Other Semesters

Courses

English Course Descriptions

Fall 2010

In progress

 

English 2003 Section 001       CRN 90653
Martone
Creative Writing: Poetry     1000-1050 MWF

This workshop will introduce you to the writing of poetry. We’ll share your writing and read and discuss some important contributions (literary, artistic, musical) to the contemporary moment. Each week, I'll require five pages of writing and an informal commentary on a figure such as Rauschenberg or Cage. Always, though, we'll be looking for originality. The way(s) there can be difficult and exciting. (old curriculum Group 6; new  curriculum Group 5)

English 2003 Section 002       CRN 90654
Abella
Creative Writing: Poetry     1200-1250 MWF

To write well, you must read well, pay close attention to what affects you as you make meaning of words and pauses, to how writers shape thoughts and feelings into pictures that stir your imagination. And to write poetry well you must also be committed to the idea of working and reworking your thoughts, ideas and emotions into images that others can perceive and shape into their own understanding. In this class you will read poems by modern and contemporary writers and discuss and examine how their voices reach you. You will need to keep a journal in response to the poems you read and to some assignments I will give you. The main part of this class will be the poems you create. Some will be responses to exercises I will assign, but the majority will be from your own inspiration. You will share these poems in a workshop format with the class to receive feedback that will help you establish a greater sense of voice, audience, imagery, and form. At the end you will be graded on a portfolio of your poems, your journals, and a paper in which you examine the poetry of a writer of your choice.  (old curriculum Group 6; new  curriculum Group 5)

English 2007 Section 001       CRN 90655
Carpenter
Creative Writing: Fiction     0930-1045 TR

An introduction to the reading and writing of fiction with class time devoted to various principles of the genre through writing exercises and workshop discussion.  (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 2007 Section 002       CRN 90656
Moffitt
Creative Writing: Fiction     1100-1150 MWF

If I asked the class what the difference is between “creative writing” and “critical writing” (meaning term papers, essays, etc.), many people would probably say that in creative writing, there are no rules—you can write any way you want.  Well, OK, that sounds good—but it’s important to understand that “writing any way you want” is not the same thing as “writing the first thing that comes to your head, without thinking about it or changing it.”  Writing any way you want suggests that there are many ways to write; as such, our main goal for this class is to explore these many ways—to experiment with the possibilities of the written word, with a focus on the basics of style, structure and technique in the short story.  This is a lot more fun that it may sound here!  We read and write stories because we want to, and trying new ways of writing only increases our enjoyment of them. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 2009G Section 001       CRN 90657
Knight
Literature and Human Values: Race, Age, Gender     1000-1050 MWF

A study of some of the universal, recurring issues facing the individual, as they are dealt with in a selection of literary texts from diverse cultures. (General Education)

English 2009G Section 002       CRN 90658
Boswell
Literature and Human Values: Love, Hate, Obsession     1230-1345 TR

We will consider various works of writers and other artists—who are always trying to express the inexpressible and describe the indescribable—as they attempt to grapple with love, hate, and obsession.  Requirements:  willingness to read, participate, and carry on about love, hate, and obsession; 2-3 papers; midterm exam; final exam. (General Education)

English 2009G Section 003       CRN 90659
Caldwell
Literature and Human Values: Faith, Survival, Progress     1300-1350 MWF

The mind can create and justify personal and societal values, allow us to hope for and believe things for which there is no reason, and can help us cope with oppression and loss.  In this course we will discuss novels and films that examine the notions of faith, progress, and survival.  We will consider what happens when personal beliefs are held without restraint and are forced on others; how some of our own deeply held cultural beliefs may have disturbing as-yet-unexamined consequences; how individuals survive oppression, fear, and instability; how the experience of survival can fundamentally change the self; and what the consequences of unlimited scientific progress might be. Requirements include close reading of texts, active and consistent class participation, leading discussion for a day, short response papers, a term paper, midterm and final. (General Education)

English 2009G Section 004       CRN 90660
Allison
Literature and Human Values: Labor, Class, Power     1400-1515 TR  

Labor (work), class (status), and power (control and influence): they can contribute to our self-development or our enslavement.  During the semester, we will read and discuss literature that provokes us to think about how people’s social structures and habits of mind can foster or destroy human potential.  The course will include works by such writers as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Requirements include pop quizzes, two essays, a midterm, and a final. (General Education) 

English 2011G Section 001       CRN 90662
Wixson
Literature, the Self and the World: Drama     0800-0915 TR  

This course surveys dramatic literature with the aims of sharpening appreciation for the art form and using great plays as an opportunity to engage cultural and existential issues. The selection of primary texts will be wide-ranging to represent a number of different dramatic forms and perspectives, from the "greats" of earlier periods (Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, and Lorraine Hansberry) to contemporary writers like August Wilson, Brian Friel, and Patrick Marber. The course approaches these plays as both literary *and* theatrical texts, discussing not only their political, historical, and modern implications but also their potential for acting, directorial, and technical choices. Toward that end, we will also be analyzing videotaped productions as well as live performances where possible. The complexity of these plays in terms of language, style, and thematics makes this course reading, writing, and thinking intensive. Other requirements include short papers, critical essays, participation in discussion, a midterm and a final exam. (General Education)

 
English 2011G Section 002       CRN 90663
McGregor
Literature, the Self and the World: Fiction     0900-0950 MWF  

In this course, we’ll be exploring the rich world of fiction to ask how and why this art form might be relevant to our daily lives. Does it send us inward to encourage reflection on and understanding of ourselves, outward to a more nuanced understanding of worlds other than our own, both, neither? What do we ask of literature and what does it ask of us?  To address these questions, we’ll be reading novels and short fiction (the latter of your own choosing) to consider how the texts situate us in relations to ourselves and to the world, and we’ll be developing a vocabulary with which to discuss the texts and our responses to them. (General Education)

 

English 2011G Section 003       CRN 90664
Moffitt
Literature, the Self and the World: Poetry     1500-1615 MW  

Study of significant works of literature from diverse cultures and of the ways in which they depict meaning, identity, and action in the world. (General Education)

English 2099G Section 099       CRN 95127
Beebe
Literature and Human Values: Love, Hate, Obsession (honors)     1530-1645 TR  

In this course we will examine the extremes of human experience—the extremes of Love, Hate, and Obsession.  Through a range of provocative reading (fiction, drama, non-fiction, and film), we will explore these complex, challenging themes and how they are portrayed, politicized, and eroticized in selected historical pasts as well as in our own contemporary society.  Requirements include brief writings, two papers, and two exams. (General Education)

English 2205
           Section 001       CRN 90732       Instructor:  Beebe
           Section 002       CRN 90734       Instructor:  Vietto
           Section 003       CRN 90736       Instructor:  Hanlon

Introduction to Literary Studies     0930-1045 TR

This course is designed for students beginning the English major.  We will consider together what it is that serious students of literature do, how we do what we do, and why we do literary studies at all. 

