Course Descriptions
Department of English
J. J. Alonzo, H. Andreadis, V. M. Balester, D. A. Berthold, R. E. Boenig, D. A. Brooks, K. N. Brown, M. Bucholtz, R. E. Campbell, G. H. Cannon, P. N. Christensen, W. B. Clark, F. D. Coleman, M. Collins, G. P. Del Negro, D. R. Dickson, E. Dominguez Barajas, S. B. Egenolf, M. Eide, M. J. M. Ezell, C. L. Gibson, J. B. Gibson, R. Griffin, J. R. Hannah, J. L. Harner, E. Ho, T.A.Hoagwood, C. M. Holcomb, M. C. Ives, S. Jackson, C.W. Kallendorf, K. E. Kelly, S. Kendall, S. Kerschbaum, M.J. Killingsworth, J. M. Loving, C. J. Machann, H. J. Marchitello, P.R. Matthews, J. P. McCann, D.B. McWhirter, H. T. Meserole, J. L. Mitchell, A. M. Morey*, P. K. Muana, D.G. Myers, C. B. Nelson, M. A. O'Farrell, L. J. Oliver, P. A. Parrish (Head), P. A. Phillippy, M.A.Portales, L. J. Reynolds, S. A. Robinson*, V. Rosner*, C. H. Rowell, S. M. Stabile, J. P. Stout, C. J. Swearingen, C. B. Taylor, Jr., E. D. Tebeaux, L. M. Vallone, J. G. Wollock
* Graduate Advisor
The graduate program in English offers courses leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. Graduate study increases understanding and appreciation of English and American literature, provides training in techniques of critical investigation, broadens understanding of the English language, and enhances skill in the use of the language. Graduate work in English prepares students primarily for teaching in universities, community colleges and schools. It can also prepare them for careers in linguistics, writing, editing and other professional and business fields.
Both the MA degree (thesis option) and the MA degree (non-thesis option) require ENGL 603. The thesis may be written on a subject in English literature, American literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, or creative writing. All MA students must complete a distribution requirement, consisting of at least one course in five of the six following areas: British literature to 1660, British literature 1660-1900, American literature to 1900, Modern British and American literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition or creative writing.
A minimum of 64 credit hours beyond the MA, or 96 hours beyond the BA, is required for the PhD degree in English. Both ENGL 603 and 683 are required, and should be taken in the first year of study. At least one advanced seminar is also required. The student's program may include a minor. The dissertation may be written on a subject in English literature, American literature, linguistics, or rhetoric and composition.
To be admitted to either program, a student should have a baccalaureate degree in English. Students who hold baccalaureate degrees in other fields may be admitted provisionally and required to make up deficiencies. A PhD candidate will normally be expected to hold the MA degree in English. If the MA course distribution requirement was not completed in an MA program, the PhD student must complete it in the first year of the program.
A student may meet the PhD language requirement by demonstrating 1) comprehensive knowledge of one language, 2) reading knowledge of two languages, 3) reading knowledge of one language plus ENGL 605 and 606 or 6 to 12 hours of a foreign language approved by the graduate director.
PhD students must undergo a review at the end of the first year. The review is conducted by the graduate faculty in English. A preliminary exam is required before work on the dissertation may begin.
English
(ENGL)
603. Bibliography and Literary Research. (3-0). Credit 3.
Introduction of basic techniques of research and scholarly procedure in literature; research reports.
605. Old English. (3-0). Credit 3.
Introduction to Old English literature and language (phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon and dialectology) through extensive reading of the literature of the period; research papers. Cross-listed with LING 605. Credit cannot be given for both ENGL605 and LING 605.
606. Beowulf. (3-0). Credit 3.
Literary and linguistic study of Beowulf. Prerequisites: ENGL 605 and LING 610 or approval of instructor.
607. Seminar in Medieval Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Advanced study in Medieval Literature. May cover Old or Middle English literature or language, research methods, manuscript or editing problems, or other areas. May be taken up to three times as content varies. Prerequisite: Graduate course in Medieval English or approval of instructor.
