Fall 2019 Courses

Undergraduate English Courses
Graduate English Courses
Undergraduate Writing Courses
Graduate Writing Courses

Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 201-001 INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

Instructor: Katya Amato

This term we will read four plays: Twelfth NightOthelloAntony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest. We look at audience expectations, including features and codes of Shakespeare's theatre that differ from ours. Close reading within an historical context is our method, and our focus is on the issues we care about most today: gender, love, race, imperialism, and the discourse of colonialism.

There are identification and close-reading assignments as well as a final exam and much discussion, sometimes in groups. Note: You are graded only on your own written work; talking in small groups of like-minded bookish people is a pleasure that has no grade. You can change groups as you see fit. As for graded work, you can choose among different options including acting in a scene or writing about a film interpretation. 

Texts: We are using The New Cambridge Shakespeare editions of the plays ($11.95 each or thereabouts).

Feel free to get in touch with me over the summer: amatok@pdx.edu.

ENG 205-001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT II 

Instructor: Tracy Dillon

Our main objective is old-fashioned. This class can be described as a "coverage model" spanning roughly three centuries of literary, political, religious, and cultural thought in 10 weeks.  No sweat, right?
The goal is to introduce you to as much information as possible about the so-called Restoration (and eighteenth-century), about "Romanticism," and about the Victorian period. Hopefully, an author or topic will hook you and become the focus of further study as you move forward in your degree program, whether or not you are an English major. 

Weekly reflective writing assignments will challenge you to think critically (and maybe creatively, if "critical" thinking and "creative thinking" can be thought of as the same thing) about the stock information contained in our definitive texts: Volumes C, D, and E of the 9th or 10th Edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

Textbook: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th or 10th Edition, Volumes C, D, and E.  Note that course lectures will refer to the pagination in these editions, but savvy students hoping to save money can find used editions or earlier editions for a good price and supplement these resources in consultation with the Professor. Read: If it’s a tight month and your priorities don’t include buying three volumes of a brand-new Norton Anthology, we will explore other options.

The course is entirely online in Canvas. 

I hope to see you on the inside. Before and until then, if you have questions, contact the Professor at dillont@pdx.edu.

ENG 254-001 SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT II 

Instructor: Hildy Miller

In the course we’ll read a variety of pieces of American literature, including short stories, drama, novels, and poetry from the 20th and 21st centuries by taking “snapshots” of particular periods:  turn of the century, 20s-30s, 40s-60s, and 80s to contemporary times.  These snapshots will allow us to sample—and enjoy—key writings from these eras and to consider their connections to significant literary movements and to view them from a variety of critical perspectives.   From Henry James to Sandra Cisneros, our writers will be diverse in gender identifications, race/ethnicity, class, and culture.  In the contemporary era readings, we’ll pay special attention to new forms such as graphic fiction and twitter fiction and will read and discuss Canadian/North American Margaret Atwood’s book A Handmaid’s Tale, a story which, even though it was initially published several decades ago, seems to be speaking powerfully to a new generation.  

ENG 300-001 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Michael Clark

Emphasizes skills in close reading, formal analysis, the specialized study of literary genres, argumentation, and the process of drafting, revising, and editing academic essays. Required for, but not restricted to, English majors.

ENG 300-002 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Jonathan Walker

Emphasizes skills in close reading, formal analysis, the specialized study of literary genres, argumentation, and the process of drafting, revising, and editing academic essays. Required for, but not restricted to, English majors.

ENG 300-003 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS 

Instructor: John Smyth

Emphasizes skills in close reading, formal analysis, the specialized study of literary genres, argumentation, and the process of drafting, revising, and editing academic essays. Required for, but not restricted to, English majors.

**NOTE: Descriptions for WR 301, the second course in the required core course sequence with ENG 300, are listed below, with the other WR courses**

ENG 304-001 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA

Instructor: Wendy Collins

An introduction to critical and historical approaches to the study of cinema, including feminism, structuralism, sociological criticism, and psychoanalysis, with discussion of cinema as art form and cultural commodity.

ENG 305U-001 TOP IN FLM: HITCHCOCK 

Instructor: Michael Clark

Study of film as text, including auteur, formalist, historical, and cultural perspectives. Course may be repeated for credit with different topics.

ENG 305U-002 TOP IN FLM: ASIAN AMER ADAPTN

Instructor: Marie Lo

Study of film as text, including auteur, formalist, historical, and cultural perspectives. Course may be repeated for credit with different topics.

ENG 318U-001 BIBLE AS LITERATURE

Instructor: Bill Knight

Study of the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament as literary anthologies of the ancient Near East, emphasizing cultural and historical contexts, political and theological histories, and close readings of the texts.

ENG 326-001 LIT, COMMUNITY, DIFFERENCE

Instructor: Marie Lo

Examines the relationship between cultural production and the formation, practice, and representation of social identities.

ENG 327-001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln

Though there have been many attempts to identify the start of modern globalization, most agree that its origins lie in the experience of imperial conquest and expansion that began in the fifteenth century. Even now, pundits continue to debate whether to describe today’s world in terms of “globalization” or “neo-imperialism,” whether what defines our planet today is a utopian model of connection, mobility, and opportunity, or a dystopian structure of domination, infection, and exploitation. Partially, this depends on your position within these structures, but our attitudes and opinions are also naturally shaped by the cultural texts that seek to represent this era: the films, novels, tv shows, and other efforts to make sense of the experiences, structures, and modes of thinking that are shaped by, and help shape, our material relations. 

In this class, we will work to consider the intersections of globalization and imperialism, and the continued relevance of “postcolonial” perspectives to our current era. Reading novels, films, and theoretical works from Africa, India, the Caribbean and beyond, we will grapple with topics like: economic dependence and domination; education, language, and culture; the environment, climate change, and slow violence; political conflict and the legacies of violence and war; migration and mobility; and the work of art in our time.

ENG 330U-002 JEWISH & ISRAELI LITERATURE

Instructor: Michael Weingrad

Introduction to modern Jewish literature in its diasporic and national contexts. Emphasis on the transition from sacred to secular literature; reflection of historical and social realities; development of literatures in Europe and the Middle East.

ENG 331U-001 INTRO RHETORIC & COMP STUDIES

Instructor: Daniel DeWeese

Introduction to contemporary issues in rhetoric and composition studies by way of the rhetorical tradition of Greece, the rise of composition in the modern North American university, and their relation to the process-oriented approach to composition which has dominated composition instruction since the 1960's. Focuses are on such perennial issues as the relationship between writing and the self, the link between writing and "content," the relationship of writing to speech and reading, the political dimensions of writing, and the role of the audience in composing.

