Click here for a full list of graduate courses offered in the 2019-20 academic year.

 

Fall Term 2019

 

Course ID: ENG 514

Course Title: Intro to Graduate Studies

Section: 1

CRN: 13775

Instructor Name: Ward

Day: TR

Time: 1600-1720

Course Description: In addition to explaining the requirements, procedures, and trajectory of the MA program, this class offers a rapid introduction to the theories, methods, and professional practices of academics working in the fields of literature, rhetoric and composition, and film studies. Throughout the course, we will examine a series of prominent critical approaches that have guided advanced study in all of the program’s three MA fields: (1) literature and culture; (2) rhetoric, writing, and culture; and (3) film and visual studies.

 

 

Course ID: ENG 575

Course Title: Studies in Criticism

Section: 1

CRN: 19412

Instructor Name: Gottlieb

Day: MW

Time: 1200-1320

Course Description: The vast majority of available scientific evidence confirms that we now live in the Anthropocene: a new geological epoch in which human-caused alterations to our planet’s atmosphere and surface have begun to create large-scale, potentially irreversible environmental damage. Beginning with the insight that the etymology of the word “apocalypse” involves uncovering or revealing what has previously been hidden or unseen, this course will take up select threads of recent and contemporary writing and making regarding the Anthropocene and what it may portend. As we read a variety of theoretical reflections on the past, present, and future of anthropogenic global warming, we’ll pay particular attention to the roles that capitalism, racism, and speciesism play in hastening the impending ecological catastrophe and the attendant end of our current ways of life. We’ll also read some speculative fiction that imagines what make take place after the end of the world as we know it, and consider the work of visual artists and climate activists who are trying to forestall -- or at least prepare us for -- those apocalyptic futures by bringing public attention to the unsustainable conditions of our precarious present.

**MA Experience Course**

 

 

Course ID: ENG 580

Course Title: Studies in Literature, Culture, and Society: Literature and Science

Section: 1

CRN: 19409

Instructor Name: Malewitz

Day: MWF

Time: 1100-1150

Course Description: This course is designed to introduce students to the diverse means by which modern science has entered into dialogue with modern and contemporary literature and literary theory. The working thesis of the course is that the various challenges presented by modern physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and communication theory are not only reflected in but also transformed by modern cultural artifacts and literary theories. Students will explore the significance of such interdisciplinary translations through a variety of generic perspectives including drama, essay, fiction, and autobiography. We will examine how artists employ scientific theory to organize or preserve unfathomable historical events, how they adapt the technologies of science towards the production of new artistic structures, how they portray scientists at work at their craft, and how they show us how science redefines notions of gender, family, and other humanist constructs.

 

 

Course ID: ENG 585

Course Title: Studies in American Literature: Literary Collage

Section: 1

CRN: 19413

Instructor Name: Rodgers

Day: W

Time: 1700-1950

Course Description: In this craft course we will explore works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that employ a collage or fragmented structure, and use them as models for our own work. We will begin with an introduction to the visual art of collage (and students will be encouraged to explore visual elements in their own work/play throughout the term). Readings may include Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Renee Gladman’s Calamities, and Valeria Luiselli’sLost Children Archive, among others. We’ll study the effective use of fragments, juxtaposition, images, and ephemera, while always keeping in mind the relationship of part(s) to whole. Requirements: weekly creative assignments; reading responses/analyses; presentations; and a final collage project.

**Craft Course**

 

 

Course ID: ENG 590

Course Title: History of the English Language

Section: 1

CRN: 19411

Instructor Name: Bude

Day: TR

Time: 1400-1520

Course Description: Between January 2018 and March 2019, 650 new entries were added to the Oxford English Dictionary’s catalog of nearly 230,000 English words. Among them were “puggle,” “Latin@,” and “peoplekind” – proof that English is constantly changing to address the concerns and interests of the present. In this class, we will study the history of the English language over the last 1500 years, examining its syntax, grammar, and vocabulary in its social, political, and artistic context. How do war, trade, globalization, memes, and tourism affect language? How is it that we consider the creole of Papua New Guinea (Mi lukim dok), Old English (Ic seo thone hund), Middle English (Y se the dogge), and Modern Standard English (I see the dog) as belonging to the same language despite their broad differences? Although we will focus on the whole history of English, this class will pay particularly close attention to Old English, Middle English, and contemporary Englishes from around the world.

