Courses

Fall 2019 Course Trailers

Fall 2019-20 Course Descriptions

In addition, information about the undergraduate catalogue for English courses can be found in MyCourseGuide (NetID log-in required). Non-UW students can contact the Undergraduate Advisor for information about courses.

100: Introduction to College Composition
TA taught courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: Students required to take the MSN ESLAT cannot enroll until the ESL 118 requirement is satisfied

English 100 is an introduction to college composition that begins to prepare students for the demands of writing in the university and for a variety of contexts beyond the classroom. Students will compose several shorter and longer essays totaling 25-30 pages of revised writing, develop critical reading and thinking skills and information literacy, and practice oral communication.

120: Introduction to Theatre and Dramatic Literature
Mary Trotter
MW 12:05-12:55pm Humanities 3650
Cross-Listed with Theatre and Drama

Course Guide Description: Reading important plays, attending stage productions, writing and thinking critically about theatre and drama. Emphasis on developing analytic skills in dramatic literature and theatre production. 4-credit option requires additional writing. Enroll Info: Open to Fr. 4 cr sections meet Com B requirement

140: Comm B Topics in English Literature
Topic: The Figure of the Outsider: Writing from the Margins
Anja Jovic-Humphrey
TR 9:55-10:45am Soils 270

Jack Kerouac and his friends go on road trips across America, crossing each other’s paths and making the continent seem small at the time when there are no cell phones to help them stay in touch. Sylvia Plath’s character Esther Greenwood wonders whether she is unwomanly because she is not sure whether she wants to get married and have a baby. Ralph Ellison’s narrator addresses us from a basement, saying: “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

In this course, we will look at various kinds of outsiders, nonconformists, and “marginal” characters in the broad sense of the term. When does sanity turn into madness? How can race, gender, or ethnicity make us “invisible” – or too visible? To which extent is conformity a positive force, and to which extent it can stifle our sense of self?

We will examine the nature of sanity/madness, gender, race, ethnicity, and lifestyle, and try to understand what and why the society at large labels as “normal” or “abnormal.”

155: Myth & Literature
Topic: Classical Myth and Modern Literature
Ronald Harris
MWF 1:20-2:10pm White 4208
Reserved for FIG Students

At its core, history is a collection of ancient stories with themes that often appear over and over again. It’s no wonder, then, that ancient myths find their way into modern lives every day. So, a central question explored by this FIG is: How do myths find their ways into our lives—into our poetry, our literature, our popular culture? To answer this question, we will dive into studies of classical literature as well as contemporary artistic and literary adaptations to examine the continuing presence of myth in society today.
We will investigate puzzles: How do the lost fragments of an ancient Greek poem travel from archeologists, to translators, to us, speaking across time of love and desire? And these questions lead to other explorations:

What do our campus tall-tales tell us about UW–Madison’s history and values?
When we enter into these stories through creative retelling, how do we become a more integral part of our campus?
What do the stories of diverse American traditions—the Gullah people of South Carolina, whose language resonates with African rhythms—tell us about how African storytelling traditions connect to the Br’er Rabbit stories of the American South?
And what is the Mississippi Blues music tradition doing in an American Indian novel from the Pacific Northwest?

The main seminar in this FIG, English 155: “Classical Myth and Modern Literature,” explores ways that modern American culture interprets, adopts, and adapts classical myth in order to address contemporary social, aesthetic, and political concerns. Each course in the FIG deals primarily with the classical worlds of Greece and Rome, but by tracing these adaptations and the transmission of stories from one culture, time, and place to another, you will also study other ancient civilizations from the Middle East, Africa, and Native America. The historical, archaeological, and literary approaches to the legacy of the classical world will take you out of the classroom, to the museum, the library, the laboratory, and the green spaces across campus—each with its own story to tell.

156: Literature and Medicine
Sunny Stern Yudkoff
MW 9:55-10:45am Humanities 2650

This course explores literature as both a source of knowledge about medicine and as a catalyst for reflection about medical concepts and practices, including health, illness, dying, and disability. Students will consider ways that literature can serve as a resource for patients and healthcare practitioners. Reading a variety of literary and critical texts, we will investigate how ideas of health and illness are communicated between author and reader, patient and doctor, performer and audience, minoritized communities and the medical establishment. Of particular concern will be exploring how different writers and health professionals represent and communicate pain across genres, including poetry, short fiction, autobiography, and the graphic novel. Throughout the course, we will ask and re-ask how words hurt, how words heal, and how reading makes us better health citizens.

162: Shakespeare
Joshua Calhoun
MW 11:00-11:50am Noland 132

Why Shakespeare? is an entry-level English course designed to introduce students from a variety of social, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds to Shakespearean literature. Toward this end, the course also questions Shakespeare’s prominence in literature and culture. Is he really that good? Does our ongoing fascination with Shakespeare say more about his writing or about us, about our preferences, about our values?

In the first unit, we will read selections from Romeo & Juliet, then move through a comedy (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), a tragedy (Macbeth), and a history play (Henry IV, Part One). This first unit will focus on “Form & Function” as we seek to better understand the language of Shakespeare’s plays and poems and how that language works on the page and on stage.

Our second unit, “Lives & Afterlives,” considers three of Shakespeare’s most well-known and often-performed plays: As You Like It, Hamlet, & The Tempest. Reading these plays, we’ll explore Shakespeare’s unique staying power in the popular imagination.

Assessments include three writing assignments, memorization of one sonnet, and a midterm exam. If we succeed as a class, students will end the semester with a working understanding of Shakespearean language and themes that appear everywhere in literature and media (including graphic novels, film, music, children’s literature, etc.).

