Introduction to Graduate Literary Study
56:350:503:01
W 6:00-8:40
Fitter
Required of all students in the program, this course prepares students for graduate study through practice in current methods of research, interpretation, and criticism.

International Study: Americans in Paris: The Lost Generation with Trip to Paris May 13-23, 2010
56:350:505:01
By arrangement
Cross-listed with 56:606:613:02
Hoffman This course will feature the poetry, fiction, and non-fiction of some of the most prominent-and some not so prominent-American expatriate writers living in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. We will read and discuss in Camden the work of such authors as Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Djuna Barnes, Robert McAlmon, Kay Boyle, Natalie Barney, Ezra Pound, and E. E. Cummings. In May (May 13-23) we will travel to Paris and get to know the writing at street-level, going on walking tours of the city. We will sit in the café where Hemingway composed one of his most famous short stories; we will visit the sites of some of the most modish expatriate salons; and we will see where some of these writers lived (many in Montparnasse) and are buried (in the cemetery Père Lachaise). Of course, we will also take in the cultural landscape of Paris more generally as it intersects with the work of these artists: the Eiffel Tower; the cathedral of Notre Dame; the Louvre; the Latin Quarter; the Moulin Rouge close to Montmartre; and some incredible public gardens. A short paper, an oral presentation, a reading journal, a final exam. The course will meet 6 times: T Feb 16 6-8:30, T March 2 6-8:30, T March 23 6-8:30, T April 6 6-8:30, T April 20 6-8:30, and T May 4 6-8:30.

International Study: Writing about Place with Trip to Paris May 13-23, 2010
56:350:505:02
By arrangement
Cross-listed with 56:606:613:03
Zeidner
This course will allow writers to explore the way location and landscape make their way into creative work. We'll read some great contemporary fiction and nonfiction dealing with Paris in particular, including Adam Gopnick's Paris to the Moon and Deborah Eisenberg's short stories. Then we'll use the trip as a way of exploring the foreign landscape as the inspiration for our own work, especially involving the creation of the non-tourist experience. (Want to get mugged? Go breakdancing in the suburbs?) Open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Meeting times TBA.

International Study: Literary Ireland with trip to Ireland May 25-June 3, 2010
56:350:506:01
M 2:50-5:20
Cross-listed with 56:606:613:01
Martin
This course will introduce students to the rich variety of Irish literature of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries: first (in Camden), with readings in fiction, drama, and poetry of the period; then (in Ireland), with explorations of the historical and the cultural traditions out of which this literature grew. We will study works by Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, Synge, Liam O'Flaherty, and Seamus Heaney, among others, and we will visit such sites as the ancient burial grounds at Carrowmore and the medieval monastery at Clonmacnoise, as well as many cultural sites in and around Dublin: the James Joyce Centre, Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Kilmainham Gaol. The tour will be divided between the East and the West of Ireland: between cosmopolitan Dublin, with its theatres and museums, and romantic Galway, including an overnight visit to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. Two days in Sligo, Yeats's summer haunt in his youthful days, will give students a sense of life in the Irish towns. Six Mondays TBA 2:50-5:10. Cost and payment schedule TBA

Classical Mythology
56:350:527:01
M 6:00-8:40
Cross-listed with 56:606:501:01
Cornelia
A study of Greek and Roman classical mythology and its influence on later western literature.

Victorian Literature
56:350:571:01
T 6:00-8:40
Cross-listed with 56:606:521:01
Fiske
This course covers the poetry and prose of England during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Our thematic focus will be on writers' attempts to redefine the role of literature and the intellectual life during the first half century of industrialism. During this time, rapid shifts in England's social structure and the nation's quest for material gains prompted reassessments of the values that had previously formed the foundations of literary culture. In attempting to understand the nature and impact of these social and ideological reformations, we will explore the dialogues and arguments between and among poets and cultural critics, liberals and conservatives, scientists and humanists, men and women. Our authors include Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, Carlyle, Newman, Ruskin, Mill, Emily Brontë, Harriet Martineau, Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, Hardy, and Yeats. Course requirements include an oral presentation, several short assignments, a mid-term paper, and a final research paper.

Special Topics: Modern Literature and Theory
56:350:594:01
M 6:00-8:40
Cross-listed with 56:606:611:01
Habib
A comparative study of modern texts from various cultures, Anglo-American, European, Indian and Islamic. We will look at a variety of genres, and our study will be informed by various theoretical perspectives impinging on feminism, religion, colonialism, and international political developments in the twentieth century. One journal, one paper and a final examination.

Special Topics: Playing Indian: Native Americans and American Literature
56:352:541:01
Th 6:00-8:40
Cross-listed with 56:606:542:02
Green
This course explores the representation of North American Indians in American literature, both by Native Americans as well as by other groups. It moves from texts like Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682), the first English-language Indian captivity narrative published in North America, to more recent texts like Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues (1996), a playful yet provocative consideration of American Indian identity in the late twentieth century. The course hopes to give students a breadth of perspectives on Native American representation by way of attention to Native and non-Native cultural productions as well as a long historical view. Representative authors and critics include Mary Rowlandson, William Apess, Lydia Maria Child, Sarah Winnemucca, Henry David Thoreau, Sherman Alexie, Philip J. Deloria, Lucy Maddox, Alice Walker, Gretchen M. Bataille, and Leslie Marmon Silko. A short paper, long paper, annotated bibliography, and presentation are required.

