English Newsletter

All English and Creative Writing courses fulfill General Education requirements as Humanities courses. Those with course numbers ending in a 6, 7, or 8 can be used for Diverse Cultural Perspectives credit though no course may count for two requirements. For students who enrolled before Fall 2006, "old" requirements apply. Notes on these appear with each course.

Showings are scheduled for Sundays at 7 in Kesler/Hickok. All films will be on reserve, and they may be viewed at times other than Sundays.

CRW-105 Topics in Creative Writing: Fables, Folktales & Science Fiction. Chuck Aukema. MW 3 p.m.
General Education Category III B -- Creative Expression
In this course we read old tales and new fictions, uncovering the bones of stories and searching for story formulas and devices. Then we steal the underlying story skeleton, place it in the contemporary world, and invent new magical devices that suspend the reader’s disbelief. Extensive writing projects.

This course teaches basic skills for producing a literary magazine. The students produce an issue of Coe's nationally recognized literary magazine, The Coe Review. Although there are no course prerequisites, students must have the permission of the instructor to register.

CRW-075 -- Advanced Editing. 0.5 credit. Gordon Mennenga M 7 p.m.
This course is for students holding appointments as editors of the Coe Review.

CRW-280 and 285 -- Poetry Workshop and Advanced Poetry Workshop. Ann Struthers -- TT 2

General Education Category III B -- Creative Expression.
Workshop method. All students are expected to be aware of some of the contemporary poets and their writings. On Tuesdays there will be in-class writing and discussion of these. On Thursdays, reading and discussion of student writings. At least 30 lines each week. Revisions expected. No exams. Portfolio required.

CRW-290 and 295-01 -- Fiction Workshop and Advanced Fiction Workshop. Charles Aukema -- TT 3:30

CRW-290 and 295-02 -- Fiction Workshop and Advanced Fiction Workshop. Carol Gorman -- MW 3
General Education Category III B -- Creative Expression. We'll study short-story elements and apply what we learn to our own writing.Students will be expected to produce 20-25 pages of revised work during the semester.

The English Deparment welcomes Patrick Naick!

ENG-127-02 Exploring Literature: Gender & Civil Rights. Carol Gorman MW 7

ENG-166-00 African Literature. James Randall MWF 11
Reading and discussion of representative works of such writers as Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Chimamanda Adiche (Nigeria), Ama Ato Aidoo (Ghana), Miriama Ba (Senegal), Camara Laye (Guinea), Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), D.T. Niane (Mali). Mid-term and final exams. Short papers and term paper.

ENG-187 Literary Studies in Gender: American Women Short Story Writers. Terry Heller MWF 12.
The course introduces short stories written by women over the last 150 years. Authors included are: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Sandra Cisneros, and Louise Erdrich. We will study stories in ways that help us to develop analytic skill, and we will give attention to how these stories represent gender issues, ways in which femininity and masculinity are defined during this period and how these authors represent the positions of men and women within social structures. Grading will be based upon short writing exercises, several short essays and exams. As of this writing, it is likely this course will include a service learning component, working with Polk Elementary Girl Scouts in a reading project about female role models.

This course focuses on two questions in relation to major American monster films. How are monsters constructed? What kinds of stories do we tell about them? We will analyze "classic" American monster films from 1931 to 1960, including: James Whale, Frankenstein 1931,Tod Browning, Dracula, 1931, Don Siegel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956, Cooper & Schoedsack, King Kong 1933, George Waggner, The Wolf Man, 1941, and Alfred Hitchcock Psycho, 1960. Students will purchase DVD copies of these films, so they may study them in detail. We will study basic techniques of film analysis as well as theory for the analysis of monsters and their stories. Grading will be based upon written exercises, quizzes and exams, and a research project that includes an essay and class presentations. For the research project, students may need to purchase another DVD.

ENG 267 African American Literature. Patrick Naick MWF 2
The Coming of Age story typically focuses on the spiritual, psychological, and social development of an individual character from childhood to maturity. Although some African American texts fit neatly into this conception, many complicate it by creating variations that comment on the development of the race as a whole while critiquing larger societal issues that hinder such growth.In this course, students will study a variety of texts that exemplify the distinctions of this (sub)genre and will examine issues of identity the selected authors were compelled to address.Readings will include such books as James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and Sapphire’s PUSH.

