentalism, slavery and Abolitionism,
immigration and ethnicity, nationalism and regionalism, industrialization, and popular
culture.
475
ENGLISH INTERNSHIP
BY ARRANGEMENT
SATISFIES CAPSTONE REQUIREMENT
DAVIS
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Through this course students who have made arrangements for suitable internships
involving a substantial amount of writing may receive academic credit for their work. At
intervals of approximately two weeks, each student is expected to meet with the
Internship Director to submit copies of written materials he or she has produced as part of
the job requirements. This written work should be accompanied by a breakdown of the
steps involved in each assignment and the time spent on each task, an explanation of the
extent of the intern's contribution to each piece of writing submitted, and (when
appropriate) a brief analysis of what he or she has learned in the process of working on
the assignment. For application forms and full information about requirements, see the
director of internships. All applications for internship credit must be approved by the
director before the end of the first week of classes. Since the course fills quickly,
students are encouraged to apply during advanced registration in order to be assured that
they may receive credit for their internships.
476
TECHNICAL WRITING INTERNSHIP
BY ARRANGEMENT
SATISFIES CAPSTONE REQUIREMENT
BRUSS
This course is limited to students who have completed all other requirements of the
technical writing program and have found internship placements. Enrollment is by
permission of the program director.
477
ENGLISH INTERNSHIP II
BY ARRANGEMENT
TBA
This course is limited to students who have completed all other requirements of the
professional writing program and have found internship placements. Enrollment is by
permission of the program director.
497
CREATIVE WRITING HONORS THESIS
BY ARRANGEMENT
SATISFIES CAPSTONE REQUIREMENT
NURHUSSEIN
The Creative Writing Honors Seminar is a two-semester program for a small number of
seniors with strong academic records and whose work in Creative Writing has been
outstanding. Students selected for the program will take a one-semester Creative Writing
Honors Workshop in the fall with the CW Program Director. In the spring they work
with a faculty advisor and complete an honors thesis that may be a collection of poems,
short stories, short plays, a full-length play, or a novel excerpt.
Requirements for admission are a 3.0 overall GPA; a 3.75 in Creative Writing and
Literature classes; the completion of at least two courses in creative writing;
recommendation by a Creative Writing instructor; and approval by the Program Director
in consultation with the Creative Writing Faculty.
A formal application should be submitted to the Director of Creative Writing.
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499
ENGLISH HONORS THESIS
Times TBD
SATISFIES CAPSTONE REQUIREMENT
VON MORZE
English 499 is open only to students who have completed English 498 in the fall and, in
the view of the instructor, have done sufficient work in the fall to complete their thesis
projects in the spring. Students will receive a grade for their thesis work, but Honors in
English will be awarded only to those students who have written a thesis of high
distinction (as judged by a committee of faculty readers).
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