If you’re just beginning the English major (which is exactly when you should take this course), you should expect the unexpected as you are introduced to some of the fundamental problems in literary studies—problems of textuality, interpretation, research, and context.  Although you have taken “English” classes all your life, those classes weren’t designed for English majors.  In courses in the major, professors will expect you to be prepared to use advanced interpretive strategies and research tools and techniques that go far beyond what we ask of general education (or high school) students. They will also hope that you will have your own understanding of why you approach literature the way that you do, and that you will be prepared to introduce different perspectives on literary studies in class discussion and in your essays. Format for the course.  Students will enroll in one of the three sections of 2205 (all meet at the same time); however, the course is designed so that all sections will read the same major texts and pursue similar questions of inquiry into the field of literary studies.  Although each section may vary in regard to daily assignments or topics for class discussion, all three sections will meet as a group frequently over the semester. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2601 Section 001       CRN 90750
Raybin
Backgrounds of Western Literature     0800-0915 TR 

Books offer us windows to ideas, worlds, times, relations, and emotions we might not otherwise encounter.  They can help us to expand our understanding of others and to gain a clearer sense of ourselves.  Starting with Homer and concluding with Cervantes, we will read some of the best books in the pre-modern western literary tradition, including works by Sappho, Virgil, Ovid, Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, and Boccaccio.  In class we will discuss the major literary/cultural themes: love, faith, heroism, suffering, transience, desire, etc.  Requirements include energetic participation in class discussion, two or three papers, frequent quizzes, and a final exam.  (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2601 Section 002       CRN 90751
Campbell
Backgrounds of Western Literature     1100-1215 TR 

This course is designed to provide an introduction to literary works considered central to the development of western literature. Writers throughout the centuries have responded to and incorporated aspects of works by their predecessors and their contemporaries into their own “new” creations. In this course we will especially explore various lines of artistic and topical influence that stretch from classical origins through literary works of the Renaissance. We will observe how ideas are adopted and adapted to suit the cultural and political times of the writers. Furthermore, we will discuss our own early twenty-first-century impressions of these works, addressing such questions as the following:  What seems familiar or contemporary to us about these writers regarding their social milieux, their historical moments, and their texts? Why have these texts been so influential for so long?  Why do they still fascinate? How should we, reading several of these texts in translation, think about the transitions they have gone through regarding the practices of translating and editing? Above all, by the end of the course you should have a greater understanding of the literary periods and genres of the western literary canon, as well as a sense of the historical shaping of some of your own ideas and values. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2601 Section 003       CRN 90754
Leddy
Backgrounds of Western Literature     1400-1450 MWF 

This course will take us to the ancient world, a world we're still living in. War is still the way that conflicts between states and peoples are too often settled. We still remember the dead by memorializing their names. We still experience the deep and complicated experience of returning home and becoming reconnected to people and a place. We still live in a world of imperial ambitions. We still debate whether the penalty of death is a form of justice. In our pursuit of desire we still make ourselves and others ridiculous.

We’ll travel Backwards in Western Lit to read Homer, Virgil, and Ovid (epic); Aeschylus and Aristophanes (drama); and Sappho and Catullus (lyric poetry). The point of reading these writers is not grimly practical; one doesn't read Homer or Ovid merely to be able recognize references and borrowings in later works of literature. The point, rather, is to begin to understand these writers in all their imaginative and emotional power and to think about why they have had such an enduring hold on the western literary imagination. Our reading will provide a springboard for talking about a myriad of topics: myth, storytelling, epic poetry, tragedy and comedy, love poetry, literary and cultural values, gender, patriarchy, crime and punishment, empire, war, orality and writing, authorship, translation, parody, literary influence.

Requirements:  The course will require dedicated daily work, several short pieces of writing, and a final examination. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2705 Section 001       CRN 90756
Engles
African American Literature     0930-1045 TR  

Introduction of African-American literature in its socio-cultural and historical contexts, with emphasis on such writers as Douglass, Hurston, Hughes, Wright, Larsen, Baldwin, Morrison, Walker, and Beatty. Two papers, two exams, regular reading quizzes.  (old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 2)

                                  Cancelled

 

English 2760 Section 001     CRN 90757
Taylor
Introduction to Professional Writing     1100-1150 MWF

This course introduces concepts and practices of communication (written, visual, and oral) in professional settings. In this class, students produce various workplace documents, such as memos, reports, profiles, cover letters, and public relations flyers.

Overall, students will…

  • Develop and refine writing and editing skills learned in previous writing courses.
  • Recognize the responsibility of technical and professional writers to communicate clearly and concisely to satisfy an audience’s need for information.
  • Understand the value of professional and technical writing for readers in the world of work.
  • Demonstrate college- and professional-level writing produced through the process of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.
  • Write purposeful adequately developed paragraphs and sentences that are direct, economical, free of ambiguity, and structurally appropriate for the ideas expressed and for the audience to whom it is directed.
  • Develop research skills, including effective use of source materials and the principles of documentation.

(old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2760 Section 002       CRN 93084
Gay
Introduction to Professional Writing     1300-1350 MWF   

Introduction to the theory and practice of writing and writers in professional settings (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2901 Sections 001 & 002      CRN 93600 & 90760
Suksang
Structure of English     1000-1050 MWF & 1200-1250 MWF

This section of 2901 is designed to help students learn to analyze the basic components of the English language (i.e., words, phrases and sentences) and to understand the rules that govern their internal structure. We will also discuss the issue of language variation and learn to diagram phrases and sentences. Students are expected to participate in class discussion and take several tests. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2901 Section 003       CRN 90761
Markelis
Structure of English     1230-1345 TR

Students will analyze the rules that govern the English grammatical system. We will review the parts of speech and learn the various sentence patterns, but will also move beyond this to discuss how our knowledge might be applied in different learning situations. Active class participation is required. The final grade will be based on in-class quizzes, homework, and 4-5 tests, including a final exam. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 2901 Section 004       CRN 90762
Shonk
Structure of English     1500-1615 MW

This course is a study of grammar quite different from what most students undertook in high school. Rather than merely memorizing some rules and circling the correct words on exams, students will be required to understand the system behind our grammar, the forms and patterns of our language. Students will not stop at merely identifying the appropriate forms on exams. Rather, they will explain the choices in rather exact and concrete language, define the key aspects of the forms in question, and apply the principles at hand in their own writing. This course is a rigorous and demanding study of grammar, but it is one that future teachers, writers, and editors will find invaluable. By the end of the semester, students will become quite familiar with those terms they have often heard but little understood, such as dangling participles, subjective mood, elliptical constructions, direct objects, and so on. And they will be able to employ appropriate forms and avoid the inappropriate in their own writing while being able to explain those forms to others. In short, students will come to understand English grammar. For the course grade, students will complete a number of brief quizzes (some in-class, some take-home) and take five exams. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3001 Section 001       CRN 90764
Moore
Advanced Composition     0800-0915 TR

This course aims to build on and refine existing writing skills. Students will pursue a number of sequenced writing projects and exercises (project proposals, peer reviews, literature review, planning notes, etc.). The semester's work will culminate in a research assignment in each student's major area. The course design assumes students will be self motivated, and work independently as well as with others by assisting classmates in their work and accepting their commentary in the process of prewriting, writing and revision. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3001 Section 002       CRN 90765
Leddy
Advanced Composition     0900-0950 MW

We will practice the art of writing sentences and paragraphs, with as much room for improvement as a semester allows. Some writing will be on assigned topics; some, on topics of your devising. Some writing will be for a specific audience; some, for an imagined general reader. Some writing will be practical; some will involve the mind at play. All work in the course will emphasize revision as a necessary practice in writing. (I’ve made fourteen small revisions in writing this description.)

In the world beyond college, you’ll be the one responsible for the shape your writing skills are in. This course provides a great opportunity to get those skills in better shape now.

