Spring 2015 Courses

English classes
Writing classes

English classes

ENG 105: INTRO TO DRAMA

CRN: 64831 Section: 001

Instructor: Jacqueline Arante

ENG 201: SHAKESPEARE

CRN: 61151 Section: 001

Instructor: John Smyth

Our main texts will be:

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Troilus and Cressida
The Tempest

Plus selected Sonnets and Shakespeare: A Theater of Envy by R. Girard

Primary requirements: Two essays (1500 words and 2100 words), plus an in-class presentation during the final week of classes. (Students should also watch versions of the plays at home.)

ENG 205: SURVEY ENGLISH LIT II

CRN: 61152 Section: 001

Instructor: Jennifer Ruth

ENG 300: WIC:INTRO TO THE ENGLISH MAJOR

CRN: 61154 Section: 003

Instructor: Amy Greenstadt

ENG 300: WIC:INTRO TO THE ENGLISH MAJOR

CRN: 61155 Section: 002

Instructor: Sarah Ensor

This course will introduce you to the basic skills and tools of literary criticism and to some of the major modern theoretical approaches to the analysis of literary works. We will be guided by questions of meaning: what is it, how is it produced, and by whom? To consider these questions, we will focus on close reading as the basis of textual interpretation. We will also engage theoretical and practical questions about what defines literature; the relationships between text, author, and reader; and the status of literature as evidence of history and culture.

The goals for the course are: 1) to introduce you to the English major and the field of English as a discipline; 2) to examine the literary and rhetorical dimensions of texts by developing close reading skills, including the ability to analyze relationships between form and meaning, identify interpretive questions, look for ways that texts seem to invite or preclude certain readings, and explain multiple levels of meaning; 3) to introduce you to research methods in the field, including how to locate, interpret, and cite critical sources; 4) to familiarize you with some major critical approaches to textual study; 5) to help you write effective and elegant interpretations of texts and learn techniques of argumentation specific to the discipline; 6) to prepare you for 400-level English courses.

ENG 300: WIC:INTRO TO THE ENGLISH MAJOR

CRN: 61156 Section: 004

Instructor: Amy Greenstadt

ENG 301U: TOP: SHAKESPEAREAN HISTORIES

CRN: 61157 Section: 001

Instructor: Jonathan Walker

ENG 304: CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA

CRN: 61158 Section: 001

Instructor: Wendy Collins

ENG 305U: TOP IN FLM: DAEMONIC IN FILM

CRN: 61159 Section: 001

Instructor: William Bohnaker

By reputation evil lies on the opposite shore from good. Yet, life itself is an inextricable and poignant mixture of both evil and good. The birth in spring and the death in winter find a multitude of avatars in mortal existence. The human soul itself is a ragbag of the best and the worst, trundled along within the same body. But what is the nature of their cohabitation? Shakespeare said there is some soul of goodness in things evil, would men observingly distill it out. The toad. he wrote, wears a precious jewel in its head. But it is still an ugly and venemous toad.

This course is an exploration of these inflections of the “daemonic” in film and of some of the discourses that presume to analyze them. Bring your shadow.

ENG 305U: TOP IN FLM: WAR CULTURE IN FLM

CRN: 64832 Section: 002

Instructor: William Bohnaker

Almost everyone hates war, yet it remains, perpetually, one of the few constants in human behavior. War, despite our fervent hopes and efforts, is quintessentially human. In this course we will examine cinematic and other representations of war, not as battle, but as culture, seeking to understand the causes and consequences of this elemental social practice. The course will place special emphasis on the analytical strategies of cultural studies.

ENG 306U: TOP: THE SIXTIES

CRN: 61160 Section: 004

Instructor: William Bohnaker

The 1960s is without doubt a watershed decade in American life in the twentieth century, not only dividing eras but pitting Americans against each other. Historical revisionism likes to recast the 60s as a time of ludicrous, even dangerous, infantilism. In fact, it engendered a revolution in spirit and imagination that changed culture, politics, aesthetics, minds and hearts, and the vision of the possible. Join us in our own magical mystery tour to discover what really happened in the last American revolution.

