If you need advising, stop by 625 Sprau MW between 2-4 or TR between 10:30-12:30 during the next 2 weeks.
English 5220: Studies in American Literature
African-American Narrative, 1800-1914
Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Dunbar 3207
Dr. Gwen Tarbox
Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for 19th-century American Lit and Non-Traditional Literature; MA-level literature elective; MAET multicultural literature course requirement
African-American texts written during the antebellum and Reconstruction eras include slave narratives, spiritual autobiographies, and novels in both the romantic and realist traditions. Each week, participants will be responsible for reading and discussing at least one primary text and one or two critical articles. In addition to a traditional mid-term and final examination, students will write and revise a semester paper on a topic related to the course. Although the course is demanding, it represents an opportunity to engage with some of the most important texts in 19th- and early 20th-century American literature.
Possible Text List
Andrews, William, ed., Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women's Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century
Collins, Julia C., The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride
Douglass, Frederick, My Bondage and My Freedom
DuBois, W.E.B., The Souls of Black Folk
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., The Classic Slave Narrative
Three Classic African-American Novels: Clotel, Iola Leroy, The Marrow of Tradition
Hopkins, Pauline, Contending Forces; A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South
Johnson, James Weldon, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
Washington, Booker T., Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Wilson, Harriet, Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black
English 5300: Medieval Literature
Pleasure and Performance
Tuesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Schneider 1325
Dr. Eve Salisbury
Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for medieval literature; fulfills MA-level elective
Many of the works we study in this course were once transmitted to the courts of premodern Europe by minstrels and Breton storytellers who brought pleasure as well as valuable instruction on various concerns of everyday medieval life to their respective audiences. From courtship and marriage to the death of a child to the demoralizing effects of the plague, these tales offer us a glimpse of some of those concerns. Many narratives retain the bawdy comedy and edgy humor of folk tale and oral tradition; others have been shaped by the writing conventions of the time into poignant and provocative works of art. Some of the narratives we study are in Middle English; others are in modern translation; all are entertaining as well as instructive.
Required Texts (listed in order of use):
The Lais of Marie de France: New Edition, trans. Glyn Burgess (New York: Penguin, 1999).
Middle English Breton Lays, ed. Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995).
The Trials and Joys of Marriage, ed. Eve Salisbury (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. and trans. Marie Boroff (New York: Norton, 1967).
Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000).
Pearl, ed. Sarah Stanbury (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001).
John Gower, Confessio Amantis, vol. 1, ed. Russell A. Peck (Kalamazoo: Medieval Publications, 2000).
Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea, 1982).
Gioivanni Boccaccio. On Famous Women, trans. Victoria Brown (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
------. Decameron, trans. Guido Waldman (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 1993).
Secondary Reading:
Nancy Mason Bradbury, Writing Aloud: Storytelling in Late Medieval England.
Evelyn Vitz, Orality in Performance in Early French Romance.
Mark Amodio, ed. Writing the Oral Tradition: Oral Poetics and Literate Culture in Medieval England.
John Miles Foley, ed. Teaching Oral Traditions.
English 5380: Modern Literature
Tuesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Schneider 1335
Dr. Todd Kuchta
Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for Modern British literature; fulfills MA-level elective
Literature written during the first half of the twentieth century is usually dubbed “modern,” an adjective that has come to define such works as brashly experimental, highly self-reflexive, notoriously complex in form and style, and pessimistic if not apocalyptic in tone. Often characterized as more concerned with individual consciousness than with history or politics, modern writers are said to have privileged art’s autonomy from the social sphere and its transcendence over everyday life. This is an enticing description, but it’s also rather simplistic, overlooking the extent to which modern writing engaged with the past, with popular culture, and with its own social and political status.
While this course will examine a range of the stylistic innovations heralded by modern writers, we will do so by considering how their writing both reflects and responds to the dramatic cultural and historical changes of the early twentieth century. This was a period when new forms of transportation (like the steamship, subway, airplane, and car) and new forms of communication (telephone, radio, and cinema) created an increasingly unified and interconnected globe. Making time speed up and distances shrink, these technologies profoundly altered how people perceived and experienced the world around them—a world that seemed to expand and contract simultaneously. This condition is also typically described as “modern,” and it inspired the era’s writers to create forms and styles that could come to grips with these exciting and sometimes overwhelming changes.
