ENL 206BeowulfMarijane OsbornTu/Th 12:10-1:30, 156 Voorhies, CRN: 93386

We will read approximately half of the Old English poem Beowulf in the original and give attention to major problems associated with this text such as dating, the Christian/Pagan "coloring," and the many types of digressions. Because of the nature of this course, students will be assumed to have some prior experience with Old English. [Fulfills Ph.D. breadth requirement category: “Earlier National: British”]

ENL 230Study of a Major Writer: “Lowell and His Generation”Alan WilliamsonR 3:10-6:00, 248 Voorhies, CRN: 93387

In conjunction with Lowell, we will look into the poetry of Roethke, Bishop, Jarrell, Berryman, and Plath. [Fulfills Ph.D. breadth requirement category: “Later National: American”]

ENL 233Problems in American Literature: “Melodrama, Modernism, Modernity, and the Movies: 1890-1940”Scott SimmonW 3:10-6:00 126 Voorhies (W 7:10-9:00—screenings, 126 Voorhies), CRN: 73025

In this seminar we will explore the first decades of American filmmaking, silent and early sound, alongside a survey of the most vital criticism and theory about the period. Our particular focus will be on the intersection of film melodrama--especially the mode’s expression through female characters--with the social upheavals of early twentieth-century modernity.

Although background in film study would be useful, this first film graduate seminar to be offered by the English Department will not assume or require previous study in film. Grounding in American culture and literature of the early twentieth century will be more essential. In addition to our particular subject focus, the course will incorporate two more general goals: an introduction to advanced film study and an introduction to ways of teaching film for students of literature interested in expanding their classroom range.

We will read the six works of criticism listed below, but our primary “texts” will be the films themselves--and excerpts from longer films--most of which we will see together in the extended seminar hours. Please note that in addition to the regular hours on Wednesday afternoons, there are additional screening hours each Wednesday evening, after a dinner break.

ENL 238Special Topics in Literary Theory: “Psychoanalysis and Literature”Joanne DiehlM 3:10-6:00, 248 Voorhies, CRN: 73026

This seminar will familiarize students with various psychoanalytic theories in order to investigate how these models of the mind provide tools for the analysis of aesthetic works. Although we will begin with Freud, our attention will focus on post-Freudian analytic theorists; among them, Lacan, Melanie Klein, Jessica Benjamin, Julia Kristeva, and Christopher Bollas. This is an interdisciplinary course, and students will be invited to interpret the ways in which psychoanalytic texts and imaginative literature interact. In-class presentations and a final seminar paper. [Fulfills Ph.D. breadth requirement category: “Topic: Interdiscipline”]

ENL 244ShakespeareRichard LevinT 3:10-6:00, 248 Voorhies, CRN: 93388

We will read plays (see list below) that span most of Shakespeare's career and that are among his greatest achievement in the dramatic genres in which he worked. We will attempt to interpret the plays in the context of developments in criticism during the last quarter century. If you wish to prepare for the seminar ahead of time, you might start by reading the plays in either the assigned editions or in other recent well-annotated editions (in, for example, the series now being issued by Oxford, Cambridge, and New Arden--don’t confuse these editions with earlier editions in the same series). A survey of Tudor-Stuart history indispensable for the student of early modern literature is Lawrence Stone’s /The Causes of the English Revolution/, 1529-1642, 2d ed,; in all the editions and printings of this book that I know of, the relevant pages are 47-117 and 165-81; if your edition also has in it “Second Thoughts,” pp. 165-77, read it as well. In two books, /The Modernist Shakespeare/ and /Shakespeare’s Universal Wolf/, Hugh Grady discusses recent developments in Shakespeare criticism; the latter book is more heavily theorized (and more difficult) and its focus is the most recent trends in scholarshipfor which also see his briefer /Shakespeare Quarterly/ (50.3) essay. If you’re looking for introductory expositions of the various contemporary styles of criticism, then in preparing for our course you can read either /Beginning Shakespeare/, by Lisa Hopkins, or /Renaissance Drama and Contemporary Literary Theory/, by Andy Mousley; the former book is on the reading list for the class. For other questions, please see me or e-mail me. Requirements: Several short essays and e-mail assignments and a term paper at the conclusion of the course. I will lead the early sessions of the seminar; thereafter, each student will lead one of the sessions.

