Spring 2009 English Major Course Guide

Spring 2009 English Major Course Guide - Schaumburg Campus

Department of Literature and Languages

211 British Literature 1789 to Present

Ellen O’Brien

(M 2:00 – 4:29 pm)

This course surveys the aesthetic movements and formal 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. This course will be discussion-oriented, but I will offer comments and questions to shape discussion and deliver the occasional short lecture.

213 American Literature 1865 to Present

Theodore Gross

(Tu 2:00 – 4:29 pm)

This course will deal with the culture of America from after the Civil War until the present. Using the Heath Anthology of American Literature (Volumes C, D, and E), we will discuss authors who range from Mark Twain and Henry James to Kate Chopin; ethnic writers (African-American figures like Wright, Baldwin, and Ellison, Jewish writers like Bellow and Malamud, and Hispanic authors like Cisneros); poets, ranging from Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot to Lowell and Plath); prose writers, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Updike; and the dramatist, Arthur Miller. Students will be expected to keep a reading journal, take a midterm and final examination, and make oral presentations.

220 Introduction to Literary Analysis

Frank Alletto

(Tu Th 4:30 - 5:45)

Prereq. University Writing Requirement

Close analysis of poetry, fiction, and drama with emphasis on interpretation of literary form and language. Development of critical vocabulary for explicating texts with attention to genre codes, figurative language, narrative structure, poetic diction and meter, and dramatic forms. Introduction to basic reference sources and literary criticism. Emphasis on writing critical analyses and developing interpretive arguments.

221 Texts and Contexts

Ann Brigham

(Tu 6:00- 8:30 pm)

Prereq: University Writing Requirement

In ENG 221, students practice working with literary criticism, critical theory, and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of literature. During the semester, we will focus on a small set of primary texts—in this case, British and American gothic literature—and consider those primary sources through a range of critical lenses. We will examine several studies that propose different theories for understanding the meaning of the gothic genre. In addition, we will study how specific critical approaches, including psychoanalysis, gender studies, postcolonialism, and new historicism, emphasize diverse interpretations of the literature. We will also pay close attention to the processes of research and methodology, so that students will become more familiar with the types of research available to them and the strategies necessary for conducting such research.

340 Literature and Enslavement

Kimberly Ruffin

(Th 2:00- 4:30 pm)

Prereq: ENG 220

The period of enslavement in African-American literary history included an energetic mix of oral and written forms including song, speeches, folktales, poetry, and narratives. This broad span of verbal art encompasses artistic, socio-political, and cultural concerns. We will examine works by authors writing during the period (Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley, George Moses Horton) and works by contemporary authors (Toni Morrison, Frank X Walker). In addition to close reading of the primary materials, students will learn historical contexts and apply theoretical approaches to literary analysis.

342 Imagining Terror

Ellen O’Brien

(M 6:00 - 8:30 pm)

Prereq: ENG 220

This course examines twentieth and twenty-first-century literary representations of terrorism in the works of Anglophone writers from around the world. Including a range of authors from Africa, South Asia, North America, Ireland and the UK and incorporating texts from the early 1900s through 2005, we will study how various literary genres—from lyric poems to political thrillers to postmodernist plays—are used to imagine the experiences of political terror and to comment on the historical contexts in which terror arises. A tentative list of authors includes: S. Heaney, M. McGuckian, P. Muldoon, C. Carson, E. McNamee, M. Ondaatje, N. Farrah, W. Soyinka, S. Rushdie, J. Conrad, and D. Lessing.