167: British and American Writers
Emily Auerbach
We 6:00-9:00pm TBA
Prereqs: Open to Odyssey Project students only

Course Guide Description: An introduction to British and American literature through particular writers and themes.

168: Modern Literature
Aparna Dharwadker
TR 11:00-12:15pm White 4208

A thematic introduction to literary works in a variety of genres written in English from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day. Emphasis may vary between writers from the U.S., Britain, Ireland, and other Anglophone nations.

Reading List
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Ireland, novel, 1916)
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (UK, novel, 1924)
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (US/UK, poetry, 1943)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Nigeria, novel, 1958)
Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant, selection of short stories (Canada, 1960-2010)
A. K. Ramanujan, selection of poems (India/US, 1976-1993)
Brian Friel, Translations (Ireland, play, 1980)
Louis Nowra, The Golden Age (Australia, play, 1985)
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (Canada, novel, 1985)
Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (India/US, 1988)
Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog (US, play, 2001)

Assignments
Two medium-length papers (3-4 pages), mid-term and final exams, collaborative presentation.

Pedagogical Methods
lecture, discussion, group work.

172.001: Literatures of Native America
TBA
MWF 9:55-10:45am Ingrham 224
Cross-Listed with American Indian Studies

Course Guide Description: Introduction to the oral and written literatures of the peoples of native North America. An engagement with texts across historical periods, tribal groups, and regions to examine forms such as oratory, sermon, testimony, autobiography, and contemporary poetry and novels.

172.002: Literatures of Native America
TBA
TR 4:00-5:15pm Van Hise 394
Cross-Listed with American Indian Studies

173.001: Ethnic & Multicultural Literature
Topic: Freedom & Slavery in American Literary Imagination
Cherene Sherrard
TR 1:00-2:15pm Humanities 1217
Reserved for FIG students
Honors Optional (%)

What does the Haitian revolution have to do with Nat Turner’s and Denmark Vesey’s revolts in the United States? Is science fiction an appropriate genre to examine the relationship between slavery’s past and present legacies? This course examines how global conceptions of freedom and slavery shaped nineteenth and twentieth century American literature and culture. The relationship between these two identity-forming ideas in the political, social and cultural history of the United States has been artistically rendered, challenged and re-invented through literature.

We will explore how evolving definitions of what it meant to be enslaved informed American understandings of freedom. The organization of this course will be thematic rather than chronological; however, the majority of the works studied will address how the aftermath of slavery and the Reconstruction era affected literary and cultural productions, particularly, though not exclusively, between the Civil War and World War II. To augment readings by authors such as Herman Melville, Harriet Jacobs, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and Frederick Douglass we will also discuss how visual culture, from Kara Walker’s silhouettes to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, re-imagines the antebellum era by using its powerful media to engage, transform and transmit images of the inevitably intertwined ideas of freedom and slavery.

Introductory literature courses are designed to prepare you for the rigors of university writing by developing analytical writing and critical reading skills. To that end, the course assignments, lectures and discussion sections will challenge you to improve your writing, hone your methods of analysis and share your ideas with your classmates.

This central course will be linked with auxiliary courses in History and Women’s Studies to provide disciplinary variation in terms of approach.

173.002: Ethnic & Multicultural Literature
Topic: Performing Race in America: Black and White Onstage and in the Present Tense
Jennifer Plants
MW 2:25-3:15pm Humanities 3650

Course Guide Description: Introduction to literature that reflects the writing and experience of minority and ethnic groups. Texts will focus on a theme or problem.

174: Literature and Social Justice
Topic: Black Life Narratives
Laila Amine
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 579
Reserved for FIG students

What work do life narratives accomplish in the world? Can personal stories become public interventions? How do authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Maya Angelou, and Patricia Williams translate their experiences of race to the public? Through the examination of black memoirs, personal essays, autobiographical documentaries, and spoken words, the course will link life narratives’ dual direction: a “looking in” the self and a “looking out” to community, nation, and diaspora.

176.001: Topics in Literature and Film
Topic: New Visions of the Human in Film and Fiction
Joseph Bowling
MW 8:50-9:40am Humanities 2650

In this class, we’ll study how film generates new forms for reimagining what it means to be human and how writers translated these visual forms into a literary medium. We’ll focus on works that challenge our definition of the human through the uncanny, the monstrous, the fantastic, and the futuristic.

176.002: Topics in Literature and Film
Topic: Shakespeare Now and Then: the Plays on Stage and Film
Karen Britland
TR 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 482
Reserved for FIG students
Honors Optional (%)

This class is divided into two parts. The first part of the class will consider the notions of the family, authority and generational responsibility (Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet), while the second part of the class will consider the notion of the family as a model for the nation state (Measure For Measure and Macbeth). We will study each of the plays alongside contemporary film adaptations that will be made available to you on the University website, Canvas. This will be a discussion-heavy class, rather than a lecture: you are strongly invited to bring your own interests into our discussions and to watch film versions of the plays beyond those mentioned on the syllabus. By the end of the class you will have developed skills in close-reading Shakespeare’s plays and their movie adaptations, and you will be aware of major debates concerning the plays and the processes of adapting Shakespeare’s work for the cinema.

Course texts:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ed. Sukanta Chaudhuri (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, 2017) (ISBN-13: 978-1408133491)
Romeo and Juliet, ed. Renee Weis (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, 2012) (ISBN-13: 978-1903436912)
Measure For Measure, ed. J. W. Lever (Arden Shakespeare, Second Series, 1967) (ISBN-13: 978-1903436448)
Macbeth, ed. Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, 2015) (ISBN-13: 978-1904271413)

177: Literature and Popular Culture
Yanie Fecu
TR 11:00-12:15pm Humanities 1221

Course Guide Description: A selected topic studying the intersection of literature and popular culture in various forms and media.

