COURSE LIST FALL 2007   

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Questions about specific courses can be directed to the Program Director

or to the appropriate English Department: CSU, KSU, UA, YSU.

NOTE: Further courses may be added or current course list may have further adjustments

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Course Descriptions:  CSU  KSU  UA  YSU

CSU

ENG 510 Practical Criticism, Sonstegard - counts as  a literature class

This introductory course to graduate study in English and American Literatures stresses close-reading techniques, engagement with varied schools of literary criticism, and graduate-level persuasion and argumentation.  Students will endeavor to place works within historical contexts, note the nuances of language and literary genre, enter into texts’ interpretive ambiguities, and engage with some of literary criticism’s ongoing political and cultural debates.  Though this course is not a survey but a practical introduction, in which we will apply interpretive principles and critical techniques to primary literary works, we will also ask of all our works a guiding question:  what happens when literary conventions must encounter and accommodate unconventional love?  Answers should arise from Shakespeare (the sonnets and Othello), Joseph Conrad, Henry James (“Daisy Miller, “The Turn of the Screw” and other short works), Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

ENG 610 MFA Fiction Workshop, Schwartz

English 610 is an MFA fiction workshop in writing the novella. We'll look at some selections from Richard Ford's anthology: "The Long Story" (Granta) as well as contest submissions for the Ruthanne Wiley Novella Contest sponsored by the CSU Poetry Center. Students will write their own novella-length manuscript, (60-120 pp.). Students will meet weekly in small groups to share with group members what they've written that week .Each student will also present sections of their novella in the larger workshop format.

Students planning to take this workshop should come to the first class with a short description of the novella they'll be working on. You may also want to begin writing before the class begins since our time is limited. This will also prevent spending too much time on the "jitters" students naturally feel when they work on a longer form for the first time. I've taught this class many times and can assure you that students always produce very fine work. 

 

Because the in-class time seems a bit short to cover our needs I'm going to add on twenty minutes if all class members agree. (Please think about whether you'll be willing to do this.) If you'd like to share thoughts on this or ask more questions about the class, please e-mail me at s.schwartz@csuohio.edu this summer and I'll get back to you.

  ENG  613   MFA Poetry Workshop   W  5:30 PM-8:00 PM  Brady

ENG  695   Graduate Seminar: Modern British Poetry   MW  6:00 PM-7:50 PM 

KSU

MCLS-50095  ST: READING IN TRANSLATION  MAIER, C
    14477 003  LEC  Th   4:25pm-7:05pm   1-3 cr   KC          
         Graduate Standing.

ENG-64071 WRITING FICTION  EDGELL, Z 

  19781 001  LEC  T     5:30pm-8:15pm    3cr  KC  SFH  104   

        Graduate Standing. CROSS LIST: ENG -74071-001.

ENG-66103  ETHNIC LIT OF THE U.S. FRIED, L

  19785 001  LEC  M    6:15pm-8:55pm    3cr  KC  SFH  106    

        Graduate Standing. CROSS LIST: ENG -76103-001.

ENG-66302/76302   POST-COLONIAL LIT IN ENG. RAJA, M

  19787 001  LEC  TR   3:45pm-5:00pm    3cr  KC  SFH  106    

        Graduate Standing. CROSS LIST: ENG -76302-001.

ENG-66895/76895   ST: SHORT 18TH CENTURY  HASSLER, D

  12866 001  LEC  TR   9:15-10:30am    3cr    KC  SFH  104    

        Graduate Standing. CROSS LIST: ENG -76895-001

ENG-76203  20TH C EUROPEAN LIT  SWARTZ, P

   21493 300  LEC  M   7:00pm-9:30pm   3cr    EC       

        Doctoral Standing.

ENG-66895  ST: C&T:NON-FICTION WRITING  O'CONNOR, V.
   21967 002  LEC  M   5:30pm-8:15pm  3 cr   KC  SFH  112   
        Graduate Standing. CROSS LIST: ENG -76895-002.

Course Info for Eng 66895 Craft & Theory: Special Topics: Non-fiction Writing, O’Connor

Through analysis and discussion of literary and critical texts, we will explore the means by which non-fiction writing is structured and enlivened with many of the techniques of imaginative writing. To enhance our understanding of craft we will also view two documentary films in consideration of the use of pastiche in non-fiction narrative. In addition, an awareness of a camera’s close-up and long shots helps writers with the manipulation of time and space, of the expanding and contracting distance of telling (along with the necessary mixture of exposition and drama) that makes “true life” stories intelligible and compelling to others.

We will examine hybrid texts, exploring ways in which imaginative writing is both enriched and propelled by facts. Because the overlap of fiction and nonfiction is one of the central debates in writing and publishing circles today, students should emerge from the class with a better understanding of these opinions, along with a sense of how to navigate such issues as libel and the proper use of factual material signed with our own names.

