Writing Classes Fall 2004
ENW 2000.01: Theories of Writing Holt
This course closely examines theories of writing and the writing process. Students will experiment with a wide variety of writing practices over the course of the semester and will be asked to respond to each other's work as well as to the work of professional writers. Students will also explore the ramifications of writing theory by writing and revising a personal theory of writing. Reading selections may include Life of Pi by Yann Martel; The Liar's Club by Mary Karr; Clear Springs by Bobbie Ann Mason; and Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy. ENW 2000 is required of all English majors following the 'Writing Emphasis' program, and should be taken in the sophomore year, before enrolling in 3000-level ENW courses. This course does not fulfill the general education Humanities requirement.
ENW 2510.02: Intermediate Composition (Second 8 weeks)
Hutchins
Our eight-week course aims to develop writing skills by using some creative non-fiction approaches that can't usually be squeezed into freshman composition. I have titled this section of the course: 'Nashville: Portrait of a City.' Let me emphasize first that it doesn't matter whether you've been in Nashville one week or all your life. The course is about discovery; writing the city gives us a starting place. Nashville is ripe for writing about, and it's astonishing how few people have done so. At a time of significant transition, people are asking if we can speak of one city--or are there many Nashvilles? In fact, that should not be a new question since the city has always been fascinatingly diverse in many ways. We'll think of Nashville in microcosm and in macrocosm, asking ourselves how the city presents itself, how it thinks of itself, how it embraces stereotypes or fights against them. Yes, we'll use Altman's film--and others. But mostly I want you to open up yourselves to the city in ways that enable you to write about it as no one else could, and, in the process, to write a portrait of yourselves. Your vision, your experience, your choices will first shape themselves into a variety of short responses, eventually forming a collage or portfolio that synthesizes the entire semester's work--and something to be proud of. Trust me to give you some provocative and enjoyable exercises to get you started.
Please come to see me about the course if you want to (WHB 207A). You will need some kind of camera and film (disposable is fine) and the willingness to make a few excursions (I will work with you to make the latter possible). We'll read some short works and articles about Nashville and other cities. Please check with me at the end of the semester for the book list, but at present I'm considering: Cisneros, House on Mango Street, Momaday, House Made of Dawn, Steven Womack, Dead Folks' Blues, Underhill, Call of the Mall.
ENW 3520.01: Writing and the Creative Process
Hutchins
'I can see it now'--how many writers, song-writers, and other artists have made those words or their equivalent almost the 'summing up' of what a work says--and perhaps how the writer came to imagine it? James Joyce was brilliant in borrowing the word 'epiphany' to describe such crystallizing moments. In this course, we will examine how creativity applies to all types of writing, and how writing finds creative directions. Not only will we discuss ways to stimulate our 'creative selves,' but we'll also look into some fascinating studies currently underway about the nature of creativity in conjunction with human mind, spirit, and body. Appropriately, perhaps, the course will focus on expanding our boundaries regarding verbal creativity by making links with the visual imagination and visual stimuli. From typeface to graffiti to body art to inscriptions on statues to sky-writing: there's no limit to what may fall within our magic circle. And we'll even consider aesthetics and the judgment of visual and written art. As the course progresses, you will build a portfolio of shorter pieces of writing of various types: mini- projects that I hope will form an amalgamated whole at journey's end, at which time you'll write a reflection about your own creative process and about how we may have 'opened our eyes.' Likely, the portfolio will also include visuals, though you may prefer to paint your pictures in words alone. Creative writing will be welcomed as part of this portfolio but will not be required.
Come to see me if you'd like to know more and for a definitive list of readings. For now, I'm considering: Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Chevalier, The Girl with A Pearl Earring; DeLillo, Libra.
This course is open by invitation only. Please contact Dr. Hutchins at hutchinss@mail.belmont.edu or stop by her office at WHB 207-A/ 460-6389.