178.001: Digital Media, Literature, and Culture
Topic: Human Memory, Big Data, and the Digital Age
Mark Vareschi
TR 9:30-10:45pm Psychology 134
Reserved for FIG students
Honors Optional (%)

Course Guide Description: An introduction to the intersection of ever-evolving digital technologies with the production and reception of literature. Examine the role of digital media in structuring the knowledge and experience of literary works; and provides an opportunity for critical and potentially creative practice.

178.002: Digital Media, Literature, and Culture
Topic: Living Digitally: A Cultural History of the Internet
Joseph Bowling
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 482
Reserved for FIG students

The rise and widespread adoption of the internet prompted both utopian and dystopian visions of the future that a digitally connected world would bring. In this class, we’ll study the cultural responses to the internet in the US and the new modes of living its users imagined.

178.003: Digital Media, Literature, and Culture
Topic: TBA
TBA
TR 2:30-3:45pm Education L150

181: First Year Honors Seminar
Topic: TBA
TBA
TR 11:00-12:15pm Humanities 1217
Prereq: First Year students only and declared in Honors program

Course Guide Description: Honors literature seminar for first year students. Topic and materials will vary.

182.001: Introduction to Literature for Honors
Topic: Renaissance Romance: Subversion and Delight
Elizabeth Bearden
R 4:00-6:30pm White 4208
Prereq: Declared in honors program

Course Guide Description: Introductory honors course in discussion format. Topic and materials will vary.

182.002: Introduction to Literature for Honors
Topic: The University and the Good Life
Kristina Huang
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 495
Prereq: Declared in honors program

We will begin this seminar by nuancing the assumption that the university is a meaningful space that produces the conditions for “the good life. What is “the good life, and what are the necessary conditions for it to be realized? How are fantasies and individual pursuits of “the good life represented through narratives, representations, and aspirations that crowd around the university? As we read across genres (film, novels, essays, law) we’ll examine how the university mediates value, structures desire, and organizes life, both public and private. We’ll study how the history and cultures of the modern US university are often connected to issues of racialization, gender, sex, and accessibility, both in terms of physical ability and economic opportunity.

201: Intermediate Composition
TA Taught courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: Satisfied Communications A requirement and sophomore standing

English 201 is a small, topic-driven writing course that fulfills part B of the University’s Communication requirement. Sections of 201 offer hands-on practice with writing and revision, building on skills developed in earlier writing courses and providing new opportunities for students to grow as writers. Though topics vary by section and semester, this class consistently provides experience writing in multiple genres and for diverse audiences.

207: Introduction to Creative Writing
TA taught courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: First Year, freshman or sophomore standing only

In this course, students are taught the fundamental elements of craft in both fiction (plot, point of view, dialogue, and setting, etc.) and poetry (the image, the line, sound and meter, etc.). This class is taught as a workshop, which means class discussion will focus on both craft (published stories, poems, and essays) and, perhaps more importantly, the fiction and poetry written by each student. That is, the student writing becomes the text, and the instructor leads a sympathetic, but critical, discussion of the particular work at hand. Students should expect to read and comment on two or three published works per week as well as the work of their peers. To enable a collegial and productive class setting, all sections of 207 are capped at eighteen students.
English 207 satisfies a Comm B requirement.

214-The English Language
Anja Wanner
MW 12:05-12:55pm Science 180
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: An overview of the structure, use, and development of the English language and its varieties.

223: Vladimir Nabokov: Russian & American Writings
Sergey Anatolyevich Karpukhin
MWF 11:00-11:50am Social Science 6240
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-listed with Literature in Translation

Course Guide Description: The major novels of Vladimir Nabokov studied in the context of Russian and American literatures. Nabokov as a quintessential artist in exile, whose work explores loss of language, country and home.

236: Bascom Course
TBA
TR 9:30-10:45am Russell Lab 150
Prereq: Satisfied Communications A requirement

Course Guide Description: A low-enrollment course developing skills in critical reading, logical thinking, use of evidence, and use of library resources. Emphasis on writing in the conventions of specific fields.

241: Literature and Culture 1: to the 18th Century
Lisa Cooper
MW 9:55-10:45am Science 180
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Not open to students who took ENGL 215 prior to Fall 2014

What is a person, a home, a nation, a world? What we now call “English literature” begins with these questions, imagining a cosmos filled with gods and heroes, liars and thieves, angels and demons, dragons and dungeons, whores and witches, drunken stupor and religious ecstasy. Authors crafted answers to these questions using technologies of writing from parchment to the printing press, and genres old and new, from epic and romance to drama and the sonnet. Emphasis will be on developing the skills of close reading, critical analysis, and writing that are of use for majors and non-majors alike, and on thinking about what it means to participate in a community (or several communities) of readers. Works to be encountered range from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and parts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales through selections from the Spenser’s Faerie Queene and early modern sonnets, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

242: Literature and Culture II: from the 18th Century to the Present
Topic: Literature in Perspective
Mario Ortiz-Robles
TR 1:20-2:10pm AGR Hall 125
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Not open to students who took ENGL 216 prior to Fall 2014

This course is organized around one simple but very important aspect of literature: its ability to make us see the world from different points of view. In some sense, all literature is an exercise in perspective since it is written by different people living in different places in different time periods, but the texts we will be reading in this class are self-conscious explorations of how we represent the world to ourselves in order to make sense of our place within it and to imagine how it might be otherwise. We will be reading classic works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, R. L. Stevenson, William Faulkner, Jamaica Kincaid, Thomas Pynchon, and Julian Barnes. In reading and writing about literary perspective, we will also be endeavoring to learn something about what it means to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

245.001: Seminar in the Major
Topic: TBA
TBA
TR 11:00-12:15pm Humanities 2637
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)

Course Guide Description: Offers close instruction in the principles and practices of informed, engaged, critical reading and writing. While the texts and topics vary, each seminar will reinforce fundamental skills taught across the English major, strengthening students’ capacities to write and speak powerfully and to build convincing, original, well-organized arguments that persuade audiences of their significance.

