department of english and literary arts course ...ralph ellison, walker percy, and others. fulfills...

Department of English and Literary Arts

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS—Spring 2020*

*Fulfillment of DU and Departmental requirements is listed after each description. All

English courses, except those used to fulfill DU Common Curriculum requirements, can

also count for English Elective credit.

ASEM 2403

CRN 5370

Versions of Egypt

Brian Kiteley

Tuesday 4-7:50 PM

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will study what led up and what has followed the

recent Egyptian Revolutions. We will read Alifa Rifaat’s Distant View of the Minaret,

Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land, Alaa al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building, Wael

Ghonim’s Revolution 2.0, and excerpts of Peter Hessler’s The Buried: An Archaeology of

the Egyptian Revolution. Students will write both critical and creative essays for this

seminar.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Advanced Seminar (ASEM) requirement

ASEM 2422

CRN 3871

Textual Bodies: Discourse and the Corporeal in American Culture

Tayana Hardin

Tuesday, Thursday 2-3:50 PM

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course explores how bodies acquire meanings, and how

those meanings are created, represented, disseminated, or contested through discursive and

embodied means. More specifically, this seminar equally privileges the book and the body

as sites that, when studied jointly, invite thoughtful consideration of power and privilege,

and the discursive and material consequences of race and gender and their intersections

with other categories of social identity. Course practices include close readings of literary,

philosophical, and visual texts by Sandra Cisneros, Judith Butler, Charlotte Perkins Gil-

man, and others; creative and critical writing exercises; robust in-class participation; and a

final class project.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Advanced Seminar (ASEM) requirement

ENGL 1000 Section 1

CRN 1027

Introduction to Creative Writing

Evelyn Hampton

Monday, Wednesday 8-9:50 AM

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this reading- and writing-intensive course, we’ll explore

different genres of creative writing and consider different modes of creativity. Assigned

readings and writing prompts ask students to consider how they understand and interpret

texts, and whether and how they then act in the world on their interpretations. Through this

process, we will engage with works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and hybrid texts and

gain a better understanding of creativity as a socially engaged process.

*Prerequisite: This course (or equivalent) is required before enrolling in intermediate or

advanced creative writing courses.

Fulfills DU major curriculum requirement: Introduction to creative writing.

ENGL 1000 Section 2

CRN 1479


Cassandra Eddington

Tuesday, Thursday 8-9:50 AM

COURSE DESCRIPTION:




ENGL 1000 Section 3

CRN 5384


Justin Wymer

Wednesday, Friday 12-1:50 PM

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Creative writing is, at its core, a core-emptying enterprise: we

write to empty ourselves of emotion, story, anecdote, inspiration, frustration, anxiety, day-

dream, and nightmare. We write to express ourselves in manners more intangible than those

that purely academic writing requires. In this class, we will be sure to fill our wellsprings

so that they do not run by drinking in the language particular to prose, poetry, and creative

nonfiction as we play, take risks, and challenge and question ourselves. Most important,

we will practice experimenting with words and forms as we come to understand the magi-

cal things we create.

In this generative-writing course, student scholars will be introduced to a variety of

genres of creative writing to whet their literary appetites and begin developing their per-

sonal sensibility about language. They will learn various prompts, techniques, and jump-

ing-off points to help them generate writing. They will also learn revision techniques in

workshop. The course will culminate in a final portfolio and classroom exhibition of re-

vised student work.




ENGL 1000 Section 4

CRN 1973


Blake Guffey

Monday, Wednesday 10-11:50 AM

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this introductory creative writing class we will read and

write across a wide variety of works – poetry, the novel, short story, theater, and film –

with an eye toward how form and content work together to manifest the creative impulse.

You will be directed through the quarter with multiple creative writing exercises and par-

ticipate in both small group and full class workshops of your original writing.




