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Spring 2010 English Department Courses

All Courses are described below (click on links)

154.01

Intro Creative Writing: Fiction Young-Tait TR 9-10:50 a
213.01 Expository Writing II Peschiera MW 3-4:50 p
214.01 Workplace Writing Huisken M 6:30-8:20 p
214.02 Workplace Writing Aslanian TR 12-12:50 p
231.01 Literature Western World I Mezeske TR 8-9:20 a
231.02 Literature Western World I Verduin MWF 9:30-10:20 a
231.03 Literature Western World I Montano TR 11 a-12:20 p
232.01 Literature Western World II Cole TR 9:30-10:50 a
232.02 Literature Western World II Cole TR 1:30-2:50 p
248.01 Intro to Literature Schakel MWF 9-10:20 a
248.02 Intro to Literature Kipp TR 1:30-3:20 p
248.03 Intro to Literature Dykstra MW 1-2:50 p
254.01 Creative Writing: Fiction Vissers TR 1:30-3:20 p
255.01 Creative Writing: Poems Bartley TR 1:30-3:20 p
258.01 Creative Writing: Nonfiction Sellers TR 12-1:20 p
279.01 Writing for Teachers Sellers TR 12-1:20 p
295.01 Short Course in Short Fiction Vissers TR 12-1:20 p
295.02 Lit 2.0: Digital Humanities Pannapacker TR 6-7:50 p
301.01 British Literature I Gruenler MWF 9:15-10:20 a
302.01 British Literature II Verduin MW 3-4:50 p
305.01 American Literature I Klooster MWF 9:30-10:20 a
306.01 American Literature II Hemenway MWF 2-3:10 p
354.01 Inter Crtve Wrtg: Fiction Novel Trembley M 4-5:50 p
355.01 Intermed Creative Writing: Poems Burton MW 3-4:50 p
359.01 Internship in English Klooster TBA
360.01 Modern English Grammar Burton TR 1:30-3:20 p
371.01 Jane Austen and Her World Schakel MWF 11-11:50 a
373.01 Shakespeare's Plays Cox MW 3-4:20 p
373.02 Lit for Children and Adolescents Portfleet TR 12-1:20 p
375.01 Literary Lives 19th C America Dykstra T 6-8:50 p
375.02 Asian American Literature Cho W 6-8:50 p
380.01 Teaching Secondary School Engl Moreau M 8-9:20 p
454.01 Adv Creative Writing: Fiction Sellers W 3-6:20 p
455.01 Adv Creative Writing: Poems Peschiera TR 1:30-3:20 p
480.01 Intro Lit Theory Gruenler TR 1:30-2:50 p
490.01 Individual Study Klooster TBA
493.01 Individual Writing Project TBA TBA



Spring 2010 Upper Level Course Descriptions

Intro Creative Writing: Fiction 154.01 (A and B)
Young-Tait, Jennifer

Writers! The theme of this semester's course is "Figures on Figures". Do you have a favorite musical artist, visual artist, filmmaker, or writer who mimics someone else's style? This course will allow you to explore the life and work of two artists who have some connection to one another. Phillis Wheatley patterned her poetry after neoclassical poets like Alexander Pope; Beyonce's dance moves resemble Josephine Baker; Michael Jackson influenced Justin Timberlake's songs; Palmer C. Hayden preserved the paintings of William H. Johnson; Spike Lee mimics the style of several Italian filmmakers. From day one, you will pick two artists (of your own choosing) to write about. One artist must be paying homage to the other artist in some way.

Be ready to expand your pool of writing techniques. Be ready to receive and give peer critique. You will read flash fiction. You will bring in two published stories for the rest of us to read. You will write four short stories, of your chosen style and presentation. All four of your stories will be read by others in the course. Portions of this course will be conducted online through Moodle. There is no book requirement, but be prepared for a course coupon fee to cover copy costs and cafe club sessions.

