SPRING 2010 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS AND GUIDELINES

 

KEY TO COURSE GUIDELINES

English Major (incl. Elem. Ed)	Teacher Ed. (K-12)
1a = Lit. Pre-1800 (ENGL or ENLT)	TE 1a = Shakespeare
1b = Lit. Pre-1900 (ENGL or ENLT)	TE 1b = British Lit.
1c = Lit. (ENGL or ENLT)	TE 1c = American Lit. Pre-1900
1d = Lit (ENGL or ENLT)	TE 1d = American Lit.
2 = Writing Intensive	2= Writing Intensive
3= Genre (Drama, Fiction, Film, Poetry)	TE 3a = Genre (Film)
4a = Multinational	TE 3b = Genre (Poetry)
4b = Minority Writers	TE 3c = Genre (Drama or Fiction)
4c = Women Writers	4a = Multinational
4d = Gender Studies	4b = Minority Writers
4e = Class Issues	4c = Women Writers
	4d = Gender Studies
	4e = Class Issues
	TE 5 = Study of  English Language

 

*If no description, see MSU catalog course descriptions. http://www.montclair.edu/courses.shtml 
.***WESS reflects the official, updated times and days schedule,  please double check against the information below. 

 

ENFL208  INTRODUCTION TO FILM

Cutler Sec 01 T 10am to 12:50 pm

Lykidis Sec 02 M 1:00 pm to 3:50 pm

Simon  Sec 03 T 5:20 pm to 8:20 pm

Satisfies: 3 and TE 3a (Film), 4a (Multi); also satisfies GER Fine Arts Req’t 

The movies are a constant and powerful part of our daily environment, a source of immense social, economic, and political influence. Film is without question the premier art form of this century, yet films are rarely discussed or studied in primary or secondary school education. This course looks at film not only as an object of intense fascination but as an aesthetic system with its own complex histories, and its heightened relationship to the social conditions under which it is produced and consumed. Into to Film surveys the development of Hollywood commercial films as well as crucial moments of film experimentation in Europe and America. It provides the beginning student with the tools to look at and critically interpret contemporary motion pictures as they appear in theatres and on TV. It increases awareness of how movie images manipulate our emotions, behaviors, and attitudes. 

ENFL255  WORLD FILM 

Lykidis Sec 01  T 2:30-5:20 pm 
Satisfies: 3 and TE 3a (Film), 4a (Multi) 

This course will introduce you to international art films made after 1945, when ‘art cinema’ became institutionalized as a critical, aesthetic and industrial category of film practice. Our primary objective in the course will be to define art cinema in relation to theories of modernism and postwar social, cultural and political developments. We will also discuss art cinema in film-specific terms: in relation to cinephilia, film institutions such as the art house theater and the film festival, and contemporaneous modes of film practice such as Third Cinema and avant-garde cinema. The class will be reading-intensive and require analyses of screened films to be posted on BB weekly. Films to be shown include Rashomon, Loves of a Blonde, Last Year at Marienbad, Love Affair or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator, Yellow Earth, Festen, Caché, Tropical Malady and The Edge of Heaven. 

ENFL 490 ST FILM STUDIES: HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM 
Simon, Sec. 01 R 2:30 pm

Satisfies 3 and TE 3a (film) 4d (Gender)

Special Topics in Film Studies this semester will take an in-depth look at the Hollywood mode of production between 1915 and 1950. In addition to examining the economic structure of the industry, we will study the house styles of the major studios—Paramount, MGM, Warners, Fox, RKO— as they developed during the classical era. We will also give attention to the product of the minors—Universal and Columbia—as well as films made by the poverty row studios. Particular attention will be paid to several key moments or events in the history of the industry during this period—the coming of sound, the establishment of the production code and the relationship between Hollywood and the U.S. government during World War II. Throughout the course, we will highlight the contribution of producers such as Darryl Zanuck, David O.Selznick and Irving Thalberg. Our screening list will also give us the opportunity to track the career of a single star—Barbara Stanwyck. There will be considerable weekly reading about the history of the film industry as well as weekly screenings of animation, newsreels and feature films. Films tentatively scheduled for screening include Baby Face, The Jazz Singer, The Sheik, King Kong, UnionPacific, Meet John Doe. Students will be expected to have prior experience in film studies. Mid-term project and final paper required.  

ENFL 490 Special Topic: The Films of Martin Scorsese
Dr. Janet Cutler, Sec. 02
R   1130-2:20
Satisfies: 3 (Film), TE 3a, 4d, 4e

The course will examine Martin Scorsese’s five-decade career, from a 1960s NYU filmmaker (The Big Shave) to an award-winning contemporary director (The Departed).   We will focus on his classic narrative films (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas), as well as his celebrated music documentaries (No Direction Home with Bob Dylan, Shine a Light with the Rolling Stones, and The Last Waltz with the Band).  We will trace the evolution of Scorcese’s formal and thematic concerns, including characteristic stylistic elements (extensive camera movements, close attention to historical milieu, vivid depictions of the city, and expressionistic use of lighting, color and sound) and recurring motifs (male camaraderie, violence, the family, religion, and the immigrant experience in America). The course will situate Scorsese as an exemplar of “new American filmmaking” and will address the impact of production circumstances and time period on his works.  We will explore controversies surrounding his films (The Last Temptation of Christ).  Students will be required to screen additional Scorsese films outside of class, participate in an online Discussion Board, read critical articles, and actively contribute to classroom discussions.    
Take home mid-term, final paper.

