Spring 2010 English Major Course Guide - Chicago Campus
Department of Literature and Languages

205  Introduction to Shakespeare

Regina Buccola

Prereq. Eng 101 with min grade of C-             

(TuTh 4:30-5:45 pm)

                   

English 205, Introduction to Shakespeare, will be based in a broad sampling of Shakespeare’s work, covering all of the different kinds of plays that Shakespeare wrote (history, tragedy and comedy) as well as his sonnets.  Our discussions of the plays will focus on issues such as their likely literary and historical sources, the cultural and political background informing the plot and characters, the realities (so far as we can conjecture) of their original staging, and issues of class and gender. 

 

205  Introduction to Shakespeare

Stephen Bennett

Prereq. Eng 101 with min grade of C-        

(TuTh 12:30 – 1:45 pm)

English 205, Introduction to Shakespeare, will be based in a broad sampling of Shakespeare’s work, covering all of the different kinds of plays that Shakespeare wrote (history, tragedy and comedy) as well as his sonnets.  Our discussions of the plays will focus on issues such as their likely literary and historical sources, the cultural and political background informing the plot and characters, the realities (so far as we can conjecture) of their original staging, and issues of class and gender. 

 

207  Introduction to African-American Literature

Lisa Schneider                                                       

Prereq. Eng 101 with min grade of C-

(M W  9:30 – 10:45  am)

                                                                                                           

African American literature is a dynamic resource for understanding numerous individual, communal, and societal needs.  This survey will highlight canonical and emerging African-American authors from the 18th- 21st century (e.g. Dunbar, Johnson, Jacobs, Wells-Barnett, Hughes, Fauset, Wright, Hurston, Ellison, Brooks, Baraka, Sanchez, Young, Clifton, Reed, Hemphill, Beatty) through a range of genres, noting African, European, and “New World” influences.  The writer’s role in a given community, an artist’s aesthetic considerations and unique voice, the function of the arts, and major movements (e.g. “New Negro”/ Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement) will be among the contexts for our study.  Satisfies non-Western requirement.

 

211  British Literature 1789 to Present

Ellen O’Brien

Prereq. Eng 101 with min grade of C-          

(Tu 2:00 – 4:29 pm)

This course surveys the aesthetic movements and formal literary innovations of nineteenth and twentieth-century British literature.  Charting the history of British literature through its Romantic, Victorian, Modern, Postmodern, and Postcolonial periods, we examine literary texts as responses to and/or reflections of cultural change. Class meetings will include short lectures, large discussions, and group work.

 

213  American Literature 1865 to Present

Larry Howe                                                                                  

Prereq. Eng 101 with min grade of C-

(M W 12:30 – 1:45 pm)

                                          

The culture of the United States since the Civil War has been deeply marked by a number of historical and social developments: the war itself, industrial technology, the advancement of women’s rights, racial strife, and self-conscious reflections on history and the nation’s expanding global role in history.  In this course, we’ll read a variety of literary performances—essays, speeches, diaries, fiction, poetry, drama, film--by a diverse array of notable writers that deal with these developments.  Our discussions and your writings about these texts will, I hope, deepen and perhaps challenge your understanding of these topics and how the writiers and texts that address them have shaped American cultural identity. 

 

220  Introduction to Literary Analysis

Larry Howe                                                                                       

Prereq. University Writing Requirement  

(M W 4:30 – 5:45 pm)

                                                                                                           

In order to foster your skills of close reading, this course will ask you to examine the conventions of a variety of literary forms: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama, and film.  We’ll concentrate on developing a critical vocabulary for explicating texts, paying particular attention to genre codes, figurative language, poetic diction and meter, narrative structure, rhetorical devices, dramatic forms, and—in the case of film—visual language.  Students will learn about basic reference sources and critical strategies as we  discuss interpretive analyses and write critical arguments.  All of this activity will lead to a greater understanding of the complexity of literary texts and their role in cultural formation.

