English 101 – Introduction to Expository Writing
4 semester hours
McClelland, Michael
This course will teach the writing process through essays, extensive class discussion and work shopping, reading, and journal-keeping. Students will improve their academic writing skills, including grammar and punctuation, and will learn that there is much more to successful writing than the dreaded five-paragraph essay. Along the way, students should learn more about themselves, their world and the many different values of writing, including the revolutionary concept that writing can be fun. Class requirement includes four papers, class attendance and participation, regular journal writing and frequent in-class writing.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingEnglish 101 introduces writing on the college level. Its purpose is to foster the skills necessary to produce coherent, persuasive prose: developing ideas thoroughly, using rhetorical strategies appropriate to subject and audience, focusing and supporting a thesis, structuring well developed paragraphs, generating mature and effective sentences, choosing precise and expressive language, and observing the conventions of written prose. Individual sections employ a variety of techniques for inculcating standards of good prose; but all 101 classes require a variety of writing assignments including paragraphs and short essays written in and out of class (about 4000 words total), a short research paper designed to introduce techniques of library research and documentation (about 2000 words), and a mid-term and final in-class examination. Our main "text" will be The New York Times, from select days of the week.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingThis is a composition course in which students will improve their ability to write clear, forceful prose, to formulate and support a compelling thesis, to employ rhetorical strategies effectively, and, when appropriate, to observe the conventions of academic writing. In the course of the term students will explore a variety of forms, from film reviews to academic research papers, and will also work collaboratively in writing workshops to aid in the revision of their prose. Because the best way to learn to write is to practice writing, some form of written work will be required at nearly every class meeting. This section of English 101 will be unusual in that the majority of readings and other content in the course first appeared in a single year, 1929, and the final research assignment will involve examining life in Springfield during that year as well. Four papers and a final examination.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingThis course is an introduction to composition. We will cover many of the foundational skills of expository writing in class, and we’ll work with style and revision exercises from writing handbooks. But ultimately better writing comes from practice, practice, and more practice. Writing is not a matter of chance or good luck. It’s not a matter of first-draft inspiration. Successful prose in all disciplines is based on specific techniques any writer can master. We discover these techniques, in part, by analyzing prose we admire and by applying what we learn in that analysis to our own developing style. For this reason, I’ll urge you to become an active reader as well as an active writer and to study the essays and narratives in the course as a source for techniques you can use yourself.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingThis course has been designed to aid in your development into a confident, responsible and persuasive writer. By the end of this course, students will
(1) develop competency in all stages of the writing process
(2) develop critical thinking and reading skills
(3) develop a writing standard consistent with the MLA style guide
>“You learn to write by writing. It’s a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it’s true.” –William Zinsser.
English 101 introduces students to academic reading and writing processes. You will develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills through class discussions as well as through the rhetorical analysis of various texts based on the readings in Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. The essays reflect diverse viewpoints and voices exploring the signs and symbols of popular culture, including those found in film and television, advertising, icons and idols, consumerism, etc. Keep in mind that the dictionary lists “essay” only secondarily, as a noun. It is first a verb—“to try out; attempt.” In response to the essays you’ll be reading, analyzing, and writing about, you’ll be developing your own voice and testing your own thoughts. And remember that the key to good writing is revision. As the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart once said, “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” Writing assignments: Three argumentative or persuasive essays based on readings in the textbook using MLA-style documentation. The fourth assignment is a research paper.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository Writing"Art is not meant to be polite, secret, coded, or timid. Art is the sphere in which the impulse to hide and lie is the most dangerous." Dorothy Allison, "This is Our World". Taking intellectual and emotional risks lies at the heart of writing. Testing your limits, stretching your intellectual and creative abilities, expanding the boundaries of your intellectual and emotion lives - this is the writer's project. You will only realize your full potential as a thinker and writer by doing more and better work that you ever thought possible, and, above all, by learning to take risks. This course provides you the opportunities and the environment in which to take the risks necessary for writing well.
