ENGL 105 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

FALL 2009

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English  (Masterpieces of Love and Desire)

Time:                8:00 MWF

Line #:              44666

Place:               4019 Wescoe  

Instructor:         EVANS, Stephen

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  In its various manifestations, permutations, and complications, the theme of love and desire is one of the oldest in world literature.  In his introduction to The Symposium, Christopher Gill writes:

 

Is the Symposium about love, or desire?  Plato’s dialogue centres on a series of speeches praising erôs, a term usually translated “desire”.  One of the meanings of erôs is “passionate sexual desire”; and it is also the name of one of the two Greek gods of love, Eros (in Latin, Cupid).  But some of the speeches, especially Socrates’, suggest that sexual desire is an expression of certain deeper and more universal types of desire or motivation.  The speeches also link erôs with the kind of affectionate concern that forms part of close relationships between family-members and friends . . . often translated as “friendship”. . . .  Most of the speeches are about the kind of “love” that modern readers can easily recognize as that, located in emotionally charged relationships between individual people.

 

Throughout the course, beginning with Plato and ranging widely across literary periods and authors, we will examine the theme of love and desire as it is conceived and represented in important works in several genres.  While the list of readings may seem long, most of the texts are relatively short, and students will learn to make valuable connections between them, thereby intensifying their experience of the overarching theme of the course.  As well, students will work on developing their ability to produce writing that is at once academically sound, responsible, and stylish.

Written work and other requirements: Two short papers (20% of the course grade each); reading journal (10% of the course grade); incidental writing assignments and homework (10% of the course grade); attendance and participation (10% of the course grade); and a Final Project, an essay of 8-10 pages worth 30% of the course grade. 

 

REQUIRED TEXTS: (these editions only): Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (NAL Trade, 2006); James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (Delta, 2000); Dept. of English, Composition & Literature 2009-2010; Lester Faigley, The Brief Penguin Handbook (Penguin, 3rd ed.); E. M. Forster, Maurice: A Novel (Norton, 2005); David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (Plume, 1993); D. H. Lawrence, The Virgin and the Gipsy (Vintage, 1992); Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (Penguin, 1989); Noah Lukeman, A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation (Norton, 2007); Plato, The Symposium (Penguin, 2003); Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Washington Square Press, 2003); Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (instructor’s edition); Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (New Directions, 2004).

  

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English  (Masterpieces of Love and Desire)

Time:                9:00 MWF

Line #:              15873

Place:               4044 Wescoe  

Instructor:         EVANS, Stephen

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  In its various manifestations, permutations, and complications, the theme of love and desire is one of the oldest in world literature.  In his introduction to The Symposium, Christopher Gill writes:

 

Is the Symposium about love,or desire?  Plato’s dialogue centres on a series of speeches praising erôs, a term usually translated “desire”.  One of the meanings of erôs is “passionate sexual desire”; and it is also the name of one of the two Greek gods of love, Eros (in Latin, Cupid).  But some of the speeches, especially Socrates’, suggest that sexual desire is an expression of certain deeper and more universal types of desire or motivation.  The speeches also link erôs with the kind of affectionate concern that forms part of close relationships between family-members and friends . . . often translated as “friendship”. . . .  Most of the speeches are about the kind of “love” that modern readers can easily recognize as that, located in emotionally charged relationships between individual people.

 

Throughout the course, beginning with Plato and ranging widely across literary periods and authors, we will examine the theme of love and desire as it is conceived and represented in important works in several genres.  While the list of readings may seem long, most of the texts are relatively short, and students will learn to make valuable connections between them, thereby intensifying their experience of the overarching theme of the course.  As well, students will work on developing their ability to produce writing that is at once academically sound, responsible, and stylish.

Written work and other requirements: Two short papers (20% of the course grade each); reading journal (10% of the course grade); incidental writing assignments and homework (10% of the course grade); attendance and participation (10% of the course grade); and a Final ProjectCan essay of 8-10 pages worth 30% of the course grade. 

 

REQUIRED TEXTS: (these editions only): Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (NAL Trade, 2006); James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (Delta, 2000); Dept. of English, Composition & Literature 2009-2010; Lester Faigley, The Brief Penguin Handbook (Penguin, 3rd ed.); E. M. Forster, Maurice: A Novel (Norton, 2005); David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (Plume, 1993); D. H. Lawrence, The Virgin and the Gipsy (Vintage, 1992); Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (Penguin, 1989); Noah Lukeman, A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation (Norton, 2007); Plato, The Symposium (Penguin, 2003); Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Washington Square Press, 2003); Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (instructor’s edition); Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (New Directions, 2004).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                10:00 MWF

Line #:              15877

Place:               225 Fraser

Instructor:         KLAYDER, Mary

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  The course will examine personal and cultural myths  --presentations of self, cultural belief systems, cultural and personal metaphors, concepts of gender, art, nature, etc. -- and the relationship between as depicted in a great variety of literature.  The work will consist of four papers, a final, a project, and several short writing assignments.  During class we will emphasize discussion of the literature and related materials.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:   Selected poetry (handouts and internet); Marlowe, Doctor Faustus;

Shelley, Frankenstein; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Morrison, Song of Solomon; Marquez, One

Hundred Years of Solitude; Power, The Grass Dancer; Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and

