Department of English
Case Western Reserve University
Course Listings for Fall Semester 2007
* Check Registrar’s listing for course times
For courses listed as “300/400” undergraduates should list only the “300” number on their
registration forms; graduate students should list only the “400” number.
Organized courses and tutorials for non-undergraduates are available to those for whom
English is a second language. These are offered by permission of the Writing Center Director
only. Contact Dr. Megan Jewell at the Writing Center, 104 Bellflower Hall (368-3799) or at the
English Department, 107 Guilford House (368-1508).
ENGL 148
Introduction to Composition
CRN 23336
CRN 75493
TBA
MW F
Koenigsberger, K
9:30-10:20
English 148 is an introductory course designed to help students who might have difficulty in
meeting the level of "C" competence in English 150, either because their verbal test scores and
high school records suggest additional practice might be needed, because English is not their
native language, or because their writing and reading simply lack the sophistication required for
English 150. English 148 is challenging: it encourages students to read with greater insight and
to acquire greater ease in organizing, focusing, and developing ideas in writing. Classes are
small and provide a great deal of individual tutorial work in addition to formal instruction.
Successful completion of the course means that a student is eligible to register for English 150.
Students enrolled in SAGES are not required to complete the English 148/150 sequence.
Enrollment limited to 12 in each section.
ENGL 150
Expository Writing
CRN 22184
CRN 79974
CRN 79983
M W F
M W F
M W F
Koenigsberger, K
9:30-10:20
9:30-10:20
3:00-3:50
As a course in expository writing, English 150 requires substantial writing. The goals of English
150 are:
 To give students guided practice in forming compelling and sophisticated claims for an
academic audience and in supporting those claims with appropriate evidence;
 To help students recognize, formulate, and support the kinds of claims prevalent in
academic writing;
 To help students internalize the standards for strong academic prose;
 To teach students the academic conventions for quoting, summarizing, and citing the
words and ideas of other writers and speakers;
 To guide students in locating, evaluating, and using different kinds of research sources;


To improve students’ abilities to read and respond critically to the writing of others;
To help students develop coherent strategies for the development and organization of
arguments;
 To foster students’ awareness of the importance of stylistic decisions; and
 To provide students with effective techniques for revision, and to cultivate habits of
comprehensive revision.
Topics, readings, and writing assignments vary across individual course sections. Section
descriptions will be available at http://www.case.edu/artsci/engl/writing before the beginning of
the semester. Students enrolled in SAGES are not required to complete the English 148/150
sequence. Enrollment limited to 20 in each section.
ENGL 180
Writing Tutorial
CRN v7021
Jewell
TBA
PURPOSE: ENGL 180 is a one- or two-credit tutorial in writing. Its purpose is to make a full
spectrum of writing instruction and support available to enrolled undergraduates.
REASONS FOR TAKING ENGL 180:
Extra Help in Writing: The majority of students who enroll in ENGL 180 do so because they
feel they need supplemental help with basic writing skills. Students who enroll are given
immediate diagnostic writing work and, when their writing has been assessed, they are given a
program of homework and tutorial assistance designed to meet their particular needs.
Competence: Non-SAGES Students who do not receive a “C” or better in ENGL 150 must take
ENGL 180. A major function of ENGL 180 is to allow these students (along with transfer
students who have taken freshman English elsewhere but failed to exempt themselves via the
transfer placement exam) to satisfy the University's requirement. If such students pass ENGL
180 with a "C" or better, they thus satisfy the requirement. N.B.: since exemption from a
University requirement is at stake, competency students are clearly identified to their tutors;
minimum writing requirements (see below) are adhered to carefully; and, in order to pass the
course with a "C" students must consistently meet in their writing the standard for competence
that is obtained in ENGL 150. "C competence" is defined in the bulletin and other University
publications.
GENERAL COURSE CONTENT AND PROCEDURE
Obviously individual programs will differ according to a variety of factors. The following general
description, however, covers most cases. When a student enrolls, he or she is assigned a
regular tutor and receives an hour of tutorial instruction per week. The amount of tutorial contact
may vary according to the extent and severity of the student's problems and the amount of
tutoring time available. Since the course is for credit, all students will be expected to do some
writing at home. The minimum number of words a student will be required to write in ENGL 180
is 3,000 (approximately 12 pages). This is slightly over one-third the amount of writing required
for ENGL 150 (3 credits). These writing requirements may be supplemented with additional
assignments at the tutor’s discretion. Since the tutors are in closest touch with individual
students, whose needs often vary greatly, the tutors have broad discretionary powers where
assignments are concerned and the nature of the amount of writing and other assigned work
may vary from student to student. Files are kept on all students enrolled in ENGL 180, and they
contain records of attendance, progress, and the tutor's comments and observations. They are
available to instructors upon request.