Expository Writing II 213.01
Peschiera, Pablo

In one sense, English 213 is an extension of English 113: this course will help you fine-turn your skills as a writer of expository prose—that is, prose that exposes its subject thoroughly to the reader. However, we’ll approach writing with a new eye: this new eye will develop a vision for the paragraph, a gleam for the sentence, and a shimmer for the tightly turned phrase. This new eye will absorb resources as diverse as the books on the library’s shelves, or the texts on the interweb(s), and weave controlled lines of print using the pages found therein. This new eye will cast its gaze upon the world and find tongues (read: techniques, concepts, quotes-from-greats) upon the world’s wasted surface to serve as licking wags in the betterment of mankind!... or, at least, the betterment of your writing.

In short, this is a course on style (and how to read it/talk about it/recognize-it-when-we-see-it). Style gives a piece of writing—any piece of writing!—its particular character. I’m referring to what makes Hemmingway so quintessentially Hemingway, Wolf so perfectly Wolf, Milton so darn Miltonian (at least in Paradise Lost), and Diaz paradoxically compelling and provoking. We’ll tag team William Strunk and Ben Yagoda (not to be confused with Abe Vigoda), and peruse the finest statements on style between the two spectrums. For good measure, we’ll glance at a few books that claim to investigate style, but—bafflingly—do not.

This is a two-credit course that meets the first half/last half of the semester. Prepare for copious writing, and ghastly amounts of reading. Well, maybe not ghastly, but certainly lots.

Workplace Writing 214.01
Huisken, Jon J.

Description Coming Soon

Workplace Writing 214.02
Aslanian, Janice B.

Communication skills help organizations and the people in them achieve their goals. The ability to write and speak well will become increasingly important as you rise in an organization. Therefore, this course is designed to prepare you to respond effectively to a variety of workplace situations. You will practice writing to different audiences using memo or letter format. Additionally, you will construct a resume and job application letter and complete a short report. All major writing assignments will be submitted in a portfolio for a final grade at the end of the semester.

Literature Western World I 231.01
Mezeske, Barbara

Do you like to read? Are you interested in the literary works that both shape and reflect the values of Western culture? Do you like classes that are a mix of discussion and lecture?

If the answer to ANY of these questions is "yes," then consider this course. We will look at three broad time periods (the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans, Europe in the Middle Ages, and the European Renaissance), about twenty-five authors (give or take), and a wide range of epic poems, plays, and poetry. Marvel at the evolution of literature from Homer to Chistopher Marlowe, grow sad over the inevitable fates of tragic heroes like Antigone and Roland, laugh at the bawdy tales of Chaucer, ponder the limits of human reason and the limitations of gender. This course is writing-flagged in the core, so you can expect to write many pages of finished prose. Four credit hours.

(Note: This course fulfills half the Cultural Heritage core requirement. Since English 231 is an "ancient" course, it should be paired with IDS 172, or with a history course and a philosophy course, one of which must be History 131 or Philosophy 232. The three-course option is recommended particularly for majors thinking of doing graduate work in English.)

Literature Western World I 231.02
Verduin, Kathleen

"The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation—initiation— return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth. A hero ventures forth from the realm of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won; the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." - Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1948)

English 231 is a course in the classics: the texts that form the foundation of western—that is, European—literature from the beginnings of written history to about 1600. From Gilgamesh and Homer (the ancient world) through Dante’s Inferno and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (the Middle Ages) to Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and the plays of the Mexican nun Sor Juana (the Renaissance), we will trace the development of literary expression, learn to surmount its difficulties, and recognize its continuing presence in the way that even we perceive our world and ourselves. Obviously it’s impossible to cover so many centuries with anything like thoroughness, but we make a valiant effort to investigate works either artistically superior or most representative of the culture that produced them. While the contentious climate of postmodern opinion now challenges the whole concept of “the classics,” most students who give these texts a careful reading come to confirm their value as embodiments and transmitters of all that is best in our tradition. To give a thread of continuity to this wide-ranging foray into the literature of the past, we will follow the recurrent themes of nature versus culture, male versus female, and action versus contemplation, and we will confront in particular the mighty archetype, persistent from Gilgamesh to Superman, of the hero’s journey. What gets these heroes going? What do they seek? How do their journeys lead them into the strangest of all regions, the human mind? And can their journeys tell us something, even at the distance of centuries, about the journeys we ourselves must undertake? These are some of the questions that will concern us this semester. Four credit hours.

