|
COURSE DESCRIPTION
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
SUMMER 2006 hhtp://www.siu.edu/departments/english This pamphlet contains information submitted by the teaching faculty of the Department of English, SIUC, to inform students about courses being offered. The format for each course/section description is as follows:
The Writing Center provides resources for all SIUC students who want to improve their ability as writers. During the summer session, only the main Writing Center, Faner 2281, is open, with the hours to be posted on the Writing Center door and the Center's website (<www.siu.edu/~write>). Students may be seen for single-visit appointments, which can be made several days in advance. During these appointments, students may work with a tutor to develop effective strategies for any stage of the writing process from getting started on an assignment to revising an essay draft to editing the final copy. There is no charge for the visits. The staff during the summer session consists of two graduate assistants in English. Contact: Dr. Jane Cogie, Director of the Writing Center, Faner 2281, 453-6863. For explicit information on prerequisites, students should consult the Undergraduate Catalog. For further information, please contact the Department of English.
ENGLISH 101 ENGLISH COMPOSITION I Director of Writing Studies
Required Texts: Ramage & Bean. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing, Brief. 4rd ed. Allyn & Bacon, 2006.Aaron. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. 5th ed. Longman, 2004. Selzer. Conversations: Readings for Writing. Pearson Longman, 2006. Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Dover Thrift ed. Dover. Reynolds. Portfolio Keeping: A Guide for Students. Bedford/St . Martin’s English Composition I--English 101 provides students with the rhetorical foundations that prepare them for the demands of academic and professional writing. In this course, students will learn and employ the strategies and processes that good writers use whenever they try to accomplish a specific purpose. In college, these purposes include comprehending, instructing, entertaining, persuading, investigating, problem-solving, evaluating, explaining, and refuting. Each purpose can be addressed through impromptu writing, short-preparation writing, and long-term writing projects. In addition to preparing students for academic communication, this core-curriculum course prepares students to use writing to realize professional and personal goals. Therefore, class discussion and readings will address the function of rhetoric and of the composing process in a variety of contexts. To foster effective communication, the course will train students in the critical discussion of communication. During the semester, each student will learn to respond effectively to other authors’ writing and to use responses to his or her own writing as part of the composing process. PLACEMENT IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION I: ENGLISH 101
To qualify for placement in English 101, students must have completed English 100 with a C or better or have elected to enroll in the course. Students should review “The Student’s Guide to Directed Self-Placement and the English 100/Stretch Program,” which will also help students identify the introductory composition course that corresponds to their interest in, training in, and facility with critical reading and writing. This information is available on the Internet at http://www.siu.edu/departments/english/writing/index.html, from your instructor, or from the Writing Studies office in Faner 2390. COURSE GOALS After taking English 101, students should be able to generate good writing using various methods for critical thought, for the development of ideas, for the arrangement of those ideas to achieve a specific rhetorical goal, for the application of an appropriate style, and for revision and editing; demonstrate understanding of the ways that language and communication shape experience, construct meaning, and foster community; analyze and describe rhetorical contexts and use such descriptions to increase the efficacy of communicative acts; analyze and use the forms and conventions of academic writing, particularly the forms and conventions of argumentative and analytical writing; produce texts that demonstrate an understanding of how purpose, process, subject matter, form, style, tone and diction are shaped by particular audiences and by specific communicative constraints and opportunities; understand the importance of research to writing, explain the kind of research required by different kinds of writing, and compose effective texts by judiciously using field research, library resources, and sources retrieved from electronic media; employ critical reading and listening as a form of invention, efficiently compose reading and lecture notes that are concise and clear, synthesize different and divergent information, and use the integration of information from multiple sources to engage in critical discourse; use Edited American English appropriately COURSE MATERIALS