610. History of the English Language. (3-0). Credit 3.
Inductive study of phonological, grammatical and lexical history of English language, with brief discussion of some other Indo-European languages; kinds and principles of linguistic changes in general, as reflected in English. Cross-listed with LING 610. Credit cannot be given for both ENGL 610 and LING 610.
611. Seminar in Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Advanced study in Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century British Literature. May cover individual authors, literary movements or cultural context. May be taken up to three times as content varies. Prerequisite: ENGL 613, 614, 615, 619, 621 or approval of instructor.
612. Chaucer. (3-0). Credit 3.
Literary and linguistic study of Chaucer's works; bibliographical reports and research papers.
613. Studies in the Renaissance. (3-0). Credit 3.
Drama of the English Renaissance, exclusive of Shakespeare; research papers.
614. Studies in the Renaissance: Nondramatic Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Major writers of nondramatic prose and poetry of the English Renaissance.
615. Seventeenth Century English Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Poetry and prose of chief writers of 17th century: Bacon, Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Milton and Dryden; research papers.
616. Restoration and Earlier Eighteenth-Century Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Poetry and prose to 1750 concentrating on Defoe, Addison, Swift, Pope and Smollett; aesthetic, scientific and religious ideas; research papers.
617. Late 18th Century Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
The Late Enlightenment and the rise of modern genres (sentimental novel and drama, memoir, historiography, anthropology, political theory).
619. Studies in Shakespeare. (3-0). Credit 3.
Readings in Shakespeare's plays with attention to requirements and needs of individual students; sources of plays; textual studies; parallel readings in Shakespearean criticism from 18th century to present; research papers. Prerequisite: Course in Shakespeare.
621. Milton and His Contemporaries. (3-0). Credit 3.
Poetry and prose of John Milton with emphasis on Paradise Lost; Milton's predecessors and contemporaries as they contribute to understanding the milieu of Milton; research papers.
622. Elements of Creative Writing. (3-0). Credit 3.
Creative writing in major forms; students produce original work while reading models by masters; may include performance, group work, written and peer critiques.
623. Poetics and Creative Writing. (3-0). Credit 3.
Theories of literary forms and composition; writing techniques applied to creative writing for more extended projects in the major genres.
624. Advanced Creative Writing. (3-0). Credit 3.
Writing, plus discussion and study of selected topics in creative writing; may include the use of research or other approaches; major genres. Prerequisite: ENGL622 or approval of instructor.
627. Teaching Creative Writing. (3-0). Credit 3.
Principles of teaching creative writing in major genres; text selection, writing exercises, workshop, and evaluation techniques.
628. Literary Journal Editing. (3-0). Credit 3.
Process of preparing texts for publishing in a literary magazine or electronic literary journal; issues such as conceiving a thematic issue, manuscript call and selection, editing, proofing, design, production, marketing and distribution.
629. Creative Nonfiction. (3-0). Credit 3.
Writing creative nonfiction, plus study and discussion of selected topics related to the varieties of creative nonfiction; may include research or other approaches.
631. Early Nineteenth Century Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
British literature and culture of the early nineteenth century, including English and colonial poetry, fiction, drama, and essays to be studied in relation to the history of the period and its visual art, philosophy, political thought, sexual politics, book arts, and social history.
634. Victorian Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Literature and culture of the Victorian period, including poetry, fiction, drama, and essays of the British Isles and colonies in conversation with their intellectual, historical, and social contexts.
638. Seminar in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Advanced study in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature; may cover individual authors, literary movements or cultural context; may be taken up to three times as content varies. Prerequisite: Graduate course in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century British literature or approval of instructor.
640. Children's Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Analysis of significant works of children's literature from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, including fairy tales, fantasy, realistic novels and didactic stories; readings in feminist, psychoanalytic, historicist and cultural criticism. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.
641. English Novel. (3-0). Credit 3.
Readings that survey the English novel from its beginnings to the present. May involve attention to historical development, generic conventions, cultural contexts, or theoretical approaches.
645. Gender and Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Topics in literature (especially women's writing), culture, and gender, may include issues such as feminism, masculinities, race, and sexualities; may be taken up to three times for credit.
