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 11:00-11:50am Humanities 3650
Cross-Listed with Theatre and Drama
Open to Fr. 4 cr sections meet Com B requirement
This course introduces students to the study of theatre and dramatic literature. By taking this course you will have the opportunity to
- think about plays and performance in terms of the questions they pose about our identities, our relationships and our world
- analyze selected dramatic texts as shaped by and shaping specific cultural, dramatic, and theatrical conditions
- investigate elements of performance in both theory and practice
- articulate informed responses to text and performance in both oral and written forms
Plays read and discussed Spring 2020 are likely to include: Susan Glaspell, Trifles; Euripides, Medea; Wole Soyinka: Death and the King’s Horseman; Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun; Sophie Treadwell, Machinal; Tristan Tzara, The Gas Heart; Zeami Motokiyo, Atsumori; Paula Vogel, How I Learned to Drive; Suzan-Lori Parks, The America Play. Students will also attend, discuss and write about two live performances.
140: Comm B Topics in English Literature
Topic: Your Money or Your Life
Anja Jovic-Humphrey
TR 1:20-2:10pm Edu Sci 204
Satisfies the Comm B requirement
What is the most recent thing you bought? What do “work” and “success” mean to you? Should you pick a profession that is lucrative – or should you do what you love? Can you do both?
In 1854, Thoreau wrote that “the cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” If we simplify this, we can say that a new iPhone costs – not 999 dollars – but the number of hours you have to work in order to buy it. However, this equation becomes much more complicated if your work brings you fulfilment, meaning – or the experience of “flow” – which cannot be translated solely into a monetary value.
Many studies in social sciences tell us that we are consuming more than ever, but there is also an opposite trend: a trend of minimalism, of tiny houses, of Thoreauvian philosophy that urges us to devote our time only to those things that are meaningful to us, regardless of whether they are lucrative or not. In this course, we will examine fictional and nonfictional works about the meaning(s) of success, work, earning and spending, and the connection between people’s philosophy of consumption and their philosophy of life.
141: Science Fiction and Fantasy
Topic: Postcolonial Futures
Yanie Fecu
TR 2:30-3:45pm Humanities 1221
This course examines race and the legacy of colonialism in science fiction by authors from marginalized communities like Octavia Butler, Vandana Singh, and Nnedi Okorafor, among others. Exploring a range of literature, film, television, and music, we’ll consider questions such as: how does speculative fiction represent and critique different forms of prejudice and oppression? What kinds of scientific discoveries and technologies appear in these texts, and how do they shape imagined societies? And how have writers of color from the Americas, Africa, and Asia challenged or subverted expectations built into the science fiction genre?
144: Women’s Writing
Jennifer Plants
W 2:30-5:00pm Van Hise 159
Examining the boundaries of gender, feminism, “American” and “women’s writing” in the context of contemporary American theatre, this course will include works by playwrights such as Annie Baker, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Larissa FastHorse, May Lee-Yang, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Dominique Morriseau, Lynn Nottage, Ashley Lauren Rogers, Paula Vogel, and Lauren Yee.
150: Literature & Culture of Asian America
Timothy Yu
TR 9:55-10:45am Educ Sci 204
Cross-listed with Asian American Studies
Since the 19th century, “America” has often been defined by its relationship with “Asia,” through cultural influence, immigration, imperialism, and war. This course traces the role of Asia and Asians in American literature and culture, exploring the distinctive culture produced by Asian immigrants to America and their descendants.
153: Literature and the Environment
Heather Swan
MW 8:50-9:40am Psychology 105
Cross-listed with Environmental Studies
Course Catalog Description: An introduction to literature in English about the natural world and humankind’s relationship with it; specific topics will vary.
155.001: Myth & Literature
Topic: Myth and Modern Literature
Ronald Harris
MWF 1:20-2:10pm Education L185
Honors optional (%)
The class will consider Margaret Atwood’s claim:
Strong myths never die. Sometimes they die down, but they don’t die out. In many ways, myths cannot really be translated with any accuracy from their native soil–from their own place and time. We will never know exactly what they meant to their ancient audiences. But myths can be used–as they have been, so frequently–as the foundation stones for new renderings that find their meanings within their own times and places.
In addition to reading Atwood’s Penelopiad, we will read other literary and artistic reworking of classical myth. We will also write and make our own literary and artistic reworking of myth. As Romaire Bearden explained, “art is made from other art.”
Books and Materials
1. Homer, The Odyssey. Trans Emily R Wilson. Norton, ISBN 9780393356250
2. Madeline Miller, Circe. Little Brown, ISBN 9780316556347
3. Margaret Atwood,The Penelopiad. Canongate, ISBN 9781841957982
4. Reserve readings. See Canvas course page
5. Composition Notebook (9 3/4″ x 7 1/2″), 200pp.
155.002: Myth & Literature
Topic: Myths of Modernity
Joseph Bowling
MW 9:30-10:45am Van Hise 394
The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century transformed the intellectual culture of Europe. Reason became the principle virtue, revered above all other mental faculties. Without reason, the philosophers of the Enlightenment argued, no one could be truly free. The sociologist Max Weber describes the effect of this change in values as “disenchanting.” According to this view, after the Enlightenment, society became increasingly secularized and belief in the mystical waned. The time of myth concluded, and modernity quickly approached. In this class, we’ll take up this story of modernity—defined by its distinction from the traditions of the past—and ask if the “modern world” is truly free of myths. Our starting point will be the concept of Enlightenment itself: beyond its historical meaning, how might this term itself rely on myth? From there, we’ll turn to the core beliefs that define modernity: reason, scientific progress, individual autonomy, political freedom, and the absence of myth. We’ll consider not only how each of these is a myth in and of itself, but also how each relies upon what Roland Barthes describes as mythic language. Our primary objects of inquiry will be literary texts that respond to the development of modernity and question its self-proclaimed virtues. We’ll practice careful literary analysis with an eye toward historical context. We’ll end the semester in the present: how does the myth of modernity persist today?
