ENGL 2308 Introduction to Non-fiction: Man's Search for Meaning

The title of this course, “Man's Search for Meaning,” is borrowed from Victor Frankl's book which has the same name. During World War II, Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, was a prisoner at Auschwitz. In his time there he discovered that many of those who survived the concentration camp were able to do so because they were committed to a purpose beyond themselves. He published his findings in his best-seller Man's Search for Meaning. Beginning with this text, we'll explore how two or three contemporary writers and intellectuals have pursued “meaning” in their own lives. We'll look at individuals who see the value of physical labor, the importance of nature, the role of intellect, and the acceptance of death in trying to understand who they are and where they are going.

Texts we'll be reading:

• Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
• The Art of the Common Place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
• Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz
• Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (if we have time)

ENGL 2310 Literature, Social Justice, & Environment: Ruined Landscapes of Cli Fi

In this course, we will study landscape, space, and place as concepts that shape the ways we think about the natural world, or “the environment.” As we explore how the environment has informed fiction and non-fiction narratives about humanity's place in the natural world, we focus our attention on perceptions, policies, and ways of life that shape identity and patterns of belonging. We begin by discussing early forms of “nature writing” and move into the 21st century to consider the thriving genres of Climate Fiction (Cli Fi) and dystopia that reflect some unsettling realities of climate change. Some questions that will frame our discussions include: how has the nature of our humanity altered in our age of commodification, cybernetics, and catastrophe? Can the environment withstand our relentless abuse of it? How do social justice concerns inform dystopia, Cli Fi, and environmental writing? In our attempt to answer these questions (and others) we will develop critical perspectives integral to becoming competent thinkers, readers, writers, and conscientious citizens for the planet. Course readings are drawn from literature, philosophy, ecology, film, and cultural studies and include authors like Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Octavia E. Butler, and Rebecca Roahhorse.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1301, ENGL 1302. Fulfills core Language, Philosophy, and Culture, requirement. Fulfills Multicultural requirement.

ENGL 2324 English Literature II: The Woman Question

This course surveys British literature from Romanticism to the present day with a focus on depictions of female characters and an examination of issues faced by women, both fictional and real. This course is foundational for English major and minors, and its prerequisites are English 1302 and English 1302 or equivalent credit.

We will read diverse genres from all periods, including Elizabeth Inchbald's play The Wedding Day, Mary Wollstonecraft's novel Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman, John Keats's “The Eve of Saint Agnes,” and William Wordsworth's “The Thorn,” from the Romantic period. From the Victorian period, we will read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House, Christina Rosetti's ‘Goblin Market,” and Alfred Tennyson's “The Lady of Shalott.” From modern and contemporary periods, we will read Timberlake Wertenbaker's play The Grace of Mary Traverse, Buchi Emecheta's novel Second Class Citizen, Alice Oswald's “Wedding,” and Stevie Smith's “Not Waving But Drowning.”

Our activities will include discovery activities, primary-source essays, and ample discussion.

Explore the Woman Question in later British literature in a learning community fostered by feminist pedagogy.

ENGL 2326 American Literature II: Experiencing Diversity

American literature from 1865 to the present has significantly involved experiencing the increasing diversity of our culture. The works we will study will introduce us to a range of literature across this period, reflecting various literary movements (realism, modernism, postmodernism, etc.) and genres (fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, etc.). We will read works demonstrating the variety of the American experience by authors such as Mark Twain, Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others.

ENGL 2383 Bible as Literature

How can literary analysis illuminate the most important book in history? In this course, we will study literary genres of the Bible—including law, cosmogony, epic, psalm, wisdom, and prophecy—and learn what makes each one unique. We will also learn ancient history: from the calling of Abraham to the ministry of Jesus, political events helped to shape not only what was being written in the biblical books, but how authors styled that information. Over the semester, our goal will be to develop an appreciation for Hebraic culture—for the Jewishness of the scriptures—and for the longevity and distinctiveness of a civilization that gave rise to two major world religions, Christianity and Judaism.

Assignments will consist of multiple-choice exams; no paper required.

