DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS – SPRING SEMESTER 2009

3010-001 CREATIVE WRITING, TR 8-9:15 STAFF
A basic introduction to creative writing. Students choose to write poems or prose which become the focus for classroom discussion and for conferences with the instructor. Recommended: College Composition II.

3010-002 CREATIVE WRITING, TR 9:30-10:45 STAFF
( SAME DESCRIPTION AS ABOVE)

3010-003 CREATIVE WRITING, MW 2-3:15 BRADLEY
In this class students will develop writing skills by studying narrative and poetic conventions, reading exemplary poems and stories, and analyzing works in progress. Students are required to write fifteen pages of fiction and five poems. Students will also complete short writing exercises and are required to critique each other's work. However the class is not a competition ; it is a supportive, nurturing environment for helping us all to become better readers and writers.

3010-004 CREATIVE WRITING, TR 5:45-7:00 GEIGER
The purpose of this class is to acquaint students with the art and craft of creative writing poetry and fiction. To this end we will study the terminology and techniques used by writers, then put those techniques into practice through in-class exercises and revision. For the most part, the class will be a discussion/workshop format; one half of the semester will be spent on fiction writing, the second half on poetry. At the end of the semester students will assemble a portfolio of their own favorite short stories and poems to be turned in for a final grade.

3010-005 CREATIVE WRITING, MW 7:20-8:35 GEIGER
(SAME DESCRIPTION AS ABOVE)

3050-001 PERSUASIVE WRITING, TR 8-9:15 STAFF
Analysis of and practice in the techniques of persuasive writing. Emphasis varies from writing about legal issues to writing about issues of public controversy. Prerequisite: Comp. II

3060-001 SCREENWRITING, MW 4:10-5:25 BRADLEY
This course involves practical analysis of screenplays, emphasizing story structure and characterization. By reading scripts and viewing films, students will explore how narrative strategies in film differ from strategies used in fiction or stage plays. Students will complete exercises in developing character, use of setting, dialogue, pacing action, and arranging scenes BEFORE writing an actual script. With a practical understanding of how characters are created and stories are told with pictures, students will write a brief script to be critiqued by the class. All students should acquire software for standard screenwriting format.

3150-001 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES – WAC, TR 11-12:15 REICHELT
Course is crosslisted as LING 3150. An introduction to modern linguistic theories about the nature and structure of language with emphasis on English.

3150-002 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES – WAC, TR 12:30-1:45 REICHELT
(SAME DESCRIPTION AS ABOVE)

3150-003 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES, MW 12:30-1:45 SIEGEL
This course is an introduction to basic principles of sound structure and sentence structure in natural language. Students begin by learning to use a phonetic alphabet for notating the sounds of speech and a simple descriptive terminology for classifying speech sounds. These tools are then put to active use in a number of exercises that involve distinguishing between sounds and the conventional spellings that represent them, capturing dialect differences, addressing certain language policy issues, and expressing generalizations regarding the behavior of speech sounds. The investigation of phonology continues with a study of the relation between the patterning of speech sounds and their perception; it ends with an investigation of the notion "phonological rule." The syntax unit of the course motivates the notions of deep and surface structure mediated by transformations. Emphasis is given to the distinction between universal, as opposed to language-particular, aspects of language structure. Cross-listed with LING 3150/5/7.

3600-001 AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITIONS, TR 2-3:15 REISING
Rather than surveying the entire range of American literature, this course will focus on important examples of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry from the nineteenth and twentieth century. Writers to be studied include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Richard Wright, Ken Kesey, and Tom Robbins. Students will write two papers and take a final examination.

3610-001 BRITISH LITERARY TRADITIONS, MW, 3:30-4:45 MATTISON
This course is an introduction to the concept, techniques, and major categories of British literary history. It provides an overview of the development of British literature from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, and places individual works within that larger context. The course gives students a sense of the relationship between writers and the traditions from which they learn their craft, as well as preparation for more advanced work. Authors studied will be major British poets and novelists, likely including Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Brontë, Woolf, and Joyce. It is intended to be taken early in the English Major as a core course.

