Fall 2013 Course Descriptions
Introductory Literature Courses
English 219. Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature. (F2, F4, Pre-1800)
This course examines medieval vernacular romances from the 12th through the 14th century, paying attention to the context of the political struggles over marriage between the church and the aristocracy in the 12th century. Topics will include the development of the Arthurian tradition and the conventions of chivalry and courtly love. While traditional gender roles abound in medieval romance, with its lance-wielding knights and ladies awaiting rescue, these narratives also provide examples of cross-dressing woman warriors and knights who require rescue from their ladies. As we read these narratives, we will pay attention to the ways in which they establish, negotiate, and sometimes subvert concepts of masculinity and femininity. All texts will be read in modern English translation. (Pre-1800, Gender and Sexuality Studies) Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor.
MWF 01:00 pm-01:50 pm
Professor Judith Haas
English 224: Introduction to African-American Poetry in the United States. (F2, F4)
This course will survey the African American literary tradition from the 1600s to the present, with a particular focus on how the musings of African Americans capture, engage and critique the American narrative. Authors may include: Phillis Wheatley, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles Chesnutt, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, et cetera. Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor.
Section 01 MWF 12:00 pm-12:50 pm
Professor Ernest Gibson
English 225: Southern Literature. (F2, F4)
“Tell me about the South. What’s it like there.”: Region, Race, Gender and Class in Southern Literature
When Shreve McCannon, a northerner, asks Quentin Compson, the displaced Mississippian in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, to “tell [him] about the South,” he is articulating the enduring desire (and dilemma) of all Southern writers. How does one define the South, after all? Is it a region? A culture? A historical construct? And perhaps, more to the point, who or what is a Southerner? The literature that we’ll read this semester will offer no easy answers, but it will reveal an enduring set of concerns. Questions of identity are at the heart of Southern writing – regional and national identities of course, but also individual identities. A heightened awareness of the complexities of race, gender, class and even sexuality is one of the hallmarks of this literary tradition. Thus, we’ll investigate the construction and complexities of Southern identity in the works of several Southern writers, including Chopin, Faulkner, Hurston, O’Connor, Welty, Williams, Wright and many others. Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor.
Section 01 TR 11:00 am-12:15 pm
Section 02 TR 02:00 pm-03:15 pm
Professor Leslie Petty
English 265: Special Topics - American Fiction in the Gilded Age. (F2, F4)
This course will focus on the rich body of literature produced in and about the Gilded Age, a period of intensive industrialization and urbanization that became celebrated for vast disparities in income and in living conditions. The famous phrases, ‘keeping up with the Joneses,’ ‘how the other half lives,’ and ’conspicuous consumption’ are all markers of this era. We will look not only at representative fiction and memoirs of this period by Wharton, James, and Dreiser but at Veblen’s critique of the excesses of predatory American capitalism and journalists’ exposes of the lives of immigrants, urban poverty, and other social ills of the age Mark Twain called ‘the gilded age.’ Course may be repeated as long as topics are different. Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor.
Section 01 MWF 09:00 am-09:50 am
Section 03 MWF 11:00 am-11:50 am
Professor Jennifer Brady
English 265: Special Topics - British Historical Fiction. (F2, F4)
Many of the greatest writers of fiction have turned to earlier historical periods for the setting of their stories. Why is that? What do they find compelling about imagining conflicts and adventures set in the past? What opportunities do writers find and why have readers responded so powerfully? Historical fiction has been looked down upon in some quarters, but at the moment the writer winning all the prizes, not just the sales, is Hilary Mantel, for her two (of an eventual three) novels about early 16th-century England. In this course we′ll read a sample of historical fiction over three centuries, asking questions about style, plot, theme, and topic. The likely texts include Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722); Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859); Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped (1886); Rudyard Kipling, short stories; and ending with Mantel′s Wolf Hall (2009). Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor.
Section 02 MWF 09:00 am-09:50 am
Professor Michael Leslie
English 285. Text and Context. (F2)
This course assists prospective majors and minors in acquiring the necessary tools for middle- and upper-division classes in English. Each seminar will focus on the necessary skills for reading literary texts, the development of critical argument, and the ability to situate the text in relation to significant contexts. Such contexts might include a text’s historical and cultural circumstances, or its situation within the wider history or discipline of literary studies. Not open to seniors. Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor. Course required for prospective English majors.
Section 01 TR 12:30 pm-01:45 pm
Section 02 MW 03:00 pm-04:15 pm
Professor Gordon Bigelow
Advanced Literature Courses
English 323. Renaissance Drama.