A 3.5” computer disk or a rewritable data CDAccess to a computer that is connected to the InternetCOURSEWORKDuring the semester, your instructor will require you to write frequently, for a variety of audiences and in variety of forms. Most of this work will serve as direct or indirect contributions to the primary project of English 101, the course Portfolio (explained below. The Portfolio will comprise revised versions of your major assignments (Unit Projects) and an analysis of your writing and your communicative development during the semester. During the semester you will do work that is equivalent to six major papers. Unit Projects English 101 is divided into four units, and at the end of each unit, you will produce a well developed text that is the equivalent of three to five double-spaced pages with one-inch margins and in twelve-point Times New Roman. For each unit, your instructor will post on the WebCT site detailed assignment guidelines (in the appropriate forum on the WebCT Discussion Board). Each of these texts (also called unit assignments, unit essays, or major assignments) will emerge from a process approach to writing. In this process, you engage in invention activities, planning activities, drafting activities, and revision/editing activities (including peer review). Unit One -- Application Packet: For a professional audience, you will compose a letter of application and a resume in support of an application for employment. Mandatory inclusion in the Portfolio. Unit Two -- Response Article: For an academic audience, you will compose a critical response to an academic article that will be assigned by your instructor. Mandatory inclusion in the Portfolio. Unit Three -- Analysis: For a business audience, you will compose a technical report that evaluates a one-page advertisement (which appears in a magazine that will be assigned by your instructor). Mandatory inclusion in the Portfolio. Unit Four -- Literature Review: You will synthesize material from a variety of sources about one subject. Optional inclusion in the Portfolio.
Small Assignments In some sense, each Unit Project will serve as a model for the Portfolio that you will submit near the end of the semester. Each Unit Project will gather your work during the unit as evidence of your rhetorical growth, just as the Portfolio will gather your work during the entire semester. During each unit, you will engage in work that will prepare the text that you will submit for review at the end of the unit. Often, these Small Assignments will be stages in the writing process, but they might be other documents such as quizzes and reading notes. Occasionally, your instructor will assign a more demanding assignment as a portion of this grade (for instance, a peer review of a classmate’s writing or a detailed summary of a reading); to such texts, the instructor will assign a greater value (the equivalent of three or five Small Assignments). During the semester, you will likely have one of these assignments due during each class. (Frequently, you will have to submit at the beginning of class one that you have composed at home and, then, compose another during class.) Though this course does not have a specific class participation grade, the Small Assignments will indicate your level of engagement. Portfolio This course has been designed to increase your ability to communicate, particularly in writing. It does so by encouraging you to develop and then exercise a rhetorical sensitivity by which you identify the constraints and opportunities of any communicative challenge and respond appropriately. To improve this ability (which you already posses), this course is structured around a portfolio system, in which a large portion of your grade (forty percent) is based on texts (Unit Projects) that you will be able to revise for much of the semester, drawing upon the rhetorical sensitivity that you develop, your instructor’s comments, your peers’ comments, and other resources that you might employ (for instance, the Writing Center). Near the end of the semester, you will submit your Portfolio by gathering work that you have done during the semester and polished to “presentation quality” text. You will present this work to your instructor in an appropriate fashion (for instance, in a three-ring binder, as a spiral-bound book, or as a webpage) as evidence of your ability to write and as evidence of your learning during the course of the semester. This presentation-quality project will be graded on the quality of the writing, not on effort. Nonetheless, the project’s subject is your enhanced understanding and improved ability to write. Exams In this class you will take a midterm and a final exam. The material that the exams will cover will be presented by the instructor later in the semester.
Percentages
Small Assignments 20 % Unit 1 (weeks 1- 3) 05 Unit 2 (weeks 4-7) 05 Unit 3 (weeks 9-11) 05 Unit 4 (weeks 14-15) 10 Portfolio (weeks 12-13) 40 Exams (week 8, finals week) 15 The schedule listed here is tentative and subject to some change. ENGLISH 102 ENGLISH COMPOSITION II Director of Writing Studies
Required Texts: Aaron. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. 5th ed. Longman, 2004. Lunsford, et al. Everything’s an Argument: With Readings. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. Crusius. Aims of Argument Selected Material (Chapters 10-16). McGraw Hill. Reynolds. Portfolio Keeping: Guide for Students. St. Martin’s.
