English

• Chair, Fall 2012: Theresa M. DiPasquale (on Sabbatical, Spring 2013)
• Chair, Spring 2013: Sharon Alker
• Roberta Davidson
• Scott Elliott
• Adam Gordon
• Irvin Hashimoto
• Christopher Leise
• Gaurav Majumdar (on Sabbatical, Fall 2012)
• Jean Carwile Masteller
• Richard N. Masteller
• Katrina Roberts (on Sabbatical, 2012-13)
• Rob Schlegel

Adjunct Faculty:

• Jenna Terry

The courses in English provide opportunity for the extensive and intensive study of literature for its aesthetic interest and value and for its historical and general cultural significance.

The English major: A minimum of 36 credits selected to include the following:

I.   English 290.
II.  Four period courses in English and American literature from English 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 348, 349. At least two courses must be in English literature with one of them chosen from 336, 337, 338; at least one course must be in American literature selected from 348 or 349.
III. One course in a major English-language writer or writers from English 350, 351, 352, 357. English 367-369 may also count toward the major author requirement when it is so noted in the course description.
IV. English 491.
V.  Two additional courses in English above 300, except 401, 402, and 498. (One of the electives may, with the written approval of the English department, be a literature course in world literature numbered 300 or higher or a course in literature offered by the department of foreign languages and literatures numbered above 306.)

No more than 12 credits earned in off-campus programs, transfer credits, credits from courses offered by other Whitman departments, or cross-listed courses may be used to satisfy major requirements. Courses used to satisfy requirements in other majors or minors cannot also be used to satisfy requirements in the English major or minor.

Courses taken P-D-F may not be used to satisfy course and credit requirements for the major.

The English department strongly recommends at least two years of a foreign language, especially for students planning to attend graduate school.

The English minor: A minimum of 20 credits selected so as to include the following:

I.    Two period courses in English literature from English 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341.
II.   One period course in American literature from English 348, 349.
III.  One course in a major English-language writer or writers from English 350, 351, 352, 357. English 367-369 may also count toward the major author requirement when it is so noted in the course description.
IV.  One additional literature or writing course in English or world literature numbered above 300.

Courses taken P-D-F may not be used to satisfy course and credit requirements for the minor.

Distribution: Courses in English (except 150, 250, 251, 310, 320, 321, 322, and 389 which apply to fine arts) apply to the humanities distribution area and cultural pluralism as indicated.

110 Language and Writing
4, 4 Fall: Hashimoto, Staff; Spring: A. Gordon, Staff

A course designed to examine the nature and function of language and rhetoric and to provide extensive writing experience for students. This course does not apply toward English major requirements or major grade average. Open only to first-year students.

150 Introductory Creative Writing
4, 4 Elliott, Staff

The writing of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Experience not necessary, but students should expect to complete weekly exercises, share work aloud, and write responses for peers. In addition, extensive reading and analysis of pieces by established writers in a variety of literary forms.

177 Introduction to Poetry
4, 4 Fall: Staff; Spring: A. Gordon

The forms, strategies, voices, and visions of British and American poetry from the Middle Ages to the present day.

178 Introduction to Fiction
4, 4 Fall: A. Gordon; Spring: Staff

The principal aims and techniques of fiction through the study of traditional and experimental novels, short stories, and novellas. Work by such authors as Dickens, the Brontës, Conrad, Chekhov, Faulkner, Hemingway, Kafka, Crane, Malamud, Bellow, Gallagher, Paley, and Barth may be included.

179 Introduction to Drama
4; not offered 2012-13

The study of the forms and techniques of drama; the study of plays as literary texts and as scripts for production, including plays from antiquity to the present.

181, 182 Introduction to Literature and the Humanities
4

The study of selected works in major forms of thought and expression in literature and the humanities. Subjects for the sections change from semester to semester and year by year depending on the particular interests of the instructors. Any current offerings follow.

181 ST: The Iroquois World
4, x Leise

The six confederated nations of the Iroquois Confederacy comprise one of the largest indigenous cultures in the northeast U.S. and southeastern Canada. This course will study selected preserved oral and written texts by Iroquoian writers about their experiences of contact and colonization by the peoples of Europe and the United States from pre-Contact into the present. Distribution area: humanities.