 

253  Introduction to Creative Writing

STAFF

Prereq. University Writing Requirement              

(W 2:00 - 4:29 pm)

Through work in three genres--fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction--students develop personal voice, familiarity with various narrative and poetic strategies, and effective use of concrete and metaphoric detail.  Each genre will be explored through critique of student writing and close reading of work by notable authors, both contemporary and historic. 

 

307  Film History

Larry Howe

Prereq. ENG 220 with min grade of C-                                                           

(W 6:00 – 8:30 pm)

The history of cinema is only about a century long, but in that period the art form has demonstrated remarkable development from silent to sound film,  from black and white to color, and from fairly practical staging and framing to vibrant special effects.  As film technology developed, filmmakers found new ways to tell stories.  We’ll note that as film developed new techniques, it created its own history that often commented upon or reflected the social history of the cultures in which it emerged.  In our study of the films of Griffith, Micheaux, Lang, Chaplin, Keaton, Welles, Hitchcock, Goddard, Altman, among others, we’ll note that, as filmmakers connect with their cultures, they simultaneously develop and exploit a self-reflexive fascination with film’s own processes.  We'll gauge these dynamics as we consider how film both reflects and influences the ideas and identities of its audiences.               

319  Staging Witchcraft Plays

Regina Buccola

Prereq. ENG 220 with min grade of C-               

(Th  2:00 – 4:29 pm)

English 319, Witchcraft Plays begins with one of the best known and most widely influential stage portrayals of witchcraft in theater history, Macbeth, which uses the figure of the witch to explode ideological assumptions about class (patriarchy, class-based social stratification, upward mobility) and gender (social, political and domestic roles).  In this course, we will examine both fantastic portrayals of the witch, including Shakespeare’s Macbeth, John Martson’s Sophonisba, and Thomas Middleton’s The Witch in conjunction with “realistic” portrayals of witchcraft in British and Scottish court depositions as well as the stage representations of those cases in Thomas Dekker, John Ford and William Rowley’s The Witch of Edmonton and Heywood and Brome’s The Witches of Lancashire.  We will consider witchcraft’s dual valence in early modern England as both a means of vilifying women and as a means by which women could exercise autonomy and empowerment.

 

327  20th Century American Women’s Fiction: Gender and Mobility

Ann Brigham

Prereq.  ENG 220 with min grade of C-             

(M W 11:00 – 12:15 pm)

In many ways, the American experience has been defined by the promise of mobility, that is, the freedom to go anywhere and become anyone. In fact, the two have often been linked: spatial mobility—the movement between places or across space—has often been understood as a way to achieve a range of other mobilities, from the psychological and sexual to the social and economic. In this course, we will study a range of novels that address a series of related questions: What does mobility mean, and what does gender have to do with it? How can stories of mobility tell us something about the ways gendered and sexed identities, meanings, and performances are negotiated, navigated, and transformed? How can we think of gender and sexuality as modes of mobility? In what ways has mobility been central to definitions of an American identity and experience, and why is that interesting? Focusing on the various ways mobility has been defined, we will examine representations of mobility that include: immigration and assimilation; escape; spatial, social, and sexual border crossings; time travel; racial and gender passing; western expansion and national conquest; the road trip; transnational migration; gender bending and fluidity; bodily mutability; exile and displacement.

 

334A  Advanced Non-Fiction Writing I

STAFF                                                                                                     Prereq. ENG 253, ENG 303 and Consent/submit portfolio to instructor                (W 6:00 - 8:30 pm)

What’s so creative about creative nonfiction?  This course focuses on personal narrative, including memoir, but some of the larger questions we’ll consider include:  How do we define creative nonfiction?  While fiction often serves as a model for the craft of creative nonfiction, what are other models? What are the responsibilities of the author to his or her characters if they are drawn from life? Since everyone has a life story, how do we make ours worth reading?  Why is memoir so popular with the reading public? Through workshopping, analyzing published examples of the genre, and lively discussion, we’ll explore these questions and formulate preliminary answers.

 

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