3650-001 SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY LITERATURE, MW 11-12:15, COMPORA
This course will examin e middle to la te 20 th Century works of fantasy and science fiction literature focusing on a cross section of prominent writers in the genres . Texts will be approached in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, a consideration of backgrounds and archetypes; an examination the socio-political elements and the “worlds” created by the authors; an examination of moralistic elements, including comparisons to prominent religious works; and the apocalyptic elements of some of the novels. Two essays, short writing assignments, and quizzes will be completed.

3750-001 WOMEN AND LITERATURE, R 7:20-9:50 STAFF
Examines literary works in light of major issues raised by feminist criticism. Specific emphasis varies.

3760-001 EUROPEAN LITERATURE TO THE RENAISSANCE, TR 12:30-1:45, TURLEY
The backgrounds of European literature from its Near Eastern and classical roots to the end of the Middle Ages, with special attention to such works as the Epic of Gilgamesh , selections from the Bible , the Iliad , several Greek plays, the Aeneid , the Song of Roland and the Inferno . There will be a few short quizzes, at least one oral presentation, a mid-term examination, final examination and one research paper as the major part of the course requirements.

3770-001 WORLD LITERATURE AND CULTURES, T 7:20-9:50 STAFF
This course examines texts and cultures from around the world (and in particular the non-western world). The genres examined include autobiography, poetry, short fiction, novels, plays and histories. Prerequisite: Comp. II

3790-001 FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY STUDY – WAC, MW 8-9:15 FREE
The new title and description of this course, “Foundations of Literary Study: “An overview and introduction to the discipline of literary study, its history, its methods, and its specialized language,” clarify its relationship to the English major and to the study of the humanities in general. The course introduces you to various approaches to the reading and criticism of literary texts and to the language used in discussing texts. It also gives you some practice in using these approaches and language. There will be a mid-term and final examination, both of which will test your ability to interpret and analyze texts using the terminology in the Guide . In addition you will be asked to write an eight to ten page paper.

3790-002 FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY STUDY – WAC, MW 5:45-7:00 FITZGERALD
This course introduces students to the various methods, terminologies, and discourses of literary interpretation, as well as to the variety of literary genres and forms across the vast temporal and geographical range of English literature. While we cannot possibly hope to “cover” all periods, genres, and approaches, assigned primary and secondary texts will cover a variety of types of literary texts and approaches, from various periods in literary and scholarly history. By the end of the course, students should a solid grasp of the way we approach and have approached literary study in English, and an introductory level of understanding of the technical language and theories of literary study, which they can then put into practice in other courses. Primary texts will come from the major genre categories -- poetry (lyric and narrative), prose fiction (short and long form), and drama – and will range across British, American, and Anglophone literature, and from medieval to post-modern literature. Secondary texts will likely include an introductory handbook of literary theory, a handbook of literary terms, and articles demonstrating various approaches to the primary texts we read. Requirements will likely consist of a series of short analytical papers plus a longer final paper divided into stages.

3810-001 SHAKESPEARE I, MW 12:30-1:45 WIKANDER
This course offers an introduction to Shakespeare as a dramatic artist through close analysis of selected plays with special emphasis on Hamlet . Requirements include two 5-page papers, a final exam, and participation in presentation of scenes for class discussion.

3980-001 WRITING THE SHORT STORY, TR 2-3:15 STAFF
(NO DETAILED DESCRIPTION AVAILABLE)

4030-001 WRITING WORKSHOP IN NONFICTIONAL PROSE, TR 3:30-4:45
Directed study of nonfiction genres, rhetorical forms and elements of style, extensive practice in the writing, and critical evaluation of prose. Prerequisite: ENGL 2010 or 3010 or permission of instructor.

4070-001 WRITING WORKSHOP IN POETRY, TR 7:20-8:35 LIPMAN
Designed for the engaged and practicing writer of poetry, this intensive workshop begins with a student proposal and moves incrementally towards its completion. Thus, the writer sets his or her own goals and works to achieve them. Final projects are often chapbook length collections. The weekly writer's workshop is supplemented by outside readings and tutorials.

4080-001 WRITING WORKSHOP IN FICTION, MW 7:20-8:35 BRADLEY
The goal of this course is to further develop writing skills which have been established in an introductory writing course. Students will study narrative conventions by considering theories of how stories are put together as well as how they can be taken apart. Students will review the rules of writing a traditional short story as they also consider ways to bend and break these rules. At the end of the quarter students will have written thirty pages of fiction and a revision. One story will be read and critiqued by the class. Although this will be basically a writing workshop, we will also read model stories from an anthology. Text to be used is Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft .

4090-001 CURRENT WRITING THEORY – WAC, TR 4:10-5:25 STELZER
In this course, we will look at the way in which the theories we construct about writing influence our writing and the ways we teach others to write. We will look at expressivist, social constructionist, traditional rhetorical, feminist, deconstructionist and several other models for thinking about writing (or writing about thinking). We will also look at the ways in which writer roles and teacher roles become constructed within writing theory. Each student will be involved in applying the theories of others, as well as developing and articulating her or his own theory of writing. Journals, informal experimental papers, collaborative conversations and a longer project growing out of these will provide the working materials for designing and evaluating various theories of writing and the practices they support.

4090/5-002 CURRENT WRITING THEORY – WAC, TR 4:10-5:25 SCHNEIDER
Theory, Literacy, Language, Assessment, and Writing Technologies: These are the keywords through which students access contemporary theories of writing and which organize the five topical units for this course. During the course, students read a variety of texts, some supplied by handouts, some furnished in the course pack, and some gathered from electronic and library resources. More importantly, students produce a variety of texts, including explorations, summaries, self-reflections, lesson plans, analyses, and researched essays. The purpose of the course is to become theorists of our own writing and teaching practices, creating new knowledge that can help solve old problems.

4190/6-001 ENVIRONMENTS FOR ESL LEARNING, T 4:15-6:45 COLEMAN
Class time will be split primarily into two main areas: (a) work on the properties of linkages and communicating individuals speaking English and (b) work on implementing language teaching/testing materials focusing on these. Grading for ENGL 5190/7190: Analysis exercises (20%); Materials applications including materials evaluation and design (25%); Final (25%); Class participation (10%); Lesson development project (20%). Grading for ENGL 4190: Analysis exercises (30%); Materials applications including materials evaluation and design (30%); Final (30%); Class participation (10%).

4240/5-001 BRITISH FICTION: 20 TH CENTURY, MW 7:20-8:35 MARTIN, W.
Fiction of the early twentieth century dominates the first part of the course. H. G. Wells and D. H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield provided realistic representations of England and its empire in their time. James Joyce combined realism with new ways of telling stories, in his depiction of Ireland . Europe 's incursions into the rest of the world provided subjects for Joseph Conrad and E. M. Forster.

The themes and techniques of those writers are characteristic of modernism – a word that provides a unifying thread for the course. Virginia Woolf, the later Joyce, and Samuel Beckett exemplify the “high modernism” for which British fiction is best known.

We will read those writers and also stories by a couple of others. There will be 3 exams (in the 5 th , 10 th , and finals weeks). You will be given the exam questions in advance. There will also be some 1-2 page papers about the readings but these are a small part of the final grade. Graduate students will also have to write a short paper on a book or topic not emphasized in class.

4280/5-001 AMERICAN FICTION: 20 TH CENTURY, TR 5:45-7:00 LINDSAY
We will be reading (mainly short stories) from the following authors: Sherwood Anderson; Ernest Hemingway; Katherine Anne Porter; and Flannery O'Connor. We will read novels by William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. There will be one paper (5pp) analyzing a short story. The final will consist of two parts. Part I will be an hour long essay exam. You will be given the essay questions ahead of time. I will pick one on the scheduled day of the final. Part II will be short paragraph identifications of passages from our reading. You will have to discuss the significance of passages that we have discussed in class.

4340/5-001 MODERN DRAMA, MW 9:30-10:45 WIKANDER
This course is an introduction to the languages of the modern stage-realism, naturalism, symbolism and expressionism-as they developed from the early 1870s to the late 1970s. Topics of discussion will include: The Fourth Wall and the Problem Play; The Professional Actress and the Woman Question; Theater of Ideas/Theater of Mood; Theater in America; Modernity and Illusion; Epic Theater/Theater for a Scientific Age; Theater of Cruelty/Theater of the Absurd; Experimental Theater and the Avant-garde. Readings may include selected plays of Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Bernard Shaw, Luigi Pirandello, Eugene O'Neill, Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill and Sam Shepard. Requirements: Two 5-8 page papers on assigned topics, participation in scene presentations for class discussion, and a final exam. Graduate students will do further reading in dramatic theory and in recent criticism of the field; they will meet informally with the instructor to discuss these readings.

