Fall 2020 Course Descriptions
Below is a partial listing of English Department coursesâboth ENGL and WRTGâfor the Fall
2020 semester. Learning formats were subject to change depending on the . View the descriptions for .
ENGL F200X, FH1
World Literature: Detective FictionâEast Meets West
Instructor: Gerri Brightwell
TTh, 11:30â1:00pm
This course will take us through some of the big names of detective fiction, from
Arthur Conan Doyle to Agatha Christie. We'll look in particular at how they portrayed
the East, and will match their texts with detective stories by writers from Japan,
India and Japan. Things will get messy and murderous as we examine how villainy is
constructed, and by whom, and why.
ENGL F270, UX1
Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Daryl Farmer
Online
Students in this class can expect to do a great deal of writing and reading as they produce
essays, stories, and poems, analyze their own work, and respond to other writers in
the class. First and foremost, our purpose together will be to explore and expand
imaginative powers, and to learn methods of expressing them in language. Writing is
one of the best ways to learn about ourselves and othersâabout our hearts, our passions,
our dreams, about what it is that motivates us, drives our emotions, makes us persevere
against all obstacles, causes us to feel. In short, what it is that makes us human.
ENGL F270, F01
Introduction to Creative Writing
Instructor: Joseph Holt
Online (asynchronous)
In this class, weâll work toward sharpening our perception as readers, with the ultimate
goal of improving as writers. Weâll learn key terminology and apply it to the published
works in our textbook (Serious Daring: Creative Writing in Four Genres by Lisa Roney). Then weâll also produce our own creative workâpoetry, creative nonfiction
and fictionâand introduce it to one another in workshops, discussing how to effectively
critique and how to utilize criticism. This course should prepare you for intermediate
and advanced creative writing courses, which are often specific to particular genres.
ENGL/WGS 433, FXA
CRN: 76788 (ENGL); 76741 (WGSS)
WGS in Language, Literature and CultureâQueer Theory
Instructor: Chris Coffman
T Th, 3:40-5:10 PM by synchronous videoconference (online)
This interdisciplinary course will survey the ways queer theorists have thought about
the diverse forms gender and sexuality take and have taken in different contexts; the ways that gender and sexuality intersect with other influences, such as race,
ethnicity, ability, and the environment; the psychical and social aspects of LGBT life in the twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries; and the methodological challenges attending efforts to speak and write about genders
and sexualities from divergent historical periods and political formations. We will critically examine essay-length and book-length examples of queer theories
with the aim of gaining a sense of the fieldâs origins and current trajectory. We will also discuss one novel (Feinbergâs Stone Butch Blues, 1993), two short stories (Zitkala-Saâs âThe Trial Pathâ and âA Warriorâs Daughterâ),
and two films (Livingstonâs Paris is Burning, 1990; and Weissmanâs We Were Here, 2011) in light of these theories. We will conclude the semester with a post-Thanksgiving unit investigating queer discourse
surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic. Much as our readings position themselves in relationship to one another, both this
syllabus and our classroom discussion will form an ongoing dialogue that seeks to
understandâand to shapeâboth the history and the future of queer theory. Over the course of the semester, you will be asked to compare and contrast different
queer theories; critique them in ways that will reveal their strengths and limitations;
and use them to advance your own intellectual interests. (The course will be offered by synchronous videoconference; the link will be available on Blackboard for enrolled students by the day before class
first meets.)
Texts:
- Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. New York: Vintage, 1990. 0-679-72469-9.
- Donald E. Hall and Annamarie Jagose, eds. The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2013. ISBN 978-0-415-56411-3.
ENGL F435, F01
Authors: Toni Morrison
Instructor: Eric Heyne
MWF, 9:15â10:15am
Is Toni Morrison the greatest novelist America has ever produced? She came late to her vocation after a blue-collar upbringing, publishing her first
novel at the age of 39. But she went on to have one of the most distinguished careers of any American writer,
including winning the Nobel Prize in 1993. She died in 2019, but her brilliant explorations of racism and African-American history
could not be more timely. We will read her early fiction, including the short novels The Bluest Eye and Sula, some of the great works of her maturity, including Song of Solomon and the Beloved trilogy, her influential collection of essays Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, and her final novel God Help the Child.