ENG 309U: AMERICAN INDIAN LIT

CRN: 65645 Section: 002

Instructor: Maria Depriest

"I am memory alive." ~~Joy Harjo, "Skeleton of Winter"

*ENG 309U is a hybrid course. We meet in-class on Mondays and Wednesdays and we meet online on Canvas on Fridays.

The contemporary Indigenous Nations stories we will read rely on traditions that take us back--historically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. 1492 is, after all, the beginning of the collisions between two different creation stories. At the same time, our artists tease us forward imaginatively, by helping us recognize that memory itself is intimately tied to the future and that we all have a stake in the future. Indeed, the readings themselves are a kind of combat against what Daniel Heath Justice argues is at “the heart of the decolonization imperative of indigenous literatures: the storied expression of continuity that encompasses resistance while moving beyond it to an active expression of the living relationship between the People and the world” (“Kinship Criticism” 150). If, by quarter’s end, we have a deeper, more nuanced sense of what Heath-Justice is talking about in that last sentence, we will have been reading well.

Please attend our first class before buying the books.

Required Texts:

Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Louise Erdrich, Tracks and The Round House
Thomas King, Medicine River
Susan Power, Roofwalker
John L. Purdy, ed., Nothing But the Truth: An Anthology of Native American Literature
Poetry and essay handouts

ENG 312: COMEDY & SATIRE

CRN: 64833 Section: 001

Instructor: Katya Amato

We trace the history of comedy and satire from Aristophanes to Beckett, including Old and New Comedy, comic archetypes, the language of the body, fabliaux, carnival, the grotesque, the absurd, and named forms of comedy and satire (Rabelaisian, Horatian, Juvenalian, Menippean). Don't let the unfamiliar names intimidate you: the ancients were wilder than Wilder, medieval body parts can be lopped off or multiplied to everyone's great hilarity, twins come sweetly from the sea and after much confusion pair off with the elite of Illyria, and - yes - Don Quixote really does fight windmills and free galley slaves. In addition, instead of writing a long essay, those who want to can perform a comic scene at the end of the class, including the one with Oscar's famous cucumber sandwiches. (The class gets to eat the sandwiches.) Listed below are the books ordered, all available at the PSU Bookstore.

Four Plays by Aristophanes, tr. William Arrowsmith et al. (Lysistrata and Frogs only)
Menander, The Plays and Fragments, tr. Maurice Balme (Dyskolos)
Five Comedies by Plautus and Terence, tr. Deena Berg and Douglass Parker (One play by each writer)
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Cervantes, Don Quixote, tr. Edith Grossman (considered the best new translation)
Voltaire, Candide and Related Texts, tr. David Wootton (excellent edition for context)
Molière, Tartuffe, tr. Richard Wilbur (still the best translation)
Goldsmith, She Stoops To Conquer
Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Requirements: Regular attendance and the usual exams. A comic performance usually is, to everyone's great delight, substituted for the long essay of the final exam.

ENG 315: THE SHORTER POEM

CRN: 64834 Section: 001

Instructor: Maria Depriest

Required Texts:

The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Shorter Fifth Edition Suheir Hammad, Zaatar Diva

*English 315 fulfills the Group B requirement AND is a hybrid course. We will meet in lass for one hour on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Fridays, we will meet online for our Canvas required discussions.

Course Description: From hymns to hip-hop, this course explores the artistry of the lyric poetry. We have the luxury of focusing on making meaning at the level of individual words, of asking, why that word and not another And we have the pleasure of discovering ways in which the lyric poem, as Helen Vendler reminds us, “tends to be like the systole and diastole of the heart: it has a center of concern around which it beats. That center organizes the rest. . .” To find those centers, those beats, we will read and recite aloud every day. We will also write, memorize, and analyze as many different lyrical voices as time allows. Class participation is a given.

Assignment details available on the first day of class.

ENG 316: WIC: THE SHORT STORY

CRN: 64835 Section: 001

Instructor: Lorraine Mercer

Text: The Story and its Writer, Edited by Ann Charters, Compact Eighth Edition

It is a well known axiom that art should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable so this course offers something for everyone.

