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Spring 2007 Graduate Course Descriptions
Past SemestersEnglish 537: Methods and Materials in TESOLProf. Lynn Stalling Course description available in RB 295. English 605: Teaching English StudiesProf. Rai Peterson Course description available in RB 295. English 607: Literary Theory 2Prof. Joyce Huff Have you ever found yourself reading criticism of a work of literature and encountering terms or concepts that are unfamiliar to you? When this happens, do you feel like you’re missing part of the conversation? Do you feel curious about the critic’s allusions and vocabulary and about the assumptions that underlie his or her claims? Well, this course will offer you the opportunity to explore some of the various schools of theory that inform literary criticism today and to reach a better understanding of current debates and trends in the critical conversation. In addition, you will practice working with current theories in order to gain the skill and confidence needed to employ them in your own scholarly work. You will also be given the opportunity to examine your own basic assumptions about texts, authors and readers and to position your own scholarship within the world of contemporary theory. The course will cover an assortment of current theoretical positions, which will include some or all of the following: Cultural Studies, Deconstruction, Feminist Theory and Masculinity Studies, Queer Theory, Marxism, New Historicism, Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, Postcolonial Theory, Psychoanalysis, Critical Race Studies, Reader Response Criticism, Structuralism and Semiotics, Body Theory and Disability Studies. Our main text will be The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. We will be reading primarily essays and excerpts from theoretical books, but we will also hone our critical skills on a few short literary pieces. These readings are challenging but also intellectually stimulating. Course requirements will include a short paper, a seminar paper, presentations and participation in discussion, both in class and on-line. English 611: Creative Nonfiction Writing WorkshopProf. Jill
Christman This is a creative nonfiction writing workshop that will focus on the shaping of a range of personal narratives and the navigation of those slippery spaces between remembering and forgetting, truth and invention, experience and research. In order to write well, we must read, and so we will split our time between workshops of student work and the discussion of published texts. Our reading list will include an anthology of creative nonfiction (probably In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, ed. Lee Gutkind), as well as a selection of memoirs, diverse in both subject and form, such as: Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Bill Buford’s Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, Lauren Slater’s Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, and Doug Crandell’s Pig Boy's Wicked Bird. We’ll read greedily with a writer’s attention to style and technique as we get in the practice of asking the questions that are essential in the crafting of real-life material: How much do we trust the narrator and why do we care? How do we decide what to put in and what to leave out? What do we consider risky either personally or technically? How is memory constructed on the page and how does forgetting fit in? What’s the difference between invention and lying? What responsibility do we have to history? How does solid research and interviewing contribute to our construction of nonfiction narratives? How do our expectations as readers change when we’re told something is nonfiction? How do our obligations as writers change? And so on. My hope is that when we apprentice ourselves to the books on our reading list, we will practice the habit of art, honing our technical skills while we locate the patterns in our lives and the world that have something to say about the human condition. Course requirements will include two long essays (and a final revision), creative/critical responses to the reading assignments, workshop critiques, and a class presentation. English 613: Poetry Writing WorkshopProf: Mark Neely This writing workshop will be a long discussion of the art of reading and writing poems. About half the class will be devoted to reading and discussing full-length collections of poems by contemporary authors, and selected poems from an anthology. We will talk about how authors attempt to unify these collections, and look closely at the dazzling number of formal choices poets make each time they create a new work. Groups of 2 or 3 students will present each book to the class, and help focus discussion on particularly relevant questions. The readings will help inspire the poems written for the class, will inform the way we discuss (workshop) these poems, and offer strategies for revision. Students will write a poem a week, reading responses, and will turn in a chapbook of poems and a poetic manifesto at the end of the semester. Readings will include essays on poetics, an anthology, and five volumes of poems. Possible titles include: John Berryman's The Dream Songs; Susan Somers-Willett’s Roam; Kevin Young’s Jelly Roll; Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet; Inger Christensen’s alphabet; and Legitimate Dangers: Poets of the New Century. ENG 614: Practicum in Literary EditingProf. Mark Neely