Murder! Incest! Hypocrisy! Thievery! Political intrigue! Thwarted love! Early modern playgoers had an insatiable appetite for drama, and they liked their meat strong. Despite often-admirable body-counts, Shakespeare’s plays can seem milquetoast by comparison. In this course we’ll read some of the most famous and influential plays of the period by dramatists who weren’t born in Stratford-upon-Avon: Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, John Ford, Thomas Middleton, and more; and we′ll try to grasp the unique theatre and literary culture we now associate overmuch with a single genius. Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course or permission from instructor.
MWF 12:00 pm-12:50 pm
Professor Michael Leslie
English 325. Chaucer.
Through close and careful reading of Chaucer’s many and varied writings—all in the original Middle English—we will work to develop proficiency in and appreciation of the language written and spoken in fourteenth-century London. Unit One will be devoted to the study of selected Canterbury Tales; in Unit Two, we will read the long narrative romance, Troilus and Criseyde in its entirety; and Unit Three will treat representative works from Chaucer’s dream visions and short poetry. Throughout each of these units, we will examine the creative ways in which Chaucer combined tradition and innovation within his poetic compositions and explore Chaucer’s engagement with such issues as social class, philosophy, gender, and religion. To help fully contextualize Chaucer’s poetry, supplemental readings will include relevant works by Chaucer’s influences and contemporaries as well as recent scholarly interpretations of his writings Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course or permission from instructor.
MWF 10:00 am-10:50 am
Professor Lori Garner
English 332. Advanced Shakespeare Studies - Shakespeare and the History of the Book.
"Not of an age, but for all time"? So wrote Ben Jonson. But Shakespeare, at the heart of British and American literary culture, has a history and it sheds fascinating light on our civilization. We encounter his work, overwhelmingly, in book form, and we′re lucky to be studying his work when literary disciplines have discovered and become intensely interested in the "history of the book" (otherwise known as the histoire du livre; the "sociology of the book"; etc.), one of the most vital fields of enquiry in the past 30 years. This course concentrates on the intersection of these two topics: How was Shakespeare affected by the coming of "book culture" in early modern England (Act 1)? How did the culture of early printing affect the creation of "Shakespeare" (Act 2)? What happened when Shakespeare began to be edited in the 18th century, becoming in the process the transcendent and unchallenged "greatest ever writer" (Act 3)? What did the development of our modern culture of academic study do to Shakespeare (Act 4)? And (Act 5) what does the coming of a digital world mean to Shakespeare? Is the rest paperless? Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course (English 285: Text and Context, preferred) or permission from instructor.
MWF 03:00 pm-03:50 pm
Professor Michael Leslie
English 335. Milton.
A study of all the English poetry and selected prose by the learned 17th-century writer John Milton. Milton composed an extraordinary range of genres, from sonnets and elegies to plays and treatises. While we will be surveying the full range of these genres across his career, we will devote much of our attention to "Paradise Lost," the major epic of the English language, based on the story of Genesis yet encompassing profound and still relevant reflections on liberty, rebellion, history, providence, and social hierarchies. Seminar members will attend a Rhodes symposium on book history on October 11, a Milton conference at Middle TN State University October 17-19, and an all-day group recitation of "Paradise Lost" on a Saturday in early November (TBD). Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course (English 285: Text and Context, preferred) or permission from instructor.
TR 03:30 pm-04:45 pm
Professor Scott Newstok
English 350. Romantic Poetry and Prose.
A relatively brief period that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and continued to develop throughout the early Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, the Romantic era produced some of the perhaps best-known and most lionized figures of the British literary canon. Blake, Burke, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Mary and Percy Shelley, Wollstonecraft and Wordsworth all published the greatest part of their works between the 1780s and 1830s. This course will approach the major poetry and prose of these and other important authors of the period through several critical and methodological frameworks that will place the literature of British Romanticism in the contexts of massive social and political change, startling advances in knowledge production and scientific inquiry, and challenging contemporary conceptualizations of the past, present, and future of British Literature itself. Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course or permission from instructor
MW 02:00 pm-03:15 pm
Professor Seth Rudy
English 380. Topics in Literary Studies - Masculinities and Literature.