156: Literature and Medicine
Colin Gillis
T 6:00-8:30pm White 4208
Taught by a practicing nurse with an English PhD, 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, and death. Students will consider ways that literature can serve as a resource for patients and healthcare practitioners.
162: Shakespeare
Topic: Shakespeare the Sequel
Joshua Calhoun
TR 9:30-10:45am Van Vleck B223
This discussion-style, 35-student course builds on the entry-level large lecture Shakespeare course that Professor Calhoun often teaches (ENGL162 is repeatable for credit). In this course, we will build on the ideas and readings taught in the large lecture format. The course will meet for 75 minutes twice a week, and students will be expected to be present, active participants in discussion. Students who have not taken Calhoun’s lecture version of ENGL162 are allowed to enroll, but those with no background in reading and studying Shakespeare are advised to consider waiting until the lecture version of this course is offered again (next semester).
Students can expect to read a Shakespeare play, poem group, or long poem every other week; for alternate weeks, students will read secondary criticism, watch film versions of the play, and conduct individual research. Assessments will include short and long essays, research projects, occasional quizzes, in-class presentations, and memorization/recitation. A handful of class sessions will meet in alternate locations outside of class, including Special Collections in Memorial Library. Readings may include, among others, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Richard II, Twelfth Night, and The Sonnets.
172: Literatures of Native America
Jarret Chapin
MWF 9:55-10:45am Ingraham 120
Cross-Listed with American Indian Studies
Introduction to the oral and written literatures of the peoples of native North America. A survey of texts across historical periods, rhetorical contexts, tribal groups, and regions comprising diplomatic proceedings, sermons, autobiography, and contemporary novels.
174: Literature and Social Justice
Topic: Protest Literature
Sarah Wood
MW 2:30-3:45pm White 4208
Honors Optional (%)
This course will consider protest literature in the United States from the last few years. How do writers respond to the social and political issues of their time? You will read mostly poetry and short stories while we explore the rhetorical and literary strategies of the authors. We will read mostly from brand new anthologies published within the last there years so that we can hear what poets are saying in response to our particular historical moment. We will read selections from anthologies such as Who Will Speak for America?, Go Home!, New Native Poets, Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America, Women of Resistance, and Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems for Now. You will be expected to answer pre-class prompts in your analysis journal, participate daily. Assignments will include short writing assignments and creative projects such as a commonplace book and final project of your own design.
176.001: Topics in Literature and Film
Topic: Literature and the Cinematic Imagination
Joseph Bowling
MW 1:20-2:10pm Science 180
This course studies the impact of cinema on literary craft. To pursue this line of inquiry, we will define and test the concept of the cinematic imagination, identifying the unique ways in which films tell stories and communicate complex ideas visually. We will begin with the early history of film, focusing on the emergence of this new, strange visual technology at the turn of the twentieth century and how it transformed Hollywood, a formerly unremarkable Los Angeles neighborhood, into a symbol for American culture and the center of global film production. We will then turn our attention to genres of popular film such as science fiction and horror, both in and outside of the US, and ask how these film genres influenced their corresponding literary genres. We will end our inquiry by reflecting on how film offers its own means of truth telling and trace these techniques in literary nonfiction. By the course’s end, we will have surveyed how the cinema changed—and continues to pervade—our cultural imagination.
177.001: Literature and Popular Culture
Topic: Tolkien, Beowulf and the Rise of Modern Fantasy
Martin Foys
TR 12:00-12:50pm Soc Sci 6210
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series were the books that launched the modern fantasy genre. But Tolkien was also a brilliant Oxford scholar of medieval literature and used medieval literature as the foundation for all his fantasy creations.
This class will first explore Beowulf, the Old English epic poem of heroes, feuds and monsters, using Tolkien’s own modern translation and others. We will also study the legacy of Beowulf today, through comic book, film and video game adaptations, as well as some other examples of medieval literature that inspired Tolkien.
We will then study the rise of modern fantasy through Tolkien’s own theories of fantasy, looking at material such as proto-fantasy (Grimm’s Fairy Tales), Victorian fantasy (Alice in Wonderland), the fantasy of Tolkien and his time, (The Hobbit, Narnia Chronicles, Conan the Barbarian), before ending with thinking about the state of popular fantasy today in books, film and television (Peter Jackson’s films, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and G.R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series). During the course, we will tie our explorations to culturally relevant issues of past and present including nationalism, the power of religion, effects of media and technology, social constructions of race, racism and gender, the nostalgic production of the past, and the transformative nature of language.
177.002: Literature and Popular Culture
Topic: Literary Bollywood: Film and Fiction in India
Aparna Dharwadker
R 2:30-5:00pm Grainger 2170
The Indian cinema industry has been a popular culture phenomenon since the arrival of talking films in 1931, with a vast audience in the subcontinent, and a loyal following in unexpected venues like Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean. More recently, the invention of “Bollywood” as a concept has turned popular Indian (mainly Hindi) cinema into a fully global brand, associated with youthful romance, glitzy international settings, extravagant music-and-dance numbers, stunning costumes, and ostentatious displays of wealth. Consumed on a large scale by the 20-million strong Indian diaspora as well as viewers around the world, Bollywood films appear oddly at variance with India’s very real profile as a developing nation with high levels of poverty and illiteracy, critical problems of overpopulation, and glaring social inequalities.
The purpose of this course is to provide a more complex view of film as a popular-cultural medium in twentieth- and twenty-first century India, and to explore its specific connections to literature (mainly novels and short stories by major modern writers).
178.001: Digital Media, Literature, and Culture
Topic: Social Media Writing
Ainehi Edoro
MW 11:00-11:50am Soc Sci 6210
Social media can seem like a dump of pointless babble, but it is not. There is logic to how we write both formally and informally on social media. Emojis, typos, misspellings, hashtags, abbreviations, all-caps, and memes are part of a complex language system with quite a few rules and lots of interesting patterns. In this course, we take a deep dive into the literary and linguistic universe of social media to uncover the order behind the chaos of social media writing.
