SUMMER 2010 SUMMER I: May 24-July 2, 2010 ENGL 2001.31D INTRO TO LIT STUDIES WEB Schiffman This course introduces students to the study and practice of literature. An ever-expanding category, literature encompasses not only the standard print genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, or the short story but now film, the graphic novel, the comic strip and even ‘newer media’, interventions made possible on account of the internet (blogs) or even television (sit-coms), could be the focus of study. While we read different kinds of literature we will also understand how to begin to talk and write about literary texts by careful study of analytic language and criticism. Our method will be close readings. Students will write short papers and one longer, final one. Prerequisite: ENGW 1102 This course is fully online. ENGL 2005.31D WEB INTRO TO SHORT STORY Fader The short story can be claimed as an American art form, created by writers who began to develop the genre at the beginning of the 19th century. This introductory-level course is designed to develop a student’s appreciation of and understanding of the short story by examining representative works and drawing upon literary theory and biography to supplement the literary analysis. Prerequisite: ENGW 1102 This course is fully online. ENGL 3048.31D ETHNIC AMERICAN LIT WEB Benson This course focuses on the discourse of ethnicity in America and how creative writers have challenged, affirmed, or redefined their identities in terms of that discourse. “Ethnic” is a word with a dubious etymology and a troubled past. How has it come to pass that some segments of American society (including Native Americans) are seen as “ethnic,” while others have managed to define themselves as constituting a cultural mainstream? Is ethnicity just another name for power and social status? Why must some writers first defend or come to terms with their family’s ethnic and cultural identity while others can comfortably assume that their origins are ordinary, normative, accepted, sacrosanct? We will focus on writers who share a preoccupation, in their writings, with issues of ethnic and cultural identity. What does it mean to say that someone is a Jewish-American, Bengali-American, Dominican-American, Chinese-American, or Native-American writer? In what ways is that identity both self-defining and selflimiting, both threatened and affirmed? Writers studied will include Bernard Malamud, Bharati Mukherjee, Leslie Marmon Silko, Chris Abani, and Junot Diaz . This course is fully online. ENGL 3078.31B THE GOTHIC IN FICTION AND FILM MW 9:00AM-12:30 PM Bazan-Figueras Course focuses on a careful analysis of the Gothic narrative from the early nineteen through the midtwentieth centuries and its film adaptations. Through the reading of crucial texts such as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Mary Reilly, we will create a working definition of the genre and seek to better understand the place of the Gothic in the history of literature. Prerequisite: ENGW 1102 ENGW 3002.31D CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION WEB Singer This is a fiction writing workshop for students who want to focus on craft. Since good writing is entwined with the art of reading closely, we will study fiction by accomplished writers and we will pay special attention to aspects of narrative such as building tension, constructing character, and creating a voice. In order to inspire ideas and experiment with different strategies, students will write weekly exercises. Students will explore the context and form of their own fiction, and by the end of the semester, students will have written and revised at least one short story. This course is fully online. Prerequisite: ENGW 1102 ENGW 3003:31D CREATIVE WRITING:POETRY WEB Fader Introductory study and practice of writing poetry. The workshop places the focus on student writing. Additional reading provides the context for discussion of craft and form. Course concludes with a final reading of student work. This course is fully online. PHIL 2828.61D WEB IMMORTALITY AND REINCARNATION Makridis Anxiety about what happens after death is perhaps inevitable. Views on this matter span the millennia and range from reasonable to insane. In a philosophy course, we study arguments, proofs, coherent and well-formulated positions on this subject. Our texts are written by thinkers, mostly philosophers, who are used to trying to prove what they want to convince you about. Similarly, in our study of the texts and in our own written assignments in this course, you subject the texts to conceptual and logical analysis. This course is fully online. PHIL 3303.31D WEB BIOMEDICAL ETHICS Makridis Examination of the moral and ethical questions that advances in biology and medical technology have raised: e.g., about the beginning and ending of life, genetic engineering and stem cell research. This course is fully online. FREN 3051.31D SOCIAL AND SEXUAL MORES IN 17TH & 19TH CENTURY FRANCE WEB Pastorino The course looks at the ways social and sexual manners change in the centuries leading to the French Revolution and in its aftermath. Plays, novels, films, and essays considered will show how the way the aristocracy relates to its members differs from the bourgeoisie’s and why. Among the authors we will read are Moliere, Laclos, Marivaux, Beaumarchais, Stendhal, and Flaubert. The course is taught in English. Readings should be done in French by French majors. This course is fully online. ITAL 3053.31D CREATING A NATION:ROMANTICISM, OPERA, REALISM WEB Pastorino The course looks at the many factors that contributed to the unification of Italy in 1860 (with the addition of Rome in 1870). Opera in particular served as a cohesive force, in a country where people did not speak the same language yet, and literacy was scarce. Among other historical documents, we will read short stories and novels, read libretti and listen to the music of Verdi in particular (but not just), in order to understand how the patriotic instinct was fuelled. This course is fully online. SPAN 2505.31D SPANISH SPEAKING WORLD WEB Bazan-Figueras Taught in English, course involves online discussion of current and major events in the Spanish-speaking countries-including the United States. Some of these issues include the impact of demographics shifts in the United States, the role Hispanics played in the recently-held presidential elections, population and immigration in Spain, and current relations among Hispanic countries. Students are required to actively participate in class via the internet and to frequently submit written reports on current Spanish and Latin American