ENG 332U-001 HST CINEMA & NARRATIVE MEDIA I

Instructor: Wendy Collins

Surveys the history of cinema and narrative media from the late nineteenth-century moving image to the Second World War.

ENG 335U-001 TOP: RACE AND MELODRAMA

Instructor: Joshua Epstein

The melodrama—a genre of emotional extremes, sweeping gestures, and irrational climaxes—often finds itself intervening in questions of race, nation, and culture. We will study melodramatic films and novels that use sentiment and feeling as leverage into the political, cultural, and emotional complexities of race. Melodramas, often called “weepies” or “tear-jerkers,” have an exaggerated emotional intensity that makes them both powerfully gripping and grotesquely unrealistic and; sentiment can be both useful as a catalyst for social critique and deceptive as a way of understanding our past. Thus, even as we remain skeptical of melodramas’ distortions, we will see how they shed light (and heat) on issues of inequality and difference, authenticity and imitation, “passing” and belonging. We’ll also examine a couple texts that resist or deconstruct the genre, pushing back against its sentimental excesses or cultural (mis)representations.

As part of PSU’s Popular Culture cluster, therefore, ENG 335U helps students to engage with genres, such as melodrama, that continue to saturate popular media. Assignments will involve regular Canvas postings, a formal midterm essay, a final take-home exam, and a presentation on examples of melodrama in contemporary culture.

Required Texts:

  • Fannie Hurst, The Imitation of Life (ISBN 978-0-822333241)
  • Ernest Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (ISBN 978-0553263572)
  • Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (ISBN 978-0-307278449)

Required Films (made available for free):

  • D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
  • D.J. Spooky, Rebirth of a Nation (2007)
  • John Stahl, The Imitation of Life (1934)
  • Douglas Sirk, The Imitation of Life (1959)
  • R.W. Fassbinder, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1977)
  • Gordon Parks, Jr., Super Fly (1972)

ENG 340U-001 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Instructor: C. Rose
    
Explore Medieval Literature beyond the basic anthologies and the 200-level survey course. We will read a variety of medieval works from a range of genres. Through these texts you will notice both what is “medieval” and what medieval minds considered “literature.” We will also examine how one discusses medieval literature critically, and why. While there is no particular unifying theme to this course, some of the readings focus on relationships between secular men and women (gender, romance, love and its complications), and the individual’s relationship with his/her God—since religious writing was an integral part of what is both Medieval and Literature during the period 800-1500. From the literature of England, France, Iceland and medieval Europe we will study poetry and prose; plays, saints’ lives and courtly love; didactic conduct literature for women; a romance about a cross-dressing knight; and a political/revenge saga. You may be closer to defining “medieval” or “literature” at the end of the class, and you will have discovered why the wealth of compelling material makes the period so rewarding to study. Texts in Mod. English translations, excepting the Middle English play texts (on Canvas).

Fulfills the Pre-1800 requirement for ENG major; counts towards Medieval Studies minor (see History Dept. website)

Texts:  [tentative—there may be some changes before August 1, 2019]

  • Silence, A 13thCentury Romance, Roche-Mahdi, ed. (Michigan State U. Press) 
  • ISBN: 0-87013-543-0 
  • The Good Wife's Guide, Greco and Rose, eds. (Cornell, 2009) ISBN: 978801474743
  • The Lais of Marie de France, eds. Ferrante and Hanning (Baker Academic) 
  • ISBN: 080102031X
  • St. Benedict, Rule (Anchor-Doubleday) ISBN: 0385009488
  • The Death of King Arthur: The Alliterative Morte Arthur, trans. Simon Armitage (Norton) ISBN: 0393073971
  • The Letters of Heloise and Abelard (Penguin) ISBN: 0140442979
  • Njal’s Saga (Penguin) ISBN: 0140447695
  • The Life of Christina of Markyate, eds. Fanous, Leyser, Talbot (Oxford UP) 0199556059

[only these editions are to be used] Other materials available on Canvas

ENG 343U-001 ROMANTICISM 

Instructor: Alastair Hunt

This course introduces students to the greatest hits and one-hit wonders of British Romantic literature and culture. Romanticism is a broad movement that predominated in the literature of Great Britain in the years between 1789 and 1832. Its key authors are six white Englishmen who invented a new kind of poetry to express distinctly modern experiences of the world of Nature and of the interior depths of the Self. Much of this course will be spent getting to grips with this traditional conception of Romanticism, as displayed in the work of the Big Six, and by the end you will, at a minimum, you will be familiar with some pretty cool poetry.
However, we will also approach the more capacious, nuanced, and at times difficult understanding of Romanticism revealed by recent literary critical research. For it turns out that the Romantic archive includes works by women, working-class, and non-white authors as well as works from non-poetic genres, such as novels, autobiography, essays. And Romanticism engages a greater range of questions and issues than previously thought, including political revolution, human rights, ecology, gender, slavery, the nation, identity, language, and the nature of lived reality itself. 

Ultimately, then, this course is not just a survey of Romanticism, but also an exploration of how Romantic literary texts, as literary texts, make claims on us to think—and re-think—our common-sense explanations and expectations of the world. By the end of the course, you will not only have a better appreciation of your cultural genealogy; you will also be estranged from the obviousness of the present. In the dark times in which we live, this is far from insignificant.

Required books:

  • Peter Manning and Susan Wolfson, eds.  The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol 2A:     
  • The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. 5th ed. New York: Pearson, 2012. (ISBN 9780205223169)
  • Mary Shelley. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Ed. Susan Wolfson. 2nd ed.
  • Longman Cultural Edition. New York: Pearson, 2007. (ISBN 9780321399533)

ENG 351U-001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIT

Instructor: Anoop Mirpuri

A study of African American literature from its oral and folk beginnings to the present. This is the first course in a sequence of three: Eng 351U, Eng 352U, and Eng 353U. This is the same course as BSt 351U and may be taken only once for credit.

ENG 360U-001 AMERICAN LIT AND CULTURE I 

Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi

Study of American literature from its beginnings to the mid-nineteenth century, including literary genres and themes, historical and cultural contexts, and major authors and movements.