647. Modern Drama and Performance. (3-0). Credit 3.
Dramatic, theoretical, and critical texts that marked the onset of modernism in British performance culture (c. 1880 to present); unscripted but otherwise documented performances, such as music hall, dance, and street demonstrations, may be included.
648. Twentieth-Century British Literature to 1945. (3-0). Credit 3.
Readings in British, Anglophone, colonial and postcolonial literatures to the end of World War II; may include Conrad, Woolf, Yeats, Joyce, Rhys, or others; major literary movements; cultural contexts.
649. Twentieth-Century British Literature, 1945-Present. (3-0). Credit 3.
Readings in British, Irish, colonial and postcolonial literatures after World War II; may include Kingsley Amis, Spark, Carter, Rushdie, Boland, Ngugi, or others; major literary movements; cultural contexts.
650. Studies in American Literature: The Twentieth Century. (3-0). Credit 3.
Selected authors since 1900: may include Wharton, Eliot, Faulkner, Morrison, Cisneros or others; studies of literary and cultural movements or literary forms.
651. Studies in American Literature: The Southwest. (3-0). Credit 3.
Readings in Southwestern literature, with particular emphasis on literature that reflects the various cultures-Anglo American, Mexican American, and Native American-of the area.
652. Postmodernism. (3-0). Credit 3.
Topics in late twentieth and twenty-first century literature, theory, and culture, with particular emphasis on "postmodernism" as a contested term; may focus on popular, as well as literary, texts, and on theoretical or philosophical approaches.
653. Seminar in Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Selected topics in twentieth-century and contemporary literature in English; may focus on cultural and theoretical contexts: may be repeated as content varies. Prerequisite: Graduate course in the area or approval of instructor.
654. History and Theory of Rhetoric to 1800. (3-0). Credit 3.
Emphasis on interactions between rhetorical theory and practices; includes Sophists, Stoic logic and rhetoric, poetics and stylistics from Plato through Cicero, semiotics and hermeneutics in medieval rhetoric, Enlightenment rhetoric and moral philosophy, literary. Cross-listed with COMM 654.
655. History and Theory of Rhetoric since 1800. (3-0). Credit 3.
Major figures and movements in rhetorical theory; revisionist effect of psychology, linguistics, and romanticism upon classical rhetorics; associationist psychology; belles lettres movement, twentieth-century linguistic turn; current-traditional rhetoric and its successors; rhetorical critical theory. Cross-listed with COMM 655.
656. Composition Theory, Pedagogy, and Administration. (3-0). Credit 3.
Contemporary composition from theoretical, pedagogical, and administrative perspectives; including first-year composition programs; writing centers; the relationship of rhetoric and composition (or rhetoric and linguistics) in composition theory, in textbooks, and in writing programs; language variety; minorities representation; political approaches.
659. Studies in Film. (3-0). Credit 3.
Film theory, history, national cinemas, genres, movements, styles, specific directors, or film's relationships with other media; may be taken up to three times. Prerequisite: Graduate classification or approval of instructor.
663. African American Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
The African American literary tradition from its inception to the present; attention to historical and cultural contexts; questions of representation and the politics of dialect, home and migration, tradition and innovation, nation and diaspora. Prerequisite: Graduate classification or approval of instructor.
664. Analysis of Business and Technical Writing. (3-0). Credit 3.
Theory of teaching business and technical writing; evaluation of current research and its relation to current practice.
665. Seminar in Rhetoric and Discourse Studies. (3-0). Credit 3.
Interdisciplinary course in rhetoric, linguistics, criticism, and/or cultural studies: key author, school, method, genre, theme, or problem in language and other signs; may be taken three times for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate course in the areas or approval of the instructor.
666. Histories of the Book. (3-0). Credit 3.
Focus on the physical book as a carrier of literary and cultural meaning; research methodologies; survey of the history of printing, book production, and distribution in the United States and Europe. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.
667. Rhetoric and Poetics. (3-0). Credit 3.
Rhetorical analysis of literature and other written texts; the relationship of literary and rhetorical theory: the course may focus on various authors, historical periods, themes, methods or genres.