4440/5-001 EARLY 17 TH CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE, MW 11-12:15 MATTISON
This course will be devoted to the remarkable flourishing of English literature between the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 and the end of the Interregnum in 1660. It will consist of a survey of the historical period and major works in poetry, prose, and drama. Authors will include Ben Jonson, John Webster, Robert Herrick, John Milton, Robert Burton, and Thomas Browne, writers from both sides of the great political, social and religious divide in the period: the English Civil Wars. A large part of the course will be devoted to in-depth study of the group known as the Metaphysical poets. Special attention will be paid to John Donne and George Herbert, with additional readings by Thomas Traherne and Henry Vaughan. These poets belong together not so much because of any clear historical category—the definition of “metaphysical” has shifted considerably over the centuries—but because of their common interest in a particular kind of poetry. They were all poets for whom language was dangerous, powerful and highly symbolic, and poetry was an important force both in the affairs of human beings and the relationship between humanity and God.

4520/5-001 BRITISH LITERATURE: THE VICTORIAN PERIOD, TR 3:30-4:45 GREGORY
Victorian literature is often associated with a stuffy Masterpiece Theatre ethos: corsets and high tea. But this period of history witnessed wide-ranging social, political, and technological changes, and the Victorians faced many of the same problems that we currently grapple with in our own contemporary society. In short, they look a lot like us, and reading literature from this period will help us to ask important and relevant questions about our own world. Victorian literature is also pure pleasure to read: complicated, passionate, and incredibly diverse. This course will explore some of the major genres of the period

4660/5-001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE IN THE 20 TH CENTURY, TR 11-12:15 PHELPS
Study of the literary achievement of major African-American writers.

4730/5-001 WORLD CINEMAS AND CULTURES, M 7:20-9:50 ERBEN
The course focuses on the question of representation across cultures (within or across borders) largely in terms of the relations between film and video makers, their subjects and the camera. Relations of self and other are expressed in formal properties as well as in the subject and contents of a film or video. Furthermore, each film or video inevitably draws on the discourse on alterity and ideologies related to it. The emphasis is less on what another culture actually is or was than on investigating the modes and assumptions and the effects of differences in power which go into representing it. Self looms as large as other in this investigation of how differences of gender, race, class, age, ethnicity, sexual preference and more are registered, symbolized and valued not only within the representation, but also in the act of production from our various positions as subjects in the class. Therefore, the objectives of our assignments over the semester are: 1.) To become informed about and to problematize documentary and particularly ethnographic film as a genre devoted to representing alterity and to contrast it to narrative fiction film. What are the meanings and effects that particular generic and formal choices can have on representing alterity? 2.) To become familiar by means of viewing and discussion with a range of classic and contemporary documentary film and videos, along with several landmark narrative fiction films. Selected in-class viewings, chosen to exemplify particular documentary modes or narrative strategies will serve this objective. 3.) To be introduced to several philosophical models of alterity, from Buber and Bakhtin, to Sartre, Fanon, Bhabha, Dyer and Hooks. 4.) To recognize a range of myths and tropes of otherness .

4800/5-001 CHAUCER, MW 2-3:15 FITZGERALD
Discover one of the most brilliant and versatile writers of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer, a poet and story-teller who seems paradoxically both old and contemporary, strange and familiar, funny and serious, bawdy and pious, and sincere and ironic. Unlike most single-author courses, this class will introduce students to the breadth of a literary period and culture ( England in the 14 th century) as well as the depth of one writer's work. While later writers generally specialized in a genre or two, Chaucer produced a dizzying array of medieval genres and forms, in poetry and prose, many of which he gathered together in his masterwork, The Canterbury Tales . Sometimes this course concentrates on those tales – which range from the beautiful to the bawdy, the highbrow to the lowbrow, the serious to the hilarious, the sacred to the profane, and everything in between – and sometimes we read a smaller selection of those tales and also the romance Troilus and Criseyde and a selection of Chaucer's “dream visions” and shorter poetry. Course requirements are likely to include a series of short papers, a paper in response to a scholarly article, and a research paper divided into various stages.

4860/5-001 EMILY DICKINSON, TR 9:30-10:45 REISING
An intensive reading of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Students will read widely in Dickinson 's work, in biographical studies, and in criticism. Each student will give one oral report, write two papers, and take a final exam. Class participation required.