In this class we will explore the history, theory and practice of literary editing, and talk about how writers and editors work together to produce various kinds of literary texts. Students will also produce several texts of their own, as a hands-on way to learn about this art. We will talk about the various kinds of collaboration involved in producing works of art, and also consider what happens when literary texts become products, meant to be purchased and consumed. Part of the class will be dedicated to editing texts produced by students in the class, and to an exploration of the process texts go through from inception to publication. We will spend some time learning and working with Indesign, Adobe’s layout and design software. The final assignment will be a literary editing project. In the past students have produced anthologies, limited-edition art books, literary magazines and websites, and chapbooks of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The reading list will include the AWP Writer's Chronicle, readings from other journals, copies of literary work in manuscript form, and at least one of the following: Jason Epstein, The Book Business; Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees; Gerald Gross, Editors on Editing; Andre Schiffrin, The Business of Books. English 620: Linguistics and the Study of EnglishProf. Elizabeth
Riddle Course description available in RB 295. English 623: Linguistic PhoneticsProf. Herbert
Stahlke Course description available in RB 295. English 624: Issues in Second Language AcquisitionProf. Megumi Hamada Course description available in RB 295. English 626: SyntaxProf. Frank
Trechsel Course description available in RB 295. English 628: Language and CultureProf. Carolyn MacKay This course is a graduate-level introduction to language and culture, focusing on language ideology, linguistic relativity, language maintenance and death, ethnography of communication, ethnopoetics, the interaction of culture and rhetorical structure, language contact and code switching. The course will be conducted as a seminar; therefore, active participation in class discussions is encouraged. English 629: Bilingualism and Language ContactProf. Carolyn MacKay Language contact is the norm, not the exception, in communities around the world. The most common result of language contact is change in some or all of the languages. We will examine the various linguistic results of language contact, ranging from stable/unstable bilingualism, code-switching and contact-induced language change to extreme language mixing. Language contact has resulted in the creation of pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages but has also resulted in language death. We will examine how various kinds of bilingualism arise and examine how different speech communities have adapted to language contact. The class will be conducted as a seminar with particular focus given to the topics of interest to the students. English 630: Contrastive AnalysisProf. Elizabeth
Riddle English 644: Early Twentieth-Century American LiteratureProf. Deborah Mix This course is designed to provide an overview of the fiction and poetry of the first half of the twentieth century. While literary modernism is part of that picture, our focus will be more broadly on “modernity” as a force. The changes occurring in American culture in the early years of the twentieth century wrought havoc on received notions of identity, community, aesthetics, and politics. We will consider the ways in which a range of American authors sought to represent, to resist, and to come to grips with some of these forces. We’ll also pay particular attention to the cultural contexts for the works we’re reading. Likely fiction for the course will include:
As well as selected poetry by: Gwendolyn Bennett, H.D., T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Marianne Moore, Anne Spencer, Wallace Stevens, Melvin Tolson, and William Carlos Williams Primary texts for this course will be coupled with literary criticism, including work by Andreas Huyssen, Deborah McDowell, Cary Nelson, Bonnie Kime Scott, and others. Assignments for the course will include a book review, two brief presentations, and a seminar paper of 20 pages or two shorter conference-length papers (10 pages each). English 647: African American Literature - The Black Atlantic in African American LiteratureProf. Robert Nowatzki The title of this course borrows from the title of Paul Gilroy’s 1993 book, which argues that the identity and consciousness of persons of African descent are not rooted in one geographical location. Rather, their identity and consciousness is shaped by the frequent crossings, both involuntary and voluntary, over the Atlantic Ocean between Africa, Europe, the West Indies, and the American continents. This course tries to explore how such hybrid black identities are revealed in literature, autobiography, and history. By studying how African American authors forge identities that break down national boundaries, the course itself will also break down national boundaries. Students will be required to give two 15-minute presentations to the class on one of the texts or on a relevant issue or event, write short, informal responses each week that relate to the reading assignments, write a 4-6 page book review, and write a 20-25 page research paper on one or more of the texts on the syllabus. Tentative reading list:
If you have any questions about the course, contact me at 285-8476 or rnowatzki@bsu.edu English 650: Seminar in Literature
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