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Reminder on Registration Procedures:
English 5300: Medieval Literature This survey course will focus on the genres of
romance and epic in the Middle Ages. For centuries, scholars
approached these two genres as if they were distinct entities
with no or few common elements. The reality is that “genre” is
hard to classify. In this course, we will discuss issues of genre
blurring, common elements, and transcultural borrowings of tales
told. For example, Marie de France’s Lais—which are
classified as romance—were translated into Old Icelandic.
The literary culture of Medieval Iceland did not include native
romances in its “library,” nor, for that matter,
did it have a warm climate that would encourage a lot of warm
breezes and bared shoulders. English 5340: Restoration and Eighteen-Century
Literature
Tuesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Dunbar 4204 Dr. Cynthia Klekar Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for eighteen century; MA-level elective This course will cover the major dramatic works in England between
1660 and 1700. We will pay particular attention to the social,
cultural, political, and economic contexts of theatrical performance,
and we will discuss the major issues that find their way onto the
London stage: sexual morality, the role of women in a patrilineal
society, and the problems of empire, trade, and colonialism. Because
the Restoration period featured the popular and critical success
of a number of women dramatists—Aphra Behn, Susan Centlivre,
Mary Fix, and Catherine Trotter—we will devote a good deal
of attention to the ways in which these playwrights appropriated
the conventions of the seemingly anti-feminist genres of wit comedy.
In addition to these women dramatists, we will read and discuss
plays by George Etherege, John Dryden, William Wycherley, Thomas
Otway, and William Congreve. English 5380: Modern American Literature The Western Michigan University Catalog describes
English 5380 as “readings in representative writers in
the period 1890–1945, not exclusively in British and American
literature.” But because this class can be repeated for
credit and because Western’s English faculty features several
Modern specialists, we will cover exclusively American Modern
writers. These writers, however, will not all be Modernist. Rather,
the course will feature a survey of writing beginning with late-19th
Century Realism and Naturalism and culminating with 1930s genre
and creative non-fiction. As we read we’ll learn details
about these periods and genres as well as about the authors and
critical work pertaining to them. English 5390: Post-Colonial Literature This course is designed to introduce advanced
undergraduates and graduate students to postcolonial literature.
Broadly, this refers to works written in Europe ’s former
colonies after imperial rule, which began to dissolve just after
World War II. We will read novels from Africa and from the South
Asian diaspora (India, Pakistan, and contemporary Britain), focusing
on how they relate to their historical and cultural contexts,
illustrate prominent post-colonial themes, and engage with postcolonial
theory—among the most influential forms of scholarship
today. The thematic and theoretical issues we will investigate
include the power struggle between colonizer and colonized, the
relationship between European and non-European cultures, depictions
of racial/ethnic difference, ideas of community and nation, and
the effects of emigration and exile. English 5550: Major Authors In this course we study the development of Dante’s
poetic style and form, his innovations in vernacular poetry,
and the making of a distinctive and influential poetic corpus.
We will look at Dante’s interpretive methodologies, his
construction of poetic authority as well as the social, political,
theological, philosophical, and literary traditions informing
his work. By beginning with the Vita Nuova, the poet’s
theory of interpretation as outlined in his Letter to Can
Grande and Convivio and moving through the three canticles comprising
the Commedia, we will be brought to an appreciation of Dante’s
thought, the relationship of his life to his art, and the cultural
forces and creative energy compelling it all. Featured also
will be a number of illustrations from the works of William
Blake, Sandro Botticelli, and Gustav Doré, and others. English 5660: Creative Writing Workshop, Fiction Wednesdays, 6:00 - 9:30; Dunbar 4209 Dr. Jaimy Gordon Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement This course, which can be repeated for credit, is the most advanced fiction writing workshop that undergraduate English majors and minors with a creative writing emphasis can take. It is also open to graduate students in creative writing. Each member of the workshop will present at least two stories (or excerpts of longer works) over the course of the semester. In addition the class will read together short fiction by a number of contemporary authors, including those who will be visiting WMU in the fall; and there will be many short creative assignments based on these readings, each stressing some aspect of fictional technique.
Art, says poet Carl Phillips, “is its own signature--irreplicable, strange, never seen before, not seeable again elsewhere in the future.” In this advanced poetry writing workshop, we will spend the semester exploring how, in poetry, this might be true. We’ll examine the “signatures” of contemporary poets, and each week we will workshop poems by members of the class.