ENGL200  THE PURSUITS OF ENGLISH  

Satisfies: University Graduation Requirement in Writing for English Majors

 
Bronson Sec 01 M 10  W 10:00 - 12:00 pm

Jacobs   Sec 02 M 10   W 10:00- 12:0 0pm

Lewis Sec 03 M 2:30  W 2:30-4:50 pm

Whitney Sec 04 M 2:30  W 2:30-4:40 pm 

The Pursuits of English. Prerequisites: ENWR 106 or HONP 101; English majors only. An inquiry into what constitutes contemporary literary study: its subject matter and its underlying goals and methods. Students study literary and cinematic texts of various genres, as well as literary criticism and theory; inquire into the nature of authorship and of texts; examine and expand their ways of reading, interpreting, and writing about texts; trace the relation of literary criticism to theory; consider the relation of literary study to issues of power; and develop independent habits of thought, research, discussion, and analytic writing that are informed by literary theory and criticism. Meets the University Writing Requirement for ENCW, ENED, ENEL and ENGL majors. 4 hours lecture. 

ENGL226  LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE 
MILLER  Sec. 01   M 5:30 pm

Satisfies: 1b, TE 1c, 3 and TE 3c(Fiction), 4b (Women), 4e(Class) 

This course concentrates on the major writers of the American Renaissance--Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman--as well as on selected non-canonical writers like Jacobs and Douglass. Our interest will be on interpreting the works in different ways as well as understanding the works as expressions of their time. These forty years before the Civil War was a time of literary growth and power unprecedented in America, and part of Emerson’s call for a literary declaration of independence was heeded by some of the most important writers in our history. The writers are quite different in their ideas and styles: Transcendentalism was defined by Emerson and Thoreau and redefined by Whitman; Hawthorne and Melville’s view of the dark side of humankind was the antithesis of the earlier writers; slavery was an issue to only some of them. Readings include short stories, poems, essays, autobiographies, The Scarlet Letter. Writing includes weekly short papers, a longer critical paper, midterm, and final. Participation in class is important.  

ENGL234  AMERICAN DRAMA  

Slocum Sec 01 M 5:30 pm  
Satisfies: 1c, TE 1d, 3 and TE 3c (Drama), 4e (Class) 

A survey of representative 20th c. American drama, with particular emphasis given to the plays of O'Neill, Miller, and Williams. Course Requirements: two short (5 page) papers, a Midterm Exam, and a Final Exam. 

ENGL238  BLACK WRITERS OF THE U.S.: A SURVEY 
Schwartz    Sec 01 MR 8 am 

Satisfies: 1c, TE 1d, 3 and TE 3c (Fiction), 4b (Minority), 4e (Class)

This survey course spans the 18th to the 20th centuries. There will be significant attention devoted to the slave experience as portrayed in the slave narratives and to the historical understanding of slavery and racism. From this base, the course will focus on classic writers (in fiction, poetry, and essay) who represent the African-American tradition, and further on how that tradition is part of the American literary experience. The goal is to set literature and literary matters into a social and cultural context. The readings have not yet been selected but representative writers are: Douglass, Jacobs, Washington, Chesnutt, Johnson, DuBois, Wells-Barnet, Hurston, Hughes, Wright, Ellison, Petry. The specific reading list will be posted on BB.   

ENGL241  ENGLISH LITERATURE II:1660 TO PRESENT 
Nash  Sec 01   TR 10-11:15 am 

Satisfies: 1a and TE 1b, 3 and TE 3b (Poetry), 4d (Gender) 

We will read some of the most important works from four centuries of British literature against the backdrop of the culture from which they arose. You will gain an appreciation of each text as well as an understanding of how it shares common concerns and techniques with other works of its period. The reading list includes works by Dryden, Pope, Swift, Wortley Montagu, Johnson, Wollstonecraft, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Tennyson, Dickens, Arnold, Yeats, Lawrence, Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Joyce, and others. The majority of the readings are poetry.  Assignments include frequent short responses to the reading assignments (informal notes to prepare for class discussions), several quizzes, and take-home essays for the midterm and final examinations.   



ENGL248 Sensibility to Romanticism  

Matthew Sec 01 MW 1:00-2:15 pm 
Satisfies  1b and TE 1b, 4d (Gender)  

In this course we will explore writings produced between 1745 and 1830, a time characterized by emotion, reason, and passion. Literary critic Michael Gamer rightfully claims that, “more men and women blush, weep, gnash their teeth, or fling themselves out of windows, against walls, or at the feet of parents in the literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than perhaps any other.” This excess of emotion, collectively assigned the label Sensibility, is represented in writings of all kinds— religious texts, philosophical treatises, and all genres of literature (poetry, fiction, and drama). At the same time, the eighteenth century is often considered the Age of Enlightenment or The Age of Reason and the early nineteenth century has been characterized as the Romantic period. Our work will be to understand how all of these movements existed during the same time period, to focus on the culture that produced the literature of this time period. We will work to identify which social institutions are repeatedly reflected in the writing of the time and chart the shifts in understanding how women and men were expected to move through the world. 
 