According to Eudora Welty "The source of the short story is usually lyrical. And all writers speak from, and speak to, emotions eternally the same in all of us: love, pity, terror do not show favorites or leave any of us out.”

Requirements include exams and short papers.

Join us!

ENG 317U: GREEK MYTHOLOGY

CRN: 61166 Section: 001

Instructor: Katya Amato

...the helmet screams against the light; scratches the eye; so violent it can be seen Across three thousand years.

--Christopher Logue, War Music (1981)

Luminous and terrifying, alien yet familiar, the mythic figures of the classical world haunt the Western imagination. In this course, we read original sources from the archaic period in their cultural context; we also glance at transformations of mythic figures and narratives in post-classical literature.

Texts:

Richmond Lattimore's translation of The Iliad* (ISBN 978-0-226-47049-8)
Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Odyssey (ISBN 978-0374525743)
Richmond Lattimore's translation of Hesiod (Theogony and Works and Days)* (ISBN 978-0472081615)
Jules Cashford's translation of The Homeric Hymns (ISBN 978-0140437829)
Rolfe Humphries' translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses* (ISBN 978-0253200013)

Requirements: Epic reading assignments, the usual exams, retrospective letter, and regular attendance. The asterisk (*) indicates required translations; all texts are available at the PSU Bookstore.

ENG 321: ENGLISH NOVEL

CRN: 65460 Section: 001

Instructor: John Smyth

Our main authors and texts will be:

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Isak Dinesen, Ehrengard (and "The Blank Page")
Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (and "That in Aleppo Once")

There will be some accompanying readings, and students will do their own research on the texts they choose to write about.

Primary requirements: Two essays (1500 words and 2400 words), plus an in-class presentation during the final week of classes.

ENG 330U: JEWISH & ISRAELI LITERATURE

CRN: 65687 Section: 001

Instructor: Michael Weingrad

ENG 344U: VICTORIAN LITERATURE

CRN: 64836 Section: 001

Instructor: Jennifer Ruth

ENG 353U: AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

CRN: 61172 Section: 001

Instructor: Maude Hines

This course is a survey of African American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. It is the final part of a three-part survey of African American literature from oral and folk beginnings to the present. A particular focus this term will be African American science fiction and Afrofuturism.

ENG 372U: TOP: ARTHURIAN ROMANCE

CRN: 64837 Section: 002

Instructor: Christine Rose

The focus of the course will be on the literary development of the legend of Arthur and his knights through time. We explore literary genre (romance, lay, chronicle, etc.) insofar as the genre informs our understanding of the medieval audience’s expectations for the work. And, we will explore the heroic archetype which Arthur, Lancelot, Perceval, Tristan, Gawain, etc. represent. From some vague historical character of the ancient chronicles, Arthur becomes the center of a mythic cycle of tales central to the ethos of the Western world. The Arthurian romance is preoccupied with gender: what it means to be a man, the obligations of heroism, love in conflict with honor, and how women should behave. Over hundreds of years, authors have shaped the Arthurian and Holy Grail material to suit their own politics, intentions, and audiences. Such tales explore characters seeking self-knowledge; empire-building; loyalty to comitatus; the power of eroticism; and the conflict between cities and nature, between the matriarchy and patriarchy, between the Church and magic.

Discussion and Lecture. Quizzes, midterm, group class report, final. Class reports and final papers will focus on later versions of the legend or some medieval versions not covered in class. Some films (2) associated with the Arthurian legend will be required viewing as part of the class. Others will be suggested viewing so that students might see modern filmmakers’ interpretations of the legend.

**Prerequisite: ENG 204, 340 or equivalent. This course fulfills the Pre-1800 requirement for the English major, and is a “Group B” elective—Literature of Ethnicity, Gender, Class and Culture, and “Group C” elective—Period Studies.