English 101 is a composition course designed to give you intensive practice in the art of expository writing. The course emphasizes the writing process and the development of clear and purposeful, well-focused writing which addresses a well-defined audience. English 101 will call on your analytical and organizational skills, as well as provide opportunities for you to enhance your ability to design and structure writing and to improve your technical expertise. The course will focus on the conventions of academic discourse and selecting, integrating, and documenting sources. This course is also designed to teach you how to read and write effectively in the University. Also, it will help you to discover that reading and writing are not separate activities, but closely related ones. The course is founded on a belief that learning to read, and see, critically is essential to becoming a proficient, accomplished writer. English 101 requires a series of shorter essays, 4 longer, 5-7 page essays, and an 8-10 page researched essay. There will be a midterm and a final.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingThis course aims to sharpen your writing by developing your skills in argumentation, the assumption being that the qualities often valued in a variety of writing tasks—qualities like clarity, strong critical thinking, logical organization, and unity—are salient features of successful argumentative writing. In the process of practicing this style of composition, you will have opportunities to hone your research, public speaking, and writing skills, and you will read essays by some influential writers who have used their argumentative techniques to persuade readers on topics such as environmental policy, civil rights, and freedom of speech issues. The writing component of this class involves multiple drafts and the sharing of critical feedback among classmates.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingThis course focuses on critical thinking and writing. In order to write the best possible description, argument, report or letter, one must be aware of one’s own perspective and that of one’s audience. To foster this awareness we will read essays by a variety of authors, and discuss in class both the issues they write about and the mechanics of how they do so. Students will then apply what we have discovered to their own writing. Since good critical thinking includes finding information one may lack to make a good evaluation or argument, we will also cover basic research tactics and how to find information using campus resources such as the library. Assignments will include in-class writing, three five-page essays, and one eight-to-ten-page researched argument. All formal papers will go through at least two drafts, and students will meet individually with the instructor during the term to discuss the revision process.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository WritingEnglish 101 is a writing-intensive introductory course designed to prepare and sharpen students’ skills in college expository essay writing. Critical reading, discovering topics, structuring essays, crafting thesis statements, paragraph planning, structuring sentences, reviewing grammar and mechanics, narration, description, evaluation, proposing solutions, making arguments, and research writing are among the topics covered. In this section, we will emphasize critical reading of student and professional essays as a springboard for college writing. Assignments include punctuation, grammar, and documentation exercises, research notes, evaluation sheets for sources, five rough drafts and four completed essays, including a researched argument, and peer editing sessions in class.
English 101 – Introduction to Expository Writing
4 semester hours
Smith, J. Fitz
This course is designed to illustrate the potential of the written word---the potential to present well-wrought ideas carefully and persuasively. At once intensely personal and inevitable public, writing allows one to not simply describe but also create a world. This course, then, will strengthen the mastery of the elements of style as it will assist in reconceiving our relationship to the world around us. Focusing on both analytical and nonfiction essays, our readings will provide materials and models for our discussions and essays. In addition to several short essays, the course’s requirements also include a commitment to discussion; this is not a lecture course, so the student is strongly encouraged to bring ideas, questions, insights and observations to each class meeting. Ultimately, this course prepares the student to meet the expectations that you will encounter in your academic career and beyond: you will be expected to read critically and thoughtfully, to organize your ideas into a coherent argument, and to present your thoughts with confidence and grace.
English 180 :“How Like a God”: Myth, Epic, and MetamorphosisPrerequisite: ENGL 101
This course will introduce the student to the work of Greco-Roman myth. With intensive readings of The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and The Metamorphoses, this course not only will consider the various stories and ideas that myths construct and entail, but also will work to question the more modern myths by which we live today. As a writing intensive section, this course will require a daily reading journal, several short essays, two examinations, and a final analytical paper. Course will emphasize student engagement with the readings and ideas, so class sessions will entail lecture but rely heavily upon class participation. The student will leave this course with a familiarity with the dominant myths of the ancients, as well as a broadened understanding of those myths by which we live—myths more naively known as reality.
English 180 - Film NoirPrerequisite: ENGL 101
Film noir, or "black film," has been variously labeled as a period in film history, a style of film, and as a separate film genre with its own themes and conventions. No matter how you define it, films labeled as film noir are "deeply unromantic" films that "take a sneaking delight in their displays of passion gone wrong and of murderous calculation confounded.” This course will examine the distinctive "noir" visual style and the characteristic "noir" thematics of lives ruled by an unkind fate. We will also trace the history of film noir from its origins in German expressionism and postwar nihilism, to its golden period in the 1940's and 1950's, and to its persistence through the rest of the 20th century in neo-noir (post classic noir or nouveau noir).