5100/7-001 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, MW 4;10-5:25 SIEGEL
Prerequisite: ENGL/LING 3/5/7150. Fluency with phonetic transcription and with the basic vocabulary of linguistic description is presupposed. This course is a survey of the social, historical, political, and purely linguistic forces that have shaped the English language from its origin in Indo-European down to the present. The course incorporates a tour of relevant library and web resources, and it features a visit to the Canaday Center to view examples of manuscripts and early printed books. Cross-listed with LING 5100/7.

5780-001 CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORIES AND CRITICISM, R 7:20-9:50 BARLOWE
In this class we will examine the fundamental principles and underlying assumptions of various contemporary literary theories, as well as their relationships to the interpretive strategies, ideas and questions that have fueled the often contentious debates about literature since Plato and Aristotle. Students will be expected to write a series of short papers and a final paper.

6500-001 SEMINAR: AUSTEN, ADAPTED, T 7:20-9:50 GREGORY
What does it mean to read Jane Austen? Literary scholars often deride her rabid fans—the “Janeites”—as silly or superficial, but to do so is to discount the extraordinary appeal and ongoing presence of her work in our own contemporary culture. As the many adaptations of Austen's novels attest, perhaps no other nineteenth-century novelist has remained as popular with academics and lay readers alike—which perhaps accounts for her status as a contested cultural icon. Is Austen the grandmother of chick lit, or a “serious” novelist? Can she be both? Who gets to decide? In this course, we will explore important questions of literary interpretation and authority raised by adaptations of Austen's work. Our reading will include Austen's major novels; Claire Tomalin's biography of Austen; and some of the major literary and film adaptations of Austen. We will also read a considerable amount of criticism, including novel-to-film theory, which will apply to possible papers and subjects beyond Austen.

6890-001 CERTIFICATE CAPSTONE, TR 5:45-7:00 EDGINGTON
This course provides teachers of writing the opportunity to draw together the theories, methods, and practices they have studied in previous courses. This directed research project will include opportunities to participate in a service learning project, guidance in carrying out a critical ethnography of student writing, assistance in constructing a discourse analysis of a selected feature of student writing, experimental course design incorporating the newest writing technologies, or some other project that directly but richly engages the student in the professional work of the field of composition studies. Students will carry out research work independently, meeting weekly with other students and professor to review progress and raise questions.

6940/8-001 SEMINAR IN ENGLISH INSTRUCTION: ESL, MW 7:10-8:40 COLEMAN
This course is designed to give master's students in ESL (MA-Ed in ESL or MA in English with ESL Concentration) a community-service internship experience in teaching English as a Second Language. Students submit lesson plans for professor review and commentary in advance of using them and submit focused reports of their teaching activities. The teaching experience typically lasts six weeks. Enrollment options are by professor approval. The course is graded S-U. [CONTACT THE PROFESSOR DURING THE SEMESTER PRIOR TO THE SEMESTER DURING WHICH COURSE REQUIREMENTS ARE TO BE FULFILLED.] Interested students are encouraged to contact the professor for details (Douglas.Coleman@utoledo.edu).

6980-001 SEMINAR: INTERTEXTS, MW 5:45-7:00 LUNDQUIST "The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full-stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network." -- Michel Foucault A graduate seminar on the theory and practice of intertextuality. We will focus on 20 th century works of literature with their roots firmly in literature of previous times. Coupled texts will be chosen from among the following: Hamlet and John Updike's Gertrude and Claudius , Tennyson's In Memoriam and A.S. Byatt's Angels and Insects , Proust's Swann's Way and How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton, Bronte's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea , poems by Dickinson and Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson , Dickens's Great Expectations and Kathy Acker's Great Expectations, T.S. Eliot's poetry and Carole Maso's Defiance, D. H. Lawrence's poems and Out of Sheer Rage by Jeff Dyer, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel DeFoe and Foe by J.M. Coetzee, Homer's Odyssey and Derek Walcott's Omeros . A substantial seminar paper with an annotated bibliography will be required, as well as informed class discussion and oral presentations.

6960-001 MASTER'S RESEARCH, TBA FITZGERALD

7960-001 DOCTORAL READINGS , TBA FITZGERALD

8960-001 DISSERTATION RESEARCH, TBA FITZGERALD