Spring 2005
ENG 5830.01: Readings in American Literature:
Dr. Dale
This course will help students consolidate and extend their
knowledge of American literature in order to prepare for the
required exam in American literature. The course will be taught
mostly on-line with a few class meetings and will be tailored to
individual student needs.
ENG 6160.01: 18th Century and Romantic Poetry:
Dr. Murray
Not so many decades ago, poetry was considered the summit of
literature, the condition to which all writing aspired. But in the
past twenty years, even the best readers have begun to find poetry
distant and nearly indecipherable. (Do we live in a prosaic age?)
This course seeks to restore our lost heritage of poetry. We will
begin by getting comfortable with verse: by determining what sorts
of things can responsibly be said about it, by finding or
developing resources to help us when we are mystified, by
determining to what extent poetry is embedded in its era. We will
elucidate the mysteries of versification and determine if there are
any limits to the multi-valence of poetry. We will ask whether
poetry can ever be (as was once claimed)
'beautiful.' Then we will turn our attention to a
variety of poets, each representing a different strand of verse: to
John Dryden (the public and political); to John Wilmot, the Earl of
Rochester (the pornographic [Rochester on Charles II: 'Nor
are his high Desires above his Strength,/ His Sceptter and his
Prick are of a Length'] ); to Stephen Duck and Mary
Yearsley (proletarian poetry); to Christopher Smart (poetry for
children; poetry of the madhouse); to Alexander Pope (Samuel
Johnson: 'If Pope be not poetry, where is poetry to be
found?'); to Thomas Gray; and to Isaac Watts and Charles
Wesley ('When I survey the wond'rous
cross', etc). We will examine part of at least one long
18th-century poem, either James Thomson's baroque/pictoral
The Seasons or William Cowper's therapeutic The Task. Then
we will conclude with some classics of romantic verse: William
Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and one of his
prophetic books (really 18th-century poems, whatever Norton says),
Wordsworth's The Prelude (the great Romantic private
creation), and a healthy selection of the verse of John Keats,
including all the late odes. There will be frequent short essays
and in-class reports, often on assigned topics. Each student will
prepare one or two annotations of poems. Finally each student will
develop a 15-page essay (ideally directed toward publication) and
(on the same topic) a conference-worthy presentation.
Texts: Norton English Anthologies (volumes I and II), web
sources, xeroxes. Editions of The Prelude, etc.TBA.
ENG 6360.01: World Story:
Dr. Paine
This seminar will consider works of short narrative drawn from Western and non-Western traditions, ancient and modern. We will keep steadily in view issues of what stories mean for us psychologically, socially, and culturally. Students will prepare Reader's Notes (a combination of class notes and critical reflection) in reaction to their reading, and will present extensively a story or stories to the class and lead discussion. As you can see from the list below, this is not your 'typical' short story course, as it includes brief narratives from ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern times, stories from Euro-America, Africa, India, the Middle East, and Japan. I invite each of you to choose one of these works for your class project, and begin work on it during the holidays. First come, first served! I especially welcome volunteers for Ovid and the Arabian Nights anytime.
Works which we will read appear below, with publishers in bold type. Please be absolutely sure to purchase the correct edition, as several of these are available in various translations. Those listed here will be in stock in the Belmont Bookstore by December, I hope.
Ovid, Metamorphoses trans.Charles Martin, Norton. This is a new
and lively translation of Ovid's text. Sorry, it is only in
hardback so far. For holiday reading, I recommend Books I-X, though
you may find you can't stop once you start reading these
stories Pancatantra, Penguin
Arabian Nights, trans. Haddawy, Norton
Arabian Nights II. Trans. Haddawy, Norton Again, be sure to get
this translation. It is very different from other versions of the
Nights. I expect us to read volume one and parts of volume
two.Marie de France, Lais, Penguin Classics
Boccaccio, The Decameron, Norton Critical Edition
Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron. Penguin Classics
We will read a number of these stories, though not all of them. If
you wish to report on Marguerite's stories, I encourage you
to read the entire text.
The Classic Fairy Tales, Norton Critical Edition
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber, Penguin
Bernard
Dadi�,
The Black Cloth, Univ. of Massachusetts Press
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber, Penguin
Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,
Harper Perennial
Haruki Murakami, After the Quake, Vintage International
Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Harcourt Bracenot
ENG 6410.01: Creative Writing:
Dr. Alexander
Creative writing can be many different things--exhilarating and challenging, or just hard work. However, it is always 'stretching,' and teaches the writer about both the craft of writing and what she or he wants to say to the world. This writing class will be a small and temporary community meant to challenge and support you in your best creative writing efforts. In it you'll expand your knowledge of the formal aspects of creative writing, and as a group we'll encourage each other to engage in the kind of courageous play that renders writing vital and unique. Course requirements will include reading the work of established writers and choosing one writer's work for in-depth analysis and an in-class presentation; studying and using critical vocabulary needed to talk about your own writing and other people's; and presenting your own writing in workshops. At the end of the semester you'll submit a portfolio of polished work comprising approximately twenty pages. The exact composition of the portfolio--how many stories, how many poems, how many other pieces'will be decided individually between each student and the instructor. Everyone will work in a variety of genres--fiction, poetry, and hybrid forms. If you haven't worked in one or more of these genres, don't worry, you won't be alone. Again, the course is designed to meet you where you are and to provide support and challenge that will elicit your best writing. Grades for creative work will be based on engagement, effort, and improvement rather than on absolute standards of quality. In fact, as your ideas become more complex and interesting, your writing may actually seem to become less skillful, because you are exploring new territory. You should expect this and even seek it out. Risk-taking will be encouraged and rewarded. All creative work requires diligence and courage and, in the end, is a solitary pursuit. However, all writers need honest, sympathetic readers, and a community of creators in which to work. We'll try to form such a community here. Please feel free to contact me at alexanderd@mail.belmont.edu if you have any questions about the course.
Texts: Steven Millhauser, Martin Dressler Janet Frame, Owls
Do Cry Ben Marcus, ed. Anchor Book of New American Short Stories
Madison Smartt Bell, Narrative Design Lyn Hejinian, ed. Best
American Poetry 2004
Carl Phillips, Pastoral Christine Hume, Musca Domestica
Steve Kowit, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable
Workshop
Online Journal Double Room
ENG 6420.01: Theories of Composition:
Dr. Bonnie Smith
What is composing? How do composition theories connect with
larger aims of education? With your own habits as readers and
writers? With the project of democracy? Composition theory is
infused with history, culture, politics, and narrative, and in
Composition Theories (English 6420), you will:
- Become conversant with the important theories, movements, problems, and arenas of composition studies (e.g., the influence of rhetoric, process, expressivism, feminism, service-learning, writing centers, basic writing, writing across the curriculum, and technology);
- Consider your own habits and practices as writers alongside the field of composition;
- Learn about ways composition theory often percolates up from classroom praxis;
- Become acquainted with people, practices and genres of 'composing spaces';
- Author a composition identity, which will arise from your
careful consideration of the many philosophical, pedagogical, and
political choices writers and educators must make.
Texts include: Blitz and Hurlbert, Letters for the Living: Teaching Writing in a Violent Age; Corbett, Myers, and Tate, The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook; Kitchen and Jones, In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction; O'Reilley, The Peaceable Classroom; Bizzell, et al., The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing, 5th edition (available online, free of charge, at www.bedfordbooks.com/bb ; Tate, Rupiper, and Schick, eds. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies.