Requirements: The course will require dedicated daily work and considerable writing. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3001 Section 003       CRN 90766
Swords
Advanced Composition     0930-1045 TR

"You write the best you can, and you take your chances," Raymond Carver has written. This class will explore the truth and challenge of that statement, with an emphasis on developing voice, thematic and rhetorical focus, and a sense of audience in your writing. The work will involve a series of short papers, and the class will run as a workshop. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1

English 3001 Sections 004 & 007      CRN 90767 & 90770
Park
Advanced Composition     1100-1215 TR & 1530-1645 TR

This course emphasizes practice in two things: the clear exposition of ideas and the grammatical and stylistic command of writing.  You will exercise your skills in effectively communicating through writing.  You will apply problem-solving skills, provide peer-review criticism, and determine the division of labor within groups to construct projects related to your academic and professional interests.

As in all writing classes, the written word rules here.  We will examine how good writing looks (grammar), how it sounds (style), and where it goes (audience-oriented rhetoric).  Over the course of the semester, you will produce essays through stages of brainstorming, drafting, and fleshing out theses.  You will not do this alone, of course.  This is a workshop course, which means that, much as in the world outside the university, you will be writing for an audience larger than your professor.  You will receive and offer feedback on fellow students’ work.  In these feedback loops, you will be encouraged to keep an eye on your own growth as a writer of clear, effective, persuasive, and citation-savvy arguments.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a writing-centered, writing-intensive course. You will do a lot of writing and responding. If you foresee difficulty in attending class or meeting within groups regularly this semester, you should reconsider taking this course.  (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3001 Section 005       CRN 93601
McGregor
Advanced Composition     1200-1250 MWF

Building on existing writing skills, this course will help you review essential elements of composition, write for a variety of audiences and purposes, and develop an effective, individual style. In addition to your in and out-of-class writing practice, you will complete two short writing sequences and one lengthier research essay related to your major field. You will be expected to participate regularly in peer review of your colleagues' work. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

 

English 3001 Section 006       CRN 90769
Engles
Advanced Composition     1230-1345 TR

A writing course is more useful and interesting if it has a central focus. Ours will be the world of work, or more specifically, the effects of gender, race and social class in the “professional” workplace (that is, the kind of work environment in which most EIU students will find themselves after graduation). Students in this course will improve both their writing skills and their understanding of key elements of their own future professional lives. Because we will have a smaller group than those in most EIU courses, individual writing problems will receive close attention, both from the instructor and from classmates. Requirements: graded peer reviews, two short essays, and an extensive research project. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3002 Section 001       CRN 92833
Beebe
Research Writing for Literary Studies: Writing About Literature     1230-1345 TR

This writing course is designed for English majors who want to learn more about writing in advanced literary studies.    We will survey and practice a variety of forms, including review writing, scholarly editing, biography, and criticism.  But we will also be reading a great deal as well, from selections across the literary spectrum of fiction, non-fiction, film, biography, and literary theory. The course requires careful preparation of challenging readings, several short research and writing assignments, and longer writing project. (new curriculum Group 1)

 

English 3005 Section 001       CRN 90774
Binns
Technical Communication     1500-1615 MW

This course will introduce the essential elements of technical communication. Students learn to analyze writing situations, including the purpose for writing, assumed audiences, and appropriate styles and tones. We examine various genres of technical writing throughout the semester. Students also practice drafting, evaluating, and revising professional documents. Through peer response, several writing assignments, and oral presentations, this course offers students the opportunity to improve their writing, editing, and speaking skills. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3009G Section 001       CRN 93603
Leddy
Myth and Culture     1200-1250 MWF

The poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote that “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” Myth and Culture is a course about such stories, stories so powerful that they shape the ways in which people come to understand the world and its possibilities. Our work will range from the distant past to the near present and will focus on journeys—out from, into, and across cultures. From the ancient world: Gilgamesh and Homer’s Odyssey. From more recent times, two stories of women making lives for themselves in patriarchal cultures: The Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge and Negaesh Kukunoor’s film Dor. And two stories of American families on the road: Ric Burns’ documentary The Donner Party and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Requirements:  The course will require dedicated daily work, several short pieces of writing, and a final examination. (General Education Program; old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3009G Section 002       CRN 90777
Martone
Myth and Culture: Versions of the Dao     1300-1350 MWF

The Daodejing is one of the world’s most translated books, embodying teachings about nature and human life that have been of perennial interest and which remain compelling today. This course looks at Laozi’s classic in its original setting and explores its influence upon other cultures– Vietnamese, Japanese, and American.  (General Education Program; old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 5)

 

English 3009G Sections 003 & 004       CRN 90778 & 90779
Panjwani
Myth and Culture     1530-1800 T & 1530-1800 R

Topic: Asian Mythology

This course will involve an in-depth look at the myths and cultures of three Asian countries, namely, India, China, and Japan. In the Indian segment, we will read the Hindu and the Buddhist (the Hinayana or the Theravada) myths. The study of  Hinduism will include (i) Vedic (Early and Later) Mythology, (ii) the Puranic (The Ramayana and The Mahabharata) Mythology, (iii) Krishna Mythology, and (iv) Shiva Mythology. The Chinese segment will include the study of Confucianism, Taoism and Mahayana (Pureland) Buddhism. Finally the Japanese segment will focus on Zen Buddhism, Shinto and Ainu Mythologies.

The primary orientation of this study will be to develop a clear understanding of (i) philosophical and religious interpretations of Indian, Chinese and Japanese myths and (ii) social systems and moral/ethical values of these cultures. Whenever possible, we will also compare the commonalities and differences among these three Asian cultures and mythologies. Course requirements include: active preparation and class-participation, one mid-term exam, one final exam, and one research paper.  (General Education Program; old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3009G Section 005       CRN 94379
Nonaka
Myth and Culture     1100-1150 MWF
   
 
                                     Cancelled


English 3010G Section 001       CRN 90783
Swords
Literary Masterworks     1400-1515 TR

This course is founded on the idea that artistic expression is always at the center of human experience. Artists speak of things that we all feel, represent aspects of life in which we all share, and reveal dimensions to the world that make us who we are. In this class, we'll read works both old and new, famous and not so famous, traditional and experimental, with an eye to understanding both quality in art and the impact it can have on us. Requirements for the course include a lot of writing and a lot of discussion. (General Education)

 

 

 

English 3010G Section 600       CRN 93822
Guzlowski
Literary Masterworks     (internet course)

This online course focuses on American literary masterpieces of the 19th and 20th century. We read seminal poems, plays, and novels, that speak of the American self  and American society and how they have evolved over the years. We will read Thoreau's Walden, Whitman's "Song of Myself," Dickinson's poems, Cather's novel O Pioneers, Frost's poems, Faulkner's novel As I lay Dying, Baraka's The Dutchman, some poems by Plath and Ginsberg, and Toni Morrison's novel Bluest Eye.  Grades are based on frequent discussion postings, a midterm and final, and an essay.


English 3099G Section 099       CRN 90784
Wharram
Myth and Culture (Honors)     0900-0950 MWF

Through comparative analysis of myths from diverse cultural traditions, the course will examine relationships among mythical, historical, theological, socio-anthropological, and scientific ways of understanding.  (General Education Program; old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 5)

English/Philosophy 3100G Sections 001 & 002       CRN 90785 & CRN 90786
Loudon/Otto
Cultural Foundations I     1100-1215 TR

This team-taught, General Education Program course centers on three five-week segments, introducing distinctive cultural foundations by studying primary texts. The first segment examines the foundations of Western culture in classical Greece and Rome. Among the themes to be discussed are the differences in mythic and rationalist world views, relations between mind and body, concepts of reality versus appearances, and the development of tragic dimensions in humanity. Readings from the Greeks will be taken from Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Sappho and Sophocles; those from the Romans will be from Cicero, Horace, Ovid and Virgil.