ENGL F460, F01
Studies in Comparative LiteratureâScandinavian Fictions
Instructor: Rich Carr
MWF, 11:45â12:45pm
Fictions from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Icelandâthe Scandinavian countriesâwill
provide the focus for the semesterâs literary journey. The syllabus includes classic
and popular works, the internationally celebrated (two Nobel laureates) and the nationally
venerated, the comic and the tragic, the provincial and the universal. Familiar authorsâHans
Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsenâwill mix with writers who may be new to youâKnut
Hamsun, Sigrid Undset, Sjon. Beginning with selections from Norse mythology and the
famed Icelandic work, Njalâs Saga and moving into the modern era, we will take a snapshot of fiction, drama, and film
from these distinct cultures linked through language and history. Vikings, reindeer,
mountains, fjords, dark winters, bright summers, lutefisk, lefse, trollsâthese are only the most familiar of associations with the Scandinavian world. This
course will expand your sense of this region, the cultures, and the history, and give
you the opportunity to read entertaining, absorbing, memorable literature.
Those enrolled will write two response papers, a book review of a work not on the
syllabus, a cultural essay, and a final paper on (a) work(s) or topic(s) linked to
the course focus. Students will also deliver an oral essayâa short talkâon one of
the assigned works. By the end of the course you will have discovered a whole new
captivating world of art and may be ready to book passage for Nordic Europe. Tusen takk!
ENGL F470, F01
Topics in Creative Writing: Environmental and Nature Writing
Instructor: Daryl Farmer
Tuesdays, 11:30â1:00pm via Zoom, + asynchronous online assignments
This course will focus on writing about the natural world and how to use writing to
deepen our understanding of the local and world ecology. We will spend as much time
as we can outdoors, watching, listening, learning to identify. Along the way, we will
read work by nature writers and explore some of the related philosophical and ethical
issues inherent in this type of writing. By semester's end, students should have a
sense of how to record their experiences and observations in narrative, poetic, and
reflective forms. Text, Environmental and Nature Writing, eds. Sean Prentiss and Joe Wilkins.
ENGL F607, F01
Studies in 19th-Century British Literature: The 19th-Century Novel, or The Best Storytellers
Ever
Instructor: Rich Carr
Mondays, 2:15â5:15pm
When Waverley was published anonymously in 1814, the novel caused an immediate sensation. Readers
all over BritainâEngland, Scotland, Wales, Irelandâgobbled it up. Who knew that a
storyâa novel!âabout the last great effort by Scots rebels to restore the Stuart monarchy to the
throne would engage so many readers? And who wrote the book anyway?
Sir Walter Scott, already established as a poet, was later revealed as the author;
he would go on to become the most widely read writer of the 19th-century worldwide. And
with Waverley he could contribute to moving this fictional form from something suspect, dangerous
even, to art. The seminar will begin with Scottâs ground-breaking work and sample
some of the lasting figures of the century: Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, (Anne) Bronte,
Mrs Gaskell, Eliot, Hardy. As the century passes, as we see how printing presses
and faster transportation allow for speedy creation and distribution of reading matter,
we will see how writers become public figures, how their work matters to the nation
and beyond. We will explore as well the particular skills of these writers, the means
by which they kept audiences begging to know what happens next and insisting that
the writers produce more.
Seminar participants should expect to write two response papers, an essay discussing
the craft of a selected writer, and an extended investigation of one of the works
or authors or issues pertaining to 19th-century writers and writing. Comeâdiscover
anew or for the first time the storytelling power and art of these 19th-century greats.
Probable text include Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Adam Bede by George Eliot, Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, Waverley, or âTis Sixty Years Since by Sir William Scott, and Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray.
ENGL F611, F01
Studies in American Literature 1865-1918: California Here We Come: The Birth of
Left-Coast Literature
Instructor: Eric Heyne
Wednesdays, 2:15â5:15pm
We will read early fiction (and some poetry and nonfiction) about the U.S. West Coast,
primarily California but including some Washington and ĂŰĚŇÓ°Ďń. Weâll read The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, The Luck of Roaring Camp, Ramona, The Land of Little Rain, The Spoilers, Burning Daylight, and Mrs. Spring Fragrance, among other things. Weâll talk about San Francisco and Seattle, gold mines and
haciendas, deserts and snowy mountains, and everything that went into the mythology
of an American utopia at the end of the westward trail.
ENGL F671, FE1
Writers' Workshop
Instructor: Joseph Holt
Wednesdays, 6â9 p.m. via synchronous videoconferencing (online)
In this graduate-level course, we will write and critique original works of fiction,
nonfiction and possibly poetry or other forms. Students will submit two or three full-length
works (i.e., 8â30 pages), as well as some shorter, more experimental exercises. We'll
conduct weekly readings from a craft book or creative anthology. Students will also
complete a professionalization assignment like presenting a guest lecture, composing
a book review, or writing a job letter. Our two required texts will be Robert Boswell's
The Half-Known World and The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019). Our ultimate goal in the workshop is to improve as readers, writers, critics and
literary citizens.