As this description suggests, modern literature is international in scope, a product of exiles, émigrés, and travelers. While we will focus primarily on writers from the British canon, they represent a broad range of national contexts. Indeed, the critic Terry Eagleton once suggested that “the seven most significant writers of twentieth-century English literature have been a Pole, three Americans, two Irishmen and an Englishman.” Except for two of the three Americans, we will focus on each of these authors—Polish-born Joseph Conrad, American expatriate T.S. Eliot, Irishmen James Joyce and W.B. Yeats, and Englishman D.H. Lawrence. We will also consider works by Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett, and perhaps take an American detour with William Faulkner.
Works likely to be read include: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, World War I poetry, stories from Joyce’s Dubliners, selected poetry by Yeats and Eliot (including “Burnt Norton”), Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Beckett’s Endgame.
Graduate student requirements will likely include regular participation and WebCT posts, one discussion lead, three article reviews (3 pp. each), and a choice between two short essays or one seminar paper (15-20 pp.)
English 5550: Major Authors
Milton and the Metaphysical Poets
Mondays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 4203
Dr. Elizabeth Bradburn
Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for Renaissance lit; Fulfills MA-level elective
The great English poet of the seventeenth century, John Milton, and the group of his near-contemporaries known as the Metaphysical Poets have undergone nearly opposite changes in status in the history of Anglo-American criticism. Yet both Milton and the Metaphysicals represent an important transitional period of literary history, engaged as they were in critical poetic dialogue with the Renaissance worldview they inherited. In this course we will read a selection of lyric poetry by Donne, Crashaw, Herbert, Marvell, Cowley, Cleveland and Vaughan, as well as major works by Milton in several genres: the lyric poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, selected sonnets, the elegy Lycidas, A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, the epic Paradise Lost, and the verse tragedy Samson Agonistes. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which poetic techniques express/create/disrupt the boundary between spiritual and corporeal experiences, and to the seventeenth-century cultural discourses that informed those experiences. The class will be conducted as a seminar. Requirements include weekly informal response papers, an oral presentation, and a final project consisting of a scholarly paper, a creative work, or a teaching tool such as a design for a course unit. Individual students will design their final projects in consultation with the instructor, according to their experience and educational/professional needs. This course will be useful for doctoral students preparing for the Renaissance qualifying exam.
English 5660: Creative Writing Workshop, Fiction
Mondays, 6:00 - 9:30; Schneider 2345
Professor Richard Katrovas
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
See graduate catalog description or contact instructor.
English 5660: Creative Writing Workshop, Playwriting
Tuesdays, 6:00 - 9:30; Dunbar 2207
Dr. Steve Feffer
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
See graduate catalog description or contact instructor.
English 5660: Creative Writing Workshop, Poetry
Tuesdays, 6:00 - 9:30; Schneider 2355
Dr. William Olsen
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
This class involves extensive criticism of student poems, in a traditional workshop environment.The workshop will also serve as a forum for discussions of aesthetics. Students may be encouraged to work with models, and the class will involve the reading and discussion of at least three books of contemporary poetry.
English 5660: Creative Writing Workshop, Poetry
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 9:30; Schneider 1220
Dr. Nancy Eimers
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
5660 is an upper-level poetry workshop. Something the poet Marvin Bell wrote describes pretty accurately what we’ll be up to: “Learning to write is a simple process: read something, then write something; read something else, then write something else. And show in your writing what you have read.” We’ll read and discuss 3 volumes of contemporary poetry and look at various poetic models, and every week we’ll discuss student poems included on a worksheet. An original poem will be due each week, and at least two or three poems during the semester will be written “under the influence” of one of the poets whose work we’ve been reading.