We will also look at the debt these films owe to what the French called "serie noir," the searing crime and detective fiction of the 1930's, 40's, and 50's. We will also examine particularly closely the cultural work of these films and their representations. Our goals will include confronting and exploring film noir's and neo-noir's sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and racism. The course requires weekly screenings of film outside of class on Wednesdays from 3:00-6:00 PM. In addition, we will have frequent quizzes, several short papers, a long paper, a midterm and final examination.
English 180: Literature and MadnessPrerequisite: ENGL 101
If it’s haunted, freaky, surrealistic, or strange, it’s probably in this course. In “Literature and Madness” we’ll study literary depictions of mental illness by American writers and examine literature that mixes terror and beauty—an idea that’s shaped American notions of spirituality, subjectivity, and creative power since the 18th century. We’ll study depression, addiction, suicide, schizophrenia, and sexual trauma. We’ll read a brand of horror story H. P. Lovecraft calls “the weird tale” and consider how American writers use tales of madness to explore complex issues of racial and sexual identity: topics too hot to handle in the daylight world of reason and sense. We’ll read some old favorites—Edgar Allan Poe and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—but we’ll also stretch the notion of “weird tale” to include poetry (by Anne Sexton), photography (by Diane Arbus), and film (by Stanley Kubrick). No previous experience with American literature is necessary, but it helps if you like to read. Prepare to be surprised, fascinated, and possessed. Writing intensive.
English 180 - "Sailing the Wine Dark Sea”Prerequisite: ENGL 101
The ancient Greeks invented everything from Western warfare to mystical prayer, from logic to statecraft and the city-state. That includes nothing less than Western literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, art, history and architecture. The Jews gave us our Christian values; the Greeks set the foundation and framework for our intellectual lives, providing the tools we bring to bear on problems in philosophy, math, medicine, physics, and really, all the sciences. Athenian democracy as discovered by the humanists of the Renaissance inspires Enlightenment thought, and it is the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries that the American experiment derives from.
A manageable book that covers all these bases is Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, and we’ll use that book as our guiding text. Following it, we will read Homer's two great epics, tragedies and comedies by the great playwrights, a satyr play, a Greek novel, smatterings of Greek lyric poetry (Sappho, Pindar), oration (Pericles), history (Thucydides), philosophy (the pre-Socratics as well as Plato and Aristotle), and examine the plastic art (pottery and sculpture, as well as architecture). The Greeks also gave us militarism, sexism, disenfranchisement, segregation (racial and sexual), and religious ecstasy. Our alphabet, largely Greek. (We will learn the Greek alphabet, alpha through omega, as part of the course.) If how to rule, then how to fight; if how to think, then how to feel; how to see, how to play, how to party—we got it here first and we will essay it all. The course is Writing Intensive, with a series of very short papers, a creative assignment or two, a reading log, and two exams, written and take-home. It is not a course in Greek mythology, but the first great thinkers about myth, are—if you'd venture a guess—Greek. Writing Intensive.
English 180 – The Slave Narrative Tradition in African American LiteraturePrerequisite: ENGL 101
No institution has existed that was so seemingly antithetical to literature as that of American slavery. Yet, despite extraordinary, even impossible obstacles, hundreds of enslaved persons fought for their literacy and arguably created the first new, distinctly American literary form, the slave narrative, starting from the 18th century. In 1966, Arna Bontemps noted that “From the (slave) narrative came the spirit and vitality and angle of vision responsible for the most effective prose writing by black American writers from William Wells Brown to Charles W. Chestnutt, from W.E.B. Dubois to Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin.” To that illustrious list many would add several women writers in black literary history, including Harriet Wilson, Frances E.W. Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, and Margaret Walker, not to mention the numerous men and women writers who have drawn from this same spirit and vitality since Bontemp’s statement was made.
(Indeed, the works of many white writers--Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and William Faulkner--clearly drew from these writings. These writers struggled, not always gracefully, to come to terms with their part of the racial divisions that have defined this tradition since its inception). There will be two major essays, a midterm, and a final.
