Department of English
Catalogue of Courses – Fall 2005

ENG 100 Great Books
Instructor: Sutton, J.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 11:00-11:50
CRN 45569

Great Books this year will focus on the theme of gender in the heroictradition of pre-modern Western literature. We will examine tales of wars and warriors to see how conceptions of masculinity and femininity are constructed and deconstructed. Some of the texts we will study include the Odyssey, Beowulf, selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare's Henry V. Applicable English cluster: Great Books, Great Authors.

ENG 101 Maximum English (Formerly ENG 110)
Instructor: Eaves, M.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:15
CRN 45595

"English" is a little word for lots of things. Is it literature you want today, or creative writing? film? theater? journalism? debate? Maximum English introduces you to all these areas and to our unique resources for studying and enjoying them--the full range of "English" here at UR. So you'll learn the fundamentals of reading and viewing from the department's own creative writers, its literary and film critics and historians, and its theater directors. You'll enlarge the experience of reading literature and criticism by listening to writers read their own original work and then discussing it with them. You'll experience plays not only as written scripts but as living theatrical events by attending performances and talking to actors, directors, and designers about what they do to bring a play to the stage. You'll encounter works in different media, from the live human voice to printed books, from the stage to film and electronic hypermedia. Maximum English will launch you into real English--the new expanded version. Applicable English Clusters: Modern and Contemporary Literature; Novels; Plays, Playwrights, and Theater; Poems, Poetry, and Poetics.

ENG 111 Introduction to Shakespeare (Formerly ENG 144):
Instructor: Guenther, G.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:05-12:20
CRN 45611

In this course we will examine Shakespearean plays and poems that represent characters "growing up," or making a transition from girlhood to womanhood or from boyhood to manhood (or, in some cases, from girlhood to boyhood to womanhood!). We will begin with Hamlet, and go on to As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, selected sonnets, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Henry IV, pt. 1, Henry IV, pt. 2, Henry V, and The Winter's Tale. As we explore representations of youth and adulthood in these texts we will pay careful attention to the historical contexts for Shakespeare's writing, so that you will learn both how to read Elizabethan dramatic poetry and also how to think about human experiences, including your own, in terms of the cultural circumstances that determine and enable those experiences. Applicable English Clusters: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater; Great Books, Great Authors.

ENG 112 Classical and Scriptural Backgrounds to Literature (Formerly ENG 140)
Instructor: Peck, R.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 10:00-10:50
CRN 90873

"Men perish because they cannot join the beginning with the end" Alcmaeon of Cretona (6th cent. BC). As a course in classical and scriptural backgrounds to modern English and American literature, English 112 takes the pre-Socratic philosopher's dire warning seriously and attempts to join the beginning with the end. During the semester we will read many great books: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Aeschylus' Oresteia; Sophocles' two Oedipus plays; Euripides' Trojan Women and The Bacchae; Plato's Symposium and other dialogues; Aristotle's Poetics; selections from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament; Virgil's Aeneid; and Dante's Inferno. All of the works we read will be familiar, whether you have read them before or not. That is, we are part of the same tradition. At the same time they will be unfamiliar, too, almost unimaginably odd, partly because we are different today from what we were yesterday, but mainly because civilization has changed so radically over the past three thousand years. Plato might say that reading these books is like remembering something you have forgotten, even though you may never have seen it before. These books define the core of Western Civilization. They have been rewritten again and again by every generation of writers since classical times. When we read modern writers we re-experience ancient subtexts. Enlightenment is learning to walk and converse, eyes wide open and with a nimble tongue, in the fields of our ancestors. Paradoxically, the syllabus is utterly new, even for me, though I have been reading some of these books for over fifty years. The goal of this course is catch at least a glimpse of the circle of which Alcmaeon speaks, for our sense of being is utterly dependent upon the likenesses - a thrilling Odyssey, indeed. Applicable English Cluster: Medieval Studies.

ENG 113 British Literature I (Formerly ENG 150)
Instructor: Hahn, T.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 11:00-11:50
CRN 45625

This course immerses students in the most challenging, influential, and engaging writings from the earlier periods of English literature. Our aim will be to enjoy and understand these writings in themselves, and then to see their relation to each other and to their larger historical context. Students should leave the course with some real affection for particular writings, and some assured sense of the contours and highlights of cultural history. Our emphasis will be on the careful appreciation of language and texture in representative texts and authors, including Beowulf, Chaucer, Gawain and the Green Knight, Margery Kempe, Malory, Renaissance lyrics and sonnets, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Swift, and Pope. Class will proceed by lecture and discussion. Applicable English Clusters: Medieval Studies; Great Books, Great Authors.

ENG 115 American Literature (Formerly ENG 155)
Instructor: Michael, J.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:25-4:40
CRN 45633

In this course we will read a variety of works from the entire expanse of American literature. We will consider issues of aesthetic power and formal innovation, community and reform, gender and power, ethnicity and national identity that have been of central concern in the development of American literary culture and in the construction of American identities. These identities have historically involved crucial disjunctions and conflicts as well as significant meldings. We will attempt to trace both in the works we read. Authors will include Poe, Emerson, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, James, Wharton, Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon, and Morrison. Applicable English Cluster: American and African American Studies.

