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Fall 2007 Graduate Course Descriptions
Past SemestersEnglish 520: Introduction to LinguisticsProf. Elizabeth
Riddle Course description available in RB 295. English 536: Theory and Research in TESOLProf. Megumi Hamada Course description available in RB 295. English 537: Methods and Materials in TESOLProf. Lynn Stallings Course description available in RB 295. English 601: Research in English StudiesProf. Jackie
Grutsch McKinney This section of English 601 is an introduction to the various research methods used in the field of Rhetoric and Composition. We will explore ways of researching in the field by reading published research, learning ethical and institutionally-appropriate ways of conducting research, studying the writing of research, and taking on mini-research projects. Particular attention will be given to the art of articulating research questions and selecting appropriate methods for answering such questions--a skill that must be mastered by students before entering the final stage (thesis or dissertation) of their degree. By the end of the course, students should have a better understanding of how knowledge is made in the field of Rhetoric and Composition historically and presently. Such an understanding is pertinent to those who currently (or intend to) study, teach, or publish in the field. English 601: Research in English StudiesProf. Carolyn MacKay This course is a graduate-level introduction to research methods in applied linguistics. The course will focus on research methodology: formulating objective/hypotheses, project design, data collection, and data analysis. This course also introduces students to the writing of grant proposals, abstracts for professional conferences, and review articles. Students will get hands-on experience in working with issues related to original research. As a final paper they will be expected to design a research project (choosing a topic, describing its significance, researching the literature available, and determining the method of data collection and analysis). This course is designed to help M.A. and Ph.D. students determine the topic and the research design for their final research projects and dissertations. English 605: Teaching in English StudiesTR 12:30-1:45 Course description available in RB 295. English 606: Literary Theory 1Prof. Linda Hanson TEXT: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch, et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. ISBN # 0-393-97429-4 COURSE GOALS: This discussion-based seminar will examine major developments in Western literary theory and criticism from the ancient Greeks through New Criticism. We will read key primary texts, identify trends, and explore factors that contributed to shaping those trends. WRITING TASKS:
Final exam. Essay questions and ID's. English 608: Seminar in TheoryProf. Frank Felsenstein CONSTRUCTIONS OF OTHERNESS: English Literature, Ethnic and National Identity, 1660-1830
English 610: Theory in Creative WritingProf. Barbara Bogue This course is designed for MA students who are beginning the Creative Writing program at Ball State University, but is also open to all English graduate students interested in intensive reading and writing in multiple genres. Students will compose original literary works in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Workshops and thoughtful critiques by classmates will stimulate the discussion of original language used, structure, characterization, voice, and other critical techniques employed in the crafting of the original work by the student. Additionally, creative works by published authors and essays on craft will be studied and discussed. Students will also give presentations on an established writer in a particular genre. On occasion, when possible, writers, both creative writing faculty and outside authors and poets, will visit the class to discuss their genre specialization. Course requirements: Along with the above, students will revise all submitted work in the three genres and will write a critical essay on craft and revision—what it means to be a writer. Texts for this course will include current issues of Poets & Writers and the AWP Writer’s Chronicle (both provided), and other assigned texts to be announced later. Typical texts may include Grace Paley’s Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Stephen Dunn’s Love and Work, and editor Marilyn Kallet’s Sleeping with One Eye Open.
English 612: Workshop in Fiction WritingProf. Sean Aden
Lovelace Enrollment in Fiction Writing Workshop, English 612, will draw from students pursuing the Master's Degree in English Studies: Creative Writing, students pursuing the PhD with or without the creative writing cognate, and students pursuing a Master's Degree in English Studies (general, literature, composition), and master's degree candidates from other departments such as journalism. This workshop in graduate level fiction writing builds upon the students' previous experiences in the undergraduate fiction writing workshops; class members will consist of those who have had experience in literature, and in writing serious fiction. The course is a workshop, with a focus on original works of fiction, peer review from classmates, and revision of the texts. We will also read a plethora of published flash fiction and short stories. Other activities will include a presentation of a fiction text, class visits by creative writing professionals, the reading and discussion of creative writing guides, relevant videos, and in-class and out-of-class exercises. We will perpetually write—in that writing leads to better writing. Besides our fiction stories, we will have written feedback for all assignments. The primary focus of this class is workshop. I will have fiction “lessons” relevant to the stories reviewed for that class, but the emphasis remains on the student work. Keeping this in mind, all students are expected to have their stories submitted on time and in correct format, and to give respectful and considered feedback to their fellow writers. Texts:
English 621: Approaches to Modern English GrammarProf. Elizabeth
Riddle Course description available in RB 295. English 625: PhonologyProf. Frank
Trechsel Course description available in RB 295. English 627: SociolinguisticsProf. Carolyn MacKay This course is a graduate-level introduction to sociolinguistics, focusing on the correlation between language use and region and language use and social factors such as age, sex, social class/network, ethnicity, etc. Sociolinguistics studies the social uses of language. Individuals use different varieties of their language in order to identify with some particular segment of the community. Speakers of English do not always sound the same and their linguistic choices are not random. They deliberately align themselves with a certain geographic region, a certain ethnic group, a certain social class, or a certain sex or age-group by the way they speak. This course looks at what dialect choices say about us and about how language changes over time. Among the topics to be discussed are: regional linguistic variation, the relationships between language and ethnicity, language and sex, age-based variation, dialect mixture, language change, and discourse analysis. English 632: Discourse AnalysisProf. Mary Theresa Seig Course description available in RB 295. English 645: Contemporary American LiteratureProf. Deborah Mix This course will center on attempts to understand, relate to, uncover, and represent history in contemporary American literature. We’ll consider a broad range of approaches to history, from the personal (for instance, the so-called “Confessional Poets” and the attempt to know one’s own history) to the political (for instance, Native American history as a contested field in Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine) to the postmodern (for instance, writers attempting to come to terms with the idea that, as Derrida argues, “there is nothing outside the text”). To that end, we will read and discuss a wide variety of poetic, fictional, and dramatic approaches to (re)presenting the past in contemporary American literature. Possible texts for this course include
We’ll also consider contemporary American poetry (using Cary Nelson’s Anthology of Modern American Poetry), short fiction, and a variety of theories (including work by Gloria Anzaldúa, Jean Baudrillard, Michael Bérubé, Linda Hutcheon, and Trinh T. Minh-ha). Reading requirements will be rigorous. Students will be required to give in-class presentations, write a book review, and produce at least 20 pages of high-quality written work (either in the form of two conference-length papers or one seminar paper).