A major goal of English Composition II is to prepare students for the complex demands of academic literacy. Successful academic writing requires that students be critical observers of personal and public knowledge; that they ask questions of reading and research, formulate hypotheses, design and conduct their own research, and identify further avenues of inquiry; and that they relate their discoveries persuasively to readers. To help them develop these abilities, English Composition II also teaches students the basic skills of summary, paraphrase, analysis, interpretation, critical thinking, and documentation. Some class discussion and readings focus on the function and scope of language and communication in a variety of academic contexts. The course is designed to help students become better writers and readers in the University. Course GoalsIn English 102, students will reinforce the rhetorical foundations learned in English Composition I; learn to apply the practical and productive knowledge of ethos, audience, subject matter, process, and context for complex purposes; learn strategies for reading and analyzing texts; sharpen their powers of observation and inquiry in conducting research in and possibly out of the library; learn the methods of argumentation and analysis valued in academic contexts; learn the appropriate use of documentation and Edited American English. CourseworkFour Papers
Each involves invention, drafting, revising, and editing (70% of course grade). Writer’s Notebook
The notebook may include responses to readings, practice with invention and style, peer responses, and a variety of other types of writing and research that exercise students’ abilities to write clearly and analytically and to read and think critically (20% of course grade). Final ExaminationsStudents will have two hours to write an essay on a topic to be announced (10% of course grade).A major goal of English Composition II is to prepare students for the complex demands of academic literacy. Successful academic writing requires that students be critical observers of personal and public knowledge; that they ask questions of reading and research, formulate hypotheses, design and conduct their own research, and identify further avenues of inquiry; and that they relate their discoveries persuasively to readers. To help them develop these abilities, English Composition II also teaches students the basic skills of summary, paraphrase, analysis, interpretation, critical thinking, and documentation. Some class discussion and readings focus on the function and scope of language and communication in a variety of academic contexts. The course is designed to help students become better writers and readers in the University. Course Goals In English 102, students will reinforce the rhetorical foundations learned in English Composition I; learn to apply the practical and productive knowledge of ethos, audience, subject matter, process, and context for complex purposes; learn strategies for reading and analyzing texts; sharpen their powers of observation and inquiry in conducting research in and possibly out of the library; learn the methods of argumentation and analysis valued in academic contexts; learn the appropriate use of documentation and Edited American English. Coursework
Four Papers
Each involves invention, drafting, revising, and editing (70% of course grade). Writer’s Notebook
The notebook may include responses to readings, practice with invention and style, peer responses, and a variety of other types of writing and research that exercise students’ abilities to write clearly and analytically and to read and think critically (20% of course grade). Final ExaminationsStudents will have two hours to write an essay on a topic to be announced (10% of course grade).
ENGLISH 119 INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING Staff This course offers an introduction to the art and craft of writing poetry and short fiction. Students read and analyze published poetry and fiction, write poems and stories, and read and discuss the work of their classmates. ENGLISH 290 INTERMEDIATE EXPOSITORY WRITING Director of Writing Studies
Required Texts: Aaron. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. 5th ed. Longman, 2001. Rosenwasser and Stephen. Writing Analytically. 4th ed. Thomson/Heinle, 2006. Since individual instructors may select a reader, students should check listing for specific sections at the bookstore.