This course will center on bi-weekly assignments and close readings of essays in Philip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay. Students should acquire more acute reading and editing skills from this course, as well as a deeper appreciation of the complex relationship between truth and artifice in the genre. English 5740: Grammar in Teaching Writing Mondays, 6:00 - 9:30; Brown 4002 Dr. Ellen Brinkley Fulfills: PhD Prerequisite requirement for English language course; fulfills MAET language requirement; MA-level elective English teachers have traditionally been thought of as grammar police, ready to fine those who break the grammar “laws.” But many English teachers today have had little instruction in grammar, and they are unsure about whether or how to teach it. This course will not provide quick and easy answers, but we will consider grammatical issues as they are viewed by the public and within the profession. We will consider how grammar has been taught historically and discuss research that has influenced the teaching of writing and grammar. We will also examine NCTE statements and state mandates (MEAP, MME, Michigan English Language Arts Content Expectations) and teach each other a range of grammar-related classroom strategies and structures that can support and strengthen student writing. We will produce position papers, curricular plans, and/or articles suitable for publishing. English 5830: Multi-Cultural Literature for Adolescents Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Dunbar 4205 Dr. Ilana Nash Fulfills: PhD requirement for Non-traditional literature; MA-level elective; MAET multi-cultural literature requirement and/or children’s literature requirement The novels in this class have one thing
in common: they are “coming of age” stories
with protagonists outside the racial/ethnic norm in America.
The texts are a mixture of “teen fiction” and “adult” fiction,
though one of our concerns will be to analyze the aesthetic
and political assumptions that underlie those distinctions. English 5970: Screenwriting This is a workshop in the writing and critical reading of the screenplay form. We’ll focus on the screenwriting process, reading and seeing outstanding screenplays, and discussing other aspects of the craft, including professional script format, traditional three-act story structure, dramatic arc, character development, plot development, scene structure, visual writing, and dialogue. We’ll spend most of our time in class on discussion of your own work, pausing as time permits to read, see, and talk about the work of professional screenwriters. The aim of all these experiences—whether general discussions of professional screenplays or specific comments on your own or others’ work—will be to provide you with useful screenwriting skills. You needn’t have previous screenwriting experience, though I will expect ability and experience in other written forms, especially fiction and/or playwriting. Be prepared to bring ideas for your own feature-length screenplays to the first workshop session. If you’re at all concerned, talk with me. English 6110: Literary Forms Point of View in Fiction Tuesdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Brown 2048 Dr. Jaimy Gordon Fulfills: MFA or Ph.D. in Creative Writing Forms requirement In this class we will read some classic and seminal as well as some eccentric specimens of point of view in fiction, and we will try a number of them on for size. Although other kinds of English graduate students may enroll, this is a seminar designed for graduate students in creative writing, and the assignments will be creative assignments. In addition, the class will meet with the semester’s visiting Frostic authors and read their work–including The End, a first novel by Salvatore Scibona and a particularly brilliant contemporary excursion into multiple point of view. English 6110: Literary Forms–Poetry Mondays, 4:00 - 6:30; Dunbar 2209 Dr. Nancy Eimers Fulfills: MFA or Ph.D. in Creative Writing Forms requirement “The history of poetry is a continual fixing and
freeing of conventions.”–Hayden Carrruth Early American Literature, 1492-1798 Mondays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 3203 Dr. Scott Slawinski Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for early American literature (American I); MA-level elective Early American literature tends to be
thought of monolithically, dominated by the New England
tradition and consisting mostly of white, privileged
male writers, usually of the ministerial persuasion.
I, on the other hand, consider early American literature
to be the most diverse of all the literary eras, containing
a plethora of voices: New England Puritans, Latin American
Spaniards, Carribean Islanders, Southern Planters,
Slaves, Free Blacks, Native Americans, Quakers, French
Explorers and Missionaries, Dutch Settlers, Maryland
Catholics, the Privileged and the Not-So-Privileged,
and Women from all these categories. In this class
we will examine as many of these voices as time allows,
beginning with pre-Discovery Native tales and ending
with a novel from the early republic. While theology
permeates nearly all of these writings, we will also
examine discourses in independence, abolition, feminism,
the “rising glory of America,” the public
and private domains. We will look at the development
of the print culture, the proliferation of manuscript
culture, and the development of authorship generally.