210 Expository Writing
4, 4 Hashimoto

A writing course for students who have mastered the skills and insights basic to competent writing but wish to develop their skills in expository prose and increase their awareness of the possibilities of language. Prerequisite: sophomore or above. First-year students by consent.

250 Intermediate Creative Writing – Fiction
4, x Elliott

An intermediate workshop in fiction writing offering students the opportunity to expand their knowledge of fundamental techniques and important works in the genre. Students will write original short stories and experiment with strategies and structures through exercises meant to increase their awareness of, and proficiency in, the elements of fiction. Extensive analysis of peer work and important established models in the genre. Weekly assignments in reading and writing to develop critical and creative faculties. Final portfolio of creative and critical work. Prerequisite: English 150 or consent of instructor.

251 Intermediate Creative Writing – Poetry
4, x Staff

An intermediate workshop in poetry writing, intended to expand knowledge of fundamental techniques, and to familiarize students with many important writers in the genre. Students will have the opportunity to write and revise poems based on prompts as well as on their own. There will be weekly reading and journal exercises, and extensive analysis of peer work and established models to develop critical and creative faculties. Final portfolio of creative and critical work. Prerequisite: English 150 or consent of instructor.

290 Approaches to the Study of Literature
4, 4 Fall: DiPasquale; Spring: Alker, Leise

A course in practical criticism designed to introduce students to some of the approaches that can be used in literary analysis. Not open to first-semester first-year students.

310 Advanced Composition
x, 4 Hashimoto

An advanced expository writing course for students serious about developing an effective, personal style and the insights necessary to analyze and evaluate it. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

320 Advanced Creative Writing – Fiction
x, 4 Elliott

An intensive advanced workshop in fiction. Students will continue to develop their proficiency in fiction writing by reading deeply and analyzing established models, completing exercises, producing drafts of original stories and revisions, participating in discussions of peer work, and giving presentations based on close readings. Final portfolio of creative and critical work which may include some consideration of where the student’s work fits into a fiction-writing tradition. Prerequisite: English 250 or equivalent and consent of instructor.

321 Advanced Creative Writing – Poetry
x, 4 Staff

An intensive advanced workshop in poetry. Students will have the opportunity to develop proficiency in poetry writing by completing exercises, producing drafts and revisions of poems for peer discussions, reading deeply and analyzing established models, and actively participating in rigorous and constructively critical discussions. Weekly poem assignments, as well as reading and journal exercises. Final portfolio of creative and critical work. Prerequisite: English 251 or equivalent and consent of instructor.

322 Advanced Creative Writing – Nonfiction
4; not offered 2012-13

An intensive advanced workshop in “the fourth genre,” creative nonfiction. Students will have the opportunity to experiment with form, to address a range of subjects in weekly creative nonfiction pieces, and to read deeply and analyze established models as well as peer work to develop important critical faculties. Students will be expected to participate actively in rigorous, constructively critical discussions. Weekly exercises, as well as reading and journal assignments. Final portfolio of creative and critical work. Prerequisite: English 250, 251, or equivalent, and consent of instructor.

336-341 Studies in British Literature
4

Courses designed to introduce students to the literature and culture of England in each of six literary periods: the Middle Ages (English 336), the Renaissance (English 337), the Restoration and 18th Century (English 338), the Romantic Period (English 339), the Victorian Period (English 340) and 1900-Present (English 341). The specific focus of each course will vary from year to year. Topics in a particular literary period may be taken a total of two times, but only one may count toward the fulfillment of the period course requirement. A second topic taken in a particular literary period may count toward the elective requirement.

336 ST: Medieval Literature: Humans, Gods, and Monsters in Medieval Literature
x, 4 Davidson

This course will explore how being human was constructed in medieval literature, starting with the Anglo-Saxons and continuing with the texts of the early Irish, Britons, and English. Reading the narratives of heroes and saints, as well as texts about Tuatha Dé Danann and the devil, we will explore traces of pre-Christian characterization embedded in Christianized texts, while looking at the relationships between divinity, humanity, and monstrosity as they are articulated within a medieval Christian frame of reference. Texts will include The Mabinogion, works by Marie de France, Chaucer, Gawain and the Green Knight, the Alliterative Morte Arthur, medieval morality plays, and more. Some works will be read in Middle English. Distribution area: humanities.

