Brooklyn College English Department

Courses

Spring 2008 Courses

(registration begins December 4th)

English 700X: Introduction to Literary Research
Prof. Elsky
Th 6:20-8:00
(for MA English students only)

This course introduces students to several major areas of literary research and scholarly procedure as preparation for research papers in MA courses and the MA thesis. We will discuss practical techniques of locating and citing primary and secondary materials; we will also consider the kinds of research engaged in by literary scholars and the broader issue of how the subjects of research change over time. Topics will include bibliography, print and on-line research resources, and the varieties of criticism as practiced in the last quarter of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Assignments will be directed toward a term project on the writer or work of the students' MA thesis, including a formal proposal for the MA thesis.

Permission of the graduate deputy required: profmsp@msn.com

English 700.1X: Literary Texts and Critical Methods
Prof. Steel
Th. 6:20-8:00
(Permission required: for MA English Teacher students only)

Permission of the graduate deputy required: profmsp@msn.com

This course will introduce you to several major critical approaches to literature: New Criticism, various historicist approaches, feminism and gender theory, and poststructuralism. To guide you in the practical application of these critical approaches, we will read three classic literary texts representing three major genres: narrative poetry (the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales); drama (Shakespeare's Hamlet); and the novel (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein). We will also read several essays that approach these works from the various critical perspectives. By the end of the course, we will have grasped the advantages and disadvantages of each critical approach: no one critical mode should ever hope to explain the whole work, since any critical illumination of any one aspect of a work necessarily obscures some other, equally important aspects.

Requirements: active participation in class discussion; several one-page response papers; two longer papers, each of which will respond to at least one secondary source (5 pages each); and a take-home final exam, due on the last day of class.

Required Texts (which are also, I should stress, required editions):
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Bath. Peter G. Beidler, ed. Bedford. ISBN: 0-312-11128-2
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Susanne L. Wofford, ed. Bedford. ISBN: 0-312-05544-7
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Joanna M. Smith, ed. 2nd edition. Bedford. ISBN 0-312-19126-X.
Abrams, M. H. Glossary of Literary Terms. 8th edition. Heinle. ISBN 1413002188.
Additional readings will be available through the BC Blackboard website.

English 701X: History of the English Language
Prof. Gonsalves
Th 6:20-8:00. (area 6)

This course will introduce students to the development of the English language. We will begin by looking at the structure of language in terms of its sound system, sentence structure, and semantics; we will also look at the development of writing systems. We will examine how language varies and changes over time and how language change is influenced by historical, social, political, economic and cultural factors. We will especially examine aspects of change in the English language over its three major historical periods: Old English, Middle English and Modern English. We will examine representative samples of literary texts from each of these periods to see how they evidence key linguistic features prominent during the period and highlight major language changes. Assignments will include weekly homework from a workbook, a midterm exam, a final exam, and a short term paper (6+ pages).

English 703X: Language, Culture and Society
Prof. Patkowski
M 6:20-8:00 (area 6)

Examination of the role which language plays in social, cultural and political relations in American society, with particular attention to issues of linguistic diversity involving gender and ethnicity, and to issues of multilingualism in education. After a general introduction to the psycho- and socio-linguistic dimensions of language, we will examine the role of language in negotiating power (a) across gender lines, (b) across racial and ethnic lines, and (c) in multilingual settings. Readings will include Bernard Spolsky's very brief introduction to Sociolinguistics, Mary Talbot's balanced and informative survey of Language and Gender, Theresa Perry and Lisa Delpit's impassioned The Real Ebonics Debate, and Francois Grosjean's classic Life with Two Languages, as well as a packet of extra articles.

Requirements will include two in-class "midterms" and a final project: either a sociolinguistic analysis of an actual, recorded speech event, or a language status case analysis of a language group involved in a social conflict in which language plays an important part.

English 708X: Literature of the Middle Ages
Prof. Masciandaro
M 6:20-8:00 (area 1)

Question of the Self: "Tu autem, domine deus meus, exaudi et respice et vide et miserere et sana me, in cuius oculis mihi quaestio factus sum, et ipse est languor meus" [But you, O Lord my God, hear and look upon and see and pity and heal me. For in your eyes I have become a question for myself, and this is my weakness] (Augustine, Confessions, 10.33).