HOW TO ENROLL
After enrolling for ENGL 180 (via Solar or the Registrar), students must contact the Writing
Center, Bellflower Hall 104, during registration or drop-add week to set up their tutorial times.
For questions or appointments, students may call the Writing Center at x3799 or email
writing@case.edu.
ENGL 181
Reading Tutorial
CRN 72738
Olson-Fallon
TBA
English 181 is a one-credit individualized tutorial that students can take for a total of three
semesters. Enrollment does not have to be continuous. Students enrolled in English 181 may
work on sharpening their critical reading strategies as well as other related academic strategies
that increase reading efficiency and effectiveness. Students enrolled in English 181 must come
to the Educational Support Services office the first week of class to select the time for meeting
weekly with the instructor. English 181 is offered only in the fall and spring semesters.
Questions about English 181 should be directed to Judith Olson-Fallon, Director of Educational
Support Services (Sears 470, http://studentaffairs.case.edu/education/about/contact.html).
ENGL 200
Literature in English (2 sections)
CRN 50166
CRN 56217
Staff
T R
10:00-11:15
M W F 9:30-10:20
An introduction to the study of literary texts at the university level. Discussions will involve
issues such as how we define literature, what the “canon” is and how it changes, what happens
when we read literary texts, and what the roles of criticism and interpretation can be. Heavy
emphasis on poetry but readings will also include short and longer fiction, at least one play, and
some examples of different kinds of critical approaches. Course does not require that students
be English majors or have had substantial previous experience with literature. Several short
papers, mid term, and final exam.
ENGL 202
Expository Writing
CRN 29143
Staff
M W F 10:30-11:20
A workshop-style course for students who wish to refine the skills acquired in ENGL 150.
Special attention to style and presentation.
ENGL 204
Intro to Journalism
Umrigar
In this class you will learn the basics of writing a news story as well as gain an insight into the
profession. Issues to be discussed include deciding what news, media ethics, is and business
and other pressures faced by the industry. You will start by learning to write basic news stories
using the inverted pyramid form and using the 5Ws and 1H and then graduate to writing beat
stories, obits and news features. CANCELLED
ENGL 204
Intro to Journalism
CRN 13624
M W
Gup
12:30-1:45
Print news and feature stories, broadcast writing, advertising copy, and public relations.
Considerable writing. Guest speakers from the profession. Prereq: ENGL 150 or USFS 100.
ENGL 213
Intro to Fiction Writing
CRN 61573
W
Grimm
3:00-5:30
"What I want to do is nab something of life in motion… and to catch the characters who will be
strong enough to bear the weight of what is in my mind.”
Ingrid Bengis
In this class, students will work on exercises based on assignments designed to familiarize them
with the techniques of story and story writing: how do characters speak? where do they
speak, and act? why do they do what they do, and what does it mean? In the second half, they
will put together what they've learned to write a story (or two, if they decide to write shorter
pieces). We will also read and discuss the prose of contemporary writers. Workshop discussion
of student writing. No exams.
ENGL 214
Intro to Poetry Writing
CRN 63803
R
Staff
4:30-7:00
A beginning workshop, focusing on such elements of poetry as verse-form, syntax, figures,
sound, tone. May include discussion of literary examples as well as student work. Prereq: ENGL
150 or USFS 100.
ENGL217B
Writing for Health Professionals
CRN 13686
T
R
Staff
2:45-4:00
This course offers students practice and training in writing for the health professions (e.g.,
medicine, nursing, dentistry). Recognizing the importance of analyzing audience and
understanding the rhetorical situation, this course places emphasis on the entire writing
process: from planning and drafting through revising and editing. Students will complete a series
of assignments that offer them guided practice in the genres most common to the healthcare
professions. Beginning with professional development documents (resumes, letters of
application and request, and project narratives); students will learn to adapt their writing skills to
the demands of a healthcare audience. The course will then direct students’ attention to
scholarly and public health documents (abstracts, articles, and reviews) common to the health
professions.
