ENGL 205 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
FALL 2009
Title: ANCIENTS, MODERNS & MODERNISTS
Time: 1:00 TR
Class #: 29565
Place: 4050 Wescoe
Instructor: ATKINS, G. Douglas
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we read widely while focusing on “Ancient” writers of the eighteenth century and the twentieth, including Pope, Swift, Joyce, and Eliot, the latter two Modernists who joined the Augustans in opposing Moderns. We will, in addition, read The Odyssey and Madame Bovary. We will look closely at these texts in order to see by means of them, joining them in a “journey towards understanding.” Since I believe, and will teach, that in order to read well, you have to “write it down” (Andrew Lytle), there will be several papers, probably at least five. Whether there will a final exam depends upon how the group progresses. Class will be conducted as lecture/discussion, with students expected to be prepared for daily participation. I hope to arrange at least one field trip, this to Spencer Research Library.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Rouse; Swift, Gulliver’s Travels and Other
Writings; Pope, Poetry and
Prose; Flaubert, Madame Bovary, trans. Bair; Joyce, A Portrait of
the Artist as a Young Man; Eliot, Collected Poems; Eliot, Selected
Essays; and other texts available in the library; Dept. of English, Composition
and Literature.
Title: HISTORICAL HEROINES
Time: 11:00 MW
Class #: 31823
Place: 1017 Wescoe
Instructor: MORIARTY, Laura
COURSE
DESCRIPTION: Historical fiction is an immensely popular genre, and it's easy to see
why: when it's done well, readers feel as if they are experiencing another era
on a personal and intimate level. Historical fiction can also offer alternative
narrations of the past, giving voice to groups of people whose perspectives have
been ignored or neglected in conventional history books. In this course, we
will focus on fiction that reconstructs the past from the perspectives of
imagined women. We will pay particular attention to competing narratives of the
same time period, considering each writer, as well as the time period in which
she was writing, to better understand the different agendas and perspectives of
each story. We will also consider the extent to which time and place affects
character and fate, imagining how these heroines might have fared in our time,
and how we might have fared in theirs. Regular class participation and
attendance required. Several short papers and two of medium length, quizzes,
and a final project.
REQUIRED TEXTS: Mitchell, Gone with the Wind;
Morrison, Beloved; Smiley, The All-True Travels and Adventures of
Lidie Newton; Prasad, On Borrowed Wings; Atwood, Alias Grace;
Atwood and University of Ottawa Press, Searching for “Alias Grace”; See,
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; Faigley, The Brief Penguin Handbook;
Dept. of English, Composition and Literature; and selected short story
handouts.
Title: SHORT STORY MASTERS AND MASTERPIECES
Time: 10:00 MWF
Class #: 28375
Place: 4050 Wescoe
Instructor: CAROTHERS, James
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will work towards answers to the aesthetic questions: What makes a “good” or “great” short story? What makes a short story stand the “test of time”? To do this, we will focus first on one short story by each of several presumed “masters” of the genre, reading the story closely for internal structure and content, and considering a variety of secondary sources (biography, bibliography, criticism). We shall read other stories by the same author as well, and shall consider the principles and practices of evaluation.
Written work: Brief formal reports on the individual stories and authors, to provide the basis for class discussion, and to be submitted in writing. Probably four required essays (two written in-class and two written out-of-class), and a substantial final project.
REQUIRED TEXTS: Authors will include eight or so of the following: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, J. D. Salinger, John Updike, Bernard Malamud.
Title: CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
Time: 3:00 MW
Class #: 44827
Place: 4045 Wescoe
Instructor: MIELKE, Laura
COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will consider the genre of
the “captivity narrative,” reading not only first-hand accounts of
Euro-Americans’ experiences as captives in American Indian communities and
novels inspired by those accounts, but also autobiographical works by American
Indians incarcerated by the U.S. military and held in boarding schools. One of
our primary concerns will be with the way in which these captivity narratives
have contributed to and complicated the myth of “savagism versus civilization”
so influential in
REQUIRED TEXTS: Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and
Goodness of God; James Seaver, The Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary
Jemison; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie; Life of Black
Hawk; Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša), Indian Stories; Deborah
Larsen, The White; Faigley, The Brief Penguin Handbook; and Dept.
of English, Composition and Literature. Students will be asked to view
selected films outside of class.