 

ENG 116 Introduction to African-American Literature
Instructor: Li, S.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:30-1:45
CRN 45657

This course provides an introduction to the history of African American literary expression, focusing primarily upon the development of black autobiography, poetry, and fiction. Students will trace a number of important themes such as the quest for freedom and literacy, the influence of folk traditions, double consciousness, the process of Northern migration, and the role of the trickster in classic African American texts. In our study of this important American literary tradition, we will also pay close attention to the intellectual debates concerning audience, language, and the purpose of art that have shaped key texts and historical time periods. We will explore how African American writers used artistic expression as key modes of political protest, creative affirmation of self, cultural validation, and social reform. Lectures will provide social and cultural background to the literary works discussed in class. Applicable English Cluster: American and African American Studies.

 

ENG 117 Introduction to the Art of Film (Formerly Eng 132)
Instructor: Wlodarz, J.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:15; Screenings Wednesdays 7:40 p.m.
CRN 45666

In this course students will consider the primary visual, aural, and narrative conventions by which motion pictures create and comment upon significant social experience. We will watch a wide range of films from a variety of countries and historical moments in film history. Students will have the chance to explore issues such as framing, photographic space, film shot, editing, sound, genre, narrative form, acting style, and lighting in the context of wider discussions of the weekly films. This is an introductory course, and assumes no prior knowledge of film. Students will be evaluated primarily on the basis of several short assignments, including a film segmentation, a shot-by-shot analysis, and two papers. Mandatory screening on Wednesday nights. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 120 Introduction to Creative Writing (Formerly Eng 111)
Instructor: Scott, J.
Mondays 2:00-4:40
CRN 45679

This is a workshop designed for students interested in creative writing. Students will write original poetry, a short story, and a one-act play, and work-in-progress will be discussed in class. We'll read a wide variety in the different genres as we explore elements of craft and strategies of innovation. No background in creative writing is necessary, but permission of instructor is required. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

ENG 122 Creative Writing – Poetry (Formerly Eng 116)
Instructor: Longenbach, J.
Thursdays 2:00-4:40
CRN 45714

This is an introductory course for students who have already begun to write some poetry on their own. Every week students' poems will be discussed in a workshop format. Selected works by contemporary poets (such as Plath, Walcott, Ginsberg, Ashbery, Rich, Heaney, and others) will provide an essential background for examining various approaches and techniques. Specific or "open" assignments will be given weekly. Permission of instructor required. Please submit 3-5 poems to the instructor, preferably before the first class, since space is limited. Applicable English Clusters: Poems, Poetry, and Poetics; Creative Writing.

ENG 123 Play Writing (Formerly Eng 118)
Instructor: Kristin Newbom
Time: Mondays 12:30-3:15, September 12 – October 31
CRN 45723

2.0 credits. A course devoted to the understanding and execution of dramatic writing that is unique to the theatre. Students will analyze and discuss selected readings while writing an original one-act play to be completed by the end of the semester. Meets during one half of the semester only. Contact the Theatre Program at 275-4959 for details. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

ENG 131 Reporting and Writing the News (Formerly ENG 113)
Instructor: Memmott, J.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:50-6:05
CRN 45737

English 131, Reporting and Writing the News, introduces the student to journalistic writing and reporting techniques. Through a variety of classroom exercises, seven major writing assignments and a term paper, students learn to prepare accurate, balanced, complete coverage of a news topic. Students progress from single-source interviewing to news profiles, speech coverage, meetings, more complex formats, and finally, news analysis. Additional writing experience is gained through rewriting assignments, as directed by detailed editing comment. From lecture, textbooks, reading daily and periodical newspapers, the students learn to identify newsworthy topics and to develop appropriate interview techniques to produce clear, objective reports under specific deadlines. Weekly quizzes. Permission of instructor required. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 134 Public Speaking (Formerly ENG 123)
Instructor: Smith, C.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:40-10:55
CRN 45746

Basic public speaking is the focus of this course. Emphasis is placed on researching speeches, using appropriate language and delivery, and listening critically to oral presentations. English 134 contains two quizzes, a final exam, and four speeches to be given by the student. The speeches include a tribute, persuasive, explanatory, and problem solving address. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 135 Debate (Formerly ENG 125)
Instructors: Johnson, K.
Mondays 11:00-1:45, CRN 45758 OR
Wednesdays, 4:50-7:30, CRN 45760 (two sections)

The purpose of this course is to give students an appreciation for and knowledge of critical thinking and reasoned decision-making through argumentation. Students will research both sides of a topic, write argument briefs, and participate in formal and informal debates. Students will also be exposed to the major paradigms used in judging debates. There will be two sections of this course, with two instructors, meeting at the same time so that the "teams" can debate each other. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 170 Technical Theater (Formerly ENG 177)
Instructor: Rice, G.
Time: Mondays 10:00-11:50 a.m., plus lab work to be arranged with instructor
CRN 45792