245.002: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Bang, Zap, Pow, Sound in Lit
Jordan Zweck
TR 9:30-10:45am Van Vleck B231
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)

How does literature represent sounds, noise, and silence? We will study theories of sound as well as how sounds were represented in a wide variety of literary genres. Writing was one of the primary ways of recording sounds before the invention of the phonograph, so our focus will be on pre-1900 texts. Topics covered may include: sounds in and of poetry; farts and other sonic humor; listening to silence (including deafness and muteness); scary sounds; and gendered sounds. Assignments may include more traditional literary analyses as well as generating sonifications of written texts, or exercises for developing deep listening skills.

245.003: Seminar in the Major
Topic: TBA
Yanie Fecu
TR 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 391
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)

245.004: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Writing Rivers
Caroline Druschke
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 475
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Community Based Learning section
Honors Optional (%)

This small, interactive, community-engaged seminar offers a chance for students to get to know more about the major, about each other, about Wisconsin’s waterways, and hopefully even about themselves. We’ll move from literary analysis to rhetorical analysis to community engagement, partnering with the Kickapoo Valley Reserve and the Driftless Writing Center in Wiconsin’s Kickapoo Valley to engage with human and more-than-human communities in Wisconsin, to consider how the stories that are told and not told shape our sense of who and what matters in our state, and to practice how to engage with community partners to use writing and rhetoric for the public good.

245.005: Seminar in the Major
Topic: TBA
TBA
TR 1:00-2:15pm Humanities 2637
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)

307: Creative Writing: Fiction & Poetry Workshop
TA Taught Courses
Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: Junior standing or ENGL 207. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 407, 408, 409, 410, 469, 508, 509, or 695
Satisfies a Comm B requirement
Satisfies a workshop requirement for the emphasis in creative writing
Accelerated Honors (!)

This class is similar to English 207 (see above) but with greater emphasis on craft (narrative control, poetic form) and the writing process. Like 207, this class is taught as a workshop, which means class discussion will focus on both craft (published stories, poems, and essays) and, perhaps more importantly, the fiction and poetry written by each student. That is, the student writing becomes the text, and the instructor leads a sympathetic, but critical, discussion of the particular work at hand. Students should expect to read and comment on two or three published works per week as well as the work of their peers. To enable a collegial and productive class setting, all sections of 307 are capped at 16 students. English 307 satisfies a workshop requirement for the emphasis in creative writing. English 307 satisfies a Comm B requirement.

314: Structure of English
Anja Wanner
MW 2:30-3:45pm Humanities 1101
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: Linguistic methods of analysis and description of English syntax and morphology.

315: English Phonology
Eric Raimy
MWF 1:20-2:10pm Humanities 2637
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

This course offers an introduction to general phonetics and phonology by focusing on the sound system of English. Understanding how English works phonologically allows us to better understand how other languages are similar or dissimilar to English phonology. Topics include acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetic descriptions of consonants and vowels, classic phonemic theory, the nature of phonological processes and the acquisition of phonological systems. By the end of the course, students will be able to describe and transcribe the speech sounds of English, recognize and describe phonemic and phonotactic patterns, account for basic phonological processes, and understand the effects of different phonologies for different languages.

316: English Language Variation in the U.S.
Thomas Purnell
MWF 12:05-12:55pm White 4281
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

[English Language and Linguistics] (Mixed Grad/Undergrad) This course offers an overview of English language variation in the United States from a current sociolinguistic perspective. Social, regional, ethnic, gender, and stylistic variation are examined, along with models for describing, explaining, and applying sociolinguistic knowledge. Students are exposed to a wide range of data on language variation focused on vernacular varieties of American English in general. English 316 is designed to introduce students to the variation found in American English. The course introduces students to the linguistic, historic and social bases of American English variation along with the descriptive parameters of the observed variation.

Class Structure and Assignments. In an effort to reveal stereotypes about speakers of dialect and relate stereotypes that are prevalent in society (based on media and what people say about others), the class is centered on how US dialects are represented in movies and comparing those representations with audio recordings of actual speakers. We begin each topic section watching relevant movie clips and making observations about the language depicted in the clips. Then we compare those observations to what sociolinguists know about language in the domain we are exploring. You will write a research paper that addresses the question of how standard or nonstandard any one speaker of American English can be by transcribing a recording of an American English speaker, recorded as part of the Dictionary of American English audio recordings. Students transcribing speakers from a specific geographic region form groups for in and out of class discussions. All writing assignments are expected to be consistent with UW-Madison English Department common core values for writing, the expectations of the course is that all written work.

