ENG 303 A: Writers’ Workshop in Screenwriting
Dr. Maura Grady
TTh 9:25-10:40 a.m.
Required for Creative Writing majors, elective in the English and Integrated Language Arts majors
Have you ever wanted to write your own movie or television show? Well, now you can do it and earn college credit at the same time!
In this course, you will develop and write your own original screenplay and workshop it over the semester with others in this intimate and supportive workshop setting (enrollment is capped at 14).
You will learn about formatting, structure, character, and dialogue.
Required text:
Duncan, Genre Screenwriting: How to Write Popular Screenplays that Sell
ENG 308 OLA: The Poem
Dr. Stephen Haven
8-week online course
Core Humanities, elective in the Creative Writing, English and Integrated Language Arts majors, elective in the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
English 308 will develop students’ understanding of the interaction of form and content in poetry. Using examples from the work of important late 20th century and early 21st century writers, and focusing on four “case study” poets (Bishop, Wright, Trethewey and Levis), the course will explore how poets use such aesthetic effects as rhyme, meter, word play, repetition, associational meaning, humor, imagery, and other devices to achieve in their poems a “totality of effect.” We will explore the ways the “totality of effect” of accomplished poems can sometimes suggest layers of literal and implied meanings that compete with one another, even contradict one another, while maintaining nevertheless a sense of aesthetic unity. The course will also provide students with an understanding of the similarities and differences between lyric and narrative poetry, particularly with regard to the way differing uses of time and space create different aesthetic possibilities in the development of individual poems. With regard to Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard and Larry Levis's Winter Stars, we will also explore the way poets can develop ideas and aesthetic strategies that characterize entire volumes of poetry.
We will read the following texts:
Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983)
James Wright, Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2005)
Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard (Mariner Books, 2007)
Larry Levis, Winter Stars (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985)
ENG 314 A: Literature and Gender
Dr. Sharleen Mondal
MWF 10:00-10:50 AM
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, selected to appeal specifically to students from a diverse range of majors, will include essays, poetry, a short story, a novella, and two novels. Students will write several short literary analysis papers and two longer literary arguments. 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"
Poetry:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Locksley Hall"
Phillis Wheatley, Collected Works
Short Story:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Novellas:
Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
Novels:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
ENG 317 A: Studies in Shakespeare
Dr. Russell Weaver
TTh 1:40-2:55
Core Humanities, requirement in the Integrated Language Arts and English 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 324 A: The Modern Novel
Dr. Linda Joyce Brown
MWF 2:00-2:50 PM
Core Humanities, elective in the the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
Our focus in this course will be on novels published between the mid-twentieth century and the present. We will read four or five novels, which will likely include some of the following:
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex; Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves; Ron Hansen, Mariette in Ecstasy; Gayl Jones, Corregidora; Chang-Rae Lee, A Gesture Life; Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being; Ann Patchett, Bel Canto; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
ENG 371 REHON: Literature and Film (honors)
Dr. Maura Grady
TTh 12:15-1:30
Core Aesthetics, elective in the English and Integrated Language Arts majors, elective in the the English and Creative Writing majors and minors
The course focuses on both classic and contemporary motion pictures, with particular attention to shot composition, editing techniques, lighting, and sound. Students will consider how these elements of film direction create a visual narrative that can be studied as aesthetic and cultural expression as they study questions of adaptation.
Possible text/film pairings: The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, M*A*S*H.
ENG 401 X: The Literature of Early England
Dr. Naomi Saslaw
Wednesday 06:30PM - 09:10 p.m.
Elective in the English, Creative Writing, and ILA majors,
Elective in the English and Creative Writing minors
This course is a high-level study of the literature of England from the Anglo-Saxon period through the time of Chaucer with particular emphasis on the rhetorical features of Old and Middle English. The students will focus on a close reading of The Canterbury Tales and will also read other works, including Beowulf.
ENG 428 X: American Literature IV: World War II to Present
Dr. Jayne E. Waterman
Tu 6:00-8:30 p.m. (Hybrid)
Elective in the English, Creative Writing, and ILA majors, Elective in the English and Creative Writing minors
In a year that marks the 70th anniversary of American’s atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this course will examine the “explosive issues” that mark a wide range of literary narratives from the mid-twentieth century nuclear age to our own twenty-first century age of terror. By mapping the notions of “detonation” and “fallout,” this course will consider the disruptions of form, style, and content in local, national, and global contexts. From war and peace, the personal and the environmental, to the modern and the postmodern, a diverse range of material will be analyzed to highlight the significance of key textual, cultural and critical moments in the wake of “The Bomb.” How is the rhetoric of power represented? What are the possibilities and limitations of gender politics? Where are the diverse voices of race and class, conformity and agitation represented? Why are the constructions of self and nation reconfigured? These and many other questions will be explored in a selection of literary works from multiple genres that will be read alongside literary and cultural criticism. This is a reading-intense, writing-intense, and discussion-intense course. Assignments will likely consist of two extensive papers, short literary analysis papers, presentations, and a range of assessed in-class and online participation (short assignments, research projects, rigorous debate, discussion board posts, journal entries, a class blog, and so on).