ENGL 1006 Section 1

CRN 3398

Art of Fiction

Elijah Null

Tuesday, Thursday 8-9:50 AM

COURSE DESCRIPTION: We will examine in this course how American authors writing

in the 40s, 50s, and 60s engage with and modify continental existentialist ideas in their

writing. We will look at works by Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Flannery O’Connor,

Ralph Ellison, Walker Percy, and others.

Fulfills English major curriculum requirement: English elective.

ENGL 1007 Section 1

CRN 1974

Art of Poetry

Taylor Wesley

Tuesday, Thursday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will introduce us to strategies for reading, analyz-

ing, and discussing poetry.


ENGL 1200 Section 1

CRN 3401

International Short Fiction

Ben Caldwell

Wednesday, Friday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: Here in Denver, mountains might represent day hikes and

weekend ski trips, but around one-eighth of the global population calls a mountain region

home. Across the world, mountain communities are treated as both isolated backwaters

and pockets of thriving rural richness. In this class, we will explore the tensions between

these two views of mountain communities by looking at fiction from five countries known

for their mountainous geography: China, Pakistan, Morocco, Haiti, and Chile. We will also

discuss the economic and cultural difficulties facing mountain communities, and occasion-

ally turn our eye to mountains much closer to home by comparing the realities of interna-

tional mountain life with communities in the Rockies and Appalachians. This class is rec-

ommended to students planning on studying abroad.


ENGL 2003 Section 1

CRN 2241

Creative Writing-Poetry

Sarah Sheiner

Monday, Wednesday 2-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this class, we will talk about what we write, why we write

it, and who we are writing it for. We will do this through the reading and discussion of

books that are doing the work of making art while also trying to speak to/affect the public

sphere. These discussions will inform the art we make in class (from poems to collages)

and the feedback we give in workshops. Enrollment in this class means that you are ready

to be receptive and to speak with empathy toward all people, perspectives, and texts intro-

duced and discussed.

*Prerequisite: 4 credits introductory creative writing required for enrollment. Fulfills English major curriculum requirement: Intermediate creative writing.

ENGL 2013 Section 1

CRN 2242

Creative Writing-Fiction

Kelly Krumrie

Monday, Wednesday 2-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, we will investigate how (and perhaps why)

writers tell stories in order to practice (and experiment) writing our own. We will read

critically to tease out elements of fictional craft (e.g., character, setting, plot, dialogue, etc.).

We will also read widely, from a range of primarily contemporary writers working in dif-

ferent forms, including work by Carmen Maria Machado, Steven Dunn, Ho Sok Fong, Ted

Chiang, Joy Williams, and others. Alongside reading and discussion, students will write

short creative and critical responses. In the second half of the term, students will workshop

and revise their own stories. The class will allow writers to practice writing short fiction

while reflecting on how (and again perhaps why) a story can be told.

*Prerequisite: 4 credits introductory creative writing required for enrollment. Fulfills English major curriculum requirement: Intermediate creative writing.

ENGL 2021 Section 1

CRN TBD

Business Technical Writing

Kelly Krumrie

Tuesday, Thursday 12-1:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, students will learn and practice forms of writing

used in professional environments, both individual and collaborative, such as PowerPoint

presentations, memos, proposals, executive summaries, and job application materials. We

will focus on how to craft information in an efficient, organized, and logical manner from

brainstorming and problem-solving to final copy. As this is a cross-disciplinary topic, stu-

dents will be encouraged to tailor course assignments to their fields of study and interests

so that the work is both relevant and practical. Students will come away from the course

with tools and techniques to improve their professional writing as well as a cover letter and

résumé.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement:

ENGL 2035 Section 1

CRN 5386

History of Genre-Poetry

Lindsay Turner

Tuesday, Thursday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: When we think of famous English-language forms in poetry,

we think most often of the forms that have been associated with certain “big-name” au-

thors: Dante’s terza rima, Petrarch and Shakespeare’s sonnets, Spenser’s eponymous stan-

zas, Milton’s blank verse, W.B. Yeats’s ottava rima, Agha Shahid Ali’s ghazal. Yet there’s

a form at the very center of poetry in English that is associated not with a particular author

but, at its origin, with anonymity, with the absence of authorship: the ballad. (Indeed, the

ballad is the source of the meter that underpins much of our poetry, not to mention our

songs: ballad meter, so common that it is called common meter.) In ballad versions from

the traditional to the literary, from early specimens to innovative forms produced by con-

temporary poets, we’ll think together about what this basis in anonymity permits the ballad.

