Fall 2022 Courses

If a course is designated as low-cost, the course materials will cost $40 or less.
If a course is designated as no-cost, students do not need to purchase any course materials.
Course descriptions are subject to change based on instructor submissions. If the instructor has not submitted a course description, please refer to the PSU Bulletin for more information.

Fall 2022: Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 106 001 INTRO TO POETRY

Instructor: Tracy Dillon
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This all-online, asynchronous introductory course on reading poetry looks at poetry both as a mode of language and as a centuries-old and ever-enduring historical significance, using the western literary canon written in the English language as our touchstone. Literary canons by their nature qualify for historiographical distinction as traditions of historical significance, meaning that people who construct literary canons are cherry-picking from countless options only a handful of greatest hits that they deem worthy of remembrance (and reverence). You are encouraged to get outside the western literary canon box and to introduce us to poetry that bends or bombs the tradition in new and interesting ways.

At the end of the course, you should have a pretty good overview of what poets say poetry is, as well as some expertise on a particular poet or two.

You'll pick a "Poet of Choice" whose work you should be able to get from any number of places, including online. We're not going to get bogged down in 1,000-page-anthologies of stuff you might not like. THE PROFESSOR firmly believes you’ll write best (and learn most) from reading poetry that you like, as compared to poetry that he thinks is good for you. THE PROFESSOR will introduce concepts in the weekly modules, and you’ll use your “Poet of Choice” to come up with examples illustrating the concepts.

Who qualifies for status as a “Poet of Choice”? Well, since it’s your choice, you can choose any artist you like, from traditional canonical figures like William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, or Sylvia Plath to contemporary figures like Maya Angelou, Cathy Park Hong, or Stephen Dunn to nontraditional or avantgarde artists like SLAM or spoken-word poets Tonya Ingram, Phil Kaye, and Sara Kay. You can even choose a musician if you prefer. One of my “Poets of Choice” would definitely be Neal Young, for example (but that is because I’m a bit of an old fart). In the past, students have focused on the poetry of musical artists including Tupac Shakur, Drake, and Melissa Etheridge. So many choices! And the caveat above applies: if you went with Hip Hop as a movement, for example, you could draw from the work of any Hip Hop artist who qualifies as your “Poet of Choice” for the weekly module.

Bottom line: If you can explain how your poet of choice qualifies as a “poet” in responding to weekly questions for discussion, you’re good to go. And you can change your poet of choice if you like.

We will supplement reading of your Poet of Choice with Shira Wolosky’s The Art of Poetry: How to Read a Poem (Oxford UP, 2008). Rather than providing a traditional anthology, such as the Norton or Oxford presses do, Wolosky takes us on a narrative journey about reading, instead of listing greatest hits. It’s an interesting approach and one that I hope you’ll enjoy.

And don’t tell anyone, but one reason we’re going with this text is that it’s free in an online pdf of uncertain origin. Shhhh.

You will work through weekly modules. Each module contains a question for discussion. These questions will be designed to promote reflection on important ideas related to poetry, not to make sure you know “the right answers.” You will also be asked to engage your classmates in discussions by responding to their weekly posts. Finally, you will ace our final exam consisting of definitions and several short essays covering the content of course modules, selected information taken from weekly discussion postings, and the Wolosky text.

What fun!

Questions? Just ask. dillont@pdx.edu

ENG 201 001 INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

Instructor: Prof. Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies:

In this course we will read and discuss four Shakespearean plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Richard II, Titus Andronicus, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Titus Andronicus is perhaps Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy, which was first printed in 1594 without an author’s name on its title page. Classified as a chronicle history play in the 1623 Folio—the first collection of Shakespeare’s plays, from which this course takes its title—Richard II recounts English historical events 200 years before the play was written. Instead of being called a “history” play, however, the first printed edition was titled The Tragedie of King Richard the second (1597). Pericles didn’t appear in a Shakespeare Folio collection until 1663/4 and is now usually called a “romance,” which is a modern label for a group of only four Shakespearean plays, but Renaissance playgoers probably would have called it a “tragicomedy.” Finally, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s premier early comedies, featuring romance, fairies, magic, and mistaken identities.

Our guiding questions in this class will center on the generic or formal identities of these plays. In other words, we will discuss what it is that makes these plays either comical, historical, or tragical, while at the same time considering the possibility that such classifications are themselves forms of mistaken identity. We will examine how the literary forms of comedy, history, and tragedy predispose us as readers and playgoers to interpret dramatic action in certain ways, and, in turn, how the plays’ disruption or frustration of our formal expectations transforms the possibilities of our interpretations. We will likewise give attention to questions of social class, race, nationality, sexuality, and gender (among other issues) as they are posed by these four plays and by the larger English Renaissance culture from which they come.

Most of our class time will involve discussing such questions in these four texts, along with four short critical readings. There will be few lectures. The course will therefore require you to have read the plays carefully and to be prepared to discuss and ask questions about them during class meetings. Because of the course’s discussion-based format, its success will depend upon everyone’s active participation as we seek to answer these various questions together.

ENG 204 001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT I

Instructor: John Vignaux Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

No introduction to early British literature would be complete, of course, without William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. We will read – and watch film versions of - two Shakespeare comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado about Nothing (students may also write on Othello, the tragic version of Much Ado), and Chaucer’s equally hilarious The Merchant’s Tale. In connection with the latter (which translates from the same text), we will look at the Biblical love poem The Song of Songs (also known as The Song of Solomon) in its famous King James translation.

We will also read a selection of influential 16th and 17th century short poems, including such poets as Shakespeare (again), Sir Thomas Wyatt, Ben Johnson, Philip Sidney, John Donne, Queen Elizabeth I, Andrew Marvell, and others. Many of these poets have influenced modern writers, and are by no means of merely historical interest.