 

 

Course ID: WR 511

Course Title: The Teaching of Writing

Section: 1

CRN: 17797

Instructor Name: Pflugfelder

Day: MWF

Time: 0900-0950

Course Description: In WR 411/511, The Teaching of Writing, we’ll study research about the teaching of writing and practice what it means to assign, evaluate, and respond to student writers. This course is designed to introduce current and future teachers of writing to theory and pedagogy in composition studies, to help us become aware of and strengthen our own writing processes, and to enable us to make and express connections between classroom experience and composition theory. We’ll be looking at assessment, response, assignment creation, grammar, literacy, multimedia, process, and genre as we explore composition and writing. Coming out of this class, you’ll be better prepared to teach and evaluate your students’ writing and likely feel more confident in your own writing.

**Pedagogy Theory Course**

 

 

Course ID: WR 517

Course Title: Teaching Practicum: English Composition

Section: 1

CRN: 10177

Instructor Name: Jensen

Day: M

Time: 1700-1850

Course Description: This teaching practicum is open to MFA GTAs who will be teaching WR 121 next year.

 

 

Course ID: WR 524

Course Title: Advanced Fiction Writing

Section: 1

CRN: 10676

Instructor Name: Scribner

Day: R

Time: 1400-1650

Course Description: Enrollment in this workshop is restricted to graduate students accepted into the MFA program in fiction writing.

 

 

Course ID: WR 540

Course Title: Advanced Nonfiction Writing

Section: 1

CRN: 14763

Instructor Name: Passarello

Day: T

Time: 1730-2020

Course Description: This section of WR540 is inspired by THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS, a 2003 Danish film about the creative impulse. It is designed to serve as a generative nonfiction workshop in which participants produce drafts and revisions of creative essays on a series of quick deadlines. Because writing is generated so quickly, workshop discussions will focus on process rather than polish or product. Instructor permission is required for any student who is not a member of the 2019-2020 Nonfiction MFA cohort.

 

 

Course ID: WR 541

Course Title: Advanced Poetry Writing

Section: 1

CRN: 13400

Instructor Name: Holmberg

Day: T

Time: 1400-1650

Course Description: This course, open to MFA graduate students in Poetry and other MFA students by permission, is a poetry workshop with the theme "The Poetics of Visual Space." In addition to providing a forum to hear feedback on any poem you would like to submit, the workshop will ask poets to consider the contributions that the arrangement of text and other visuals on the page make toward meaning and understanding. We will read an array of work that utilizes visual elements in central ways, or which could be defined as "visual poetry," and poets will be required to complete several visual poetry projects, one of which will involve work in the Moreland Letterpress Studio.

 

 

Course ID: WR 575

Course Title: Rhetorics of Race

Section: 1

CRN: 19426

Instructor Name: Ribero

Day: TR

Time: 1000-1120

Course Description: By exploring the interrelated concepts of race, racialization, and racism, Rhetorics of Raceproblematizes race as a taken-for-granted phenomenon. Through reading, writing, and discussion, we study racial formations as historically specific and analyze contemporary forms of racism in the US. As rhetoricians, we pay close attention to how rhetoric and discourse have the power to reproduce and challenge white supremacy and race-based oppressions. Emphasizing the intersectionality of oppression—that racism necessarily takes place at intersections with other forms of subordination including sexism, homophobia, ablelism, etc.—Rhetorics of Racedraws from Queer Black Feminism, Chican@ Feminism, and Critical Race Theory.

 

 

Course ID: WR 599

Course Title: Special Topics: Thesis and Dissertation Writing

Section: 1

CRN: 20043

Instructor Name: Malewitz

Day: MWF

Time: 1400-1450

Course Description: This course is designed to assist students who are in the midst of writing their thesis or dissertation. Throughout the course, we will practice habits of daily writing with an eye towards drafting, developing, and revising specific sections of your thesis. By the end of the course, students should be able to more clearly articulate the purpose of their project, the writing conventions of the discipline in which it is written, and the daily and weekly habits required to ensure that the project is completed in a timely manner. We will also develop strategies for self-assessment and for managing the stresses that accompany this major project.