337 ST: Studies in Renaissance Literature – Sex, Love, and Power in the English Renaissance
4, x DiPasquale

Desire, love, sex, gender, and power—configured variously as aspects of literary, religious, political, and erotic experience—are major themes in English Renaissance texts. Writers of the English Renaissance deal with these themes in varying ways within varying genres: Petrarchan sonnet, lute song, Ovidian elegy, erotic epyllion, epithalamion, prose letter, verse letter, political speech, courtly treatise, comedy, tragedy, devotional lyric, pastoral dialogue, romance, and epic. We will read works from a range of genres, seeking to appreciate their aesthetic and formal qualities as well as the ideas they convey. We will savor the mixture of teaching and delight, imitation and invention, that characterizes the literary culture of the English Renaissance. Distribution area: humanities.

339 ST: Romantic Literature: Romantic Poetry
4, x Alker

This class will explore the reconstruction of poetic genres by the major Romantic poets (Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron) in response to literary, cultural, and political revolutions. Afer analyzing the way their poetry and poetic theories interact with and resist the works of their literary predecessors, we will contrast their work with the poetry of contemporaries. This may include emerging working-class poetry; regional poetry; the work of women writers; abolitionist poetry; and antiquarian and gothic poetry. We will pay particular attention to the representation of nature in these poems, viewing poetic production of the period through an eco-critical lens. Distribution area: humanities.

340 ST: Victorian Literature: Victorian Poetry: Ekphrasis in the Sister Arts
x, 4 Schlegel

This course explores the complicated nature of the sister arts of poetry and painting. Our mission will be to clearly articulate our critical analysis of works by prominent Victorian poets and painters. Meanwhile, we will deepen our knowledge of ekphrastic modes by considering thematic and formal elements, notions of perspective, temporality, and questions of aesthetics. We will also aim to counterpoint and test major categories by which we order experience: the material and spiritual, the body and soul, the everyday and the supernatural, the male and female. Distribution area: humanities.

341 ST: British Literature 1900 - the Present: British and Irish Modernism
x, 4 Majumdar

This course will study literature from the “High Modernist” period (1910-1930) and the decades immediately preceding and following it. As we consider modern literature’s claims to ta radical break from the past, we will examine shifts in literary attitudes to formal experiment, identity, elitism, obscenity, and language itself. Writers may include Conrad, Yeats, Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Loy, Forster, Shaw, and Auden. Distribution area: humanities.

347-349 Studies in American Literature
4

This includes two period courses designed to introduce students to American literature and culture in two broad periods: early and middle American literature as well as modern and contemporary literature. One special topics course, 347, with a topic that will vary every year, will examine one area of American literature in depth. English 348 and 349 will count toward period requirements, and 347 will fulfill an elective requirement. English 347 can be taken twice if a different topic is offered and both times can be counted toward the elective requirement. Any current offerings follow.

348 The American Literary Emergence, 1620 - 1920
x, 4 A. Gordon

Beginning with the pre-Revolutionary texts by those newly arrived to the Atlantic Coast colonies, and including the writings of those already present on the continent, we will study how an “American” literature came into being. As the population boomed and expansion moved westward, the newly formed United States became a national entity and global presence. We will study the development of American individualism, the rise of genres such as the captivity narrative and the slave narrative, and major literary movements such as the shift to realism and naturalism. Authors may include Bradstreet, Emerson, Douglass, Hawthorne, Whitman, Twain, Wharton, James, Dunbar, and many, many more.

349 American Literature, 1920 to the Present
4, x Leise

A study of the major authors in the American literary tradition from “the roaring twenties” to the present. Topics may include modernism; postmodernism; tensions of race, class, and gender; reconsiderations of American “individualism”; and the role of capital, technology, and the corporation in contemporary American culture. Authors may include T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Louise Erdrich, Paul Auster, Suzan-Lori Parks, Colson Whitehead, and other contemporary writers.

