Brooklyn College English Department

Courses

Spring 2010 Courses

Registration begins December 1, 2009

English 700X: Introduction to Literary Research
Prof. Elsky
Th 6:30 - 8:10
(Permission required: 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. The course centers on sharing specific projects undertaken by students in the course. We will discuss practical techniques of locating and citing primary and secondary sources; use of primary and secondary sources; and the some approaches and research topics that have dominated literary scholarship in recent decades. Forms of criticism will be illustrated with critical essays on a Shakespeare play, as well as essays chosen by students for their own work. Assignments will be directed toward a term project on a writer or work that will be the subject of the student’s MA thesis, including a formal proposal for the MA thesis.

English 702X: Structure of Modern English
Prof. Brooks
W 4:30 - 6:10 (area 6)

Examination of modern English (its structure and nature) based on modern linguistic theory, including comparison of both traditional and more recent grammars. Development of understanding of the sound system, grammatical markers, syntax, and semantics as well as relation of written and spoken language. We will “demystify” the language of grammar, analyze sentences, and consider differences between dialects and standard English. Attention will be given to applications for both native and non-native users of English. Course work will include readings, exercises, quizzes and a final exam. There will be three additional assignments: observation of a grammar class, a grammar tutoring log, and a project report requiring review of source material and a lesson plan. Prepare for an interactive course, not passive listening.

English 702.6X: Introduction to Linguistics
Prof. Patkowski
W 4:30 - 6:10 (area 6)

The course provides an introduction to the various aspects of contemporary linguistics by analyzing how sentences are put together from words (syntax), how words and language sounds are structured (morphology and phonology), and the systematic ways in which these convey meaning (semantics). Beyond examining these essential mechanics of language, the course also looks at several broader issues such as the biological basis and evolutionary origins of human language, language acquisition by children and adults, and the implications of some of the major linguistic research and findings for the study of language and mind. The required texts are: The Study of Language by George Yule, Patterns in the Mind by Ray Jackendoff, and a reading packet which primarily contains materials by Chomsky, including selections from the seminal 1971 Chomsky-Foucault debate, and from his reader-friendly interviews with the French linguist Mitsou Ronat. There will be several short homework assignments which will include linguistic exercises and responses to the readings, a final examination, and a short term paper.

English 706X: Chaucer Exclusive of Canterbury Tales
Prof. Masciandaro
W 6:30 - 8:10 (area 1)

“For whatever exists in time proceeds as a present thing from the things that have happened into the things that are going to happen, and there is nothing that has been established in time that is able to embrace the entire space of its own life at one and the same time” (Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy). Romaunt of the Rose, Boece, The Book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, Anelida and Arcite, Parlement of Foules, Troilus and Criseyde, The Legend of Good Women, Treatise on the Astrolabe, The Former Age. We will study these works with special attention to the temporal themes they involve (history, mutability, contingency, fortune, newness, fate, eternity). In doing so, we will also interrogate our own understanding of time and the temporalities of medievalist scholarship in dialogue with the work of contemporary critics and philosophers (Giorgio Agamben, Kathleen Biddick, Carolyn Dinshaw, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Eileen Joy, Quentin Meillasssoux, Jean-Luc Marion, Reza Negarestani, et al). Requirements: commentaries, final exam, project proposal, critical research paper.

English 715X: Children's and Adolescents' Literature
Prof. Rutkoski
T 4:30 - 6:10
(for MA English Teacher students only)

[Course description forthcoming.]

English 731X: Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century
Prof. Gelber
W 6:30 - 8:10 (area 2)

[Course description forthcoming.]