Textbooks:

The Romance of Arthur: An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation, ed. Lacy and Wilhelm. (Routledge), 3rd ed. ISBN: 978-0-415-78289
Staines, David, ed. The Complete Romances of Chretien De Troyes; (Indiana) ISBN-10: 0253207878
Malory’s King Arthur and His Knights (selection fr. Morte Darthur), ed.Vinaver (Oxford)] ISBN-10: 0195019059
The Quest of the Holy Grail (Penguin) ed. and trans. P. Matarasso ISBN-10: 0140442200
The Death of King Arthur trans. J. Cable (Penguin) ISBN-10: 0140442553

ENG 410: TOP: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COMICS

CRN: 61180 Section: 001

Instructor: Nicole Georges

In this class we will explore and practice elements of story-telling in comics, with a focus on autobiography. We will have close readings of graphic narratives, workshop and create original work through writing exercises and guided cartooning assignments. Students will learn the techniques, tools, and theory behind successful graphic narrative.

This class is appropriate for both beginners and more advanced cartoonists.

Texts include: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Cartooning: Theory and Practice by Ivan Brunetti, and close readings of books by Lynda Barry and Craig Thompson.

ENG 410: TOP: KELLOGG/MIKE DAVIS

CRN: 65703 Section: 003

Instructor: Hildy Miller

This one-credit discussion course will focus on the work of this year’s Kellogg speaker, Mike Davis, Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside—in preparation for his visit Monday, May 18, 2015. Davis has a wide range of interests as writer, political activist, and urban theorist. He is the author of more than 20 books and more than 100 book chapters and essays on ecology, power, social movements, and materialist cultural criticism. We will sample from several of his books, essays, and interviews, including the well-known City of Quartz. Many of the selections were recommended by Davis himself for this class. We will meet for 4 Friday sessions (4/3; 4/17; 5/1; 5/8) and include attendance on Monday 5/18 at either the afternoon session we have arranged for the class to meet with him to discuss his work and/or his Kellogg lecture later that evening. I welcome everyone—those of you taking it for credit and those of you sitting in.

(May arrange for 2 credits rather than 1 if you consult me ahead of time about doing additional readings.) Questions? Contact Hildy Miller milleh@psx.edu.

ENG 413: TCHG & TUTORING WR

CRN: 61181 Section: 001

Instructor: Hildy Miller

This course introduces you to the theory and practice of teaching and tutoring writing in a variety of contexts, whether teaching your own writing course or tutoring in a writing center. 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 specifically at what you need to know about tutoring and teaching (how tutorial sessions work, what writing in the disciplines means, how to create such teaching staples as a writing assignment, a unit plan, and a lesson plan). And you’ll spend at least 3 hours a week in a practicum of your choice beginning the second or 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 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.

ENG 435: ADV TOP: FILM AND ALLEGORY

CRN: 64847 Section: 001

Instructor: John Smyth

Directors and films:

Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo, The Birds
Woody Allen, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (Alongside the text of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Peter Greenaway, The Draughtman's Contract; The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover; Prospero's Books (Alongside the text of Shakespeare's The Tempest)
David Huge Jones/Harold Pinter, Betrayal
Andrei Tarkovski, The Sacrifice
Francis Veber, Diner de Cons

Students will do their own research on the films they choose to write on. Accompanying readings will also be assigned. Primary requirements will include two essays and in-class presentation.

ENG 443: BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS

CRN: 64818 Section: 001

Instructor: Lorraine Mercer

This course fulfills group B, C and E requirements toward the English major. This class meets in the classroom MW from 11:30-12:35 and has an online component.

“Be good sweet maid and let who will be clever.” Charles Kingsley

This is a course that focuses primarily on literature written by women in the 19th century. The development of the narrative voice in 19th century literature is one reason this is such a rich area of study. Alongside the novels we will read some of the major poets to provide context for the course and to examine how narrative voice evolves in the form of the poem. Like the nineteenth century novel, poetry of the period often centers on the individual and the social situation.

Class Goals: In this course, our learning methods will be based in research, reading, discussion and discovery. Our goals are to become scholars of 19th century British Women Writers. To this end we will do the following:

Practice interpretations of literary texts based on close reading.
Discuss the relationship between literature and cultural context of the times.
Participate in scholarly research in academic books and articles.