350 Chaucer
4; not offered 2012-13

Reading, discussion, and lectures on The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and some of the minor poems. They will be read in the original Middle English. Offered in alternate years.

351 Shakespeare
4; not offered 2012-13

A study of the major plays written before about 1601. Plays to be read and discussed may include The Comedy of Errors; Romeo and Juliet; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Richard II; Henry IV, 1 and 2; The Merchant of Venice; Julius Caesar; Much Ado About Nothing; and Twelfth Night.

352 Shakespeare
x, 4 Davidson

A study of the sonnets and the major plays written after about 1601. Plays to be read and discussed may include Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, A Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.

357 Milton
4, x DiPasquale

A study of the major poetry and selected prose of John Milton. Paradise Lost will receive primary emphasis. Offered in alternate years.

367-369 Special Authors
4

An intensive study of one significant author such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, Ben Jonson, Henry James, Emily Dickinson. Any current offerings follow.

371 Dramatic Literature: Medieval through Eighteenth Century
4; not offered 2012-13

A course in the history and development of Western drama from the Middle Ages through the 18th century. Dramatists to be studied may include the Wakefield Master, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Lope de Vega, Molière, Racine, Congreve, Beaumarchais, and Sheridan. May be elected as World Literature 371 or Theatre 371. Offered in alternate years.

372 Literature of the Modern Theatre
4; not offered 2012-13

A study of the directions modern drama has taken from the 19th century to the present. Dramatists to be studied may include Büchner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Pirandello, O’Neill, Brecht, and Pinter. May be elected as World Literature 372 or Theatre 372. Offered in alternate years.

375 Literary Theory
4; not offered 2012-13

This course introduces students to arguments about the shaping, the effects, and the interpretation of literature. Themes for the course will vary, but among the questions we will consistently examine are the following: Through what kinds of assumptions is literature read? How do characters in literary texts themselves read? How do these texts interpret what they represent? We will devote approximately equal time to the study of theoretical texts and to reading literary works through theoretical lenses. Writers may include Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Pater, Foucault, Derrida, Said, and Deleuze. Offered in alternate years.

376 Studies in Colonial and Anti-Colonial Literature
4

This course will examine texts from former colonies in South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Australia. We will study how these works negotiate the past and present, and how they explore multiple forms and conditions of colonialism and postcolonialism. Discussions of primary works will be supplemented with readings from theoretical and critical texts. Writers may include Kipling, Tagore, Conrad, Manto, Emecheta, Carey, Gordimer, and Rushdie. Offered in alternate years. Any current offerings follow.

376 ST: Reading India
x, 4 Majumdar and Biswas

The production of India has involved a long series of re-imaginings, colonial occupations, and enduring indigenous practices. The country has been an object of internal difference and violence, and of external fascination and projection. As a restless theatre of cultural and political practices, it is a place where technological accomplishment, innovation, cosmopolitanism, and idiosyncratic modernity coalesce with religious zeal and aggressive insularity. As it constructs that modernity, India continues to negotiate the powerful legacies of colonial rule even as it inserts itself into contemporary dynamics of globalization. This course is an attempt to make sense of the contradictions and conflicts that form contemporary India through an examination of the interpretation and reinvention of India from the first half of the nineteenth century to the present. May be elected as Politics 401. Distribution area: humanities or social sciences.

387 Special Studies
4

Studies of English or American literature and language generally not considered in other courses offered by the department. The specific material will vary from semester to semester. Any current offerings follow.

387 ST: Poe and Hawthorne
4, x A. Gordon

Since their literary emergences in the 1830s, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne have remained fixtures of the American literary canon. Though the two men had much in common, struggling to make a living as short story writers, navigating the difficult waters of periodical culture and the literary marketplace, and self-consciously working to establish a native literature, nonetheless, their authorial corpuses also offer a study in contrasts. While Poe insisted on the short story as the form best suited to the tenor of the times, Hawthorne abandoned the form for that of the novel. While Poe worked to divorce his gothic tales from social bearings, Hawthorne embedded his own stories in the American past and present. Though Hawthorne stuck to fiction, Poe was also a poet and a prolific critic, earning himself the nickname the “Tomahawk” for his brutal, slashing reviews of contemporary writers—Hawthorne among them. By studying the careers of these two men in depth, we will explore not only the shared commitments of two of America’s most original authors but also the points upon which they clashed, their negotiations of antebellum print culture, and the debates besetting American literature both then and now. Distribution area: humanities.