M.F.K. Fisher wrote: “the invisible lines that bridge one stroke of the pencil or brush to another are what make [a sketch or word picture] really live.” By reading closely as writers and through the writing of several exercises we will attempt to define these invisible lines and where they may lie in our own material.

Students are expected to attend class equipped with specific notes and craft observations in regard to the readings under discussion. Besides the exercises, each class member will develop a proposal for a substantial essay or memoir: these proposals will be presented and discussed by the class toward the end of the semester.

Although we will look at a bit of literary reportage and consider how some of this subgenre’s skills come into play during the research and composition of other nonfiction,
reporting will not be of prime concern. Likewise, we will not study biography, though again its methods will overlap with much of what we will read and see. Book review, per se, is also not part of the course. Yet many of our texts are concerned with writers’ reactions to other books and literary techniques.

Primarily, our focus is the literary essay, the memoir, and the craft of each, especially the varieties of essay and memoir, the differences between the two, and the “place” of the writer as a character within nonfiction narrative.

Readings include a packet, which will be handed out on the first day of class, and
the following books: Writer’s Workshop, by Stephen Koch (chapters 3, 5-8); On Being
Ill (including the introduction by Hermione Lee), by Virginia Woolf; The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick; The Visible World, by Mark Slouka; For Rouenna, by Sigrid Nunez, and Literary Occasions (Introduction, Prologue, and “Prologue to an Autobiography”), by V.S. Naipaul. If we have time I may add Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov. (It is worth reading, in any event.)
 

UA

 3300:615-801    Shakespearean Drama     3 credit hours Nunn    W 5:20-7:50 p.m.   This seminar will deal with Shakespeare as a professional dramatist in the Early Modern English theatre.  Although various approaches may be used, the primary focus will be on text, performance, and theatrical conditions, both contemporary and modern.  Satisfies the M.A. in Literature requirement for British Literature up to 1660 and the Shakespeare requirement if needed.

3300:665-801    Literary Criticism      3 credit hours Stevenson       W 5:20-7:50 p.m.  This course explores modern critical theories and methods in literary research.  While analyzing representative theorists and critics, members of this seminar will also find ways to use concepts and strategies of literary theory in their own writing about literature.  For more information, contact Sheryl Stevenson (ssteve3@uakron.edu).  Satisfies the M.A. in Literature requirement.

3300:683-801    Satire  3 credit hours   Egan    TH 5:20-7:50 p.m.  
A study of the tactics and motifs of satire: railing, reversal, burlesque, persona and several others.  Satire is a fascinating and complex idiom, one which the course will explore through a study of such selected authors as Swift, Nathanael West, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, and Flannery O’Connor.  Elective for the M.A. in English. 

3300:689-801    Dickinson & Whitman     3 credit hours Miller  T 5:20-7:50 p.m.    This is a graduate-level seminar on the writings of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and their interpretation through a blend of New Criticism with historical, biographical, and feminist criticism.  The course also focuses on the composition of a significant research paper.  Satisfies the M.A. in Literature requirement for American Literature 1865-present.

3300:689-802    Grad. Writing Seminar: Fiction (MFA)    3 credit hours  Pope    Sat. 9:00-11:30 a.m.  This course is an MFA workshop in fiction writing, and as such gives exclusive attention to the writing of students in the class.  The only text will be the manuscripts students submit for discussion.  Please note: Enrollment limits observed.  Limited to students enrolled in NEOMFA.

3300:689-803    Craft & Theory: Poetry (MFA): First Books.     3 credit hours
Biddinger       W 5:20-7:50 p.m.  This course will discuss first books of poetry by emerging contemporary authors, with a focus on manuscript assembly and the publication process.  Students who are working on a book-length manuscript will be invited to share their work with the group, though the course is appropriate for MFA students of all genres and levels.  Students should expect both scholarly and creative assignments.  Book list:  Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems, ed. Susan Grimm, case sensitive by Kate Greenstreet, Swimming the Witch by Leilani Hall, leadbelly by Tyehimba Jess, Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky, Miracle Fruit by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Subject to Change by Matthew Thorburn.  Limited to students enrolled in NEOMFA.

 YSU

1402   6911     THE MEDIEVAL WORLD       3 cr        T       5:10-7:50 pm  DEBH  252     Barnhouse

1403   6917     19TH C AMERICAN STDS       3 cr      M        5:10-7:50 pm  DEBH  261    

1404   6918     STUDIES IN CHILD LIT       3 cr         TH     5:10-7:50 pm  DEBH  252    

1405   6920     20TH C BRITISH STDS       3 cr        W      5:10-7:50 pm  DEBH  262     Finney

1410   6966     THE WRITING OF POETRY       3  cr     M        5:10-7:50 pm  WCBA  205     Greenway

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