ENGL 250    ST: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS  

Lewis   Sec 01 MR 11:30 am & Sec 02 R 5:30 pm 
Satisfies:  1c, TE 1d, 4b (Minority), 4c (Women)  

This course explores the creative and critical expressions written by and about African American women from the 18th Century to the present.  We will read across genre (slave narratives, poetry, memoir, drama, novels, short fiction) and from a socio- historical and womanist perspective.  Significant attention will be given to the unique  
strategies and structures distinguishing an African American female aesthetic and critical tradition.  Some of the novelists on board for consideration are Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, Michelle Cliff, Gayl Jones and Edwidge Danticat. 

ENGL 250: Special Topics – The Victorian Novel
Behlman – Sec. 03 MW 11:30am-12:45pm

Satisfies: 1b; 3 (Fiction); 4d

We’ll read some remarkable British novels of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, paying special attention to the ways in which they dramatize emotion. Like most other human attributes, emotions have a history. The way we feel, or at least the way we understand how we feel, often changes across time and distance. (Even the word “feel” has a historical context – it is a peculiarity of the English language that the same word that means “to touch” also means “ to experience an emotion.”) Victorian literary fiction gave emotions a setting and reinforced traditions of feeling. These traditions are no more clear, and are no more interesting, than when they are violated. We’ll focus especially on emotional extremes– on love, desire, disgust, hatred, and greed in excess. We’ll observe sensational scenes of demonic possession and physical transformation; we’ll encounter madmen and madwomen, victims and villains, lovers and fools, and one very famous detective. We’ll also take special notice of the connections between these Victorian figures of the imagination and our own. Novels covered will include James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, R. L. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Arthur Conan Doyle’s early Sherlock Holmes novellas A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, as well as some short fiction. Requirements include two 5-7 page papers, regular journal entries, and a final exam.

ENGL260 ART OF POETRY 
Nash Sec 01 TR 1-2:15 pm

Satisfies: 1a and TE 1b, 3 and TE 3b (Poetry), 4c (Women), 4d (Gender) 

An exploration of poetry written in English, from earliest times to the present: lyrics (including popular songs), narratives, meditative poems, satires, humorous poetry, and other types.  Our goals are to broaden your capacity to enjoy many different kinds of poems, sharpen your interpretive abilities, and increase your understanding of how the technical aspects of poetic craft can affect your reading experience.  We will also pay attention to changes over time: in the treatment of important themes such as love, in ideas about what poetry is and what it should do, and in poetic styles as they have morphed—sometimes radically—from one era to the next.  Assignments include frequent short responses to the reading assignments (informal notes to prepare for class discussions), several brief essays (2 pages) and take-home essays for the midterm and final examinations.   

ENGL 263 The Art of Drama  
Waters Sec 01  TR 10 am  
Satisfies: 1c, 3 and TE 3 (Drama), 4d (Gender), 4e (Class)

 
The purpose of this course is to determine a working definition of drama, to understand what makes the experience of reading plays different from the experience of reading novels or poems. The class is organized in an historical manner, and the reading list moves chronologically, to permit us to observe the gradual development of the form as we gain a critical understanding of several examples of dramatic literature. We will read Sophocles, Shakespeare, Strindberg, Ibsen, Chekhov, Williams, Miller, Beckett, and August Wilson and Brian McDonagh.  In addition to active attendance, the course requires two critical/historical/comparative papers about five pages long, a midterm and a final. 

ENGL324 AMERICAN POETRY TO 1940 
Benediktsson, T   Sec 01 TR 8:30 am  

Satisfies: 1c and TE 1d, 3 and TE 3b (Poetry) 4e (Class) 

A survey of modern American poetry, beginning with Whitman and Dickinson and then moving into the 20th century with Sandburg and Frost as modern poets "in the American grain." A unit on early modernism will follow with attention to the poetic avant-garde: Symbolists, Imagists, Surrealists, Vorticists and Cubists. Then we will examine "high modernists" of 1920-1935, including Eliot, Stevens, Williams and Pound. We then will study the Harlem Renaissance and the proletarian poets of the 1930's. The course will end with a reading of three modern American "epic" poems- Hart Crane's "The Bridge," Muriel Rukeyser's "The Book of the Dead," and Melvin Tolson's "Libretto for the Republic of Liberia." 

 
ENGL324  AMERICANPOETRY TO 1940 
Nicosia  Sec. 02   MW, 10:00 am

Satisfies: 1c, TE 1c, 3 and TE 3b (Poetry), 4e (Class) 

This course will focus on trends in American poetry by paying close attention to the works of individual poets as well as “schools” they might represent, beginning with Poe and concluding with Hughes.  Close readings, class discussions, group work will be supplemented with critical/theoretical essays.  Students will keep an online journal in response to the poems and will produce a formal research paper. 
 