ENG 368U-001 LITERATURE AND ECOLOGY

Instructor: Alastair Hunt

This version of Literature and Ecology will focus on literature that explores what environmentalist Rachel Carson once called “the problem of sharing our earth with other creatures.” By any reasonable measure, we do not seem to be doing a very good job at addressing this problem. Even as concern for the welfare of animals has never been higher around the world, the number of animals bred into existence by the agricultural industry is exploding, and the global population of wild animals is, thanks to human actions, plummeting. The wager of this course this that literature is a cultural treasury that, when read closely, can provide unique resources for thinking creatively about both the various, sometimes beautiful, often violent, ways we have lived with animals up till now and how we might yet live with them more justly and more sustainably in the future. Our reading will take in a selection of mostly canonical twentieth- and twenty-first century literary texts from diverse prose genres (novel, fable, memoir, biography, non-fiction) and various national Anglophone traditions (American, British, South African). In addition, we will read a small number of works of poetry, theory, criticism, and history. Topics to be addressed include: differences between humans and animals; animal subjectivity; communicating with animals; human animality; representing animals; the ethics of eating animals; human rights and animal rights; animals and radical politics; animals and biopolitics; animals and violence; intersections between animals and human groups.

Possible books:

  • J. M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals, Princeton UP, 1999. (ISBN 0691004439)
  • George Orwell, Animal Farm: A Fairy Tale. Signet, 2004. (ISBN 0451526341)
  • Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. (ISBN    9781780220383)
  • J. R. Ackerly. My Dog Tulip. NYRB Classics, 2010. (ISBN 1590174143)
  • H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau, A Possibility. Penguin, 2005. (ISBN 9780141441023) 
  • Virginia Woolf, Flush: A Biography. Mariner Books, 1976. (ISBN 0156319527) 
  • Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2009. (ISBN 978031669885)

ENG 385U-001 CONTEMPORARY LIT 

Instructor: Katya Amato

We will read recent texts by living writers from around the world, the earliest from 2005, the others from 2015 to 2019. Our texts are from different genres, and they cross genre boundaries. Their subjects are those of the greatest literature: war, sex and gender, love and friendship, grief and healing, immigration, survival, and death. 

The literature we are reading is fully Adult, not Young Adult, not bowdlerized for teenagers. It is an upper-division class so you can expect difficult subjects to surface.  Discomfort with these subjects can be borne, but if you fear that the class may trigger memories you cannot bear, then sign up for a class with texts less likely to hurt.

Attendance is essential in this class because we do not use Canvas. We meet and talk face to face as a class and in small groups. If you fear that your attendance will be spotty for any reason, then sign up for a class where attendance is via the internet. 

You choose your groups and are free to move to others. You are not graded on group participation but only on written work. Still, most people find the groups rewarding without a carrot or a stick of a grade, and friendships often last beyond class boundaries.

Politeness reigns in our groups along with honesty. We can and will disagree about ideas and interpretations but without personal rancor. A question that arises, for example, is this: does a writer from outside an ethnic or marginalized group have the insight to present a character from that group? Is the writer appropriating other people's culture? Or is that what writers do--imagine how other people feel and think? The question is not minor: men have been impersonating women on the page for millennia. (Think of Flaubert and the ambiguity of "Mme. Bovary, c'est moi.") The question is perhaps best answered on a case by case basis. 

Assignments include journals, a formal paper, and an editorial report (you imagine yourself a reader at a publishing house who suggests texts to her editor). Journals are the heart of the course and must be turned in daily MWF before class. When we move on to the next text, you'll need to deliver within a week your final entry on the previous text, picking up the threads of your dailies as well as issues discussed in class. 

For more information, feel free to get in touch over the summer: amatok@pdx.edu.

Texts:    How To Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

  • Tin Man by Sarah Winman
  • Cherry by Nico Walker
  • The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
  • The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
  • Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
  • Granta 148: Summer Fiction 2019 (to be published in August)

ENG 397U-001 DIGITAL LITERARY STUDIES

Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens

How do computers change what counts as “literature” and how we read it? 

This class explores how digital contexts give us new and different access to classics like “The Waste Land” and Pride and Prejudice. It also presents entirely digital-born literature powered by a combination of  human choice and algorithms, such as Choose Your Own Adventure literary games authored in Twine, and “generated” poems that “print” a new line every few seconds. 

Students will study a wide range of literary texts, both printed and digital, and will apply media theory to understand how core literary practices into shift and remain the same in new reading contexts, such as browsers, apps and ereaders. Students make digital literary artworks, adapt literature into new medial forms, and reflect on how the digital medium and human play affect literary interpretation in traditional essays. "

ENG 413-001 TEACHING & TUTORING WRITING

Instructor: Hildy Miller

Are you planning on teaching writing at either the college or secondary level?  Most English grads who teach actually spend the majority of their time teaching writing.  This course introduces you to the theory and practice of teaching and tutoring writing.  We’ll focus on writing processes (invention, revision, editing, formal and informal writing, and writing groups); teaching strategies (responding to writing, developing your teaching ethos, working with ESL students, handling plagiarism, teaching critical reading, and developing a teaching  philosophy); and look at specific issues (how tutorial sessions work, what writing in the disciplines means, how to create such teaching staples as a syllabus, a writing assignment, a unit plan, and a lesson plan).  

And you’ll get actual teaching experience by spending at least 3 hours a week in a tutoring or teaching practicum of your choice beginning the about the third week.  So, in short, this won’t be your average lecture class.  Instead, you’ll be reading and researching materials, working in small groups, doing practice teaching and tutoring sessions, producing formal and informal writing, and applying all you’re learning to your practicum.  At the end of the course you should possess both the tools and the confidence to teach writing in any context.  

Required for students applying to the GTEP program; recommended for anyone entering other Masters of Education/Teaching programs.

Questions?  Contact Hildy Miller at milleh@pdx.edu.

ENG 442-001 WOMEN WRITERS GLOBAL CONTEXTS

Instructor: Sara McWilliams

Study of the works of women writers from the postcolonial and non-Western world.

ENG 448-001 ADV TOP: CHAUCER

Instructor: C. Rose

AIMS:

  • To introduce you to Chaucer in Middle English, with emphasis on learning to read and interpret the Canterbury Tales in ME. 
  • To place the Canterbury Tales in their literary, social and historical context 
  • To familiarize you with some of the best critical interpretations of Chaucer’s work 
  • To understand the extraordinary complexity of the CT as poetry, yet see them also as wonderfully entertaining stories
  • To appreciate Chaucer’s genius

Fulfills: Historical Literacy requirement in the English Major.

