Spring 2014 Course Schedule and Descriptions

Download the complete Spring 2014 Brochure

SPRING 2014 ENGLISH COURSES

See course listings below for individual times and descriptions. Note that students declaring the English major or minor are governed by the requirements of the English major and may not count EN 101 or EN 110 toward the major or minor. Note, however, that non-majors who have taken EN 110 as part of a first-year LC may take EN 110(W) to fulfill their second writing-intensive (W) literature requirement.

EN101 College English (W), Dr. Florescu
MW 1-2:30
This course offers writing-intensive instructions to students across the disciplines by means of readings in various fields. The course includes giving oral presentations and using various modes of research. This course serves native and non-native speakers of English who will practice the skills necessary to essay writing in all its forms. Required Texts: Diana Hacker. Rules for Writers & Mark Connelly, The Sundance Reader, 6th edition.

EN 110(W) Introduction to Literature: Driving Through Fiction, Prof. Shore
TTH 1-2:30 and TTH 2:40-4:10
This course is devoted to analyzing the elements that make up a fully formed piece of fiction. By examining the build, drive and meaning within short stories, novels and plays students will gain a higher understanding of why a piece of fiction is fulfilled. Students will develop their writing and analytic skills by exploring the language, style, characters and themes of each work.

EN 110(W) Introduction to Literature: Literature and the Meaning of Life, Prof. Cameron
MW 2:40-4:10 and MW 4:20-5:50
This course provides the study of techniques and conventions of various literary genres such as poetry, novels, short stories, biographies, journals, essays, etc. The course explores the relationship between form and meaning, specifically how genre shapes our understanding of literature, the human condition, and life experience. All students successfully completing this course will develop wider literary skills and become familiar with a variety of genres. In addition, students will become aware of their strengths and weaknesses in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Students will also learn to express ideas and thoughts with clarity, detail, and support. Furthermore, they will use writing as a mode of thinking and reading critically and analytically. Methods of instruction may include but are not limited to: class discussions, group work, essay and free writing assignments, written responses to literature, and in-class examinations.

EN 110(W) Introduction to Literature: Contemporary Literature, Prof. Bellesi
MW 6-7:30 and TTH 4:20-5:50
In this class, we will be reading, discussing, and writing about the novels, novellas, short stories, memoirs, and literary non-fiction that have defined the 20th and 21st centuries. Authors may include Parker, DeLillo, Dubus, McInerney, Knapp, and Orlean.


FOUNDATION COURSES

All three foundation courses (EN 111, 211 and 212) are open to non-majors. Majors should take these courses by the end of sophomore year.

EN 111(W) World Literature: Revolutions (I), Dr. Arant
TTH 8-9:30
The theme of this World Literature course is revolution—in times of pronounced cultural flux, what changes? What stays the same? We will consider questions of transformation and stasis by focusing on Nigeria, on Iran, on the events that gave rise to the Arab Spring in Egypt and Libya, and on India. Pairs of texts from each of these sites will offer us what one critic calls “windows on the world,” allowing us to think more carefully about other cultures and ourselves in relation to them. We will also practice our critical thinking skills through close reading and analytical writing.

EN 111(W) World Literature: Women’s Voices (I), Dr. Florescu
MW 9:40-11:10 and MW 11:20-12:50
This course offers a unique exploration into the vastness of world literature as seen, lived, and transposed into words from women’s perspectives. By focusing on the exclusive feminine vantage point, students will sophisticate their understanding and reading of literature. Selection-wise, whether belonging to Africa, South America, Europe, Asia, or North America, this course also teaches students how to identity themes which are universally voiced from different geographical spaces. Consequently, students start thinking about literature as a valid form of international “language.” We will read Precious (U.S.A.), The Passport (Germany-Romania), Second Class Citizen (Nigeria), The Interpreter of Maladies (India), Woman at Point Zero (Egypt) and Stream of Life (Brazil).

EN111(W) World Literature: Introduction to Culture for the World Traveler (I), Dr. Hurley
MW 1-2:30 (H) and MW 2:40-4:10
This course is designed for the student who intends to wander the world, either informally through the desire for exploration or formally as a start to a career in business, government, education, or international service. Literature, as an important cultural asset, can be an essential traveling companion. Accordingly, we will circumnavigate the globe through reading novels, poems, short stories, essays from the Middle East, to the Far East, to Africa, South America, the Caribbean and just about everywhere except Antarctica (unless penguin lit is suddenly discovered). Expect to be engaged and challenged!

EN 211 (W) British Literature Survey, Dr. Schotter
MW 9:40-11:10
This course focuses on the changing nature of the “British” literary tradition over the thousand-year period in which England moved from being a small country on the edge of Europe to the world’s dominant empire and then to a diminished post-imperial and multicultural country. We will examine such changes by reading authors such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Behn, Swift, Wordsworth, Wilde, Woolf, Joyce, and Orwell.