ENGL325 AMERICAN POETRY: WWII TO THE PRESENT 

Somers-Willett Sec. 01 W 5:30-8:00 pm 

Satisfies: 1c, TE 1d, 3 and TE 3b (Poetry), 4b (Minority), 4c (Women)   

After World War II, American poetry saw a wealth of new schools emerge, many of which abandoned venerated formalist traditions to explore more open poetics and public arts.  In the first half of this course, we will study the varied terrain of post-war poetry by examining selected literary movements active through the 1980s, including Confessionalism, Beat Poetry, Black Arts Poetry, and Feminist Poetry.  In the second half of the course, we will study the poetry of more contemporary authors by readings book-length collections.  As part of the course, you will lead a discussion on a poet’s work and write at least two major papers on poetics.  
 

ENGL326  EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE 
Miller  Sec. 01    5:30 pm

Satisfies: 1a, 1b, TE 1c, 4b (Minority), 4e (Class) 

This course can be defined best as an American Studies course, for we will be reading many different kinds of texts: prose narratives, poems, sermons, political documents, religious statements, Native American oral texts, drama, and fiction. Also, we will be talking about these writings in different contexts: historical, social, political, religious, and, of course, literary. We will be concentrating on themes that have run through American life from its beginnings to about 1800, and we will ask what makes these issues or themes or concerns particularly American. What you know about American history and American political theory will be most useful. Finally, we can come to understand much of what we are by tracing the lines back to what we were.  Requirements include reading selections from earliest Native American myths, Columbus, the Puritans, 17th -century poetry, Jonathan Edwards, Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, Jefferson, early African-American slave narratives, and 18th-century drama and fiction. A midterm, final, two critical papers, and perhaps some shorter papers complete the requirements.  
 
 

ENGL 336 AMERICAN LITERARY REALISM

Schwartz Sect. 01 MR 10 am

Satisfies1c, 3 and TE3 (Fiction), 4d (Gender) , 4e (Class)  

As the U.S. industrialized in the latter third of the nineteenth century, writers and other artists, in a rather dramatic way,  abandoned genteel and romantic aesthetic traditions in favor of "realism" and a "mania for facts."  This course will explore how, why and under what historical and social circumstances realism and naturalism emerged as a dominant aesthetic in this era. Novelists tried to "tell the truth" about a tumultuous era marked by class and race turbulence, the changing roles of women in the home and workplace, and the increasing concentration of wealth within the ruling elite. In this view, artistic honesty meant a direct confrontation with life, with the social dimension of experience.  Also, the writers made a case for widening the range of characters and settings and for appealing to a mass audience. In short, as writers committed literature to an exploration of ordinary life, they also waged a relentless attack on aesthetic "idealism". The aftermath of the great depression of 1893 made clear that violent class and race antagonisms had become a permanent part of American life under industrial capitalism.  Novels will be selected from the work of major writers of this period (1890-1920) --such as Chestnutt, Chopin, Crane, Dreiser, Howells, James, Jewett, London, Norris, and Sinclair. 

 

ENGL337  MODERNAMERICAN FICTION 
Nicosia  Sec. 01   MW, 1 pm

Satisfies: 1c, TE 1d, 3 and TE 3c  (Fiction), TE 4e (Class)

This course focuses on American novels, short stories and sequences published between World War I and II that have come to represent the American contribution to the “modernist” literary movement in the 20th century. These texts will be considered in the context of the massive social, political, cultural, and aesthetic upheavals associated with this era. The course may include works by such representative authors as Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Cather, O’Connor, Steinbeck, and others. One midterm, one final, and an analytic paper are required. 

ENGL 338 CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION 
Jacobs  Sec 01 MW 1 pm 

Satisfies 1 C, TE 1d, 3 and TE 3c(Fiction), 4d (Gender), 4e (Class) 

This course concentrates on American Fiction, novels and short stories, written mainly after 1990, and investigates a variety of literary currents, voices, styles, approaches and themes by writers such as Philip Roth, Elizabeth Strout, Daniel Mason, Jhumpa Lahiri,  Charles Johnson, Nicole Krauss and Richard Russo, among others.  Critical readings of the works and the issues of narrative, prose style, race, gender, and the social analysis and criticism inherent in the works will be the starting places for class discussion and student writing. The classes will include lecture and discussion, and all students will be expected to contribute to the discussion.   

 

ENGL348 RENAISSANCE LITERATURE  
Liebler Sec 01 TR 2:30 pm  

Satisfies 1a, TE1b, 3 and TE3b ( (Poetry),  3 and TE3c (Drama),  4d (Gender), 4e (Class)  

This course samples representative works of poetry, drama, prose fiction and non-fiction emerging from one of the greatest and most exciting moments in English literary history. Poetry from sonnet to epic, Utopian fiction, early romance novels, political treatises, and drama open windows upon a remarkable period of social, political, scientific, religious, and artistic revolution, one that paid respect to the past while inventing itself for the future. Among other topics, we look at changing ideas about sex and gender roles, citizenship, colonialism, class and social mobility, religious controversies sparked by the Protestant Revolution, and new scientific and technological discoveries that changed the way people understood the universe, the world, and their places in it. Representative works cover a range of genres including love poetry, romance, tragedies of ambition and revenge, dramatic comedy, and prose satires, by such authors as Sidney, Spenser, Jonson, Donne, Marlowe, Kyd, Webster, Queen Elizabeth, and Shakespeare's (non-dramatic) poetry. Course requirements include two papers (one five pages, the other ten and including research), a midterm, and a final exam.  