Prerequisites: ENG 300 and at least simultaneous enrollment in WR 301.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

  • Benson, Larry D., ed.  The Canterbury Tales (Cengage) ISBN 13: 978-0395978238 [pbk]

 OR

  • Jill Mann, ed. Canterbury Tales also acceptable Penguin ISBN 978-0140422344
  • Everyone needs: Boethius (trans. R. Green) The Consolation of Philosophy, Macmillan. ISBN: 002346450X

***Graduate Students may register for this class as ENG 505

ENG 480-001 BODIES THAT SPLATTER: GENRES OF THE MODERN

Instructor: Joshua Epstein

Bodies that Splatter: Genres of the Modern

This course will explore 20th-century British(ish) novels, plays, and films that wreak bloody havoc with bodily experience by experimenting with conventions of genre. These texts warp and distort representations of the body as they reinvent genres (Gothic, spy novel, bildungsroman, melodrama, fairy tale) aimed at our physical responses to art. Our texts will test a range of hypotheses. Perhaps the experiments of modernism and postmodernism are ways of resisting strategies of “realism” that bury Britain’s colonial past. Perhaps these reuses of genre challenge normative assumptions about the body’s physical capacities, seeking new forms through which to engage with disabled or queer bodily experiences. Perhaps our artists engage in—or critique—the voyeurism that drives us to want to witness bodies in distress. And perhaps the texts themselves are as confused as we are about what a body can be made to do in an artwork, and to what effect.

Texts to be chosen from the following (one or two of them... might not make it):

  • Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
  • Samuel Beckett, Endgame
  • Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve
  • J.G. Ballard, Crash
  • Sarah Kane, Blasted
  • Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night
  • Jim Crace, Being Dead

One or two films, to be chosen from Kenneth Macpherson’s Borderline, Derek Jarman's Blue, or Mike Leigh's Naked.

As you might guess, some of the course materials address uncomfortable subjects. To succeed in the course, you will need to be able to confront and discuss these subjects in an academic context. I hope and expect that the texts will provoke lively discussions. Feel free to contact me at jepstein@pdx.edu if you have questions.

ENG 491-001 HST OF LITERARY CRIT & THRY I 

Instructor: Alastair Hunt

What is this thing called “literature”? How do you know a literary work when you see it? Is literature an imitation of the world, an expression of the writer’s feelings, or an attempt to influence readers? What makes a good story? What makes a good poem? What is the difference between stories and poems? How many genres of literature are there? Is literature, and art in general, the product of heroic genius, luck, drugs, or hard work? Is aesthetic judgment of literature purely subjective or is there a universal standard? How does one become a good judge of literature and other aesthetic objects? What, if anything, does literature do? What is the relationship between literature and society? What does literature teach us about language, history, culture, and politics? This course leads students on a guided tour of the most interesting attempts to pose and answer these questions throughout history. We will read a selection of texts in the western tradition from classical antiquity to the nineteenth century.

Required text
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Second Edition (ISBN 978-0393932928)

ENG 496-001 COMICS THEORY

Instructor: TBD

Focus on various critical approaches to comics, exploring interdisciplinary theories and methods and applying these theories to primary texts.

 

Graduate English Courses

ENG 500-001 PROBLEMS & MTHDS LIT STUDY 

Instructor: Bishupal Limbu

Bibliography and the methods of literary study as an introduction to graduate work: three hours lecture and at least two additional hours of library research. Required for M.A. candidates in English.

ENG 507-001 SEM: VISUAL RHETORIC 

Instructor: Susan Kirtley

Variable topics. Graduate only or consent of instructor. At least one Eng 507 seminar is required of M.A. candidates in English. (Credit to be arranged.)

ENG 507-002 SEM: VIOLENCE AND (MODERN) FICTION: FLAUBERT, KAFKA, BECKETT, DINESEN, GREENAWAY 

Instructor: John Vignaux Smyth

In this class we will study works of modern fiction with violence as central theme by four well-known European writers and a British filmmaker: Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), and Peter Greenaway. 

As anthropological and philosophical background, we will read selections from René Girard’s Violence and the Sacred, Slavoj Zizek’s Violence: Six Sideways Reflections, Jacques Derrida’s “Plato’s Pharmacy,” Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s The Mark of the Sacred, and Eli Sagan’s Cannibalism.

Other background reading, for instance Lynn Wilkinson’s essay on Isak Dinesen as discussed by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, will also be required; and there will be in addition a list of recommended readings that may helpful to your thinking, but are not required.

One in-class presentation of work, and two essays will be the basic workload, plus short weekly contributions to Canvas discussion.

ENG 507-003 SEM: EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE

Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi

Variable topics. Graduate only or consent of instructor. At least one Eng 507 seminar is required of M.A. candidates in English. (Credit to be arranged.)

ENG 518-001 TEACHING COLLEGE COMPOSITION

Instructor: Susan Kirtley

Introduces and develops the theoretical and practical expertise of the graduate teaching assistant in the area of college composition teaching. May be taken up to three times for credit.

ENG 519-001 ADV TEACHING COLLEGE COMP 

Instructor: Susan Kirtley

Continues the development of the theoretical and practical expertise of the graduate teaching assistant in advanced areas of college composition teaching. May be repeated up to three times for credit. Required prerequisite: appointment to 2nd year teaching assistantship in English Department.

ENG 531-001 TOP: THE FIELD OF ENGLISH 

Instructor: Joshua Epstein

This is a one-credit course for first-year English M.A. students, which meets for two hours every other Monday (starting week 1). We'll spend the quarter discussing graduate-level research skills, as well as addressing some broad disciplinary questions about the field of English.

Returning M.A. students should enroll instead in ENG 531.002.

ENG 531-002 COLLOQUIUM 

Instructor: Joshua Epstein

This is a one-credit course for returning M.A. in English students, which meets for two hours every other Monday (starting week 2). We'll spend the quarter finalizing students' QE/Focus Area proposals and sharing our research in these areas.

New/first-year M.A. in English students should enroll instead in ENG 531.001.

 

Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 115 INTRO TO COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: Various Instructors  

A writing course for first-year students to help prepare them for Freshman Inquiry or Wr 121. Introduces college-level writing and reading, along with general study skills. Provides practice at formal and informal writing, responding to a variety of readings, learning textual conventions, and building confidence.

WR 121 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: Various Instructors

A writing course for lower-division students, in which they develop critical thinking abilities by reading and writing, increase their rhetorical strategies, practice writing processes, and learn textual conventions. Includes formal and informal writing, responding to a variety of readings, sharing writing with other students, and revising individual pieces for a final portfolio of work.