We’ll consider what it means for poetry to be rooted in “folk” traditions, and what powers

this proximity to the “people” lets the poem do. We’ll use the ballad as a focus to think

about tradition and authorship, poetry and the news, borders, identity and political rele-

vance.


ENGL 2221 Section 1

CRN 3019

Shakespeare Seminar

R.D. Perry

Monday, Wednesday 2-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: The idea of a “problem play” has a long history in Shakespeare

criticism, but it does not really have a stable meaning. Plays become “problems” for a

variety of different reasons: some are hard to categorize into established genres like tragedy

or comedy, some cover material that modern audiences find culturally problematic, some

seem to be collaborations with other writers, and some just seem poorly done. This class is

devoted to these unusual—and often unloved—works of Shakespeare, many of which are

seldom studied, and even more seldomly performed. Some of these plays, however, repre-

sent Shakespeare’s highest achievements; so, for every Timon of Athens or Pericles, Prince

of Tyre we will also read Othello or The Tempest. This class should leave you wondering

whether Shakespeare is at his most interesting when he is addressing this or that “problem.”


ENGL 2300 Section 1

CRN 5472

English Literature III

Nichol Weizenbeck

Monday, Wednesday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course completes the final third of the English Literature

Survey. We will examine poetry and prose fiction from 1789 to 1945. The intent of this

course is to trace the arc of British authors beginning with the Romantic period, moving to

the Victorian period, and ending with the Modern period and enable a general understand-

ing of the literary movements and literary works of the differing periods, as well as the

historical, political, social, and cultural contexts surrounding the texts. To enhance our un-

derstanding of the historical and cultural context regarding the literature of the time, both

major and minor works will be explored.


ENGL 2544 Section 1

CRN 3403

Globalization and Cultural Texts

Eric Gould

Monday, Wednesday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course combines fiction and film about India/Indian Di-

aspora, South Africa, and Japan with readings in sociological and other theories of global-

ization. We focus on the impact of globalization on culture—an important and ongoing

effect even in this age of economic deglobalization. We examine how this shapes post-

colonial identity, the morally ambiguous (and at times negative) effects of westernization

and modernization, and the way cultural hybridity complicates nationalism and interna-

tionalism.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Arts and Humanities Foundation, Analyti-

cal Inquiry: Society, Honors, Intercultural Global Studies, FOLA substitution. Course is

primarily for University Honors. Others by permission of instructor.

ENGL 2709 Section 1

CRN 5473

Topics: The Picturesque

Nichol Weizenbeck

Monday, Wednesday 2-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course seeks to examine the genre of the English Pica-

resque from Geoffrey Chaucer to Henry Fielding. Specifically, we will explore the early

origins and their influence on the rise of the picaresque novel in the eighteenth century.

Eighteenth-century England witnessed the rise and development of the novel, which would

become the dominant and privileged genre of the Victorian era. We will scrutinize the

Picaresque and its impact on Realism and the Realist novel. From its humble and uncertain

birth to the beginning of its rise into “high culture,” we will read authors who tremendously

affected the development of the English novel. The intent of this course is to trace the arc

of English interest in the rogue figure and the authors who manipulated her/him, as well as

the historical, political, social, and cultural contexts surrounding the texts. Lastly, we will

question the resilience and longevity of the both the picara/picaroon and the Picaresque.