ENGL354 SHAKESPEARE: TRAGEDIES-ROMANCES  
Liebler Sec 01 TR 1 pm 

Satisfies: 1a, TE1a, 3 and TE 3c (Drama), 4d (Gender), 4e (Class) 

This course examines several of Shakespeare’s major tragedies and romances as cultural productions reflecting the concerns, anxieties, values, and ideologies of Shakespeare}s England. While we attend to the development of tragedy and romance as genres, we give careful consideration to social problems such as constructions of gender and class, the complex identity of the hero and the scapegoat, and the contests for political power that are the particular focuses of this drama, seen through the development of tragic patterns and concerns from play to play. Requirements: 2 papers (5 and 10 pages, respectively, the latter involving research), a midterm and a final exam. Class discussion is expected and encouraged.

 

ENGL 471 TEACHING ENGLISH METHODS 
Restaino Sec 01 MR  4-5:15/6:00pm 

Satisfies:  Required Teacher Education 
 

ENGL493 SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LIT: LITERATURE OF THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT 
Benediktsson, T   Sec 01  TR 1:00 pm 
Satisfies: 1b and TE 1c, 4b (Minority) 

This team-taught seminar  will be co-scheduled  with Amy Srebnick’s Senior Seminar in History. Covering the period between 1830 and the onset of the Civil War in 1860, the course will focus on the antislavery debate and the literature that emerged from it.  It will be divided into three units: “The Slavery Debate;” “Slave Culture and Slave Narratives,” including works by Douglass and Jacobs; and “Literary Representations,” including writings by Thoreau, Emerson, Melville, Stowe and Samuel Delany. This course is recommended for students interested in interdisciplinary American Studies, and especially for those who plan to teach American literature and/or American history.  

ENGL 493 Seminar:  Jane Austen

Matthew Sec 02 M 5:30 pm  

Satisfies 1b and TE 1b and 4d (Gender)  

Known as a classic author, canonical novelist, and the grandmother of “chicklit,” Jane Austen is arguably the most famous English author after Shakespeare. Her novels are at once about nothing and everything, the minutiae of lives lived by the landed but untitled and the implications of national movements. The author and her narratives inspire an array of responses from boredom to admiration, and she has been assigned labels that, at first, seem mutually exclusive: traditional/radical, subversive/conservative and feminist/patriarchal. In this seminar, we will explore how Austen’s work invites all of these labels by the way it depicts courtship rituals, familial relationships, class structures, and other recurring themes. We will consider how gender “works” in the novel and pay careful attention to the political undercurrents that resonate in these stories. This course will focus on her writing, the culture and writing of her times, and our adaptations of Austen’s work in novels and in films. We will also read other narratives produced during her life time (in some case excerpts from longer works), examine film adaptations of her work and read modern texts clearly indebted to her themes and narrative techniques. 

ENGM 384 Grammars of English  
Whitney Sec 01 MR 11:30 

Satisfies: TE 5 (Study of English Language), 4e (Class)

This is a Service Learning course requiring 20 hours of community service from each student.

 
What is language?  We use it almost continually in virtually everything we do.  It is in some sense the most familiar thing to us—it defines us as human beings—and yet, how well do we really understand it?  We study language for years in school without ever mastering it.  Why is this?  Is this because we teach it in ineffective ways, or because it is just too complex to master, or because we don’t yet really understand what it is or how it is learned…  or for some other reason?      In this course we will look at language from several different perspectives: grammatical, social and cultural, political, cognitive, practical, personal, generative and aesthetic, among others. We will think about the implications of these perspectives for learning, intellectual growth and social change, and experiment with alternative language theories and practices which might work better in literacy development, education and society.  

 
ENLT 206 WORLD LIT: COMING OF AGE 
Staff Sec 01 MW 10 am 

Satisfies: 1c, 3 and TE 3c (Fiction), 4a (Multi) 

ENLT 207  WORLD LIT: TRADITION AND CHALLENGE  
L. Benediktsson  Sec 01  TR 10:00 a.m. 

Satisfies: 1c, 3 and TE 3c (Fiction), 4a (Multi)  

This course introduces students to non-western fiction written by living writers.   The readings focus on recent or current political and cultural conflicts and the tension between tradition and modernity, privilege and poverty, personal and public in countries as diverse as Papua New Guinea, India, Sri Lanka, China, and Nigeria, as well as Vietnam, Palestine, Egypt, Iran and South Korea.  Readings will include Mr. Pip (Lloyd Jones), The Inheritance of Loss (Kiran Desai),  Purple Hibiscus (Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie), The Bride-Groom (Ha Jin), Reef (Romesh Gunesekera), Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of  Writers (a collection of international short stories newly available in translation).  There will be four graded assignments including formal papers, journals and an in-class essay. 

