ENG 201 A&B Introduction to Creative Writing--Poetry Section
Dr. Deborah Fleming
MWF 10:00-10:50
Requirement for Creative Writing Major & Minor, Requirement for the Integrated Language Arts Major
In this seminar class we will discuss students' own poems as well as learn about poetic forms.
Requirements: During each week devoted to poetry, students will write one or several poems to be discussed in class; portfolio submitted at the end of the semester.
Text: Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms
ENG 301 Writers' Workshop: Poetry
Dr. Deborah Fleming
MWF 1:00-1:50
Requirement for Creative Writing Major & Minor, Elective in the Integrated Language Arts Major
In this seminar class we will discuss students' own poems as well as review poetic forms, technique, and style.
Requirements: One poem per week, reaction papers most weeks on assigned poems, one paper on an Ashland Poetry Press book; portfolio submitted at the end of the semester.
Text: Ferguson, et. al., Norton Anthology of Poetry, Shorter Fifth Edition or similar Norton Anthology of Poetry; one Ashland Poetry Press book.
ENG 314: Literature and Gender
Dr. Sharleen Mondal
MWF 2:00-2:50
Core Humanities, elective in the English and Integrated Language Arts majors, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
Our course theme for spring 2016 will be "Narratives of Cross-Cultural Encounter." The central question of our course will be: how do gender, race, class, and other such factors shape how literature is produced, reviewed by contemporary readers, and discussed in our current culture? Our readings will include essays, two novels, and relevant films. Students will write several short literary analysis papers and two longer literary arguments. There will also be two exams and two presentations. Readings are likely to be chosen from the following:
Short Essays:
John Ruskin, "Of Queens' Gardens"
John Stuart Mill, "Statement Repudiating the Rights of Husbands"
Virginia Woolf, "Professions for Women"
Novels:
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Literary criticism on each novel
ENG 316: Postcolonial Literature
Dr. Sharleen Mondal
MWF 1:00-1:50 PM
Core
Humanities, elective in the English and Integrated Language Arts
majors, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
This Honors course will focus on postcolonial literature and film from South Asia, specifically India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. We will begin with the late colonial period, examining the end of British rule and struggle for independence, decolonization, modernity, and postcolonial nationhood through the perspective of poetry, short stories, essays, novels, and film. We will consider the nuances of everyday life under British rule, what it meant for colonized Indians to seek independence (inspired the Irish "Home Rule" movement), and the religious and linguistic tensions that led to the formation of Bangladesh.
Likely texts include:
Timothy Corrigan's A Short Guide to Writing about Film
Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" (poem)
Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King (novella)
Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age (novel)
Selections from letters and speeches by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru
Gandhi (film, 1982, directed by Richard Attenborough)
Earth (film, 1998, directed by Deepa Mehta)
Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable (novel)
Literary criticism and historical materials as relevant
Class activities include regular discussion, reading quizzes, three exams, short close reading papers, two longer literary argument papers, and two presentations.
ENG 317: Studies in Shakespeare
Dr. Naomi Saslaw
TTh 10:50 a.m.-12:05 p.m.
Core Humanities, requirement in the English and Integrated Language Arts majors, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
Students will read examples of Shakespearean histories, comedies, romances, and tragedies, exploring language and dramatic technique to develop an understanding of the structure and themes.
ENG 319: Modern Drama
Dr. Jayne E. Waterman
TTh 1:40-2:55 p.m. (Hybrid)
Core
Humanities, elective in the English and Integrated Language Arts
majors, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
This course will begin with the close reading analysis of some powerful one-act plays from the late nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. We will also consider a range of full plays from, for example, Ibsen’s realism to Quiara AlegrÃa Hudes’ triumph in trauma. All of the course texts will help the class explore key issues, ideas, texts, and contexts of European and American modern drama. The main focus of the course will be to examine plays from different periods and styles. Attention will also be paid to the cultural, historical, political, sociological, and dramaturgical aspects that surround and inform the works. Themes of gender and race, the tension of illusion and reality, and the crisis of the individual and the family will also be of significance as we explore modern dramatic sensibilities and discourse. In addition to the texts, the course will, where relevant, consider the adaptations and interpretations of the plays in performance and film.