This oft-cited line from Augustine's Confessions registers a problematic explored from many perspectives throughout medieval literature: the ways in which the self, the subject of questions, is itself a question, an originary question, a question of questions. Reading from several genres (autobiography, chronicle, travel narrative, dream-vision, romance, lyric), this course focuses on medieval texts which explore in conspicuous ways the instability of human identity. Within this focus we will cover a number of interrelated topics: embodiment, animal and human natures, individuality, sex and gender, social and professional identities, and immortality. Works to be read include: Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae; Gerald of Wales, History and Topography of Ireland; Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival; The Romance of the Rose; Dante Alighieri Vita Nuova; Geoffrey Chaucer, House of Fame; Thomas Hoccleve's Complaint and Dialogue; The Book of Margery Kempe. Requirements: weekly commentaries, final paper, final exam.

English 715X: Children's and Adolescents' Literature
Prof. Rutkoski
W 6:20-8:00
(for MA English Teacher students only)

This course seeks to provide you with an awareness of how children's literature has changed over time, how it responds to and reshapes generic conventions, and how it interacts with cultural conceptions of children. From sixteenth-century alphabets to the graphic novel, our primary texts will cover such themes as education, running away, the natural world, death, and make-believe. We will also be reading cultural historical work on the lives of actual children in various periods, and criticism on primary texts. Authors covered in this course will include Frances Hodgson Burnett, Beatrix Potter, Shaun Tan, E.L. Konigsburg, Marjane Satrapi, Philip Pullman, and Scott Westerfeld. Requirements include several short essays and teaching projects, and a final.

Permission of the graduate deputy required: profmsp@msn.com

English 724X: Milton
Prof. Acosta
M 4:30-6:10 (area 2)

In this class we will study representative examples of the poetry of John Milton. Readings include: Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and selected shorter writings. Class work will focus on close reading and discussion; we will also address historical context and contemporary critical approaches to Milton. Required texts are John Milton; Paradise Lost, ed. Kastan (Hackett, 2005), The Complete Poetry of John Milton ed. Shawcross (Anchor, 1971) and A Companion to Milton, ed. Thomas N. Corns (Blackwell, 2003). Writing will include an annotated bibliography, a final paper and a final exam.

English 749.2X: American Literature of the Nineteenth Century II
Prof. Nadell
T 6:20-8:00 (area 3)

This class will focus on major American texts from the second half of the nineteenth century. It will focus on central themes in American literature of the era: slavery, race, gender, authorship, character, religion, class, nationhood, nature. It will examine key genres: regionalism, sentimentalism, realism, naturalism.

Requirements include weekly e-mails, response papers, midterm and final, and a research paper.

English 753.2X: Twentieth Century Fiction
Prof. Boyle
Th 6:20-8:00 (area 4)

"The Outsiders" in primarily British and European fiction, 1899-2000. Includes works by Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Joyce, Kafka, Hemingway, V. Woolff, Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis, Muriel Spark, Albert Camus, Martin Amis. Midterm, short response papers and a final.

English 761X: Shakespeare
Prof. Harrison
T 6:20-8:00 (area 2)

Our class will address the most mysterious of items in the canon of Shakespearean study (no, not Shakespeare's 'true' identity, but a work more revealing of its author's nature than any other); to wit, that great closet drama that is at once tragi-comedy, romance, and one of the most sublime diaries ever composed: the Sonnets. The Sonnets are a quarry as rich as Leonardo's sketchbooks - or Michelangelo's - and as exquisite. Nowhere is the language we have inherited more precisely limned than in these 154 minature worlds. The sonnets will be discussed, and written about, in a series of assignments; above all, participants must be prepared to do some memorizing.

English 775.2X: Literature and Society
Prof. Davis
W 6:20-8:00 (area 5)