This course investigates technical theater beyond the realms of Eng 290/291, Plays in Production. It focuses on work related to the scenic design and technical production of the two Fall Theatre Program productions. Working in small seminars and one-on-one tutorials, the instructor will assist students in learning more in their chosen technical areas and about problem solving scenic and technical questions raised by the set/s being built. Course work will consist of supervisory responsibilities, one major and several smaller research projects. Prerequisites: ENG 290

ENG 174 Acting Techniques I (Formerly ENG 178)
Instructor: Greer, S.
Fridays 2:00-4:40
CRN 45805

Acting Techniques I focuses on developing the student's ability to analyze texts from a performer's viewpoint, on heightening the actor's sensitivity to language, on developing the actor's physical and vocal technique, on building a deeper awareness of character and characterization in the student actor, and on engaging and actively developing creativity and imagination. This is done by the constant investigation, rehearsal, and presentation of assorted texts ranging from poetry to contemporary and classical scenes and monologues. Attendance at all classes is mandatory.

ENG 176 Voice Techniques I
Instructor: Starkweather, L.
Mondays and Fridays 4:50-6:05
CRN 45818

2.0 credits. This is an introductory course on voice for the actor. Classes will include physical warm-up exercises and vocal techniques.

ENG 180 Directing (Formerly ENG 382)
Instructor: Maister, N.
Time: Mondays 2:00-4:40; Recitation Wednesdays 3:25-4:40
CRN 45836

This is an introductory course focusing on directing for the theatre. The class will guide students through the directing process: from textual interpretation and production conceptualization, through staging and visualization, to working with actors.

ENG 201 Old English Literature
Instructor: Higley, S.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:05-12:20
CRN 90909

"To men I shall speak wisdom where none speak a word on earth; though sons of land-dwellers now eagerly seek after my tracks, I sometimes hide my path from everyone." Riddle 94 of the Exeter Book. In following the dark tracks of the Old English writers who left their almost unrecognizable English words on tenth-century vellum, we will have to acquire skills and tools. This course will ask you to learn the Old English language, but translations will also be provided for most of the texts. With these in hand, we will explore the dark world of Anglo-Saxon writing for its illuminations, but our emphasis will be on loss, love, hardship, riddle, wisdom, and the spiritual and magical powers of writing in a culture that stood on the cusp of orality and literacy. Texts: The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife's Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, Gnomes, Enigmas, The Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy. Applicable English Cluster: Medieval Studies. Fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the major.

ENG 204 Chaucer
Instructor: Peck, R.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 12:00-12:50
CRN 90958

Chaucer is one of the wittiest, most congenial, and yet most intellectually alert of all British poets. He is also a marvelous craftsman and social commentator. As a brilliant protagonist within one of England's first circle of poets he develops a rhetoric suited to philosophical poetry that still amazes his readers with its range of empirical, speculative, and observational psychology. English 204 provides intensive analysis of most of Chaucer's writings dream visions (Book of the Duchess, Parliament of Fowls, and House of Fame), poetics (the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women), his great romance Troilus and Criseyde (arguably the greatest poem in the English language), and the Canterbury Tales. All readings from Chaucer will be in Middle English. As background material to Chaucer we will read Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun's Romance of the Rose (both of which works Chaucer translated, though we will read them in a modern English versions, with occasional reference to Chaucer's translations). The readings are at times difficult, but well worth the effort and rich rewards of studying his work in his original dialect. The instructor makes a sustained effort to effect the performative components of medieval literature in terms of its ideas, rhetoric, and orality in an effort to investigate but also transcend the ravages of time. Classes will consist primarily of lecture with some discussion and occasional quizzes Students will write two papers and take a final examination. Class attendance is required. Fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the English major and is applicable to clusters in Medieval Studies, Great Books, Great Authors, and Poems, Poetry, and Poetics.

ENG 213 Renaissance Women’s Writing
Instructor: Kegl, R.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:40-10:55
CRN 95362

Over the last few decades, we have come to appreciate women’s extensive contributions to Renaissance drama, verse, and fictional and nonfictional prose (including household manuals, medical treatises, proposals for educational reform, and religious prophecies). This course focuses on the critical problems that inform our search for and analysis of English women’s writing in the 16th and 17th centuries. We discuss how 16th- and 17th-century English women produced and distributed their writing, and how their audiences received those works. We ask how literary, historical, and feminist analysis might help us to sort through key questions of style, genre, authorship, literacy, education, and audience. And we consider how the study of Renaissance English women’s writing might help us to better understand the aesthetic and social categories that inspired contemporary readers, and those that continue to shape our enjoyment and analysis of Renaissance writing more generally, and of women’s writing in subsequent centuries. We organize our discussions around the particular interpretive questions that arise from a careful reading of Renaissance women’s writing. Additional readings include excerpts from the writings of their contemporaries, and from articles by literary critics and historians. The course fulfill the department’s pre-1800 requirement for the English major.