668. Literature of the African Diaspora. (3-0). Credit 3.
Literature by people of African descent in the Americas and/or Europe; may focus on literary movements and periods, genre studies, women writers, migration, regionalism, forms of subjection, and issues of gender, race, class and sexuality. Prerequisite: ENGL 663 or approval of instructor.
669. Seminar in African American Literature and Cultural Studies. (3-0). Credit 3.
Critique of the production of literary and cultural texts, the presence of critical theory, or the profession of African American literary and cultural studies; may be taken three times for credit.
671. Studies in American Literature: The Early Period. (3-0). Credit 3.
Colonial, Revolutionary, and post-Revolutionary literature and the backgrounds; various genres and writers.
672. Studies in American Literature. The American Renaissance. (3-0). Credit 3.
Selected works and writers associated with the American Renaissance in the mid-19th century. Authors such as Douglass, Fern, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Stowe and others.
674. Studies in American Literature: Transcendentalism. (3-0). Credit 3.
Backgrounds of transcendentalism in Eastern and European philosophy; the movement in the U.S.; works by writers such as Alcott, Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, Whitman, and others.
675. Studies in American Literature: 19th and Early 20th Century. (3-0). Credit 3.
Fiction and nonfiction near the turn of the twentieth century; sociocultural and literary backgrounds; studies of literary and cultural movements or literary forms.
676. Seminar in American Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Advanced study in American literature, may cover individual authors, literary movements, or cultural context; may be taken up to three times. Prerequisite: Graduate course in American Literature or approval of instructor.
677. Poetry. (3-0). Credit 3.
Readings focused on poetry organized by period, author, literary movement or cultural context; may involve attention to historical development, generic conventions, or theoretical approaches; may be taken up to three times.
678. Seminar in the Novel. (3-0). Credit 3.
Advanced study in the novel in English; may be organized by author, theme, formal characteristics, sub-genre, period, contextual influences, theoretical approach, may be taken up to three times for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate course in novel or approval of instructor.
679. Studies in American Literature: Ethnic Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Literature written by writers from ethnic and racial minorities in the United States, including works by African American, Asian American, Native American, and Mexican American and other Latina/o writers.
680. Theories of Gender. (3-0). Credit 3.
Theories of gender, sexualities, feminism, embodiment, and difference with particular focus on their relationship to literary and cultural studies; emphasis on contemporary theoretical positions, discourses, and debates. Prerequisite: Graduate classification or approval of instructor.
681. Seminar in English. (1-0). Credit 1.
Presentations by faculty, students and visiting scholars based on current research. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate classification in English.
682. History of Criticism. (3-0). Credit 3.
The development of literary thought from Plato to the present, with emphasis upon the relationship of literature to other modes of human experience. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.
683. Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism. (3-0). Credit 3.
Important theories of literary criticism for students of English and American literature; functional emphasis in critical practice; research papers.
685. Directed Studies. Credit 1 to 6 each semester.
Readings to supplement the student's knowledge of English or American literature or of the English language in areas not studied in other courses; research papers. Prerequisites: Graduate classification and approval of department head.
688. Introduction to Comparative Literature. (3-0). Credit 3.
Introduction to the discipline of Comparative Literature by examples of specific area studies or by an overview of the field; introduction to the pedagogical practices of teaching Comparative Literature and Culture. Cross-listed with COML 603. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.
689. Special Topics in... Credit 1 to 4.
Selected topics in an identified area of English. May be repeated for credit.
691. Research. Credit 1 or more each semester.
Research for thesis or dissertation.
695. Publication and Professionalization. (3-0). Credit 3.
For advanced PhD students in English. Discussion of publication and professionalization; standards and practices of publication in academic journals; academic job market; writing, revision, and submission of scholarly articles. To be taken as S/U only. Prerequisite: Must have passed preliminaries in English.
697. Pedagogy. (3-0). Credit 3.
Theories of teaching literature, composition, or rhetoric; pedagogical approaches and methods; supervised teaching; evaluation of current research and its relation to pedagogical practice; designed to assist students in their first teaching experience. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.