The second segment will examine Jewish and Christian foundations for Western culture, drawing on readings from the Hebrew Bible and continuing to trace the development of Judaism. As the segment continues, the foundations of Christianity and its development in the Medieval Church, in the Protestant Reformation and in the modern period will be discussed, with readings drawn from the New Testament.

The third segment introduces Sub-Saharan African cultural foundations in contrast to the earlier emphasis on Western culture. The segment introduces traditional African concepts of origin, birth and death by reading brief myths from a variety of African cultures and examining the heroic epic Sundiata from Mali. To focus on the oral tradition, students will examine ritual performance texts from Tanzania and the Ndembu people. To conclude the segment, two short novels by Nigerian Chinua Achebe and Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong'o and a long poem by Ugandan Okot p'Bitek will enable students to explore the relationships between colonizing and colonized culture and to reflect on the impact of Western culture upon non-Western, African cultures.

The course format will be informal lecture and exploratory discussion; course requirements will consist of three essay examinations, including the final, and two five-page papers. (General Education; old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3401 Section 001       CRN 90790
Ames
Methods of Teaching Composition in the Secondary School     1500-1615 MW  

This course explores various best practices and approaches to teaching and evaluating written composition in secondary schools.  Course work will consist primarily of reading and responding to pedagogical texts, applying the findings in such to contemporary educational concerns, and crafting/modeling instructional tools both independently and cooperatively in ways that mirror professional learning communities.  The required work for this course includes crafting lesson plans, thematic units, a course design, and various reflective essays.  This course requires on-site observation hours and the live-text submission of one required assignment. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3402 Section 001       CRN 90791
Murray
Methods of Teaching Literature in the Secondary School     1530-1645 TR  

This course will provide theoretically-based, yet practical ways to integrate literature, reading, and media literacy in a language arts classroom. The course centers on creating a literature unit and rationale that builds on a well-planned language arts class. Students will gain an understanding of current literary and pedagogical theory and its applications by reading and responding to literary and secondary texts. Grades will be based on weekly responses, presentations, a unit and rationale, as well as active class participation and completion of a professional portfolio. Live-text submissions are a required component of the course. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 3405 Sections 001 & 002       CRN 90792 & 94386
Moore
Children's Literature     1100-1215 TR & 1400-1515 TR

The editors of Classics of Children's Literature, John Griffith and Charles Frey, note that "The great children's stories and poems. . . . Perhaps more than any other writers . . . constitute our real mythology." In this course we will be looking closely at this "mythology," a mythology that embodies many of our culture's ambiguous attitudes about children and childhood. The course will consider the love and hatred of childhood, the manipulation, the idealization, the mystification of childhood, as reflected in a literature which is, finally, created mainly by adults. Students will examine this literature in terms of its history and the history of childhood itself. We will explore the rich complexity and archetypal significance that makes children's literature an important cultural inheritance and links it to the literature that we customarily reserve for adults.

Finally, this survey course stresses the development of more astute evaluation of the literature. Students will be encouraged to think more cogently and purposefully about what goes into a serious judgment of literature for children and to think carefully about the validity of various critical methods of analysis and evaluation.

Two major papers, an oral presentation, brief written responses, midterm and final exam. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3405 Section 003       CRN 90794
Kory
Children's Literature     1100-1150 MWF  

As grown-ups, we bring adult concerns and adult literacy to our reading of children’s literature.  But we also bring our memories of listening to nursery rhymes and fairy tales, chanting playground rhymes, gazing at picture books, devouring series fiction, and escaping into novels.  Both of these perspectives—that of the former child and that of the adult critic—will enrich our discussion of the cultural significance, literary quality, rhetorical situatedness, and ideological content of texts that include children in their intended audience.  This course covers a lot of ground—historically, culturally, generically, critically—and is intended to provide you with a context for understanding and critically evaluating historical and contemporary children’s literature.  To that end, we will read and discuss exemplary works in each genre and then work in groups or individually to evaluate self-selected works in that genre.  You will receive scores for participation (which includes informal writing assignments and contributions to group work and class discussion as well as attendance), more formal written commentaries and reviews, individual and group presentations, and a final exam. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3504 Section 001       CRN 90795
Murray
Film and Literature: Knee-deep in Blood: Meeting Our Basic Needs in Film and Literature     1700-1900

This semester’s film and literature course will examine literature and film about the consequences of our consumption of food, energy, water, clothing, and other basic needs in relation to the strategies the writers and filmmakers employ to make their points. Some writers and filmmakers, for example, mask their messages through spectacular narratives and visual events, as in There Will be Blood, Fast Food Nation, Total Recall, and the literary works that inspired them. Please note: We will discuss all works on Monday and screen all films on Wednesdays during “lab time.” The class will be assessed through film responses, a final paper, a group presentation, and a midterm and final exam. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3601 Section 001       CRN 90796
Sylvia
Studies in Major Writers: Thomas Hardy: Novelist and Poet     1230-1345 TR

Thomas Hardy, one of the best known novelists of the late nineteenth century, produced several masterpieces:  "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," "The Mayor of Casterbridge," "Return of the Native."  Less well known are Hardy's  poems, about 1000 of them, which he began writing in the 1860s but did not publish until he had given up novel writing after publication of "Jude the Obscure" in 1895.  He also published four volumes of short stories.  We will read three Hardy novels, a collection of short stories, and lots of poems.  Requirements:  two exams, in-class writing, one research paper, and one class presentation. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 3D)

English 3700 Section 001       CRN 90799
Boswell
American Literature: 1450 to 1800     1100-1215 TR

The literature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America represents one of the most remarkable of all colonial literatures. We will read a variety of texts written by those who colonized: poetry, religious writings, histories, autobiographies, and political writings. We will also read texts by groups who represented the "colonized": Native Americans and African/American slaves. Finally, we will consider works written by "outsiders" about the colonial experience. Our critical approach will vary; we will try to focus on these texts in terms of their literary value and their significance to later American literature and culture.

Requirements: close reading, participation, 3 short papers, final exam. (old curriculum Group 5; new curriculum Group 3A)

English 3702 Section 001       CRN 90800
Allison
American Literature: Mid-19th Century to 1900     0930-1045 TR

The literature of American Realism (1860-1900) bears witness to America's coming of age. The country was reeling from the trauma of war, transitioning from a farm-based economy to a new economy of urban industry, and seeking to manage tensions between people's conflicting needs for social stability and social change. Anticipating the conditions of our lives, the literature of American Realism is well worth reading. During the course we will discuss a range of works by such writers as Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, and Edith Wharton. The works will include a rich variety of approaches to Realism--common-place Realism, naturalistic Realism, impressionistic Realism, and psychological Realism. Formal requirements include six-written responses (300-400 words each), a critical essay of 8-10 pages, and a final examination. (old curriculum Group 5; new curriculum Group 3B)

English 3702 Section 002       CRN 9512
Swords
American Literature: Mid-19th Century to 1900     1530-1645 TR

This course focuses on the literature and history of the United States from the midpoint of the nineteenth century to roughly 1920. In this period, American authors began realistically and vividly to chronicle through literature and art the lives of ordinary Americans as the nation began its second century. Issues of race, migration, modernization, personal aspiration, among others, will be explored through the work of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, W.E.B. Dubois, Willa Cather, Edgar Lee Masters, Kate Chopin, to name a few of the authors we’ll read. Apart from steady reading and active discussion, work for the class will include a take home midterm and final, as well as a library based research project. (old curriculum Group 5; new curriculum Group 3B)