ENG 221 Victorian Literature
Instructor: Ablow, R.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:05-12:20
CRN 90937

In 1840 Thomas Carlyle proclaimed that although in previous ages the priest, prophet, or king constituted the source of the community's values, in his own time the "Man-of-Letters Hero must be regarded as our most important modern person . . . What he teaches, the world will do and make." In this course we will examine how writers in the mid- to late-19th century responded to Carlyle's challenge: how they understood the responsibilities of the writer, and how they understood those responsibilities in relation to the changing economic, social, and political landscape of the Victorian period. Specifically, we will ask how a variety of different writers of prose, poetry, and novels, imagined their relationships to - and their readers' relationships to - English national identity, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, the private sphere, and public life. We will examine writers' differing understandings of psychology and interiority. We will discuss genre and literary form. And we will examine the idea of "culture" as a distinctly Victorian notion that continues to govern debates about education and society today. Writers for the class will include: C. Bronte, Dickens, G. Eliot, Hardy, Tennyson, the Brownings, the Rossettis, Ruskin, Mill, Carlyle, Arnold, Darwin, and Wilde.

ENG 222 19th-Century British Novel
Instructor: Ablow, R.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:15
CRN 90946

Why do so many 19th-century British novels end with marriages? According to George Eliot, by "marriage," we should understand "all the wondrous combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good and evil." Such an account begins to suggest how marriage is able to represent not just a personal relationship in the nineteenth century, but also a social institution, the coming-together of two principles, or entities, and a central means by which the known world is reproduced. This course explores the nature, implications, and development of the marriage plot through novels by Austen, C. Bronte, Dickens, George Eliot, Wilde, Ford. Key topics for the class will include (but will not be limited to): the relation between realism and idealism; the "woman" question and the development of the private sphere; imperialism, nationalism, ethnicity and race; and changing notions of class. Applicable English Cluster: Novels.

ENG 227 American Moderns (Formerly ENG 223)
Instructor: Grella, G.
Mondays and Wednesdays 3:25-4:40
CRN 45906

The course covers the period roughly between World War I and World War II, dealing with the rich creativity we associate with Modernism. We will read and discuss such writers as Eliot, Faulkner, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Steinbeck, etc., studying not only the works but some of the major trends in art, culture, and knowledge that make the modern period so important and exciting. The method will be a combination of close reading, lecture, and discussion with (probably) one short paper and one longish paper. Not open to freshmen. Applicable English Clusters: American and African American Studies; Modern and Contemporary Literature.

ENG 230 Asian American Literature
Instructor: Niu, G.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30-1:45
CRN 45922

Asian American Literature is primarily a literature of the 20th and 21st centuries, with dramatic growth in the past half century or so. We will focus on the literary genres of APA works from the past century--drama, fiction, poetry, memoir--and we will also pay attention to cinematic texts. Our literature includes works by Chinese American, Filipina American, Indian American, Korean American, Japanese American, and Vietnamese American authors. Some prior knowledge of 20th century U.S. literature or Asian Pacific Islander American history will be helpful, but not necessary. (For those who have not taken history courses or who wish for a “refresher” see the books by Sucheng Chan or Ronald Takaki, listed under recommended texts.) In addition to the study of genres, we will analyze Asian/Pacific Islander/American texts by interrogating myths, "foundational fictions", fantasies and the fantastical. Edward Said usefully argues in Orientalism that Europe imagined the "Orient" since it "helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience" (1978). We will read works of Asian American literature that revise and incorporate Asian myths, and contrast these with the West's popular imagination of the "Orient".

ENG 236 Contemporary Fiction - "True" Stories
Instructor: Anastasopoulos, D.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 6:15-7:30
CRN 90992

Many recent American novels have been billed as fictional depictions of "true stories," narrative imaginings culled from memoirs, diaries, or historical records. In this course, we'll explore a range of fiction and imaginative non-fiction, which emphasize, critique, and consider their basis in real events. We'll read between and around modes and genres such as memoir, anti-memoir, journal, diary, autobiography, with the intention of examining contemporary representations of the "real" in order to draw conclusions about the nature of fiction's traditional domain, the imagination itself. If, as Maurice Blanchot writes, "The essence of fiction is to make present an unreal world, to make present to me that which makes it unreal," then the actual events portrayed in these novels appear radically displaced in their fictional context. Readings will include the fictional autobiography A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, a blend of fictional and non-fictional family history in The Family Orchard by Nomi Eve, crime reportage as literature in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, the memoir Henry & June by Anas Nin, a eulogy in the form of Peter Handke's A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, the historical fiction Tent of Orange Mist by Paul West, Erasure--a novel-as-cultural-critique-- by Percival Everett, and the biographical novel Haussmann, or The Distinction by Paul LaFarge. Applicable English Cluster: Modern and Contemporary Literature.