For a taste of 16th century prose, we will read short excerpts from Sir Thomas More’s Utopia – the book that invented the word “utopia,” and a classic in the history of political thought. For an introduction to the fledgling 17th century novel, we will read The Fair Jilt by Aphra Behn, about whom Virginia Woolf famously wrote: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."

Primary requirements will be a mid-term and a final essay, plus two weekly Canvas posts in dialogue with other students. There will be no synchronous class meetings. The class will be conducted entirely in writing.

ENG 260 001 INTRO TO WOMEN'S LIT

Instructor: Dr. Sara Atwood
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This class will provide a wide-ranging introduction to literature by women across different periods, genres, and traditions. We will consider the ways in which writing by women, the opportunities available to female writers, and the reception of female-authored work, has changed over time (and what conditions and circumstances have driven this change). We will also think about the ways in which women writers have responded (or not) to various social, political, and cultural ideas and movements. Above all, we will examine what we mean when we talk about ‘women’s literature.’ Is the term meant to describe literature by women? About women? Intended for a female audience? And if we mean ‘literature by women,’ how do we define such a broad and sprawling category? Women (and women writers) are not a monolith. We do not all look alike, think alike, believe the same things, have the same experiences, or respond the same way to those experiences we do share. We do not even necessarily share the same biology, given our enlightened thinking about sex and gender. We come from different ethnic, economic, educational, and family backgrounds. Women writers do not all tell the same sorts of stories, see the world from the same perspective, or speak in the same voice (or the same language). What, then, is ‘women’s lit’ and why is it important to study it in a class like this one? To this end, our reading will also include essays by women writers that grapple with these questions and offer us new insights by encouraging us to do the same.

ENG 300 001 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Dr. Sara Atwood
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

A required course for PSU English majors, ENG 300 focuses on skills of literary analysis. Students in this class will learn to interpret the complex relationships between form and content: what a text has to say, and how the text is constructed. In studying various genres (poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction, and film) and through both formal and informal writing assignments, students will learn to carefully examine a literary text, exploring its formal and thematic intricacies and using writing as a tool for developing thoughtful interpretations supported by evidence. We will perform close readings of texts and consider the craft of writing, paying close attention to meaning, language, style, and structure. The idea is not to analyze the life out of the texts we read, but to appreciate them more fully by understanding how they work.

ENG 300 002 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 300 003 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 301U 001 TOPICS: SHAKESPEARE GENRE

Instructor: John Vignaux Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

Main Texts:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Hamlet
Troilus and Cressida

Secondary texts will include René Girard’s A Theater of Envy as well as other critical materials, and Vladimir Nabokov’s story “That in Aleppo Once,” a title taken from Othello. Films will include Gregory Doran’s 2009 Hamlet, starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart.

Primary Requirements: Two essays and two weekly CANVAS posts.

This class will focus on the intimate relation between comedy and tragedy in Shakespeare. It will be conducted entirely in writing without class meetings or zoom lectures. Guides to thinking about our texts will be provided each week by the Professor’s Notes, and biweekly dialogue between students will occur via Canvas discussion. If email is not sufficient for communication with me, I will schedule a zoom meeting with any students who request this.

ENG 304 001 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 305U 001 TOP IN FLM: HITCHCOCK

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 305U 002 TOP IN FLM

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 306U 001 TOP: LATINX COMICS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 306U 002 TOP: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL

Instructor: Daniel Pollack-Pelzner
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Musical theater is one of America’s chief contributions to the world of culture. It’s also been one of America’s chief stages for defining itself. This course will explore fifteen or so important musicals over the last eighty years to explore changing ideas of American identity and community, along with changing musical and theatrical forms for representing those ideas.

ENG 307U 001 SCIENCE FICTION

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

ENG 309U 001 INDIGENOUS NATIONS LITERATURE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 318U 001 THE BIBLE AS LIT

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Despite the apparent confidence of our course’s title, what we’ll be investigating all term is how and why we might engage the anthology called the Bible as literature. What happens when we read the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament as the oblique and challenging storytelling that preserves a tumultuous human history, or that offers the literary basis of the cultural, communal, and political relationships between peoples and between an emerging or exilic people and their God? What emerges when we see these tales about the ongoing revision of the covenant between humans and God as a story about the problems of understanding the social and political bonds that give life to a tribe, a nation, or a would-be universalist religion or community of values? We'll ask these questions relentlessly as we read some of the most “literary” of the biblical texts, investing ourselves in vibrant and inquisitive encounters with writing that has been at the center of world culture and world conflict for millennia.

Our reading will take the form of an effort to approach the text by means of literary and historical encounter rather than through the lens of faith or skepticism. Because these ways of approaching the Bible are challenging and deeply reflexive, our meditations throughout the term will revolve around what it means (or what it does) to read a text such as this as literature, and we will be questioning and critiquing our own methods as we develop them. We will at all times keep in mind that the Bible was written under a wide variety of different historical (including political and economic) situations over a period of 1200 years, and that it has afterward enjoyed a history in which it has become absolutely indispensable to a variety of religious traditions that have interpreted it and made use of it in starkly different ways. We’ll attempt to engage the Hebrew and Christian Bibles in relation to problems of translation, interpretation, literary form and figure, and the intricate interrelation of so many of their stories; we’ll examine of the principal literary genres out of which it was composed (narrative, poetry, chronicle, legal code, wisdom writing); and above all we’ll foreground our own experience of these texts and consider ourselves in the midst of our engagements with them.

Required texts:

The English Bible, King James Version: The Old Testament. Norton, 2012.
The English Bible, King James Version: The New Testament and The Apocrypha. Norton, 2012.