We ask why social media users are hooked on emojis, gifs, and memes. Is instapoetry really poetry? How is Twitter changing the way we tell stories? Why are some twitter threads more epic than others? Why is #love the most used hashtag on Intagram? What do Internet trolls, twitter rants, and call-out culture teach us about the link between emotion and social media writing?
Focusing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the course examines the rules governing language and literary form.
Text: Gretchen McCulloch’s Because Internet, Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey, Jennifer Egan’s “Blackbox,” Episodes from South Park and Black Mirror, Teju Cole’s “Hafiz,” Chimamanda Adichie’s “Dear Ijeawele,” Dave Egger’s The Circle, in addition to tons of tweets and instaposts.
182.001: Introduction to Literature for Honors
Topic: Beowulf to Tolkien: The Medieval as Modern Fantasy
Martin Foys
TR 9:30-10:45am Psychology 130
Prereq: Declared in honors program
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series were the books that launched the modern fantasy genre. But Tolkien was also a brilliant Oxford scholar of medieval literature and used medieval literature as the foundation for all his fantasy creations.
This class will first explore Beowulf, the Old English epic poem of heroes, feuds and monsters, using Tolkien’s own modern translation and others. We will also study the legacy of Beowulf today, through comic book, film and video game adaptations, as well as some other examples of medieval literature that inspired Tolkien.
We will then study the rise of modern fantasy through Tolkien’s own theories of fantasy, looking at material such as proto-fantasy (Grimm’s Fairy Tales), Victorian fantasy (Alice in Wonderland), the fantasy of Tolkien and his time, (The Hobbit, Narnia Chronicles, Conan the Barbarian), before ending with thinking about the state of popular fantasy today in books, film and television (Peter Jackson’s films, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and G.R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series). During the course, we will tie our explorations to culturally relevant issues of past and present including nationalism, the power of religion, effects of media and technology, social constructions of race, racism and gender, the nostalgic production of the past, and the transformative nature of language.
182.002: Introduction to Literature for Honors
Topic: Shakespeare and Film
Karen Britland
TR 11:00-12:15pm Humanities 2637
Prereq: Declared in honors program
We will read and discuss five of Shakespeare’s plays, and we will watch some of their modern film adaptations. The course will emphasize the importance of developing the skills of close reading for both written and visual texts and is designed both for students with a serious interest in Shakespeare and for those without much prior experience of Shakespeare or literature. By looking at movies, we will constantly remind ourselves that Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed as popular entertainments and do not necessarily have to be understood as “high culture,” while also paying attention to the ways in which social and historical contexts are important for meaningful literary interpretation. In this class, there will be a strong emphasis placed on writing clear and well-argued academic prose. The class’s final project will encourage you to develop research skills, to investigate the cultural and historical significance of a recent Shakespearean movie, and to demonstrate how Shakespeare’s texts are used to comment on contemporary social and political concerns.
200: Writing Studio
Emily Hall
W 5:30-7:00pm Chadbourne 126
Prereq: Consent of instructor & Reserved for Residents of Chadbourne and Barnard Students should be enrolled concurrently in another course where academic writing is assigned.
Course Catalog Description: The focus is on students’ own writing in this workshop-oriented course for writers in any discipline. Theoretical and practical foundations for drafting, revising, and reviewing a range of academic genres and approaches.
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.
204: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy
Christa Olson
MW 1:20-2:10pm White 3250
Prereq: Satisfied Communications A requirement and sophomore standing
Some of the best human traits come out when we speak or write passionately for a cause. Some of the worst, too. We use words and pictures and collective action to encourage each other to do good and we use them to justify terrible acts. This class invites you to read about, discuss, and then engage with what’s good and evil about “rhetoric” (about all the different ways we communicate in order to influence each other). We’ll learn about horrific acts and the individuals and communities that stood up to them. We’ll look at propaganda, powerful texts, and activist photography. We’ll listen to speeches that aim to stir our souls for better or for worse. Along the way, we’ll develop tools for analyzing the arguments we see and hear and strategies for producing our own effective arguments (aiming, of course, for good). Your work for the course will include reading, participation in class discussion, short (1-2 page) writing assignments, a final project, and a take-home, open-book essay exam.
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.
236: Bascom Course
Topic: Holding History Practicum
Josh Calhoun
TR 1:00-2:15pm Education L159
Prereq: Satisfied Communications A requirement
This course extends the work of the Holding History program (www.holdinghistory.org), allowing a larger number of students to learn how to better understand, research, and present the history of media. Our course readings will focus on the history of media as presented in primary and secondary literature, and we will explore media-making in various times and places such as Renaissance England, early America, 19th C Europe and South America (with an emphasis on the work of Alexander Von Humboldt), and more.
Students need not have any familiarity with archival research to take this class, but they should have a desire to spend time with amazing old books and historical documents in various libraries on campus. Class sessions will frequently meet in alternate locations: various campus libraries, archives, and labs for instance; course assignments will also require students to work independently in some of these locations. Since this course counts toward the Comm A requirement, students are expected to produce an array of outward-facing written and spoken work: short, weekly writing assignments, two extensive 6- to 8-page research essays, a short video, and a public presentation.
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.
242: Literature and Culture II: from the 18th Century to the Present
Topic: Abolition and Literature
Kristina Huang
MW 11:00-11:50am Ingraham 19
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Not open to students who took ENGL 216 prior to Fall 2014
Course Catalog Description: Considers a period of unparalleled tumult: a time of vast world empires and startling new technologies, revolutions that radically redefined self and community, two cataclysmic world wars, the emergence of ideas of human rights, and the first truly global feelings of interconnectedness. How has literature captured and contributed to these dramatic upheavals? Some writers worldwide have struggled to invent new forms, new words, and new genres to do justice to a world in crisis, while others have reached back in time, seeking continuity with the past. Explore enduring traditions of poetry and drama and think about experiments in the new, globally popular genre of the novel. Develops skills of critical reading and writing that are essential to majors and non-majors alike.