(Note: This course fulfills half the Cultural Heritage core requirement. Since English 231 is an “ancient” course, it should be paired with IDS 172, or with a history course and a philosophy course, one of which must be History 131 or Philosophy 232. The three-course option is recommended particularly for majors thinking of doing graduate work in English.)

Literature Western World I 231.03
Montano, Jesus

Description Coming Soon

Literature Western World II 232.01
Cole, Ernest

This course is designed to introduce students to a wide variety of social, historical and cultural perspectives in the growth and development of the literature of the Western world. It would focus on a selection of texts from the Renaissance unto the Post-modern era. The course would address major world views that have shaped and defined cultural norms, diversity within western culture, and differences and interactions between Western and other cultures. Students in this course would be exposed to critical thinking, reading and writing with a view to engaging the complexities of the literature, developing their own independent judgments and crafting critical responses to the issues addressed.

Literature Western World II 232.02
Cole, Ernest

This course is designed to introduce students to a wide variety of social, historical and cultural perspectives in the growth and development of the literature of the Western world. It would focus on a selection of texts from the Renaissance unto the Post-modern era. The course would address major world views that have shaped and defined cultural norms, diversity within western culture, and differences and interactions between Western and other cultures. Students in this course would be exposed to critical thinking, reading and writing with a view to engaging the complexities of the literature, developing their own independent judgments and crafting critical responses to the issues addressed.

Intro to Literature 248.01
Schakel, Peter

This course is an introduction to the literary forms of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, considering elements they have in common and elements unique to each. It will examine how genres differ, but also how they intersect and overlap and influence each other. It aims to teach how to read literature with sensitivity, understanding, and appreciation, and how to approach that reading from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It is not a course in writing stories or poems or drama--for that, see English 254 or 255 or 258. It is a foundational course, intended as preparation for all higher-numbered literature courses in the English department. But it also is of value in itself and is recommended for students looking for an elective dealing with literature broadly. Four credit hours.

Intro to Literature 248.02
Kipp, Julie

This course is an introduction to the literary forms of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, considering elements they have in common and elements unique to each. It will examine how genres differ, but also how they intersect and overlap and influence each other. It aims to teach how to read literature with sensitivity, understanding, and appreciation, and how to approach that reading from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It is not a course in writing stories or poems or drama--for that, see English 254 or 255 or 258. It is a foundational course, intended as preparation for all higher-numbered literature courses in the English department. But it also is of value in itself and is recommended for students looking for an elective dealing with literature broadly. Four credit hours.

Intro to Literature 248.03
Dykstra, Natalie

This course is an introduction to the literary forms of fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, considering elements they have in common and elements unique to each. It will examine how genres differ, but also how they intersect and overlap and influence each other. It aims to teach how to read literature with sensitivity, understanding, and appreciation, and how to approach that reading from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It is not a course in writing stories or poems or drama--for that, see English 254 or 255 or 258. It is a foundational course, intended as preparation for all higher-numbered literature courses in the English department. But it also is of value in itself and is recommended for students looking for an elective dealing with literature broadly. Four credit hours.

Creative Writing: Fiction 254.01
Vissers, Carla

The best way to learn fiction writing is not to hear about it, of course, but to do it (and to look closely at the way other people do it). In this class you’ll learn various craft techniques for writing short stories, including characterization, dialogue, plot, and point of view, by reading and discussing the work of some important contemporary fiction writers and by practicing your own writing through short exercises (both in and out of class). You’ll create drafts of two full-length stories to share in workshop, and you’ll choose one of those stories to revise for your final class project. Active participation is an essential component of any fiction workshop, so don’t sign up unless you’re willing to speak up. You will be required to attend all Visiting Writers Series readings.