318: Second Language Acquisition
Jacee Cho
TR 9:30-10:45am White 4208
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
[English Language and Linguistics] (Mixed Grad/Undergrad)

A central characteristic of human beings is LANGUAGE as man is the only animal capable of language (homo loquens). The ability to acquire and use language is uniquely human. Another distinctively human capacity is the ability to learn languages other than the mother tongue throughout the lifespan. Indeed, data show that there are more bi/multilinguals than monolinguals in the world (~60% in Europe, ~25% in the US, 99% in Luxembourg!). In this course, we will discuss some of the current theories on how people acquire/learn a non-native, or second language (L2). We will survey both quantitative and qualitative research on how a second language is acquired, represented and processed in the mind/brain and discuss theoretical and practical implications of the current L2 research. Topics to be discussed in this course include formal (linguistic) characteristics of interlanguage (learner’s L2), the role of Universal Grammar and native language in L2 acquisition, crosslinguistic influence (how L1 and L2 influence each other), and nonlanguage factors such as age of acquisition (whether and how much age of acquisition matters), verbal aptitude, and motivation.

There is no required textbook. All reading materials will be available on the course website.

328: The Sixteenth Century
Elizabeth Bearden
TR 2:30-3:45pm White 4208
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: Literature and culture of Britain in the sixteenth century.

350.001: Special Topics in Gender & Literature
Topic: TBA
TBA
TR 11:00-12:15pm Sterling 1333
Prereq: GEN&WS 101, 102, 103, or GEN&WS/SOC 200
Cross-Listed with Gender & Women’s Studies

Course Guide Description: Investigation of some specific topic in gender and women’s studies related to gender and literature. Topic differs each semester..

351.001: Modernist Novel
Topic: Modernist Novel (1914-1945)
Sarah Wood
MW 2:30-3:45pm Humanities 1221
Prereq: Sophomore standing

In this course, we will cover texts from Cather’s Midwest to Faulkner’s South, from Hemingway’s Europe to Ann Petry’s Harlem and Steinbeck’s California. The course will teach you important social and historical contexts for understanding the dynamic literary changes in fiction writing during this time period. We will discuss gender roles, racial conflicts, class, and more as we challenge traditional interpretations of these classic texts, seeking out new ways of reading and understanding. Some selections are written by authors explicitly dedicated to the modernist imperative to “make it new,” whereas others engage with their cultural context in less self-conscious ways. Our examination will draw from literary criticism, historical documents, as well as your own writing. Class meetings will consist of involved discussion and some lecture. Assignments include: daily analysis journal, short papers, and final project of your own design.

351.002: Modernist Novel
Topic: Modernist Novel (1914-1945)
Sarah Wood
TR 9:30-10:45am Soc Sci 6203

353: British Literature since 1900
Richard Begam
TR 2:30-3:45pm Education L185
Prereq: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: Survey of twentieth-century British literature including fiction, poetry, and drama.

374: African and African Diaspora Literature and Culture
Topic: Travel and the African Diaspora
Laila Amine
W 6:00-8:30pm White 4281
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course examines contemporary travel accounts by authors of African descent and what they reveal about the self, home, and “otherness.” We will read works by Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Téju Cole, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Edwidge Danticat alongside theorists of travel, such as James Clifford, Marie Louise Pratt, and Tim Youngs.

401: Race, Sex, and Texts
Morris Young
Topic: How to do Things with Writing
M 2:30-5:00pm Education L159
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Gender & Women’s Studies

Fulfills the ELL/CR requirement for English Majors

Course Guide Description: Uses writing in many forms and genres to help students explore how race, gender, and sexuality intersect with language and inform textual experiences. From marriage licenses, passports, and don’t ask, don’t tell policies to literacy requirements and gag rules, written texts have played major roles in enforcing expectations about race and sex in the United States. At the same time, anti-slavery petitions, letters to the editor, wheat-pasted posters, and hashtag activism all also harness the power of writing to challenge and revise those expectations. In light of that active textual production and negotiation, this class traces public debates and daily experiences where people write or talk about race and sex in order to make a difference. Ultimately, the class takes on the power of words to break bones and heal wounds. Through reading and writing informed by scholarship in writing studies and rhetoric, students in this class will examine historical and contemporary interconnections among race, sexuality, gender, and texts in the United States, developing analytical tools for understanding how language works on and in their world.

403.001: Seminar on Tutoring Writing Across the Curriculum
Emily Hall
TR 9:30-10:45am White 6176
Prereq: Consent of instructor and acceptance into the Writing Fellows Program. Students who completed English 316 prior to fall semester 2014 may not receive credit for English 403
Accelerated Honors (!)

Course Guide Description: Explores current theory and research on the writing process and analyzes disciplinary genres and conventions. Teaches strategies for helping writers revise their work. As Undergraduate Writing Fellows, students will help their peers improve their writing in courses across the curriculum.

403.002: Seminar on Tutoring Writing Across the Curriculum
Emily Hall
TR 1:00-2:15pm White 6176
Prereq: Consent of instructor and acceptance into the Writing Fellows Program. Students who completed English 316 prior to fall semester 2014 may not receive credit for English 403
Accelerated Honors (!)

407: Creative Writing: Nonfiction Workshop
Sean Bishop
T 2:30-4:25pm White 7105
Prereq: ENGL 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, or graduate/professional standing. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 307, 408, 409, 410, 469, 508, 509, or 695
Accelerated Honors (!)

This course explores a variety of non-fictional prose writing forms including (at the instructor’s discretion) personal essay, memoir, travel writing, opinion pieces, investigative journalism, public science writing, and natural history writing. Some time is spent on theory and technique; some time is spent reading the work of established writers; some short writing exercises may be assigned. The major focus of the course is on student writing, both in the classroom and in individual conferences. All others may apply for admittance by submitting an application and writing sample the last week of classes during the preceding semester. No student may register for or be enrolled in more than one Creative Writing course in a given semester without approval of the program coordinator.