ENG 326 001 LIT, COMMUNITY, DIFFERENCE

Instructor: Prof. Anoop Mirpuri
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

What is the relation between a work of literature and its author? What makes literature different from other forms of writing, and what makes works of art different from other forms of communication? How did Western culture come to share the assumption that a work of literature is the “expression” of an author’s “voice”? Why do we tend to assume that works of literature and art represent the experience of the identity group to which an author is said to belong? How have these assumptions shaped our approach to reading literary texts?

We will address these questions through a carefully curated study of works of literary criticism as well as through a reading of one of the greatest works of American literature, Herman Melville’s novella, Benito Cereno (1855). The aim of this course is to develop a critical understanding of the way that racial classification has shaped the study of literature, and in turn, how the study of literature has shaped how we think about race. At the same time, we will reflect on how the study of literature can challenge the ways we’ve been taught to view the world around us. Finally, perhaps the most important objective of this course is to expand the critical and aesthetic potential of the literature that we read by expanding our own capacities as readers and lovers of literature.

This course fulfills the “Culture, Difference, and Representation” component of the PSU English Major.

ENG 327 001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

ENG 330U 001 JEWISH & ISRAELI LITERATURE

Instructor: Michael Weingrad
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 332U 001 HST CINEMA & NARRATIVE MEDIA I

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 335U 001 TOP: DANGEROUS WOMEN

Instructor: Karen A. Grossweiner
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

What makes women or people who identify as female dangerous? Their sexuality? Their power? Their desire? Their independence? Their agency? Their capacity to create life (and literature)? Their rational and intellectual aspirations and abilities? How are they represented differently in different media (literary and cinematic), different times periods, different genre (noir/horror/fairy tales), and different cultures? How are they represented differently and constructed differently by authors/directors/readers/viewers who identify by different genders?

This course will examine a wide variety of cinematic and literary texts spanning multiple genres beginning with short poems from the English Romantic period and concluding with the recent horror film A Girl Walks Home Alone... to explore these questions. Texts will include:

Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber
Selected Romantic poetry
Edgar G. Ulmer (dir.), Detour
Georges Franju (dir.), Eyes Without a Face
Ana Lily Amirpour (dir.), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Claude Chabrol (dir.), La Ceremonie OR Nancy Meckler (dir.) Sister My Sister

Note: A number of these texts include violent elements or scenes which are occasionally presented graphically.

ENG 340U 001 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Instructor: Karen A. Grossweiner
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course provides an introduction to the themes, genres, history and cultures of the Middle Ages, expanding beyond anthologies and the 200-level survey course. We will critically read and discuss texts from various genres including the lyric, Breton lay, romance, philosophical dream vision, poetic debate poem, saint’s life, chronicle/romance and travel narrative in order to better understand European social and cultural life during this very fertile period as well as how medieval intellectual and artistic traditions permeate thought in contemporary society and culture. Much of our discussion will focus on how to read medieval texts: how composing rhetorically transforms ideas about originality, how a manuscript culture problematizes notions of textuality, and what extensive scribal interventions and interpolations suggest about authorial privilege. Issues of gender will also be heavily addressed, as we consider such topics as the somewhat controversial idea of fin’ amors (courtly love) as well as feminine/masculine identity in a society that privileges male homosocial relationships. While the majority of the texts will be Modern English translations, we will read several in the original Middle English.

Required Texts:

The Mabinogion
The Lais of Marie de France
Silence
Pearl
The Death of King Arthur
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
The Parliament of the Thre Ages
Stanzaic Life of Margaret

ENG 343U 001 ROMANTICISM

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course introduces students to the greatest hits and one-hit wonders of the literature produced in Britain in the decades between the 1780s and the 1830s. The romantic period witnessed some of the major events in modern history, such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the abolition of slavery in the British empire. We will examine how the writers of the time, responding to such events, developed literary forms for exploring such distinctly modern concerns as social and political change, the complex nature of the self, and our relation with the nonhuman environment. Taking in a capacious range of their accomplishments, this course offers students a chance not just to read some pretty cool poems, but also to see how romanticism makes claims on us to think—and re-think—our common-sense explanations and expectations of the world.

Course Goals:

To understand the defining characteristics of British romanticism as a period of literary history and scholarly debates about these characteristics.
To gain familiarity with literary works by a range of romantic writers.
To appreciate the lessons romantic literary texts have to teach us about the promises and predicaments of our times.
To develop skills at closely reading the signifying elements of language, including formal elements, and to articulate this reading in evidence-based, reasoned, interpretative written arguments.

Required Texts:

Manning, Peter, and Susan Wolfson, editors. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. 5th ed., Pearson, 2012. (ISBN 9780205223169)
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: The Original 1818 Text, edited by D. L. MacDonald and Kathleen Scherf, 3rd ed., Broadview, 2012. (ISBN: 9781554811038)

ENG 360U 001 AMERICAN LIT AND CULTURE I

Instructor: Professor Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

This course surveys major genres and writers of the Anglo-American tradition, from settler colonialism in New England through the antebellum period. Our authors and texts provide diverse perspectives from which to examine how the literary history of the period intersects with the histories of race, gender, class, religion, and nationalism. We will focus on close and careful readings of a variety of genres to illuminate the central role of narrative, literature, and publication in constructing and contesting the meanings of American ideals of freedom, democracy, justice, social mobility, and self-making. By considering how the writers on our syllabus both represent and dramatize their own historical moment and actively engage with and critique the texts and events of the past, the course will help students develop their own skills at reading the past and understanding the social, ethical, and aesthetic implications of the ways our present is shaped by and responds to it. This course fills the Historical Literacy requirement for the BA/BS in English (and the pre-1800 [Group C] requirement under the old major) and the American Identities and Interpreting the Past cluster requirement for non-majors.