Texts:

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Penguin Edition
George Eliot, Middlemarch, Norton Critical Edition
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, St. Martin’s Critical Edition
Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford, Dover Thrift Edition
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and Other Poems, Dover
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems
Supplemental material including poems, essays, etc.

ENG 449: ADV TOP: CUL STUD/GEND&ENVIRON

CRN: 64869 Section: 001

Instructor: Sarah Ensor

A famous environmental(ist) slogan implores us to “Love the Planet”: But love her (her?) how? As we love a mother? As we love a romantic partner? As we love ourselves? As we love an aging, ailing relative whose well-being is in our hands? Although environmental questions can often seem to be the province of scientists and policy makers, our reasons for and modes of investing in the environment (and for asking these questions in the first place) have deeply human(istic) roots: they are matters of emotion, of relation, of community, of language.

This course focuses its attention on the complicated intersections between gender, sexuality, and the environment, attending closely to the way in which our most familiar practices of environmental stewardship are often predicated on equally familiar relational paradigms and deeply entrenched normative values (the emphasis on “Mother Earth,” the frequent invocation of “future generations” the insistence that we should “love” and “save” the planet on which we dwell). If we seek to develop new ethical responses to the environmental “crisis,” this class suggests, we might begin by rethinking the way in which we understand our relation to that environment, by queering the very terms in which we approach such debates.

In the course of our conversations, we will consider how gender and queer theory’s openness to a range of affects, pleasures, and relational forms can help environmentalism refine its own definitions and practices of planetary investment. Along the way, we will find ourselves asking questions like the following: How are spaces gendered, and how does that affect what it means to understand ourselves as their stewards or caretakers? How do we reckon with the often permeable, often indistinct boundaries between our bodies and the physical environments in which we dwell? How do we account for the non-normative patterns of affiliation that we so often feel with – and the non-normative forms of affection that we so often feel for – the natural world and its nonhuman inhabitants, even (or perhaps especially) when such beings resist our overtures? How might attending seriously to patterns of geologic time or to the “slow violence” of toxins’ barely legible accumulation in an ecosystem yield understandings of time that importantly complicate the normative developmental paradigms upon which our patterns of stewardship so often rely? How might queer theory’s capacity to think beyond norms – beyond the couple form, beyond the nuclear family, beyond reproductive futurity, beyond privatized uses of space – help us to a develop an environmentalism that can similarly extend beyond the bounds by which it is currently defined – and, we might argue, by which it is currently constrained?

Literary texts are likely to include film (Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain [alongside the Annie Proulx short story upon which it is based], Agnes Varda’s The Gleaners and I, Todd Haynes’s [Safe], and Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man), nonfiction (selections from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and letters, and Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place), and fiction (Sarah Orne Jewett’s “A White Heron,” Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House, excerpts from Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio and Rick Bass’s The Lives of Rocks). Likely secondary/theoretical readings include excerpts from Carolyn Merchant’s The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, Noel Sturgeon’s Environmentalism in Popular Culture: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Natural, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson’s Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire, and Mel Chen’s Animacies.

ENG 460: ADV TOP: 18TH C. AMER. LIT

CRN: 64870 Section: 001

Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi

This course surveys major authors and genres of Anglo-American literary history in the century in which "America" became the United States. Beginning with the travel narrative of the Puritan merchant Sarah Kemble Knight, we will read spiritual autobiography by elite ministers, female indentured servants, and Native American converts; slave narratives; and some of the earliest American poetry, plays and novels. We will examine changing concepts of self and community, God and nature, and literature and authorship during the period, focusing on how these concepts are marked by distinctions of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and region. The course fills the pre-1800 requirement for the B.A. in English.