WR 199-001 SPST: WRITING FOR COLLEGE

Instructor: Daniel DeWeese

May be repeated for a maximum of 12 credits. See department for course description. (Credit to be arranged.)

WR 200-001 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE

Instructor: TBD

Introduction to various approaches for writing about literature. Focuses on ways of responding to literature, ways of explicating literature, ways of analyzing literature through writing, and ways of integrating formal research into a written analysis of literature. Special attention will be paid to the writing process, including multiple drafting and revision. 

WR 212 INTRO FICTION WRITING 

Instructor: Various Instructors

Introduces the beginning fiction writer to basic techniques of developing character, point of view, plot, and story idea in fiction. Includes discussion of student work. May be repeated for a total of 8 credits. Expected preparation: Freshman Inquiry.

WR 213 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Various Instructors

Introduces the beginning writer of poetry to basic techniques for developing a sense of language, meter, sound, imagery, and structure. Includes discussion of professional examples and student work. May be repeated for a total of 8 credits. Expected preparation: Freshman Inquiry.

WR 214-001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

Instructor: Nada Sewidan

An introduction to writing with the major forms and techniques of literary nonfiction. Beginning with exercises in foundational skills such as description, reportage and the crafting of personal narrative, students will write and respond to short works of creative nonfiction. May be repeated for a total of 8 credits. Expected preparation: Freshman Inquiry or equivalent.

WR 222 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Various Instructors

An elective course. The techniques for compiling and writing research papers. Attention to available reference materials, use of library, taking notes, critical evaluation of evidence, and conventions for documenting academic papers. Practice in organizing and writing a long expository essay based on use of library resources. Recommended: Wr 121 or Freshman Inquiry. May not be used to fulfill English major requirements.

WR 227 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Various Instructors

Practical experience in forms of technical communication, emphasizing basic organization and presentation of technical information. Focuses on strategies for analyzing the audience and its information needs. Recommended: Wr 121 or Freshman Inquiry.

WR 228-001 MEDIA WRITING

Instructor: TBD 

An introductory course in media reporting and writing. Focus on identifying newsworthiness, writing leads, constructing news stories, interviewing, and attributing quotes. Students learn to gather local news, writing some stories in a computer lab on deadline. Expected preparation: Wr 121 or Freshman Inquiry. May be repeated once for a total of 8 credits.

WR 300-001 PROFESSIONAL WRITING 

Instructor: Kate Comer

How does writing work at work? 
How can your academic skills support your career goals? 

This course offers an introduction to professional communication, focusing on prose style and multimedia design. The class welcomes majors and non-majors looking to apply and expand your academic skills in new contexts. Based on your own interests, you will explore a professional discourse community to discover the genres, audiences, and agendas that shape their writing. Along the way, you will develop a transferable perspective and practical strategies for ongoing professional development.

WR 301-002 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH 

Instructor: Bishupal Limbu

This writing-intensive course extends the skills developed in Eng 300 by studying some selected theoretical and disciplinary approaches to literary and other texts (including literary and rhetorical theory), and by introducing students to research methods as a way of entering scholarly conversations.

WR 301-003 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln

"There is no document of culture that is not at the same time a document of barbarism."
    —Walter Benjamin, 1940

This course provides a rigorous introduction to the methods, approaches and questions necessary for advanced scholarly work in English, including close reading, historicism, research and argument: consider it boot camp for English majors! This is not a survey of theoretical perspectives, though we will read and discuss some important examples of literary and other theory along the way. Rather, the class prepares you for upper-division scholarship by asking what it is that we “do” as readers and critics—what English is “for,” why literature matters, and how encounters with the strangeness of literary language reflect and model other sorts of strange encounters.
 
A careful reading of J.M. Coetzee’s 1980 novel Waiting for the Barbarians serves as a basis for our broader consideration of the ethical and political significance of reading, interpretation, and translation; we will also put the novel in dialogue with other works of literature, including Camus’s “The Guest”; Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden; Kafka’s "In the Penal Colony"; DH Lawrence, "Snake”; and Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians"; along with theoretical perspectives from Derek Attridge, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault and others. 

As a Writing Intensive Class (WIC), the course will also focus on the strategies, conventions and techniques of scholarly writing. Reading and responding to other students’ work; drafting, revising and polishing written assignments in response to feedback; and improving grammar, style, clarity and argument will all form part of your work in the class. 

Required Texts

  • J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (Penguin Ink)
  • Ariel Dorfman, Death and the Maiden (Penguin)
  • The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 8th Edition (MLA)
  • Graff and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 3rd Edition

WR 312 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Various Instructors

Builds on fictional techniques introduced in Wr 212, including variations on the classic plot, complex points of view, and conventions of genre. Emphasizes discussion of student work. May be repeated once for credit.

WR 313-001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

Instructor: TBD 

Continues the study of poetry writing techniques introduced in Wr 213. Includes additional instruction in poetic forms, variations on traditional forms, and experimental forms. Emphasizes discussion of student work. May be repeated once for credit.

WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Various Instructors

A writing course for upper-division students, which offers sophisticated approaches to writing and reading. Students enhance critical thinking abilities by reading and writing challenging material, refine their rhetorical strategies, practice writing processes with special attention to revision and style, and write and read in a variety of genres. Includes formal and informal writing, sharing writing with other students, and preparing a final portfolio of work. Recommended: satisfactory completion of Wr 121 or Freshman Inquiry.

WR 327 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Various Instructors

Strategies for presenting technical information from the technician, management, and lay person's perspectives; rhetorical theory and techniques for adapting technical prose to nontechnical audiences; and techniques for emphasizing and de-emphasizing information. Recommended: Wr 323.

WR 331-001 BOOK PUBLISHING FOR WRITERS

Instructor: Rachel Noorda

Provides an overview of the book publishing process, organized around the division of labor typically found in publishing houses. Through readings, discussion, and participation in mock publishing companies, students learn about editorial, design, production, marketing, distribution, and sales.

WR 333-001 ADVANCED COMPOSITION

Instructor: TBD 

Essay writing with particular attention to student's area of specialization. Advanced practice in essay writing. Recommended: Freshman Inquiry or two writing courses.

WR 398-001 WRITING COMICS

Instructor: TBD 

The graphic novel features the unique marriage of words and pictures that has seeped into every facet of popular culture. This course will focus on composing graphic narratives, exploring all the storytelling elements that create this unique visual medium.