Learning Outcomes:

In the course, students will:

develop their ability to interpret literary texts in their historical contexts and as primary evidence of how historical narratives about America have been constructed and contested
be introduced to a range of significant authors and texts that convey the diversity and richness of American literary culture as it develops from the 17th century through the antebellum period
develop skills for framing critical questions and making persuasive, evidence-based arguments about historical literature

Required Books: (available at PSU Bookstore)

Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (Bedford/St. Martin’s)
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Gustavus Vassa (Dover)
Herman Melville, Bartleby and Benito Cereno (Dover)
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover)

ENG 371 001 THE NOVEL

Instructor: John Vignaux Smyth
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Primary texts are Balzac’s “Sarrasine,” Stendhal’s The Red and The Black, Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, and Isak Dinesen’s Ehrengard. Theoretical commentary will include Roland Barthes’ S/Z and René Girard’s Deceit, Desire, and the Novel.

The main requirements are a midterm and a final essay, and two weekly 100-word contributions to Canvas discussion (except in week 10). The first contribution will be your own thread; the second will reply to someone else’s.

Using works by French, Russian, Danish, and Irish writers, we study in this class how theorists and critics make claims for their exceptional importance in understanding the modern world. The main focus of the class is the novelistic treatment of desire. Often this is amorous desire, but it also includes economic and even intellectual desire.

This class will be conducted entirely in writing without class meetings or zoom lectures. Guides to thinking about our texts will be provided each week by the Professor’s Notes, and biweekly dialogue between students will occur as described above. If email is not sufficient for communication with me, I will schedule at least one zoom meeting with any students who request this (on an entirely voluntary basis).

ENG 372U 001 TOP: PREMODERN MASCULINITIES

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid

ENG 413 001 TEACHING & TUTORING WRITING

Instructor: Daniel DeWeese
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 490 001 ADV TOP: RHETORICAL THEORY

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

"Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of human communication." –Lunsford

“Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic and continually born anew: the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols” –Burke

"[R]hetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action." –Bitzer

[Rhetoric is] the mobilization of signs for the articulation of identities, ideologies, consciousnesses, communities, publics, and cultures. –DeLuca

Rhetoric is… a lot. Unlike popular reductions of rhetoric to empty manipulation, these definitions reflect its complex interplay of power and persuasion, intention and interpretation, composition and circulation. This can all be a bit intimidating—but the study of rhetoric is fun, fascinating, and kinda life-changing. (Alliteration is a classic trope in a genre like this... if a bit risky of the eye-roll!)

This course has been designed to welcome students from a variety of disciplines into the field, providing opportunities for textual analysis and reflective practice that will hone your reading and composing skills. (Bold claim with subtext.)

While surveying highlights of the Western tradition, we will focus on contemporary conversations that engage diverse media and contexts as well as feminist, queer, Black, indigenous, and other cultural perspectives. (You know, in 10 weeks.)

Alongside shared readings, students will explore an individual area of interest and design a culminating project in line with your personal, professional, or public goals. (Hard to argue with that!)

ENG 497 001 COMICS HISTORY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid

Fall 2022: Graduate English Courses

ENG 500 002 PROBLEMS AND METHODS

Instructor: Prof. Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

As its title suggests, this graduate course will introduce you to some of the central problems that literary scholars address as well as some of the key methodologies that they use to examine those problems. Our approach will be both practical and theoretical. This approach will allow us to develop specific, applicable skills in our writing and conversations, while also understanding some of the conceptual underpinnings and implications of literary critical work. Our readings will therefore range from nuts-and-bolts questions to more abstract ideas that modify the way we read and grapple with literary texts.

The course assignments will support both the practical skills and theoretical knowledge you will acquire. By virtue of your presence in the graduate program, I will assume that you already possess some dexterity with literary analysis, but I do not expect you to be experts, so I encourage you to ask plenty of questions and to be patient with yourselves and your peers as you wrestle with new concepts. A ten-week term is a short time, however, so our focus and readings will be selective and strategic. Nonetheless, by the end of term you should be a stronger close-reader, be more attuned to the elements and vocabulary of literary form, be able to engage with scholarship in effective ways, gain more control over your own scholarly writing, and develop an awareness of how theory informs the work of literary criticism. Here are our course objectives:

To develop and expand close reading skills as an entryway into larger questions of interpretation.
To understand and appreciate the significance of formal elements and rhetorical devices, including genre and generic conventions.
To understand critical arguments and scholarly conversations, including the ability to identify and summarize critical positions and use secondary material strategically.
To refine writing skills: constructing interpretive questions, crafting arguments, organizing paragraphs, using appropriate evidence, developing style, assessing rhetorical situations, addressing specific audiences, and writing with purpose.
To engage with theoretical essays and approaches.

ENG 507 001 SEM: COSMOPOLITAN PROBLEMS

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

A course on cosmopolitanism, genre, and political identity.

Like so-called “first-world problems,” Cosmopolitan Problems might imply a kind of luxury, a surplus, or an excess. After all, bare life doesn’t demand that we become cosmopolitans— our immediate or local duties and attachments are absolutely sufficient for what we might call a full life. Our various identifications situate us, give us grounding, and help us articulate demands that seem more urgent and meaningful than any universalist or global perspective. So why add cosmopolitan problems to our immediate concerns? Why think of our place in humanity in general? Why get mixed up with cosmopolitanism?

This course will try to answer that question. We’ll start by asking what Cosmopolitan Problems are, looking back to some Greek and Roman sources and traversing Enlightenment writing before engaging a number of contemporary theoretical and literary works. Above all we will attend to genre as the way in which Cosmopolitan Problems find themselves given form. We’ll examine a history of the cross-connections between genres and cosmopolitanism, considering utopias, the tale (both “oriental” and philosophical), translation-as-genre, abolitionist narrative, the literary modes of sympathy and sensibility, and travel writing. Then we’ll turn to a series of contemporary works to help us investigate the relation between cosmopolitan form and content in our own moment.