408: Creative Writing: Fiction Workshop
Instructors, Times & Places Vary
Prereqs: Completion of one of the following with a 3.0 or higher: English 207 or 307 taken Fall 2014 or later; or English 203 taken prior to Fall 2014
Students who do not meet the prerequisite may submit a writing sample to the program director on Monday of the last week of classes.
Accelerated Honors (!)

This class helps students apply lessons from published fiction (both classic and contemporary) to their own creative work. Class typically begins with a lecture concerning some aspect of craft, and is followed by “workshop.” This entails a discussion of story shape, word choice, character development etc. using the creative work of the student as the text. Classes are small (15), and students are expected to read the work of their peers carefully and participate during class discussions.

409: Creative Writing: Poetry Workshop
TBA
T 11:00-12:55pm Helen C. White 7105
Prereq: English 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, or 410 in Fall 2014 or later; or ENGL 203, 300-307 before Fall 2014
Accelerated Honors (!)

This class helps students apply lessons from published poetry (both classic and contemporary) to their own creative work. Class typically begins with a lecture concerning some aspect of craft, and is followed by “workshop.” This entails a discussion of the lyric image, the stanza and line, and the sonic qualities of language. Classes are small (15), and students are expected to read the work of their peers carefully and participate during class discussions.

411: Creative Writing: Special Topics Workshop
Topic: Poetic Forms
Amy Quan Barry
M 3:15-5:10pm White 6110
Prereq: ENGL 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, or graduate/professional standing
Accelerated Honors (!)

Before free verse came to dominate the poetic landscape, poets worked in received forms. In this course, we’ll study many of the giants of received forms, like the sonnet and villanelle, before turning our attention to more modern forms including the erasure and the prose poem. By semester’s end, we will have covered twelve forms in addition to inventing one ourselves. In short, come for the rules and stay for the unexpected freedom that working in form can unleash.

414: Global Spread of English
Thomas Purnell
MWF 1:20-2:10pm White 4281
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

[English Language and Linguistics] (Mixed Grad/Undergrad) English 414 will examine the linguistic, social, and political impact of the spread of English around the world. Through readings, lectures and discussions, we will critically consider questions such as: why and how is English spreading? Does English spread tend to perpetuate elites, or does it increase opportunity for the non-elites? What are some characteristics of new varieties of English? What are the issues surrounding standardization? Who “owns” English? What happens to local languages in circumstances of English spread? What is happening regarding English and other languages in such geographical contexts as Singapore? Japan? Tanzania? Peru? And transcending geography, we’ll also consider how English is an agent in the spread of American popular culture, the Internet, etc.

English 414 is an Intermediate level course and counts towards Breadth requirements for Humanities, as Liberal Arts & Science credit in L&S. For graduate students, English 414 counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement. The instructional mode is classroom instruction, where one credit hour designation assumes approximately fifty minutes of classroom interaction with instructor and a minimum of two hours out of class student work, three times per week for approximately 15 classes. Some engagement for the one credit will include student-to-student interaction and project-based activities in and out of class in lieu of direct instruction.

415: Introduction to TESOL Methods
TBA
TR 1:00-2:15pm Comp Sci 1257
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: An introduction to the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. Exploration of the contexts in which English is taught, and methods and materials used to teach it.

416: English in Society
TBA
TR 11:00-12:15pm Van Vleck B215
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

Course Guide Description: Social and public uses of English; relationships of English structure, lexicon, and discourse to race, gender, class, education, ethnicity, age, and identity; the role of English in public policy.

417: History of the English Language
Jordan Zweck
TR 11:00-12:15pm Van Vleck B231
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

Have you ever wondered why the plural of foot is feet, where the y in “ye olde shoppe” comes from, or how textspeak is changing Modern English? If so, this class is for you! We will explore the history of English from its origins as an Indo-European language to the present day, studying the systematic changes that took place to its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. In addition to linguistic history, we will also study the social, cultural, and political history that shaped and was shaped by the English language. The course proceeds chronologically, and will focus on four main periods of the English language: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Present-Day English (including dialects of American English, World Englishes, and the ways that technology affects language).

No previous experience in early English (Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English) or linguistics is required.

420: Topics in English Language and Linguistics
Topic: Experimental Syntax
Jacee Cho
TR 2:30-3:45pm Van Vleck B231
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

[English Language and Linguistics] (Mixed Grad/Undergrad)

This course provides an introduction to conducting linguistic experiments to address theoretical questions in the study of syntax. We will discuss how to design linguistic experiments, collect and analyze data, and make generalizations beyond the data you have collected. This is a hands-on course which requires your active participation. Although the focus of this course is syntactic research, the fundamentals of research design and data analysis methods should carry over to research in other areas of language study such as semantics, pragmatics, or language acquisition. By the end of this course, you will have the knowledge and skills necessary to do your own linguistic experiments to explore theoretical issues in linguistics.

There is no required textbook. All course readings will be available on the course website.