Required Books (available at PSU Bookstore)

William Andrews, Ed., Journeys in New Worlds (Wisconsin)
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Life of Gustavus Vassa (Dover)
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (Dover)
Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple (Oxford)
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (Penguin

ENG 480: ADV TOP: MODERNISM

CRN: 64872 Section: 001

Instructor: Joshua Epstein

Topic: Hearing Modernist Cultures: Music, Media, and Performative Textuality

This class considers the cultural and aesthetic valences of sound, music, and hearing in modernist culture. The sensory, psychological, and affective intensification of sound and noise in the early twentieth century reflects a range of cultural pressures: the noises of war, industrialization, urbanization, new media, racial and imperial conflict, etc. Modernist art is preoccupied with all of these--and as modernist texts use music and sound to explore this preoccupation, they break down barriers of genre and artistic form, blending music and writing, film and painting, written and aural inscriptions of language. Music, specifically, has been seen to endow modernist uses of language with more richly embodied, performative, interactive potential--all the more so as the musical arts themselves grew increasingly noisy, jazzy, jarringly atonal.

Our class, then, will explore the fluidly interactive relationships among music, text, and sound world, as they unfold what we now call "modernist culture." How do modernist texts use music both to effect interactive modes of textuality, and to engage with the sounds of an increasingly noisy world? In what ways do they co-opt or compete with the new media forms that bring music to them? What kinds of work do modernist writers do to explore sound as an aesthetic medium--not just as novelists and poets, but as librettists, lyricists, anthologists, and screenwriters?

ENG 488: CONTEMP AMER POETRY

CRN: 61187 Section: 001

Instructor: Joel Bettridge

This class will focus on American poetry published during the last five to ten years. Given the fact that such a timeframe still does not sufficiently narrow our field of study, we will examine work that explicitly marks itself as, or tends toward, the "experimental." We will look at conceptual poetry, poems that turn to electronic procedures and sources, political poetry, and the work of writers who are interested in locating lyric poetry inside more disrupted textual landscapes.

ENG 490: ADV TOP R&C: VISUAL RHETORIC

Instructor: Joshua Epstein

ENG 590: ADV TOP: VISUAL RHETORIC

CRN: 64879 Section: 001

Instructor: Susan Kirtley

ENG 594: TOP: QUEER THEORY

CRN: 61200 Section: 001

CRN: 64096 Section: 001

Instructor: TBD

CRN: 64097 Section: 001

Instructor: Jacqueline Arante

WR 212: INTRO FICTION WRITING

CRN: 64098 Section: 001

Instructor: Daniel Schlegel

WR 212: INTRO FICTION WRITING

CRN: 64099 Section: 002

Instructor: TBD

WR 213: INTRO POETRY WRITING

CRN: 64101 Section: 001

Instructor: Ross Clifford

WR 213: INTRO POETRY WRITING

CRN: 64102 Section: 003

Instructor: TBD

WR 214: INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

CRN: 64103 Section: 001

Instructor: Jacqueline Alnes

WR 222: WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

CRN: 64104 Section: 001

Instructor: Amy Harper

This course will cover the process of writing research papers. We will discover how to find a worthy topic for research, how to formulate a working thesis, how to write a research proposal, how to find and evaluate sources, and how to synthesize these sources into cohesive and informative research papers. This course will also cover correct citation for MLA, APA, and Chicago Style documentation.

In this course we will focus on creating “new research” or new ideas demonstrated by focused research based on the worth of previous reliable sources. We will also cover plagiarism and how to avoid it.

Required text:

Author: Richard Bullock/Francine Weinberg, Title: The Norton Field Guide to Writing, Edition: Third edition ISBN: ISBN: 0393-91956-0 ISBN 13: 978-0393-91956-1 Publisher: ISBN: 0393-91956-0 ISBN 13: 978-0393-91956-1 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Format: paperback

WR 313: INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Maralee Sautter

WR 327: TECHNICAL REPORT WR

CRN: 64130 Section: 002

Instructor: Jack Bedell

WR 331: BOOK PUBLISHING FOR WRITERS

CRN: 64132 Section: 001

Instructor: Per Henningsgaard

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: ADVANCED COMPOSITION

CRN: 64133 Section: 001

Instructor: Greg Jacob

WR 333 is about the art of the essay, which may be the most literary and self-revealing of all prose forms (the personal essay) or the most reflective and critical of prose forms (the formal essay). After examining selected essays from the Norton Reader that reveal different styles, students will write two essays, one "personal" and the other "formal." The course will also focus on "style," and will make use of Joseph William's excellent book on the subject.