EN212(W) Introduction to Literary Analysis and Theory, Dr. Bernardo
TTH 1-2:30
In this course we will explore various approaches to literary texts including: Psychoanalytic, Marxist, Structuralist, Environmental/Ecocritical, Feminist, and Gender and Queer Studies. As you read literature through a variety of lenses you will learn how to analyze texts and create persuasive arguments for interpretations of those texts. We will also focus on the skills necessary for literary critical writing and research. Some of the authors whose works we will read in the course are: Italo Calvino, Nikolai Gogol, Christina Rossetti, Octavia Butler and Oscar Wilde.


PRE-1800 COURSE (open to everyone—no prerequisites)

EN 302(W) Medieval English Literature, Dr. Schotter
MW 2:40-4:10
The Middle Ages in England was a period of great change. Contact with others—other languages, national groups, and religions— called into question long held assumptions. People challenged the spiritual authority of the Church, the neat division of society into three estates (clergy, aristocracy, and commons), and the dominance of men over women. Writers addressed these challenges, sometimes through mythical narrative focusing on ancient Troy or Arthurian legend and sometimes through narrative focusing on the here and now of the medieval present. We will explore the mythical responses in such works as the alliterative Morte Arthure, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, and “realistic” ones in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Langland’s Piers Plowman, and biblical drama.

POST-1800 COURSE (open to everyone—no prerequisites)

EN 314(W) (I) Postcolonial Literature, Dr. Thomas
MW 11:20-12:50
In this course, students will read modern and contemporary literature from around the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. The course explores how writers from colonized and formerly colonized places have critically reflected on the history of colonization and its effect on social configurations of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Reflecting on the past is also a way to think through the problems of the present and the future challenges of national development and globalization, and this course will ask students to imagine the ways in which peoples around the world are connected to each other.

AMERICAN LITERATURE (open to everyone—no prerequisites)

EN 315(W) African American Literature (D), Dr. Arant
TTH 11:20-12:50
English 315 is a survey of African-American literature from the late eighteenth century to the present. We will draw on a broad range of genres, including works by Olaudah Equiano, Charles Chesnutt, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Toni Morrison, and Natasha Trethewey. As we seek to understand these texts within their historical contexts, we will also pay particular attention to the stakes of literacy for African-American writers. Toward this end, we will consider such questions as How do African-American writers work within and against the expectations and assumptions of their audiences? What are the benefits and risks of the idea of the writer as spokesperson for African-Americans collectively? Why do certain texts and authors receive attention at particular moments in time?

EN 342(W) Growin’ up in Dixie (D) (H), Dr. Arant
MW 9:40-11:10
Childhood is often described as a state of innocence, as though kids exist free from the awareness, experiences, and desires that can make adulthood burdensome. Using texts by Lillian Smith, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, Alice Walker, Randall Kenan, Monique Truong, and others, this class will explore how Southern writers represent childhood, the coming-of-age process, and the cultural stakes of innocence and guilt.


ELECTIVES

Electives have a prerequisite of EN 212 or permission of the instructor unless they are part of an ILC or an exception is noted.

EN 230(W) (F) Introduction to Film (ILC), Dr. Thomas
TTH 2:40-4:10
This course will introduce students to the fundamental concepts for analyzing the formal elements as well as the social and political elements of film. Students will study how to break down a scene, appreciate generic conventions, and describe a narrative. They will identify and deconstruct the political and social assumptions in which film and media immerse audiences. They will gain awareness of the changes in technology as well as business practices that affect how films are produced and distributed. Students will be expected to watch eleven films over the course of the semester. For each film, they will write a short analysis on an on-line blog they will set up. There will be a midterm and a final exam. This course satisfies a requirement for the film and media studies minor.This course is part of an Intermediate Learning Community in conjunction with AR 240 “Multimedia Production and Storytelling.” Students must sign up for both courses.

EN 280(W) Writing Intensive Tutoring, Prof. Ruggeri
TTH 8-9:30
The course will review writing center theories, philosophies, and pedagogies, and how these relate to academic writers. Students will then apply what they have learned in a fifteen-week practicum in the Writing Center. Successful completion of the course qualifies students to be eligible for, but not guaranteed, employment as Writing Intensive Tutors (WITs) in the college’s Writing Center. (This course is restricted to selected students; please contact the Writing Center director for more information.) Offered for 1 or 0 units.

EN/FR 310/AH 326 Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-the-Century Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Barcelona (I) (Honors ILC), Dr. Urbanc and Dr. Morowitz
TTH 2:40-4:10
This team-taught ILC focuses on the art and literature in the fin-de-siècle in four major European centers: Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Barcelona. The works of the period are studied in relation to issues of national identity, as a response to the shock of metropolitan life, sexuality, the impact of psychoanalysis, escapism and withdrawal to the interior. We will undertake a detailed reading of some of the major literary works of the period by authors such as Marcel Proust, Colette, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke and Arthur Rimbaud. Artistic movements studied include Symbolism, Expressionism, Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. The course attempts to understand the shared visual and literary language of turn-of-the-century Europe, while illuminating the special contributions of each city. The course includes museum visits, films, special lectures and shared readings and assignments.NOTE: Students must elect to register for the course in Art, English, or French. Choose carefully, as this course will only count toward the discipline for which you enroll. Completion of this single course satisfies the ILC requirement.