ENGL 2709 Section 2

CRN 5482

Topics in English: Reading Nature through American Poems

Bin Ramke

Monday, Wednesday 12-1:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: The making of poems is a continuing feature of all cultures,

and curiosity about the world in which those poems is made is necessary to the making and

the reading of poems. Curiosity and poetry are also at this moment in history necessary if

we are to “save” that world. This course will involve reading a large number of individual

poems by a wide range of individuals, but what all the readings will have in common are

questions—what is the substance of the world we find ourselves in, and what is my rela-

tionship to it? Poems are made of words, and words are made of the world, as are human

and other animals, and their plant companions.

All members of the class will need to read and think about the poems as each is assigned,

and to be willing to discuss these readings with each other, but they will also have to think

about their own individual connections to the “art” of the poem, not just the “content,” and

their connections to the living world to which the poems point. Eventually, each individual

will have to formulate ideas in the form of an essay (which may also involve pictures,

sounds, objects) about their own connections to the physical word, and how poetry helps

illuminate such connections. We will clarify this assignment as the class proceeds. There

will also be brief quizzes and short writing assignments throughout.

Texts:

BLACK NATURE: FOUR CENTURIES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY, ed Ca-

mille Dungy, Elizabeth Alexander. University of Georgia Press

978-0820334318

THE ECOPOETRY ANTHOLOGY, ed. Ann Fisher Worth. Trinity University Press.

978-1595341464

WHITE CAMPION, Donald Revell. (class handouts)

Online materials tba

--------------------

“Trevor [Goward] is also occupied, as Thoreau was, by what it means to be an individual,

what it means to live in, as he says, an ‘extra-centric’ relation to one’s society.’ ‘Healthy

human societies, like ecosystems, depend on the proportionate functioning of unlike parts.

Some people seem to believe that all of us should be more or less the same. But that’s not

what ecology teaches us. Our local salmon are an example. The Chinook salmon are

spawning in Clearwater River right now, not far from here.’ Trevor turns his head and

looks off in the distance, at what must be the location of the river. ‘Salmon, they say, always

return to spawn and die in the stretch of the stream they were born in. But that’s not true.

Every year a certain number of our spawners swim upstream, past the spawning grounds,

to a low waterfall we call Bailey’s Chutes. No salmon, to the best of my knowledge, has

ever jumped the Chutes. Every year, though, there are salmon that try and there are tourists

lined up along the stream bank to watch them try. It seems strange that the salmon would

do this, but really it’s not. Some day the rocks that form Bailey’s Chutes will wear down

and a salmon will make it over the top. If the old spawning grounds are lost, then a life that

now seems pointless will suddenly have meaning.”

Boundary Layer, Exploring the Genius between Worlds, Kem Luther, Oregon State

University Press, p 12.


ENGL 2742 Section 1

CRN 5483

Modern Hebrew Literature in Translation: Against All Odds

Adam Rovner

Tuesday, Thursday 12-1:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course offers a survey of significant works of modern

Hebrew literary fiction by major authors in translation covering the twentieth to early

twenty-first centuries. In addition, we will discuss the translation of Hebrew. To flesh out

the historical context, a number of documents, essays, excerpts may also be provided dur-

ing the course of the quarter. Students will consider how the development of Hebrew liter-

ature has contributed to the formation of contemporary Israeli identity, and how the con-

flicts that define the turbulent history of Israel are treated in works of prose fiction by

canonical authors. The selection of diverse literary materials exposes students to the social,

political, and historical changes wrought by the rise of modern day Israel. Through lectures,

close-reading, and exercises, students will gain an appreciation for some of the fundamen-

tal tensions that define Hebrew literature and Israeli culture: (1) collective vs. individual

identity, (2) Jewish particularism vs. universalism, (3) the concept of Diaspora vs. Zion.