A study of ideas and ideals of masculinity, maleness and manhood as represented in contemporary world literature in English and in a selection of films. The course analyses ways in which masculinities (including notions of female masculinity and male femininity) have historically been constructed, maintained and deconstructed in relationship to changing ideas and ideals of the feminine, race, class, sexuality and sexual orientation. The seminar makes use of cultural criticism, masculinity-, feminist-, gender- and queer theories to forge an understanding of challenges that face normative representations of gendered identity in contemporary literature and popular culture. May be repeated with different topic. Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course or permission from instructor.
TR 03:30 pm-04:45 pm
Professor Mark Behr
English 385. Junior Seminar: Critical Theory and Methodology.
An examination of major developments in literary criticism and critical theory, designed to prepare students for advanced research. To be taken during the fall or spring semester of the junior year. (Those studying abroad may take the course in the senior year.) Prerequisite: English 285 or permission from the instructor. Majors only.
MWF 02:00 pm-02:50 pm
Professor Jason Richards
English 485. Senior Research Seminar.
A focused exploration of special topics or critical problems in literary study culminating in the preparation of an independent research essay and a major oral presentation of the research. Topics chosen by the instructor will vary from section to section and may focus on major authors, distinct literary genres or movements, historical contexts, and/or significant themes. Topics will be published annually; rising seniors will select preferred topics. Enrollment by permission only.
TOPIC: David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and the American Novel After Postmodernism
When it was first published in 1996, David Foster Wallace’s 1079 page novel Infinite Jest was instantly recognized by critics as “the next step in fiction” (Sven Birkerts), though few critics could articulate what that “next step” was, exactly. Set in the future and focusing on a mythical film that is so entertaining that watching it leads to catatonia, the novel takes on such disparate issues as drug addiction, film theory, Alcoholics Anonymous, Jamesian pragmatism, existentialism, terrorism, game theory, theoretical mathematics, and tennis—lots and lots of tennis. Nearly two decades later, Infnite Jest remains the signature text for writers of Wallace’s generation. As its influence continues to deepen and spread, so, too, do the contours of the post-postmodern novel begin to clarify. In this course, we will read Wallace’s gargantuan novel as well as a selection of contemporary novels written under Wallace’s influence in order to trace the trajectory from modernism to postmodernism and beyond. The course will culminate in a major research project.
Section 01 TR 09:30 am-10:45 am
Professor Marshall Boswell
TOPIC: John Fletcher
In this course, we will read plays by the exceptionally popular and prolific dramatist, John Fletcher (1579-1625), who succeeded Shakespeare as the principal writer for the King’s Company. Fletcher wrote by preference in collaboration with other playwrights, a practice that was the norm in the early modern theater, but which he adopted to an unusual degree. His collaborators included Shakespeare, Massinger, and Beaumont, among others, and Fletcher collaborated with his contemporaries in yet another way, writing adaptations of and even sequels to other playwrights’ work. Fletcher was held in high regard during the Renaissance and the Restoration, despite his comparative obscurity today. His plays lend themselves to feminist and colonialist readings. The course will focus as well on ideas of authorship, of collaboration, and of reception. Students will write a major 20-page research paper.
Section 02 TR 09:30 am-10:45 am
Professor Jennifer Brady
English 200. Introduction to Poetry Writing: Form, Theory, Workshop.
Creative Writing Courses
A study of poetic form and theory, leading to a workshop in which students present their own poems for discussion. Students will learn to write basic narratives, as well as received forms such as villanelles, and to find forms suitable for their own work. Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or permission from instructor.
TR 09:30 am-10:45 am
Professor Catherine Wilkinson
English 201. Introduction to Fiction Writing: Form, Theory, Workshop.
A study of narrative form and theory, leading to a workshop in which students present their own fiction for discussion. Students read and discuss well known short stories along with their own writing exercises and their own short stories written specifically for the class. Prerequisites: English 151 or the permission from instructor.
TR 12:30 pm-01:45 pm
Professor Mark Behr
English 300. Intermediate Poetry Workshop: Form.
This intermediate workshop will help writing students to develop a greater sense of the use of received as well as individually-developed forms in poetry. In the pursuit of their own styles, participants will experiment with the idea of form. Through reading essays by other poets on free verse, syllabics, the villanelle, the sonnet, blank verse, blues poetry, as well as through readings of poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks, Muriel Rukeyser, Anne Sexton, Robert Creeley, Marianne Moore, Li Young Lee, Robert Hass, Anthony Hecht, Amy Clampitt, Robert Hayden, Yusef Komunyakaa, Henri Cole, Elizabeth Bishop, Rita Dove and others, students will broaden their own experience with poetry. Prerequisites: English 200 and permission from instructor.