English 290 is a course designed for any student enrolled in the University who wishes to improve his or her writing skills to meet the demands of academic writing across the disciplines. The emphasis is on analytical writing and research, and students will have opportunities to study and practice the rhetorical forms appropriate to their discipline. The course also teaches students the rhetorical foundations necessary for adapting writing to any situation. Course Goalsto foster rhetorical awareness of the conventions, purposes, patterns of arrangement, forms of proof, and style appropriate to a particular discipline. to teach methods of conducting and analyzing research, which includes textual and non-textual sources. to provide ample opportunities for various writing experiences. to develop prose that is clear, incisive, logically organized, persuasive, informative, and interesting. to teach students strategies for improving the texture, rhythm, grace, and coherence of sentences and paragraphs and for suiting style to purpose, form, and situation. ENGLISH 291 INTERMEDIATE TECHNICAL WRITING Director of Writing Studies
Required Texts: Aaron. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. 4th ed. Longman, 2001. Anderson. Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach. 5th ed. Thomson/Heinle, 2003. This course provides students with a greater awareness of the demands of professional literacy. Students will assess rhetorical situations (context, purpose, audience and subject matter) that are typical of nonacademic settings, while fostering skills that are essential for academic literacy. Emphasis will be placed on writing as a process with particular focus on making the transition from academic to work world writing tasks: recursive writing, using group conflict for invention, synthesizing research and feedback, and confronting issues of authorship. Course Goals
In English 291, students will continue with the development of strategies for assessing and integrating the demands of context, purpose, audience and subject matter; write documents that address a variety of audiences; adapt form, style, and tone to enhance credibility; develop strategies for assertive and effective collaboration; analyze and synthesize research from various sources and of different genres; sharpen powers of observation and listening through dictation and interviewing; revise by synthesizing different levels and sources of feedback; develop tools for organization and readability such as visual display; reinforce usage of Edited American English. CourseworkFive AssignmentsEach involves invention, drafting, revising and editing (50%). In Class AssignmentsIncludes assessing rhetorical situations, dictation, and responses to readings (20%). Collaborative Project: (20%)
Final Examination
Students will have two hours to demonstrate their knowledge by choosing from a list of rhetorical situations, assessing the situation, and chronicling the process an individual or group would go through to produce the appropriate, final document (10%).
ENGLISH 301 INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY ANALYSIS Bogumil
Joyce. Dubliners. Dover. James. The Turn of the Screw. Dover. McPherson. The Weir. Dramatists Play Service. Shepard. Fool for Love. Dramatists Play Service. Wilson. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Samuel French. Handouts of selected poems by T.S. Eliot. Required of all English majors, English 301 is intended to be one of the first English courses a student takes. The emphasis is on writing based upon intensive rather than extensive reading, although selections are drawn from several major genres (poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction). Students are introduced to basic terms and concepts of literary study and to different ways of approaching literary texts. Students are required to write and revise at least seven papers of various kinds, including a documented research paper.
Requirements: Five analyses (3 pages plus/ 10 points each/ total 50 points); one critical paper (6 to 8 pages/ 10 points for draft/ 50 points for paper/ total 60 points); one examination (identification and explication of 10 quotations/ 10 points each / total 100 points). Total points for course 210. Attendance and class participation is expected. ENGLISH 302B LITERARY HISTORY OF BRITAIN, RESTORATION TO 1900 Collins (Intersession: 5/15-6/9/06)
Abrams, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1C, The Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 7th ed. W. W. Norton. Abrams, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2A, The Romantic Period. 7th ed. W. W. Norton. Abrams, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2B, The Victorian Age. 7th ed. W. W. Norton.
This course surveys British literature from 1660 to 1900. Roughly a third of the course is devoted each to Restoration and 18th- century literature, the Romantics, the Victorians. Emphasis is on an understanding of the literature itself, but students also consider works in relation to their historical eras and their social contexts.