English 3704 Section 001       CRN 90802
Carpenter
American Literature: 1950 to present    1400-1515 TR  

Emphasis on such topics as the Fabulous 50’s, the Beats, emerging minority cultures, the rise of feminism, postmodernism, and minimalism. Writers may include Bishop, Ginsberg, Plath, Bellow, Vonnegut, Shepard, Kesey, Olson, Baraka, Mason, Erdrich, Morrison. (old curriculum Group 5; new curriculum Group 3C)

English 3704 Section 002       CRN 90803
Martone
American Literature: 1950 to present: Ends of the Road?     0800-0850 MWF

Themes, issues, questions:
The cold war, paranoia and conformism. The corporate nation. Empire and consumption. Tradition and rituals of American counterculture. “American Adam”(s), and notions of creativity. Text and body.  The poetics of de/struction, and “the sense of an ending.” Boundaries – geographic, political, social, cultural, linguistic, and physical.  (old curriculum Group 5; new curriculum Group 3C)

 

English 3705 Section 001       CRN 93617
Ludlow
American Multicultural Literatures     1300-1350 MWF   

This course will focus on “Other(ed) Americans.” Each of the texts addresses what it means to be considered simultaneously “American” and “Other” to American culture. Fundamental questions guiding our study include: what does it mean to be Othered? how do U.S. multicultural authors represent and negotiate Othered status in their writing? and how does this literature help readers better understand the concepts “Othered” and “American”? Readings will include novels and poetry; requirements include three short exams, one group presentation, two papers, and regular responses to readings. (old curriculum Group 2; new curriculum Group 2)

English 3706 Section 001       CRN 90804
Loudon
American Regional Literature: Southwestern American Literature: Three Cultures & One People     1830-2100 T

We shall look at the confluence of literatures and cultures from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo-Americans in the Southwest as it shapes a singular sensibility in American history and culture.   We’ll begin by grounding the tension between explorers and nomads with settlers and the sedentary in a contemporary overview by Richard Grant before reading Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America.   From the Navajo creation myth Dine Bahane, Hopi Coyote Tales and Yaqui Deer Songs through poetry by Simon Ortiz and Joy Harjo to the novels Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and House Made of Dawn by Scott Momaday, we shall seek to grasp native understanding of the arid spaces and enveloping silence of the Southwest.  From Rudy Anaya’s novel Bless Me, Ultima, selected poets and a consideration of the old Spanish codes, we shall continue de Vaca’s journey into the 20th C.   From Paul Horgan’s Far from Cibola, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Frank Waters’ The Woman at Otowi Crossing and Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, we shall track Anglo settlers and nomads alike.  Finally, we shall glance back at Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings and D. H. Lawrence’s versions of the Southwestin order to re-evaluate Grant’s premises on the sedentary and the civilized and on the nomadic and the anarchic elements of the region and its culture.  Discussion (participation, reading quizzes as necessary)—20%; midterm essay examination—10%; two essays (6-8 pp, 25% each)—50%; and a final essay examination—20%.  (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 3800 Section 001       CRN 90805
Shonk
Medieval British Literature     1200-1250 MWF  
 
This course provides a sound and wide-ranging survey of Early English literature from the Old English period to the late Middle Ages. Our study begins with representative texts (in translation) from the Anglo-Saxon period (Wanderer, Seafarer, Dream of the Rood, and Beowulf) and continues through the delightful lyrics, the sublime works of the Pearl Poet (Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl) and some interesting drama, to conclude with a substantial section on Arthurian literature (Malory's Morte Darthur in particular). This final segment focuses on some of the most influential works of the period with its emphasis on the concepts of chivalry. Because the culture, the philosophy, and the language (Middle English, though we will read the more difficult works in modern English translations) are some distance from those of the students, the course is a challenge, a real test of the intellect. Students will take from the course a firm knowledge of the early stages of the language and of the seminal texts of the period. They will find the works frequently engaging, if not compelling.

 

Written requirements: 3 papers (approximately 5 pages each), a midterm and a final, and occasional quizzes.( old curriculum Group 3; new curriculum Group 3A)

 

English 3804 Section 001       CRN 90806
Caldwell
Milton: John Milton and the Radical Defense of Liberty     1000-1050 MWF

 

Both brilliant and arrogant, revered by some and hated by others, John Milton is one of the most controversial figures in literary history.  Beginning his career as an optimist in support of political and religious reform, Milton was consistently disappointed by his nation’s leaders who failed to deliver on their promises. Milton believed that the tyranny of the English government necessitated a radical support of liberty—a belief in reform that many shared and which led to the revolutionary actions of the English Civil War and the execution of King Charles I in 1649.  In the midst of this upheaval, Milton’s writing and poetry examine the nature, cause, and limitations of liberty.  As a passionate advocate of civil, political, and religious liberty in matters ranging from censorship to divorce to the authority of individual conscience, Milton’s defense of liberty culminated in Paradise Lost, one of the greatest epic poems ever written.  In this course, we will read closely much of Milton’s poetry and some of his more important prose in order to come to terms with his radicalism and his archaism and along the way discover what seems pleasingly familiar and what may be peculiar to our modern sensibilities.  Course requirements: Two papers, midterm, and final. (old curriculum Group 3; new curriculum Group 3D)

English 3805 Section 001       CRN 90808
Wharram
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century British Literature     1300-1350 MWF

This period in British Literature begins with a period—the Restoration—renowned as one of the funniest in literary history, remarkable for its theatrical comedies and bawdy satires, and ends with one of the most somber—the late eighteenth century—notorious for the morose verse of “The Graveyard School” and the bleak prose of the Gothic novel.   In this course, we will trace this genealogy in a way that attempts to recover the serious side of comedy and the funny side of melancholia.  That is, we’ll try not to be too depressed by the end of the semester.  (old curriculum Group 4; new curriculum Group 3A)

English 3806 Section 001       CRN 90810
Park
British Romantic Literature     1230-1345 TR 

 

This course examines the literature and history of British Romanticism through the concept of the “survey.” The term survey has several meanings that help us understand the era of concentrated political and aesthetic change called Romanticism. These include surveys of inner psychology and surveys of subjects acting within a large nexus of revolutionary ideas that helped mold what has been called the modern outlook: the conception of the literary survey, walking surveys of the natural landscape, sightlines between sympathetic spectator and sufferer, the surveillance of political subjects, and eyewitness accounts of revolutionary and colonial activities. While Romanticism proper may span the French Revolution (1789) through the Reform Bill (1832), it is important to recognize the reactionary nature of Romanticism. Thus we will begin with the Enlightenment philosophers, David Hume and Adam Smith, in order to understand the growing interest in both rationalizing and transcending human understanding, individuality, and social responsibility. Requirements: midterm, final exam, several response papers, quizzes, presentation, and two longer essays. (old curriculum Group 4; new curriculum Group 3B)

English 3808 Section 001       CRN 90812
Martinez
Modern British Literature     1100-1150 MWF

British and Irish fiction, drama, and poetry from 1900 to 1950, with emphasis on such writers as Forster, Lawrence, Woolf, Joyce, Rhys, Synge, and Yeats.  (old curriculum Group 4; new curriculum Group 3C)

 

English 4060 Section 001       CRN 94390
Fredrick
Professional Writing Career Development     1100-1215 T   

This course is designed to prepare Professional Writing minors for the job market. In this course, you will research job openings and professional organizations, participate in discussions with professional guest speakers, analyze your own professional skills and abilities, and read course materials related to career development. As part of the class, you will create your final resume, a cover letter template, a print portfolio, and a professional website or online portfolio. (Group 6)

English 4275 Section 001       CRN 90815
Fredrick
Internship in Professional Writing   ARR**

**Students must have permission of Director before registering for the Internship.

A community-based experience featuring practical application of skills developed in the English curriculum, the Internship is open only to upper-division students. To the extent possible, placement is matched to career goals with the expectation that students might approach graduation and the job search with writing/editing portfolios to show potential employers. Recent English interns have written for newspapers, edited magazines, designed documents, and prepared publicity materials for Eastern, Lake Land, the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, the Tarble Arts Center, the Coles County Association for the Retarded, and Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center.