Critical Literacies: Reading the Word, Reading the World

What is reading good for? This course examines those encounters with literature and practices of reading that not only develop readers’ technical facility or acculturate them to their worlds, but also equip them to challenge and change their worlds. How, for example, did a sixteenth century Italian miller, Menocchio, read the Bible so imaginatively yet so heretically that the Catholic crusaders had to place him and his cosmology on trial? How did the American slave Harriet Jacobs read scripture in such a way as to interrogate the intersection of slavery and patriarchy? How did the motley collection of renegades and merchants that populated colonial America create a public sphere of letters robust enough to change people’s reading practices and catalyze a revolution? In addition to the texts on which these questions are based (Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms, Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Michael Warner’s Letters of the Republic, respectively), our materials will include selections about African American reading salons (Elizabeth McHenry’s Forgotten Readers); working class readers of 20th century pulp fiction (Erin Smith’s Hard Boiled) and 19th century dime novels (Michael Denning’s Mechanic Accents); and the cultivation of “middlebrow” taste (Janice Radway’s A Feeling for Books) and hip-hop linguistics (H. Samy Alim’s Roc the Mic Right). We’ll also study first-person accounts, such as CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary and Laura Kipnis’ “Reading Hustler,” and fictional texts, such as Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno. Students will make an in-class presentation and write weekly response papers and two formal essays, one of which will have a research component.

English 775.3X: Literature and Psychoanalytic Criticism
Prof. Fairey
Th 4:30-6:10 (area 5)

This course explores the encounter between literature and psychoanalysis during the twentieth century. It focuses primarily on psychoanalytic interpretations of literature but also examines psychoanalytic writing itself as a form of literature which readers and critics interpret. We shall read several key texts by Freud including "An Autobiographical Study," "On Dreams," "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality," "The Uncanny," "The Theme of the Three Caskets," "Beyond the Pleasure Principal," and the case of Dora and we will consider the Marxist and feminist critiques of Freud. Further readings will include Freudian and Jungian interpretations of fairy tales and myths, various psychoanalytic approaches to Hamlet and King Lear, including Freudian, Lacanian, and object relations approaches, and Lacan's essay on Poe's "The Purloined Letter." The course will conclude with readings of two modern works of fiction, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, which will be interpreted from psychoanalytic perspectives. Course requirements include a short weekly written response to the reading, two papers, and a final exam.

English 778X: Theories of College-level Composition
Prof. DeLuca
W 4:30-6:10 (area 5)
(for MA English and MFA students only)

Permission of the graduate deputy required: profmsp@msn.com

English 778X is a course in current theories and best practices of teaching composition in college. What should be in the syllabus? What do you do on the first day? How do you establish routines? How do you create successful assignments? How do you break down a complex process into smaller, do-able parts and at the same time leave room for the large sweep of energy and inspiration that writing often involves? What sorts of readings are appropriate? How do you teach them? How do you respond to students' writing? What comes first in your remarks? What do we need to know about dialects and English as a second language? (More, obviously than can be addressed here, but we'll at least begin the conversation.) What do you do about grades? How can you help students develop a writing process and a practice? What do they need to know about rhetoric? How do you evaluate their work? What about the question of values? What are you teaching them about learning, about themselves, about our standards, about what it means to be educated? To be a writer? What helps people to work and what shuts them down?

All these questions are part of what we address in this class. We will read classic and current essays about teaching and learning in general and in regard to writing. We will read some stories and poems to develop practices for teaching literature. We will also look at plenty of student essays.

The main text for the class is DeLuca, Fox, Kogen, and Johnson, eds. Dialogue on Writing. And I will put together a packet of essays, poems and stories to supplement that text.

Assignments will include a complete syllabus for a writing or "writing-intensive" course, short response papers to most of the readings, and one five-page paper on a topic of your choosing. So you'll be writing throughout the semester in a relatively "low-stakes" way, with two more formal assignments. There will be lots of interaction and I hope we will enjoy ourselves.

English 779X: Advanced Theories and Practice of Composition
Prof. Siegel
M 4:30-6:10
(for MA English Teacher students only)

Permission of the graduate deputy required: profmsp@msn.com

One of the biggest responsibilities of English teachers is the teaching of writing. How can a teacher help their students develop their own writing process, enable them to see their own weaknesses and work on them? How can a teacher both prepare students for the high stakes tests they have to take and at the same time, aim higher, to the level of expertise required in college? How can students learn to use writing to think and learn? How is work on grammar and conventions integrated into work on content and thinking? These are some of the questions that will be dealt with in this class.

Requirements for the class include: a journal, several writing assignments along with a Writing Teacher Portfolio, where students will examine their own (or others' teaching), follow several of their own students throughout the term and critique their own teaching of writing.