English 650: Seminar in LiteratureProf. Robert Habich The Construction of Literary HistoriesIn this course we will examine four extra-literary issues in the construction of literary histories:
We will investigate these issues together, testing their usefulness by applying them to specific texts. The course will rely on student reports (individual and collaborative), test cases, and discussion of common readings. Requirements: two reports, two exams, final project. If you have questions, I’d be happy to answer them. Contact me at rhabich@bsu.edu. . English 661 (562): Early British StudiesProf. Bruce Hozeski Intensive study of early British literature emphasizing language, sources, structure, and significance of the works. Aspects of early culture pertinent to the works will be considered. A total of 6 hours of credit may be earned, but no more than 3 in any one semester or term. This course will consist of the reading and analysis of some of the major poetry and prose from the Middle Ages, exclusive of drama and Chaucer. We will read Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur, a work which is important in understanding the transition from the Medieval concept of tragedy involving the fickle goddess Fortuna to the Renaissance or Shakespearean concept of tragedy. We will read the Owl and the Nightingale, a representative of Medieval Beast Fables; Cleanness and St. Erkenwald—three classics of the famous “Pearl Poet.” The Medieval Romances, such as Perceval, or the Story of the Grail; Tristan and Isolt; Havelok, the Dane; Sir Orfeo; and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are especially interesting. Piers Plowman is, of course, a classic of early allegorical writing. And finally, we will read a sampling of the wide range of short poems that survive from Medieval England. Texts:
English 667: Victorian StudiesProf. Joyce Huff According to a popular legend, the Victorians were so priggish that they covered the "legs" of pianos with little skirts so as to avoid even an indirect reference to the human body in polite society. This myth, however, has proved to be entirely unfounded. In fact, current research suggests that the human body was a hot topic for discussion in Victorian Britain. Over the course of Victoria's reign, there was a huge increase in self-help literature offering advice to the public on how to manage and maintain their bodies. Cutting edge medical theories appeared in popular periodicals and informed conversations about everything from the role of women to the education of children. The body entered the political arena in debates on issues such as the management of pauper diet and public sanitation. In addition, it was the time of the freak show, which made extraordinary bodies into public spectacles. In this class, we will look at how a variety of Victorian writers, working in different genres, represented the human body. In so doing, we will think about the cultural assumptions underlying these representations and their relationship to other important Victorian issues, such as gender, health, class, empire, children, sexuality, progress, morality, work and aesthetics. Students will be given the opportunity to discuss a wide range of Victorian texts and to participate in one important branch of the current critical debate on the Victorians. A tentative reading list includes Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, some short horror fiction and poetry by Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Michael Field and Rudyard Kipling. There will also be additional critical readings on the Victorian body on reserve. Course requirements will include a short paper, a seminar paper, presentations and participation in discussion, both in class and on-line. English 669: Contemporary British LiteratureProf. Lauren Onkey Cultural Identity in British Literature & Popular Culture 1948-1965This course will map the convergence of four events in postwar British culture and their impact on changing notions of British identity:
Using cultural studies as our theoretical frame, we will explore the following questions: what do these trends in literature, popular culture, and education share? Where do they diverge? How are class, race and culture defined by these different movements? The readings will be a mix of literature and cultural studies scholarship. Readings will be a mix of literature and cultural studies scholarship and will include: Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners; George Lamming, The Emigrants; poetry by Louise Bennett; John Osborne, Look Back in Anger; Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey; Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; Raymond Williams, Culture and Society; Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy; George Melly, Revolt Into Style; Onyekachi Wambu, Empire Windrush; Paul Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack.
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The seminar will explore representations of "Otherness" in British
literary and non-literary discourse, with particular emphasis on the
period before 1830. In particular, stereotypical depictions of Jews,
French and Blacks will be taken as paradigmatic though students will be
encouraged to extend their enquiry to the portrayal of further ethnic
and national groups. The putative anti-Semitism of The Merchant of
Venice will be discussed both in the context of the age in which it
was written and in terms of its influence on later constructions of Jew
and Jewess. Key works of Wycherley, Smollett and Sterne will be used to
reveal longstanding stereotypical British depictions of the French.
Colonial portrayals of Blacks and Native Americans will be studied in
works by Shakespeare, Behn and Defoe and through the sensational "folk
epic" of Inkle and Yarico. Consideration will be given too to the
creation of a comic English stereotype by reference to the singular
figure of John Bull. Wide use will be made of eighteenth-century
anecdote and humor as displayed in contemporary jest books and
caricatures. The seminar will interrogate some of the salient
theoretical issues that are raised through the study of stereotyping and
of difference.