English 4275 is a four-hour course offered on a credit/no credit basis. In addition to work created as part of the internship, students will engage in reflective writing about the internship and organizational culture. The Director and site-supervisors cooperate in evaluation.

PERMISSION OF THE DIRECTOR MUST BE SECURED PRIOR TO ENROLLMENT so that placement arrangements can be made. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5)

English 4300 Section 001       CRN 90828
Abella
Senior Seminar: Science Fiction: A lens into the future, or a reflection of what we are? Or both?     0900-0950 MWF

Does science fiction tease the imagination to grow beyond its limitations so we can envision new possibilities intellectually, socially, emotionally? Is it a metaphor that guides us beyond our resistance to gain new insights about ourselves? In other words, does science fiction perform a necessary visionary function that enables us to develop into more thoughtful human beings, and thereby to evolve into a more progressive civilization on all levels? In this class we will explore various science fiction texts and discuss the avenues they use to open our minds to questioning the limitations with which we surround ourselves. And we will see how they encourage us to examine who we are and seek a new understanding of what we can become. We will read writers such as Robert Heinlein, Ursula LeGuin, Nicola Griffith, Eric Brown, Neal Stephenson, Elizabeth Bear, Misha and John Shirley, as well as study movies such as District 9, Blade Runner, Alien, The Matrix, Land of the Dead.

Requirements include two papers, oral presentation, final exam and participation.
(old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

English 4300 Section 002       CRN 90832
Wixson
Senior Seminar: Literature of/as Detection     1230-1345 TR

While literature often seems to provide “answers” to questions about the human condition, it also feeds our compulsive, insatiable appetite for detection itself.  While characters may seek an answer within a text, readers also seek answers about the text. Detection too has its own shapes and (problematic) assumptions---that “clues” exist and can be discerned, that information is not always on the surface, that evidence will lead to an answer, that an answer might be had. This capstone course will explore the literature of detection as well as literature as detection, particularly in the wake of the well-publicized death of the Author. While our inquiry will begin with short mysteries by Roland Barthes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf, the bulk of the syllabus will contain more unusual suspects, among them contemporary novels by Ian McEwan, Arthur Phillips, Colson Whitehead, and Jeanette Winterson as well as plays by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and William Shakespeare. The course will require rigorous reading (averaging two hundred pages a week or so), thinking, and discussion in order to prepare seminarians for assignments designed to stretch their skills of research and interpretive analysis. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

English 4300 Section 003       CRN 90831
Campbell
Senior Seminar: Reading for Pleasure? Gender, Genre, and the Querelle des femmes, 1500-2010         1400-1515 TR

In this course we will explore popular genres of literature that have dominated several periods of literary history, examining the ways in which the centuries old Querelle des femmes, or the formal controversy over women, has informed them. Starting with Christine de Pizan, we will look at the roots of this phenomenon as they are illustrated in her Letter to the God of Love and Book of the City of Ladies, written largely in response to popular representations of women during her own day and specifically to those in the Romance of the Rose, from which we will also read excerpts. Then, we will take a broad-ranging foray through popular genres of literature in the ensuing literary periods. We will examine, for example, manifestations of the querelle in Renaissance dialogues, treatises, and plays, as well as in the satiric literature of the seventeenth century. Then, as we look at works from even later periods (ideally, we will include some contemporary works), we will ask the question, what elements of the querelle endure? How does rhetoric evolve to address them? What stock characters emerge? Ideas to consider: especially during the early modern manifestation of the querelle, it became considered something of a literary game, yet it was not always treated as such. We will be interested in examining the nuances of this literary tradition as it segues from popular culture game to serious social critique. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

 

English 4390 Section 097       CRN 90833
Campbell
Senior Seminar (honors): Reading for Pleasure? Gender, Genre, and the Querelle des femmes, 1500-2010          1400-1515 TR  

In this course we will explore popular genres of literature that have dominated several periods of literary history, examining the ways in which the centuries old Querelle des femmes, or the formal controversy over women, has informed them. Starting with Christine de Pizan, we will look at the roots of this phenomenon as they are illustrated in her Letter to the God of Love and Book of the City of Ladies, written largely in response to popular representations of women during her own day and specifically to those in the Romance of the Rose, from which we will also read excerpts. Then, we will take a broad-ranging foray through popular genres of literature in the ensuing literary periods. We will examine, for example, manifestations of the querelle in Renaissance dialogues, treatises, and plays, as well as in the satiric literature of the seventeenth century. Then, as we look at works from even later periods (ideally, we will include some contemporary works), we will ask the question, what elements of the querelle endure? How does rhetoric evolve to address them? What stock characters emerge? Ideas to consider: especially during the early modern manifestation of the querelle, it became considered something of a literary game, yet it was not always treated as such. We will be interested in examining the nuances of this literary tradition as it segues from popular culture game to serious social critique. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

English 4390 Section 098       CRN 31638
Wixson
Senior Seminar (honors): Literature as Detection     1230-1345 TR

“Literature of/as Detection”

While literature often seems to provide “answers” to questions about the human condition, it also feeds our compulsive, insatiable appetite for detection itself.  While characters may seek an answer within a text, readers also seek answers about the text. Detection too has its own shapes and (problematic) assumptions---that “clues” exist and can be discerned, that information is not always on the surface, that evidence will lead to an answer, that an answer might be had. This capstone course will explore the literature of detection as well as literature as detection, particularly in the wake of the well-publicized death of the Author. While our inquiry will begin with short mysteries by Roland Barthes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf, the bulk of the syllabus will contain more unusual suspects, among them contemporary novels by Ian McEwan, Arthur Phillips, Colson Whitehead, and Jeanette Winterson as well as plays by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and William Shakespeare. The course will require rigorous reading (averaging two hundred pages a week or so), thinking, and discussion in order to prepare seminarians for assignments designed to stretch their skills of research and interpretive analysis. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

English 4390 Section 099       CRN 90828
Abella
Senior Seminar (honors): Science Fiction: A lens into the future, or a reflection of what we are? Or both?     0900-0950 MWF

Does science fiction tease the imagination to grow beyond its limitations so we can envision new possibilities intellectually, socially, emotionally? Is it a metaphor that guides us beyond our resistance to gain new insights about ourselves? In other words, does science fiction perform a necessary visionary function that enables us to develop into more thoughtful human beings, and thereby to evolve into a more progressive civilization on all levels? In this class we will explore various science fiction texts and discuss the avenues they use to open our minds to questioning the limitations with which we surround ourselves. And we will see how they encourage us to examine who we are and seek a new understanding of what we can become. We will read writers such as Robert Heinlein, Ursula LeGuin, Nicola Griffith, Eric Brown, Neal Stephenson, Elizabeth Bear, Misha and John Shirley, as well as study movies such as District 9, Blade Runner, Alien, The Matrix, Land of the Dead.