243: American Literary Cultures
Russ Castronovo
TR 9:30-10:45am White 4208
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Writing Intensive
“Security and Terror before 9/11”: This course proceeds in reverse chronological order, starting with contemporary treatments of surveillance and security, and then moving backward to 19th- and 18th-century discourses of Gothic horror, frontier warfare, and slave rebellion. Readings will include works by Dave Eggers, Philip K. Dick, Charles Brockden Brown, Mary Rowlandson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nat Turner, James Fenimore Cooper, and David Walker. We will also screen a few films such as “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Conversation.” The course contains a significant amount of writing and requires engaged and consistent participation. Note: course readings and screenings include scenes of violence and racialized brutality.
245.001: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Empire of Senses
Yanie Fecu
TR 1:00-2:15pm Grainger 2165
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)
This course examines representations of race, social belonging, and oppression in modern Caribbean literature and music. Students will analyze short stories, novels, essays, and film alongside musical albums and spoken word. We’ll consider questions such as: how are assumptions and anxieties about race superimposed onto our visual and auditory senses? How can literary and musical forms capture the lived experience of marginalized people? And how do artists like Jamaica Kincaid, Wyclef Jean, Paule Marshall, and Rihanna explore sensory experience in relation to cultural assimilation and political resistance?
245.002: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Writing Rivers
Caroline Druschke
TR 9:30-10:45am Psychology 134
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 Wisconsin’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.
245.003: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Writing and Money
Eileen Lagman
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 387
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)
What does it mean to write for money? How is writing given value? And what does writing work look like in the knowledge economy? In this course, we’ll investigate the intersections of writing and money—or more specifically how writing systems and economic systems work together in everyday life. Examined from a writing studies perspective, the course will interrogate such issues as writing labor, authorship and ownership, open source and peer production, and outsourced writing.
245.004: Seminar in the Major
Topic: Translating Meaning: From Jabberwocky to the Neural Network
Anna Muenchrath
TR 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 475
Prereqs: Sophomore Standing
Honors Optional (%)
Have you ever been let down by Google Translate? Felt disappointed by a film adaptation of your favorite novel? Tried to explain the answer to a really hard math problem to a friend who needed your help? If so, you know that translation is not a straightforward process. We often think of translation as transferring meaning between two languages, but it can refer to the transfer of meaning across any interpretive boundary, including, for example, media or disciplines. In this class, we’ll explore that process of interpretation and exchange that underwrites all of our cultural transactions to think about how meaning is made and communicated across languages, texts, and beyond. What do we stand to gain in translation? What might we lose? And what does all of this gaining and losing tell us about how we communicate meaning in the first place? Readings will include essays, novels, and films, primarily post-1900.
248: Women in Ethnic American Literature
Leslie Bow
Online
This is a modular section that meets December 30, 2019 thru January 19, 2020 (Session Code XCC, 3 weeks of instruction)
Prereq: Sophomore standing and One in-person meeting in Fall 19 is required
Cross-listed with Gender & Women’s Studies
Intensive Writing
This online course explores the intersections among race, ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, and sexuality in fiction, poetry, memoir, and visual texts by African American, Asian American, American Indian, Latina, and multiracial women in the U.S. The course is structured thematically around overlapping social issues within a cross-cultural framework, focusing on four themes in particular: racial authenticity and ethnic belonging; coming of age and externalizing the gender role; activism and radical consciousness; and disembodied racial meaning. One of our goals will be to understand the ways in which girls and women from diverse backgrounds negotiate competing affiliations and loyalties amid differing notions of home, place, and community. We will pay particular attention to issues of childhood, narrative voice, and sexual awareness. The course reader includes work by Pat Parker, Cherríe Moraga, Alice Walker, Janice Gould, Toni Cade Bambara, Hisaye Yamamoto, Inés Hernandez Tovar, Chrystos, and Toni Morrison among others, with secondary reading by Immanuel Wallerstein, Hazel Carby, Sunaina Maira, and bell hooks.
NOTE: This is an intensive, online course to be completed during the intersession of winter break. Students should be prepared to complete all reading and course assignments on time; twice daily posts are required in lieu of embodied class meetings. Each of the 14 days (modules) represents a week of a traditional 14-week semester. Internet access for twice daily posting and a Skype meeting optional. One in-person meeting in Fall 19 is required.
305: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement
Caroline Druschke
TR 1:00-2:15pm Education L155
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-listed with Environmental Studies
Honors Optional (%)
This course focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of public engagement with scientific research, policy, and management, with an emphasis on science communication. During the semester, we’ll explore University of Wisconsin’s land grant mandate to share university research with the public and use university resources to explore public needs. We’ll build from readings in science communication and public participation in scientific research and reach out to experts in Wisconsin working on a variety of projects with public stakeholders. At the end of the class, you’ll use what you’ve learned this semester about the theory and practice of science communication and public engagement to design, execute, and assess an activity that engages a segment of the public in scientific research (maybe even your own!). In short, this class is about learning and doing.
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. Not open to special students
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
TBA
MWF 8:50-9:40am Humanities 1217
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Course Guide Description: Linguistic methods of analysis and description of English syntax and morphology.
319: Language, Race, and Identity
Tom Purnell
MWF 11:00-11:50am White 4281
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Contribution of anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, linguistics in construction of racial identity; consideration of American English use in ethnically affiliated speech communities (African Americans, Latinos/as, Native Americans, Asian Americans). Topics: brain form/function; linguistic concepts at interface of language, culture and biology; theory of groups and group affiliation; self-expression of social identity.
320: Linguistic Theory and Child Language
Jacee Cho
TR 2:30-3:45pm White 4281
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
*Students who have taken English 420 Universal Grammar and Child Language Acquisition prior to Spring 2020 may not enroll in this course.
This course provides an introduction to the linguistic study of child language within the generative theory. According to this theory, humans are born with genetically determined linguistic knowledge called Universal Grammar, which guides children in learning language. Students will learn the basic concepts of the generative theory and learn to apply them to the study of child language. Topics include universal linguistic principles that govern children’s acquisition of syntax and semantics and cross-linguistic influence in children acquiring more than one language from birth or early childhood. We will discuss empirical research studies testing the Universal Grammar theory of language acquisition.