History of the English Language
56:615:530:01
W 6:00-8:40
Cross-listed with 56:606:612:01
Epstein
This course will address the growth and structure of the English language from its origins to the present, with attention to methods of linguistic description. In addition to more traditional historical linguistics (i.e. the effect of language change on the phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax of the language), we will devote considerable attention to socio-historical influences on the development of English, addressing, in particular, questions relating to authority in language: Standard vs. non-standard dialects of English, the rise of dictionary making, spelling reform movements, etc. Course requirements: Midterm exam and course paper. NOTE: *Please have the course syllabus, reading list, and other introductory handouts with you at the first class session. They will ONLY be available through Electronic Reserves (along with all outside readings) - THEY WILL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED IN CLASS, so please come prepared!*

Special Topics in Rhetoric: Literacies in Twenty-first Century Contexts
56:842:566:01
T 6:00-8:40
Cross-listed with 56:606:601:01
FitzGerald
In the 21st century literacy is experienced in the plural, as literacies, now a term for various competencies of mode (verbal, visual, digital) required for effective participation in academic, cultural and civic affairs. An orientation to contemporary literacy studies, this course situates literacies in cognitive and social contexts with an emphasis on the social (including political and economic) aspects of who reads, writes, composes, texts, and under what conditions. After establishing multi-legged contexts for studying literacy (Cushing et al. Literacy: A Critical /Sourcebook) we encounter landmark texts in (print) literacy, e.g., Shirley Brice Heath's /Ways With Words and Deborah Brandt's Literacy in American Lives, before turning to the complex relations between academic and community literacies (e.g., Eli Goldblatt's Because We Live Here). The final unit of the course examines changing contexts for literacy in the digital age and seeks to understand literacies as multiple, braided constructs both for cultural studies and for educational programs and policies. To ground our engagement with broad movements in the local and particular, we turn to ethnography as a research method for investigating literacy practices in locally accessible contexts. Seminar paper (12-15 pp) in addition to weekly responses to readings and a midterm exam.

Graduate Creative Writing (MFA) Courses, Spring 2010:

The following courses are open to students registered in the MFA Program. All MFA students should obtain prior permission from Professor Zeidner. Some space may be available to English MA students by permission only.

Craft Course: Poetic Form
Open to MA students by special permission
56:200:511:01
T 6:00-8:40
Barbarese
A course in poetic form that features concentrated study and imitation of several major poetic forms, including the sonnet, sestina, and villanelle, along with attention to the varied approaches to form available to all practitioners.

Fiction Workshop
56:200:518:01
Th 6:00-8:40
Mansbach
Exploration of traditional and nontraditional narrative forms and techniques, including point of view, character delineation, and dialogue.

Craft course: Point of View
56:200:568:01
M 6:00-8:40
Grodstein
How do we manage point of view in narrative fiction? How do we get inside the heads of protagonists who are nothing like ourselves, manipulate the voices of unreliable narrators, and make best use of first-, third-, and even-second person perspectives? In this course, students will read works of fiction with memorable narrators, including novels and stories by Nabakov, Roth, Ford, O'Connor, and Moore. Diverse exercises will explore various modes of perspective. Students will also be responsible for submitting one complete story, making use of a nontraditional point of view, for workshop.

Thesis Workshop
56:200:650:01
T 3:00-5:50
Zeidner
The exit course for the MFA program helps you to develop, fine-tune, and market a completed manuscript of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. It includes an intensive segment on publishing options and methods: developing a list of candidates for agents, writing a successful query letter, successfully submitting to literary magazines, etc. The course contains a large component of independent work. You should have your manuscript underway before you register for this course, and ideally you should not have a lot of other coursework to complete. Note, this course may be taken as a 6-credit course or over two semesters as two 3-credit courses.

56:200:651:01 Final Creative Thesis
By arrangement
Zeidner
Final creative project for the MFA. Students will complete a book-length manuscript and begin to work on publishing strategies for seeing the work in print. Credits may be taken concurrently with 56:350:560 in one semester or consecutively if more time is required for finishing thesis.

Literary Nonfiction
56:200:587:01
Th 6:00-8:40
Funderberg
With an (instructor-supervised) eye toward publication, students will draft three medium-length pieces (+/-2000 words) that loosely link to the following themes: (1) personality profiles, (2) current affairs, and (3) communities. Subject matter can be new or cannibalized from larger works-in-progress, but all will be required to employ the journalistic techniques of interviewing and reporting as well as the more familiar techniques of literary writing. This class is structured as a workshop, supported by readings from such writers as John McPhee, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Joan Didion, Thomas Lynch, and Susan Orlean.