 

ENLT 250 ST: EUROPEAN ROMANTIC MOVEMENT  
Nielsen Sec. MW 11:30 – 12:45  

Satisfies 1b, 3 and TE 3c (fiction), 4a(Multi), 4d (Gender)  

What were French and German authors writing about before and after Shelley composed Frankenstein? This course aims to foster understanding of the term “Romantic,” especially as it relates to the fiction, prose, poetry, and drama in Britain, France, Germany, and abroad ca. 1780 to 1830. We will read harbingers of the European Romantic Movement, (Rousseau’s Confessions, and Goethe’s Sufferings of Young Werther); key texts of the period (Goethe’s Faust); poetry by Droste-Hülshoff, Novalis, and Heine; and overlooked writers and artists who influenced major issues of the day like the French Revolution, colonialism, and women’s rights. The class will discuss themes common to Romantic-era writing, such as nature, utopia, freedom, the grotesque, and the uncanny across several fictional genres (poetry, drama, prose, memoir, and novellas). Students will leave the course with an appreciation for the ways in which literary movements transcend national and generic borders.  


ENLT 372  WOMEN PROSE WRITERS 
Dowd Sec 01 W 5:30 pm 

Satisfies  1c, 3 and TE 3c (Fiction), 4a (Multi), 4c (Women) 

Students will explore how women writers represent the ways females negotiate the challenges and opportunities offered to them in diverse times and cultures through reading and study of novels and short stories, as well as supportive non-fiction texts, primarily from the 19th to the 21st centuries. A specific area of interest in this course is how the dominant culture shapes the lives and work of the writers as well as the struggles of the characters. We will read approximately six novels including Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre, and Emma as well as short fiction and non-fiction by writers including Jamaica Kincaid, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Toni Cade Bambara, Adrienne Rich, Margaret Edson, and Bharati Mukherjee. The issues of race, class, and ethnicity as represented in each text will be examined through the lens of gender. Students will be expected to engage in literary research leading to the writing of two documented essays as well as reaction papers and an oral presentation.  

ENLT 375 MODERN DRAMA: IBSEN TO O’NEILL  
Nielsen Sec. 01 M 5:30 pm  

Satisfies 1b, 3 and TE 3c (drama), 4a(Multi), and 4e (Class) 

What is the tragedy of the modern family? How are family members expected to “perform”? And can the theater even begin to portray the comedy and tragedy (or tragicomedy) that is modern life? So-called Anti-Aristotelian dramas, or the plays written and produced between ca. 1870 and 1950, address these and many other questions. This course covers Naturalist Drama to Theater of the Absurd. We will read and consider the performance histories of Scandinavian, German, Anglo-Irish, French, and Italian theater such as: Ibsen (Doll House, Hedda Gabler), Strindberg (The Father, Miss Julie), Ernst Rosmer (pseudonym for Elsa Bernstein, author of Twilight), Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest), Wedekind (Spring Awakening), Pirandello (Six Characters in Search of an Author), and Genet (The Maids). Students will leave with a profound appreciation for the development of modern Europe and its playhouses.

 

ENLT 377 SPECULATIVE FICTION 
Gill Sec 01 (Cross listed GNHU 320) MW 1pm 

Satisfies: 1c, 3 and TE3c (Fiction) 

ENLT 492 SEM IN COMP LIT: Reading the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as Literature  
Behlman  Sec 01 M W 10:00am 

Satisfies: 1a, 4a (Multi), 4d (Gender) 

The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) is a main source text not only for three major religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – but also for world literature.  It is a collection of very different writings composed and edited over a period of nearly a thousand years, but in some ways it seeks to be read as a unified whole.  This class will introduce a variety of approaches to reading the Hebrew Bible (in translation) in order to account for its extraordinary richness and variety.  Primarily we will read it as a work of literature, but we will also explore the historical background to the writing of the Bible.  There is no expectation that students taking this course will have had prior experience with the Hebrew Bible.  Students of all faiths or of no faith whatsoever are welcome. Requirements include two 5-7 page papers, short assignments, a mid-term exam, and a final exam.  Required books include The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2003); Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (Norton, 1996); Robert Alter, The David Story: Translation and Commentary (Norton, 1999); and Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997). 
 

ENLT 492  SEM: MODERN IRISH DRAMA 

McDiarmid  Sec 02  TR 2:30 pm   

Satisfies 1c, 3 and TE3c (Drama), 4a(Multinational), 4d (Gender)  

Plays by W.B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory, John Millington Synge, Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and possibly others will be studied in the context of Irish history and Irish cultural politics. The course will look at the place of drama in the emerging movement for Irish independence in the early years of the last century and consider the connections between the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Abbey Theatre. Work for the course: attendance & regular participation in class discussion; quizzes; mid-term exam; 10-page paper; and final exam. Readings include Playboy of the Western World and The Plough and the Stars; we'll also consider the riots and controversies inspired by these plays.  I'll arrange for student discount tickets to any Irish plays in New York during the Spring 2010 semester, and we'll go together as a class. 