ENGL 2388 Introduction to Film Studies

Lecture Section 160 (CRN: 56364): Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 - 11:50 AM
Discussion Sections

Discussion 701 (CRN: 56367): Fridays, 9-9:50am Discussion 702 (CRN: 56368): Fridays, 10-10:50am Discussion 703 (CRN: 56369): Fridays, 11-11:50am Discussion 704 (CRN: 56370): Fridays, 11-11:50am Discussion 705 (CRN: 56371): Fridays, 11-11:50am Discussion 706 (CRN: 56372): Fridays, 1-1:50pm

As regular moviegoers and avid binge-watchers, we intuitively respond to the "grammar," of film. Our pulse quickens when the monster nears its hapless victim; we get lumps in our throats when the hero finally wins the heart of the one s/he loves. But how exactly do films make us laugh, cry, and scream? The course draws on examples from U.S. and global cinema in order to explore the film techniques that produce such complex effects—we'll cover everything from mise-en-scene to cinematography, from editing to sound. Then we will build on those fundamentals to consider different modes of cinema such as narrative, documentary, and experimental. Ultimately, the course asks what distinguishes film from all the other arts, and what makes this "Seventh Art" at once so conceptually rich and so potentially deceptive. Popcorn not included. 

ENGL 3302 British Literature Before 1066: Learning and Literature in Early Medieval England

This course will examine three major figures and movements in early medieval England to analyze how the scholarly translation and transmission of early texts affected the English literary world. The first section of the course will look at the age of Bede and representative Old English and Anglo-Latin texts from the eighth to the mid-ninth centuries; it will include Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Gildas's On the Fall of Britain, the Life of St. Wilfrid, The Life of St. Cuthbert, and The Life of St. Ceolfrid, as well as the Liber Monstrorum (Book of Monsters), Beowulf, and The Voyage of St. Brendan. The middle section of the course will look at the impact of the reign of Alfred the Great and his translation project on English letters; readings will include selections from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, Augustine's Soliloquies, and Gregory the Great's On Pastoral Care, and selected Psalms, in addition to Asser's Life of Alfred and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The last section of the course will examine the Benedictine Reform of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, with its focus on increasing Latin learning and language skills in the monastic community, as well as translations and/or compositions in English for the purpose of preaching. We will examine homiletic and social works of Ælfric and Wulfstan, as well as adapted and translated scholarly and scriptural texts such as Judith, The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, Physiologus, the Exeter Book Riddles, the Wonders of the East, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and Dream of the Rood. Course requirements will be a midterm examination, a final examination, three response papers, and an annotated bibliography with a short explanatory essay.

ENGL 3305 British Renaissance Literature: the Idea of God from Malory to Milton

From Malory's chivalrous knights to Milton's hellish frights, how did writers of the British Renaissance (1500-1700 A.D.) describe the changing face of God? With the Protestant Reformation came startling new notions about who God was, where he lived, and what he could (or couldn't) do. Over the semester, we will study major literary traditions (Petrarchism, devotional lyrics, et al.), philosophical and political movements (humanism, republicanism), and game-changing historical events (defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English civil wars)—all in light of God's shifting representation throughout period literature. From Donne's sexualization of Protestant faith to Hobbes's claim that God has a material body, we will marvel at the ingenuity and diversity of ideas about the Almighty, as well as probe the intellectual and aesthetic currents that engendered them.

Assignments include: one-page reports and brief, close reading-based papers.

ENGL 3311 British Victorian Literature

The Weird Victorian Period: In England, during the long life of Queen Victoria (1819-1901), the social stresses of industrial modernization, colonialism, imperialism, and scientific developments such as the theory of evolution, threw many peculiar shadows over the literature of the time. The British literary works we will read this semester capture a number of these shadier hues. A misunderstood monster pieced together from cadavers and imbued with life. A doomed romance with a dark lover of obscure origins. An explorer who discovers an advanced civilization beneath the surface of the Earth. A scientist who fatally transforms himself into a murderous hedonist. Another scientist who visits the far future and escapes back with a flower. Still another scientist who hunts vampires through hypnosis. A ship captain in search of a colonial adventurer who puts shrunken heads on fence posts. While filling in a picture of the wider national culture producing these weird tales of the fantastic, wondrous, and horrendous, we will concentrate in particular on what makes all of these novels tick as works of literature through an introduction to narrative theory.

Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race; Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; H. G. Wells, The Time Machine; Bram Stoker, Dracula; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.

Assignments: two class reports, two essays, a midterm and a final.

ENGL 3312 From Snow White to Princess Mononoke: A Critical History of Global Animation

“Disney colonizes the everyday world...with the analgesic [painkiller] of a child's imagination.”