ENW 3580.1SL: Writing in the Community
Pinter
Are you looking for a way to make a difference in the world, and at the same time, radically challenge your own learning? ENW 3580.1SL is an upper level course that matches students' skills with community needs. By placing class members throughout Nashville, ENW3580 encourages cooperation among Belmont students and non-profit organizations serving the broader community. The aim of the course is to explore how reading and writing are connected to larger educational, social, and political systems. By putting technical skills to work in the real world, students should gain tangible hands-on experience. Community organizations, in turn, should have motivated workers to accomplish goals that might not otherwise be met. Together, both groups benefit from the sharing of skills and knowledge and the strengthening of community ties. One of the goals of the course is to enact sustainable change, so that knowledge does not leave with the students, but remains within the community. As a class, we read and write about issues involving the community--some authors include Annie Dillard, Toni Cade Bambara, Jonathan Kozol, Louise Erdrich, and Marian Wright Edelman Community Service Convocation Credit will be available for the service learning work of this class.
ENW 4990.01: Preparing for Creative Thesis
Hutchins
A semester-long directed study aimed at defining and launching a creative thesis or equivalent longer project. Admission strictly limited and by invitation only. Please contact Dr. Hutchins at hutchinss@mail.belmont.edu or stop by her office at WHB 207-A/ 460-6389.
Literature Courses Fall 2004
ENL 2400.01: Poetics of Country Music (Second 8 weeks)
Pence
Could we consider the famous country song line 'there's a tear in my beer' poetry? In this interdisciplinary eight-week course, students will learn the techniques that country lyrics share with poetry. We will study meter, form, and structure as well as discuss the more theoretical and historical aspects of country music and poetry. The class will explore many questions such as how is modern poetry similar to country lyrics in form, content, and purpose? How does the readership or the listener shape the genre? Why does literary criticism focus more on poetry rather than song lyrics? Finally, are contemporary song writers our popular, modern poets? Songwriters from Nashville's community will serve as class speakers as well as guests from the music industry. We will read contemporary poetry from our text, Poetry, An Introduction, and listen to contemporary songwriters such as Lucinda Williams, Brad Paisley, Hank Williams Sr., Dolly Parton, and Johnny Cash. Throughout the semester, students will write literary analyses of songs and learn scansion, metrics and forms. Students interested in this course do not need to have an in-depth understanding of contemporary music or poetry as both of these genres will be taught, but students should be interested in learning the techniques and history that influence popular country music.
CLA/ENL 3300.25: Classical Mythology (First 8 weeks)
Anderson
In this course we shall study classical mythology by reading great works of literature from Greece and Rome. Apart from simply learning the myths, the literary experience of the course should be valuable. We shall read selections from, for example, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the works of the great Athenian tragedians, and Ovid's epic poem, the Metamorphoses. What we refer to today as 'mythology' was for the ancients an integral and real part of their world-view, influencing everything from their religion to their politics. By studying the myths, therefore, we shall gain some insight into the overall culture of the ancient world. No previous experience with classical literature is required.
ENL 3500.01: History of Language and Linguistics
Monteverde
Recognizing that any description of this course is destined to be off-putting, let me begin by stating that ideally this course should make your own language come alive for you as a living entity whose current form is the result of all its childhood experiences and whose future shape though predictable to some extent is also yet to be determined. We will study the growth of our language from its origin as a descendant of the Indo-European language family in distant prehistory to its current position as the 2nd most widely known language in the modern world. Tests will be augmented with a variety of assignments, such as a personal language history, designed to help you appreciate the on-going and individual process of change that can be experienced in the study of English. An optional service learning unit can also be taken as part of the course. Note: I may also be offering a small section of this course for EDU graduate students this summer; please contact me for information if you have a time conflict in the fall.
ENL 3620.01: Shakespeare: Representative Plays
Wells
This course will introduce students to the unsurpassed and inexhaustible pleasures of Shakespeare's plays. We will begin with a study of Shakespeare's language, with the goal of helping students become competent readers of his plays, and move to practicing a more accomplished literacy whereby we study how Shakespeare's plays yield dizzyingly pleasurable experiences through beauty, poignancy, irony, paradox and wit--the qualities that make Shakespeare pre-eminent among dramatists in our language. To these ends we will study plays from all four traditional Shakespearean genres--comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances.