Textbooks:

The Norton Reader, Shorter 13th ed.
Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 11th ed.

WR 399: SPST: WRITING FOR COMICS

CRN: 65457 Section: 005

Instructor: Brian Bendis

WR 410: TOP: BOOK HISTORY

CRN: 64136 Section: 003

Instructor: Charles Seluzicki

Book History investigates a wide range of subjects relating to the history and culture of the book through a material textual lens. Lectures include topics as varied as cuneiform and the economic origins of the alphabet, Gutenberg's career as a jeweler, and the origins of moveable type and Dante's sudden popularity and publishing trends in 19th century America. These topics all conspire to a singular and coherent understanding of the nature of the material book. Field trips to local rare book collections provide exposure to original editions of classic works. Traditional seminar format coincides with the presentation of independent student research projects.

WR 410: TOP: DIGITAL PUBLISHING

CRN: 64137 Section: 001

Instructor: Amanda-Ann Gomm

Skills in Digital Publishing teaches the hands-on skills of digital publishing. The course will build on an established understanding of basic text-based languages like HTML, CSS, and XML. Students will be introduced to new tools like iBooks Author, oXygen, and Sigil.

WR 410: TOP: FLARE

CRN: 64138 Section: 007

Instructor: Danalyn Loitz

Madcap’s Flare program is quickly making a run at dominating the tech document production game, so it is vital to know this tool. Do a quick Craig’s List review of tech writing jobs, and you’ll be surprised how many require proficiency with Flare. From their website, we learn: “Whether you are creating Help systems, eLearning content, knowledge bases, user guides or policy & procedure manuals, our software products allow users to create, manage and publish content to a variety of print, desktop, online and mobile formats and in multiple languages. Using a common native XML-based architecture, our entire line of software products seamlessly integrate with one another, for a complete, end-to-end project workflow solution.”

WR 410: TOP: ADVANCED INDESIGN

CRN: 64889 Section: 004

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

This course is exactly what it sounds like: an advanced course in Adobe InDesign.

Prerequisite: Book Design and Production

WR 410: TOP: TECHNICAL WRITING METHODS

CRN: 64891 Section: 005

Instructor: Kendall Leon

WR 410/510 is an intensive, fast paced course focused on arming you with the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct research on writing and information flow in an organizational environment. More specifically, the course will ask you to explore the roles writing plays in the operations of an organization, consider how writing is managed and disseminated, and develop methods for identifying and analyzing this information. You will be tasked with actively researching how writing functions and is produced in an organization of your choice and then create an informed set of recommendations for improving information flow. By the end of the course you will learn to 1) design and implement an organizational study 2) effectively pitch a study to stakeholders 3) create various research related genres (i.e. informed consent forms, memos, proposals, and reports) 4) analyze and present data across data types 5) give research based recommendations 6) read current research in technical writing and communication 7) compose effective audience centered writing.

WR 410: TOP: GAME PRODUCTION

CRN: 64893 Section: 008

Instructor: Michael Sheyahshe

Develop your first game using industry-standard software Unity3D; from Unity; create game assets using Blender; and playtest your game in a process of iterative design. Reviews the current state-of-the-art game development engines, emphasizing the emerging industry standard, Unity3D. Students will be given hands-on instruction in Unity3D software, focusing on best practices, tips, tricks, and user interface for creation of first game. Incorporates readily available assets and the use of Blender, a free 3D creation software utilized by independent game developers. Digital games designed by students will be developed and play-tested.