ENWR 200 CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION, POETRY, DRAMA 
Helfers Sec  01  TR 8:30 am 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) 

 

ENWR 200 CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION, POETRY, DRAMA 
Benediktsson T   Sec  02  TR 10:00 am 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) 

An introductory course in creative writing, with work in the three major genres.  The course will be a combination of several elements—directed readings and exercises, discussions of craft, and writing workshop sessions in which you will read, critique and revise your work.  Throughout, the emphasis will be on finding your voice as a writer.  You will be writing several times a week, and you will end the course with a completed short story, a dramatic scene (or one-act play), a selection of poems, and a writer’s journal of exercises, freewrites and drafts. 

ENWR 200 CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION, POETRY, DRAMA  
Lorenz  Sec 03 MW  11:30am   
Lorenz  Sec 04 MW 1pm 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) 

This course is an introduction to creative writing.  We will focus on mastering the tools of literary craft and putting them at the service of our imaginations.  We will energize our language, develop an intensified appreciation for the wonderful specificity of words and challenge our own writing habits.  Our goal is not to "find" our voices as writers; our goal is to become more sophisticated as we invent our voices.  We will read and write every week.  Students will engage in a number of different projects, including poems, short fiction, and dialog. 

ENWR 204 ADVANCED EXPOSITORY PROSE 
Keohane Sec 01 T 5:30 pm 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing)

 
ENWR 205 CREATIVE NONFICTION 
Lapin  Sec 01 MW 8:30 am 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) 

ENWR 205 CREATIVE NONFICTION 
Miller  Sec 02 MR 4 pm 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) 

ENWR 206 BUSINESS WRITING

Durso TR 11:30 am

Satisfies: 2 (Writing)

ENWR 210 NEWS REPORTING 
 
Hollander      Sec 01 TR 10 am 
Sec 02 TR 11:30 am 
Satisfies: 2

Required for Journalism minors, but open--for sure--to other students.

This is the introductory, required course in the writing component of the Journalism Minor. However, non-journalism minors are most welcome from any majors. This writing-intensive, hands-on course will introduce students to the basics of news reporting as practiced at American newspapers. By reporting and writing--often under deadline pressure in the computer lab--many news stories during the semester, students will learn interviewing, fact-gathering, accuracy, story organization, wire service style, avoiding libel and other rudiments of the reporter’s craft. Through realistic simulation of news reporting situations, and through assigning actual stories both on and off campus, the course will give students a real feel of what it’s like to be a daily reporter. This is an active, high-energy course that will get you out of the classroom. Readings may include excerpts from reporters’ memoirs, short stories about journalists, and a textbook on reporting/writing techniques. 

ENWR216  HISTORY OF JOURNALISM IN AMERICA  

Furr  Sec. 01    MR 1 pm 
Satisfies: Required for Journalism Minors  

We'll study the history of commercial print newspapers in the United    States from the Colonial period to the present day, with    concentration on the post-World War II period and the present, using    primary texts, analytical articles, and selected readings of    journalism criticism from the 19th century on. We'll concentrate on    continuing major issues in journalism: the concept of objectivity;    the impact of advertising; the importance of the concentration of    ownership ("monopolization") of newspapers and the news media    generally; the relations among journalism, corporate, and    governmental elites; the press during wartime; mass media and the manipulation of popular consciousness; propaganda analysis. 

ENWR 250  ST: BUSINESS REPORTING 
Fromm Sec 01  MW 10:00 am 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing)

The state of the economy is dominating the news, and well-trained financial journalists are in greater demand than ever before. This high-energy, writing-intensive class will focus on developing core business and financial reporting skills. Students will write and report on local and national businesses---often under deadline pressure in the computer lab---and will be expected to have at least one business story published by the end of the semester. We will examine business trends, demographics, advertising, consumer behavior, financial statements, public records, corporate governance, accountability, and how to cover the impact of technology on society. We will also look at which industries generate the most business news and why. Students will be expected to read The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, MarketWatch.com, Forbes, Bloomberg Business Week, Business 2.0, Fortune, and Wired. Our goal is to produce the next generation of highly qualified business journalists. Reporters from CNBC, Bloomberg, the New York Times business section and the Wall Street Journal will speak to the class. 

Students will be required to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The student-rate subscription is $34.95, for 15 weeks, and includes both the on-line edition and a paper version, delivered to them at their dorms/houses or the student center. Students will not have to buy a text book for this class.

ENWR 250 ST: INTRODUCTION TO SPORTS JOURNALISM

 
Araton/Kaplan Sec 02 T 5:30-8pm

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) and Journalism Elective

In an ever-evolving news media environment, there are aspects to fundamental reporting and expression that do not change. This course is designed for students to recognize and embrace the challenges in the competitive and fast-moving world of sports journalism. By using various publications, the vast resources of the internet and the MSU campus, along with class discussion and guest lecturers, students will sharpen their ability to report and write clearly about the stories and issues they would face as professionals. An emphasis will be placed on accuracy and independent thinking in reporting. The course will be taught by two veterans of the sports journalism industry, Harvey Araton, who wrote the Sports of the Times column for the New York Times for 15 years, and Dave Kaplan, a former sports editor for the New York Daily News and presently the director of the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center.  