ENG 238 Studies in Modern and Contemporary Literature
Instructor: Scott, J.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:30-1:45
CRN 92518

What can the fiction of the 20th Century tell us about imagination? Who imagines what in the influential novels and stories of the past one hundred years? What can we learn from imaginative literature about the idiosyncratic workings of the mind? These are some of the questions we'll ask in this survey of modern and contemporary fiction. We'll read fiction in English, and in translation. Writers we'll study include Joseph Conrad, Gertrude Stein, Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, William Gass, and Rikki Ducornet. We will have a chance to discuss the process of writing with William Gass, who will visit the class. Applicable English Cluster: Modern and Contemporary Literature.

Eng 245 Studies in a Literary Mode: Immigration and Autobiography
Instructor, Li, S.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:25-4:40
CRN 45964

How does an American become an American? How do new immigrants adjust to life in the United States while still maintaining ties to their countries of origin? In this class, we will study contemporary autobiographies that describe experiences of immigration and assimilation into American life. What is the relationship between the immigrant and his or her "home country" and culture? What does it mean to become an "American"? We will study how immigration affects changes in language, culture, values, and social relationships, and also consider how certain narrative conventions and innovations are employed to describe experiences of Americanization and alienation from the family homeland. Our exploration of these issues begins with a reading of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, a canonical narrative of self-development that offers an important point of contrast to texts written by later American immigrants. Students will also read historical and sociological articles that provide background and analysis to the personal experiences described in the autobiographies. In addition to writing critical short essays, students will compose an autobiography of their own describing their relationship to American culture. May be applied on an exceptional basis to the English cluster in Literature and Cultural Identity.

ENG 246 Detective Fiction: The Birth of the Detective
Instructor: Gladfelder, Hal
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:30-1:45
CRN 91003

This course focuses on the emergence of mystery and detective fiction in Britain in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Often grouped under the heading sensation fiction, these works aimed both to entertain a mass (especially urban) audience and to comment on contemporary institutions of criminal justice in particular the newly professionalized police and detective forces. Their representations of extreme, violent, and bizarre behavior also reflected contemporary fascination with the field of abnormal psychology. Readings to include works by William Godwin, Sheridan LeFanu, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Baroness Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, Arthur Machen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, and G. K. Chesterton.

ENG 248 Contemporary Women's Writing
Instructor: London, B.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:40-10:55
CRN 87295

The last decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st have seen a virtual explosion of writing by women, with novels by women constituting some of the most widely read and critically admired work being produced today. Among the distinctive features of this writing has been its experimentation with new voices and narrative forms, often resulting in novels that blur the traditional borders of the genre. At the same time, much contemporary writing by women has deliberately turned to the past for its inspiration and self-consciously appropriated, or rewritten, earlier texts. Looking at a range of recent novels by British and American women (from a variety of race, class, regional, and ethnic positions) as well as writings by women whose homelands are in Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean, this course will explore the diverse shapes of contemporary woman's imagination and attempt to account for this new resurgence of women's writing. Applicable English cluster: Gender and Writing. May also be applied on an exceptional basis to the clusters in Modern and Contemporary Literature, and The Novel.

ENG 250 Representing Race in American Culture
Instructor: Michael, J.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:05-12:20
CRN 91012

In this course students will confront and analyze a wide assortment of influential representations of race, especially but not exclusively representations of African Americans, drawn from the long history of this nation's racialized struggles. We will draw examples not only from literature and film but also from history, sociology, and popular discourses. We will also consider the nature of representation itself, and the related questions of authenticity and identity. Of course, we will make no attempt at an exhaustive historical survey of such a complex and conflicted subject, but we will attempt to ground student understanding of contemporary discourses and polemics about race in a more sophisticated comprehension of modes of racial representation in America and their history. These include stereotypical popular portrayals of Africans and African Americans from the past and from the present in "serious" literature and in popular entertainment, in scientific considerations of difference including nineteenth- century American anthropology and in contemporary sociology and politics. We will consider the ways in which both black and white Americans have constructed representations of African and African-American identity in the U. S. public sphere and the ways in which those representations have reflected and helped shape the problems and the promises of race in America. We will also consider constructions of race in a global and comparative context. Applicable English Cluster: Literature and Cultural Identity. May also be applied, on an exceptional basis, to the cluster in American and African American Studies.