ENL 3810.01: Folklore in Contemporary Life
Cox
Have you received an e-mail recently, warning you that the government is about to impose a 5-cent tax on every e-mail that is delivered to you? Did you forward the e-mail on to others, urging them to write their representatives in Congress to protest the implementation of this tax system? If so, you have participated in the transmission of contemporary folklore, serving as a 'conduit' for an urban legend!
Because it is 'traditional' by definition, folklore is thought by many to consist primarily of 'old wives' tales,' quaint sayings, and ancient superstitions. In fact, folklore abounds in modern life--as the American Folklore Society's current slogan asserts, folklore is 'Right Here, Right Now.' In ENL 3810 we will critically examine some of the many different forms contemporary folklore takes. We will study such traditional material as jokes, personal-experience narratives, occupational folklore, folk festivals, folk art, and--yes--urban legends, examining how these forms of 'expressive culture' communicate the issues that concern us in the modern age.
ENL 3850.01: Short Story: World Story
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 in reaction to their reading, and will
present a story or stories to the class and lead class
discussion.
Work which we will read (this list may be revised before class begins):
*Ovid,
Metamorphoses
*
Pancatantra
*D. H. Lawrence,
The Fox
*
Arabian Nights
*Marie de France,
Lais
*Boccaccio,
The Decameron
*Marguarite de Navarre,
The Heptameron
*Bernard Dadie,
The Black Cloth
*Angela Carter,
The Bloody Chamber
*
The Classic Fairy Tales
*Sherman Alexie,
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
*Gao Xingjiang,
Buying a Fishing Rod For My Grandfather
When you sign up for this course, please send me an email: painej@mail.belmont.edu I will establish an email group as soon as possible and distribute a list of the texts with specific editions needed. I would also especially like a volunteer or volunteers for discussion of Ovid. If you are interested, please let me know.
ENL 3910.01: Constructing Gender in Early American Literature
(online)
Curtis
In this course, we'll investigate how a wide range of conceptions of masculinity and femininity were constructed in Early American Literature. Among the questions we'll be investigating are: How did various early American communities try to define what a 'man' and a 'woman' were supposed to be? When and why did certain ideas of 'the gentleman' and 'the lady' appear? What special pressures did frontier life put on the constructions of gender? How do certain events--the Salem Witchcraft trials, the Great Awakenings, the Revolution--serve as important indicators of both local and more widespread notions of masculinity and femininity? How were violent encounters with other races used to create and/or subvert popular ideas about gender? How are the humorous writings of Early America an especially good barometer of attitudes toward gender?
Authors will include Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Ebenezer Cooke, Elizabeth Ashbridge, Dr. Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur, Royall Tyler, Judith Sargent Murray, Susanna Rowson, Rebecca Rush, and Washington Irving. Participants in the course should emerge with a more complete understanding of the range of theories about gender, as well as a very good background in Early American Literature!
Important Note: This course will meet online, using WebCT. You must contact Dr. Curtis at curtisd@mail.belmont.edu once you register for this course.
ENL 3940.01: American Southern Literature
Tully
This will be an intensive reading course that surveys the literature of Southern writers in the twentieth century. We will begin by trying to define Southern literature as it developed during the Southern Renaissance, and we will conclude with contemporary writers as we attempt to answer the question 'Is there still such a thing as Southern Lit.?'
We will consider novels by William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, and Ernest Gaines. We will read shorter works by the Fugitive Poets, Thomas Wolfe, Katherine Anne Porter, Peter Taylor, Bobbie Ann Mason, Jayne Anne Phillips, and Andre Dubus. Requirements include one longer essay, an annotation project, a midterm and a final exam. I strongly recommend summer reading; I am happy to provide a reading list.