English 180A - Shakespeare on FilmPrerequisite: ENGL 101
Movies are the popular entertainment of our era, as Shakespeare’s stage was in his. And the London stage, like Hollywood today, took the blame for every sort of social evil—the corruption of youth, “bawdrie,” godlessness, civil chaos, and the destruction of traditional values. What happens when Shakespeare is reinterpreted for the contemporary public, when the old is made new, Renaissance meets post-modern, when script becomes performance becomes celluloid? This course explores the scripts of Shakespeare through their twentieth-century revision by artists like Lawrence Olivier, Orson Welles, Franco Zefferelli, Peter Brooks, and Kenneth Branagh. We will look at a wide range of performances, from 1930’s Hollywood to Kenneth Branagh, to your own dramatic readings in class. We will read about seven plays (probably Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, Hamlet, Othello, and Twelfth Night), see one or two film productions of each, write several short papers, quizzes and a final exam. You will be required to see a film outside class on Wednesday nights from 6:30 to about 9:00 almost every week.
English 190A/C - Afro-Caribbean Studies: Migratory SubjectsPrerequisite: ENGL 101
This course will introduce students to the literary works and cultural history of English-speaking Caribbean authors. This semester, we will examine essays, poetry, and novels by several authors who were born in the Caribbean and migrated to the UK, Canada and the US. We will discover the beauty of works by selected authors as they lead us on the path of discovery into the world of nationhood, language and African Diasporic culture.
English 200 – Introduction to Literary StudiesPrerequisite: ENGL 170, 180 or 190
Introduction to the discipline and methodology of literary study. Designed to refine skills in critical reading and writing, to build a vocabulary of analytical terms and concepts, to raise central questions of literary theory, to introduce a variety of critical approaches, and to give familiarity with the materials and methods of literary research. Readings vary in different sections. Required of the English major and minor. Writing intensive. Every year.
English 240 - Beginning Creating Writing
4 semester hours
McClelland, Mac
Prerequisite: English 101
AWriting is easy,@ the writer Gene Fowler once said. AAll you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.@ Fowler may well have been right, but in this class we=ll try to make it a little easier than that. The course will provide students an introduction to four genres of creative writingBpoetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and playwriting. Students will hear what some writers have to say about writing, read and discuss some of what is being written today, keep a journal of their own progress as writers, and workshop the writing of their classmates. Most of all, students will write. You will be expected to produce pieces in all four genres, and do a major revision of a work of your choice.
Prerequisite: Engl 101
This course provides a basic introduction to the practice and principles of journalism, with an emphasis on newspaper production. We will discuss news, features, entertainment stories, opinion and sports writing, as well as interviewing skills, ethics, copy-editing, headline writing, and other related topics. Students will be expected to meet deadlines, do frequent in-class writing exercises, and to thoughtfully and constructively respond to their classmates’ stories. Grades will be based on stories produced, occasional quizzes, and class participation. Students will be encouraged to contribute to The Torch, Wittenberg’s weekly student newspaper.
English 242 - Writing and Peer EditingPrerequisite: Engl 101 and permission by instructor
This intermediate writing course will help students write more fluently and become more effective critics of their own and others= writing. Designed chiefly for prospective writing advisors in the Writing Center, it also attracts future teachers, those needing editing skills in a later profession, and those who simply wish to strengthen their writing. The course focuses on the personal essay, a genre which encourages individuality and creativity, and emphasizes collaborative learning. The main text is students= own writing. Through a combination of readings, writing exercises, papers, and projects and peer editing sessions, students will explore a variety of rhetorical strategies, audiences, structures, and styles. Class organization features a workshop approach and practical experience. This course is limited to 15 students, and the instructor=s permission is required before enrolling. Prerequisite: English 101.
English 280 – British Survey IPrerequisite: ENGL 200
In this course, we will look at the development of English literature from its beginnings in the Middle Ages to the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century. We will read and discuss representative literary texts and ask a series of important questions: how do these texts grow out of their historical and cultural contexts? How do they build upon, speak to one another? How do they define and redefine the roles of writer and reader? What does a growing literary canon have in constructing what it means to be a British subject, a self, a man, a woman? We will explore as well the way genres--epic and romance, tragedy and comedy, prose fiction--emerge, change, disappear, in response to a changing culture and readership. You should come out of this course with a foundational knowledge of important writers, dates, literary styles, genres, and critical terms that you can build on in more advanced courses. The course will include some period exams and a comprehensive final; two or three formal papers and several informal responses to the reading. Writing intensive.