In this course, students will learn to:

Analyze the needs of specific audiences for healthcare documents



Evaluate the contexts and goals for a variety of healthcare documents
Write and revise documents common to the health professions
Adapt their own writing to varied rhetorical situations and audiences
ENGL 257A
The Novel
CRN 32650
Staff
M W F
11:30-12:20
Introductory readings in the novel. May be organized chronologically or thematically. Some
attention to the novel as a historically situated genre.
ENGL 290
Continental Masterpieces
Staff
Description is unavailable at this time.
ENGL 300
English Literature to 1800
CRN 61584 M W F
Oster
11:30-12:20
In reading selected British literature from Beowulf to 1800, we will be paying attention as well to
language and to genres, and will work to develop greater ability in close reading. Included will
be Chaucer (from Canterbury Tales), Donne, Milton (from Paradise Lost), Shakespeare,
possibly Gulliver’s Travels. Requirements: 2 papers (6-8 pages), and either a 3rd paper or a
final; occasional informal, ungraded responses and exercises, and much lively discussion.
ENGL 305
Playwriting
CRN 11723
Orlock
T
2:45-5:45
Theory and practice of dramatic writing, in the context of examples, classic and contemporary.
Prereq: Any one of the following: ENGL 203 or ENGL 213 or ENGL 214, ENGL 303, ENGL 304.
ENGL 312
Chaucer
CRN 10570
Siebenschuh
M W F
10:30-11:20
Along with selections from Chaucer’s minor works, we will read selections from his
translation of The Romance of the Rose, The Book of the Duchess, The Parliament of
Fowles, The House of Fame, Troilus & Criseyde entire, and selected Canterbury Tales.
Topics discussed will include Chaucer’s career, changes from early works to late, the
role of the artist in Chaucer’s day, conventions that shaped his thinking as a writer, and
his texts as a widow to the world of the late Middle Ages.
Requirements: 10-12-page paper, mid term and final.
ENGL 324/424
Shakespeare: Histories/Tragedy
CRN 12119 M W
CRN 13677 M W
Meakin
12:30-1:45
12:30-1:45 (Graduate Level)
In this course, we will be reading some of Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies. The goal of
the course is to examine Shakespeare’s representations of women in the context of his culture’s
ideas about gender and sexuality. One of the first issues we’ll explore is why women were not
allowed to act on the early modern public stage, so that boys played all women’s parts. We'll
also look at the different ways sexual energy circulates in comedies and tragedies, and ask how
the plays dramatize what is "natural" in terms of feminine and masculine behavior, identity, and
language. The ideal Renaissance woman was to be "chaste, silent, obedient." How do
Shakespeare's plays and heroines reinforce or question this ideal? Were men held to a similarly
restrictive, if different, ideal? How do Shakespeare’s plays dramatize the difference gender
makes? Possible/Probable Texts: As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, Macbeth.
ENGL 356/ 456
American Lit to 1865
CRN 10588
CRN 10597
T
T
R
R
Marling
1:15-2:30
1:15-2:30 (Graduate Level)
An opportunity to acquaint yourself with the sources of American literary practices and the
sources of some of its most deeply held beliefs: why is self-improvement so important? What
are the sources of American attitudes toward Native Americans? Why aren't American heroes
intellectuals?
We will read from early diaries, sermons, travelogues and religious poetry, before moving on the
narrative of captivity among the Indians (Mary Rowlandson) and melodramas of the Colonial
period, such as The Coquette. Major texts will include Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar
Huntley, James Fennimore Cooper's The Pioneers, and Nathanial Hawthorne's The
Scarlet Letter.
ENGL 359/459
Contemporary American Lit Studies: Modernism
CRN 13422
CRN 13980
M
M
W
W
Stonum
12:30-1:45
12:30-1:45 (Graduate Level)
During the first three or so decades after World War Two, a time coextensive with the Cold War,
a group of mostly male, mostly native-born, and nearly all college-educated novelists and story
writers produced the first body of writing widely regarded as somehow “postmodern,” especially
in the sense of both continuing and yet breaking with the already canonical work of American
and European modernists. In this course we will read some of key works, mainly novels, from
this time, doing so partly in the context of the wider cultural scene in the United States and in
the West at the time and partly in the context of ideas about modernism and postmodernism
that emerged during these years and afterwards.