We will read selections from one hundred years of “unconventional” fiction and study a wide assortment of literary experimentation. Students will be expected to present discussions onconceptual movements such as pataphysics, dada, surrealism, theatre of the absurd, the antinovel, metafiction, magic realism, Ouiplo, ergotic literature, cybertext, and postmodern literature. We will read short excerpts from a wide variety of authors (Stein, Jarry, Queneau, Breton, Tzara, Kerouac, Borges, Beckett, Robbe-Grillet, Barthelme, Coover, Barth). The texts we will all read: Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, Acker’sBlood and Guts in High School, Kosinski’s Painted Bird, Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Will Chris Baer’s Kiss Me, Judas, Craig Clevenger’s Dermaphoria, Stepan Graham Jones’s Demon Theory, Monica Drakes’s Clown Girl, and Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts.

This course introduces the tenets and practices of film criticism. Students will develop techniques of film analysis, including the scrutiny of frame composition, point of view, editing, and sound. Films tell stories, and students will analyze how basic features of narrative, such as character and plot, are communicated through the media of film. We will also explore the sociology and psychology of movie-going through readings in film theory and history.

Focus will be primarily on American film, but about half the films are chosen from world cinema. Specific topics of consideration will be genre (film noir, romantic comedy, westerns, and so forth); stars and stardom; spectatorship, voyeurism and identification; gender, race and class roles; high culture and popular culture. Requirements: regular film screenings; secondary reading; numerous short writing assignments and three essays.

This class surveys major works and traditions in British literature from the middle ages to the early 18th century: we begin with Beowulf and conclude with a couple of works that anticipate the revolutionary energies of the Romantic era. Covering four major periods and a wide variety of genres and modes, the course is geared to provide majors and minors with a foundation for advanced literary study. It is organized in a lecture/discussion style.

ENG 347 American Literature. Patrick Naick MWF 12
General Education Category 4: Western Historical Perspectives.

Emphasizing the urban environment, this course studies a wide range of life stories that explore various perspectives on the American experience.Calling attention to the different influences and elements that shape lives—work, education, migration, personal relationships—this course achieves its goals by studying life stories that articulate the production of self and complicate the idea of “Americanness.”Through the study of varied experiences, students will interrogate what it means to represent oneself and negotiate the complex relationships between place and identity in specifically American urban contexts. Some of the required texts will include: Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street,John Okada, No-No Boy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon, and David Treuer, The Hiawatha.

ENG-505-00: Victorian Poetry. James Randall MWF 9
General Education Category 4: Western Historical Perspectives.

Reading and discussion of materials of such poets as Tennyson, Robert Browning, Arnold, Hopkins, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Mid-term and final exams. Short papers and term paper.

ENG 515 Victorian Fiction. Melissa Sodeman W 6 - 8:20
General Education Category 4: Western Historical Perspectives.
Henry James called Victorian novels "large, loose, baggy monsters," but it was in the Victorian era that the novel developed the shape and form that to some extent still define the genre today.This course will explore the British novel from the period 1832-1901 in its literary, historical, and cultural context, paying particular attention to its concern with courtship and marriage, writing and reading, the real and the fantastic. The Victorian period was one of immense social, ideological and cultural change, and we will consider how the industrial revolution, scientific and technological progress, colonial expansion, and changing notions of femininity and domesticity shaped the development of the novel during this period. Readings may include works by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, and Thomas Hardy.

Required for English Majors and Minors; prerequisites, ENG-315 and one literature course numbered above 315.

The best terms to take this course are 2nd semester sophomore or 1st semester junior. If you plan off-campus study, 2nd semester sophomore is better.

Introduction to the profession of literary study. Introduction to literary theory, advanced textual study, and basic research skills for literary scholarship.

ENG 725 - Seminar: Mark Twain Ann Struthers TT 11
Reading Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Reading of critical literature. Discussions of readings and of humor. In-class presentations. Several short papers and one long (20 pages) final paper.

Reading Morrison texts such as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Jazz, Paradise, Playing in the Dark. Consideration of some critical materials. Discussion of texts and related subjects. Short papers and seminar paper.