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Fall Lineup: New and Noteworthy Courses
One course-English 405: Writing about Science-is being offered for the first time this Fall by Jonathan Buehl, our newest Professor of Rhetoric, Composition and Literacy Studies. This course will teach students how to perform professional writing tasks that involve scientific discourses, such as accommodating science to non-specialists and editing technical scientific prose. Knowledge of or proficiency in science is not required (Call # 09081-2).
A course in Asian American Literature and Culture, English 587, taught by Professor Pranav Jani, will offer a timely analysis of South Asian-American literary and cinematic texts. It will engage with such questions as, "How have ideas about the 'exotic' or 'spiritual' East and the 'materialist' West shaped the image (and self-image) of Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Nepali communities in the U.S.?" and "What does it mean that Bollywood, mehndi, bhangra, and, for that matter, software engineers and call-center workers, are now in vogue?" (Call # 09111-6).
English 269, taught by Cormac Slevin, is a laboratory-based introduction to the theory and practice of creating digital media. Students will be analyzing and creating digital texts, using such programs as Audacity, Photoshop, iMovie, and Sophie (a new multimedia authoring program). No prior technological experience is required (Call # 09017-1). This course satisfies GEC the requirement for Arts and Humanities, Analysis of Texts and Works of Art, Visual/Performing Arts.
Film buffs will be interested in taking Professor Mark Conroy's course in Film and Literature (English 378), which will examine different film adaptations of the same literary text, such as the two film versions of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Lolita, and Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (Call # 09072-1).
Find out how and why Darwin shook up-and continues to shake up-poets and the populace at large, or why Virginia Woolf wanted to kill "the angel in the house." Women's social roles, key scientific discoveries, challenges to religious faith, and imperialistic expansion will be just a few of the topics that students will explore in Professor Jill Galvan's course in Victorian Poetry (English 541). Students unfamiliar with in-depth analysis of poetry, or those who are just "rusty" in their work with poetry, will also be offered a brief introduction at the beginning of the course (Call # 09087-5)
Gloomy gothic castles, love and courtship, the horrors of slavery, and the struggle for women's rights are just a few of the features of English literature of the eighteenth century, taught in Professor Roxann Wheeler's English 533 course. Students will read such works as Henry Fielding's rollicking history of the fortunes of Tom Jones, Olaudah Equiano's unforgettable narrative of his enslavement and freedom, Fanny Burney's Cinderella-like tale of Evelina, and Mary Wollstonecraft's pioneering call for equal education for women (Call # 09086-0).
English 573.01, taught by Professor Nan Johnson, will instruct students in the methods of rhetorical criticism through the analysis of a range of genres and the study of critical approaches that allow us to understand how arguments function in our culture and our lives. They will examine a range of texts including non-fiction, popular culture, film, fiction, poetry, oratory, pamphlets, posters, advertisements, and periodicals. They will focus on the formal rhetorical strategies used in these texts to persuade audiences to beliefs and actions (Call # 09105-1).
What were the impulses that led some Romantic artists-poets-musicians to compose a "total art work" (in Richard Wagner's words) that involved more than one medium? Find out in Professor Les Tannenbaum's course in Multimodal Romanticism, English 840 (Call # 09290-0). Students will study William Blake's illuminated poetry, the drawings and poems of Thomas Hood (hilarious punster and biting social critic), the paintings and poems of J. M. W. Turner (England's greatest painter), and Richard Wagner's epic music drama, The Rhinegold (first part of The Ring of the Nibelungs, the culmination of British and German interest in northern mythology and a forerunner of The Lord of the Rings).
For more information about these and other Autumn quarter English courses, see our Autumn course listings.