427: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Lisa Cooper
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Vleck B223
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)
Cross-Listed with Medieval Studies

This course is an introduction to the most well-known and influential poet of the English Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer, to Middle English, the language in which he wrote, and to his most famous and influential poem, The Canterbury Tales. Through close readings of many (though not quite all) of the varied tales—uproarious and tragic, lewd and learned—that make up this immensely rich and complex work, we will explore Chaucer’s playful, profound, and indeed sometimes disturbing responses to some of the most pressing literary, social, political, and spiritual issues of his rather tumultuous era. Over the course of the term, we will locate Chaucer’s poetry in a range of literary and cultural frameworks: the rise of vernacular English writing in the fourteenth century; the impact of increasing social stratification, intensifying class antagonism, expanding political rivalry, and burgeoning religious dissent upon late-medieval literary production; the politics of authorship and medieval views of the social function of literature; the influence of classical texts, recent European literature, and Christian modes of reading on the development of English poetry; and last but not certainly not least, manuscript culture (that is, the ways of reading and writing before the age of print). We will also look at how Chaucer deploys the genres available to him—epic, romance, lyric, fabliau, saint’s life, sermon, beast fable—and, in the process, makes something wholly new; and we will pay particular attention to his representation of individuals as both historically contingent “types” and highly subjective selves caught between—but nevertheless making very good use of—the manifold tensions between word and deed, language and intention, and experience and authority.

453: Topic in British Literature since 1900
Topic: Backgrounds to Modernism
Richard Begam
TR 11:00-12:15pm Humanities 2653
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)

Course Guide Description:

461.001: Topic in Ethnic & Multicultural Literature
Topic: Black Life & Thought in the 18th Century
Kristina Huang
MW 6:00-7:15pm Education L185
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

The presence of Black subjects traversing and inhabiting the Anglo-Atlantic world ignited the social and political imagination of eighteenth-century writers. How did this presence materialize and contribute to the period’s literary production? This course is a survey of Black Anglophone works in the eighteenth century and their afterlives. We’ll work through a heterogeneous archive of texts (portraits, illustrations, letters, novels, and plays) and examine how Black Anglophone subjects, across the spectrum of enslavement and freedom, engaged with the social, aesthetic, and philosophical discourses of their time.

461.002: Topic in Ethnic & Multicultural Literature
Topic: Black Women Dramatists
Tejumola Olaniyan
TR 9:30-10:45am White 4281
Prereq: Sophomore standing

The course is an introduction to dramatic writings by African and African American women. We will study the content and style of the selected plays and explore their possible meanings. We will investigate if there are similarities and/or differences in the dramatists’ thematic and stylistic orientations, and critically speculate on the reasons why—be the reasons dramaturgic, cultural, political, or ideological. Ultimately, we will explore the exciting possibility of constructing a cross-cultural and cross-continental black female and feminist dramatic tradition. Some of the playwrights we would study include Lorraine Hansberry, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ntozake Shange, Efua Sutherland, Suzan-Lori Parks, Malika Ndlovu, Lynn Nottage, and Sindiwe Magona.

462: Topic in Asian American Literature
Topic: Asian American Graphic Novels and Comics
Timothy Yu
TR 11:00-12:15pm Van Vleck B223
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Asian American Studies

Comics have often been dismissed as a simplistic medium meant for children, but in the past few decades they have gained increasing respect as serious literature, often under the label “graphic novels.” And recent years have seen an explosion of comics, graphic novels, and graphic memoirs from Asian American creators. We’ll survey this growing body of work, beginning with the question of what comics and graphic novels are and how they differ from other forms of art and literature. We’ll then examine the distinctive contributions Asian Americans are making to the form, considering how Asian Americans use the medium of comics to narrate history, respond to stereotypes, and tell new stories.

469: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Arts
TBA
T 6:00-8:00pm Helen C. White 6110
Prereq: Consent of instructor
Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 307, 407, 409, 408, 410, 411, 508, 509, or 695

Course Guide Description: Guest artists will offer interdisciplinary courses on topics appropriate to their specializations.

474: Topic in Contemporary Literature
Topic: American Protest Literature: 20th-21st Century
Sarah Wood
MWF 9:55-10:45am Humanities 1217
Prereq: Sophomore standing

This course will consider protest literature in the United States across the 20th and 21st century. How do writers respond to the social and political issues of their time? You will read fiction, poetry and short stories while we explore the rhetorical and literary strategies of the authors. You will be expected to answer pre-class prompts in your analysis journal, participate daily and develop and create your own final project. Authors may include (but are subject to change): Danez Smith, Claudia Rankine, Muriel Rukeyser, Allen Ginsberg, Danielle Evans, etc.; selections from the following anthologies: Go Home!, New Poets of Native Nations, Women of Resistance, etc.

508 Creative Writing: Advanced Fiction Workshop
TBA
T 1:20-3:15pm White 6108
Prereq: ENGL 408 or graduate/professional standing. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 469, 509, or 695
Accelerated Honors (!)

Though similar to English 408, this class goes into greater detail to help students with experience in fiction writing refine their skills with readings and lectures that address in detail narrative arch, scene development, realistic dialogue, experimental form, etc.. Reading and discussions will vary somewhat depending upon the instructor. This is a “workshop,” so students will be expected to complete weekly writing assignments as well as (at a minimum) two complete short stories. They will also be expected to comment on the work of their classmates and participate in class discussions. Classes are small, typically under 15 students.

515: Techniques and Materials for TESOL
TBA
TR 9:30-10:45am White 4191F
Prereqs: English 415

Course Guide Description: Supervised practice in the use of current techniques and materials in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, including peer and community teaching with videotaped sessions.

520: Old English
Topic: Really Old English
Martin Foys
TR 9:30-10:45pm Educ Sci 218
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Medieval Studies
Accelerated Honors (!)

Old English is the earliest form of English; it is also fascinating — exotic, yet at the same time the backbone of the language we use today. From over 1,000 years ago, it is the language of heroes, monsters, kings, scholars, saints, and some very special sinners. Studying Old English gives you a foundational understanding of how modern English still works today, valuable knowledge for any student.