Creative Writing: Poems 255.01
Bartley, Jackie

Poetry, says poet Gregory Orr, satisfies our perennial need for “story, symbol, and incantation.” In this introductory class, you’ll experiment with all three as you build your own poems each week, read and listen to one another’s, and talk about the process. We’ll look at poems by contemporary poets to see how they do it, and we’ll try a variety of approaches to generate new work. No previous experience is necessary save for an openness to the written and spoken word. In fact, beginner’s mind is expected.

Creative Writing: Nonfiction 258.01
Sellers, Heather

What is creative nonfiction? How is it different from regular essay writing?

Creative nonfiction writers use the techniques fiction writers use—dialogue, scene, pattern, language, subtext—but instead of inventing, we tell true stories.

In this course, students will practice a variety of techniques for putting a story together. We’ll begin with listing and imitating, and then move to more complex and layered forms of presenting a story. Students pick topics that appeal to them. End of term project: a chapbook of creative nonfiction.

Do we get to pick what we want to write about? What’s the class like?

Yes. Students pick their own topics.

Writing assignments include a variety of short pieces and two longer essays. Readings are contemporary, fresh, evocative, juicy. Atmosphere is positive, supportive, structured, festive. Peer workshops and small groups look at early drafts and offer insights and suggestions for revision.

Who can take this course?

This course is for any students who want to improve their writing. Pre-law and pre-med students find the practice in constructing narratives very helpful. Those interested in writing fiction, drama, and screenplays will have a chance to practice story. Poets, along with sociology and science students, will build their skills of close observation and increase their powers of accurate description.

All students are welcome in this course, regardless of prior writing experience or major.

Writing for Teachers 279.01
Sellers, Heather

The best writing teachers are writers themselves and the goal in this course is for you to see yourself, by May, if not before, as a "real writer." This course (and it's an English course, not an Education course) is geared absolutely for beginners (no prior creative writing experience is necessary.) Here, you will discover a fun, no-fail method for dealing with writers' block and procrastination. You'll learn how to choose great topics, and how to enjoy your writing more. Plus: you'll learn an approach to revision that really actually works! Reading load: light yet rich and full, like the perfect dessert. Writing: due for nearly every class; chapbook in place of final exam. Homework exercises and in-class writing. One group project. Atmosphere: kind, safe, nurturing, supportive, sparkly, positive. Welcome!

Short Course in Short Fiction 295.01 (A and B)
Vissers, Carla

Are you curious about what daily life is like for people in other countries, on other continents? This half-semester course offers you the opportunity to read and discuss contemporary short stories from around the corner and across the globe. Your writing and our class discussions will focus not only on the usual sorts of literary criticism, but also on what each story can teach us about the current events and culture in its country of origin. Most of our class time will be spent discussing the stories. Assignments will include reading and writing short responses to about a dozen short stories written and published recently in locales as close by as rural West Michigan and as far away as Russia, Greece, Nigeria, Japan, and India. Each student will do a class presentation (involving some research) on one of the assigned stories. You will also write one longer essay—five to ten pages—at the end of the course.

Lit 2.0: Digital Humanities 295.02
Pannapacker, William

Digitization is most important development in literature since the invention of the printing press, and no one who intends to work in the humanities—particularly scholars, teachers, librarians, and anyone concerned with information technology and communication—can afford to neglect this ongoing revolution. “Literature 2.0” is designed to provide students with the essential knowledge and practical skills needed to begin building credentials in a field that is expanding rapidly in a time when other humanities fields are contracting. Working in self-directed teams, students will collaborate with faculty members to create “Digital Learning Modules”—collections of online resources utilizing a combination of video podcasting, interactive maps, exercises, and group activities—to showcase their own talents, enhance the Hope College curriculum, and provide educational services to the larger community, possibly including students in the developing world. The course assumes no prior experience in literary studies or digital technology, but it will pave the way for future work at the intersection of both fields. Students majoring in non-humanities disciplines are most welcome, since the course develops skills in writing and new media, leadership, teamwork, and consulting that are valued in many professions, even in a tight job market.