Requirements: Regular attendance, full participation in class discussion, three critical-analytic papers (each around five pages in length), a mid-term examination, and a final examination. There will also be occasional quizzes and in-class writing. ENGLISH 303 LITERARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1900 Anthony
Lauter, et al. The Heath Anthology of American Literature: Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865. Vol. B. 4th ed. Houghton-Mifflin. Foster. The Coquette. Oxford University Press, 1986. Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Baym. Penguin, 1983. Chopin. The Awakening and Selected Stories. Penguin Classics. Penguin. Ridge. Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit. University of Oklahoma Press. Brown. Clotel, or the President’s Daughter. Penguin Classics. Penguin. This course surveys American literature from its beginning to the end of the nineteenth century, with emphasis on selected major writers such as Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman, Stowe, and Twain, and cultural movements such as Puritanism, Romanticism and Realism as well as the writing of women and ethnic and minority groups. ENGLISH 305 LITERARY HISTORY OF BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES, 1900 TO PRESENT Molino
Yeats. Easter, 1916 and Other Poems. Dover. Eliot. The Waste Land and Other Poems. Dover. Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury. Vintage. Random House. Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Signet. Shaw. Major Barbara. Samuel French. Miller. Death of a Salesman. Dover.
This course surveys literature in America and Great Britain from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present including the writings of women and minority and ethnic groups with an emphasis on comparing and contrasting significant writers in both countries and on the distinction between modernist works and postmodernist texts.
Requirements: Analysis assignments (2-3 pages each) on all plays and novels and four essay exams. ENGLISH 307I FILM AS LITERARY ART Williams Corrigan. A Short Guide to Writing About Film. 6th ed. Pearson Education. Prentice-Hall. The 2005 Summer School will focus upon the films of Robert Aldrich (1918-1983). Although generally labeled as a director of macho action films such as The Dirty Dozen and The Longest Yard, the films are actually more complex in nature. This course aims to show the influences of the American New Deal of the 1930s as well as the post-war significance of the screenplays of Abraham Polonsky with Aldrich who worked in the short-lived Enterprise Studio during 1947-49. Aldrich attempted to keep faith with many of his formative influences and directed films which subverted the normal structure of the genres which existed in Hollywood. After screening Crossfire (1847) as an example of the type of film which no longer became possible in Hollywood after the Red Scare, the Enterprise Studio productions of Body and Soul and Force of Evil followed. Both starred John Garfield, from Abraham Polonsky screenplays. The films Aldrich directed such as Kiss Me Deadly, Attack!, Gothic melodramas such as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, as well as his final masterpieces Ulzana’s Raid and Twilight’s Last Gleaming will be included. The aim of this class is to show the diverse cultural influences affecting the work of this currently neglected director.
ENGLISH 414 ENGLISH NON-DRAMATIC LITERATURE: THE LATER EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Boulukos
MacKenzie. Man of Feeling. Ed. Vickers. Oxford University Press. Boswell. The Life of Samuel Johnson. Ed. Hibbert. Penguin. Goldsmith. She Stoops to Conquer. Dover. Sheridan. The Rivals. Dover. Blake. Songs of Innocence and Experience. Dover. Equiano. Life of Olaudah Equiano. Dover. Walpole. The Castle of Otranto.