No background in languages or linguistics is required to take this class, though if you’ve studied another language, that can be helpful. In the first half of the class, we will cover basic pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, while doing short translation exercises. In the second half of the semester, we will put the skills you’ve learned to work, working on reading Old English texts and poems in the original — a rare opportunity. Because this is a language class, no papers will be required. Instead, there will be regular translation exercises, quizzes, exams, and two final translation projects.

539: Jewish Literatures in Diaspora
Sunny Stern Yudkoff
M 1:20-3:15pm Soc Sci 4308
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Jewish Studies
Meets with German, Nordic, and Slavic Studies

What does it mean to be at home in a culture? What does it mean to live in exile? Where, in turn, is the diaspora? This course examines these questions by looking at texts that examine Jewish American, German-Jewish, and Jewish Israeli identity. We will also examine how Palestinian writers use these terms in works that explore their experiences of diaspora. We will further explore how writers have defined the identities of “native” and “foreigner” in different geographies and different languages, paying close attention to how notions of “exile” and “diaspora” have shifted in Jewish culture across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Readings will include poetry, prose, and essays by Philip Roth, Edward Said, and Molly Antopol.

548 Topic in Literature and Politics
Topic: Fact, Feeling, & Viral Media
Christine Goding-Doty
W 4:00-6:30 Van Vleck B223
Prereqs: Sophomore standing

What does it mean for something to go viral online? How do we explain why digital material goes viral? And what is the significance of the phenomenon of “going viral” in modern, digitized society? This course analyze viral media through affect theory, working to account for the rhetoric that positions feeling in competition with fact, and at the same time, trying to get our heads around the modern phenomenon of how, why, and where things “go viral.” We’ll talk through questions of intensity, sensation, contagion; and we’ll look at digital content that illustrates a range of feeling from the “ugly feelings” associated with political memes, to the development of cringe humor. Students will gain a basic understanding of the main arguments in affect theory, as well as a broad view of the different kinds of social and political analysis to which affect theory is committed and a sense of how it is useful to understand the digital landscape of feeling in the 21st century.

575: British Drama, 1914 to Present
Michael Vanden Heuvel
MW 2:30-3:45pm Humanities 1131
Prereq: Junior standing
Cross-Listed with Theatre and Drama

Course Guide Description: Plays and playwrights from the first World War to the present, including movements leading to the “revolt” of 1956 and subsequent proletarian and absurdist drama. Plays by Shaw, O’Casey, Maugham, Coward, Eliot, Osborne, Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard, Arden, Wesker, Bond, Churchill and others.

576 Survey: Theories of Drama
Aparna Dharwadker
TR 1:00-2:15pm White 4281
Prereq: Junior standing
Cross-Listed with Theatre and Drama

This course will take a comparative approach to some major “theories of the theatre” that have emerged during periods of intense dramatic activity in cultures ranging widely in time and space: ancient Greece and India, classical Japan, early modern and modern Europe, the modern Americas, and the postcolonial societies of contemporary Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Drama, theatre, and performance are among the earliest forms of representation theorized in both Western and non-Western cultural traditions, and the parameters of theory are defined with remarkable consistency by the distinctive qualities of theatre as a mimetic, performative, and public art. The principles of mimesis and verisimilitude engage metaphysical, aesthetic, and formal issues, while the aspect of live performance engages the practical details of presentation and reception. Our discussion will take this duality into account, connecting theatre theory with general principles of poetics as well as the material, sociopolitical, and institutional contexts of performance in a given time and place. The readings will be organized into sequential units, including “Foundational Poetics,” “Classicism and Neoclassicism,” “Realism and its Redactions,” “Political Theatre,” “The Avant-Garde,” and “Postcolonial Revisions.”

Tentative Reading List
Plato, from The Republic (circa 350 BC)
Aristotle, from Poetics (circa 335 BC)
Bharata, from the Natyashastra (circa fourth century BC)
Zeami Motokiyo, from “Teachings on Style and the Flower” (1402) and “A Mirror Held to the Flower” (1424)
Sir Philip Sidney, from Apology for Poetry (1598)
John Dryden, from Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668)
Aphra Behn, Preface to The Dutch Lover (1673)
Richard Steele, Preface to The Conscious Lovers (1722)
George Lillo, Dedication to The London Merchant (1731)
Samuel Johnson, from “Preface to Shakespeare” (1765)
Oliver Goldsmith, “A Comparison Between Sentimental and Laughing Comedy” (1773)
Richard Wagner, from “Art and Revolution” (1849) and Opera and Drama (1851)
Friedrich Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy (1872)
Emile Zola, from Naturalism in the Theatre (1878)
August Strindberg, Preface to Miss Julie (1888)
Bernard Shaw, from The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891)
Rabindranath Tagore, “The Theatre” (1903)
Georg Lukacs, “The Sociology of Modern Drama” (1909)
Bertolt Brecht, “The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre” (1932) and “Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction” (1935)
Walter Benjamin, from “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1938)
Antonin Artaud, from The Theatre and Its Double (1938)
Manifesto of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (1943)
Arthur Miller, “Tragedy and the Common Man” (1949)
Martin Esslin, from The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)
Jerzy Grotowski, from Towards a Poor Theatre (1968)
Wole Soyinka, “Towards a True Theatre” (1962) and “The Fourth Stage” (1973)
Derek Walcott, “What the Twilight Says: An Overture” (1970)
Badal Sircar, from The Third Theatre (1973)
Augusto Boal, from The Theatre of the Oppressed (1974)
Amiri Baraka, “The Revolutionary Theatre” (1979)

For more information, contact Professor Dharwadker at adharwadker@wisc.edu