Click here for FAQ about Digital Humanities!


British Literature I 301.01
Gruenler, Curtis

This course surveys the formation of the British literary tradition from its beginnings at the intersection of Christianity and pre-Christian culture in Anglo-Saxon England to the literature of the Enlightenment. We will focus on works that represent major literary and intellectual movements of the first millennium of English literature, written by great and influential authors you may have run across before (but are always worth going back to), such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Swift, as well as by lesser known but fascinating figures such as Julian of Norwich, Philip Sidney, and Aphra Behn. Goals: to acquaint you with basic forms and classic texts of English literature and to develop your skills in reading and writing. Format: some lecture, mostly discussion. Requirements: options for short and long papers and exams.

British Literature II 302.01
Verduin, Kathleen

The United States and Britain may indeed find themselves “divided by a common language,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once quipped, but our language also unites us: through the literature of England we gain entry to a cultural tradition different from our own, yet shot through with shared experience and shocks of recognition. This course surveys the literature of Great Britain and its empire from the end of the eighteenth century to the brink of the twenty-first, from the divine visions of William Blake to the disturbing prophecies of Salman Rushdie. We’ll cover two hundred years of British cultural activity—Romanticism, medievalism, the age of Victoria, aestheticism, modernism, and beyond—and examine both dwarfs and giants of the literary world. We’ll look at the way literature registers historical events, in particular the devastating wars of the period, but also seek its reflection of social change and cultural debate. Our primary text will be, of course, the trusty Norton Anthology of English Literature, with its copious notes and authoritative introductions: but we will also find time for a couple of English novels and even watch a film or two. Journal reactions, three examinations, probably four critical essays, a short research report.

American Literature I 305.01
Klooster, David

A fast-moving survey of American Literature, from its beginnings in Native American legends and the writings of the earliest European explorers, through the Civil War. We’ll read a great deal, and continue to develop skills in literary analysis and interpretation, critical thinking, and writing about literature. Class time will alternate between lecture and discussion. Students will have several options in designing writing assignments to mesh with differing learning styles and career directions. Four credit hours.

American Literature II 306.01
Hemenway, Stephen

This scintillating and daunting course will attempt to acquaint you with the major movements and writers in the United States from the end of the Civil War (1865) to the continuation of the Iraqi War (2010). The literary canon (i.e., dead but vital white males, such as Twain, James, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, O’Neill, and Frost) will be augmented by wondrous women warriors (Dickinson, Chopin, Welty, Bishop, Cather, Plath, and Rich), African-American pacesetters (Washington, DuBois, Hurston, Hughes, Brooks, Morrison, and Walker), and fresh ethnic voices (Zitkala Sa, Black Elk, Ortiz, Alexie, Cisneros, Lee, and Lahiri). Approximately equal time will be devoted to poetry, fiction, and drama. Forging links between geographical sections of the country, between genders, between genres, between races, and between critical approaches will be among the impossible dreams of the teacher. Four credit hours.

Format: lecture, discussion, improvisation, collaborative learning, experiments

Reading: moderate but very meaningful

Writing: three tests or test alternatives, three out-of-class papers or nonpapers, short journal-type reaction pieces, etc.

Intermed Creative Writing: Fiction Novel 354.01
Trembley, Beth

Description Coming Soon

Intermed Creative Writing: Poems 355.01
Burton, Rhoda

Description Coming Soon

Internship in English 359.01
Klooster, David

Please see department chair for more information.