You Fall Down; and Lawn, 40 Short Stories

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                1:00 MWF

Line #:              15881

Place:               223 Fraser

Instructor:         VALK, Michael

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  Seven texts--possibly more--of enduring interest and relevance will be the subject of our study, a course of study characterized by the close, patient, informed reading of the material and by an engaged, sympathetic, critical, and, yes, creative response to the works' urgent visions as created and revealed by those means particular to literary expression. Required Work: 4 critical essays (1000 words plus), occasional take-home and in-class writing assignments, and a final examination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                11:00 MWF

Line #:              37975

Place:               4050 Wescoe

Instructor:         EVERSOLE, Richard

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:   Rhetoric from antiquity to the early eighteenth century (about

2000 years) was the major educational program, comprising much of what we now recognize as

the departments of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  Ancient rhetorical theory by itself

still exerts an influence on our thought and is pretty relevant in an election year.  Our course is

interested in the enduring implications of this great heritage.  The first half will be a close

reading of theory (very much fun here) and the second half its illumination of work you may

think you know (if you’ve read them) but perhaps have not  beheld in their rhetorical splendor.

Four papers, one optional paper, an open book final exam.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  Plato, Phaedrus; Aristotle, Rhetoric; Cicero, Brutus and Orator; Swift,

“A Modest Proposal;” Shakespeare, Julius Caesar and Henry V.

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                11:00 TR

Line #:              37287

Place:               4050 223 Fraser

Instructor:         FOWLER, Doreen

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:   This course will examine issues of race, gender, and identity as they are constructed in the texts of male, female, black, and white twentieth-century American writers.   Course requirements will include two papers (approximately 7 typewritten pages each), response papers, reading quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam.  Class participation also is a requirement.  What follows is a list of some of the texts for the course:

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  William Faulkner, Selected Stories; William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories; The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (shorter seventh edition).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                11:00 TR

Line #:              15875

Place:               106 MS

Instructor:         WEDGE, Philip

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  In this course we will study selected masterpieces of world literature, focusing on developing the student’s ability to read and write essays about literature.  Required coursework consists of 4 major essays (50%) and a comprehensive final (25%).  Homework (25%) includes pop quizzes and short writing assignments.  Class participation is also of considerable importance.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  Homer, The Odyssey; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; Shakespeare, Henry

V; Austen, Emma; Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Cather, My Antonia; Achebe, Things Fall

Apart; Hosseini, The Kite Runner.

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                1:00 TR

Line #:              32675

Place:               222 Fraser

Instructor:         WEDGE, Philip

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  In this course we will study selected masterpieces of world literature, focusing on developing the student’s ability to read and write essays about literature.  Required coursework consists of 4 major essays (50%) and a comprehensive final (25%).  Homework (25%) includes pop quizzes and short writing assignments.  Class participation is also of considerable importance.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  Homer, The Odyssey; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; Shakespeare, Henry

V; Austen, Emma; Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Cather, My Antonia; Achebe, Things Fall

Apart; Hosseini, The Kite Runner.

 

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                2:00 MWF

Line #:              34937

Place:               4050 Wescoe

Instructor:         BUTLER, Michael

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  The course will be an introduction to the questions asked, answers given, and arguments waged in the enjoyment, study, evaluation, and definition[s] of literature. Readings will include works of varying reputations taken from a number of times and places.   This semester we will focus on retelling or representation.  We will look at three major works and the sequels, prequels, adaptations, or translations they have inspired.  We will study Xenophon’s  classic Anabasis, variously retitled as “The March Up Country” or “The Persian Expeditions,” and its  20th century recasting into both the novel and the film The Warriors; Jane Eyre, its modern prequel, Wide Sargasso Sea, and, perhaps, Jane Eyre, the Graphic Novel as well as the film, I Walked With a Zombie; and Macbeth, Macbeth, the Graphic novel, and two film versions of Shakespeare’s play: Orson Welles’ late 1940s adaptation and Geoffrey Wright’s recent gangster version set in Melbourne, Australia.   We will also read and discuss a few short stories and poems related to the three major texts or to the general concerns of the course.  Classes will be discussion-driven.  Written work will consist of short papers and a final exam or essay.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  TBA

 

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                2:30 TR

Line #:              34171

Place:               223 Fraser

Instructor:         FOWLER, Doreen

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:   This course will examine issues of race, gender, and identity as they are constructed in the texts of male, female, black, and white twentieth-century American writers.   Course requirements will include two papers (approximately 7 typewritten pages each), response papers, reading quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam.  Class participation also is a requirement.  What follows is a list of some of the texts for the course:

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  William Faulkner, Selected Stories; William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories; The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (shorter seventh edition).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:                 Freshman Honors English

Time:                3:00 MWF

Line #:              15879

Place:               1003 Wescoe

Instructor:         VALK, Michael

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  :  Seven texts--possibly more--of enduring interest and relevance will be the subject of our study, a course of study characterized by the close, patient, informed reading of the material and by an engaged, sympathetic, critical, and, yes, creative response to the works' urgent visions as created and revealed by those means particular to literary expression. Required Work: 4 critical essays (1000 words plus), occasional take-home and in-class writing assignments, and a final examination.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:  Shakespeare, Henry V; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Hamlet;  Collected Poems of Emily Dickenson; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Chopin, The Awakening; Toomer, Cane.