There is no required textbook. All reading materials will be available electronically on the course website.
345: Nineteenth-Century Novel
Topic: Aspects of the Novel
Mario Ortiz-Robles
MW 2:30-3:45pm Humanities 2637
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)
The novel was the dominant narrative form of the nineteenth century in Europe. It described a rapidly changing world in which the private lives of individuals were increasingly determined by social, cultural, political, and environmental forces that exceeded the range of affective attachments and cognitive capacities inherited from tradition. We examine the thematic concerns, narrative techniques, formal innovations, rhetorical devices, and social ambitions that characterize the novel during this period. The course is organized around a series of critical modules that correspond to four fundamental aspects of the novel: 1) Form: How do novelists employ devices such as plot, dialogue, description, and narration to construct an imaginative world? 2) Character: How does the novel bring persons to life? 3) Genre: What literary conventions did writers use to attract an increasingly literate reading public? 4) The Literary Field: What role did the novel play in nineteenth-century culture?
350.001: Special Topics in Gender & Literature
Topic: Feminism in Contemporary African Literature
Ainehi Edoro
MW 2:30-3:45pm Science 360
Prereq: GEN&WS 101, 102, 103, or GEN&WS/SOC 200
Cross-Listed with Gender & Women’s Studies
Honors Optional (%)
This course offers a study of feminism through contemporary fiction and poetry written by African women. It asks how African women writers today are addressing the complexities of women’s lives through fiction and poetry while pushing the boundaries of literary form and aesthetics. Thinking through texts such as Chimamanda Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists, Nnedi Okorafor’s sci-fi novella Binti, Titilope Sonuga’s poetry collection This is How we Disappear, Trifonia Obono’s queer fiction La Bastarda, students will explore the relationship between sexuality and gender politics, technology and the female body, utopian vision and activism, and, in so doing, gain new insights into the idea of feminism as a global movement.
352: Modernist Poetry
Sarah Wood
TR 9:30-10:45am Van Vleck B231
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Honors Optional (%)
This course is an introduction to American poetry of the early and mid 20th Century, a time of poetic experimentalism and social transformation. We will read authors such as Robert Frost, Muriel Rukeyser, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). This course will aim at depth instead of breadth in general (since we will read books of poems by a limited number of poets instead of selections by many poets in an anthology). Each student is also responsible for an individual project in which they select a non-canonical poet from this time period, research their work and biography, and deliver a presentation to the class. Such projects will supplement our canonical examination, broadening our viewing area. You can expect an analysis/reading journal, short writing assignments, creative projects, and a great deal of participation.
360: The Anglo-Saxons
Jordan Zweck
TR 11:00-11:50am White 4281
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-listed with History and Religious Studies
Who were the people who lived in what is now England over 1000 years ago? This class explores the history, literature, religion, art, and culture of the early medieval English. We explore a wide range of texts originally written in Latin and Old English that include fights with monsters, heartbreaking elegies, dirty riddles, bombastic sermons, and medical treatises. This semester, we’ll also be thinking about how to rename this course, given recent debates in the field regarding the name once given to the people of early medieval England: “The Anglo-Saxons.”
Over the semester, we will learn about how Early Medieval England came into existence, how it became Christianized, how it fought, assimilated, and fought again with Vikings, and how it all ended (or didn’t!) with the Norman Conquest. As a framework for the class, we will study the literature of the period (in modern translation), but we will also explore the period’s history, art, religion, architecture and everyday culture. We will also consider how Old English and Anglo-Latin literature has been adapted by modern writers, and why this early medieval culture continues to appeal to people today.
No previous experience with medieval literature and culture required!
368: Chicana/o and Latina/o Literatures
Topic: Literature and Visual Culture
Theresa Delgadillo
MW 2:30-3:45pm Van Hise 155
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-listed with Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies
In this course we will explore the interplay between the visual and the literary as we read novels, short stories and poems that incorporate, reference, and/or represent visual objects such as photographs, films, architecture, graffiti, art, tattoos, landscapes. We will also read some selections from the secondary literature on visual culture to better understand what might be going on in these Chicana/o and Latina/o literary texts that engage with the visual. In this course students will explore how Chicana/o and Latina/o literature mediates visual culture as well as how it questions the act of “seeing,” especially with respect to race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality and nation. Readings will include work by Chicana/o, Puerto Rican, Dominican American, and Cuban American authors.
373: Contemporary Poetry
Sarah Wood
MWF 9:55-10:45am Humanities 2637
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Don’t fear POETRY! We are living in a vibrant age of American poetry, with powerful and diverse voices taking up the challenge of presenting new ideas in new forms. I encourage you to dive in and challenge yourself to study a genre that responds to our present moment in time. This course will provide a robust syllabus of contemporary poetry books as well as selections from recent anthologies. We will examine form (how does the poem appear on the page? how does spoken word poetry affect our understanding of the language?) and content (protest poetry, inter-generational dynamics, environmentalism and more) by providing depth and breadth. This course will rely on your participation. You will answer pre-class prompts in an analysis notebook, write short essays, and have two creative projects (a commonplace book and a final project of your own design). You can expect a lively class with poets such as Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Tracy K. Smith, Claudia Emerson and much more. If you haven’t heard of those poets don’t feel intimidated, but instead feel welcome to enroll and read their work.
376: Literature and Animal Studies
Mario Ortiz-Robles
TR 12:00-12:50pm Ingraham 22
Prereq: Sophomore standing
How does literature help us understand animals and our relation to them? We address this question by exploring two types of representation: representation as depiction (the attempt to describe animals in literature) and representation as a legal or political act (the attempt to speak or act on behalf of animals). Organized around familiar animal categories — dogs, cats, horses, apes, birds, insects — the course examines the representation of animals in modern literature as a way to give an account of the cultural history of human-animal relations and, in doing so, to make us reflect upon the social, political, and environmental consequences of this history at a time when animal species are disappearing at an alarming rate.