English 5660: Creative Writing Workshop, Nonfiction
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 9:30; Schneider 3455
Professor J.D. Dolan
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
This is an advanced 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 5740: Grammar in Teaching Writing
Mondays, 6:00 - 9:30; Wood 1215
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 5970: Studies in English
Introduction to Old Norse
Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:45; Schneider 2355
Dr. Jana Schulman
Fulfills: PhD Prerequisite requirement for English language course; OR taken as first part of two-part course sequence to fulfill PhD foreign language requirement (second course offered in Spring 2008); OR PhD Distribution requirement in medieval lit; or MA-level elective
Have you ever wanted to read about Thor in drag? Imagine Loki as his companion/handmaid. Wonder about how Thor loses a drinking contest? Been fascinated by Icelandic authors use of understatement, especially in describing death scenes?This class introduces students to the language and literature of medieval Iceland. Beginning with an introduction to grammar, students will begin by translating prose tales from the Edda to learn about the gods and their various adventures.
English 6100: Literary Forms
Who/What/When/Where/Why/(How) Is “I”? First Person across Genres
Thursdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 4201
Professor Richard Katrovas
Fulfills: MFA or PhD in Creative Writing Forms requirement
Theories of “I” abound across the disciplines. Philosophers and psychologists, marketers and narratologists have analyzed, problematized and deconstructed that most fundamental of rhetorical conventions, the cogito, the “I,” which, arguably, was relatively stable until the Romantics. Keats famously distinguished between Wordsworth’s “egotistical sublime” and his own, well, whatever the opposite of THAT is. I, for one, do not think that Keats’s “I” and Wordsworth’s resonate so differently in their respective verse, though I do wonder if the “I” of Keats’s letter in which he distinguishes his “I” from Wordsworth’s is indeed fundamentally different than the “I” of, say, “Ode to a Nightingale.”
Does “I” hold the real key to genre difference? Am I (“I”) different in a poem, essay, or story? Is “I” different in a love letter than in a love poem? In the former I (should!) assume one reader; in the latter I yearn for many, and yet in a love poem I most likely will posture (posit the “I”) as though I am speaking only to my beloved. In other words, (nearly) every love poem is a fundamental lie.
Issues of narrative reliability, issues of fact and fiction, issues of authorial intention, indeed issues of authorial function all notwithstanding, veracity is always in question when “I” speak(s). This course will explore “I” across genres—poetry: lyric, narrative, dramatic monologue; nonfiction prose: memoir, personal and “academic” essay, journalism; prose fiction: all flavors. We will question the very existence of lyric poetry in a postmodern world, and will note the range of “I”’s permutations in the commercial culture around us.
English 6210: Studies in British Literature
Late Victorian Literaure
Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Dunbar 2203
Dr. Jil Larson
Fulfills: PhD Distribution requirement for 19th C. Brit Lit; Fulfills MA-level elective
This seminar will pursue understanding of the historical, cultural, and literary concerns of late-Victorian Britain (roughly 1880-1914). The fin-de-siecle is well known for its aestheticism, decadence, and rebellion against Victorian ideas about agency and morality. It is also an intriguing period for those interested in imperialism and the decline of the British empire, the fascinating New Woman movement in literature and politics (as well as new conceptions of Victorian masculinity), and the changing ideas about art during this transitional age that leads into Modernism. Taking a Victorian Studies approach, we will read nonfiction (about history, culture, philosophy, religion) as well as fiction, poetry, and drama. Although the syllabus is still a work-in-progress, it will most certainly include, among others, Thomas Hardy, Olive Schreiner (and other New Woman writers), Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw.
English 6300: Introduction to Graduate Studies
Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:20; Sangren 1213
Dr. Gwen Tarbox
Fulfills: Prerequisite requirement for MA and PhD in Lit; elective for all other students
English 6300 will focus primarily upon rhetorical strategies for effective scholarly writing in the field of literary studies. As a member of this course, you will identify and analyze discourse models in your particular areas of interest, workshop short written assignments, and produce the first draft of a 12-15 page paper that will be commented upon by a panel of WMU English professors. You will then edit your draft and turn it in to me for a final grade. The goal is for students to develop a sophisticated understanding of audience, argument, voice, and aesthetics and to receive substantial feedback regarding their scholarly writing. We will also spend time discussing and practicing effective research methods. Although this course is intended for literature students, there will be a few places open for interested creative writing and English education scholars. This is the only time during the 2007-2008 year that 6300 will be offered.