So describe Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelars in How to Read Donald Duck (1971). Their reading of Donald Duck's adventures as propaganda for American imperialism inspires this class to study the history of global animation with a similarly critical eye. We ask: what rigid gender norms are expressed in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)? How have later Disney productions like Tangled (2010) taught audiences to uncover subversive messages underneath the surface of very bright cartoons?

We look at movies by the so-called Walt Disney Studios of Japan, Studio Ghibli, to see how its filmmakers gesture to Japan's historical traumas and forgotten past. We explore representations of discrimination toward those with Hansen's Disease in Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1997). We linger on blood falling over a painting in Miyazaki's World War II film, The Wind Rises (2013). We also consider animated films from around the world like Israeli director Ari Folman's documentary, Waltz with Bashir (2008). Folman deploys surreal animation to depict memory's untrustworthiness and a soldier's role in wartime atrocity. Our films show how animation brings us to see the bleeding wounds of history that we might otherwise ignore.

Additionally, we study animation made for television and for other platforms. This includes anime and American television series. We unpack The Simpsons and South Park to understand how they gleefully reveal the dark side of the American dream.

Gender, disability, and trauma studies further enriches our understanding of the history of global animation. These frameworks ultimately give us the language to express how animation has long been deployed as a tool for both the powerful and for artists aiming to critique the powerful. Mastery of such crucial issues will be demonstrated by close reading, critical thinking, in-class presentations and argumentative writing. We will learn to make intellectual arguments about animation that are thoughtful and persuasive, thorough and concise. We will also learn research strategies, including how to use primary materials to generate original and compelling thesis statements. Some classes will feature artists and scholars in conversation.

ENGL 3325 Modern and Contemporary American Literature: From Postmodernism to Post-9/11 Globalism

This course explores how contemporary American authors articulate their visions and senses of American culture and society in response to the social, political, economic, and technological changes in the U.S. and around the globe since the 1960s. Beginning with an examination of the concept of postmodernism and postcolonialism, we read texts that engage formalistic experimentation and innovation and have a sense of the ways in which these authors negotiate and represent our changing senses of humanity in our culture and society. We then scrutinize the writing of ethnic minorities and women and explore the new critical viability and sensibilities that they have brought to U.S. literature and culture. As a gesture of conclusion, we finally investigate work that reflects a sense of post-9/11 globalism in the U.S. in the twenty-first century.

Requirements: Two essays, five quizzes, a midterm, and a final.

ENGL 3337 Modern and Contemporary World Literature: Conflict, Religion, and Epiphany

Course attributes: Communication Literacy, Arts & Science, Multicultural Requirements, Excluded from 3-Peat Rules

Course Description: The 20th century has witnessed large scale conflicts and violence from the two World Wars, through anti-colonial movements, to civil wars and ethnic conflicts. This course examines how writers explore religion's role in helping people deal with the trauma that they experience. The meaning of religion varies for many of these writers. Some focus on “strong” religion that entails a strict adherence to beliefs and practices of specific faith communities (Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc.), while others are more concerned with “weak” religion—the fusion of different faith traditions and the hesitant and tentative acceptance that secular (non-religious) people make towards religious systems. Finally, we'll also examine how these writers explore the role of epiphany (a religious or spiritual revelation or awakening) in these texts.

Texts:

• Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok (Judaism, US, context: WWII)
• The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh (Hinduism/Islam, India, context: state violence in independent India)
• Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje (Buddhism/Christianity, Sri Lanka, context: civil war in Sri Lanka)
• The Complete Short Stories by Flannery O'Connor (Christianity, US, context: individual violence in the American South)

ENGL 3382 Women Writers – TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: Science Fiction by Women

Significant works by women. Writing required. Fulfills Multicultural requirement.

ENGL 3385 Selected Plays of Shakespeare: Lovers, Misanthropes, and Mountebanks: Shakespeare and the Comedy of Social Relations

While Shakespeare has long been celebrated as the avatar of modern individuality, this course takes a different tack. It introduces students to Shakespeare's works by considering the playwright's abiding concern with social relations—with belonging, isolation, romance, resentment, misanthropy, deception, in short, with everything that comes from inhabiting a world that is inhabited by other people. Our concerns will range from the ethical to the philosophical to the aesthetic, but throughout the course, our readings will focus on Shakespeare's manipulation of a single genre, comedy, the genre of happy endings—or seemingly happy endings—which promise the persistence of the worlds we fashion with others.