Assignments: Two essays, a presentation, in class and online projects and participation.
ENG 333: American Studies – Nineteenth Century: The American 1890s
Dr. Linda Joyce Brown
MWF 12:00-12:50
Core Humanities; Elective in the English major, English minor, and Creative Writing minor
This course will provide an in-depth look at a pivotal decade in American cultural history: the 1890s. We will frame the course by examining the World’s Columbian Exposition, a fair held in Chicago in 1893 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival. With this fair as our touchstone, we will consider many of the significant shifts in America’s cultural and political landscape that occurred in the 1890s, such as the United States’ increasing colonial power, the supposed “closing” of the frontier, the expansion of Jim Crow policies, and changing social and political roles of American women. Our reading assignments will include fiction and nonfiction texts that represent and respond to the significant events of the era.
ENG 338: Themes and Topics: Utopian and Dystopian Literature
Dr. Linda Joyce Brown
MWF 2:00-2:50
Core Humanities; Elective in the English major, English minor, and Creative Writing minor
In the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the United States’ presidency, there has been a marked increase in sales of dystopian texts such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. To what extent are such texts relevant to our current social and political environment?
In this course, we will explore how writers have imagined ideal and far-from-ideal worlds. A premise of this course is that by studying utopian and dystopian fiction and thinking deeply about the ideas these texts pose, we can gain new insight about contemporary social and political problems. Thus, in addition to addressing texts within their specific historical and cultural contexts, we will also connect them to contemporary issues, such as environmental degradation, technological dependence, and debates surrounding sexuality, marriage, and family.
ENG 360: Literature of Crime and Retribution
Dr. Naomi Saslaw
Wednesday 6:30p.m.-09:10 p.m.
Core Humanities; Elective in the English major, English minor, and Creative Writing minor
This course emphasizes close analysis of literature on themes including evil, faith, insanity, racism, and motiveless malignity.
ENG 365: Greek Literature
Dr. Russell Weaver
MWF 9:00-9:50
Core Humanities; Elective in the English major, English minor, and Creative Writing minor
In this course we will read some of the great masterpieces of Greek Literature. This particular semester we will be reading Homer’s Odyssey along with ten plays by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus. Sophocles: Antigone, Oedipus the King, The Women of Trachis, Ajax and Philoctetes
Euripides: Medea, Hippolytus, Iphigenia at Aulis, Electra. Aeschylus: Agamemnon.There will be two take-homes, one on either Antigone or Medea and one on The Odyssey and one presentation on two of the other plays.
ENG 406: Seventeenth-Century English Literature
Dr. Hilary Donatini
TTh 12:15-1:30
Elective for English major and minor, Creative Writing major and minor, and Integrated Language Arts major
The seventeenth century was a time of political and religious conflict in England, when Catholic extremists came close to blowing up Parliament in the 1605 “Gunpowder Plot” and civil war gripped the nation mid-century. King Charles I was publicly beheaded in 1649, leaving the throne empty until the 1660 Restoration of his son, Charles II. Out of this dissonant and dissenting culture came some of the most vigorous and energetic voices in English literature. Seventeenth-century authors engaged with topics as various as religion, politics, philosophy, and the workings of the human heart. We will read poems and prose works by authors ranging from John Donne to John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost, one of the greatest epic poems in the history of literature. Throughout the semester, we will investigate the relationship between form and content—how a range of genres allowed authors to respond to or influence contemporary debates.
Format: Heavy emphasis on class discussion with occasional lectures
Assignments: one quiz, three essays, exam, and a presentation
Required Text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th Ed.: Volume B: The Sixteenth Century/The Early Seventeenth Century
ENG 410: Romantic Movement
Dr. Russell Weaver
MWF 11:00-11:50
Elective for English major and minor, Creative Writing major and minor, and Integrated Language Arts major
In this course we will read some of the great masterpieces of the Romantic Movement. This semester we will be read some of Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “The Eve of St. Agnes,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “Lamia,” Bronte’s Jane Eyre; and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There will be two take-homes, one on either Blake or Wordsworth and one on Keats, and two presentations, one on Coleridge and one on Jane Eyre and Frankenstein.