English 742X: Nineteenth Century Literature II
Prof. Fairey
T 6:30 - 8:10 (area 3)

This course examines British and continental literature of the second half of the nineteenth century in terms of a number of broad cultural concerns and conflicts. On the one hand, the literature of this half-century conveys the triumphant energies of capitalism, nationalism and imperialism, the city, scientific advances, and progressive reforms altering the status of women and workers. At the same time, it expresses the turmoil of religious doubt, cultural pessimism, and a sense of loss of purpose, as well as the depth of longings to retreat from the complexities and perplexities of the present into the historical, the pastoral, and the orientalist. Evident also, as the century progresses, are the increasing alienation and isolation of the artist from bourgeois society and the development of the symbolist movement in poetry and the aesthetic philosophy of “art for art’s sake.” A mix of genres will be studied with emphasis on poetry but attention also to several forms of prose nonfiction, including polemical tracts, literary and cultural criticism, and autobiography. Readings will include selected works by Tennyson, Baudelaire, Browning, Arnold, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde, and Tolstoy. Course requirements: regular attendance and class participation; weekly response papers; one class presentation; one term paper (6-8 pages); final examination.

English 749.2X: American Literature of the Nineteenth Century II
Prof. Minter
M 6:30 - 8:10 (area 3)

By convention, the era of American Realism and Naturalism begins in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War, and ends in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. After a troubled postwar reconstruction, the wounded nation soon rebounded with a period of robust “Gilded Age” prosperity. By the 1890’s, a decade that began with the symbolic closing of the American frontier and ended with the imperial designs of the Spanish-American war, the United States was on the verge of becoming a significant international powerhouse. American prosperity and prestige, however, did not resolve significant social tensions that remained after the old war had ended, and introduced more problems of their own. It was, in short, an interesting time to be an American author. The first few weeks of the term will be devoted to non-fiction works written by authors who participated in the intellectual and social debates of post-Civil War America (Henry Adams, Jane Addams, and Ida B. Wells), along with a recent history of the period (Rebecca Edwards’s New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age). After this documentary beginning, we will proceed to the following works of fiction: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain; The Damnation of Theron Ware, by Harold Frederic; The Conjure Woman, by Charles Chesnutt; Yekl by Abraham Cahan; Mrs. Spring Fragrance by Sui Sin Far; McTeague, by Frank Norris; and A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather.

English 753.1X: Twentieth Century American Fiction
Prof. Entin
T 4:30 - 6:10 (area 4)

Stories of migration have been among the most potent and enduring American narratives. A nation founded by immigrants and exiles, the United States has been (and continues to be) a nexus for travelers and newcomers, an international crossroads and a country of people on the move. This course will examine migration narratives from twentieth-century U.S. literature, focusing in particular on stories about the migration of black and white southerners to the North and West (“the Southern diaspora,” in the words of historian James Gregory) and on the travels and travails of migrant farm workers. We will pay particular attention to issues of race, ethnicity, and labor, as well as to the dynamics of displacement, dispossession, and alienation that are at the core of so many of these narratives. Likely authors include Jean Toomer, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Tillie Olsen, Carlos Bulosan, Helena Viramontes, Hariette Arnow, and Russell Banks. We may also read critical and theoretical selections by Werner Sollors, Deleuze and Guattari, John Yu, Michael Denning, and Hardt and Negri, among others. Requirements include active participation in class discussions, an oral presentation, one short paper, and one longer essay. Students may also be asked to contribute regularly to a course blog.

English 753.2X: Twentieth Century Fiction
Prof. Laurence
Th 4:30 - 6:10 (area 4)

Reading is the subject of this course. Through analysis of scenes of reading (and more) in twentieth-century literature, we will discover illuminating interconnections and challenging texts. Readings may include Proust’s Combray (section one, Swann’s Way), Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own, sections of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Elizabeth Bowen’s A Death of the Heart, Bernard Schlink’s The Reader. We focus on this topic not only because acts of reading preoccupy twentieth-century authors and theorists, but because of the evolving nature of reading and writing in the new millenium. Reading takes time, and we have devised many ways of avoiding it or reading and writing quickly: see the film, read it on Kindle or your i-phone, read the quick notes, scan a review, browse the comic book, make the story short. What’s to be discovered then in focusing, for example, on scenes of childhood reading or women reading? Elizabeth Bowen’s childhood reading prepared her, she said “to handle any book like a bomb,” and led, eventually, to the “inventive pen.” How do we become inventive readers? What do Proust, Woolf or Freud say about reading? What do the theorists contribute—for example, Barthes, Levi-Strauss, deMan, Derrida—to our interpretation of literary scenes of reading and conceptions of writing? Course requirements: one short paper, one longer paper, class presentation, attention to the class blog.