English 780X: Thesis Project
(Permission required: for MA English students only)

An independent study to complete the thesis. To obtain permission, you must submit to the Graduate Deputy the Thesis Title Form signed by the faculty member who will supervise the thesis project. Completion of English 700 is a prerequisite for this course.

English 793X: Seminar: Victorian Conversations
Prof. Laurence
Th 4:30-6:10 (area 3)

Victorian literature offers us an area for thinking about the constructions of East and West, imperialism and colonialism, science and religion, the rich and the poor, as well as the roles of men, women, children and servants. The reading of Victorian novels and poetry and the viewing of Victorian photography will be juxtaposed in this course with some Modernist novels to illuminate literary and cultural conversations.
The center of this course is three pairs of novels in dialogue with one another: a Victorian novel and a second novel that turns the corner into the twentieth century and "answers back." For example, Rudyard Kipling's Kim and Mulk and Raj Anand's The Untouchable; Emily Bronte's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargosso Sea; Charles Dicken's Great Expectations and Ian McEwan's Atonement.

Issues of narration and style as well as the themes of empire, race, class, crime, gender, performance, politics, economics, science and religion will emerge in our discussions of poetry and photography of the time.

Requirements: One short paper (5pp.); one research paper (10 pp.), short reader responses on the Class Blog, oral presentation.

English 794X: Seminar: Toni Morrison
Prof. Buncombe
W 4:30-6:10 (area 4)

Toni Morrison’s novels unfold in a cyclical, non-linear fashion. Scenes and characters shift back and forth in time and place, point of view and space. Memories, fantasies, dreams, visions collide with actual events without warning, creating not only compelling stories in themselves, but also a sense of mystery, suspense, disbelief, absurdity and humor as well as an appreciation for the acute observations and profound wisdom embedded in the narratives. Morrison’s works reflect her intention to explore and dramatize the history and politics along with the culture, language, traditions, and values that have shaped the lives of African Americans within the context of the history and experiences of mainstream America with its tendency to deny the past instead of embracing it in order to cope with the present and brave the future.

REQUIRED TEXTS: All Morrison’s novels: “The Bluest Eye,” “Sula,” “Song of Solomon,” “Tar Baby,” “Beloved,” “Jazz,” “Paradise,” “Love.” ALSO required: Harriet Jacobs [aka Linda Brent]. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself.”

COURSE REQUIREMENTS: reading quizzes (15%), mid-term essay exam (20%), panel presentation (20%), 6-8-page term paper (20%), final essay exam (25%). All requirements must be completed in order to receive full credit for this course.

English 794X: Seminar: American Modernism
Prof. Entin
T 6:20-8:00 (area 4)

This course will examine experimental American literature from the first half of the twentieth century. Our focus will be on the novel, but we will read some poetry as well. Texts will be read in the context of major historical trends, including migration and immigration, the rise of corporate capitalism and "mass" consumer culture, shifts in sex and gender conventions, the emergence of new technologies and new media, and the crisis of the Great Depression. We will read some literary criticism and discuss new directions in modernist studies. Authors include Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Nella Larsen, Jean Toomer, William Faulkner, Meridel Le Sueur, and others. Student responsibilities include response papers, presentations, and essays.

Comparative Literature 706.1X: Seminar: The Modern European Novel
Prof. Moser
T 4:30-6:10 (area 7)

THIS COURSE IS CANCELLED

The era from the turn of the century to the eve of World War II witnessed, according to the poet Charles Peguy, more changes than had occurred in "all the centuries since Christ." The literature of these times testifies to these dramatic changes, to the sweeping modernization that radically changed the way people traveled, communicated, dressed, interacted with people different from themselves, lived in and saw the world. Discussion of the novels will be extended and enriched by readings and discussions of historical, political, philosophical, social, scientific and artistic currents in early 20th-century Europe. Students will also be introduced to a range of critical lenses through which these works can be viewed. This course includes works by such authors as Proust, Gide, Mann, Hesse, Kafka, Bulgakov, Svevo, Unamuno. Requirements include several short papers, a midterm and final, a research paper.

Comparative Literature 707.1X: Seminar: A Brief History of the Lyric
Prof. Asekoff
T 4:30-6:10 (area 7)

A survey of the theory and practice of the lyric from early Greek, Chinese poetry to the post-modern present, with emphasis on English, American, and European poetic traditions. There will be short response papers, a mid-term, a final, and a term paper.