Modern English Grammar 360.01
Burton, Rhoda

Description Coming Soon

Jane Austen and Her World 371.01
Schakel, Peter

“The divine Miss Austen” offers a usable focus for in-depth study of a single author. The number of primary texts is small enough that they can be covered in a semester, while the large body of biographical, scholarly, and critical material provides ample directions for exploration and research. This class will read and discuss all six of Austen’s novels, paying special attention to the world Austen creates and the way she depicts late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century life in England. It will also give attention to eighteenth-century writers who influenced Austen. Students will give in-class reports on the primary texts and scholarly critical materials, and they will write short responses to the readings and a substantial research paper.

Shakespeare's Plays 373.01
Cox, John

The textbook for this course organizes Shakespeare's plays into four kinds, or "genres": comedy, history, tragedy, and romance. The first "complete works" edition (the so-called First Folio, published in 1623) uses a similar organizing strategy, but it omits "romance" and often puts plays in very different categories from those a modern editor would select for them. Who is right, in a case like this, and why? How much did Shakespeare himself think in terms of genre, as he wrote his plays? Does genre have a fixed identity, or is it a cultural construct? This course will approach Shakespeare's plays by raising questions about the identity of dramatic form, trying to understand, as best we can, how the plays came to have the shape they do. An important question is whether film constitutes a new genre. Is Branagh's Hamlet a different kind of work from a stage production of the play? To help answer this question, the course will strongly emphasize filmed versions of the plays, using the extensive DVD and videotape collection in the VanWylen Library. Four credit hours.

Lit for Children and Adolescents 373.02
Portfleet, Diane

 Description Coming Soon

Literary Lives in the American Renaissance, 1835-1865: Fiction, Poetry, Biography
Dykstra, Natalie A.

In the middle decades of the 19th century there emerged extraordinary writers who found an original voice with which to articulate their American experience. To a large extent, we are still influenced by their stories, poems, and lives. This course investigates the literature and lives of several key writers of this era, including: Nathanial Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Keckley, and Walt Whitman. We will be reading a single work by each author paired with his/her biography as a way to dig deep into both literary and historical questions about family, love, death, war, race, faith, justice. Other questions include: what is the relation of an individual writer to culture and how do we imagine that relation? How does a biographer use an author’s oeuvre to understand a life and how does understanding a life illuminate the writing? Time in class will be devoted primarily to discussion. Assignments will include several short papers and an exam. The focus of the course will be a substantial biographical research project that will take advantage of the fascinating sources (letters, diaries, photographs) archived at the Holland Museum and the Hope’s Theil Research Center.

Asian American Literature 375.02
Cho, David

The main focus of this English 375: Asian American literature course is to gain an appreciation, awareness, and understanding of the different cultural and ethnic literary forms of what has now (post Civil Rights) been called "Asian American" literature. To accomplish this, we will try to examine in depth the following: (1) A theoretical base in which to understand issues in race, especially in considering the racial constructions of early Asian migrants, immigrants, and later, Asian Americans, (2) Related, to gain an understand of the historical, cultural, and political shapings surrounding the idea of various Asian migrants, immigrants, and American born or naturalized citizens of Asian descent, (3) To gain a deeper appreciation and awareness of the literary history, aesthetical richness, and varying paradigms for the writing by and studying of Asian American authors and their literature, and (4) To also gain a deeper understanding of the current movements within contemporary and critical scholarship on Asian American literature.

Teaching Secondary School English 380.01
Moreau, Bill

Description Coming Soon

Adv Creative Writing: Fiction 454.01
Sellers, Heather

“My inspiration is the deadline.” --Paul Taylor.

Our focus in this course is the linked short story, or story cycle. We’ll look at works by American masters of the form, beginning with Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway and then studying student favorites, such as Lorrie Moore and Elizabeth MacKenzie. We’ll look at story cycles by contemporary award winners Junot Diaz, Jamaica Kincaid, and Kate Walbert. We read about a book a week; our discussions have a single hungry purpose: what can we learn from these books as writers?