ENG 252 Theater in England
Instructor: Peck, R.
Wintersession
CRN 45988

English 252: Theater in England will be conducted in London & Stratford-upon-Avon from Sunday, January 1, 2006, through Saturday, January 14, 2006 (14 nights). We will see 18 plays. Classes are held in the Harlingford Hotel in London, where we reside. The schedule of plays is not yet available, but it will include a full range of genres, from tragedy, history, and comedy to pantomimes and musicals, We will see the best of what is on when we are there. If you wish to see what students have seen on previous years go the Website for the course where you can investigate various aspects of the seminar syllabuses from 1992 to the present, student journals, information about the Harlingford Hotel at 61-63 Cartwright Gardens, the London Theatre scene in general, our trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the visit to Warwick Castle, a host of pictures of students doing things, and so on. The course is restricted to 23 students and carries four credits. The fee is $1950.00, which includes tickets to all plays and housing, but not transportation to and from London. A down payment of $700.00 is due at the English Office in Morey Hall on or before Monday, October 10. The remaining $1250.00 will be charged to your November term bill. Students must obtain passports and make their own travel arrangements to and from London. You will need to leave the United States on the evening of December 27, at the latest. Return flights may be scheduled for Sunday, January 15, or later. The UR second semester begins on Wednesday, January 18, 2006. The grade for the course is based primarily on the student journal. You may obtain the application form from the English Department or Professor Peck. You need permission of the instructor to register. See Professor Russell A. Peck, Rush Rhees 416 (Robbins Library), MW 12:00-1:30 or by appointment (phone 275-0110 or 473-7354). Email: rpec@troi.cc.rochester.edu.

ENG 255 Silent Cinema (Formerly ENG 133)
Instructor: Loughney, P.
Tuesdays 6:30-9:30 p.m.
CRN 45997

An introduction to the art, technology, and culture of silent film, with all screenings accompanied by live music. Special attention will be paid to the pioneers, Lumiére, Melies, and D.W. Griffith, but the course will include a variety of films from the United States, Germany, Russia, France, and Japan, all projected from pristine copies in the George Eastman House's world-famous collections. Discussion sections will cover the origin and development of film genres and technology from 1894 to the introduction of sound in 1927. Broad issues relating to the transformation of American and world popular entertainment forms and traditions, in relation to the established performing arts of the period, will also be covered. George Eastman House's film restoration facilities will be visited in the course of the semester. Students will be expected to take a mid-term and write one paper. Meets at George Eastman House. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication. Enrollment limited at 20.

ENG 259 Popular Films Genres: The Detective Film
Instructor: Grella, G.
Wednesdays 6:15-10:00 p.m.
CRN 46008

The course will consider that large, unusual, and varied group of motion pictures known, for reasons of style and content, as film noir - dark films - which includes horror, gangster, detective, and crime movies. We will examine some of the history of the term and the kinds of movies it refers to, study some relevant primary and secondary sources, and of course, screen, analyze, and discuss a dozen or more motion pictures. Possible titles to study include Murder, My Sweet, Touch of Evil, Gilda, The Third Man, Double Indemnity, Night and the City. Aside from the films and the reading assignments, the course will require approximately three papers and a final examination. Although no particular expertise in film is necessary, students should be capable of writing clear, forceful, coherent analyses of narrative. Not open to freshmen. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 260 Film History: Films of the 70's
Instructor: Wlodarz, J.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:50-6:05; Screenings Mondays 7:40 p.m.
CRN 91056

As a counterpoint to the often irony-tinged manner in which U. S. culture of the 1970s is frequently derided and dismissed, this course will both champion and examine the richness, vitality, and complexity of that time period through close attention to the cinema of the era. While a significant segment of the course will focus on the much-heralded work of such directors as Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Terrence Malick, the course will also be concerned with some of the more artistically (and politically) suspect genres of the period (disaster films, blaxploitation, horror) in order to provide a more inclusive and representative example of the intriguing interplay between sociopolitical issues and cinema that make the '70s so important to the history of American film. Issues to be discussed include: the impact of Vietnam, Watergate, feminism, civil rights, and gay/lesbian rights; genre revision; the emergence of the blockbuster; stardom; auteurism; porn and midnight movies; camp spectatorship; underground/alternative cinema; and 80s recuperation. Potential screenings include: Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, A Woman Under the Influence, The Poseidon Adventure, Dog Day Afternoon, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song, Saturday Night Fever, Coming Home, Joe, Badlands, Pink Flamingos, and Dawn of the Dead. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 262 Studies in an International Cinema: Chinese Cinemas
Instructor: Niu, G.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:25-4:40
CRN 91029

The course examines diasporic Chinese cinemas from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), Hong Kong (HK), the U.S. and Canada. We will pay special attention to the migrations of individuals (actors, actresses, directors, cinematographers, and others) and to texts (the films and in some cases television programs). We will cover a wide variety of genres, including epic, martial arts, action, thriller, comedy, and drama. Some experience with film studies, especially world cinema, and Chinese history will be helpful but not required. Outside screenings of films are required.

ENG 262 Studies in an International Cinema: British Cinema
Instructor: Gladfelder, H.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:50-6:05
CRN 91075

This course traces the major developments in British cinema from the silent period to the 1990s. In addition to providing an historical overview of major filmmakers and movements, the course places special emphasis on the interplay between nostalgia and modernity in British culture. Films to include Hitchcock's Blackmail; Michael Powell's Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Peeping Tom; Carol Reed's The Third Man; David Lean's This Happy Breed and Oliver Twist; Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets; Stephen Frears's My Beautiful Laundrette; Jack Clayton's Room at the Top; Terence Davies' Distant Voices, Still Lives; Ken Loach's Riff-Raff; and Lynne Ramsey's Ratcatcher. Applicable English Clusters: Modern and Contemporary Literature; Media, Culture and Communication.

