Spring 2019 English Department Course Offerings

English 302:  Writers Workshop:  Prose

Dr. Deborah Fleming

TTh 9:25-10:40 Required for Creative Writing Majors and Minors; ILA Major elective

This is a seminar in the writing of fiction and creative nonfiction.  Professors with extensive publication experience conduct the workshop. Classes will consist of discussion of professional and student work.  Students will complete exercises and write their own fiction and creative nonfiction and demonstrate understanding of narrative technique by discussing their own work and the work of other students in the class.

English 304: Short Story
Dr. Jayne E. Waterman
T Th 12:15-1:30 p.m. 
Core Humanities, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors 

This course will consider the following underlying questions: What is a short Story? Who reads short stories? Why read short stories? From the canonical to the experimental, this course will analyze a wide range of short stories included in Ann Charters’ anthology, The Story and Its Writer, as we debate the purpose, function, and merits of this genre. We will explore the cultural, historical, and political implications and contexts of key stories alongside issues of craft, style, and form. The elements of this short fiction, authorial insights into the creative process, and critical approaches to this literature will broaden, enhance, and complicate our understanding of the short story. This is a reading-intense, writing-intense, and discussion-intense course.

English 309: African American Literature

Dr. Sharleen Mondal

MWF 1:00-1:50

Core Humanities, elective for English and ILA majors

This course examines African American poetry, non-fiction, and novels, focusing especially on twentieth and twenty-first century writing.

Likely texts might include:

Nella Larsen’s Passing

Richard Wright’s “Between the World and Me”

Readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me

Readings from James Baldwin’s Notes from a Native Son

Richard Wright’s Native Son

Ava DuVernay’s 13TH

Assignments include two long papers, two exams, and shorter response papers, in addition to reading quizzes and regular class discussion.

English 317: Shakespeare 
Dr. Russell Weaver 
MWF 1
Core Humanities, requirement in English and ILA , elective for English and Creative Writing minors

We will be reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Two papers and two presentations.

English 370: Russian Novel 
Dr. Russell Weaver 
MWF 2
Core Humanities, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors

We will be reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Two papers and two presentations.

English 371.A Literature & Film

Dr. Maura Grady

T/TH 1:40-2:55 p.m.

Requirement for Integrated Language Arts Major, Elective for English and Creative Writing

This course examines the relationship between writing and cinema by focusing on film adaptations of literary genres such as the novel, short story, nonfiction essay, theatrical play and poem. We will consider theories of film adaptation as well as historical and industry-specific issues to address our central question: “How can studying film adaptation allow us to better understand what it is that literature does, and vice versa?” You’ll see that this is a very contentious issue, so expect to read and discuss different points of view about the value of adaptations, to watch film adaptations outside of class, to engage in class discussions, and to examine one adaptation for a final project. There are also a number of shorter written assignments. The course is designed as a discussion-focused seminar with substantial weekly reading, informal and formal writing assignments. In Spring 2018, we will focus on films of the 1990s, arguably a new “golden age” in American cinema as well as a time of technological and industry transition.  

Possible films:

• The Player (1992), adapted by Michael Tolkin, directed by Robert Altman from Tolkin’s novel
• Quiz Show (1994), adapted by Paul Attanasio, directed by Robert Redford from the nonfiction historical memoir Remembering America by Richard Goodwin
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994), adapted and directed by Frank Darabont from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
• Devil in a Blue Dress (1995),  adapted and directed by Carl Franklin from the novel by Walter Mosley
• Out of Sight (1998), adapted by Scott Frank, directed by Steven Soderbergh from the novel by Elmore Leonard
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), adapted and directed by Anthony Minghella from the novel by Patricia Highsmith
• The Insider (1999), adapted by Eric Roth and Michael Mann, directed by Michael Mann from Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair story “The Man Who Knew Too Much”

Required texts for purchase will be confirmed by January 1st but will likely include:

• John Desmond and Peter Hawkes: Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature (ISBN: 978-1308648538)
• Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress (ISBN: 978-0743451796)
• Elmore Leonard: Out of Sight (ISBN: 978-0062227874)
• Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley (ISBN: 9780393332148)
• Michael Tolkin, The Player (ISBN: 978-0802135131)

Additional readings will be on Blackboard

English 405:  Problems in Creative Writing

Dr. Deborah Fleming

TTh 10:50-12:05 Required for Creative Writing Majors

This course is intended to acquaint creative writing majors, minors, and other students interested in literature with some current trends in the state of contemporary American expressive writing (prose and poetry).  It is concerned with the development of individual style and voice in student writing.  Students write and revise their own works and discuss their colleagues’ work in a seminar setting.  The course is conducted by professors with extensive publication experience.  There will be one critical paper.

English 415:  Capstone Course in Creative Writing

Dr. Deborah Fleming

TTh 12:15-1:30 Required for Creative Writing Majors

English 415 is the capstone course of the creative writing program and the major. The work of this class is the completion of a final draft of your thesis. As a prose writer, your thesis should be from 100-150 pages in length and can be a collection of essays, a memoir, a collection of short stories or a short novel.  Poetry writers should present 20-30 poems, or the equivalent of a chapbook-length collection.  The primary work of the class is reading and workshopping the prose and poetry of the students in the class.

ENG 417: English Grammar & Usage
MWF 12:00-12:50
Dr. Donatini
Requirement in the Integrated Language Arts major and Middle Grades Language Arts Minor; elective in English major
Prerequisite: ENG 102

This course will provide students with knowledge of grammar, syntax, and mechanics. It is designed for those preparing to be teachers of English and Language Arts as well as for those who wish to extend their knowledge of the language.

Book: Martha Kolln, Linda Gray, and Joseph Salvatore, Understanding English Grammar, 10th ed. (Pearson)

English 426: American Literature II: 1845-1890
Dr. Jayne E. Waterman
Th 6:00-8:30 p.m. 
Elective in the English and Creative Writing, and ILA majors, Elective in the English and Creative Writing minors

This course will examine a particularly vibrant mid-nineteenth century literary period. In addition to an examination of a wide range of authors and texts, the course will pay close attention to contexts. In an era marked by significant cultural moments and shaped by influential socio-historical forces, the course will consider a number of key issues that will inform our textual analysis. From the excesses of industrial wealth to abject slum-dwelling poverty or the New England commune to westward expansion, the course will assess the literary impact of various cultural impulses. In addition, discussion will focus on acute textual issues of social justice from slavery and the Abolitionist movement to the Civil War and emancipation, as well as the emerging notions of American womanhood, the woman’s suffrage movement, and the New Woman. Alongside essays, novels, stories, and poems, the course will be attuned to developing genres from nineteenth-century slave narratives, magazines, periodicals and muckraking journalism to innovations in literary forms and literary realism. The course asks what this new American literary landscape articulates and will rely on key literary and cultural criticism to help explore the implications of this question. Readings may be selected from Emerson, Poe, Dickinson, Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Fuller, Fern, Child, Alcott, Stowe, Jacob, Harding Davis, Douglass, James, and Riis.