Requirements include two papers, oral presentation, final exam and participation.
(old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

EIU 4192G Section 099       CRN 90860
Boswell
Film and Contemporary Society [Honors Senior Seminar]     1530-1850 T

Film represents the most popular—and probably the most powerful—art form of our own time. We will watch, study, and discuss a variety of movies throughout the semester as we explore the history, aesthetics, and critical theory which inform the movies. Prerequisites: Admission to the University Honors Program and permission of the Director of Honors Program.

Requirements: class participation, several short papers, one substantial research paper.

Note: This University Senior Seminar does not fulfill the English Honors Senior Seminar requirement, English 4300/4390. (General Education)

 

CLASSES NUMBERED 4750 THROUGH 4999.  THESE CLASSES ARE OPEN TO JUNIORS, SENIORS, AND GRADUATE STUDENTS.  GRADUATE STUDENTS ARE LIMITED TO NINE HOURS OF COURSE-WORK IN THIS CATEGORY.

 

English 4760 Section 001       CRN 95382
Gay
Studies in Professional Writing     1100-1150 MWF
 
Focused study of professional writing, designed to enhance understanding of workplace writing and provide experience in producing it. Topic will vary semester to semester. May be repeated with a different topic with the permission of the Department Chairperson.


English 4761 Section 001       CRN 90836
Markelis
Creative Nonfiction Writing     0800-0915 TR

Advanced practice in the writing and revising of creative nonfiction, with an emphasis on the development of the student’s individual style. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 1 or Group 5)

English 4764 Section 001       CRN 90837
Moffitt
Play Writing     1400-1450 MWF  

                                   Cancelled

English 4765 Section 001       CRN 93624
Fredrick
Professional Editing     1400-1515 TR   

Editing is an important part of the work professional communicators do. In this course, we will practice all levels of editing: copyediting for grammatical correctness and consistency, fact-checking, editing for style, editing for design, and developmental editing for content and organization. We will edit texts from disciplines such as health, technology, business/ marketing, and the sciences. Because editing, like all communication, is local, we will address the rhetorical choices editors have to make, and we will look at the different style guides that might influence what and how you edit. Because editing usually takes place within a larger organizational setting, we will also discuss project management, editor-author relationships, and electronic editing. (Group 6)

English 4775 Section 001       CRN 90838
Ringuette
Studies in Literary and Cultural Criticism and Theory: Inquiry & Imagination     1100-1215 TR
 
Critics and writers often speak of poems, novels, and plays as works of imagination, and in doing so they inevitably raise the question of what work the imagination does and how it goes about doing that work.  If such work usually proceeds in a complex, systematic way, and yields something meaningful (a poem, for example), then an understanding of the function of imagination in literature is well worth pursuing.

This course is premised on the idea that a fundamental principle of Western thought is inquiry, and it also focuses on how imagination figures into the writing and reading of literature.  What are the problems encountered in dealing with the imagination?  William Carlos Williams says that "Imagination is not to avoid reality, nor is it description nor an evocation of objects or situations; it is to say that poetry does not tamper with the world but moves it."  In our deliberations and discoveries, we, like Wallace Stevens, will engage in an imaginative search for "what will suffice."

We’ll read a wide variety of writers and theorists—ancient and modern—who have had something to say about the relations among inquiry, imagination, and literature.  We’ll proceed in a seminar-format.  We’ll read and write, and talk about that reading and writing. Other requirements include midterm (short) and final (long) essays. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 4)

English 4801 Section 001       CRN 93625
Ames
Integrating the English Language Arts     1830-2100 T

This course centers on connecting pedagogical theory and its practical applications for integrating the English language arts, including literature, composition, speech, drama, and media. Future teachers will have the opportunity to learn how to integrate a variety of methods grounded in theories in the teaching of English language arts, as well as strategies for teaching non-traditional texts from popular culture.  Adapting written and oral communication to audience and situation; recognizing components of effective oral and written communication; and integrating technology and media into the language arts classroom will be key elements of this course.  Course work will include:  response papers, pedagogical research, lesson plans, unit design, authentic assessments,  and various presentations.(old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 1)

English 4850 Section 001       CRN 90839
Bredesen
Studies in Third-World Literatures: Women, Bodies, and the Birth of Nations    1800-2030 W    

This course is intended to help students begin to establish familiarity with diverse literatures of the world  and to move beyond the Western canon, that is, to read, understand, and enjoy texts produced in and reflective of diverse cultures. This section of English 4850 ponders the ways bodies serve as metaphors for national identity, especially in colonial and post-colonial narratives. Although we will bring into the discussion other nations and narratives, our primary focus will be on South African literature, most of it produced in the period following the overthrow of the system of legislated racism known as “apartheid.”  Through a lens of feminist and postcolonial theories, we will examine narratives that imagine Africa as woman—-mother, virgin and/or victim; we will also read texts that resist this often violent representational practice.  Further, we will also consider representations of men, male bodies, and masculinity in the novels and histories we study. Finally, we will look at the ways fiction, auto/biography, and history—contribute to the process of nation-building.
 
English 4850 is a writing-intensive course, intended to enable motivated students improve their written expression, as well as reading comprehension, critical thinking, and oral expression. Assignments will include student presentations of literary, historical, and critical secondary texts, short writing assignments, a midterm and final examinations and a 10-12 page research-based paper.  (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 2)

English 4903 Section 001       CRN 94431
Kory
Young Adult Literature     1400-1515 MW

In this class we will explore the range of works in English written for and about “young adults” (teens and pre-teens), focusing primarily on those produced after the 1960s, when this category emerged as a distinct literary market.  Class discussions, individualized writing assignments and group presentations will focus on critical analysis of narrative technique and literary quality as part of a more wide-ranging evaluation that takes into account the needs and desires of the target audience(s) for these works.  We will also explore the ways these novels and short fictions reveal changing social attitudes and diverse authorial slants on adolescents and the world around them.  Readings will include ground-breaking works such as Monster (winner of the first Printz award), Rules of the Road, A Step from Heaven, Am I Blue? and Feed in addition to self-selected works in a variety of genre (realism and fantasy) from a range of time-periods and cultural perspectives.  Writing assignments will include informal analytic responses, a more formal research-based review essay, and a final exam.  Students taking the course for graduate credit will complete a more extensive research project on an issue in young adult literature. (old curriculum Group 6; new curriculum Group 5, Group 1 for teacher certification)

English 4950 Section 001       CRN 90842
Vietto
Literary History     1000-1050 MWF  

Your education in literature in Eastern’s department has mostly been organized around the idea of literary periods.  In this course we will examine the reasons for this kind of organization of literature, the problems with it, and what you can do with literary history.

We’ll undertake this investigation in three phases.  First, we will discuss the literary curriculum as you have experienced it, and you will review your own familiarity with the various historical periods.  You will also read a few works individually selected to help you fill in some of the “gaps” in your historical knowledge, and finally you will write an essay reflecting on your own reading and its relationship to literary history.  Second, we will use the history of printing and other forms of textual production (from the medieval scribe to the Internet) as a way to organize our thinking about Anglo-American literature; along the way, we will use some of the cool new technological resources that let us learn about the history of printing and production of texts.   Finally, each member of the class will select and read two works of literature in English published in the last 10 years (literary fiction, poetry, drama, or memoir) and write an essay in which you use some aspect of literary history to illuminate one or both of the works you selected. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

                                  Cancelled

 

English 4950 Section 002      CRN 94393
McGregor
Literary History     1400-1450 MWF   

A historical study of British and American literary periods, schools, figures, and genres, with emphasis on current resources, methods, and theories in research.  Required of and enrollment limited to English majors. (old curriculum Group 1; new curriculum Group 4)

 

 

Graduate Seminars



 

English 5000 Section 001       CRN 90844
Worthington
Introduction to Methods and Issues in English Studies     1900-2130 M  

An introduction to critical approaches, research methods, and current issues in literary and composition studies. Required in first year of enrollment.