Throughout, we’ll preserve the question of cosmopolitanism as a problem– there is no pat, naive solution to the questions we’ll be asking together, and there is no naive or simple universalism or cosmopolitan perspective that could serve as an antidote to pure identity, localism, Romantic authenticity, or nationalism. What we’ll seek is the articulation of a critical, dialectical cosmopolitanism that can integrate and preserve the relations of and distinctions between the global and local, self and other, identity and difference. In our efforts, I think we’ll see that the problems of cosmopolitanism are anything but luxuries or frivolities– they are a necessary counterpart to the persistent demands and trials of modernity.

Works we’ll encounter include excerpts from the Arabian Nights, Hume, Equiano, Sterne, Kant, Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, Cheah, Heise, Sagan, and a number of other theorists and commentators. Our primary texts are likely to include:

Kwame Anthony Appiah. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. Norton, 2007.
Teju Cole. Open City. Random House, 2012.
Samuel Johnson. Rasselas. Penguin, 2007.
W.G. Sebald. The Rings of Saturn. New Directions, 2017.
Yoko Tawada. Scattered All Over the Earth. New Directions, 2022.

The course will require persistent participation, a presentation, and a final research paper.

ENG 507 003 SEM: PROBLEM OF RACE/LIT STUDI

Instructor: Prof. Anoop Mirpuri
Instructional Method: Hybrid
This course is low-cost.¹

What is the importance of race in the study of literature? What does it mean to think about literature as a function of racial classification? What historical processes have enabled us to assume that works of literature represent the “experience” of the identity group to which an author belongs? To what extent have identitarian approaches to the study of literature been a departure from the dominant modes of knowing that they have sought to challenge? How should we understand the historical convergence between the victory of multiculturalism in the canon wars and the deepening of economic inequality and precarity across the broad sphere of civil society? What lessons should we draw from this history in light of contemporary anti-racist commitment in literary studies?

We will consider how these questions have been engaged in American literary studies through a close study of criticism and scholarship on race, capitalism, authorship, multiculturalism, and the relation between aesthetics and politics. Potential primary texts that will serve as touchstones include Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno (1855), and/or the film Malcolm and Marie (2021).

ENG 518 001 TEACHING COLLEGE COMPOSITION

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 519 001 ADV TEACHING COLLEGE COMP

Instructor: Kate Comer
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 531 001 TOP: THE FIELD OF ENGLISH

Instructor: Professor Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 531 002 COLLOQUIUM

Instructor: Professor Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 541 001 ADV TOP: RENAISSANCE FOOD LIT

Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: Hybrid

Is a blackberry simply a blackberry, or do our (or Shakespeare’s) beliefs about blackberries have bearing on their materiality? If you truly believed that cantaloupe could make you gravely ill, might it actually do so? In this class, we will study Renaissance literary texts alongside early modern “dietaries” and "herbals" (works that collected recipes, remedies, and cultural wisdom about food) in order to better interpret the meanings carried by foods in the literature of this period. We will investigate the social, medical, and moral dynamics of food consumption in popular texts that would have had great power to affect and reflect common understandings of the ways bodies and selves were constituted through eating and drinking. We will pay particular attention to Renaissance drama, examining the depiction of both male and female bodies, the language surrounding the visual performance of eating, the presence of fat and emaciated bodies, and the ways in which early modern audiences may have “read” and understood the presence of food on the stage and the page. We will also learn, discuss, and practice research methods, considering the advantages and limitations of applying relevant multidisciplinary sources to literary texts. In doing so, we will seek to gain a nuanced understanding of the experience of food in early modern English culture.

Fall 2022: Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 121 001 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121 002 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121 003 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121 004 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 121 005 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121 006 COLLEGE WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 210 001 GRAMMAR REFRESHER

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This two-credit class will review grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical conventions of standard English to improve clarity and ease of writing. We will learn and practice rules and expectations of academic and professional writing, taking time to discuss modern usage and changes in conventions over time and between situations, as well as to focus on individual student questions and needs. Coursework will consist largely of class attendance and participation, with supplemental reading and activities provided to practice and expand skills outside of class.

WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: John Beer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Mary Sylwester
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

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 222 003 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Prof. Rian
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This class will explore the writing and research process through readings, activities, and writing practice. You will focus on the research methods, paper format and documentation style standard for your particular area of study, most likely MLA or APA.

WR 222 004 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 227 001 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Dr. Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Successful completion of WR227 prepares you to produce instructive and informative professional documents such as proposals, instructions, memos, reports, RFI’s, white papers, technical specifications, job application documents etc.

Considering the culturally diverse nature of workplace settings in our global networked economy, you will also practice designing user-centered and visually persuasive documents for cross-cultural audiences, while also honing your oral/visual presentation and collaborative skills, much needed in your professional workplace settings.

From a foundation based on the principles of rhetoric, you will learn to analyze writing situations, consider the needs of your audience, assemble evidence, and design final documents that are clear, concise, ethical, user-friendly, and visually persuasive.

WR 227 002 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings
This course is low-cost.¹

WR 227 003 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 227 004 INTRO TECHNICAL WRTG

Instructor: Dr. Patcha Lum
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 228 001 MEDIA WRITING

Instructor: Eben Pindyck
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

An introductory course in media reporting and writing. Focus on identifying newsworthiness, writing leads, constructing news stories, interviewing, and attributing quotes. Students learn to create clear, accurate, and compelling articles.