ENG 270 Advanced Technical Theater
Instructor: Rice, G.
Time: By arrangement with instructor
CRN 46031

This course investigates technical theater beyond the realms of Eng 170 (Technical Theatre). It focuses on work related to the scenic design and technical production of the two Fall Theatre Program productions. Working in small seminars and one-on-one tutorials, the instructor will assist students in learning more in their chosen technical areas and about problem-solving scenic and technical questions raised by the set/s being built. Course work will consist of supervisory responsibilities, one major and several smaller research projects. Prerequisite: Eng 290.

ENG 275 Advanced Fiction Writing
Instructor: Anastasopoulos, D.
Wednesdays 2:00-4:40
CRN 46045

This workshop is for advanced fiction writers who have completed ENG 117/121. The course emphasizes the development of each student's individual style and imagination, as well as the practical and technical concerns of a fiction writer's craft. Students will not only be asked to locate a context for their fictions by situating their poetics among a community of other fiction writers, but also to envision how their stories might intersect with other fictional works. Each writer will be expected to conceive each story within the scope of a larger fiction project as well as to revise extensively in order to explore the full range of the story's narrative themes. Three short stories or novel chapters are required. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

ENG 276 Advanced Poetry Writing
Instructor: Sally Keith
Tuesdays 2:00-4:40
CRN 91108

(Formerly Eng 360) Advanced creative writing workshop in poetry. Work by various contemporary poets will provide the framework for explorations into technique and poetic narrative. Students' poems will be discussed weekly. Students will be expected to do extensive reading and research on their own and to keep a poetic journal. Assignments will be given, but there is a lot of latitude for students who wish to design a poetic project or work on a series. Permission of instructor is required (submit 3-5 typed poems, preferably before the first class). Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing.

ENG 284 Orality, Language, and Literacy
Instructor: Bleich, D.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-1:45
CRN 91094

This course considers the issues raised in Walter Ong's 1982 study, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. His account related the growth of writing and print to the development of science and modern rational thought, exploring possible changes in collective consciousness as a result of the shift of media emphasis. We will examine some classical sources, including Plato's suspicion of the power of oral poetry, and consider the levels of literacy achieved in ancient society; we will also look at European medieval traditions. Central to these discussions will be the roles language and literature played in the lives of non-literate people as contrasted with literate. Study of the modern and contemporary periods focusses on such practices as conversation, becoming literate, collection of oral accounts and their uses, the uses of ethnographic writing, and the different approaches to speech, writing, and language in African American and white communities. A key aim of the course is to show the politics, mutual dependency, and reciprocity of oral and literate uses of language in literary and nonliterary contexts.

ENG 286 Presidential Rhetoric (Formerly Eng 375)
Instructor: Smith, C.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:25-4:40
CRN 46059

"Presidential Rhetoric", taught by former Presidential speechwriter Curt Smith, helps students critically examine the public rhetoric and themes of the modern American presidency. Particular attention will be given to the symbolic nature of the office, focusing on the ability of 20th-century presidents to communicate via a variety of forums, including the press conference, inaugural and acceptance speeches, political speech, and prime-time television address. Mr. Smith will draw on many of his experiences in Washington and with ESPN/ABC Television to link the most powerful office in the world and today's dominant medium. Applicable English Cluster: Media, Culture, and Communication.

ENG 290 Plays in Production
Instructor: Maister, N.; Belton, I.; Rice, G.
Wednesdays 2:00-4:40
CRN 46062

Each student in Plays in Production participates fully in the exciting behind-the-scenes world of theatrical production. Students build sets, create and make props and costumes, hang and rig lighting and sound equipment, and create and distribute publicity materials for the plays currently in production in Todd Theatre. The class comprises a once-weekly lecture and a series of practical labs. This 4.0-credit course meets for the entire semester. Applicable English Cluster: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater.

ENG 292 Plays in Performance - Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Instructor: Maister, N.
Time TBA
CRN 46077

Plays in Performance is a class made up of actors and stage managers working on the current production in Todd Theatre. Actors are cast after auditioning at the beginning of each semester. Students wishing to stage manage should approach the director of the production either at the time of auditions or before the beginning of the play's rehearsal process. Although there is no written component for this course (the performance of the play constitutes a final "exam"), a significant time commitment is required of actors and stage managers, both on weekday nights and over weekends. This class meets during the first half of the semester. Permission of instructor required. Applicable English Cluster: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater.