400: Advanced Composition
Mary Fiorenza
MW 2:30-3:45pm White 7115
Prereq: Satisfied Communications A requirement and junior standing
Honors Optional (%)
Fulfills the ELL/CR requirement for English Majors
How does writing work for you? What motivates you as a writer? How do we take into account the practical, creative, stylistic, and ethical dimensions of our own writing to produce strong essays, arguments, and articles? What resources do experienced writers use when developing their work? This course digs into these questions and gives you a workspace where you can practice a range of strategies to help you develop as a writer among other writers. Students in the course generate work in the broad category of nonfiction, including creative nonfiction, and serve as readers for each others’ work in progress. This course is designed for any student with a strong interest in writing. We’ll examine conventions and critical standards in relation to process, access, effective communication, and inclusivity. Readings from Best American Essays and other recent collections emphasize diverse voices and current issues.
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
Sean Bishop
T 12:25-2:20pm 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 (!)
In this creative writing / poetry workshop section, called “Poems and What They’re For,” we’ll read and write poems with purpose. We’ll explore the function of poetry as imagined by different cultures in different historical moments—as a way to access the divine, as a way to rejuvenate language itself, as a way to incite social or political revolution, as a way to explore the hidden aspects of psychology, etc. etc.—finding 21st-century poets who participate in each of these traditions. Most importantly, we’ll participate ourselves, by writing and workshopping our own poems. Each week we will discuss a handful of published poems, write a poem of our own, and critique/discuss four or five poems by our colleagues in the class.
410: Creative Writing: Playwriting Workshop
Jennifer Plants
M 2:30-5:00pm White 7105
Prereq: ENGL 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, or graduate/professional standing. Students may not be concurrently enrolled with ENGL 307, 407, 408, 409, 411, 469, 508, 509, or 695
Accelerated Honors (!)
What is unique about the language of action required by the theatre? Explore writing for the stage in diverse theatrical genres, creating short works that will lay the groundwork for further writing and exploration.
NOTE: The Creative Writing prerequisite can be waived–particularly for those with previous theatre experience. Contact the instructor for details at plants@wisc.edu
411: Creative Writing: Special Topics Workshop
Topic: Queering the Word
Xandria Phillips
T 2:30-4:25pm White 6108
Prereq: ENGL 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, or graduate/professional standing
Accelerated Honors (!)
Queering the Word is a multi-genre course that explores writing that challenges the centering of reproduction and biological lineage. With an emphasis on form and world-building, we will read poetry, essays, short fiction, hybrid text, and theory. In this course students will have the opportunity to discuss, and practice or dismantle concepts discussed in readings.
411: Creative Writing: Special Topics Workshop
Topic: Science Fiction Workshop
Steven H. Wright
W 3:00-4:55pm White 7105
Prereq: ENGL 207, 307, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, or graduate/professional standing
Accelerated Honors (!)
This class is designed for students who love sci-fi and fantasy.
We’ll explore the traditional craft elements of fiction, but we’ll focus on the application of those elements to sci-fi and fantasy. Students will write their own short stories, which they’ll share with the class for feedback.
415: Introduction to TESOL Methods
Sandra Arfa
TR 1:00-2:15pm Grainger 2195
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Course Catalog 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.
430: Topic in Early Modern Literature and Culture
Topic: Women and War, 1642-1660
Karen Britland
R 2:30-5:00pm Grainger 1180
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
In this class, we will explore women’s experiences during the wars that broke out when the English king, Charles I, raised his military standard against his parliamentarian opponents in August 1642. With John Milton taking precedence in many literary discussions of this conflict, the writing of his female contemporaries is frequently subordinated. Women, though, wrote widely about their experiences and the period is therefore a particularly rich and fertile one for the study of their writing. Among other things, we will read Margaret Cavendish’s nature writing and some of her prose fiction; Katherine Philips’s poetry of love and friendship; and Hester Pulter’s poetry of royalist isolation. The class will involve some discussion of violence (particularly sexual violence against women), as we investigate the ways in which this period of intense conflict paradoxically accorded some women a powerful literary voice. Since this material is not reliably available in modern editions, you will be asked to read some of it in its original old spelling. Please be aware that some students find this difficult. Because of problems concerning the modern availability of some of this material, during class we will also consider the politics of editing early modern women’s writing.
The class reader is Women Poets of the English Civil War, ed. Sarah C. E. Ross and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Manchester University Press, 2018). ISBN-13: 978-1526128706.
434: Milton
Joseph Bowling
MWF 12:05-12:55pm Education L185
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Cross-listed with Religious Studies
In this course, we will study the life and major writings of John Milton, centering our study around his biblical epic Paradise Lost. We will read Milton’s work on the macro and micro level, placing his poetic and prose output in the context of the religious and political controversies and wars in the seventeenth century while paying careful attention to how Milton’s virtuosic textual craft responded to the ideas and events that shaped his life’s work.
454: James Joyce
Richard Begam
TR 2:30-3:45pm Humanities 2653
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Writing Intensive
Honors Optional (%)
This course focuses on the major writings of James Joyce, excluding Finnegans Wake. Most of our attention will be devoted to an in-depth examination of Ulysses conducted over the course of nine weeks. By way of preparation, we shall read two earlier works by Joyce, Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as well as Joyce’s principal source text, Homer’s Odyssey. Among the larger questions we shall address: Where does Joyce position himself in relation to the conflicting demands of nationalism, individualism and aesthetics? What is the significance of the “odyssey of styles” in Ulysses, and how does it affect the novel’s mimetic aspirations? Finally, how does Ulysses reconceive such fundamental ideas as time and place, love and marriage, truth and language, art and morality? Requirements: Two exams and one longer paper.