WR 300 001 TOP: WRITING AND WELLNESS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This class will explore the many and varied connections between wellness, mental health, neurological function, and writing. Through reading, discussion, and our own writing, we will explore the ways that writing can support wellness, as well as the ways that writing can be influenced by mental health and neurological differences. Class will culminate in a final project of the student’s choosing, analyzing a specific connection between wellness and writing, from either a personal or objective perspective.

Topics explored will include but are not limited to: Journaling, Grief, Meditation, Fear, Writing to learn, Depression and Anxiety, Creativity, Writers Block, Writing for Connection, Hypergraphia, Writing with neurological differences (ADHD, dyslexia, and autism, and more).

This class fulfills the University Writing Requirement: https://www.pdx.edu/advising/university-writing-requirement.

WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This class will ask you to reflect upon what it means to engage in the study of and writing about texts and, in the process, introduce you to the history of, conventions within, and controversies surrounding English as an academic field. We will use the lens of fairy tales, both classical and contemporary and from a variety of cultures, to develop skills in analyzing poetry, prose, and drama; familiarize ourselves with genre; establish a working vocabulary of literary terms; consider historical context as part of the reading experience; and interpret texts critically. We will read a variety of fairy tales in the first half of the term, and will follow the thread of one tale type through the remainder of the term: Aarne-Thompson type 709, Snow White. We will encounter several of the major theoretical approaches to reading and writing about literature practiced by contemporary scholars, which will help you to better understand the secondary sources you will utilize in your research and writing. All the while, you will practice writing based in close reading, interpretation, and careful research through three writing projects designed to give you a solid process-based grounding in the creation of academic arguments. We have a busy term together, but one which, I hope, you will leave with renewed confidence about the disciplinary practices that set English scholars apart.

WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: Elizabeth C. Brown
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This course will hone your ability to write persuasive, evidence-based arguments about literature that matter in the field of literary studies. Instead of treating writing and literary interpretation as individualistic endeavors, the course will take you step-by-step through the process of developing critical questions and arguments about literature that emerge out of academic conversations. As part of this process, you will write three papers—building in complexity—that will ask you to refine your ideas in response to class discussions, peer and instructor feedback, and critical scholarship. Along the way, you will also learn practical skills in literary interpretation, conducting and citing research, and formatting papers according to literary studies conventions. Although the primary content of the course will be your writing, we will read Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel Beloved along with selected critical essays so that you can anchor your writing within a shared academic conversation. Beloved has inspired a rich and varied body of scholarship, and while it is a widely taught text, the novel continues to provoke lively popular and academic debate. My hope is that reading and researching Beloved will provide you with ample opportunities to find something interesting and important to write about!

WR 312 001 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 312 002 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 312 003 INTERMED FICTION WR

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 313 001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 001 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 002 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Susan Kirtley
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 003 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 004 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 005 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Susan Reese
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 006 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 007 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 008 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 009 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Talitha May
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course will explore personal, academic, and professional aspects of writing alongside their intersections. Turning to personal writing, our first unit will adopt a meta-communicative awareness of writing and rhetoric and interrogate commonplace ways of thinking about writing. We will examine questionable writing constructs and explore how they might overlap or even diverge from our personal literacy experiences. Turning to academic and professional writing, we will examine intersectionality in the context of social justice and our food system. This class is process and discussion based, so we will regularly spend time writing in class and engaging in class discussion.

WR 323 010 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 011 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid
This course is low-cost.¹

WR 323 012 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 323 013 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Prof. Rian
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Writing 323 is designed to improve and enhance writing skills, while enriching critical thinking by focusing on reflection and inquiry through writing practice and texts. We will use formal and informal writing to explore and study the assigned readings, examine our own and other students' writings, and study the writing craft. The class will focus on the process of writing, effective use of language, the studying of well-written pieces by other authors, and revision.

WR 327 001 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Tracy Dillon
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 327 002 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 327 003 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 331 001 BOOK PUBLISHING FOR WRITERS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 398 001 WRITING COMICS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

WR 399 001 SPST: INTERMED NONFIC WRITING

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Nonfiction is unusual in being ostensibly defined by what it is not: Not Fiction, apparently. But this course focuses on what creative nonfiction writing *is*: an approach that shares profound commonalities with the narrative possibilities of fiction and the aesthetic intensity and richness of poetry, while also making use of field observation and research. Students will draft, workshop, and revise their own creative nonfiction, and our classroom discussion will explore flash nonfiction, Esmé Weijun Wang's personal essays on mental illness, John McPhee's field reporting on Colorado dams, and Wayétu Moore's memoir of retracing her and her mother's journey from Liberia's civil war. Students should have previous experience with creative prose or journalism; WR 214 or WR 228 is recommended but not required.

Texts:
(We'll be reading chapters from each, but only Moore's book will be read in full.)

Kitchen, Judith & Dinah Lenney. Brief Encounters (2015) 978-0393350999
McPhee, John. The John McPhee Reader (1976) 978-0374517199
Moore, Wayétu. The Dragons, the Giant, The Women. (2021) 978-1644450567
Wallace, David Foster. Consider the Lobster (2005) 978-0316013321
Wang, Esmé Weijun. The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays. (2019) 978-1555978273

WR 407 003 SEM: RESEARCH INTO COMICS

Instructor: Kacy McKinney
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 410 001 TOP: LITERARY MAGAZINES

Instructor: Thea Prieto
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is no-cost.²

This course introduces students to the local and national world of literary magazines. By analyzing common submission, editing, and publishing processes, this class will promote critical thinking and ethical insight regarding the practices of literary magazines. Students will also gain industry experience by reading and discussing Portland Review’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and mixed-genre submissions, as well as write reviews and essays with the goal of publication.

Founded in 1956, Portland Review publishes prose, poetry, art, and translations reflecting a wide spectrum of aesthetic styles and voices. Produced by the graduate students in Portland State University’s Department of English, Portland Review is proud to publish both established and emerging writers, as well as showcase a diverse spectrum of literary and artistic engagement across genres and disciplines. To learn more, visit portlandreview.org.