Each student creates a chapbook (about forty pages of revised, polished linked stories) for each member of the workshop. To this end, writing groups examine new writing by all members every week. Memoir, autobiographical fiction, and experimental work are all welcome; however, this workshop doesn’t accept fantasy, screenplays, science fiction, stories for children, romance, or detective stories. Most students in the course will have had prior creative writing prose workshop experience. Any student is welcome to apply to the workshop—see the instructor and bring a writing sample. Most students in this class begin drafting their first workshop submission over break, well in advance of the first class date. Students are encouraged to begin reading Robert Olen Butler’s book on craft in advance of the first class as well. Students who have taken this course in the past may repeat it for credit.

Adv Creative Writing: Poems 455.01
Peschiera, Pablo

Poetry breaks the wall between the word and the music.
Poetry breaks the hand between image and sound.
Poetry breaks black bread into little drops of sweet milk. Poetry breaks.

Poetry breaks the arms of backroom dealers.
Poetry breaks the mirror when it lies.
Poetry breaks the two-by-four across the kissing stones of abusers. Poetry breaks.

Poetry, break the world with your sharp bladed axes, your weapons, your pistols--
all never dulled!--break it in crackling songs of wide laughter,
in arms out to wizened and monstrous horizons, in clatters of sheaves,
break the egg world, the ship world, the world bound in muslin, middins, and muck.

Poetry, break the picket fence between this green grass and that green grass,
break the dusty lance on black hope's moonscape, break this old clog,
burn it in the hearth, and carve from willow a new object of beauty.

The sinewy races run on sheeted winds. Doors bar young blossoms
who still need bloom. Poetry, break the grove pines open—give us room.

Advanced Creative Writing Poems helps your ears and eyes peel for the truth of poetry and its purposes in society. We will read each other's poems and write our own poems, commenting thoroughly on the work of our peers in class. We'll read new work by contemporary authors in Dumanis and Marvin’s anthology Legitimate Dangers, consider opportunities for structure using Theune’s Structure and Surprise, and explore issues of poetic agency while reading Lewis Hyde’s The Gift. All students must attend the Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series readings, and also read the work of those authors. We’ll eat poems until our bellies grow too round.

Intro Lit Theory 480.01
Gruenler, Curtis

Literary theory has become a gangly monster that both provides the advanced tools of the discipline of literary study and threatens to kill literary studies with its shadow. This course tries to tame the monster through an introduction to its major tentacles, that is, the various approaches to interpreting literature that have retained a following among scholars. Each approach claims to provide a better grip not only on literature, but also on the knowledge of life that literature provides. We will aim to understand and test these claims in the hope of reaching a better account of literary knowledge and a grasp of the uses and limits of literary theory.

As the Preacher said, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” so we will begin by considering basic questions and points of view about literature as articulated in classic writings by thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Dante, Eliot, and Auerbach. Most of the course will be a tour of the major schools of thought from the past century, such as formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, postmodernism, reader-response theory, psychoanalytic criticism, feminist criticism, gender and sexuality studies, cultural studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonial criticism. As we move through these schools, we'll consider the writings of major theorists such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Virginia Woolf, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stanley Fish, Paul Ricouer, Frederic Jameson, Sigmund Freud, Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Lacan, Julie Kristeva, Clifford Geertz, Stephen Greenblatt, Wendell Berry, Edward Said, Toni Morrison, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A running theme throughout the course will be the light shed on these approaches by René Girard’s mimetic theory of culture.

This course is especially recommended for those considering graduate study in literature as well as creative writing, theology, law, and other fields related to the interpretation of texts. Requirements for the course will include regular written responses to the readings, a couple of short presentations, and a long final paper.

Individual Study 490.01
Klooster, David

Please see the department chair if you are interested in an individual study.

Individual Writing Project 493.01
TBA

Please see the department chair if you are interested in an individual study.