 

English 5001 Section 001       CRN 93626
Raybin
Studies in Old and Middle English Literature: Chaucer: Current Approaches    1900-2130 T

Chaucer is one of the great poets, those writers whose language and wide-ranging interests have delighted and instructed readers across many centuries.  Each generation, though, has its own Chaucer, as critics respond to his thought and expression according to the tenor of their own time.  We will read Chaucer’s poetry (dream poems and large selections from the Canterbury Tales) in conjunction with a new collection of essays treating current directions in Chaucer scholarship.  Our goal will be to explore both what the poet wrote and how our contemporary moment determines the significance of his poetry.

Requirements: careful reading of the literature and criticism, lively participation in discussion, various formal and informal reports and presentations, and a substantial seminar paper.

 

 

English 5003 Section 001       CRN 94612
Caldwell
Studies in 17th-Century British Literature: Liberty, Authority, and the Early Modern Imagination: Voices of Order, Dissent, and Toleration in the English Civil War     1900-2130 W

The English Civil War radically changed the literary and social landscape of early modern England and posed new challenges to writers as they struggled to come to terms with the war and its weighty implications for England’s political, religious, and cultural identities. In varying ways, writers of this period examine the complete spectrum of this upheaval: the relationship between the individual and the state; the value of religious and intellectual diversity, liberty, and toleration; the relationship between peace and truth and their relative worth; and the value of differing and opposing forms of knowledge and authority. In addition to reading selections from the literary works of John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Margaret Cavendish, and Izaak Walton, and others, we will also examine selections from radical political and religious writers such as the Ranters, the Diggers, the Levellers, and the Cambridge Platonists; the spiritual auto/biographies of Thomas Browne, Charles I, Lucy Hutchinson, and the “prophetess” Anna Trapnel; and the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and utopian writer Henry Neville. Requirements will include a presentation and an article-length research paper.

English 5006 Section 001       CRN 90845
Hoberman
Studies in Twentieth-Century British Literature: The Politics of Gender/The Gender of Politics: British Fiction of the 1930s     1530-1800 R

How do writers write during a period of crisis and polarization?  In histories of British literature, the decade of the 1930s is generally seen as a retreat from the modernist experimentalism of the 1920s.  Faced with choices between fascism and communism, capitalism and socialism, nationalism and internationalism, writers responded to a series of political and economic crises:  the depression in 1930, Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939.  The fiction that resulted—by writers like George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, and Aldous Huxley—tended to avoid narrative and stylistic complexity in favor of overtly political and/or satirical stances.

Simultaneously and perhaps less obviously, there was also a gender crisis:  as unemployment brought pressure on women to return to pre-World War I domesticity, Winfred Holtby wrote in her 1934 Women and a Changing Civilization, “bitterness began which has lasted ever since.” “No age,” according to Woolf in her 1929 A Room of One’s Own, “can ever have been as stridently sex-conscious as our own.”

This course will juxtapose writers not often studied together—male and female, “lowbrow” and “highbrow”—in an effort to explore how fiction, gender, and politics intersected during the 1930s.  Writers studied will include Agatha Christie, Mary Butts, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, and Evelyn Waugh.  In addition students will select a lesser-known writer from the period for independent research.  Requirements:  two presentations, a research paper, and a final exam.

English 5007 Section 001     CRN 94712
Binns
Composition Theory and Pedagogy     1530-1800 T

This seminar introduces graduate students to the theories and pedagogies that shape our understanding of how to teach writing at the college level. We will explore the foundational pedagogies, history, and theory of the discipline of Composition. The course will explore how knowledge gets made in Composition/Rhetoric. As part of the course, students will write analytical responses to readings. Students will also complete a seminar paper based on secondary and/or primary sources.

English 5009 Section 001       CRN 94395
Hanlon
Studies in 19th-Century American Literature: Transatlantic Transcendentalism     1530-1800 R

Through most of the twentieth century, scholars and students of American literature conceived their subject matter in relative isolation from other national cultures, as if in obeisance to the Puritans’ notion of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a city upon a hill, a break from the old world, a disavowal of European (and especially English) models of nationalism and subjectivity.  Indeed, the canonization of many key antebellum authors such as Emerson, Whitman, Hawthorne, and Melville proceeded along lines plotted to emphasize the motif of American exceptionalism, and the historical coordinates imagined to provide context for these writers’ works—westward expansion, the Monroe Doctrine, “manifest destiny,” and so on—similarly focused upon an idea of America as a self-contained cultural space.  More recently, the field of Americanist literary studies has re-oriented itself around the transnational models suggested by both anti-imperialist critique and transatlantic studies.  For the former, the history of “America” is irreducibly a history of national encroachment upon “foreign” territories such as the Cherokee Nation or, for that matter, Texas; for the latter, American consciousness was much more informed by English novels, ideas, and policies than the earlier, more exceptionalist model ever admits.

In this course we will explore what it means to study American literature and culture in a transnational frame of mind.  Our focus will fall upon the transcendentalist writers of the antebellum period—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Christopher Cranch, and Octavius Brooks Frothingham, for instance—but will also include writers and thinkers often considered fellow travelers of those who more explicitly identified themselves as transcendentalists: Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Lydia Maria Child, and others. By examining these figures in a transatlantic context, we’ll study both the extent to which the ideas they formed and engaged emerged out of a North Atlantic rather than strictly American culture of intellectual exchange; and we’ll also consider the ways in which geopolitical relations between America and England conditioned their thought.  And inasmuch as it will be helpful, we’ll also read from the work of recent Americanist scholars who elaborate what they see as the stakes at play in reading in a transatlantic frame of mind.

English 5010 Section 001       CRN 94396
Engles
Studies in 20th-Century American Literature: Paradigm Shifts in Multiculturalism     1900-2130 R

When the term "multiculturalism" gained so much currency in the 1990s, what did it really mean, and what does that term mean now? What were the "culture wars" and "identity politics," and how do such discussions play out differently now?  How could it be, as some critics have claimed, that multiculturalism is bad for women? What is the new "critical whiteness studies"? And what, amidst all of that, was and is "multicultural literature"? These matters will form the backdrop for our discussion of major works of multicultural literature from the past two decades. Course requirements: two papers, presentations, regular quizzes, and a final exam.

English 5960 Section 003       CRN 92853
Fredrick
Professional Writing Internship     ARR**

**Students must have permission of Director before registering for the Internship.

A community-based experience featuring practical application of skills developed in the English curriculum, the Internship is open only to upper-division students. To the extent possible, placement is matched to career goals with the expectation that students might approach graduation and the job search with writing/editing portfolios to show potential employers. Recent English interns have written for newspapers, edited magazines, designed documents, and prepared publicity materials for Eastern, Lake Land, the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, the Tarble Arts Center, the Coles County Association for the Retarded, and Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center.

English 5960 is a three-hour course offered on a credit/no credit basis. In addition to work created as part of the internship, students will engage in reflective writing about the internship and research issues connected to professional writing and organizational culture. The Director and site-supervisors cooperate in evaluation.