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Spring 2007 Courses

H 296 Honors Seminar: Literature and Intellectual Movements

English H296: Searching for Paradise: Utopia and the Politics of Exclusion

Instructor: Professor Kay Halasek Utopia.

As an undergraduate honors seminar, English H296, “Literature and Intellectual Movements,” will engage students in an intensive and historically wide-ranging study of utopian philosophies, literatures, and films. The first half of the term will address the philosophical, rhetorical, and religious origins of and influences on utopia in both western and eastern traditions. Focusing in the second half of the term on social and political utopias, the course will turn to literary and cinematic representations, from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison. We’ll end by examining the consensus-designed, master plan Disney community, Celebration, Florida—what some consider a twenty-first century capitalist utopia.
H 296 full course description.

English 569: Digital Media Studies in English

Instructor: Professor H. Lewis Ulman Utopia.

Google's much debated digitization of several top academic libraries' collections has drawn worldwide attention to a process that has been underway for decades: the migration of our cultural archives from pages and library shelves to screens and networked databases. Digital technologies are affecting the texts we read, the questions we ask of those texts, and the processes of answering those questions. Students will investigate this transformation of textual culture in three ways: by reading and building theories of electronic textuality, by analyzing electronic and print editions, and by producing a multimodal electronic edition of a text (i.e., an edition incorporating text, images, and other media).
569 full course description.

English & Comp Sts 585.02/History 585

History of Literacy/Literacy Past and Present

Instructor: Professor Harvey J. Graff Hands of child.

The story and the discourse of literacy was once a simple, positive narrative. In recent years our understanding of literacy and its relationships to ongoing societies, cultures, and social change has been challenged and revised.

Among other important currents, historical studies and critical theories stand out. Historical research on literacy has been unusually important in encouraging a reconstruction of the fields that contribute to literacy studies, the design and conduct of research, and the role of theory and generalization in understanding literacy and, increasingly, literacies (plural). Drawing on a number of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences, it has insisted on new understandings of "literacy in context."

This course considers these and related changes. Taking a historical approach, we will seek a general understanding of the history of literacy mainly but not only in the West since classical antiquity, with an emphasis on the early modern and modern eras. At the same time, we examine critically literacy's contributions to the shaping of the modern world and the impacts on literacy from fundamental historical social changes. Among many topics, we will explore communications, language, expression, family and demographic behavior, economic development, urbanization, institutions, literacy campaigns, political and personal changes, and the uses of reading and writing. A new understanding of the place of literacy and literacies in social development is our overarching goal.
585.02 full course description.

English 884/History 775

Literacy Past and Present/History of Literacy Historical and Comparative Perspectives

Instructor: Professor Harvey J. Graff Utopia.

In recent years our understanding of literacy and its relationships to ongoing societies and social change has been challenged and revised. The challenge came from many directions. The “new literacy studies,” as they are often called, together attest to transformations of approaches and knowledge and a search for new understandings. Many traditional notions about literacy and its presumed importance no longer influence scholarly and critical conceptions. The gap that too often exists between scholarly and more popular and applied conceptions is one of the topics we will consider.

Among a number of important currents, historical scholarship and critical theories stand out, both by themselves and together. Historical research on literacy has been unusually important in encouraging a reconstruction of the fields that contribute to literacy studies, the design and conduct of research, the role of theory and generalization in efforts to comprehend literacy and, as we say increasingly, literacies (plural). It has insisted on new understandings of “literacy in context,” including historical context, as a requirement for making general statements about literacy, and for testing them, and carries great implications for new critical theories relating to literacy.

This seminar investigates these and related changes. Taking a historical approach, we will seek a general understanding of the history of literacy primarily but not exclusively in the West since classical antiquity but with an emphasis on the early modern and modern eras. At the same time, we examine critically literacy’s contributions to the shaping of the modern world and the impacts on literacy from fundamental historical social changes. Among many topics, we will explore communications, language, family and demographic behavior, economic development, urbanization, institutions, literacy campaigns, both political and personal changes, and the uses of reading and writing. A new understanding of the place of literacy and literacies in social development is our overarching goal.
884 full course description.

H 591.02 Special Topics in the Study of Rhetoric

Human Rights, Visual Rhetoric, and the Trauma of Representation

Instructor: Associate Professor Wendy Hesford Hands of child.

This course will focus on contemporary human right’s literature, human rights documentary films, and the campaigns of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and UNICEF. We will study the fundamental principles of rhetorical criticism as these apply to human rights violations and activism in the 20th and 21st centuries, including representations of war, genocide, child labor, and global health and environmental issues. This course aims to provide students with a broad working knowledge of human rights as both an intellectual discourse and a realm of political action.
H 591.02 full course description.

English 573.02

Rhetorical Theory and Analysis of Social Action

Instructor: Prof. Ann Marie Mann Simpkins Picture of a woman.

English 573.02 will involve the advanced examination of social rhetoric and will include the review of fundamental rhetorical principles, examination of one case study in protest movement rhetoric (the anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells), and readings in the theory and criticism of social protest movement rhetoric. Students will learn the basic types of social movements and their difference from other related rhetorical situations, structural patterns of social movements, their constituent features, and their standard stages of development, including central terms, issues, and concepts relevant to social movement scholarship, and the application of these principles to the study of one social movement that will form the substance of their final project. Early in the quarter, each student will select one social movement for detailed study in a group.

Texts:
Royster, Southern Horrors and Other Writings.
Stewart, Smith, and Denton, Persuasion and Social Movements.
Morris and Brown, Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest.

Assignments:
Weekly Writing Assignments (1 page each)
Five short essays (2 pages each)
Group Presentation Project
Annotated Bibliography (10 sources)

English 573.02 full course description.