English 290A - American Literary Traditions
4 semester hours
Davis, Robert
Prerequisite:
AWriters don=t simply look at nature, or into their own hearts, and transcribe what they find there,@ Robert Scholes argues. AThis is so because for them the very act of looking is already shaped by the art and writing of the past. Once we realize that all texts are reworkings of other texts, that all writing is really rewriting, we can see that originality doesn=t mean creating something out of nothing but rather making interesting changes in what=s been done before.@ The technical word for what Scholes is describing is Aintertextuality@Cwhich comes from the Latin word, intertexto, meaning Ato intermingle while weaving.@ In this way of thinking, writers do not create their books out of thin air but intermingle their experience and ideas with other texts and authors,@making interesting changes,@ as Scholes says, Ain what=s been done before.@ The more we know about the literary and cultural materials writers work with, then, the better we can judge what they=re doing that=s new. That idea is the premise of this course. English 290 takes in a wide sweep of early American literature. We=ll study Puritanism, rationalism, transcendentalism and the gothic, and look carefully at the works of individual writers like Mary Rowlandson, Walt Whitman, Harriet Jacobs, and Henry David Thoreau. But the goal of this course is not just to expose students to the range and variety of American writing or to cover its historical periods. I=m more interested in teaching students how to think intertextually about literatureCunderstanding how writers play off one another as they re-work and re-write the literature of the past.
English 307 – Love and War in the Eighteenth Century
4 semester hours
Richards, Cynthia
Prerequisite: English 200 and 280
Out of the 1960s protests of the Vietnam War grew the slogan: “Make love not war,” and the title of this course is clearly intended to invoke that now familiar saying. But in the long eighteenth century, this slogan would have taken a different configuration. It might have read: “war makes love.” The wars of this time period were largely domestic, internal affairs that threatened not just domestic peace, but also the very configuration of domestic space. The Glorious Revolution, the Jacobite Rebellion, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution each challenged the definition of patriarchal power and the structure of the family. These seismic changes in political space helped to usher in equally revolutionary shifts in domestic space, such as personal choice and personal virtue in the negotiation of love and marriage. This course will examine this connection between love and war in the eighteenth century. We will read selections from the work of John Dryden, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Olaudah Equiano, Laurence Stern, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Tom Paine, and Jane Austen. There will be a midterm and final exam, one shorter paper (4-5 pages) and a longer researched final paper (12 pages.)
English 315 – The Modern American NovelPrerequisite: Engl 200 and 290
Modernist literature is a literature of crisis, of chaos, and the dissolution of order. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the world saw the dramatic shifts in religion, philosophy, literature, technology, and psychology that predicted the “modern condition.” Among other horrors, hundreds of thousands died in two mechanized and dehumanizing world wars. Countless thousands suffered in the ghettos that grew up around the new industrial plants, living bleak, alienated, and lonely lives among the millions. Against this backdrop of crisis, the modern American novel emerged. American writers embraced modernism’s restless interrogation of subjectivity and existence, its insistence on change, and its quest for an aesthetic solution to the crisis of modern and social disorder and psychic fragmentation.
As a central tenet of their quest, American modernists denounce the nineteenth century’s rationalism and positivism, and “(turn) toward nonlinear and increasingly formalist modes of artistic presentation in the search for new kinds of order” (Pearlman, “Modernism”). This term we will puzzle out this modernist pursuit of a new aesthetic to order experience and to find what Wallace Stevens termed “what will suffice” as we struggle through the modern. Finally, the modern American novel is ever new, dynamic, arresting, and one of the greatest literary experiments of all time.
English 315 – World Literature in English: Africa, Asia and the CaribbeanPrerequisite: English 200
This course examines 20th and 21st century World Literatures from Africa, Asia and The Caribbean that respond to issues of identity, colonization and migration. According to scholars Pin-Chia Feng and Kate Liu, “As English majors, we need to know that ‘English’ is not always British, and ‘America’ –not necessarily the U.S. How about English Literature? British and U.S. Literature? In the past, maybe, but now in the age of postcolonialism—definitely no.” In this World Literature course we will read selected literature from Africa, Asia and The Caribbean that share studied issues of the influences of colonization, imperialism and the quest for identity. Heavy reading.