(Note that this course partly, but only partly, overlaps with a grad seminar offered a year ago
under the title Postwar Postmodernism; if you took that seminar, check with the instructor once
the syllabus is available to decide whether it is sufficiently different.)
ENGL 363H/463H
African-American Literature:
The Novels of Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison
Umrigar
In this class we will read the novels of two of the best-known contemporary African-American
women writers. Naylor has often spoken of her debt to Morrison and we will examine their
novels in the light of this kinship between the two writers, as well as examine how their work fits
into the greater African-American canon. Books to be discussed may include (but are not
limited to) novels such as Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, Mama Day and Bailey's Cafe
and Morrison's Beloved, The Bluest Eye and Jazz CANCELLED
ENGL 365E/465E
The Immigrant Experience in American Literature
CRN 10481
CRN 10506
Oster
M W F 2:00-2:50
M W F 2:00-2:50 (Graduate Level)
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants beginning with those on the
Mayflower. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” is
the message on the Statue of Liberty. Often dreams of streets paved with gold became the
reality of New York’s Lower East Side, the California Barrio, or Chinatown--gateways to
success, or of adjusting to a new language and culture, new ways of making a life and a living.
The metaphor of the melting pot may have given way to that of the fruit salad, but the difficulties
and the dreams remain.
These experiences have inspired a rich body of literature, some written by immigrants
themselves, some by their children who grew up between two languages, two cultures--two
worlds. We will read novels, short fiction, and autobiography, drawing upon immigrant
experiences from the early 20th century to the present time. We’ll also see some films.
It is my hope that the class will include immigrants, international students, and all sorts of nativeborn Americans so that as we respond to the literature, we’ll be sharing a rich variety of
experiences and perceptions.
REQUIREMENTS: three short (5-8pp) papers, two of which must be critical papers; one MAY
be a personal/experiential paper, which can be (a) autobiographical, (b) personal response to
what has been discussed in the course, OR (c) based on interviews of immigrant family
members of friends. NO EXAMS.
Among the titles being considered: Woman Warrior (Hong Kingston), The Joy Luck Club (Tan),
Call it Sleep (Roth), The Promised Land (Antin); Hunger of Memory (Rodriguez), The House on
Mango Street (Cisneros), Jasmine (Mukherjee), Bombay Time (Umrigar), Giants in the Earth
(Rolvaag); The Namesake (Lahiri); The Love Wife (Jen); selected short stories or books by
other authors.
NOTE: If you are not a native speaker of English and therefore concerned about your English
reading and writing, please come to see me. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the course
with you. Prerequisite: ENGL 150 or SAGES 100.
ENGL 367/467
Intro to film
Spadoni
CRN 77749
CRN 77776
T
T
R
R
2:45-4:00
2:45-4:00
T
T
7:15-9:30
7:15-9:30 (Graduate Level)
This course offers an introduction to the art of film. Each week we’ll take an element of film form
(editing, cinematography, sound, etc.) and look at clips from films that illustrate how filmmakers
work with this element to produce effects. Also, most weeks we’ll screen a whole film and
discuss it in light of the week’s focus. Films screened will include masterworks of the silent era,
foreign films, classics of the Hollywood studio system, and recent Hollywood films.
Students will write two essays and take a quiz, a midterm, and a final exam. Formerly ENGL
268 — Understanding Movies.
ENGL 376/476
Genre Studies: Journalism As Lit
CRN 10601
CRN 10616
M
M
W
W
Gup
9:00-10:15
9:00-10:15 (Graduate Level)
This course examines the techniques and art of nonfiction writing – memoir, essays, features,
profiles, travel writing, etc. The class will focus on writing that straddles the line between
journalism and literature. We will read and examine the work of some of the country’s most able
writers, including Tracy Kidder, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Orlean, Michael Lewis, Joan Didion,
Jonathan Franzen, John McPhee, Anne Fadiman, Samantha Power, David Quammen, Adam
Gopnik, Mark Bowden and Katherine Boo. In addition we will study the writing that appears in
such leading magazines as The New Yorker, Atlantic and Vanity Fair. Approximately half of the
classes will be devoted to a workshop format in which individual student writing will be
discussed in depth. We will concentrate on issues related to a writer’s voice, language, structure
and observational detail.