Our study aims to reveal the historical and ideological context of these tensions to offer a

nuanced perspective on an area of the world in conflict. Readings are roughly chronologi-

cal. Students will be coached on various interpretive strategies, the intent of which is to

make their time spent reading more valuable. While helpful, no knowledge of Hebrew,

Jewish tradition, or Israeli history is necessary.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: This course fulfills diversity distribution

requirement for ENGL majors; This course fulfills AI-Society requirement for Common

Curriculum

ENGL 2751 Section 1

CRN 5747

American Literature Survey II

Tayana Hardin

Tuesday, Thursday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course focuses on American literature and culture from

the mid-19th century through the early-20th century. Our examination is bracketed on one

end by the upheaval of the Civil War, and, on the other end, by the impact and conse-

quences of interwar industrialism. This time period demanded new considerations of what

it meant to be an “American,” who had rights to that honorific, and by what means these

rights were acquired. As we will see through our examination of novels, short stories, po-

etry, and criticism by this period’s canonical and marginalized writers, literature writ large

served as a site to interrogate, censure, and even praise the ever-shifting terrain of Ameri-

can identity.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: For students entering before Fall 2017:

American Literature (Before OR After 1900). For students entering after Fall 2017: Core

Studies

ENGL 3003 Section 1

CRN 5475

Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry

Bin Ramke

Monday, Wednesday 2-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: Usually class meetings will consist of a discussion period fol-

lowed by in-class writing and/or presentations of work by class members. This seminar

will involve intense reflective reading and writing. Some work is to be turned in during or

shortly after class (in-class writing), other work to be turned in every other week: a poem

by you, possibly a rewrite; or a page of comment on work from the texts (or elsewhere,

with a justification for your choice); or a 1 page commentary on the previous week’s class

discussion, including student poems. The class sessions will include extra-literary contexts

and sources (videos, images of various sorts, non-literary books...) as an aid to our thinking

(about poems but about other things, too).

I am asking that you keep a journal dedicated to this writing seminar, in whatever

form you choose. During the term I ask that you make at least one appointment with me to

discuss writing. At the end of the term you will need to turn in a portfolio of your own

work (edited and possibly rewritten) plus careful and generous discussion of your class-

mate’s work.

*Prerequisite: 4 credits introductory creative writing, and 8 credits of intermediate cre-

ative writing required for enrollment.

Fulfills English major curriculum requirement: Advanced creative writing

ENGL 3003 Section 2

CRN 5476

Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry

Graham Foust

Tuesday, Friday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In addition to composing several of their own poems and as-

sembling a final, revised portfolio to be turned in at the end of the quarter, students will

read and discuss one book on the making of poems (James Longenbach’s How Poems Get

Made), four books of contemporary North American poetry (Susan Howe’s Debths, Sandra

Lim’s The Wilderness, Wayne Miller’s Post-, Rowan Ricardo Phillips’ The Ground, and

Shannon Tharp’s Vertigo in Spring), and one book of contemporary British poetry (Oli

Hazzard’s Blotter). Several non-contemporary poems will be read and discussed as well.

Please note: This is an advanced poetry workshop—students must have taken and passed

Introduction to Creative Writing (ENGL 1000) and one intermediate workshop in poetry

(ENGL 2001, 2002, or 2003) in order to enroll.

*Prerequisite: 4 credits introductory creative writing, and 8 credits of intermediate cre-

ative writing required for enrollment.

Fulfills English major curriculum requirement: Advanced creative writing

ENGL 3402 Section 1

CRN 5477

Early Romantics: Early Romantic Literature and the Invention of Poetic Experiment

Rachel Feder

Monday 12-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, we’ll explore what it might mean to call poetry

“experimental” and work to historicize this category. In the service of this goal, we will

explore the work of Romantic poets including William Blake, William Wordsworth, Sam-

uel Taylor Coleridge, and John Clare. Pairing Romantic-era texts with very recent poetry

will allow us to bring early Romantic innovations into conversation with the experiments

of our own literary-historical moment.