WR 407-001 SEM: ADVANCED FICTION: THE APOCALYPSE

Instructor: Janice Lee

The apocalypse, though often seen as a large event, in some ways becomes an anticipatory state. How might the apocalypse be related to time as a vantage point from which we observe and anticipate and how might this anticipation highlight human tragedy and hope? That we go on, is the heroic gesture, is the gesture of hope. The apocalypse is about failure and devastation, but also about relief and hope. It is about the modification of reality, the ability to see the world from a pair of eyes not just one’s own. It is about disintegration and ruin, yes, but also about empathy and the relationships between human beings. It is about the acceptance of uncertainty over clarity and an abandonment into the beauty of reality. It is about the plateau, the daily struggle, not the end. Students will explore various ideas on the apocalypse as a concept and as a landscape through various works of fiction (as well as poetry and film) including texts by Cormac McCarthy, László Krasznahorkai, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Nicole Broussard, Mariko Nagai, Blake Butler, Maurice Blanchot, and Lucy Corin. Class components will include weekly reading responses and discussion, short writing prompts, and a final creative project. Writers of all genres are welcome.

Required Texts:


  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy. ISBN 978-0307387899
  • The End of Peril, the End of Enmity, the End of Strife, a Haven by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint. 978-1934819746
  • Mauve Desert by Nicole Brossard. ISBN 978-1552451724
  • Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai. ISBN 978-0811226646

WR 410-003 TOP: BESTSELLERS IN US BOOKS

Instructor: TBD 

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Few readers have heard of Maria Cummins, Susan Warner, Eden Southworth, Laura Jean Libbey, Timothy Shay Arthur, George Lippard, Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, or Harold Bell Wright.  But just a century ago, their works were beloved, debated, and popular.  We know modern publishing houses such as Random House, Little Brown, and Simon and Schuster, but what of the publishers that once populated the booksellers’ shelves, such as A.L. Burt, Street and Smith, and Porter and Coates. Most American literature survey courses introduce students to the great literature from our past, yet many of the “great writers” were not popular in their lifetime.  In this class, the student will be challenged to unlearn all they have been taught about “great literature” and explore books often ignored by scholars, but devoured by American readers, and to investigate the factors that determine the likelihood of a book being a bestseller.  While designed for those wishing to pursue a career in acquisitions editing, the course will also prove interesting to students of popular culture and the history of the book in America.

WR 410-004 TOP: LITERARY AGENTS & ACQUISI

Instructor: TBD

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

An in-depth examination of how a book gets selected for publication by those in the traditional role of gatekeeper: literary agents and acquisitions editors. Also examines the labor performed by literary agents and acquisitions editors after they acquire a manuscript, as well as the act of commissioning a book.

WR 410-001 TOP: LITERARY MAGAZINES

Instructor: Thea Prieto

This course introduces students to the local and national world of literary magazines. Students will gain industry experience by reading and discussing Portland Review’s annual fiction, nonfiction, and poetry submissions. Students will further expand their resumes by writing reviews and essays for publication. By analyzing common submission, editing, and publishing processes, this class will promote critical thinking and ethical insight regarding the practices of literary magazines.

Portland Review has been publishing exceptional prose, poetry, and art since 1956. The journal is produced by the graduate students in Portland State University’s English Department, and for over sixty years Portland Review has promoted the works of emerging writers and artists alongside the works of well-established authors, such as Ursula K. Le Guin, William Stafford, Brian Turner, and Lidia Yuknavitch. To learn more about the history of the journal, please visit portlandreview.org/about.

WR 410-002 TOP: TRANSLTN & LOCALIZATN TLS

Instructor: TBD 

WR 411-001 INTERNSHIP

Instructor: Susan Reese

Students apply their academic training and skills in the workforce, further developing those skills and learning new skills in the process. Students develop a better understanding of the value to employers of their education in literature, writing, and/or publishing. Integrating an internship with reflection and professional development enhances the experience.

WR 412-001 ADVANCED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Janice Lee

In this class, students will engage with topics related to craft (point of view, character, narrative, setting), look more closely at their own relationship with language, work in collaborative processes, and aim to produce two completed drafts of original fiction. Students will also participate in workshop and provide written critical engagements of the works of their peers. Our work will be guided by various writing & revision exercise, as well as readings by diverse contemporary authors. 

Required Texts:

  • H & G by Anna Maria Hong. ISBN 978-1940090085
  • Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. ISBN 978-1328911247

WR 413-001 ADVANCED POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Michele Glazer

Students can expect to explore a variety of demanding technical problems and to experiment with poetic voices. Course may be repeated once for credit.

WR 416-001 SCREENWRITING

Instructor: Thomas Bray

Students will be introduced to the process of conceiving, structuring, writing, rewriting, and marketing a screenplay for the contemporary American marketplace. "Screenplay paradigms" will be discussed, and a variety of movies will be analyzed. May be repeated for credit.

WR 420-001 WRITING PROCESS & RESPONSE

Instructor: Anthony Wolk

(1) In class discussions of language attitudes & the composing process, along with several dialogue journals on those processes. (2) The WRG's: Writing Response Groups, where twice weekly we will write in any mode we wish, on any subject. We will make copies of our writing for our group, and then read aloud what we've written. Then come feedback. Very simple. (3) Twice during the term we will have whole class read-arounds, midway and at the close.

WR 425-001 ADVANCED TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Emphasis on a problem-solving approach to adapting technical documents to audiences and organizations. The course includes strategies of organization for complex technical documents, such as proposals and professional articles; strategies for discussing tables and figures; and the use of metaphor to communicate technical information to lay audiences. Expected preparation: Wr 327. May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.

WR 426-001 DOCUMENT DESIGN

Instructor: Tracy Dillon

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Document planning, creation, and revision, including discussion of the use and abuse of language in business, government, insurance, and law. Students will consider general strategies for document production; analyze different document styles; address questions of target audience; evaluate documents for readability and efficiency; and study the Plain English Movement and its legislative and legal implications.

WR 428-001 ADVANCED MEDIA WRITING

Instructor: TBD 

Building on the journalism skills learned in Media Writing and Media Editing, students use Portland to cover and write stories from community sources. Students are also introduced to reporting on a regular basis from news beats of their choosing. Expected preparation: Wr 328.