ENL 246Seventeenth-Century Literature: “Restoration Cultural Debates”Margaret FergusonW 12:10-3:00, 248 Voorhies, CRN: 93389

This seminar will focus on debates about politics (including sexual politics), religion, and aesthetics during the period celebrated by some as the "Restoration" but excoriated by others as the defeat of the English Revolution. We will read several texts in which aspects of the revolution are polemically represented (Milton's Samson Agonistes, for example, and Behn's The Widow Ranter); we will have a unit on Restoration drama focusing on debates about the institution of marriage (Behn's The Rover, Wycherley's The Country Wife, Etheridge's The Man of Mode); and we will also study certain social scandals pertaining to the monarchy (the "warming-pan scandal" of 1688, for instance) and dramatized in both popular and elite discursive modes. Contextual readings will be drawn from Gerald MacLean's useful collection, Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration (Cambridge UP, 1995, paperback) and other books on reserve in Shields; there will be a Course Reader in Navin's and primary texts will be available at the Campus Book Store. Seminar requirements will include participation in one group exercise (pedagogically oriented) and one term paper, with abstract and provisional bibliography due three weeks before the end of the term. [Fulfills Ph.D. breadth requirement category: "Earlier National: British"]

ENL 250Romantic Literature”: “Romanticism and the Foreign”David SimpsonM 12:10-3:00, 248 Voorhies, CRN: 73028

To a notable degree the idea of Englishness in the Romantic period was constructed through a series of managed comparisons with foreign cultures, most obviously France and Germany but also the Americas, the South Pacific, and the Orient. We will study a selection of exemplary texts that display and explore this syndrome; authors will likely include (some of) Wordsworth, Southey, Shelley, Byron, Hemans, Landor, Moore, Campbell, Burke, Radcliffe, Austen. [Fulfills Ph.D. breadth requirement category: “Earlier National: British”]

Texts:

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, ed. Butler . Penguin Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Mitchell. Oxford Hemans, Selected Poems, ed. Kelly. Broadvivew Shelley, Major Works, ed. Leader. Oxford Owenson, The Missionary, ed. Wright. Broadview Lewis, The Monk, ed. Macdonald and Scherf. Broadview. Scott, Ivanhoe, ed. Tulloch. Penguin.

ENL 252Victorian Literature: “Victorian Fiction and Contemporary Criticism”Catherine RobsonT 6:10-9:00 p.m., 248 Voorhies, CRN: 73029

With an eye to the mysterious and the (frequently) murderous, we'll read a fair selection of Victorian fiction by Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Thomas Hardy, plus novellas by Oscar Wilde and Robert Louis Stevenson, and short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. At the same time we will surround our central texts with a wide variety of recent critical perspectives drawn from some of the following fields: feminist and gender criticism; psychoanalytical criticism; queer theory; new historicism; cultural criticism; post-colonial criticism. Students, then, will become familiar (or re-familiarize themselves) with the writings of, amongst others, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Nancy Armstrong, D. A. Miller, Peter Brooks, Elaine Scarry, Amanda Anderson, Nicholas Dames, Patrick Brantlinger and Eve Sedgwick. Students will work towards the final paper during the course, presenting initial ideas in both verbal and written forms, and submitting preliminary bibliographies at specified junctures.

ENL 262American Literature after 1914: “Unsettling Texts of the Americas”Desireé MartínR 3:10-6:00 p.m., 263 Olson, CRN: 73031

How do texts have the power to unsettle not only the boundaries of genre, identity, nation and language, but also to unsettle readers themselves? Are there texts that are "unwelcoming," that keep secrets, or that question or even reject processes of reader "identification?" In this course will examine texts of the Americas that unsettle, disrupt, transgress and blend boundaries of genre, form, language, sexuality, and national identities. Concomitantly, we will study relevant theories of hybridity, transculturation, subalternity, and testimony. Finally, we will examine the extent to which texts that unsettle or trangress boundaries also have the potential to unsettle us. Our focus will be on Latina/o texts, but we will also read other minority texts of the Americas, including some Latin American texts (in translation). [Fulfills Ph.D. breadth requirement category: “Later National: American”]

ENL 290FSeminar in Creative Writing of FictionLynn FreedR 12:10-3:00 p.m., 248 Voorhies,

This is an advanced fiction workshop, concentrating on the analysis both of assigned texts, and two, occasionally three, student manuscripts per week. Each student will be responsible for submitting, for class discussion, two pieces sof new fiction, to a maximum length of 25 pages each, or, with permission, one piece of new fiction and one major rewrite. Exercises will be assigned both for spontaneous writing in class, and for submission the following week.

ENL 290PSeminar in Creative Writing of PoetrySandra McPhersonT 12:10-3:00 p.m., 248 Voorhies,

The texts we will use are Jean Valentine's DOOR IN THE MOUNTAIN and Matt Yurdana's PUBLIC GESTURES. We will use poems in Valentine's collected poems and Yurdana's first collection as models for weekly creative work. Structure, subject, observation, free verse "swing," image, sound, surprise: these will be some of the focuses of your experiments, which we will workshop each session.

ENL 391Teaching Creative WritingW. J. HicksFriday 9-10:50 a.m., 248 Voorhies, CRN: 93893

Prerequisite: graduate standing, appointment as Teaching Assistant. Designed for new instructors of English 5F or 5P; discussion of ways to facilitate creative writing workshops and to respond to student manuscripts. (S/U grading only.)

ENL 393Teaching Literature and CompositionTimothy MortonF 10:00-11:50 a.m., 1106 Hart, CRN: 73193

Designed for graduate students teaching ENL 3 or equivalent courses for the first time in 2006-2007 academic year. This is a two unit course.