ENGL 209
Introduction to Linguistics
3 credits

Jessica Zerr
T TH  9:30-10:45

This course is designed to give you an overview of the study of language as well as a greater appreciation for language. We will familiarize ourselves with the structure of language, ask how language works to make meaning, consider how people acquire language(s), discuss how language is used in particular social contexts, and examine the dynamic nature of language. We will also briefly consider how language is encoded into writing systems and how literacy skills relate to language. While we may look at examples from many different languages, English will provide the basis for most discussion and analysis.

Typical assignments will include in-class quizzes on assigned readings, periodic take-home assignments, and 3 exams (including a final).

Text:
Fromkin, Rodman, Hyams. An Introduction to Language. (8th ed.) Thomson-Wadsworth.

ENGL 209
Introduction to Linguistics
3 credits

Jessica Zerr
T TH  12:30-1:45

This course is designed to give you an overview of the study of language as well as a greater appreciation for language. We will familiarize ourselves with the structure of language, ask how language works to make meaning, consider how people acquire language(s), discuss how language is used in particular social contexts, and examine the dynamic nature of language. We will also briefly consider how language is encoded into writing systems and how literacy skills relate to language. While we may look at examples from many different languages, English will provide the basis for most discussion and analysis.

Typical assignments will include in-class quizzes on assigned readings, periodic take-home assignments, and 3 exams (including a final).

Text:
Fromkin, Rodman, Hyams. An Introduction to Language. (8th ed.) Thomson-Wadsworth.

ENGL 225
Introduction to Film
3 credits

Chris Jacobs

3 Sections:
  1.  T 2:00-4:00 / W 2:00-2:50
  2.  T 2:00-4:00 / W 3:00-3:50
  3.  T 2:00-4:00 / TH 2:00-2:50

This class will introduce you to the basics of film production, narrative, performance, style, cinematography, editing, sound, etc. It will also expose you to a variety of films produced in the U.S. and other countries from the very beginnings of the medium in the 1890s, through the so-called "silent era" of the 1910s-20s and the "golden age" of Hollywood in the 1930s-50s, up to the present, including some films in foreign languages with English subtitles. Students interested only in the latest Hollywood hits are in the wrong class and should drop immediately to make room for serious students. We will be viewing films to see how they function as commercial/entertainment/artistic artifacts, as well as how we might place them within certain historical/cultural perspectives, and why these ways of seeing film might be more or less important to us as viewers. You will learn how filmmakers can guide and manipulate audience response. By the end of this class you will become adept at viewing films with an eye toward how they affect you as a person.

There will be two papers and three unit tests, but no comprehensive final exam.

Our text will be Richard Barsam's Looking at Movies (second edition), which comes with two DVDs of tutorials and short films.

ENGL 226
Introduction to Creative Writing
3 credits

Staff
MWF  9:00-9:50

ENGL 226
Introduction to Creative Writing
3 credits

Staff
MWF  12:00-12:50

ENGL 226
Introduction to Creative Writing
3 credits

Heidi Czerwiec
TR  2:00-3:15

In this class, you will become familiar with the basic elements of craft that writers use to write fiction, poetry, and nonfiction/memoir.  You will learn to recognize and discuss these elements in assigned readings, apply them to your own writing in short in-class exercises and longer writing assignments, and critique them in each other’s work during workshops.

Course Requirements:

• Regular attendance and active participation in class discussions
• One written piece for each assignment (about one per week)
• Specific comments on class members’ writing for workshop
• Portfolio of revised work at end of semester

Required Texts:
Writing Poems (7th ed.). Ed. Boisseau, Wallace, and Mann. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.
40 Short Stories (2nd ed.). Ed. Beverly Lawn. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.
Photocopies of your own work for workshops

Sheryl O'Donnell
MWF  10:00-10:50

This course will explore our recurring fascination with figures of noncompliant females in Western culture, from the disobedient daughters and wives of Greek tragedies and the Bible to Girls Gone Wild, Sarah Palin, and Amy Winehouse.  How are we to read stories of women’s anger and dissent today, when notions of “transgression” and “resistance” are commonly trafficked by corporate interests, fashion magazines, and self-help booksto discipline women’s fantasies of freedom and pleasure?   Films such as Mildred Pierce, Monster, Thirteen, North Country, A Very Curious Girls, and Frozen River will be explored for the production of violent, dissident sexuality in popular culture: how is it created, controlled, and contested?  Students who are thinking of applying to law school, history majors, and cultural critics will enjoy comparing North Country, starring Charlize Theron, filmed on Minnesota’s Iron Range, with Theron’s portrayal of  Monster, a woman serial killer whose trial is the subject of a documentary film.  Students familiar with Ibsen’s A Doll’s House will be interested to see a contemporary film with a twist on the topic, Welcome to the Doll’s House. 

Frequent writing assignments, class discussion, two papers and a final examination will provide grades for the course.

Required Texts:
Euripides, Medea and Other Plays  (Penguin, ISBN 0140441298)
Linda Kaufman, Bad Girls and Sick Boys:  Fantasies in Contemporary Art and Culture
     (U California Press, ISBN 0520210328)
Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra (Oxford UPress, ISBN 0192835882)

Sharon Carson
M  3:00-5:30

The 2008 U.S. presidential election sparked some interesting debate in American culture about the political and cultural legacy of the Black Civil Rights Movement, a movement which has also been for many years the subject of literature, film and new media. 

In this course, we will study a range of literary and artistic interpretations of the Black Civil Rights Movement.  We will organize our work through the close reading and careful analysis of fiction, drama, poetry, essays, film, visual art and various “new media” (digital and multi-media artistic works, web pages, archives projects, etc).

Some of what we study will have been produced during the 1940s-1970s, and other works will be more recent. We’ll ask questions along the way about how our own current and varied historical experience influences our interpretations of these works.

Here are some of the topics we’ll look at:  the key role of returning WWII African American veterans in “sparking” the civil rights movement; civil rights in the context of African American history;  the influence of Gandhi and other international political philosophers;  the role of black churches in African American culture and politics; controversies within the movement (e.g. Southern Christian Leadership Conference in tension with Black Nationalism, etc) ; varied definitions of “civil rights” and “human rights” and the implications of those debates; the relationship of American labor organizing to civil rights history; the part played by grassroots educational organizations like the Highlander Center (rural Tennessee); the impact of Cold War politics on government responses to the Black Civil Rights Movement; the relationship of the Black Civil Rights Movement to other civil and human rights movements of the 1940s-1970s, including organizations like the National Congress of American Indians and the United Farm Workers of America, as well as broader campaigns like the Poor People’s Campaign and the early gay rights movement.  Last but not least, we’ll look at the more recent national and international legacies of the Black Civil Rights Movement.

This class blends the study of history, political philosophy, literature, film and multi-media art.  It is intended as an introductory level class in all of these fields, and is a good choice for experienced students as well as for students new to any of these subjects.  It is also a great class for working on your writing and analytical skills at any level.  The main requirement is strong interest in learning to analyze literature, film and other media/art in relation to social and historical questions.

We’ll hope that the class includes people bringing a good range of opinions and experiences to the table.

Michelle Sauer
T TH  11:00-12:15

This class both is and is not “about” the Harry Potter books. This class will examine the Harry Potter phenomenon by examining the novels in context. In other words, we will not only be reading the novels themselves, but also be reading Rowling’s antecedents and influences, and further examining her contemporaries and followers. Why has this series of children’s books achieved world-wide recognition? Is that popularity justified? What can we learn about growing up? About British culture? About philosophical topics such as good and evil? How does the Harry Potter phenomenon relate to the European tradition of storytelling, myths, and fairy tales?

We will approach these works from a variety of critical perspectives, focusing primarily on issues of gender, class, and culture. Course expectations include keeping to a reading schedule, active participation in classroom discussion and activities, and completing a research project.

Texts will include: the novel or movie versions of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling; Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Thomas Hughes); The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman); Five Children and It (Edith Nesbit); Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer).

Rebecca Weaver-Hightower
MWF  11:00-11:50

This class can be taken for Essential Studies credit, toward fulfillment of Arts and Humanities distribution requirements. The course is open to all students.

This course will use literature to study cultures from elsewhere in the world, with a special emphasis on examining issues of violence and reconciliation.  This course is organized geographically in order to discuss a range of cultures, with each unit focused on a different geographical “hot spot” of violence and reconciliation.  As part of our study of Ireland, for instance, we will read Jennifer Johnston’s How Many Miles to Babylon, a poignant novel of a friendship divided by the civil war between the Northern Protestant Irish and the Southern Catholic Irish; and for our discussion of South Africa, we’ll read Antjie Krog’s moving account of working with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Country of My Skull.  We’ll study cultures and conflicts around the world (including those in Australia, South America, and the Middle East) and will examine efforts made towards reconciliation, again as represented in major literary works.  We will pair each literary text with viewing of a film (including Rabbit Proof Fence, Tsotsi, and other award-winning films) in order to give us a visual experience of the cultures under examination.  Following the Essential Studies guidelines for courses focused on global diversity, this course will consistently foreground issues of culture, using literature to ask questions about representation and cultural difference.
You do not need to come into this class with prior knowledge of the history of these countries.  All that is required is that you are interested in learning about other cultures and cultural concepts and willing to read/view some fascinating but sometimes painful stories of surviving that violence.

Michael Beard
MWF  10:00-10:50

We’ll read a series of famous works from the history of world literature, famous because they are so influential (you know – all those works people say they’ve read but really haven’t).  We’ll really read them though.  We’ll put them in chronological order:  from the beginning of the written record to the period of the European Renaissance, starting with brief selections from Homer (ca. 9th Century B.C.) and concluding with selections from Cervantes’ Don Quixote (early 1600's).  Our readings from European literature occupy the center of the course, since they are more familiar and they offer us a reference point, but we’ll include as many examples as we can of masterpieces from outside the western world too.  Sometimes I’ll emphasize their historical background.  In that respect this is like a world history course. 

Another emphasis is not historical at all.  I’m choosing readings with some quality that makes them stand apart from, or transcend, the period in which they were recorded.  The fact that they are still famous is evidence of it. At some point we need to notice not just what they say but how they say it. (By the way I always like to show how translation shapes each reading.)  Alongside the historical theme (which will allow you to see one book influence later ones), there is another issue—their style.  I’ll try to point out how styles change with time, and what makes each writer effective.  (There’s nothing wrong with a history course, but down deep this isn’t one.) 

So we’ll follow two tracks—content and form.  I want to shape this course as a history (call it a history of the imagination) but at the same time I want us to see universal issues (ethics, love, mortality, self-expression and its limits), which make our reading seem contemporary.  We’ll choose the works that have shaped us whether we know it or not.

There will be two midterm tests plus a short paper and a final.

Textbook:
Norton Anthology of World Literature, 2nd ed., vols. A, B & C

Michael Flynn
MWF  1:00-1:50

What does it mean to be an English major?  This class will focus on the kinds of work scholars do in constructing the discipline of English.  We will consider poetry, short fiction, the novel, drama, and film, using the basic formal features of each genre to explore the ways literary texts produce meanings.  We will practice the basic interpretive skills that every scholar of English draws on, breaking down reading and writing about literature into component parts which you will be able to put back together in future classes.  As we do so, we will improve your ability to write and revise effective interpretive arguments.  In addition, the class will introduce you to many other facets of the discipline of English – linguistics, rhetoric, creative writing, editing, and cultural studies – and explore that discipline’s relevance in our culture today.  By considering your coursework in this larger context, you will become more aware of the professional options available to you, and be able to make better-informed choices about your future course of study.

Yvette Koepke
TR  11:00-12:15

What does it mean to study "English"? This class will focus on the kinds of work English majors, faculty, and scholars do in constructing the discipline of English. The class will use the basic formal features of literary genres to explore how texts produce meanings. Through learning the analytic skills that every scholar of English—and indeed every reader—draws on, this course will improve your ability to write and revise effective interpretive arguments. To this end, we will break down reading and writing into their component parts to enable you to put them together on your own in future classes. In addition, the class will introduce you to the many facets of the discipline of English including the branches of creative writing, editing, linguistics, and composition and pursue the field’s relevance in our larger culture and world. By placing your course-work in its larger context, the broader goal is to make you more aware of the options available to you and so enable informed choices about your future course of study and intellectual development.

The course requires consistent participation in class discussions, numerous informal writings, and four papers.

Christopher Nelson
MWF  12:00-12:50

Designed as the second part of the introduction to the English major, this class surveys the dominant ways of approaching literature, known as “theory.” This knowledge will show you how the discipline works, help you understand your coursework in a larger context, and deepen your ability to analyze texts. At the same time, this class is also about recognizing how and why you already interpret literature in the ways you do, and what the social and political implications of those interpretations are. Rather than an abstract imposition on texts, critical theory arises organically from attempts to interpret texts in various social, political, and economic contexts, and so is something you already do. Critical theory gives us a shared vocabulary to talk about what we do as readers and writers of texts, as thinkers, as historical and cultural subjects; it challenges us to make more thoughtful choices as members of academic and social communities; and enables us to revisit our basic assumptions and values, and try on new ways of thinking. The course will be divided into three parts that balance accessible explanations of critical theory with examples of primary thought, and literary applications with abstract theoretical issues and implications beyond the classroom. The first part will use selections from The Seagull Reader: A Poetry Anthology and Drown by Junot Diazto illustrate the premises of major theoretical schools, including new criticism, structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, feminism, queer theory, new historicism, critical race theory, cultural studies, and postcolonialism. The second part will explore these theories further as ways of thinking. Working through Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today, we will reflect on the broader implications of theory, and what theories suggest about the world. How texts and theories reciprocally illuminate one another will be the focus of the third part of the course, which will use brief excerpts of the work of major theorists alongside Nella Larsen’s Passing and Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods as case studies.

During the first quarter of this course we will examine scripts from successful 30-minute TV shows and analyze what made/makes them “work.”  Students will also learn correct script format, how to create strong dialogue, and develop plot.  We will then put these new skills to good use as students write their own 30-minute “spec” script during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the semester.  Using a workshop format, students are required to bring in pages to class for critique.  They will then revise these pages until they have produced a polished draft of a 30-minute TV show (in a genre of their choosing). 

At the beginning of the 4th quarter of the semester, students will “pitch” their scripts to a panel of individuals outside of the class.  Three scripts will be selected for further development with an opportunity to have it produced in the spring TV Production course.  At this point, students will work in teams to polish the 3 selected scripts. 

From these produced scripts, one may be selected for airing on local cable stations.  We underscore “may” because the class is set up with the same real world conditions that any spec writer would encounter.  The majority of pilots never air, but we are hopeful that this will not be the case in the first ever UND TV writing/production course. 

Required Texts:  The craft text is still being decided, but we will also read scripts from episodes of “The Office” and “Flight of the Conchords” and “Seinfeld.”

Requirements:  One paper at the end of the first unit.  Multiple drafts of one 30-minute TV script.  Participation in workshops.  Collaboration on group script in final quarter.

Recommended prerequisites: any introductory class in film, drama, popular culture, creative writing, media, or video production.

This is intended as a concise but comprehensive course on using recent digital technology for personal self-expression in the dominant literary form of the past century—moving pictures—starting with the written word (the screenplay). While learning various cinematic storytelling concepts, the class will work together to develop a script and follow it into a finished movie through the various stages of preproduction, production, and postproduction. Class members will take turns performing the various crew functions to gain a broad range of experience planning, shooting, and editing. Some time may also be devoted to discussing options for distribution and exhibition for the independent moviemaker. During the early weeks, the class will view episodes of "Project Greenlight." Several feature films (Hollywood and independent) will also be viewed and discussed as examples of motion picture production realities and/or what can be done with limited means. Each student will write one script from which the class project(s) will be chosen. The final grade will depend heavily upon class participation. The main project for this class will be a group effort by the whole class or two or more smaller groups, depending upon prior experience and/or length of the script(s) chosen to produce. There will be no exams.

This course is designed to introduce students to a selection of the major writers who lived from, approximately, the fourteenth through the eighteenth century. During this long historical period, literature in English effectively came to life, underwent several transformations, and set many of the parameters for what we recognize as literature in our own historical period. The writers we will cover in this course are by no means mere historical curiosities; their contributions to literature continue to be felt even to this very day. There is no way we can cover every writer of importance from this lengthy historical period. Instead, we will engage a small selection of writers and topics with the invitation to look further in future courses. By the end of the course, you should have a grasp of the writers we cover, as well as the major themes and problems they addressed through their poems, plays, and prose writings. In addition, you should have some familiarity with the various literary styles that appeared, with an understanding of both how and why they “work.” Finally, you will demonstrate your engagement with these texts through a series of writing assignments. Some will be analytical/interpretive essays. Others will invite you to take a more creative approach. All of them will challenge you to respond to the works from this exciting period in original, thoughtful ways.

Text:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th Edition, Vols. A, B, & C

In recent years, American literature has been increasingly studied within international and global contexts, and the category “American” has been opened up (and argued about!) in very interesting ways.  In this survey of “early” American literature (“Beginnings to 1865”), we’ll use an anthology of American literature that includes some familiar subjects: American Indian oral tradition and literature; colonial literatures of allsorts; writers of/on the American Revolution and early national era; writers on slavery, democracy, religion; early African American literature; and the “American Renaissance” (Melville, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Fuller etc).

But in addition to these topics, we’ll read these same American writers in relationship to historical developments and writers from other countries and times.  We’ll see how our own interpretations of “American” literature, culture and history may shift in interesting ways when we work comparatively, internationally, and with attention to global dynamics and their influences on American writers “then,” and ourselves as interpreters “now.”  We’ll crash back and forth across time, and wander across national boundaries, thinking rigorously as we go about just what such comparative work requires of us.

This is a survey course, designed for interested students at all levels of undergraduate study, and is open to students from all majors.  It is a great course if you are interested in literature, art, American and international history, philosophy, world literatures, comparative religions, and thinking about challenging ideas.   The course will help you with your writing and analytical skills at whatever level.  No previous experience with the subject matter is required, but active interest in American and international culture is important.

This is the first of two advanced composition courses where the emphasis is on nonfiction writing of various types. We expect that close attention to prose, generally, will result in your improvement as a writer in a variety of genres and situations. Because students frequently desire to write personal essays, this course will build upon that interest. In doing so, we will need to consult fiction writers who have experience in creating coherent prose featuring human actors, which they call characters. That's what we'll call them, too, including ourselves (if we write autobiographically); we'll be known as "narrators" and "characters," both of whom will abide by the laws of their own internal logic.

So in addition to attending to language as we ought (including grammar), we'll enjoy ourselves in crafting prose that can broadly be called nonfiction, but which might also be called autobiography, biography, oral history, sports writing, even humor writing.

Required Texts:
Forche, Carolyn, ed. Writing Creative Nonfiction   
Halberstam, David, ed. The Best American Sports Stories Of The Century Schmidt,
Victoria Lynn.  Story, Structure, Architect

Shakespeare emerged from relative obscurity to become an actor and playwright at a time when professional theater was still new. He made a name for himself from the start. His earliest plays depicted recent English history, bringing to life the chaos and violence that had gripped his nation in the previous century. In his tragedies, took over familiar models and developed them in directions that the London audiences had never seen before. But it was his romantic comedies where he was perhaps most groundbreaking. In these plays, he challenged every imaginable belief about the nature and course of romantic love.