WR 416: SCREENWRITING

CRN: 64141 Section: 001

Instructor: TBD

WR 427: TECHNICAL EDITING

CRN: 64142 Section: 002

Instructor: Garret Romaine

A core requirement in the MS/MS program and a valuable “internship” experience that allows you to complete “real world” writing and editing projects that you can showcase in your portfolio while also connecting with local professionals who can hire you or at least bulk up your “what a great applicant” letters-of-recommendation file, we are offering three compelling electives. Technical Editing will be taught by Garret Romaine, Fellow in the International Society for Technical Communication, and an instrumental architect, advocate, and faculty member of our program since its beginnings. He is a local Technical Publications Manager and author of more than a dozen books related to science and geology.

WR 457: PERSONAL ESSAY WRITING

CRN: 64143 Section: 001

Instructor: Sallie Tisdale

WR 458: MAGAZINE WRITING

CRN: 64144 Section: 001

Instructor: Paul Collins

This is a seminar devoted to developing magazine items, articles, and features. We'll also examine the profession of freelancing and the economics of magazine publishing. Each class meeting will focus on the current issue of a different magazine, and may include classroom phone conferences with their editors and writers.

TEXTS

Ragland, Margit. Get A Freelance Life (2006) (ISBN 978-0307238030)
Kramer, Mark and Wendy Call. Telling True Stories (2007) (978-0452287556)
Most of our reading will come from current periodicals.

WR 462: BOOK DESIGN & PRODUCTION

CRN: 64145 Section: 001

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

Comprehensive course in professional book design and production. Issues specific to the design of fiction and nonfiction books in a variety of genres and markets will be covered, including the applications of both old and new technologies in design and production.

Prerequisite: Publishing Software, unless you're already comfortable with the Adobe Creative Suite.

WR 463: BOOK MKTG & PROMOTION

CRN: 64146 Section: PB2

Instructor: Rhonda Hughes

Comprehensive course in professional book marketing and promotion. Issues specific to the promotion of fiction and nonfiction books in a variety of genres and markets will be covered. Students will do market research, interview authors, produce marketing plans, write press releases, write advertising copy, and develop related marketing materials for actual books in progress at the teaching press.

WR 472: COPYEDITING

CRN: 64148 Section: 001

Instructor: Adam Rodriguez

Learn how to improve the clarity, coherency, consistency, and correctness of other people's writing through application of grammatical and stylistic guidelines. Study grammar, usage, punctuation, and style. Narrow focus on editing at the line and substantive level, with little to no attention given to broad development of a manuscript.

Prerequisite: Book Editing

WR 474: PUBLISHING STUDIO

CRN: 64149 Section: 001

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.

WR 475: PUBLISHING LAB

CRN: 64150 Section: 001

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

WR 477: CHILDREN'S BOOK PUBLISHING

CRN: 64894 Section: 001

Instructor: Susan Long

Study the techniques commonly used by writers and publishers of children's literature.

WR 507: SEM: TIN HOUSE

CRN: 64160 Section: 001

Instructor: TBD

WR 507: SEM: RESEARCH FOR WRITERS

CRN: 65562 Section: 002

Instructor: Arthur Paulson

Students engage in research for several short fictions. For example, how to write convincingly about places you've never visited, or time periods in the past. When is it time to call an expert? Or how do you pin down details like these: in Paris, should your character, buying a baguette, ask for one bien cuite or pas trop cuite? Does your logger use a cant hook, a log peavey, or a hookaroon? Is your house-breaking character going to pick the lock one pin at a time or scrub it? We'll also pay some attention to researching quality literary magazines and reviewing guidelines for submission.

This course is designed for fiction writers in the MFA Program-but students in Nonfiction, Publishing, or the English MA program are welcome.

WR 510: TOP: BOOK HISTORY

CRN: 64162 Section: 002

Instructor: Charles Seluzicki

WR 510: TOP: DIGITAL PUBLISHING

CRN: 64163 Section: 003

Instructor: Amanda-Ann Gomm

WR 510: TOP: FLARE

CRN: 64164 Section: 007

Instructor: Danalyn Loitz

WR 510: TOP: ADVANCED INDESIGN

Instructor: Abbey Gaterud

WR 577: CHILDREN'S BOOK PUBLISHING

CRN: 64902 Section: 001

Instructor: Susan Long