The period we are looking at includes multiple genres,
from histories and biographies to poems and plays,
from journals and diaries to promotional tracts and
travel narratives, from private and public letters
to political polemics and nationalistic encomiums. English 6300: Introduction to Graduate Studies Tuesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Brown 2048 Dr. Gwen Tarbox Fulfills: Prerequisite requirement for MA and PhD in Lit; elective for all other students English 6300 prepares you to conduct advanced research in English, to recognize the conventions that govern such study, and to continue the process of refining your academic prose. We’ll begin the semester in a workshop format, as you and your classmates present examples of your academic writing, so that you can develop a manageable set of writing goals. Next, we’ll tour Waldo Library, where you’ll conduct research for a bibliographic essay, an assignment designed to increase your knowledge about an area of English studies that interests you. Then, you’ll write a book review, a genre that often represents a student’s first foray into academic publishing. Finally, you’ll write a research paper, based upon your analysis of one of the following books, which we’ll discuss in class: Austen’s Emma, Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. In addition, you’ll learn about professional development resources that will help guide your career in academia. English 6400: The Nature of Poetry Thursdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 4203 Dr. Daneen Wardrop Fulfills: PhD-level prerequisite requirement in genre specific course; MA prerequisite requirement; for MFA candidates - can serve as forms course requirement for secondary genre; for MAET students--can serve as an elective English 6400, The Nature of Poetry, will be devoted to studying a great many poems over the course of the history of poetry written in the English language. While the intent of the course is more or less expansive with regard to examining form and literary history, there will be a specific focus or two for our studies—most particularly that of political poetry. The combination of politics and poetry has been seen, conventionally, to be an uneasy fit, even though poets as early as Tu Fu in the 700s A.D. have claimed, for instance, “Nothing in ten thousand kingdoms but war,” and Adrienne Rich in this century, has seen “ghosts of war fugitive / in labyrinths of amnesia.” Requirements will include one fifteen-to-twenty-page paper, one fifteen-minute class presentation of a poem, one ten-minute pair presentation of a short critical essay, vigorous preparation resulting in spirited class discussion, and a final examination. English 6420: Studies in Drama Medieval Drama Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Dunbar 2202 Dr. Eve Salisbury Fulfills: PhD-level prerequisite requirement in genre specific course; MA elective; for MFA candidates--can serve as forms course requirement for secondary genre; for MAET students–can serve as an elective In this course we study the major genres
of medieval drama—liturgical, mystery, morality,
miracle, saints’ plays—as well as the more
secular drama of the early modern period. Focusing
primarily, though not exclusively on early English
drama, we will read (and occasionally perform in class)
select continental plays from the Fleury Playbook,
select works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (the first
woman playwright), Hildegard of Bingen (dramatist and
twelfth-century Renaissance woman), the Digby Mary
Magdalene, selections from the York, N-Town, Chester,
and Townley mystery cycles, moral comedies—Everyman,
Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, World and the Child,
Wit and Science (young man falls in love with Lady
Science), Johan, Johan (comic love triangle, husband
/wife/ local priest), and two short “university” plays—Fulgens
and Lucrece and Gammer Gurton’s Needle. We will
also study the material aspects of play production
and the larger social, political, and economic implications
to be gleaned from the recently compiled Records
of Early English Drama (REED). English 6660: Graduate Writing Workshop, Nonfiction Wednesdays, 7:00 - 9:20; Dunbar 2209 Professor J. D. Dolan Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement This is a graduate creative writing workshop. Students in this course will study the art and craft of creative nonfiction, with particular emphasis on structure, style, voice, character, development, setting, details, point of view–in other words, many of the techniques commonly associated with fiction writing. Students will also refine their skills in researching, interviewing, and editing. English 6660: Graduate Writing Workshop, Playwriting Wednesdays, 7:00 - 9:20; Dunbar 3208 Dr. Arnie Johnston Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement This is a workshop in the writing, critical reading, and performance of original drama. Drama involves many more people than the playwright, and many more skills than writing. Each class will feature reader’s theatre presentations of student work; you may enlist Theatre students or other good readers to assist with these, as well as to take part in workshopping; this will help remind you of the process by which scripts are transformed into plays. We’ll also see and read some plays, perhaps sneak into a rehearsal or two of local productions, and maybe even hear from some guest speakers. We’ll spend most of our time in class on performance and discussion of your own work, pausing as time permits to talk about the work of professional writers. The aim of all these experiences—whether general discussions of theatre or specific comments on your own or others’ work—will be to provide you with useful playwriting skills. I’m hoping, but not necessarily expecting, that you may have had prior experience in theatre. I am expecting that you’re in our graduate writing program and have some experience in playwriting and/or knowledge of dramatic literature. If you’re at all concerned, talk with me. English 6660: Graduate Writing Workshop, Poetry Tuesdays, 7:00 - 9:20; Dunbar 2209 Dr. William Olsen Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement This class involves extensive criticism of student poems,
in a traditional workshop environment. English 6690: Methods of Teaching College Writing Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:30; Dunbar 4204 Dr. Joyce Walker Fulfills: Teaching component for Ph.D. and MA students Participants in this course will learn and share strategies for teaching first-year composition. We will consider a range of theoretical frameworks and practical strategies for college composition courses. Writing and research for this course will center on building a personal teaching philosophy and a set of usable strategies and plans for future teaching situations. Course activities will include reading responses, presentations, classroom assessments, and the creation of lesson plans and a teaching portfolio. In the fall of 2007, the class participants will also be working to create multimedia research narratives for use as teaching tools in first year writing courses. Instructors who are teaching college-level writing are the primary audience for this course, but any individual interested in college-level writing courses (whether currently teaching or not) is welcome. Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:45; Dunbar 2209 Dr. Jana Schulman Fulfills: PhD English Language requirement; MA elective In this course students learn the fundamentals of Old English
grammar and language, read and translate prose and poetry that bring to
life the Anglo-Saxon period, and examine the historical and cultural forces
that shaped the language and literature. |