WR 456-001 FORMS OF NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking

This seminar course will explore various forms of nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, graphic narrative, autobiographical poetry, literary journalism & criticism, political & environmental writing, with practice writing in each. We will also investigate the permeable boundaries between these and other literary forms, with a focus on the braiding of the personal and the political, the creative and the critical. Individual classes will contain lively discourse and dynamic writing experiments designed to deepen students' critical understanding of various nonfiction forms, along with a wide variety of nonfiction techniques and craft elements. To democratize the reading selections, each student will deliver a short presentation on a book-length work of nonfiction of their choosing. Students will also write several short response papers and a final essay, in which they will be challenged to analyze, synthesize, and respond creatively to a number of our readings. 

Reading List:

  • Miller, Brenda and Paola, Suzanne. Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction (Second Edition) 
  • Biondolillo, Chelsea. The Skinned Bird: Essays
  • Zamora, Javier. Unaccompanied
  • Flynn, Nick. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
  • Bui, Thi. The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir

WR 460-001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Provides a detailed overview of the publishing process, organized around the division of labor, including introductions to contemporary American publishing, issues of intellectual commerce, copyright law, publishing contracts, book editing, book design and production, book marketing and distribution, and bookselling. Based on work in mock publishing companies, students prepare portfolios of written documents, i.e., book proposals, editorial guidelines, design and production standards, and marketing plans. Guest speakers from the publishing industry and field trips provide exposure to the industry.

WR 460-002 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Provides a detailed overview of the publishing process, organized around the division of labor, including introductions to contemporary American publishing, issues of intellectual commerce, copyright law, publishing contracts, book editing, book design and production, book marketing and distribution, and bookselling. Based on work in mock publishing companies, students prepare portfolios of written documents, i.e., book proposals, editorial guidelines, design and production standards, and marketing plans. Guest speakers from the publishing industry and field trips provide exposure to the industry.

WR 461-001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: TBD 

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Provides a comprehensive course in professional book editing, including editorial management, acquisitions editing, substantive/developmental editing, and copyediting. Issues specific to both fiction and nonfiction books will be covered.

WR 462-001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: TBD

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Provides a strong foundation in design software used in the book publishing industry, focusing on Adobe InDesign. Also explores Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat, as well as XHTML and e-book design. The class considers audience expectations through a range of hands-on design projects. 

WR 463-001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: TBD

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Comprehensive course in professional book marketing. Issues specific to marketing of fiction and nonfiction books in variety of genres and markets will be covered. Students will do market research, produce marketing plans, write press releases, write advertising copy, and develop related marketing materials.

WR 464-001 BUSINESS OF BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: TBD 

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Comprehensive course in the business of book publishing. Topics covered include publications management, accounting, book production, distribution, and bookselling. Students learn how a variety of agents, including publishers, publishing services companies, distributors, wholesalers, bookstores, etc., are organized.

WR 474-001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Perform the work of a real publishing house, from acquiring manuscripts to selling books. Gain publishing experience by participating in the various departments of a student-staffed publishing house, Ooligan Press. May be taken multiple times for credit.

WR 475-001 PUBLISHING LAB 

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Note: Undergraduate registration for this section will open on July 1, 2019

Perform the work of a real publishing house, from acquiring manuscripts to selling books. Gain publishing experience by participating in the various departments of a student-staffed publishing house, Ooligan Press. May be taken multiple times for credit.

 

Graduate Writing Courses

WR 507-001 SEM: CONSTRAINTS

Instructor: John Beer & Leni Zumas

Novels written eschewing certain letters, or patterned according to the Tarot deck or problems in chess; poems that gather dozens of translations of a tercet from Dante, or document the author’s physical movements in a 24-hour period; writings of indeterminate genre that repeatedly subject the same episode to stylistic variations, or record a month-long exploration of highway rest stops: this graduate seminar will investigate a variety of highly singular compositions, all of which share the quality of having been written, in part or entirely, according to some governing procedure or constraint. Centrally, we’ll ask what a writer gains, and loses, by adopting such an approach, and also whether certain types of constraint seem to be more or less generative of original and compelling work. We’ll also take a more theoretical perspective on the nature of constrained writing: what is its history? Its politics? Can such methods be effectively distinguished from literary form in general? Team-taught by John Beer and Leni Zumas.

WR 507-003 SEM: MAGAZINE WRITING

Instructor: Paul Collins

This seminar uses conferencing and peer critique to research and draft short and long-form work for periodicals, in formats that include daily websites, commercial glossies, and printed literary quarterlies.  

WR 509-001 PRAC: TEACHING TECH & PRO WRTN

Instructor: Sarah Read

WR 510-003 TOP: PORTLAND REVIEW EDITING

Instructor: TBD 

WR 510-006 TOP: LITERARY AGENTS & ACQUISI

Instructor: TBD

An in-depth examination of how a book gets selected for publication by those in the traditional role of gatekeeper: literary agents and acquisitions editors. Also examines the labor performed by literary agents and acquisitions editors after they acquire a manuscript, as well as the act of commissioning a book.

WR 510-005 TOP: BESTSELLERS IN US BOOKS

Instructor: TBD 

Few readers have heard of Maria Cummins, Susan Warner, Eden Southworth, Laura Jean Libbey, Timothy Shay Arthur, George Lippard, Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, or Harold Bell Wright.  But just a century ago, their works were beloved, debated, and popular.  We know modern publishing houses such as Random House, Little Brown, and Simon and Schuster, but what of the publishers that once populated the booksellers’ shelves, such as A.L. Burt, Street and Smith, and Porter and Coates. Most American literature survey courses introduce students to the great literature from our past, yet many of the “great writers” were not popular in their lifetime.  In this class, the student will be challenged to unlearn all they have been taught about “great literature” and explore books often ignored by scholars, but devoured by American readers, and to investigate the factors that determine the likelihood of a book being a bestseller.  While designed for those wishing to pursue a career in acquisitions editing, the course will also prove interesting to students of popular culture and the history of the book in America.

WR 510-001 SEM: MFA FIRST-YEAR COLLOQUIUM

Instructor: Janice Lee

The MFA First-Year Colloquium is designed to help first-year MFA students become oriented with the program, get acquainted with faculty members and their work, help plan out their time in the program, build literary community within the program, think about literary citizenship, and participate in the literary community at large. The format will be deliberately loose to address student questions, frustrations and enthusiasms. Topics may include: the writing life, writers’ block, craft & creativity, funding, generative writing prompts, questions around diversity and equity, publishing, and the Portland literary scene.