ENGL 3388 Film Genres: Horror and the Fantastic

How do the powerful emotions provoked by horror (disgust, shock, suspense) influence everything from the group dynamics of watching a movie in a theatre, to the potential for complex philosophical and political commentary? How and why do societies both censor and glorify images of violence? How do filmmakers use the tools of their medium, from sound design to “found footage” aesthetics to impact their audiences? Students in this course will explore these questions and apply their insights to films from across the history of horror, from violent trick films of the 1890s to 21st century media, and from film cultures around the world. Students will develop skills of formal analysis specific to film and media, explore a variety of theoretical approaches, and become familiar with multiple modes of filmmaking, including fiction, nonfiction, and experimental film.

ENGL 4311 Studies in Poetry: Race and the Middle Ages

London, British Library, MS Harley 3954, f. 42 

This course will introduce students to “race-making” in the European Middle Ages. In England particularly, early oppressions of English Jews through laws and through stories led to, as Geraldine Heng demonstrates, “the emergence of the first racial state in the history of the West.” In this course, we will read those stories of ritual murder, including Chaucer's The Prioress Tale, as well as other medieval texts that construct racial identities based on religion, appearance, and power inequities. Our readings will include the Middle English romances Richard Coeur de Lion, The King of Tars, the German Parzival, and uber-popular travelogue Mandeville's Travels. Reading stories where the word “fair” means at once white, beautiful, and Christian, students will have the chance to witness rhetorical racial construction firsthand. This course will crucially confront, with knowledge and critical analysis, the troubling present-day co-opting of a mythologized Western medieval past by white supremacists. Assignments will include weekly responses, a comparative essay between a medieval and modern text, a research presentation, and final research paper.

ENGL 4315 Art Made Illegal: Censorship in Comic Books, Video Games and at the Movies

"I know it when I see it." 

So claimed Justice Potter Stewart when defining obscenity in his 1964 ruling on Louis Malles' 1958 film, The Lovers. Potter's spongy definition was criticized for refusing to provide a clear threshold, pointing to the law's potential arbitrariness. Potter's definition is at the center of our course on censorship. When art is made illegal, we can glean who the law privileges and who it unfairly punishes.

Our course historicizes and theorizes censorship practices. Looking at comic books, video games, and movies frames similarities in how different media forms are policed. We first examine how various industries developed codes of content to escape government oversight. We begin with development of 1930s Hays Code, designed to offer a rigid moral standard for the movies. Then, we look at the creation of the Comics Code Authority that followed Senate hearings on the comic books' damaging effect on youth. We read Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (1954) which inspired the hearing, 1950s comics he labeled as obscene, along with congressional testimony. We examine the development of the ESRB rating system created in 1993 after the release of violent games like Mortal Kombat (1992). Attention is paid to the stylistic similarities between critics' exposés and the art they deride.

Finally, we move to Japan to see how a different nation has censored art in its efforts to protect the public welfare. We compare the trial of Nagisa Oshima for his film In the Realm of the Senses (1976) and that of the manga artist, Rokudenashiko, who was recently charged with obscenity for her art depicting the female genitalia. The different outcomes of each case may point to how sexism plays into judgement.

The cross-media course introduces students to cultural study of the law. In addition to in-class presentations, students learn how to write clear research papers surrounding the spongy topic of censorship. Ultimately, this course will answer the questions: why are states invested in censorship? How have targeted artists resisted and transformed legal tribunals into sites of resistance?

ENGL 4321 Studies in Literary Topics: Outlaw

This course examines global literary fiction that deals with the figure of the outlaw. Reading texts by authors such as Hassan Blasim, Franz Kafka, Yehia Hakki, Emile Habibi, and Kamila Shamsie among others, we will interrogate what it means to be an outlaw. Do our characters challenge or uphold the law? What is the true nature of their crime? How do they come to be outlaws and what does it mean do be a person who is no longer covered by the law? How do our texts probe the limits of the law? The course will focus on the social, political, and economic ramifications of being an outlaw in literary texts from the African, Asian, and European continents. To this end, we will consider how class differences and the financial economic crises of globalization contribute to the creation of the outlaw as a category of personhood. We will also think about how this category is caught up in other social issues involving women's ability to move between local and global cultural laws. Finally, we will examine the figure of the outlaw as a political category, a subject that represents the individual's ability to participate in the systems that represent and govern a particular society and, as a result, allows us to reflect on how these systems function as well as who they exclude in a current global moment marked by terror, economic crises, and climate change. Writing required.