WR 410 002 TOP: MANGMNT SKILLS IN PBLSHNG

Instructor: Robyn Crummer-Olson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course provides students with a broad overview of management skills to prepare them for a career in book publishing. Both Ooligan managers and other students currently working in or hoping to work in a management position in publishing will benefit from the discussion-based, skills-based approach of this course. Topics covered include personal strengths assessment, emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, leadership, teamwork, and negotiation. All topics will be addressed with awareness and conversation about personal biases and with the goal of co-creating more inclusive teams and equitable workplace environments.

Required Textbooks:

Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts., New York, NY: Vermillion, 2018. 9781785042140 $18.00
Jana, Tiffany. Subtle Acts of Exclusion: How to Understand, Identify, and Stop Microaggressions. First edition. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2020. 9781523087051 $17.95
Slade, Samantha. Going Horizontal: Creating Non-Hierarchical Organizations, One Practice at a Time. First edition. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2018. 9781523095261 $19.95

WR 410 003 TOP: LITERARY AGENTS & ACQUISI

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 412 001 ADVANCED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Advanced Fiction: Cross-Genre Approaches to the Short Story:

What new and vibrant species of narrative emerges when writers cross-pollinate a short story with a poem or an essay, or realistic fiction with a fairy tale? What happens when we dress up “high literature” in clothing usually reserved for horror or speculative fiction? Or accessorize flash fiction with visual art? What connections might we draw between the terms genre and gender, and what part does genre-crossing play in queering the literary cannon? While exploring the freedoms that exist beyond genre, how might we also rethink conventional notions about plot, character, point of view and setting? This advanced course will examine these and other questions, along with generative writing exercises and weekly student workshops.

WR 413 001 ADVANCED POETRY WRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 416 001 SCREENWRITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 425 001 ADVANCED TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Attend Anywhere

WR 426 001 DOCUMENT DESIGN

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Attend Anywhere
This course is low-cost.¹

WR 431 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

WR 457 001 PERSONAL ESSAY WRITING

Instructor: Ashley Chambers
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The Personal Essay Workshop, an upper-level creative writing class, will function as a profoundly imaginative, generative, writing-intensive, workshop-based space in which we will push ourselves to write, think, and feel beyond the conventional strictures of conventional essay writing. In order to do this successfully and with great gusto, we will first need to understand what a conventional essay even is, or if one exists (spoiler alert: it doesn’t—yeehaw). Indeed, the word “essay” derives from the French “essai,” which means “to attempt, try, or experiment” (fun).

In this workshop, we will subvert formulaic approaches to writing and instead embrace the personal essay as a dynamic art form that allows us to meditate on a subject without necessarily arriving at any pat conclusions. To do this, we will practice dwelling in uncertainty and embracing surprise. We will further explore various purposes for “essaying,” from attempting to heal past traumas, to enacting political or cultural change, to simply expressing delight or terror (or both). We will also experiment with lyrical flights of fancy, poetical moves, and fictional technique (speculation and invention)—all of which (and more) are admissible within the bounds of creative nonfiction.

My hope is that at the end of our ten weeks together, we will arrive at a place where essay writing is thinking. Many students believe that writing is the final step in the process of thought, that a writer thinks up ideas, develops and explores them, and finally, in the end, writes them down. I believe, on the contrary, that writing should be seen as a powerful tool for emotional and intellectual exploration: a means of formulating, refining, and reformulating our ideas. Or, in other words, I believe that writing is not thought’s epitaph, but rather its lifeblood. We will learn to choreograph various levels of narrative intimacy and distance by engaging with works that dive deep into personal and emotionally charged material, while also exploring outward, to better understand the wider world.

WR 460 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 460 002 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 461 001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 461 002 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: Sarah Currin
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This class 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. After learning about the many roles an editor plays, students will gain hands-on experience analyzing and editing current authors' works in progress, ultimately performing a developmental edit of a full novel.

WR 462 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 463 001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 474 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer-Olson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Studio & Lab are the courses for hands-on learning at Ooligan Press. Designed to give students the freedom and responsibility of running a real-world trade publishing house, students are assigned to projects where they will work on a variety of publishing tasks. Project teams will work collaboratively to assess, plan, and execute editorial, design, digital content, marketing, and sales tasks throughout the term.

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 475 001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Robyn Crummer-Olson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Studio: Graduate students in Publishing Studio should expect assignments to take approximately 12 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Studio should expect 9 hours per week.

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 478 001 DIGITAL MARKETING FOR PUB

Instructor: Kathi Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Fall 2022: Graduate Writing Courses

WR 507 001 SEM: NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The act of essaying is often considered a purely intellectual pursuit, but what possibilities exist for writing our own bodies into an essay? To what degree has the historical suppression of felt experience in scholarly writing been a collaboration between colonization, racism and sexism? What narratives does the dominant culture project onto disabled and/or queer bodies? And how might we reassess—or even embrace!—the notion of memoir or personal essay as forms of “navel-gazing”? Via close reading, in-class discussions, writing exercises, and casual peer critique, students in this seminar will explore these and other questions, while also strengthening their practice of writing in the creative nonfiction genre. (Open to MFA students in any genre.)