TR 02:00 pm-03:15 pm
Professor Catherine Wilkinson
English 301. Intermediate Fiction Workshop.
Continued practice in the craft of fiction writing with an emphasis on elements of narrative form, including point of view, character development, plot, style, tone, and so on. Includes historical and formal study of narrative form. Prerequisites: English 201 and permission from instructor.
TR 12:30 pm-01:45 pm
Professor Marshall Boswell
English 245. Special Topics in Film - Documentary Cinema.
Film Courses
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to documentary film and video. Unlike the various genres of fiction film, documentaries address the world as it exists rather than a world created by the filmmaker. Still, documentaries are not mere records of reality. From questions of ethics, ideology, politics, and power to concerns over race, gender, authority, and representation, we will explore the nature of documentary films, focusing on production as well as reception, on formal strategies as well as aesthetic pleasures. While we will investigate the documentary form’s relation to reality, we will also try to destabilize the assumed boundaries between fact and fiction by considering such recent transformations as mockumentaries and self-reflexive docu-diaries. Overall, our goal will be to assess the ways in which non-fiction films reveal multiple, contingent truths rather than a unitary, unproblematic Truth. May be repeated with different topic. Prerequisites: FYWS 151 or equivalent. All students must attend a weekly screening.
TR 12:30 pm-01:45 pm
T 07:00 pm-09:00 pm (Film screening)
Professor Rashna Richards
English 381. Advanced Topics in Film - Film Remakes.
Remakes have always been popular in Hollywood; they are usually safe commercial bets, repeating successful formulas and emphasizing cinema′s ability to shape and reshape the cultural imagination. They might even be seen, as Leo Braudy points out, as metaphorically reflecting "the history and culture of this self-made and self-remade country." But remakes are never exact copies, and this course will consider the aesthetic and ideological dynamics of cinematic repetition with a difference. We will begin the semester with a variety of historical, theoretical, and critical perspectives on the remake as a formative genre in filmmaking. Then we will turn to remakes that cross cultural and national boundaries. Cross-cultural remakes recast, adapt, and make over popular culture, and such cinematic border crossings have significant implications for our understanding of how cultures embrace and resist, borrow from and interact with each other in an era of globalization. Finally, we will focus on Bollywood remakes of Hollywood films. Rather than regarding these usually unlicensed Bollywood remakes as uncritical homage or derivative plagiarism, we will examine them within wider debates about the transnational flows of media; the intersecting, intertextual nature of cinematic productions; and the hybridizing character of cultural exchange. May be repeated with different topic. Prerequisites: Any 200-level film class or permission from instructor.
TR 02:00 pm-03:15 pm
W 07:00 pm-09:00 pm (Film screening)
Professor Rashna Richards
Special Courses
English 315. The English Language.
Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge. . . (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde)
In this course, we will examine the history of the English language from its beginnings to the present. We will trace its Indo-European and Germanic origins, its development into Old and Middle English, and its transformation from the early modern period into its diversity as a modern “world” language. Language cannot be separated from the people who speak it, and our emphasis will fall equally on the formal and social aspects of language history. At each stage of language history, we will seek to understand the linguistic forces of phonological, morphological, and syntactical change as well as processes of semantic change and new word formation. Throughout the semester, we will explore such topics as language and literature, the social implications of language variation, text production, and the effects of languages in contact--as a result of war and colonization as well as through trade, tourism, and even the internet. The course will be of special interest to students of literature seeking to understand more fully the linguistic forces at work in the texts they study but is likely to be of value to anyone who uses language. Prerequisites: Any 200-level literature course or permission from the instructor.
MWF 01:00 pm-01:50 pm
Professor Lori Garner
English 460. Internship (F11)
A supervised learning experience in the greater Memphis community in which students apply analytical and writing skills learned in the classroom to situations in business, journalism, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional arenas. The program of professional work will be devised by the student, the internship supervisor, and the faculty advisor for internships. All internships must be approved by the chairperson of the department. Additional course work will consist of journal entries, reading assignments, and a final reflective paper. (Pass/Fail credit only. English 460 does not satisfy an upper-level English course requirement for the major.)
465. Tutorial in One-to-One Writing Instruction.
Theoretical and applied study of one-to-one writing instruction.
Professor Rebecca Finlayson
495-496. Honors Tutorial.
Satisfies the Senior Paper requirement. For seniors only. Prerequisites: English 399.