Download Spring 2017 literature program upper division course offerings

English Department Literature Program Course Offerings (Spring 2017) Upper-­‐Division Special Topics ENGL 3110: Literature & Film Kyle Bishop ([email protected]) This interdisciplinary course will provide students with a detailed investigation of narrative film as a literary genre, focusing not only on the critical elements of narrative in both novels and cinema, but also the theoretical and critical issues associated with adaptation. Unit clusters will include Romeo and Juliet, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Room. ENGL 4210 Literary History: the Victorian era Bryce Christensen ([email protected]) An in-­‐depth look at the approximately 70 years during which the novel grew to maturity (Dickens, Eliot, Thackery, Trollope, et al.), poetry flourished (Tennyson, both the Brownings, Swinburne, both the Rossettis, et al.), and non-­‐fiction prose developed a potent new range (Carlyle, Newman, Huxley, Mill, Pater, et al.). The class will examine the impact on literature of major changes in political life (e.g., the Reform Act of 1832, the rise of British imperialism), in scientific thought (above all, Darwin), in education (mass education of the working class) and in global economics (the Industrial Revolution and the repeal of the Corn Laws). ENGL 4310 Major Authors: Milton and New Historicism Jessica Tvordi ([email protected]) This course offers in-­‐depth seminar focusing on the works English writer John Milton, with special emphasis on understanding those works within the political contexts of seventeenth-­‐century England. To that end, this course will introduce students to key approaches to New Historicism (and Cultural Materialism), including theoretical texts (primarily Raymond Williams and Michel Foucault) and the scholarly essays by contemporary Milton’s scholars. Students will utilize this knowledge in readings of primary works by Milton (and his contemporaries), including but not limited to his political poetry, his polemical tracts, and Paradise Lost. Students will keep a critical Commonplace Book, give two presentations, and complete a writing sequence that will culminate in a conference-­‐length essay with secondary research. ENGL 4510 Topics in Literature: African American Literature Kelly Ferguson ([email protected]) From talking drums to talking books, African American Literature is a literary canon born of African culture and the Anglo-­‐American belletristic tradition. But what, exactly, accounts for the “African” and "American" elements? And what is the relation between vernacular literature (the blues, gospel, the sermon, jazz) and the formal African American literary tradition? This course will trace these how these questions evolve through works ranging from nineteenth century slave narratives to contemporary authors. Electives & Literature Surveys on the back-­‐à English Department Literature Program Course Offerings (Spring 2017) Electives & Literature Surveys ENGL 2130 Imaginative Literature: Monsters Charla Strosser ([email protected]) This course is an introduction to imaginative literature as cultural production, providing a detailed overview of a specific genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.). Students will discuss a variety of texts to recognize generic characteristics and understand embedded cultural value and social meaning. This semester, we will be examining Monsters from Myth and Legend and their role as cultural constructs. We will be reading the following: Grendel by John Gardner, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Legend of Wonder Woman (Graphic Novel) by Renae de Liz , and other short readings. ENGL 2210 Introduction to Folklore Wynne Summers ([email protected]) This course introduces students to the field of folklore study, which includes myths, legends, beliefs, oral narratives, ballads, folksongs, material culture, riddles, and proverbs. Through folklore (and folklife), we seek an understanding of what it means to be human in the contexts of our stories. In addition to the vast literature that makes up folklore, you will be working with material culture as well, collecting stories, legends, myths, and beliefs that frame cultural backgrounds and contexts. Folklore, in a broader sense, defines what it means to be human through the process and sharing of stories—stories that seek to define, identify, and inform traditions and cultures. Part of the process of learning and understanding folklore is to collect and document folklore through observation and fieldnotes. You will be working with the Fife Folklore Collections at Utah State University, as well as implementing your own series of collections as related to the field of folklore. ENGL 3220: American Literature II Kyle Bishop ([email protected]) This survey course will study the literature of the United States from the Civil War through to just beyond World War II. While the readings will include key canonical works and authors, this semester an intentional effort will be made to include non-­‐canonical works by women and minorities. ENGL 3240 British Literature II Bryce Christensen ([email protected]) This course will be a wide-­‐ranging survey course carrying students through the Neoclassical era (Defoe, Addison and Steele, Pope, Swift, Johnson, Goldsmith, Thomson, and Gray), the Romantic period (Burke, Wollstonecraft, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley), the Victorian era (Carlyle, Newman, both Brownings, Tennyson, Dickens, Eliot, Ruskin, and Wilde), and finally the modern era (World War I poets, Hardy, Joyce, Woolf, Auden, Larkin, Hughes, Betjeman, Causley, Achebe, and Walcott). Special emphasis on poetry. ENGL 3260 Continental European Literature II Nozomi Irei ([email protected]) This survey will highlight major works from the Renaissance onwards. Texts in the original language will be available. "Modernity" implies a shift in notions of language and communicability: How might Literature explore the "communication breakdown" that is revealed in a unique way in modernity—especially in Europe? We will begin by examining some of the prevailing concepts of "Humanism." Upper-­‐Division Special Topics on the back-­‐à