WR 510-002 SEM: MFA CRAFT COLLOQUIUM

Instructor: Janice Lee

This colloquium for MFA students (all strands, all years) is intended to provide comment, encouragement, and critical response for students exploring through multiple lenses a focused area of craft important to their writing. The colloquium is meant to be useful to both those beginning the MFA or working on their thesis. Students will work together to broaden the concept of craft outside of a strictly literary scope, discuss various questions and approaches to revision and writing practice, and explore how their creative work engages with a sense of identity, philosophy, and the world around them. The quarter will culminate in a reflective essay that connects readings and discussed ideas with the larger body of work in the program. This essay may be useful in thinking about the thesis and in shaping applications for post-MFA residencies and fellowships.

WR 510-004 TOP: TRANSLTN & LOCALIZATN TLS

Instructor: TBD 

WR 510-007 TOP: RESEARCHING BOOK PUBLSHNG

Instructor: Kathi Inman Berens

Students will learn about book publishing research methods (qualitative, quantitative) and work through various stages of their final research paper for the culmination of the Book Publishing Master’s Program. Students will emerge from the course with: 1) a measurable and right-sized research question that is valuable to the industry and addresses gaps in the literature; 2) a methodology plan; 3) sample paper outlines that refine their critical thinking skills.

WR 511-001 INTERNSHIP

Instructor: Susan Reese

Students apply their academic training and skills in the workforce, further developing those skills and learning new skills in the process. Students develop a better understanding of the value to employers of their education in literature, writing, and/or publishing. Integrating an internship with reflection and professional development enhances the experience.

WR 520-001 WRITING PROCESS & RESPONSE

Instructor: Tony Wolk

(1) In class discussions of language attitudes & the composing process, along with several dialogue journals on those processes. (2) The WRG's: Writing Response Groups, where twice weekly we will write in any mode we wish, on any subject. We will make copies of our writing for our group, and then read aloud what we've written. Then come feedback. Very simple. (3) Twice during the term we will have whole class read-arounds, midway and at the close.

WR 521-001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP FICTION

Instructor: Gabriel Urza

The MFA Core Workshop in Fiction focuses on the writing, revision, and critical discussion of student short stories and chapters from novels. Students' critical analyses of their peers' work are informed by their study of published fiction in the texts, supplemented by lectures clarifying technical strategies in the writing of fiction. May be taken up to six times for credit. This course is restricted to graduate students admitted to the Writing Program (Fiction).

WR 522-001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP POETRY

Instructor: Michele Glazer

The MFA Core Workshop in Poetry focuses on the writing, revision, and critical discussion of student poems. Students' verbal and written critical analyses of their peers' work are informed by their reading of published poems representing a range of formal strategies and historical and cultural contexts, and by their reading in prosody and poetics. May be taken up to six times for credit. This course is restricted to graduate students admitted to the Writing Program (Poetry).

WR 523-001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP NONFICTION: WRITING AS SURVIVAL

Instructor: Justin Hocking

This course will explore the motif of survival from a number of literary, psychological, and scientific perspectives. In addition to weekly peer critiques, we will examine new and classic works of creative nonfiction, and discuss how the authors (or their subjects) survive trauma, chronic illness/disability, racism, environmental catastrophe, and other challenges. Via regular writing exercises, we will also experiment with various craft elements, research tools, and line-level choices that these and other writers employ to generate vital narratives of survival.

Reading List:

  • Jackson, Mitchell. Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family
  • Wang, Esme. The Collected Schizophrenias
  • Luiselli, Valeria. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions
  • Yuknavitch, Lidia. The Chronology of Water

WR 525-001 ADVANCED TECHNICAL WRITING 

Instructor: Sarah Read

Emphasis on a problem-solving approach to adapting technical documents to audiences and organizations. The course includes strategies of organization for complex technical documents, such as proposals and professional articles; strategies for discussing tables and figures; and the use of metaphor to communicate technical information to lay audiences. May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits. Expected preparation: Wr 327.

WR 526-001 DOCUMENT DESIGN

Instructor: Tracy Dillon

Document planning, creation, and revision, including discussion of the use and abuse of language in business, government, insurance, and law. Students will consider general strategies for document production; analyze different document styles; address questions of target audience; evaluate documents for readability and efficiency; and study the Plain English Movement and its legislative and legal implications.

WR 560-001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Provides a detailed overview of the publishing process, organized around the division of labor, including introductions to contemporary American publishing, issues of intellectual commerce, copyright law, publishing contracts, book editing, book design and production, book marketing and distribution, and bookselling. Based on work in mock publishing companies, students prepare portfolios of written documents, i.e., book proposals, editorial guidelines, design and production standards, and marketing plans. Guest speakers from the publishing industry and field trips provide exposure to the industry.

WR 560-002 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda

Provides a detailed overview of the publishing process, organized around the division of labor, including introductions to contemporary American publishing, issues of intellectual commerce, copyright law, publishing contracts, book editing, book design and production, book marketing and distribution, and bookselling. Based on work in mock publishing companies, students prepare portfolios of written documents, i.e., book proposals, editorial guidelines, design and production standards, and marketing plans. Guest speakers from the publishing industry and field trips provide exposure to the industry.

WR 561-001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: TBD

Provides a comprehensive course in professional book editing, including editorial management, acquisitions editing, substantive/developmental editing, and copyediting. Issues specific to both fiction and nonfiction books will be covered.

WR 562-001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: TBD

Provides a strong foundation in design software used in the book publishing industry, focusing on Adobe InDesign. Also explores Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat, as well as XHTML and e-book design. The class considers audience expectations through a range of hands-on design projects.

WR 563-001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: TBD 

Comprehensive course in professional book marketing. Issues specific to marketing of fiction and nonfiction books in variety of genres and markets will be covered. Students will do market research, produce marketing plans, write press releases, write advertising copy, and develop related marketing materials.

WR 564-001 BUSINESS OF BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: TBD 

Comprehensive course in the business of book publishing. Topics covered include publications management, accounting, book production, distribution, and bookselling. Students learn how a variety of agents, including publishers, publishing services companies, distributors, wholesalers, bookstores, etc., are organized.

WR 574-001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Perform the work of a real publishing house, from acquiring manuscripts to selling books. Gain publishing experience by participating in the various departments of a student-staffed publishing house, Ooligan Press. May be taken multiple times for credit.

WR 575-001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Perform the work of a real publishing house, from acquiring manuscripts to selling books. Gain publishing experience by participating in the various departments of a student-staffed publishing house, Ooligan Press. May be taken multiple times for credit.