This course is designed to help students become more familiar with the texts and performances of Shakespeare's plays. We will carefully read, discuss, watch (when available), and write about a select number of Shakespeare plays. (These plays range from the early to middle part of his career, and they represent some of his most daring, yet finest accomplishments.) We will explore many topics throughout the semester. These include, but will not be limited to the following: Shakespeare's "theories" of acting, and the reasons why he was so enigmatic about them; the so-called "battle of the sexes," and the difficult art of falling in love; the motives and techniques of good "impersonations"; the representation of personality (and anonymity) in the modern, urban world; the control of public space; the fine, though sometimes dubious art of "falling in love"; the dream-world, the trance-world, and the world of madness and delusion; the uses and misuses of magic (and pharmaceuticals); theater and politics; social turmoil and rebellion. Other topics undoubtedly will emerge. Part of what makes Shakespeare a playwright for "all time" is his ability to continually lead to new discoveries.

In this course, we will explore the development of the short story in the United States, both in terms of artistic trends and cultural influences. The course requires careful reading, thorough participation, two exams, and an essay.

Texts:
Hitchcock, et. al., American Short Stories (latest edition)
Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
various handouts

During the last part of the 19th century, changing economic and social conditions in America led to the emergence of what was called the “new woman”—a woman who challenged traditional gender roles and revolted against the Victorian cult of domesticity. Expressing a desire for independence and personal fulfillment, this “new woman” established a presence outside the home—joining the workforce and venturing into the realms of art, politics, and higher education. The “new woman” also felt freer to express her sexual nature, encountering hostile responses from critics who viewed her as a threat to traditional morality.

This course will examine the treatment of the “new woman” in American fiction from 1890 to 1940, focusing primarily on works by female writers. We will evaluate the authors’ attitudes toward this modern, liberated woman and consider whether the “new woman” depicted by American fiction writers reflects the historical reality. Although literary images of the “new woman” take many forms (e.g., the artist, the flapper, the actress, the “working girl”), the works to be studied all present women who make modern choices and who seek to escape from the stifling conventions of an earlier generation.

REQUIREMENTS: Two short papers, a midterm and final exam, and in-class writing assignments.

TEXTS:
Freeman, The Revolt of ‘Mother’ and Other Stories
Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Stories
Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings
Dreiser, Sister Carrie
Cather, O Pioneers!
Wharton, Summer
Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

FILM: Gone with the Wind

This course is essential for English majors—especially anyone planning to take the GRE some day. In this course we will read some of the best and most influential texts of English and Irish literature, all composed during a very turbulent twentieth century that saw two world wars, a failing empire, evolving gender roles, exponential growths in technology, and shifting perceptions of race, religion, class and nationality. The literature is just as complex and interesting as the history. From soldiers jotting poems in the trenches of WWI to Virginia Woolf and James Joyce scrawling novels in their respective writing grottos to Roddy Doyle and Zadie Smith penning their hilarious reflections in multiracial Dublin and London, these writers all engage with and reflect their times. As well as reading and discussion, this course will involve concentrated work on writing, taking three essays through a drafting process that will, by semester’s end, produce better writing and better writers.

Text list: (all available in the bookstore and in used form online):
Sean O’Casey, Juno and the Paycock
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Zadie Smith, White Teeth: A Novel
Roddy Doyle, The Van
David Damrosch, The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol 2c: the Twentieth Century
Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party and the Room: Two Plays

ENGL 397
Cooperative Education
1-8 credits, repeatable to 15

Prerequisites: 15 credits completed in English; 2.5 GPA; 2.75 GPA in English.

A course designed to offer English majors work experience related to their disciplinary training in close reading, careful writing, and interpretative analysis. S/U grading only.

ENGL 398
Independent Study
1-4 credits

Prerequisite: Written consent of the department.

For English majors only. Supervised independent study. Only 6 hours may apply to the 36-hour English major.

As Latino populations continue to burgeon in the U.S., literary production follows suit. As we examine novels, poetry, short stories, drama, criticism, and theory, we will focus on the diverse voices and experiences that populate Latino/a literary production, reading across genres and traditions. We will simultaneously track Latino/a literary history and analyze articulations of Latino/a everyday life and politics grounded in distinct geographical and social contexts. Issues related to migration, segregation, violence, poverty, gentrification, and struggles for social justice will figure prominently in our discussions. Guiding questions include: Does Latino/a writing challenge commonly held perceptions of Latino/a life or sustain them? What are the conversations between and conflicts within Latina/o literature and among its writers? How do these works negotiate identity, self-representation, and hybridity? How do aesthetics, politics, and community intersect? How do race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class consciousness manifest within texts? Finally, we will consider how Latino/a literature converses with broader traditions of U.S. and Latin American literatures. Work for the course will include frequent in-class writings, three papers, and facilitating class discussion.

Texts:
Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek
Graciela Limon, Erased Faces
Edgardo Vega Yunque, Casualty Report
Martin Espada, Alabanza
Jovita González, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul and Other Stories
Americo Paredes, George Washington Gomez
Miguel Piñero, Short Eyes
Ana Castillo, Watercolor Women/Opaque Men
Gil Cuadros, City of God
Loida Maritza Perez, Geographies of Home
Ana Menendez, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd

This course continues the work of Engl 306. The course will be conducted mainly through class discussion and peer review. Students will read published stories and one another’s fiction; students will write at least three stories and carefully revise some of this work for a final portfolio. There will be some emphasis on publication as well as the possibility of a student reading night.

Required Text:
The Art of the Story by Daniel Halpern, ed.

Recommended Text:
The Truth About Fiction by Steven Schoen

The novel is such a dominant feature of today’s literary landscape that it can be hard to imagine a time without it.  But as its name indicates, the genre is a relatively recent invention; while the epic poem and the tragic play, for instance, have histories stretching back thousands of years, the novel has only been around since the beginning of the eighteenth century.  Nor has it always enjoyed the comfortable reputation it possesses today; for much of its history it been accused of lowering the intellectual tenor of society, detaching its devoted readers from reality, and worst of all, corrupting the morals of youth.

This course is the first of two that will follow the history of the English novel.  It will trace the rise of the English novel from its emergence in the 1720s to its unprecedented popularity in the 1850s, and will cover works by Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Austen, and Dickens, among others.  Over the course of the term, we’ll talk about the various genres the novel grew out of, as well as the characteristics that distinguishes it from them.  We’ll discuss the novel’s cultural origins, especially its close connections with the emergence of capitalist culture and a mass reading public.  We’ll examine both the novel’s high literary features and its persistent intersections with violence and sex.  And as we read some major theories about the rise of the novel, we’ll ask ourselves why critics have had so much trouble defining and explaining this crucial literary form.

A second course in the sequence will be offered in spring, and trace the career of the English novel from 1850 to the present day.  But each course will stand on its own, and students are more than welcome to take just one or the other.

This course is principally designed for those who are interested in teaching English as a second language. It integrates TESL theories and classroom practice, so that participants can become not only more proficient and resourceful as ESL teachers, but also more knowledgeable about the differences between teaching English to L1 and L2 students as well as how TESL methods work. Topics include TESL theories and methods based on different linguistic schools, assessment of language proficiency, TESL textbook evaluation and selection, syllabus design, lesson plan preparation, ESL tests design and evaluation, and especially methods and techniques to teach listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Prerequisite: English 209 or permission of the department chairperson or the instructor.

Text:
Alice Omaggio Hadley (2000). Teaching Language in Context. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

FOR ENGLISH EDUCATION MAJORS ONLY

This is one of two Methods courses required of all majors who plan to become licensed as middle/secondary English teachers. 

Prerequisites: T&L 325 and 345. Students should also be close to completion of their English major and have taken English 309 and English 308 or 408.

The course will introduce students to some basic reading strategies and will offer practical advice on the teaching of literature (short stories, novels, poetry, and drama). We will discuss topics such as how to lead an effective discussion, how to teach vocabulary, how to make daily and long-range lesson plans, and how to motivate adolescents to become better readers. The course will also acquaint students with the variety of materials available to the English instructor, including scholarly research on the teaching of literature.

Course requirements: Lesson plans, practice teaching, two unit plans, a review of a young adult novel, and other reading and writing assignments.

Texts:
Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Sheridan, Teaching Secondary English (Second Edition)
Olson, The Reading/Writing Connection

Introduction to Editing and Publishing will provide an overview of the tasks involved in readying material for printing and distributing to a community of readers. From time to time, we will hear from professionals currently engaged in this enterprise, sharing their knowledge and experiences. We will follow in detail the journey from “hand-off” by an author to the final product that is read, revealing, I hope, the satisfactions in helping to create a worthy work. Our main focus will be on the print product, which has a rich history of practices and procedures that inform electronic publishing as well.

The history of the book from scroll to screen will be explored, as will the roles and responsibilities of editors and publishers. Among the questions addressed will be the ethics of changing an author’s text and similar interactions between editor and author.

Students do not need to have experience in or knowledge of these activities, just the desire to learn by reading, doing, discussing, and considering. Students’ are expected to participate in seminar-like discussions and to take a manuscript from holograph to final printed presentation. Brief mid-term and final exams are also part of the class.

A goal of the course is to explore editing and publishing as a career, a tradition fundamental to the development of the life of the mind and to the expansion, conservation, and critique of culture.
This course is one of the core requirements for a Certificate in Writing and Editing.

Text:
Gerald Gross, Editors on Editing, 3rd edn, 1993 (Grove Press).

The UND Writers Conference just celebrated its 40th Anniversary, but planning for the 41st conference is already well underway.  The theme of next year’s conference, “Mind the Gap: Print, New Media, Art” was chosen to build an appreciation of traditional print literature, as well as celebrate works in emerging media.  It was also selected so that we can bridge any generational gap that might exist by inviting individuals such as spoken word and hip-hop artist Saul Williams.

Each year, there is a substantial amount of writing necessary to introduce, frame, and explain the authors/poets/artists participating.  In this course, students will read works by authors who may participate (or who influenced those who may participate), write short essays in response to these works, and assist in creating content for 2010 UND Writers Conference website, as well as help expand the Writers Conference streaming video collection.

This class is one of the core requirements for a Certificate in Writing in Editing.

Possible Texts Include:
When Winter Come: The Ascension of York, Frank X. Walker
The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Teachings of Hip-Hop, Saul Williams
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
A Night at the Movies; Or, You Must Remember This, Robert Coover
Selections from the Electronic Literature Organization Directory
Slam (1999, film)

This course will explore a variety of issues within the discipline of English Studies, largely by analyzing (and practicing) the kinds of critical writing that are produced within the profession. We will begin with an examination of the history and disciplinary contours of English Studies. From that we will move onward to an extended examination of the rhetoric of literary criticism, before finishing with two projects in the final weeks of the course. The first of these will be the analysis of an academic journal (one of the key institutions that functions—in part—to define conventions of writing in the discipline). The second will be your opportunity to develop your own written interpretation of a literary work (still to be determined), putting into practice what you have learned about the rhetoric of criticism.

This course will give us the opportunity to discuss and to share practical teaching issues and also to continue to develop the strategies that we explored in the Fall Workshop.  New teachers are encouraged, through this course, to reflect on their own teaching practices and to think about those practices in the context of the Composition Program’s larger pedagogical objectives.

This course in the simplest sense has an obvious purpose: to carry out the mandate of the title, by reading in sequence famous works of criticism, as excerpted in David Richter’s The Critical Tradition.  That’s a starting point, and the class has existed on the books for that purpose for years.  We can restate that purpose: this is the history of the styles you’ll be using in your own writing.

This description really doesn’t say enough, though.  I learn this from time to time when students express confusion. When, for instance, students ask what the point is, the thrust, the purpose, the rationale of the course, I think I know what they mean.  The works we will read all address different issues, starting from really different cultural assumptions, and yet the conviction can emerge that we should be watching for the evolution of coherent, evolving themes.  I can assure you at the outset there is no triumphant narrative organizing the course whereby a developing stream of critical methods evolves into a higher being, or in which the mistaken views of our ancestors are gradually corrected or refined.  And yet. There is a kind of progress.  There are contemporary movements which I find really admirable (you’ll see which ones they are), and there are even themes which recur over the generations.  The concept of the “sublime,” for instance, which emerges in Kant’s theory of esthetics, has a great conceptual power—rooted as far back as Longinus’s essay Perihupsous--which still resonates in recent criticism.  (Another example is the power of dialogue versus a univocal point of view, still a powerful notion, articulated as early as Plato.  The concept of ideology, Hegel’s dialectic, the twinned ideas of form and content, the linguistic schema of the signifier and signified—there are concepts whose development is historically satisfying and which we can inherit with enthusiasm.) 

So we will encounter recurring themes.  This still leaves open an unstated question which haunts this course: can we consider our assignments as models for what we might write?  In a direct sense it’s doubtful, since it is in the nature of a course like ours that we select manifestos and general statements of principle, theoretical or critical, whereas indirectly we’re doing nothing else.  Just watch.

Let me start with the single most confusing component of the course.  We use the word “criticism” to mean at least three separate kinds of writing: evaluation, analysis and a third approach for which I like the name “poetics.”  Please keep this in mind as we begin our readings.

There will be occasional reports and a take-home final.

Required textbooks:
Plato, Phaedrus
David Richter, ed. The Critical Tradition (Bedford), any edition (though the 3rd edition will be in the bookstore)
Jacques Derrida, Disseminations, trans. Barbara Johnson (Univ. of Chicago Press)

With the rise of postmodernism and its “incredulity toward grand narratives,” its perpetual free-play of language, and its “reality” that is “unrepresentable,” “facts” are no longer facts, but are “events to which we have given meaning.”  This situation even led Jean Baudrillard to declare that the “postmodern” is “characteristic of a universe where there are no definitions possible…..It has all been done…..It has destroyed itself.  It has deconstructed its entire universe.  So all that are left are the pieces.  Playing with the pieces—that is postmodern.”  While there may be no possible (absolute) definition of postmodernism, this assertion has not stopped nearly every scholar of it from piecing one together.  As scholars, we will do the same in this course by playing with the pieces of literature that scholars puzzle over most often by the authors identified as quintessentially “postmodern.” 

While these texts are known as being “difficult” (thanks to Jonathan Franzen) and “encyclopedic,” with the right ear and a little effort, they are often just laugh out loud funny (such as eleven year old JR Vansant’s take on Wagner’s opera: “So then this here lady starts singing up yours up yours so then this man starts singing up mine, then there’s some words so she starts singing up mine up mine so he starts singing up yours so they go back and forth like that up mine up yours up mine up yours that’s what I heard!”). 

As a group, we will explore the twists and turns of the texts.  The only “prerequisites” for the class are a willingness to learn, a sense of humor (cynicism and sarcasm welcome), and a strong work ethic (a little book dust and lifting a few “loose baggy monsters” never hurt anyone).

Possible texts include:
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Thomas Pynchon
Snow White (1967), Donald Barthelme
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (1968), William H. Gass
Lost in the Funhouse (1968), John Barth
Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Kurt Vonnegut
J R (1975), William Gaddis
The Public Burning (1976), Robert Coover
Blood and Guts in High School (1979), Kathy Acker
Excerpted selections from various postmodern theorists

This course is designed to familiarize you with the basic structural elements of poetry, and with the main theories that have shaped poetry.  We will begin by reading and discussing the various major defenses of poetry after Plato, and ask why poetry needs defense at all.  We will then turn to an examination of the major poetic forms used by lyric poets writing in English, including traditional forms (sonnet, ode), alternative forms (syllabics, blues), and open forms.  We will begin this second section with a short mini-course on basic prosody, then move on to discuss the various forms (their functions, history, and examples), and even write in some of these forms (as exercises, not as a creative writing workshop).  This is not a creative writing class – all graduate students are welcome; however, graduate students intending to do thesis/dissertation work in creative writing and/or poetry must take this course.  Course assignments consist of two short papers on the critical readings; a presentation on one of the form groups; and for each form group studied during the second half of the class, you will either write an analysis of a poem, or write a poem, in that form.  As a result there are a lot of weekly reading and writing assignments, but no final project or paper.

Required texts:
Lofty Dogmas. Ed. Brown, Finch, and Kumin. Fayetteville: U of Arkansas P, 2005.
Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter & Poetic Form. (Any edition you can find is fine.)
Strand, Mark and Eavan Boland. The Making of a Poem. Norton: 2000.
Sidney, Philip. A Defense of Poetry (alternately titled An Apologie for Poetry – any edition you can find is fine.)
Beaucoups of handouts

This course explores the vital roles played by women in religious life and literature in England and on the Continent in the Middle Ages. The early Middle Ages gave birth to the view of the woman as the instrument of evil. That attitude shifted toward the later part of the period, and we will look at both. Additionally, we will look carefully at the connections between the body/sexuality with (affective) spirituality.

In particular, writings about mystical experience make up the most intense, most emotional, and most controversial genre of medieval literature. Mystics lived inner lives that distinguished them sharply from their fellow humans and outer lives that often threatened the religious and secular institutions of their day. Mysticism is especially important to medieval women's writing, not only because of the large number of female-authored mystical (and visionary) texts, but also because it attempts to articulate important relationships between female experience, female identity, and the divine.

Some topics to be covered include nuns and nunneries; the lives of recluses, mystics and anchorites; affective spirituality; urban women and religion; religion in the household and family; religious patronage by women.

Some texts include:
Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich
Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe
Ancrene Wisse and associated works
Selections from mystical and visionary texts

For a list of editions we will be using, please contact me.

ENGL 590
Readings:  Poetry Workshop
3 credits

Heidi Czerwiec
Time/Days TBA

While there are not enough students to offer either an advanced (413) or graduate (517) poetry workshop, there are two students who need this credit. Therefore, I will be offering an independent study poetry workshop, which will focus on discussions of poetic craft and student work.  Date and time will be determined by my schedule and the schedules of those taking this mini-workshop.  This class is capped at 5, so those interested should contact me.

As the title of one of our texts puts it, we’ll be reading popular narratives, verbally, visually, even musically represented.  Some of our “texts” will be from ordinary life, in the way anthropologists would conceive them, some from television or film, even music; some from  literature.  What will remain common to all is their narrative form and our approach, which could generally be construed as cultural studies, although the professor is not doctrinaire.  What will certainly be important is to understand the texts within a social and historical context.  Students will be aided in performing textual analyses.  We’ll often work back & forth between popular culture and art.

Required readings (Don’t purchase books yet:  there may be some changes) 

Kopple, Barbara.  American Dream. (documentary film)
Loach, Ken.  Bread and Roses (film)
Bennett, Tony et al.  New Keywords.
Benjamin, Walter.  The Work of Art in the Ages of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other
      Writings on Media.
Berube, Michael.  The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies
Johnson, Richard, et al.  Cultural Studies.
McKee, Alan.  Beautiful Things in Popular Culture
Van Sant, Gus.  Last Days (film)