389 Special Studies in Craft
4

Studies of literary craft not considered in other courses offered by the department, intended for upper-level creative writing students. Active participation in rigorous discussions and intensive workshops expected. Final portfolios of creative and critical works. Specific material will vary from semester to semester. The distribution area is fine arts. Prerequisites: English 250, 251, or equivalent, and consent of instructor.

401, 402 Independent Study
1-4, 1-4 Staff

Directed reading and the preparation of a critical paper or papers on topics suggested by the student. The project must be approved by the staff of the department. Thus, the student is expected to submit a written proposal to the intended director of the project prior to registration for the study. The number of students accepted for the work will depend on the availability of the staff. Independent Study may not count as one of the electives fulfilling minimum requirements for the major or minor without prior written approval of the English department. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

491 Seminars in English and American Literature
4

Seminars require a substantial amount of writing, a major written project of at least 15 pages involving research in secondary sources, and oral presentations. Topics will vary from semester to semester. Open to junior and senior English majors only. Prerequisite: English 290.

491A Senior Seminar: Magician as Creative Artist
4, x Davidson

Illusion, creation, transformation—these actions are employed by magicians and authors alike. This course will examine the magician as an authorial figure in texts from the Middle Ages to the present. Class discussions will explore the importance of genre, gender, and changing literary attitudes toward creativity and power. Authors will include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson, Eco, Naylor, and others.

491B Senior Seminar: Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon
4, x Leise

Fifty years ago, Thomas Pynchon launched himself onto the world’s literary stage with V., then he wrote himself onto almost every 20^th-Century literature syllabus with The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity’s Rainbow challenged readers so thoroughly that the flummoxed Pulitizer Prize committee simply gave no award that year. Yet many critics found his 1997 tome, Mason & Dixon, to be his greatest achievement. This course will take that novel, and its numerous global themes and ideas, as the primary object of study.

491C Senior Seminar: Futuristic Fictions
4, x Elliot

We’ll explore the origins of this category, which some trace back to Plato’s Republic, then read some works whose imagined futures have already come to pass and others whose imagined futures are still a great temporal distance away. Some questions that might emerge as we go: What is the relationship between the author’s present and the future he or she imagines? What possibilities and constraints attend this category? What are the differences between “science fiction” and “literary fiction” and do these differences matter? What warnings and what hope do these works offer? What news do they bring to light about the human experience—past, present, and future? Authors read may include Plato, Francis Bacon, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, George Orwell, Alduous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, Walker Percy, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Paul Auster, T.C. Boyle, William Gibson, Cormac McCarthy, Doris Lessing, Ursula Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Molly Gloss, George Saunders, David Mitchell, Jennifer Egan, Wells Tower, and Gary Shteyngart.

497 Thesis
4, 4 Staff

Designed to further independent research projects leading to the preparation of an undergraduate thesis. The creative thesis, an option for a student of exceptional ability in creative writing, will be a substantial, accomplished collection of work in a particular genre. Limited to, but not required of, senior English majors. Prerequisite: approval of a proposal submitted to the English department prior to registration by a date designated by the department. For full details, see the English Department Handbook.

498 Honors Thesis
4, 4 Staff

Designed to further independent critical and creative research projects leading to the preparation of an undergraduate thesis. The creative thesis, an option for a student of exceptional ability in creative writing, will be a substantial, accomplished collection of work in a particular genre. Required of and limited to senior honors candidates in English. The candidate will be assigned to an appropriate thesis adviser, depending upon his or her field of interest. Prerequisite: admission to honors candidacy and approval of a proposal submitted to the English department prior to registration by a date designated by the department. For full details, see the English Department Handbook.