ENGL 3731 Section 1

CRN 5603

Topics in English: Theory and Practice of Creative Writing

Catherine Noske

Tuesday, Thursday 12-1:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course combines the consideration of critical discourses

with creative writing workshopping to interrogate the ways literary theory and creative

practice are intertwined. It will move through a series of theoretical contexts related to

contemporary writing practice. Our focus across the whole will be on the production of

literary fiction and poetry, and the complex cultural and social discourses in which we

inherently involve ourselves when producing such writing. In class, we will move across

three basic activities: discussing theoretical approaches offered within literary studies; cri-

tiquing published literary texts; and engaging in creative exercises designed to support the

refinement of fiction and poetry written for or during the workshop.


ENGL 3732 Section 1

CRN 3405

Topics in English: The African Imagination

Maik Nwosu

Friday 12-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: Focusing mainly on Africa, this course explores and connects

aspects of the African imagination. These aspects include oral performances, thought sys-

tems, literature, art, cinema, and critical discourses in different eras and in various places.

Studied together, these existential and intellectual signposts provide an expanded insight

into African aesthetics from a continental and an interdisciplinary perspective.


ENGL 3733 Section 1

CRN 3021

Topics in English: The Postmodern Novel

Eric Gould

Tuesday, Thursday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In the years following the Second World War until today, lit-

erary fiction has been on a steady course of wildly exhilarating experimentation, with dra-

matic changes in form and content and some entertaining and socially relevant story telling.

This course focuses on important examples of this in American short fiction, along with

three powerful international novels: Zia Haider Rahman’s In the Light of What We Know,

Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, and Amos Oz’s Judas.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: 1900-current period requirement

ENGL 3733 Section 2

CRN 5478

Topics in English: Modern-Postmodern American Lit/Major American Author

Billy J. Stratton

Monday, Wednesday 10-11:50 AM COURSE DESCRIPTION:


ENGL 3733 Section 3

CRN 5479

Topics in English: Latinx Sexuality and Textuality

Kristy Ulibarri

Tuesday, Thursday 2-3:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will explore literary and cultural texts that question

and challenge concepts of gender and sexuality. We will begin by scrutinizing how gender

roles and expectations are constructed, disciplined, and sold. Then we will turn to textual

productions of the body and sexuality to examine pleasure/desire, subject-object dynamics,

and shapeshifting. We will supplement our literary and cultural texts with articles/excerpts

from important gender and sexuality theory from a broad range of critics and scholars. We

will pay particular attention to texts and theories that intersect the questions of gender and

sexuality with questions of race, ethnicity, and marginalized subjectivities.


ENGL 3900 Section 1

CRN 3064

Senior Seminar: Moby Dick

Clark Davis

Monday, Wednesday 12-1:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course we will read, completely and carefully, Herman

Melville’s great novel. Primary attention will always be on the text itself, but we will also

sample and discuss some of Melville’s stronger literary influences (Shakespeare, Robert

Burton, Owen Chase, others) to help get a sense of how the text was constructed and how

it operates in its mid-19th century context.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: English major: Senior Seminar

ENGL 4150 Section 1

CRN 4205

Special Topics in Medieval Lit

Donna Beth Ellard

Monday, Wednesday 12-1:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this experimental class, we will read medieval poetry, gram-

matical texts, and scientific literature in order to consider writing as a field upon which

bird-human relationships manifest in the early middle ages, are symptomized in the early

modern period, and unconsciously “worked out” in the disciplinary practices of contempo-

rary arts and sciences.

We will begin with a robust discussion about the rise of the quill pen as the primary

writing technology in early medieval Britain. We will read scientific literature that dis-

cusses the long-term

impacts (motor, cognitive, and metaphorical) of prolonged tool use on human perceptions

of their

bodies and their immediate environments; and we will read early medieval poems, metrical

treatises, and grammatical texts that evidence the tremendous impact (both explicit and

unthought) of the quill on scribes and poets. We will couple these discussions about quills

and the humans who use them with lots of in-class and out-of-class exercises, in which

students learn how to write with a quill and thereby think more carefully about our reading

materials.