There will also be a number of Online and E-Reserve Readings. The late eighteenth century was one of the most fertile times in British literature and culture. Arguably, the period saw the birth of the modern world. In literature, the novel was codified as a canonical form; biography, autobiography, and the periodical essay all emerged into prominence; poetry abruptly changed its focus, abandoning the public and satirical concerns of the Augustans (Pope, Swift, Gay) for the now more familiar material of intense introspection (Gray, Smart, Cowper, Charlotte Smith), and thereby opened the door for Romanticism. The publication of the first major Dictionary, assembled by the central figure of the Age, Dr. Samuel Johnson, began the process of disciplining the English language and endowing it with consistency and propriety. Alongside these developments, the violent upheavals of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions reshaped the course of history. Despite losing some of its more important colonies, Britain began to understand itself as an Empire and moved to consolidate control over India. The abolitionist movement, and the first self-conscious feminist movement, showed the power of a newly defined and broadened institution of the public sphere. In Edinburgh, Adam Smith defined both the regulation of the self through sentimentalism, and the maximizing of profit through the free market system. This course will scrutinize the links between all of these literary and cultural developments. While we will cover the territory staked out by two traditional names for this period in literature The Age of Johnson and The Age of Sensibility we will work throughout the course to untangle two paradoxes that still haunt modern culture: how did an age that adopted the slogan of liberty embrace colonialism? And why did the age that gave birth to sentimental sympathy also define the individual as isolated and the social world as hostile? Readings will include Boswell’s great classic of biography, The Life of Johnson, which we will contrast to several earthier and more unruly texts of life-writing: Boswell’s London Journal, Johnson’s Life of Savage, and Olaudah Equiano’s slave narrative. We will also sample the poetry of sensibility, sentimental and gothic fiction, periodical essays (Johnson, Eliza Haywood), philosophical and polemical works (Wollstonecraft, Burke), plays by Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Elizabeth Inchbald, and the beginnings of romantic poetry (Blake). Requirements: Undergraduate: Reading quizzes, Final Examination, 2 5pp papers Graduate: Reading Quizzes, Final Examination, 10p paper, annotated bibliography, brief report on criticism
ENGLISH 492C CREATIVE WRITING SEMINAR: LITERARY NONFICTION MAGNUSON
Required Text: Sims, ed. Literary Journalism. Ballantine Books. This course will involve close study and focused practice in nonfiction feature writing for commercial magazines. Topics will include essay structure in formats of 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 words; preparing queries to editors; managing taxes and expenses; and writing and revising under extreme time constraints.
ENGLISH 493 SPECIAL TOPICS IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE Fox, Lordan and McClure
Fox’s section: Section 302 Topic: Major American Writers
Required Texts: Johnson. Middle Passage. Plume. Penguin. Wideman. Philadelphia Fire. Vintage. Random House. Harper and Walton, eds. The Vintage Book of African American Poetry. Vintage. Random House. Wilson. King Hedley II, Theatre Communications Group.
Lordan’s section: Section 303Required Texts: Barrie. Peter Pan. Modern Library. Golding. Lord of the Flies. Perigee. Penguin. Wiggins. John Dollar. Washington Square Press. Simon & Schuster. Hoban. Riddley Walker. Indiana University Press. Johnson. Fiskadoro. Perennial. HarperCollins. These stories all deal with unintended reinventions of society – girls lost on an island, boys lost on an island, the remnants of American marooned on an island, the remnants of England after a nuclear holocaust, and Peter Pan’s Neverland. These are neither utopias nor distopias, but stories that catch unprepared people fumbling through their own lives, trying to imagine what to do and why to do it. By discussing the ideas of the nature of humans in groups as embodied in these books, we’ll try to figure out what the roles of social constructs (government, family, religion, ritual) are, why we have them and why they succeed or fail in doing what we want them to do, and what the roles of literature, art, and education might be. Ultimately, we’ll examine where hope lies for humans. We’ll watch two films, Disney’s “Peter Pan” and “Lord of the Flies,” in an effort to consider the differences that exist between the private individual act of reading and the public collective act of viewing movies, and how those differences affect the form and content of the stories at hand, and how they reflect the division (and connection) between the individual and the community. In-class discussions and exercises, informal response papers for each work, and a final 7- to 10-page paper will be required. N.B.: Although all of these books have to do with children, they are all demanding literary texts, and in the four-week session this is an intensive reading experience; the course assumes an advanced undergraduate (or graduate) ability to analyze literature.