ENG 294 Plays in Performance II – Killer Joe
Instructor: Belton, I.
Time TBA
CRN 46086

Plays in Performance is a class made up of actors and stage managers working on the current production in Todd Theatre. Actors are cast after auditioning at the beginning of each semester. Students wishing to stage manage should approach the director of the production either at the time of auditions or before the beginning of the play's rehearsal process. Although there is no written component for this course (the performance of the play constitutes a final "exam"), a significant time commitment is required of actors and stage managers, both on weekday nights and over weekends. This class meets during the first half of the semester. Permission of instructor required. Applicable English Cluster: Plays, Playwrights, and Theater.

ENG 298 Acting Lab I
Instructor: Childs, R.
Time: By arrangement with instructor
CRN 46090

This 2.0-credit class is a lab tutorial for actors cast in productions in Todd Theatre. Working one-on-one with an acting and voice coach, students tackle specific technical challenges raised by their involvement in the specific theatrical work in production.

ENG 370 Special Projects: Theatre
Instructor: Maister, N.
Time: By arrangement with instructor
CRN 94139

This is an independently designed course, focusing on specific theatre or theatre-related projects, and demanding significant skill application or acquisition, independent and self-motivated research, including advanced written work, if appropriate. Topics may include elements of theatre related to production, management and/or design.

ENG 380 Outlaw Heroes: Robin Hood
Instructor: Hahn, T.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30-1:45
CRN 46105

RESEARCH SEMINAR. This course will examine the fascination, mainly within popular culture, of those who move outside the law in order to achieve some higher standard of justice. We will look at some actual bandits (we will address the question of whether Robin Hood was "real") and their operations in earlier times, but our main focus will be on the celebration of Robin Hood as the outlaw hero par excellence. Among the representations we will consider are early songs and ballads, broadside ("throwaway") sheets, early woodcuts and engravings, tabloid-style "lives" and novels, children's books, films (silent versions through Costner and Mel Brooks), cartoons, and TV
serials. Much of this material (including that from earlier centuries) has been too popular to have received much study, or in many cases, even to have been reproduced. Part of the work in the course will consist in a hands-on examination of rare materials (including items in the Rare Books Collection of the Library, films at Eastman House, materials from the instructor's own collection of more than 2,000 publications and objects, and microfilms and photocopies of unique books). Our collective aim will be to assess their cultural meaning (in their own time and for us) and the lack of attention they have received. A crucial component of this course will be the first steps towards the creation of a Robin Hood website, which will make the materials we study here readily available to diverse 21st century audiences. Students will review and assess related and analogous websites as a basis for planning an appropriate and distinctive Robin Hood Page. Students may also frame their final projects so that they constitute a permanent contribution (whether in the form of manuscripts, books, visuals, films, music) to the planned website. Guidance on research and editorial procedures, and on the preparation and digitization of materials will be provided in the course. Class members will be asked to keep a semester-long account of their reading, and to write one short analysis and one longer paper; for those who wish, the latter effort may take the form of a research, editorial, or digital project which may be published on the Robin Hood Page. Class time will include up to ten film viewing sessions, as well as a visit to Eastman House for a film showing. Open only to junior and senior English majors.

ENG 380 Man and Medieval Woman
Instructor: Higley, S.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:25-4:40
CRN 46118

RESEARCH SEMINAR. What could I possibly have meant by this title, I ask? It just seemed to present itself, but I'm still not sure whether it suggests that men, i.e., male scholars, have been explaining the medieval woman, or whether medieval women writers have been explaining men. The course will consider both approaches; well might we ask, where is our inflammatory English Christine de Pisan? Our romantic English Marie de France? Why is Middle English top heavy in male writers of secular literature? Female writers of note are religious: Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Besides Showings and The Book of Margery Kempe, our primary texts will be Sir Orfeo, the Ancrene Riwle, Hali Maydenhede, The Romance of the Rose, Christine of Pisan's The Book of the City of Ladies, Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, John Gower's The Lover's Confession, The Story of Asneth, The Story of Judith, and selected lyrics. Throughout, we will look at misogyny and mariology, love and hate, power, allegory and dream vision, and how any of these reveal the fraught issues of gender and culture. French, Italian, German, and Latin texts will of course be read in translation. We will cross the channel to look briefly at Hildegard of Bingen. Training in language will be provided. Fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for the English major. Open only to junior and senior English majors.

English 396 Honors Seminar, Fall 2005: Shakespeare's Late Plays
Instructor: Gross, K.
Wednesdays, 2:00-4:40
CRN 46728

The course will look at a group of the last plays of Shakespeare, starting with a late tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra, but focusing on the four plays usually grouped together as "romances": Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. In these, the poet's attention to the starkness of tragic consciousness in plays like King Lear and Othello gives way to a fascination with more fantastic and hybrid forms of story-telling. He allows onto the stage more preternatural fictions of magic, the plots of fairy-tale and the logic of dreams, though these are always linked to a sharp sense of the nature of human life in time, the problems of memory and history. Along with the plays, we will be looking at some of Shakespeare's sources in ancient and Renaissance prose romance, as well as certain modern texts that grapple with the inheritance of Shakespearean romance, including Eliot's The Waste Land, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and Auden's The Sea and the Mirror. Open to English majors by application only.