While the first half of the course focuses on quills as tools, the second half of class

tacks in a different direction, entering into a conversation about the evolutionary relation-

ship between birds and humans as it unfolds in scientific literature. It considers bird-human

comparative anatomy as it is first introduced by Pierre Belon in his 1555 L’Historie de la

Nature des Oiseaux and the pre- Linnean bird taxonomies of Volker Coiter in Gabriele

Falloppio’s 1575 De Partibus Similaribus Humain Corporis. Then we will fast forward to

Richard Owen’s 1863 discussion of the Archaeopteryx; Charles Darwin’s 1871 Descent of

Man; biologist W. Tecumseh Fitch’s oeuvre on birds, humans, and evolution; and the ex-

plosive sub-field of evolutionary linguistics, bird-human comparative anatomy, and bird

experimentation. As we think about what the sciences have to say about birds (and how

they organize bird bodies), we will track changes in quill use and writing technology; and

we will reconsider the shared figures of bird, poet, and writing in poetic

environments. Underwriting all of these readings and in-class conversations is the key fact

that, for over a millennium, almost all of the writings we read in this seminar—whether

they are classed as poetic, grammatical, or scientific—have been penned with a bird’s

feather. For 1000 years, we have literally been writing with birds as we write about them.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Fulfills Period Requirement pre 1700

ENGL 4650 Section 1

CRN 3022

Special Topics: 20th Cent Lit

Aleksandr Prigozhin

Wednesday 4-7:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will examine a range of fiction and social, politi-

cal, and literary theory dedicated to the problem of the many in literature and politics. By

“common life,” I mean the intractable problem of collective coexistence indicated by the

question, “how we are to live together?” The question has always been a matter of struggle;

but it became especially pressing for literature in the early 20th century, once mandatory

public education made nearly everyone in Great Britain a reader. Those who had been

ignored for centuries could no longer be left out of account. Literature sought and created

new imaginative resources for understanding the consequences of this fundamental shift.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Fulfills Period Requirement: 20th-21th

Centuries

ENGL 4660 Section 1

CRN 5481

The Black Imagination

Maik Nwosu

Monday 4-7:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: Focusing mainly on Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas

(especially the USA and the Caribbean/Latin America), this course explores and connects

aspects of the black imagination. These aspects include oral performances, thought sys-

tems, literature, art, cinema, and critical discourses in different eras and in various places.

Studied together, these existential and intellectual signposts provide an expanded insight

into black (African and African diasporic) aesthetics from an intercontinental and an inter-

disciplinary perspective.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Fulfills 20th-21st century Period Require-

ment

ENGL 4702 Section 1

CRN 3408

Topics in English: Virginia Woolf and the Victorians

Eleanor McNees

Thursday 4-7:50 PM COURSE DESCRIPTION: Though critics have tended to view Woolf as a thorough mod-

ernist, they forget how much she learned from her father-tutor Leslie Stephen, a major

Victorian editor and founder of the Dictionary of National Biography. This class redresses

that imbalance by reading the primary Victorian novelists about whom both Stephen and

Woolf wrote: Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. In ad-

dition to specific novels by these Victorian authors, we will read Stephen’s and Woolf’s

essays on them and investigate theories of intertextual influence. We’ll conclude with Mrs.

Dalloway and The Years, two of Woolf’s novels that contrast the Victorian and Modern

worlds and demonstrate the power of an inherited history.

Fulfills DU Common Curriculum requirement: Fulfills either 1700-1900 or the 20th – 21st

century period requirement depending on the focus of students’ reports and final seminar

papers.

department of english and literary arts course ...ralph ellison, walker percy, and others. fulfills...

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