English 761X: Shakespeare
Prof. Belton
M 4:30 - 6:10 (area 2)

Problems of interpretation in relation to selected comedies, histories, and tragedies. The goal of the course is for students to read and gain a deeper understanding of Shakespeare’s plays by developing and deploying a variety of interpretive strategies. Readings will include some of the more widely read plays and some that are less well known, along with literary criticism representing various critical approaches. Topics to be considered include the relationship between the play and the spectator, issues of characterization and dramatic structure, and the subtleties of Shakespeare’s language. The relationship between written text and performance is emphasized, with screenings and attendance at staged productions when possible. Students will work in teams to prepare a class presentation that includes a staged reading of a scene from one of the plays and an analysis of important aspects of the play using appropriate critical sources. They will each write a research paper that builds on the work they did in preparing the class presentation and performance. They will also do informal in-class writing, participate in small group discussions, and take a final exam. Required texts will be the Pelican editions of the plays, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, ed. Russ McDonald (Boston: Bedford, 1996) and an anthology of critical essays. For information on the reading list or other questions please e-mail the instructor at: ebelton@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

English 775X: Introduction to Literary Theory
Prof. Vassileva
W 4:30 - 6:10 (area 5)

The course is designed to introduce students to the major developments in the study of literary texts since 1960. It seeks to explore the ways in which theory reconnects literature with other areas of knowledge by investigating the cross-currents between psychoanalysis and literary texts, history and fiction, capitalism and realism, sexuality and writing, and language and other sign systems. We will focus on such approaches to literature as formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, gender studies, and post-colonialism. The critics we will read include Shklovsky, Propp, Saussure, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Freud, Lacan, Marx, Said, Irigaray, and others. In addition to studying theory itself, we will also examine its practical application in the reading of selected literary texts. Requirements include two tests, a final paper, and an oral presentation.

English 775.2X: Literature and Society
Prof. Viscusi
M 6:30 - 8:10 (area 5)

[Course description forthcoming.]

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

English 778X is course that begins what is, for those who stay in teaching, a lifelong vocation: learning how to be an effective college teacher. We will be reading some essays that offer both a theoretical and practical foundation. And we will be presenting to one another what we know about the following: what to do on the first day of class; establishing routines; teaching writing as a process and understanding how deeply writing is revision; understanding basic rhetorical principles; responding to and evaluating student work; understanding language and dialect issues (or tiptoeing into the waters at least to the point where we sense how deep they are); and reading texts with students. Underlying all of this will be a focus on teaching and learning mindfully. My own bias as a teacher is toward helping students to be reflective about their reading, writing, thinking so that they can listen to their own thoughts, compose in an atmosphere not dominated by fear, and take seriously their roles as thinkers and writers. I regularly do short meditations in class--and will provide a theoretical defense of this practice for the skeptical! I'm interested in slowing things down rather than speeding them up--which is a challenge because there's so much to learn and our whole orientation in this culture (and of course mine too when I'm not paying attention to myself) is toward doing many things at once. So please come prepared to pay attention to your own thoughts and words, to listen empathically to your peers, to write honestly, to revise patiently, to read student work respectfully, to be present, to respond to your own work with the same open mind and heart that writes and reads poetry.

English 779X/Education 792.4X: Advanced Theories and Practice of Composition
Prof. Haberski
Th 6:30 - 8:10 (area 5)
(Permission required: for MA English Teacher students only)

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 extensive research project, normally based on the thesis proposal developed in English 700X, which is supervised by a member of the faculty, and which leads to the submission of a master's thesis. Students may receive credit for this course only after approval of the completed 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 781X: Independent Study
Hours to be arranged; 1 credit

To obtain permission, you must submit to the Graduate Deputy the Approval of Graduate Tutorials Form (pdf) signed by the faculty member who will supervise the independent study project.