EN 347(W) The Study of Fairy Tales (I) (GS), Dr. Bernardo
MW 1-2:30
Magic, witchcraft, child abandonment, gender stereotypes, and the stories and novels that include them will all be parts of our discussions. In this course we will work with versions of fairy tales that are familiar (such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Beauty and the Beast”) and some that, though linked to familiar tales, are less often read (such as “The Juniper Tree”[also known as “My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me”] and “The Maiden without Hands”). Many tales are interesting reflections of the cultures in which they were produced and are sometimes critiques of those cultures. Our work will be comparative as we read various versions of stories from an array of times and places. We will also take up the stories of some well-known 19th- and 20th- century writers such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde, Angela Carter, Philip Pullman and Emma Donoghue. The course will include critical reading and you will be expected to deploy theoretical approaches in your papers and presentations.

SENIOR LEARNING COMMUNITY

EN400 Senior Reflective Tutorial, Dr. Thomas
TTH 11:20-12:50
This course, taken in conjunction with the Senior Seminar (EN425), will provide students with tools for analyzing literary and other cultural texts. It will also apply this analytical framework to the understanding of their individual experiences in the workplace—past, present, and future. As part of the Senior Learning Community in English, it will be closely connected to the Senior Seminar and give particular attention to theories that illuminate the texts studied in that course. As we work on different theoretical problems, we will also draw upon the knowledge of literature that students have covered in past courses during their careers as English majors. Students will make presentations on the assigned reading and reflect on how theory relates to the practical realities of life (e.g., one’s job after college.) Finally students will compose a substantial research paper in which they engage with a theoretical problematic and learn how to participate in an academic, scholarly conversation. Prerequisites: Senior standing in the English major and successful (C- or higher) performance in EN212. Students should meet with Dr. Thomas before the semester begins to discuss the experiential learning component of this course.

EN425 Senior Seminar: Classics You Have Not Read, Dr. Hurley
TTH 9:40-11:10
This seminar is designed to complement EN400 Senior Reflective Tutorial, the theory part of our Senior Learning Community. As such, we are seeking to address the always frustrating problem of texts-you-wish-you-had-read-in-college-but-never-had-a-chance-to. We will be looking at selections not directly covered in our curriculum, from European literature, like the Russian novel; at texts we had no time to cover like closet dramas by Milton; at long challenging poems, like Eliot’s “Four Quartets” that could not be included in a survey course; and at new approaches to literary study like book history, which studies book production from manuscript to print. We will proceed more or less chronologically, and our texts will be selected to be somewhat compatible with the theory sections that you will be covering in the companion course. Prerequisites: Senior standing in the English major and successful (C- or higher) performance in EN212.


JOURNALISM COURSES

JR011 Wagnerian, Prof. Regan
TBA
Students work on the Wagnerian as reporter, photographer, editor or designer and earn a half-unit for their work. The weekly staff meeting takes the place of class time. JR011 can be repeated each semester.

JR 261(W) Introduction to Journalism, Prof. Regan
MW 6:30-8:00
This course offers an overview of the competitive and evolving field of journalism. Students will learn how to define news, write a lead, conduct an interview, use the inverted pyramid style of newswriting and follow Associated Press style. They'll learn how to distinguish objectivity from opinion and write obituaries, spot news stories and feature stories. Social media, ethics, online journalism and First Amendment rights will be explored. By the end of the semester, students will know how a newsroom works and have a solid foundation of skills to be a successful journalist in any medium.

JR 291 Exploring the Art of Blogging and Micro-blogging, Prof. Morris
T 6:00-9:00
Is blogging journalism? What happens when a journalist retweets a politician, has a public Facebook profile or Instagrams behind the scenes photos of a story their working on? In this class you’ll explore the fine line between professional and personal branding as well as what it takes to become a successful online journalist. You’ll write, edit and publish your own work in WordPress and learn how to promote your content and grow your audience while finding a niche.

JR 366 (W) Feature Writing, Prof. Regan
TH 6:00-9:00
This course offers practical experience researching, writing and marketing feature stories for print and online news organizations. Students will learn how to develop strong story ideas, pitch them to editors, analyze a target audience, gather information, conduct interviews, write and rewrite feature stories, market stories and follow Associated Press style. Do a Google search for "You Wore Flip-Flops to the White House?" written by Jodi S. Cohen and Maegan Carberry for the Chicago Tribune to read a great feature story that will kick-start this course.

JR 397 (1 unit) & 497 (2units) Internship in Journalism
Part-time on-the-job experience at a New York area newspaper, magazine, television network, or public relations outlet. May be taken for one or two units.

Note that journalism minors using an internship in journalism or publishing to fulfill the experiential component of the Senior RFT in English (EN 400) may count that course as one of their two units of required internship. Prerequisites: JR 261, minimum 2.5 GPA in the major, and approval of the advisor to the Journalism minor.