ENWR 250 ST: THE SPORTS MEDIA AND SOCIETY 

Araton/Kaplan Sec 03 R 5:30-8pm

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) and Journalism Elective

Through its widespread appeal, the sports industry informs and educates on a wide range of social issues. Often it is the forum from which young people learn to think critically about race, class, drugs, gender equity, nationalism, amateurism, capitalism and consumerism. This course will scrutinize the athletes (and institutions) that have fueled such controversies, from Muhammad Ali to Alex Rodriguez and especially focus on the influence of the sports media’s coverage. Students will be expected to enthusiastically participate in class discussion and debate, and to report and write analytically. The course will be taught by Harvey Araton, who wrote the Sports of the Times column for the New York Times for 15 years, and Dave Kaplan, a former sports editor for the New York Daily News and presently the director of the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center. 

ENWR 301 COOP EDUCATION 
Bronson Sec 80 TBA 
Jacobs  Sec 81 TBA 

ENWR 311 WRITING: FICTION 

Galef Sec 01 T 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Galef Sec 02 R 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm 

Satisfies: 1c, 2 (writing), 3 and TE 3c (fiction), 4c (Women)

PLEASE COME TO THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OFFICE (DICKSON HALL 468) TO SIGN UP FOR THIS COURSE.

This course is a basic, hands-on workshop, devoted mainly to writing short stories. It provides a grounding in the elements of plot, character, dialogue, tone, setting, theme, and so on. Students are expected to write at least three short pieces and two stories during the semester. In addition, a final exam will ask the students for written criticism of each other's material. The readings will be mainly student work, along with stories from an anthology.

 

ENWR312 WRITING: POETRY 

Somers-Willett Sec 01 M 11:30-2:15 pm   
Somers-Willett Sec 02 W 11:30-2:15 pm 

Satisfies: 2 (Writin), 3 and TE 3b (Poetry)

PLEASE COME TO THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OFFICE (DICKSON HALL 468) TO SIGN UP FOR THIS COURSE.  

This course is designed to introduce students to craft of writing poetry in a workshop environment.  With the understanding that poetic form is different from formalist verse, we will explore writing poetry through a variety of traditions as well as learn some basics of prosody. Forms and traditions we will practice include the sonnet, the litany, the ballad, the blues lyric, free verse and organic form, ekphrasis, persona poetry, performance poetry, and hip-hop. We’ll also discuss specific aspects of poetic craft such as diction, metaphor, resonance, stanza, and the line. After revising your writing, you will create a final portfolio with an artist’s statement reflecting on your process as a writer and the strengths and weaknesses of your writing. Your attendance and participation are crucial to your success in this class. Prerequisites: ENWR 200 and departmental approval. 

ENWR 315 MAGAZINE JOURNALISM 
Herbst W 5:30 pm

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) 

ENWR 317  FEATURE WRITING 
Hollander Sec 01 TR 100-215 PM

Satisfies: 2; Journalism Elective

Prerequisite ENWR210 

Journalism Elective, but open to all (with prerequisite of News Reporting, or instructor's permission if not).

Prerequisite: News Reporting MUST have been taken PRIOR to this course, not at the same time. Contact professor in advance of registering if you don't have this, and occasionally it can be waived if student has appropriate other experience. This writing-intensive course will introduce journalism students to the art of short feature writing, those stories that enliven newspapers by presenting the "human interest" side of the news. Various types of feature stories will be written including the profile, "evergreen", travel, neighborhood and the challenging and critical news-feature. We also will do an investigative piece ("take-out") on a campus social issue.  Students will further develop interviewing, fact-gathering and organizational skills learned in News Reporting. All stories will require actual, in-person reporting at off-campus locations selected by students. Such creative writing techniques as spare description, dialogue, portraying of character, pacing and climax will be taught, although all will be based on real facts and situations. Students will be encouraged to develop their own styles and approaches, though within the constraints of daily reporting deadline pressures, limited length, and with meticulous regard for factual accuracy. Writing will be shared with the class. 

ENWR 371 TEACHING WRITING: GRADES 6-12

Thomas MR 4:00 PM

Satifes: TE 2 (Writing)

ENWR 491 SEM: ADVANCED CREATIVE NONFICTION:MEMOIR 
Giura Sec 01 MW 1 pm 

Satisfies: 2 (Writing) Prerequisite: ENWR 205: Creative Non-Fiction or Approval of Instructor

  
This course will help creative writers mine experiences from their own lives and transform them into stories that matter to others. Unlike autobiography, which is often written by a famous person and is the story of a life, a memoir is the story from a life.*  It’s held up to the same rigors as literary fiction but uses a portion of the narrator’s personal experience to illuminate some universal theme. This course will build upon the foundations taught in ENWR 205: Creative Non-Fiction with a focus on the development of writing voice, use of perspective and point of view, and how to use the techniques of poetry and fiction to tell stories in a crafted, artistic way. Students will work on a number of at-home and in-class assignments that will lead to the writing of a self contained memoir piece of 15-20 pages in length. The course is organized primarily as a workshop; students should be ready to present their work and respond to other students' work. Student writing will be enhanced and informed by  reading contemporary memoir excerpts as well as book length memoirs in order to learn the form. 

( *from Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir, The Eighth Mountain Press, 2002.)