English 791X: Seminar: Saints, Monsters, and Animals in the Middle Ages: The Ends of Humanity
Prof. Steel
T 6:30 - 8:10 (area 1)

“For anyone who doubts that a horse is by its very nature better than wood, and that a human being is more excellent than a horse, should not even be called a human being.”
Anselm, Monologion

This seminar will explore the multiple edges of humanity as it abuts on, and mixes with, the super-, sub-, and extrahuman. Course readings will treat a wide range of literatures, ranging from the era of the Roman empire through Early Modern writers like Montaigne. Readings will concentrate, however, on works of the Middle Ages, including narrative, church doctrine, and law: these include considerations of the nature of the human by Augustine and Aquinas, a ninth-century letter on dog-headed humans, a twelfth-century account of a dog revered as a saint, and several stories of saints that have left behind human civilization; we will also read in secondary, theoretical material, including Critical Animal Theory, Ecofeminism, and Posthumanism of all sorts: philosophers of interest will include Ralph Acampora, Carol Adams, Matthew Calarco, Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway, and Cary Wolfe. Course requirements include several short papers, active participation in the seminar conversation, and a research paper.

English 794X: Seminar: Critical Debates in Twentieth Century African American Literature
Prof. Nadell
Th 6:30 - 8:10 (area 4)

This class will focus on major debates about race and representation in twentieth-century African American literature. Topics will include debates about the nature of racial representation in the Harlem Renaissance, the literature of protest in the 1930s and 1940s, the influence of anthropology and sociology, the rise of African American women writers, the representation of black men, and the politics of literary publication. Students will write response papers, a research paper, and a final.

English 794X: Seminar: William Faulkner
Prof. Harrison
W 6:30 - 8:10 (area 4)

Participants will be expected to read a number of Faulkner's works during the semester, certainly including (but not confined to) Absalom, Absalom!, Light In August, and The Sound And The Fury. We will discuss Faulkner's work and his world, and brief written assignments will culminate in a longer, more considered paper on an aspect of Faulkner's writings to be chosen by the student and confirmed by the instructor.

English 795.7X: Seminar: Comparative Ethnic Literatures of the United States: Theories & Practice
Prof. Frydman
M 4:30 - 6:10 (area 7)

The proliferation of ethnic literary traditions in the United States presents a challenge to scholars. On the one hand, each tradition demands in-depth knowledge of particular historical and creative legacies. On the other hand, the social and intertextual ties between traditions insist that we develop comparative strategies to read across them. This course will survey literary and theoretical texts from a range of U.S. ethnic literarytraditions with special attention to the opportunities and limits presented by such comparative reading strategies. Methodologies to be drawn from include critical race studies, psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist theories of globalization, queer theory, as well as syntheses of these and more. Authors to be read may include: Willa Cather, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, and Piri Thomas. Students will write one 5-6 pp. essay and one 8-10 pp. research paper.

English 795.7X: Seminar: Marcel Proust
Prof. Moser
W 6:30 - 8:10 (area 7)

Proust’s novel, In Search of Lost Time, rich in references and allusions to both past and contemporary history, literature, society, science, art, will serve as the main resource in this course. Students will read all of Volume I (Swann’s Way) and parts of Volume 6 (Time Regained). In Search of Lost Time, depicting the era between 1871-1922, touches on the fin-de-siecle, Belle Epoque, and World War I years, a time that one observer described as having witnessed more changes in thirty years than in “all the centuries since Christ.” Proust’s novel bears witness 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 novel will be extended and enriched by readings and discussions of historical, political, philosophical, social, scientific and artistic currents in turn-of-the-century France. Requirements include several short papers, a midterm and final, a research paper.

English 795.7X: Seminar: The Short Story
Prof. Boyle
T 6:30 - 8:10 (area 7)

This is a course in which we will study short stories from a variety of cultures, either written in English or in English translation. Some authors to be included - among others if there is time - are Philip Roth, Amy Tan, Sherman Alexie, Woody Allen, Isabel Allende, Margaret Atwood, Toni Cade Bambara, Jorge Luis Borges, Albert Camus, T.C. Boyle, Anton Chekhov, Edwidge Danticat, Ernest Hemingway, Gish Jen, James Joyce and Flannery O'Connor. There will be short "response" papers both in-class and at home; a midterm exam; and a longer final paper.