ENGL 380
Departmental Seminar
CRN 12135
M
W
Grimm
12:30-1:45
This course will focus on the mirror held up to society and culture by writers of speculative
fiction, with supporting readings in anthropology to aid in exploring this interface between reality
and representation. Writers will include Margaret Mead, Doris Lessing, Robert Heinlein, H.G.
Wells, Claude Levi-Strauss, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others.
ENGL 380
Departmental Seminar: The Detective Novel
CRN 21000
T
R
Marling
10:00-11:15
Who dunnit?
You dunnit. In this course treating one of the world's most popular literary genres, you will
not only learn of the genre's origins, but about theories of why you keep reading these stories.
The texts covered begin with the Memoirs of Eugene-Francois Vidocq and run though
contemporary novelists such as Sara Paretsky. Other authors and texts tentatively scheduled
include:
Edgar Allan Poe: "The Philosophy of Composition," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The
Purloined Letter," "The Mystery of Marie Roget." Arthur Conan Doyle: Study in Scarlet, Sign of
the Four. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone. G. K. Chesterton: The Innocence of Father Brown.
Eric C. Bentley, Trent's Last Case. Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,
Pinkerton, The Molly Maguires and the Expressman, Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon,
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Micky Spillane, I, the Jury, Ross Macdonald, The
Galton Case, Georges Simenon, Maigret Afraid, James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential, Sara
Paretsky, Burn Marks.
We will also see one or two of the better films made from the novels.
Required: two papers, one short, one long, and two class presentations, one written. Final
exam.
ENGL 386/486
Re-cognizing Beauty
CRN 12141
CRN 12153
Meakin
M 4:00-6:30
M 4:00-6:30 (Graduate Level)
This course will ask students and community partners to think about beauty and to re-cognize
beauty, with two aims: 1) to raise awareness about the work the concept(s) of beauty do in our
culture and 2) to empower individuals to make more informed choices in their own lives, and in
and with their communities around such questions as what beauty is, whether the beautiful is
necessary, and how it relates to other categories and values. We will explore concept(s) of
beauty as defined and represented in Western culture, especially literature and visual art, and
particularly as such concepts relate to issues of gender. We will also ask questions such as:
what is the perceived relationship between beauty, luck, and money? Between beauty, justice,
and goodness? How is the category of gender bound up in these relationships? Who gets to
define beauty?
Primarily, however, we will be exploring the role literature plays (in the stories we tell ourselves
from birth through adulthood, as well as the kinds of values associated with literature as
opposed to other kinds of texts) in establishing the value and nature of beauty, as well as,
paradoxically, the inaccessibility of (or restricted access to) the beautiful. In short, what kind of
cultural work does beauty do in the stories we tell ourselves, from Helen of Troy and Sleeping
Beauty, to the Miss America pageant and the promises of plastic surgery advertisements in
“women’s magazines”? How do these stories reflect and affect the lives and psyches of girls
and women? One of the goals of the course will be to trace how concepts of the beautiful
change over time, on a macro-historical scale, but also over the course of an individual female’s
life. Service learning in this context will enable students to take the theory learned in the
readings and in the classroom and explore how those theories relate to the current, real-world
context of the community; and to see how received notions of beauty currently circulating and
as expressed by girls and young women are connected to the history of the concept.
Reciprocally, partnering with university students will provide important models for girls and
young women; increase their awareness of how language and images promoting beauty of one
kind or another can affect their sense of self; equip them at a crucial time in their development
with the knowledge necessary to navigate the complex and sometimes implicit messages about
beauty circulating in the culture. Finally, this project will provide them with exposure to the arts
and culture that has often been excised from school curricula due to budget constraints.
Required Texts [all books will be ordered and available, along with the course pack, in
the bookstore. All books and the course pack will also be available on reserve in KSL]:
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
• Brand, Peg, Editor (2000). Beauty Matters. Indiana University Press.
• Brumberg, Joan (1998). The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. Vintage.