McClure’s section: Section 301 Topic: American Literature: Four Authors for Adolescents Required Texts: Bridgers. All Together Now: A Novel. (1979) Banks Channel Books, 2001. ---. All We Know of Heaven. (1996) Mariner Books, 2002. ---. Keeping Christina. (1993) HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1993. ---. Permanent Connections. (1987) Banks Channel Books. Rev. ed., 1999. Cormier. Frenchtown Summer. (1999) Laurel Leaf, 2001. ---. In the Middle of the Night (1995) Laurel Leaf, 1997. ---. The Chocolate War. (1974) Laurel Leaf. Reissue ed., 1986. ---. The Rag and Bone Shop. (2003) Laurel Leaf, 2003. Hobbs. Downriver. (1995) Laurel Leaf. Reissue ed., 1995. ---. Far North. (1997) HarperCollins. Reprint ed., 1997. ---. Jason’s Gold. (2000) Harper Trophy, 2000. ---. Kokopelli’s Flute. (2005) Aladdin, 2005. Taylor. Let the Circle Be Unbroken. (1981) Puffin. Reprint ed., 1991. ---. Road to Memphis. Puffin. Reissue ed., 1992. ---. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976) Speak. 25th Anniversary ed., 2000. ---. The Land. ( 2001) Dial, 2001. This 400-level special topics course provides an exploration into literature for young adults written by four well-recognized, highly published, and award winning authors. These four authors place their young protagonists in ordinary or extraordinary situations and explore in their novels how the adolescents negotiate life. Each author examines the struggles of their adolescent characters in relationships with peers and adults. Sue Ellen Bridgers, a native of North Carolina, draws on her life in a small Appalachian town for both setting and characters; she explores issues such as identity, community, kinship and more. Robert Cormier, a Massachusetts journalist, places his protagonists in difficult situations in order to explore how human beings react; Cormier’s protagonists don’t always thrive, but they do survive and the reader learns from the characters’ successes and failures. Will Hobbs’ love of nature and the outdoors provides the setting for his many novels; his diverse characters and plots are a mixture of history and fiction and full of adventure. Although her father managed to move his family north, Mildred Taylor grew up well aware of racism and the inhuman treatment of Blacks in the segregated south; her stories follow the lives of the Logan family as they struggle to survive and keep their family together. Reading three to four novels by each author, we will study these authors in-depth using them as a basis for exploring the concept and character of adolescent literature. Central among our discussions will be issues of difference: What makes the characters different? How are those differences manifested in behavior, choices, and action? How do the characters themselves deal with difference? These are just a few of the questions we will address as we explore multiculturalism as “sites of difference.” Required work: Readings, daily activities, weekly responses, course paper, examinations. ENGLISH 598 LITERARY THEORY ZimraTopic: “From Marxism to Cultural Studies: Readings in Theory” Intersession:We start by May 15 and will be done by June 10.
Four Books Required (one per week: start reading): Gottlieb, ed. An Anthology of Western Marxism: From Lukacs and Gramsci to Socialist-Feminism. Oxford University Press, 1989. Bhabha. Location of Culture. Rutledge, 2004. Jameson. Archaeologies of the Future. Verso, 2005. Spivak. Outside in the Teaching Machine. Routledge, 1993. Recommended: Culler.’s little blue wonder. Literary Theory: A Very Short Intro. Oxford University Press., 2000. Richter. Falling Into Theory. 2nd ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. This course requires 4h-a-day, reading intensive commitment, Monday through Thursday. Weekly presentations are required (so each student will present 4 weeks / 4 t times). We cover one major theorist per week, starting with the foundational premises in Marx/Hegel. Daily posting on the website is compulsory, as is responding critically to at least one post daily. Friday is off for library research. A 5pp. critical wrap-up of the week’s work is therefore due by Sunday midnight. By the end of the month, you should have 20 solid pages that constitute your bare-boned research focus. To claim this course at the 400-level, submit a 10pp. wrap-up of the work you have done one week after the class is over (mid-June). To claim it at the 500-level, you must cap it with a full research paper dealing with methodology, to be submitted one month later (by July 28th.). This should, in essence, constitute your first exploration of the methodology you will apply to your proposed dissertation.
|
|
|
|
|