English 341 – Advanced Creative Writing – Poetry
4 semester hours
Rambo, Jody
Prerequisite: English 240
If poems are, as Jorie Graham writes, Arecords of true risks taken by the soul of the speaker@ then the intent of this advanced writing course in poetry is to create the conditions for taking such risks. The course will be composed of equal parts reading and writing poetry to introduce students to developments in contemporary poetry and to help them develop further their craft. Students will also explore different forms of poetry such as the sonnet, villanelle, and sestina, along with free verse and prose poems. Regular writing workshops, a poet=s notebook, diverse reading assignments, and a final manuscript. Prerequisite: English 240 or instructor=s permission.
Prerequisite: English 240 or permission
This is an advanced creative writing course: it is Writing Intensive, naturally, and its prerequisite is English 240, or in rare cases, by permission of Instructor. THDN 240 (Playwriting) is strongly recommended, but not required, and may in some cases serve as pre-requisite. See instructor. All students will develop their own scripts, and have a completed screenplay of some standard length by the end of the course. In the interest of learning dramatic form, students will read and write several shorter dramatic works in the first two weeks of the course. Some attention will be given to adaptations, and any number of films will be dissected, especially in relation to their scripts. All students are expected to buy at least one screenplay ($15) of their own preference—see Scriptcity.com—to study for form and to share with the class at large.
In addition, there are several small how-to books recommended, such as Syd Field's classic Screenwriting and Tom Lazarus’ The Secrets of Filmwriting. One of the required texts is the current screen writer’s Bible, Robert McKee’s STORY: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. The student will be expected to complete a standard length screenplay, which will run about 90 to 120 pages, in screenplay format (only about 50 to 60 equivalent pages of full prose).
English 380 – Madness, the Mind, and the Literary ImaginationPrerequisite: Engl 200 and 280
“There is no doubt that this poor man was mad,” wrote Wordsworth about the then little known poet William Blake, “but there is something about the madness of this man that interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.” Wordsworth’s comment raises questions about what he means by “madness” and how it is that the literary productions of an ostensibly unbalanced mind might prove to be of greater interest than those by writers of a presumably more stable cast. In this class, we’ll take up this question of madness, we’ll examine some 18th and 19th-century theories of how the mind actually works, and we’ll see how such ideas worked their way into the literature of the Romantic and Victorian eras. This investigation will take us through some gothic fiction (early and late), some poetry by the “mad” William Blake and others of his time, and some writing by women who seemed to ascribe a particular kind of madness to their own gender. There will be three exams in the course and at least two papers, one of which will be a 12-15 page literary analysis incorporating your knowledge of some 19th-century psychological theories.
English 380: The EpicPrerequisite: Engl 200 and 280
This course is designed to introduce students to arguably the greatest genre of western literature, the epic poem. In our search for the essential elements of the genre we will range across the millennia, from the five thousand year old Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh to John Milton’s towering seventeenth- century poem Paradise Lost, visiting in between Homer’s Iliad, key sections of the Torah and the New Testament, Virgil’s Aeneid, the Icelandic Egil’s Saga, the Italian tradition from Dante through Tasso, and Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. The works we will read are not only fascinating on their own terms, but they also warrant attention for their profound influence on western art. A walk through the Louvre (not part of the course, alas!) or a perusal of the footnotes in any literature anthology will indicate how the stories told by Homer and Virgil and Dante have echoed for centuries, inspiring Titian no less than Shakespeare, Walcott no less than Eliot. Indeed, one of the questions we will ask of these texts is why they have appealed to the sensibilities of so many different cultures in so many different periods. The work of the course will include substantial reading, two papers, a seminar presentation, and a final exam. (Writing intensive)
English 403 – Special Projects in Creative WritingPrerequisite: Department Permission
Special Projects in Creative Writing offers serious creative writing students an opportunity to produce a significant piece in their chosen genre, whether that be fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or screenwriting. Using both extensive class workshopping and regular meetings with the professor, students will produce a project of their own design, for example, a novella or novel section, a collection of related short stories, or a theme-driven collection of poems. Admission to the course is based on a writing sample and a brief written project proposal. Applications are due in the English Department office by October 22.