455.001: A Study of an Outstanding Figure or Figures in American Literature
Topic: Melville
Monique Allewaert
M 2:30-5:00pm Ingraham 122
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
In this seminar, we will read a significant portion of Herman Melville’s oeuvre, including novels, short stories, and poetry. Part of our goal is simply to enjoy these works. To this end, we will read closely, stopping to try to make sense of strange and complex sentences and ideas, considering the effects of Melville’s style, and tracking the visions of the human being and the world that emerge across Melville’s writing. If one of our goals is to enjoy reading the work of a major – and majorly innovative – American writer, another of our goals is to familiarize ourselves with key problems the recur in Melville’s writing, including colonialism and racism; the effects of the industrial revolution; performances of masculinity; the Civil War; narrative style and structure; the power of writing to shape readers’ affects. To this end, most of the Melville works we’ll study are paired with at least one critical essay that explores these problems and also (hopefully!) increases our understanding and appreciation of his writing.
Assignments will include 3 short papers (3 pages each), two long papers (5-6 pages each), an optional long paper (10-15 pages), and a reading journal updated for each class session (approximately 25 pages).
455.002: A Study of an Outstanding Figure or Figures in American Literature
Topic: Thomas Pynchon
David Zimmerman
TR 11:00-12:15pm Vilas 4008
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Writing Intensive
The American postmodern novelist Thomas Pynchon is one of the most important and celebrated writers of the late 20th century. His works, which have an obsessive fan base, are stylistically demanding, thematically fertile, topically encyclopedic, and sometimes obscene. The writer George Saunders describes Pynchon’s works as “gorgeous madness.” In this course we will read two exceptional examples of this “madness,” Pynchon’s early novel The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and his challenging 800-page masterwork, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). Both novels are obsessively researched, stuffed to the bursting point with storylines and information about a huge array of topics, including physics, psychology, rocket science, sex, determinism, and spiritualism. Both works are framed around paranoia and conspiracies and register and reflect on cultural anxieties of Cold War America. Both feature moments of slapstick comedy and deep philosophical rumination. Both have been the focus of The Simpsons episodes, pop songs, and global graffiti.
This is a Writing Intensive course. Students will produce two major essays, multiple shorter analyses, a research report, and a final exam. This is not a lecture course.
456.002: Topic in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture
Topic: Drama, Theatre, Spectacle
Mary Trotter
TR 9:30-10:45am Van Vleck B215
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
Meets with English 851 Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies
From “legit” drama to fairground performances, American theatre in the nineteenth century was a primary vehicle through which diverse Americans imagined themselves, their histories, and the possibilities for their rapidly changing nation’s future. The legacy of American theatre found in the texts and archival remnants of its melodramas, minstrel shows, musicals, “wild west” shows, and vaudevilles offer important insights into the legacy of theatricality and representation in American culture that continues to inform how “America” performs/is performed locally and globally on TV and film, on stage, and in everyday life. We will read about two plays per week along with supporting critical and historical texts about American theatre and performance. We will learn about playwrights, theatre companies and spaces, actors, stage technology innovations, theatre economics, and audience spectatorship. This is a great class for students interested in nineteenth-century American literature and history, dramatic literature, popular culture, radio/television/film studies, and theatre and performance studies.
Please note that this course will address sensitive and difficult issues such as racial and ethnic prejudice, stereotyping and violence, and their representation on the American stage, including the history of blackface minstrelsy and its influence on contemporary art and politics.
461.001: Topic in Ethnic & Multicultural Literature
Topic: Black Life & Thought in the 18th Century
Kristina Huang
M 2:30-5:00pm Ingraham 222
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: Social Media Empires & eColonialism
Christine Goding-Doty
TR 11:00-12:15pm Humanities 2251
Prereq: Sophomore standing
In 1980, Thomas McPhail coined the term electronic colonialism to describe how “mass media and internet firms are leading to a new concept of empire.” We begin by considering McPhail’s provocative suggestion. If the internet is not an inherently post-racial space, what kind of racialized or racializing space is it? How does it reproduce or reinvent the notion of empire? And where does our understanding of race in the digital age fit into the history of European colonialism? To answer these questions, this course will critically review the basic interventions of postcolonial theory, critical race and critical whiteness studies, working through the central tropes of whiteness and power as well as the seemingly general concepts of enterprise, empire, the global, capitalism, and technologies of colonialism. We will supplement our reading of postcolonial theory with the latest work in digital media studies theorizing race on the internet, comparing their approaches to develop our own method of inquiry. Finally, we will directly examine the digital texts, trends, performances, and platforms—like Tumblr, Facebook, etc.—that illustrate these problems to synthesize a theory of coloniality for the digital age.
462: Topic in Asian American Literature
Topic: Asian American Comics and Graphic Novels
Timothy Yu
TR 1:00-2:15pm Humanities 2637
Prereq: Sophomore standing
Cross-Listed with Asian American Studies
This class examines comics, graphic novels, and graphic memoirs from Asian American creators, examining the distinctive contributions Asian Americans are making to the form and considering how Asian Americans use the medium of comics to narrate history, respond to stereotypes, and tell new stories.
464: Asian American Women Writers
Leslie Bow
TR 11:00-12:15pm Van Hise 394
Prereq: Consent of instructor
Cross-listed with Asian American Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies
This course examines contemporary Asian American women’s literature in a discussion based, task-oriented classroom. How do women negotiate multiple affiliations, whether ethnic, familial, or national? We will focus on issues such as coming of age, the policing of women’s sexuality, and the formation of collective political consciousness. In addition to looking at works that engage issues of immigration and acculturation in the U.S., we will explore the legacies of colonialism in Asia and the literary portrayal of geopolitics. The course will investigate the ways in which literature can be a forum for interventionist critique of both domestic race relations and international politics. How does literary form—experimental and lyric poetry, realist memoir, or the graphic novel—provide the vehicle of such critique? We will situate literature not as a site for “learning” culture, but for understanding the gendered rhetoric of political movements, Cold War nationalism, racial segregation, sexual and ethnic pluralism. Supplementary reading in course reader.
514: English Syntax
Anja Wanner
TR 11:00-12:15pm Education L155
Prereq: ENGL 314 or graduate/professional standing
In this mixed grad-undergrad class we will apply the framework of Generative Grammar to the analysis of sentences in English. Every student will become the expert for one particular construction, such as the relative clause or the imperative. Tree diagrams will get fairly complex in this class, but what really makes this an advanced class in linguistics is the focus on the ability to construct and evaluate a syntactic argument.
515: Techniques and Materials for TESOL
TBA
TR 9:30-10:45am Grainger 2165
Prereqs: English 415
Course Catalog 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.
521: Advanced Old English Literature
Jordan Zweck
TR 9:30-10:45am White 7115
Prereq: ENGL/MEDIEVAL 520
Cross-Listed with Medieval Studies
Accelerated Honors (!)
An intensive study of Beowulf read in the original language (Old English). Line-by-line translation of the text will be supplemented by discussion of related issues (whether linguistic, thematic, or contextual) as well as by readings from relevant critical literature. Open to graduate students as well as undergraduates. PREREQUISITE: one semester’s study of the Old English language (English/Medieval 520 or equivalent).
525: Health and the Humanities
TBA
TR 1:00-2:15pm White 4208
Prereq: Declared in the Health and the Humanities certificate
Cross-Listed with Medical History & Bioethics and History of Science
Course Catalog Description: Explores how a humanistic perspective can broaden our understanding of health and medicine. Specifically, we will examine the role of language and culture in the creation and circulation of biomedical knowledge; our lived experiences with illness (physical and mental); the intricate intersections of race, gender, sexuality, disability and medicine; the political dimensions of diagnosis, disease, and epidemics, and the role that fiction, creative non-fiction, comics, and film play in shaping our experiences with health and medicine as health care providers and as patients. The course does not assume any background in science or medicine. One of our recurrent topics, in fact, will be to consider how non-experts interact with medicine and its technical vocabularies. Although the primary objective of the course is to understand the cultural, social, and political dimensions of health and medicine, a secondary objective is for students to become more savvy patients and, for the few students who might emerge on the other side of the stethoscope one day, more well rounded health care professionals.
543: Discourses of Disability, Antiquity to 1800
Elizabeth Bearden
TR 2:30-3:45pm White 4208
Prereqs: Sophomore standing
This course centers on concepts of disability from antiquity to the Renaissance. Literary theory, philosophy, and history will help us frame our thinking about how disability is produced. Along with considering how texts like Shakespeare’s Richard III or Milton’s Samson Agonistes represent disabled figures, we will investigate the generic, social, and spatial contexts from which these representations arise. The reading for this advanced, comparative course will be plentiful and challenging. A willingness to work hard and an openness to new ways of thinking are required.
The course has four thematic areas of focus:
1. Genealogies of disability: monsters, miracles, marvels, medicalization?
2. Body, passibility, and incarnate subjectivity
3. Narrative prostheses and unnatural narratology
4. Space, the imago mundi, and geographies of disability
Learning Outcomes:
The student should have a firm understanding of the course content and themes by the end of the class. These topics will help to define our lively classroom discussion and critical thinking. Writing assignments will encourage the student to demonstrate knowledge of this content, make a compelling argument through textual analysis, and hone their writing skills. The goal of the course is not only to provide an understanding of the history of the representation of disability in literature before 1800, but to think critically and deeply about how these early productions of disability continue to affect the way we ascribe meaning to disability today.
578: Modern American Drama and Theatre
Aparna Dharwadker
TR 11:00-12:15pm White 4208
Prereq: Junior standing
Cross-Listed with Theatre and Drama
As a field of performance “American theatre” has existed for more than two hundred years, but theatrical activity during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted mainly of transatlantic imports from countries such as Britain, Ireland, and Germany, as well as revivals of major European playwrights, especially Shakespeare. Significant original American drama is said to begin with the generation of Eugene O’Neill around 1916, and has developed over a century into a rich, diverse body of work supported by a variety of commercial and institutional structures. An important aspect of the diversity is a complication of the idea of “Americanness”—following a period of dominance by white male playwrights such as O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee, American drama now includes perhaps the largest concentration of notable women playwrights in the contemporary world, as well as groundbreaking figures from the African American, Asian American, Native American, and Chicano communities, among others.
This course will therefore employ the term “American” to define both a distinctive national space and an inclusive creative category for approaching the drama and theatre of the past century. Its focus will be on classic plays by major playwrights of both genders, belonging to “mainstream” as well as “minority” communities. The discussion will attend consistently to drama’s multiple modes of existence—as a printed text meant for readers, as a live performance meant for audiences, and as a text or performance that can now be disseminated ad infinitum through the media of photography, film, television, video/DVD, and the internet.
613: TESOL: Pedagogical Grammar l
TBA
TR 1:00-2:15pm Educ Sci 304
Prereq: ENGL 415
This is a modular section that meets January 21, 2020 thru February 16, 2020 (Session Code ADD, 5 weeks of instruction)
Course Catalog Description: A focus on understanding English grammar from a pedagogical perspective for the purpose of teaching English as a second or foreign language.
614: TESOL: Pedagogical Grammar ll
TBA
TR 1:00-2:15pm Educ Sci 304
Prereq: ENGL 415
This is a modular section that meets February 17, 2020 thru March 29, 2020 (Session Code EFE, 5 weeks of instruction)
Course Catalog Description: A focus on understanding English grammar from a pedagogical perspective for the purpose of teaching English as a second or foreign language. The emphasis is on theory and techniques applicable to teaching English grammar.
615: TESOL: Teaching, Listening, and Speaking
TBA
TR 1:00-2:15pm Educ Sci 304
Prereq: ENGL 415
This is a modular section that meets March 30, 2020 thru May 1, 2020 (Session Code KEE, 5 weeks of instruction)
Course Catalog Description: An overview of listening and speaking skills and how to teach them.
672: Selected Topics: Afro-American Literature
Topic: Critical Innovations in African American Literature
Thulani Davis
MW 11:00-12:15pm White 4208
Prereq: Junior standing
Cross-listed with Afro-American Studies
This course focuses on foundational works and interventions in African American Literature shaping the directions in work today. Authors to be read move from fiction by Charles Chesnutt (1890s) to Colson Whitehead, spoken word & theater works from the black arts movement, as well as Bill Gunn, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, and Lydia Diamond, and major essays on literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present.