English 6400: The Nature of Poetry
Tuesdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Moore 1111
Dr. Daneen Wardrop
Fulfills: PhD-level prerequisite requirement in genre specific course; fulfills 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 open with a short history of a form or tradition in poetry, probably the elegy or the sonnet. Studying such a tradition will allow us to construct a historical context for the poetry we examine in the second part of the semester, which will include rigorous study of the work of several authors, perhaps four or five of the following: William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, Theodore Roethke, Rita Dove, Li-Young Lee. We may close by studying the 2007 Best American Poetry volume. 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 6440: Studies in the Novel
Wednesdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 4208
Dr. Nicolas Witschi
Fulfills:PhD-level prerequisite requirement in genre specific course; fulfills MA prerequisite requirement; for MFA candidates – can serve as forms course requirement for secondary genre; for MAET students – can serve as an elective
What is a novel? Is it defined by its length? by plot and content? by character or psychological insight? Is it defined by a recognizable and quantifiable set of textual conventions? by historical conditions? or by the material manner in which the object itself is constructed, whether in hardcover or paperback? Or is one of those things about which we say, "I just know it when I see it"? This seminar will provide, as the catalog describes it, an examination of significant forms and techniques employed in the novel from its beginnings to the modern age. We ultimately may not arrive at any satisfactory or final answers to the questions posed above, but we will endeavor to read a historically broad selection of exemplary texts, along with a healthy dose of theoretical descriptions and analyses, to acquaint ourselves with the many incarnations of what over the years has been called "novel." Our discussions will be promptly largely by the historical, formal, and thematic innovations of the following novelists: Fielding, Radcliffe, E. Brontë, Stowe, Twain, Crane, Conrad, Woolf, Faulkner, Chandler, Nabokov, and Walker.
English 6660: Graduate Writing Workshop, Playwriting
Mondays, 7:00 - 9:20; Schneider 1350
Dr. Steve Feffer
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
See graduate catalog description or contact instructor.
English 6660: Graduate Writing Workshop, Poetry
Wednesdays, 7:00 - 9:20; Dunbar 3206
Dr. William Olsen
Fulfills: PhD or MA-level CW workshop requirement
This class involves extensive criticism of student poems, in a traditional workshop environment.The workshop will also serve as a forum for discussions of aesthetics. Students may be encouraged to work with models, and the class will involve the reading and discussion of at least three books of contemporary poetry.
English 6690: Methods of Teaching Writing
Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:30; Dunbar 2209
Dr. Joyce Walker
Fulfills: Required course for all incoming funded MA-level students; required for anyone who is scheduled to teach English 1050 at WMU for the first time
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.
English 6900: Capstone Seminar
Thursdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 2210
Dr. Charlotte Thralls
Required Course for All MA and MAET Students
This course is the culminating requirement for the M.A. in English and the MAET. In the class, we will analyze and evaluate journals and articles in areas relevant to your research topic, revise and edit a scholarly paper, and prepare an oral presentation for the Master’s Colloquium. By engaging in these activities, you will have the opportunity to explore your research interests by engaging more deeply with a project begun in one of your other courses. You will also have the opportunity to develop your understanding of scholarly discourse and the publication process. Perhaps most important, you will have a chance to work on scholarly writing in a supportive environment aimed at advancing your rhetorical savvy as a communicator within a community of practice of your choice. Graded on a credit/no credit basis. Prerequisites: For MAs, English 6300 and prior completion of at least 21 hours of credit toward the MA. For MAETs, English 6910 and prior completion of at least 21 hours of credit toward the MAET.
English 6910: Research and Scholarship in English Education
Wednesdays, 6:30 - 9:00; Dunbar 4205
Dr. Ellen Brinkley
Fulfills: MAET Required course
Working day to day in the shadow of national and state mandates, many middle and high school English teachers today are becoming better informed as they pay attention to studies that researchers have conducted in English education. In English 6910 we will read about research studies and read a few selected studies in their entirety. We will also think together about what in the world (literally) is worth asking our students to research, what research tools can best support their inquiry, what kinds of data can be useful, and in what ways their results can be reported. We will also try out selected methods for gathering data and conducting our own classroom research that might potentially extend what is known in the profession about teaching and learning English language arts. We will design a research question, review relevant professional literature, conduct classroom and/or academic research, present our findings orally and in a written paper or report, and finally, consider together ways to sustain our own research and professional growth.