issues. This course is fully online. SPAN 2506.31D SPANISH CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION WEB Corces This course will be taught in English. It focuses on the culture of Spain through an interdisciplinary approach. It provides an excellent overview on the development of Spanish society. It may be linked to study abroad to Spain. This course fulfills the cultural requirement. Students interested in study abroad must contact the department. This course is fully online. SUMMER I: May 24-June 17, 2010 SPAN 1001.31 BEGINNING SPANISH I TWTH 10:00 AM -1:00 PM Staff This beginner’s course focuses on spoken Spanish and includes simple writing assignments. Class time is used for constant drilling and other exercises. Students will learn to express themselves in a variety of situations essentially in the present tense. They will have the opportunity to dialogue with other students in Spanish as an integral part of the instruction. SPAN 1001.61 BEGINNING SPANISH I TWTH 5:30-8:30 PM Staff This beginner’s course focuses on spoken Spanish and includes simple writing assignments. Class time is used for constant drilling and other exercises. Students will learn to express themselves in a variety of situations essentially in the present tense. They will have the opportunity to dialogue with other students in Spanish as an integral part of the instruction. SUMMER II: June 14-July 24, 2010 ENGL 3052.31D JANE AUSTEN: FICTION AND FILM WEB Schiffman Through film and fiction, the 20th and 21st centuries have not stopped re-inventing and interpreting Jane Austen. The goal of this course is to return to the original six novels published during and after her lifetime and to understand them in the context of 18th Century Literature, the Regency Era in Britain, and Romantic movements in Europe. This course if fully online. ENGL 3009.31D WORLD FOLK LIT: TALES OF WONDER WEB Ghosh Study of fairy tales, marchen, wonder tales, and legends from diverse cultures; examination of universal patterns in folk narrative; differences in oral vs. written storytelling; roles of the storyteller; function of folk tales in children’s psychological development; modern critical evaluation of folk literature; influence of folk literature in contemporary culture. This course is fully online. Prerequisite: ENGW 1102 or equivalent ENGL 3072.31D DETECTIVE FICTION WEB Pastorino Formulaic literature is often regarded as “not quite as serious” as Literature. This course aims at dispelling that myth, by examining how the formula of detective novels works, how writers from different countries deal with the genre, which are their politics, and how they use well-honed literary tricks (such as Dickensian cliffhangers) in order to keep their readers interested. All readings will be in English. This course is fully online. ITAL 3502.31D ITALIAN TRANSLATION: Advanced Italian Class WEB Pastorino A course designed to fine tune students’ understanding of grammar and syntax, while translating different texts (articles, short stories, one-act plays, poems, etc.). The course will also include discussion of different existing translations of published texts in order to analyse translators’ choices and liberties taken with the texts, and lessons on the use of the dictionary. Conducted in English and Italian. This course is fully online. SUMMER II: June 22-July 15, 2010 SPAN 1002.31 BEGINNING SPANISH II TWTH 10:00 AM -1:00PM Staff This is the second level of Beginning Spanish. Students continue to build their vocabulary in Spanish and to perfect their writing skills. They will learn to communicate with basic phrases through practice in class. SPAN 1002.61 BEGINNING SPANISH II TWTH 5:30-8:30 PM Staff This is the second level of Beginning Spanish. Students continue to build their vocabulary in Spanish and to perfect their writing skills. They will learn to communicate with basic phrases through practice in class. SUMMER III: July 6-August 15, 2010 ENGL 3041.31D BIBLE AS LITERATURE WEB Benson This course focuses on the importance of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible for understanding the poetry, drama, fiction, and other forms of creative expression in the English speaking world during the three thousand years since the oldest portions of the Bible were written. Since this is a literature course, not a Sunday school Bible study group, we will read the Bible as we would any other text, trying to understand it on its own terms, to fathom its definitions of spiritual identity, its conflicts, language, and forms of expression. We will consider the Bible’s historical context and sources in other cultures’ sacred texts. Our main purpose will be to understand how the Bible gave English writers a set of aesthetic, social, and spiritual assumptions, as well as a source of creative inspiration. We will also read literary works from a variety of different eras and cultures that have been influenced by the Bible, including everything from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress to Ngugi wa thiong’s’s Matigari. The reading list is demanding. It could hardly be otherwise. The Bible itself is complex and eclectic. Its influence extended across the whole history of Western culture and ultimately became global. This course is fully online. ENGL 3063.31D WEB CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN DRAMA Benson This course focuses on American drama from the 1960s through the first decade of the new millennium. Many of the plays are available on video as well as in print versions and students are encouraged to see the plays performed as well as to read them. For at least two of the plays studied during the semester you will be required to watch the play in performance or on video. We will read plays by seven playwrights, focusing on what makes them uniquely American, uniquely contemporary, and uniquely dramatic in their structure and means of conveying themes and conflicts. Dramatists covered include Tracy Letts, Edward Albee, Margaret Edson, David Henry Hwang, and August Wilson. This course is fully online. SUMMER III: July 12-August 14, 2010 SPAN 2507.31D LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION WEB Staff This course focuses on the cultures of Latin America through an interdisciplinary approach. Readings and discussions are used through the entire course to help understand how culture and Latin American history addressed the creation of national identities. Contemporary issues, music, cinema, art as well as popular culture are studied to better understand how cultural identities evolved and are constantly being reshaped. Course taught in English. This course is fully online.