• Course Pack containing the following:
Myths: Echo & Narcissus, Ganymede, Apollo and Laura, Philomela, Medusa, Cupid & Psyche,
Aphrodite/Venus, Helen of Troy;
Fairytales: Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Ugly
Duckling;
Short stories: A.S. Byatt “The Chinese Lobster,” “Medusa’s Ankles,” “Body Art;” Angela Carter;
Andre Dubus “The Fat Girl;” Alice Munro “Floating Bridge;”
Poems: Clifton, Hopkins, Keats, Lorde, Koch, Roethke, Sappho, Sexton, Shakespeare,
Sidney, Stevens, Yeats
Selected essays or excerpts from:
Beckley, Bill, Editor, with David Shapiro (1998). Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New
Aesthetics; Hancock, Ange-Marie (2004). The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the
Welfare Queen; hooks, bell (1992). Black Looks: Race and Representation; Hughes, Bettany
(2005). Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore; Jeffreys, Sheila (2005), Beauty and
Misogyny. Routledge; Korsmeyer, Carolyn (2004). Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction;
Lorde, Audre (1984). “Poetry Is Not A Luxury” in Sister Outsider; Warner, Marina (1996). From
the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers.
• Donoghue, Emma (1999). Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins. Harper Trophy.
• Eco, Umberto, Editor (2005). History of Beauty. Translated by Alastair McKewen. Second Ed.
New York: Rizzoli.
• Grealy, Lucy (1994). Autobiography of a Face. Harper Perennial.
• Morrison, Toni (1976). The Bluest Eye.
• Plato. Symposium.
• Sartwell, Crispin (2004). Six Names of Beauty. London and New York: Routledge.
• Scarry, Elaine (1999). On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton University Press.
• Wolf, Naomi (2002). The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women.
Harper Perennial.
ENGL 400
Rhetoric & Teaching of Writing
CRN 46760 M
W
Emmons
9:00-10:15 (Graduate Level)
This course provides an intensive training for graduate students interested in teaching
composition in the English department and/or through SAGES First and University Seminars.
The focus of this course will be on gaining an understanding of major themes in composition
theory in order to develop a set of coherent, historicized pedagogical practices. Thus, the major
goals of the course are: 1) To gain an understanding of the major trends in composition
scholarship and pedagogy; 2) To explore and assess a variety of pedagogical strategies for
writing classes, including assignment sequencing, assessment techniques, and student
conferencing; 3) To develop a research portfolio that demonstrates engagement with current
issues in composition and rhetoric; and 4) To construct teaching materials that may be used in
future writing courses.
The course will introduce major trends in composition scholarship, addressing topics such as:
assignment design, assessment of writing, response strategies, basics of linguistics and
grammar, ESL pedagogy, writing center tutoring, invention, argumentation, and prose style. In
addition, we will devote significant time to putting these theories to work in the design of a
various teaching materials. Students will be expected to justify their pedagogical choices with
reference to the readings done in the course.
Course texts will include: Victor Villanueva, Ed., Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, 2nd ed., and
selections from other theoretical and pedagogical texts.
GRADUATE PROGRAM
GRADUATE PUBLICATION SEMINAR
R 4:30-6:00
Koenigsberger
Required of all doctoral students in English (optional for MA candidates), the Publication
Seminar has as its primary components an overview of the publication process for article-length
pieces of scholarly writing and a workshop designed to produce polished articles for submission
to journals and edited volumes. Students should expect to select pieces of writing on which they
have already worked substantially and to rework them intensively in preparation for submission.
The instructor will collect final essays, cover letters, and abstracts at the conclusion of the
semester; students should submit to publications at the same time. (Formal submission is not a
requirement of the course, but students are strongly encouraged to do so.) Loads of required
reading will be relatively light, but plan to spend a good deal of time researching publications,
broadening the scholarly base for your work, writing, and revising your essay. Since the second
half of the course constitutes a workshop, you should also plan to set aside time to read and
respond constructively to your colleagues’ writing, and to compose a reader’s report on another
student’s article. The Graduate Publication Seminar runs annually, in the autumn term.
Students should contact Professor Koenigsberger to register.
ENGL 510
Research Methods
CRN 50965
R
Flint
4:30-6:00 (Graduate Level)
In this course we will examine a variety of research methods, scholarly resources and analytical
skills that inform some of the more prevalent modes of academic practice in English studies.
Using a common text throughout the course, we will experiment with and interrogate such
disciplinary approaches as close reading, structural analysis, historical and bibliographical
inquiry, some prosody, and narrative theory. The primary focal text for the course is Alexander
Pope, The Dunciad (in Alexander Pope, The Major Works, ed. Pat Rogers, Oxford UP [Oxford
World’s Classics], 2006 ISBN 0-19-920361-X; 978-0199203611). In preparation, students are
expected to read The Dunciad in this edition over the summer. During the semester we will
reread the text in a period edition owned by Special Collections. Each student will, however,
also develop a cumulative research portfolio on a text of his or her own choosing, and should
give thought to this selection over the summer. Through the work on this portfolio, we will be
familiarizing ourselves with local and web-based research tools such as libraries, electronic
databases and print indexes, various archives, and InterLibrary Loan. This course is required
for all new M.A. and Ph.D. students and serves as an elective for continuing students.
ENGL 519
Seminar: British Literature 1800-1900:
The Embodied Mind: Victorian Literature and Psychology
CRN 10627
W
Vrettos
4:00-6:30 (Graduate Level)
This course will study the development of "psychological realism" as the dominant genre of
British fiction during the Victorian era and its relationship to nineteenth-century (pre-Freudian)
psychology. The focus of the course will be predominantly historical; that is, rather than
applying 20th and 21st century psychological models to 19th century fiction, we will be studying
how Victorian novelists understood the mind, and how they were influenced by, and in turn
helped to influence, contemporary debates in the field of psychology. Over the course of the
semester we will study the appearance in literature of such issues and theories as: phrenology
and physiognomy; mesmerism and hypnotism; monomania and moral insanity; crowded minds,
divided minds, wandering minds, emerging theories of multiple personality; theories of character
development, personality, eccentricity, habit, free will, and the self; theories of sympathy, affect,
emotional evolution and duration; theories of memory, nostalgia, the unconscious, and
paranormal experiences (such as ancestral memory, emotional memory, telepathy, déjà vu,
spiritualism, and other psychic phenomena); and, finally, theories of attention, reverie, and
consciousness (including the emergence of the term "stream of consciousness"). Although we
will take brief forays into genres such as Victorian gothic and sensation fiction (which were
influenced by developments in the field of abnormal psychology and research into the
paranormal), most of our attention will focus on the development of psychological realism in
authors and texts such as George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH, Thomas Hardy's RETURN OF THE
NATIVE, Henry James's PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Charlotte Bronte's VILLETTE, and Charles
Dickens' GREAT EXPECTATIONS (or possibly OUR MUTUAL FRIEND). We will also read
excerpts from works by Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Alexander Bain, Henry Maudsley,
George Henry Lewes (George Eliot's partner), and William James (Henry James's brother), as
well as selections from popular advice manuals such as Samuel Smiles' SELF HELP and Sarah
Ellis's THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND, and recent works of literary criticism, history, and theory.
Requirements for the course include attendance and active participation in seminar discussions,
one short paper early in the semester, and one research paper submitted in two forms—as a
10pp. conference paper presented to the class towards the end of the semester, and as a 20pp.
seminar paper due in revised form around the final day of classes. There will also be a final
exam, but it will be worth only 10% of your grade and is intended primarily as a way for you to
synthesize the course materials in more general terms than are required for the more focused
scope of your seminar paper.
ENGL 524
Internationalizing the Book Trade
CRN 13406
T
Woodmansee
4:30-7:00 (Graduate Level)
The barriers copyright is throwing up to burgeoning Internet creativity has brought widespread
attention to this body of law in recent years. The last time copyright was so widely debated
outside legal circles was in the long run up to the first international copyright treaty, the 1886
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The seminar will revisit key
moments in this debate. Focus will be on Anglo-American book commerce from the 1820s to
the 1891 passage of a U.S. bill extending copyright to foreign authors. Readings will pair public
statements by authors, publishers, legislators and legal theorists, with copyright cases and
statutes, and poetry and prose fiction of the period, including works by Dickens, Kipling, and
Wilde, Cooper, Melville, Poe, Twain, and Whitman. The course will likely be cross-listed in the
Law School, bringing additional perspectives and expertise to the seminar table. The goal of our
study will be to identify worthy research topics within students’ own areas of interest.
Without an international copyright law, American authors may as well cut their throats.” – Edgar
Allan Poe
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor.
Requirements: regular attendance, active participation in class discussion, including regular oral
reports, two short (5-page) written “exercises,” and a longer (20-25 page) term paper.
Readings: TBA
Revised 06-26-07