Tentative Reading List:

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
“Dislocation” (single essay handout) by Verity Sayles
“The Laugh of the Medusa” (single essay handout) by Hélène Cixous

WR 507 002 SEM: POETRY/FICTION

Instructor: John Beer; Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 507 003 SEM: RESEARCH INTO COMICS

Instructor: Kacy McKinney
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 509 001 PRAC: TEACHING TECH & PRO WRTN

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 510 002 TOP: MANGMNT SKILLS IN PBLSHNG

Instructor: Robyn Crummer-Olson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts., New York, NY: Vermillion, 2018. 9781785042140 $18.00
Jana, Tiffany. Subtle Acts of Exclusion: How to Understand, Identify, and Stop Microaggressions. First edition. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2020. 9781523087051 $17.95
Slade, Samantha. Going Horizontal: Creating Non-Hierarchical Organizations, One Practice at a Time. First edition. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2018. 9781523095261 $19.95

WR 510 003 TOP: LITERARY AGENTS & ACQUISI

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 521 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP FICTION

Instructor: Janice Lee
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting
This course is low-cost.¹

WR 522 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP POETRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 523 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP NONFICTION

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Our fall core workshop is focused on the sciences – writing in them, around them, and about them through the aesthetic and narrative possibilities of creative nonfiction. The course does not assume previous academic experience in the sciences, but absolutely does assume personal experience – for our lives are directly and individually affected by medical care, by climate change, and by changing technologies. We'll examine approaches to the sciences in personal essays, long-form narrative, and reportage while drafting, workshopping and revising original pieces.

Texts:

(We'll be reading chapters from each, but only Skloot's book will be read in full.)

The Science Writers' Handbook – Thomas Hayden and Michelle Nijhuis (978-0738216560)
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore – Rush, Elizabeth. (978-1571313812)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Skloot, Rebecca (978-1400052189)
Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021 – Yong, Ed (ed.) (978-0358400066)

Optional Text:

The Craft of Science Writing – Carpenter, Siri (978-1734028003)

WR 525 001 ADVANCED TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Sarah Read
Instructional Method: Attend Anywhere

WR 526 001 DOCUMENT DESIGN

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Attend Anywhere
This course is low-cost.¹

WR 531 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

WR 550 001 PORTLAND REVIEW

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 560 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 560 002 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 561 001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 561 002 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: Sarah Currin
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 562 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 563 001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 574 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer-Olson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 575 001 PUBLISHING LAB

Instructor: Robyn Crummer-Olson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Publishing Lab: Graduate students in Publishing Lab should expect assignments to take approximately 4 hours per week; undergraduate students in Publishing Lab should expect 3 hours per week.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

explain and understand the book production cycle;
competently use industry-standard terminology;
analyze disruptions to their project as they arise and actively problem-solve to address issues;
track, maintain, and update project management software, in the form of Trello;
communicate efficiently through email and face-to-face meetings;
complete assigned tasks efficiently as an individual and within a group; and
perform various tasks at a professional level, as assigned by a team manager.

WR 578 001 DIGITAL MARKETING FOR PUB

Instructor: Kathi Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 579 001 RESEARCHING BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Rachel Noorda
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Fall 2022 Courses

On This Page

Fall 2022: Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 106 001 INTRO TO POETRY

ENG 201 001 INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

ENG 204 001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT I

ENG 260 001 INTRO TO WOMEN'S LIT

ENG 300 001 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

ENG 300 002 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

ENG 300 003 LIT FORM AND ANALYSIS

ENG 301U 001 TOPICS: SHAKESPEARE GENRE

ENG 304 001 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA

ENG 305U 001 TOP IN FLM: HITCHCOCK

ENG 305U 002 TOP IN FLM

ENG 306U 001 TOP: LATINX COMICS

ENG 306U 002 TOP: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL

ENG 307U 001 SCIENCE FICTION

ENG 309U 001 INDIGENOUS NATIONS LITERATURE

ENG 318U 001 THE BIBLE AS LIT

ENG 326 001 LIT, COMMUNITY, DIFFERENCE

ENG 327 001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

ENG 330U 001 JEWISH & ISRAELI LITERATURE

ENG 332U 001 HST CINEMA & NARRATIVE MEDIA I

ENG 335U 001 TOP: DANGEROUS WOMEN

ENG 340U 001 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

ENG 343U 001 ROMANTICISM

ENG 360U 001 AMERICAN LIT AND CULTURE I

ENG 371 001 THE NOVEL

ENG 372U 001 TOP: PREMODERN MASCULINITIES

ENG 413 001 TEACHING & TUTORING WRITING

ENG 490 001 ADV TOP: RHETORICAL THEORY

ENG 497 001 COMICS HISTORY

Fall 2022: Graduate English Courses

ENG 500 002 PROBLEMS AND METHODS

ENG 507 001 SEM: COSMOPOLITAN PROBLEMS

ENG 507 003 SEM: PROBLEM OF RACE/LIT STUDI

ENG 518 001 TEACHING COLLEGE COMPOSITION

ENG 519 001 ADV TEACHING COLLEGE COMP

ENG 531 001 TOP: THE FIELD OF ENGLISH

ENG 531 002 COLLOQUIUM

ENG 541 001 ADV TOP: RENAISSANCE FOOD LIT

Fall 2022: Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 121 001 COLLEGE WRITING

WR 121 002 COLLEGE WRITING

WR 121 003 COLLEGE WRITING

WR 121 004 COLLEGE WRITING

WR 121 005 COLLEGE WRITING

WR 121 006 COLLEGE WRITING

WR 210 001 GRAMMAR REFRESHER

WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING

WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING

WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING

WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

WR 222 003 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

WR 222 004 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

WR 227 001 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

WR 227 002 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

WR 227 003 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING

WR 227 004 INTRO TECHNICAL WRTG

WR 228 001 MEDIA WRITING

WR 300 001 TOP: WRITING AND WELLNESS

WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

WR 312 001 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WRITING

WR 312 002 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WRITING

WR 312 003 INTERMED FICTION WR

WR 313 001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

WR 323 001 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 002 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 003 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 004 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 005 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 006 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 007 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 008 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 009 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 010 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

WR 323 011 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY