Winter 2024 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.

Winter 2024: Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 106 001 INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

“Poets,” a poet called Percy Bysshe Shelley once declared, “are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” Some people might read this, then look off into the distance wistfully and nod their heads approvingly. Others, though, might think this is exactly the kind of bombast that gives poets a bad rep and puts sensible people off poetry. If you think you do not “get” poetry (and also if you think you do), this is the course for you. Its premise is that the fear, hatred, and resentment of poetry is itself a displaced acknowledgement of an attraction to poetry. We will test this hunch by examining a diverse array of poems, including song lyrics, widely regarded by readers as, to use the scholarly term, “awesome.” We will also look at some insightful theories of poetry that shed light on how poetry works. The goal is in part to familiarize you with some of the most interesting poems, and most interesting things about poetry, ever written. But the more important goal is to help you develop the hands-on, practical skills in close reading that enhance the capacity you already have to appreciate the beauty, intricacy, and intellectual and emotional power of poetry. This course requires no prior knowledge of poetry. Hell, it does not even require that you like poetry.

Required text: Okri, Ben, ed. Rise Like Lions: Poems for the Many. Hodder & Stoughton, 2017.

ENG 204 001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT I

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

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, and Chaucer’s equally hilarious The Merchant’s Tale. In connection with the latter, we will later look at the Biblical 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, aided by the Professor’s Notes each week.

ENG 253 001 SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT I

Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course will survey works of literature written in English from the beginnings of British settler colonialism in the Americas through the Civil War. We will focus on questions of genre and authorship and their relationships to the social, political, and intellectual histories of the geographic terrain that has become the United States. We will ask what, if anything, is distinctive about “American” versions of the themes and aesthetics associated with Puritanism, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Students will expand their knowledge of American literary history and develop their skills at interpreting fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Required Book:

Norton Anthology of American Literature, 10th Edition (Package 1: Vols. A and B). Available @PSU bookstore; used copies and Ebook should be available; I will also put a copy on reserve at PSU library.

ENG 300 001 LITERARY FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Many people suspect that English majors do little more than engage in idle chatter about their favorite characters in novels. This course will teach you the truth. English majors employ a specific set of knowledge and skills to interpret and analyze works of literature and culture, with an eye to the lessons they can teach us about the world we live in and world we might yet live in. ENG 300 is one of the core courses required of all English majors at PSU. It focuses on three knowledge-and-skill areas: 1. literary form (genre, vocabulary, figurative language, narrative technique, prosody, and so on), 2. close reading, and 3. writing critical (interpretative and analytical) arguments. Beginning at a nuts-and-bolts level, we will build up your abilities as a close reader of poems, fiction, drama, and film. We might even enjoy what poet John Keats called “diligent idleness.” By the end of the course, students will have earned the right to call themselves English majors. In our dark times, this is no mean feat.

Required texts:

Murfin, Ross C. and Supriya M. Ray. Bedford Glossary of Critical & Literary Terms. 4th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017. (ISBN: 9781319035396)
Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. 5th ed., W. W. Norton & Co., 2019. (ISBN: 9780393538700)
Brian Friel. Translations. Faber and Faber, 1981. (ISBN: 9780571117420)

ENG 300 002 LITERARY FORM AND ANALYSIS

Instructor: Josh Epstein
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

“Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.” –John Berger, G

A core class in the PSU English major (though open to all students), ENG 300 prepares students for advanced coursework in literature—and, I hope, for a lifetime of thoughtful engagement with the challenges and pleasures of the written word. Analyzing literature for both content and form—both what a text conveys and how it is put together—we focus especially on poems, plays, and novels that stretch the limits of their genres, prompting us to interpret the multiplicity of meaning that even a “single story” can encompass. ENG 300 aims to help students develop the following skills:

Close reading: formulating sophisticated critical questions about literature, and investigating those questions through close textual analysis;
Formal interpretation: analyzing how the formal qualities of a literary text construct the text’s meaning and generate effects on a reader;
Facility with terms and concepts: applying terminology appropriate to the scholarly analysis of literary form, genre, technique, and style;
Argumentation: shaping our complex insights about a text into cogent essays, built on well-constructed sentences and paragraphs.

This will be an online class with no required synchronous components but with active (probably 2x a week) participation required on the Canvas forum. Required texts will include the following:

Mark Yakich, Poetry: A Survivor's Guide
Wole Soyinka, Death and the Horseman
Justin Torres, We the Animals
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

ENG 301U 001 TOP: SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY

Instructor: Keri Behre
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

In this course, we will undertake a close study of Shakespeare’s comedies. We will pay attention to the complex and nuanced comic genre, the ways Shakespeare’s comedies evolved throughout the trajectory of his career, how the plays responded to historical context, and how they might be relevant in our current cultural moment. Our text will be The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd Edition, as well as some film versions of the plays we’ll study. Coursework will include, reading responses, class discussions, multiple drafts of an interpretive essay, and a creative final project that will engage print history and the craft of bookbinding. Absolutely no prior experience with Shakespeare is required—in this course, you will get everything you need to engage, interpret, and (I hope!) enjoy the plays.

ENG 304 001 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA

Instructor: Josh Epstein
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

“Critical theory” is a loose and baggy term that encompasses a range of tools and concepts meant to help us to ask complex questions about how films generate meaning in the world—and then, to question the questions. I’ve been teaching this course for a number of years, and never in my life did I think that the phrase “critical theory” would be so prominent in the public debate—albeit in a tendentious and somewhat anti-intellectual way. Film theory hasn’t been at the center of these discussions yet, as far as I know, but there are certainly overlaps with our course topics. We can start with a seemingly basic question: why is going to see movies such a pleasurable activity? But we will find this question much harder—also, perhaps, much more necessary—than it initially appears. We will explore it by way of four overlapping sets of questions related to film theory (inevitably, there are many topics we will have to omit or give short shrift):

Genre and authorship. How do preconceived assumptions about genre shape film production and reception? What does it change if we do or don’t understand films as “authored” texts?
History, ideology, and realism. To what extent does a film present a vision of the “real world”; to what extent is that idea of “realism” bound up with ideological and historical assumptions; how can films not only represent or narrate the world, but act on it?
Gender, desire, and “the subject.” How does the film apparatus speak to the mind and body of the spectator? How do films’ manipulations of a “gaze” or a narrative structure our desires and identifications? What power dynamics do these “gazes” reproduce or critique?
Race, nation, and empire. How can film offer possibilities for resistant or “oppositional” modes of spectatorship that challenge stereotypes or conventional attitudes toward race and nation? How do genre and spectatorship work differently in global or postcolonial contexts?

Our primary "theory" readings will be distributed via Canvas; please budget for printing costs. Films are still TBD but may include some (not all) of the following directors: Eisenstein, Hitchcock, Sirk, Fassbinder, Disney, Hammer, Pontecorvo, De Sica, Dash, Reichardt, or Peele.

ENG 305U 001 TOP: DAVID LYNCH & FILM NOIR

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 305U 002 TOP: MIDCENTURY MODERNIST FILM

Instructor: Dan DeWeese
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The concept of “midcentury modernism” is commonly attached to a twentieth-century architecture and design aesthetic that reimagined how public and private life might look, feel, and operate. Movies, however, are also designed—through composition, cinematography, sets, costumes, narrative, etc. In this course we will study international film in the post-World War II era not just as projects for the telling of post-war stories, but also as a midcentury-modern “redesign” of cinematic language: how a movie might look and feel, and what it could do. The course will include study of landmark films from the era (from directors like Kurosawa, De Sica, Ozu, Bergman, Fellini, Varda, etc.) but will also examine influences between the fields of midcentury film, art, and literature and the ways in which the theaters, museums, and bookstores of the post-war era created opportunities to build and nurture an audience for modernist film.

No required textbooks. All readings are online or supplied. Students should find means (streaming, rental, etc.) to view the required films.

ENG 305U 003 TOP: APOCALYPSE CINEMA

Instructor: Matthew Ellis
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Human societies have been imagining apocalyptic scenarios throughout the entirety of recorded history. But there seems to be something distinct about the modern version of the apocalyptic imaginary, which has grown out from prophetic, mythic, and religious texts and into secular culture for mass consumption in a world being transformed by technological development. As we will read, many scholars have claimed a distinct relationship between this secular apocalyptic imaginary and that of cinema itself, twentieth century modernity’s dominant mass media. But just what is it about the relationship between imagining the apocalypse and showing it?

In this course we will explore this question, treating the concept of the Apocalypse as both narrative form and an idea with a history, one that has changed rapidly in an ever-increasingly complex world where the barrier between nature and culture blurs with encroaching crises of climate change, nuclear war, and social and economic unrest. Perhaps, as we will come to see, we invented the end of the world, and required cinema to picture it.

Possible films to include: 2012, Wall-E, Threads, The Wandering Earth, Snowpiercer, Children of Men, The Turin Horse

ENG 306U 001 TOP: LATINX COMICS

Instructor: Marcel Brousseau
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 discuss seventeen important musicals over the last eighty years to explore shifting ideas of American identity and community, along with changing musical and theatrical forms for representing those ideas.

ENG 313U 001 AMERICAN SHORT STORY

Instructor: Joel Bettridge
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 320U 001 THE ENGLISH NOVEL I

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

In this class we study fiction by four very diverse English writers of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Aphra Behn’s The Fair Jilt, Henry Fielding’s Shamela and Joseph Andrews, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, and Jane Austen’s Emma.

We also read two works of European fiction directly influenced by Sterne: Gogol’s “The Nose” and Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist.

In addition, we watch several films either based on these works directly, or related to the period more generally, including Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

Secondary readings will include selections from John Locke’s cognitive and political philosophy, Paul de Man “The Epistemology of Metaphor,” and critical essays in the Norton Critical Editions of Fielding, Sterne, and Austen.

ENG 327 001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 330U 001 JEWISH AND ISRAELI LITERATURE

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

ENG 333U 001 HST CINEMA/NARRATIVE MEDIA II

Instructor: Matthew Ellis
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This course traces the major developments in film and media history from the end of World War Two to the early 1980s. Beginning with the waning of the Classical Hollywood Studio System in the US, we will move around the world and follow postwar developments in European avant-garde cinema, modernist cinema, postcolonial and Third cinemas, and New Waves and the New Hollywood during the 1970s, before concluding with the deregulation of global media industries and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. Special attention will be paid to the emergence of television, video, and digital media, and their impact on cinematic form and textuality.

ENG 335U 001 TOP: ADAPTING LIT TO FILM

Instructor: Marcel Brousseau
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 335U 002 TOP: CONSPIRACY THEORY

Instructor: Matthew Ellis
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

From the mundane to the dangerous, conspiracy theories continue to exert an outsized influence on our culture. But what would it mean to think of the conspiracy theory less as a product of "fake news" or "media diets," and more as a narrative form that began to take shape in the latter decades of the twentieth century, carrying through to the present? In this course we will analyze a series of films and novels that take the conspiracy theory as their object, asking why and how the conspiracy emerges as a form for making sense of the world at certain historical moments. Attention will be paid to the difference (and congruities) between literary form and film language, as well as discrete periods of conspiracy in film and literature (post-Watergate New Hollywood thrillers, 1980s/90s alternate history novels, etc).

ENG 341U 001 RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The Life of Love in Renaissance Poetry and Drama:

Love is, of course, a many splendored thing. But it is also a very complicated, irrational, and often painful affair. As the cultural critic Laura Kipnis has put it (and not a little acerbically):

"Saying no to love isn’t simply heresy; it is tragedy—the failure to achieve what is most essentially human. So deeply internalized is our obedience to this most capricious despot [of love] that artists create passionate odes to its cruelty, and audiences seem never to tire of the most deeply unoriginal mass spectacles devoted to rehearsing the litany of its torments, fixating their very beings on the narrowest glimmer of its fleeting satisfactions."

It was no less so during the English Renaissance.

In this course, we will read primarily English Renaissance poetry along with one dramatic text, all of which centers on the subject of love. Yet because love encompasses so many other dimensions—attraction, rejection, desire, loss, beauty, sex, gender, eroticism, social roles, social expectations, marriage, and so forth—our readings will touch upon a wide range of overlapping themes. The course will not be comprehensive in its coverage, but we will address questions of desire, the body, eroticism, clothing, seduction, and leavetaking within four broad units. In addition, we will occasionally read non-literary texts, such as a religious homily, essays, and even parliamentary legislation, which will serve to orient us within the English Renaissance culture from which the literature comes. Doing so will help us to understand the similarities and differences between Renaissance English and contemporary American notions of that crazy little thing called love.

Finally, this class will be discussion-based. There will be very few lectures. Participation is key, so I will expect you to have read the poetry several times for each day, to have ideas and questions about the readings, and to be prepared to discuss the material during our class time.

ENG 352U 001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIT II

Instructor: Maude Hines
Instructional Method: Online - Scheduled Meetings

BST/ENG 352U is an introduction to African American literature from the late nineteenth century to the beginnings of the “Black Arts” movement. It is the second in a three-part survey of African American literature. In addition to short stories, poetry, and novels, we will look at essays, journals, autobiographies, audio recordings, fine art, photography, and performance. Our anthology, published in the late 1960s, presents a useful "look back" for a course that ends at its publication date. As a product of that time, it must be supplemented (on Canvas) by works by women authors and others. On the other hand, more inclusive anthologies (in content, at least) cost easily ten times as much. Such questions of unequal access, canonization, and memory will be foregrounded as we approach the materials.

This course fills the American Identities and Gender and Sexualities cluster requirements for non-majors (see cluster web pages).

It also fulfills the Domestic RESR requirement at PSU.

Required Materials:

Chapman, (Ed.), Black Voices: An Anthology of African-American Literature
Petry, The Street

ENG 367U 001 TOP: GHOSTS & HAUNTINGS

Instructor: Michael Clark
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 372U 001 TOP: BODIES, POWER AND PLACES

Instructor: Sally McWilliams
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 372U 002 TOP: GENDER/EXPERIMENTL GOTHIC

Instructor: Hildy Miller
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

The Gothic reflects what haunts the cultures in which we find ourselves and reveals that which is hidden, forbidden, denied. In this course we’ll study writings and films, primarily by women and others expressing varied gender identities, who have experimented with the Gothic genre and found a space from which to speak. What haunts these writers varies from one story to another, but we’ll find new twists on Gothic tropes such as ghosts, ghostliness, and spectrality; the power of houses and places in the domestic Gothic; witches and witchcraft; Gothic romances; monstrosities, vampires, and grotesques; ancestral or generational curses or memories; and queer sexualities that seek expression. We’ll focus on snapshots of late 19th/early 20th century and mid-late 20th/contemporary Gothic, including such figures as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Jean Rhys, Octavia Butler, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, and films such as Crimson Peak, and The Company of Wolves.

Required Texts:

Available at PSU Bookstore, Amazon, and elsewhere

Octavia Butler. Fledgling. NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. Mexican Gothic. NY: Del Ray, 2020
Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea. NY: Norton, 1966/1982
Other shorter texts are available in online form

ENG 378U 001 AMERICAN POETRY II

Instructor: Tom Fisher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course focuses on American Poetry from the second half of the nineteenth century through the decades following WWII. We'll begin with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, move to select Modernist and Harlem Renaissance writers of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, read the New American and Black Arts Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s, and conclude with various writers from the 1970s and 1980s. Fulfills an American Identities Cluster requirement.

ENG 414 001 COMPOSITION THEORY

Instructor: Hildy Miller
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

Okay, what is rhetoric and composition studies anyway? This course attempts to help you answer that question by providing a broad overview of theories and issues that started the discipline about 125 years ago and that have informed it over the last 40 years. We’ll try to construct a disciplinary narrative by surveying key pieces of research and theory. And we’ll consider a range of contemporary movements and topics such as writing processes, nineteenth century historical studies, genre and diverse discourses, ethos/audience; race, class, gender, LGBTQI+, disability, the field’s response to current sociopolitical issues, and more. Although its focus isn’t on actual teaching methods, we’ll see how, like it or not, every instructional approach makes certain theoretical assumptions about learning and writing. If the course goes as promised, you won’t see rhetoric and composition, your own writing, or the teaching of writing in quite the same way again.

We will frame our discussion through these and other questions that you bring to our discussion:

What do all these diverse facets of composition theories suggest that the discipline is? Are they to do with the self or selves, the audience/reader, the socio-cultural context, or the text itself?
What are the implications for writing and teaching? What might writing assignments or classroom activities from this perspective look like?
How is what we are learning and discussing different from your preconceptions? What are the theories and perspectives that most fit you as a writer and teacher of writing?

Texts:

All texts are available on the course website. Nothing to buy!

ENG 428 001 CANONS AND CANONICITY

Instructor: Bishupal Limbu
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 429 001 ADV TOP: SCIENCE FICTION

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course will gaze at literature's entanglements with ecology through a science fiction lens. We'll look at the various ways literary science fiction represents and figures the natural world and the role of humans in ecological processes. We’ll look at novels, stories, and films that tell SF tales focusing on ecological ethics and aesthetics; wilderness; ecological disaster; humanism and post-humanism; permaculture and sustainability; and trans-species contact. We’ll consider the ethical, political, and social theories that emerge from these works and compare them to recent trends in writing and thought about climate, ecology, sustainability, and eco-capitalism. And we'll consider the limits of romanticism as a basis for literary ecology. The novels we’ll read will likely include:

J.G. Ballard. The Drowned World (1962). ISBN: 978-0871403629
Sue Burke. Semiosis (2018). ISBN: 978-0765391360
Philip K. Dick. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). ISBN: 978-0345404473
N.K. Jemisin. The Fifth Season (2015). ISBN: 978-0316229296
Jeff VanderMeer. Annihilation (2014). ISBN: 978-0374104092
Peter Watts. Blindsight (2008). ISBN: 978-0765319647

Our theoretical investigations will throw us headlong into the struggle to transcend the nature-culture binary that continues to bedevil environmental literature and criticism. We'll address the range and limitations of the many narrative and theoretical efforts toward this transcendence. In addition to novels and theoretical essays, we'll consider shorter works, short films, and secondary readings from a diverse group of contemporary global authors. Students will present on works of their choice *not covered* in the course syllabus. These will expand and complicate our sense of the intimate entanglement of global science- and speculative fiction with the abiding questions of ecology.

ENG 449 001 ADV TOP TEXTUALITIES OF TRAVEL

Instructor: Marcel Brousseau
Instructional Method: Hybrid

ENG 458 001 ADV TOP: ROMANTICISM

Instructor: Alastair Hunt
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The total impact of human beings on the earth is so profound, researchers in a range of fields argue, that we have initiated a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene, one that began with the Industrial Revolution in Britain around the turn of the nineteenth century. Such a timeline places the start of the current global environmental crisis bang in the middle of the Romantic period of British literary history (1789-1832). Taking this historical coincidence seriously, this course invites students to read British Romantic writers as witnesses to the processes that have led to climate change, biodiversity loss, and other manifestations of the global environmental crisis. We will begin by conceptualizing the crucial role played in this crisis by capitalism, including the industrial form of capitalism that emerged in Britain around the turn of the nineteenth century. We will then examine various Romantic literary works—a number of poems, several works of nonfiction, and one novel—and consider what they say, at the level of both theme and form, about the struggles over the transformations, during the period, in manufacturing and agriculture. This was, after all, not just the age of the factory, but also the age of the slave plantation, and even the incipient factory farm. We will pay special attention to the sense implicit in these works that the struggles over the environment are deeply entangled in social justice struggles. And we will attend carefully to their awareness that the fate of humans intersects in structural ways with the fate of nonhuman creatures. But above all, we will read Romanticism as not only a reflection of, but also a reflection on, the Anthropocene, and explore its critical awareness of the deep contingency (as opposed to inevitability) of the environmental crisis wrought by capitalism and the still-rich possibilities for transformative struggles against it.

ENG 496 001 COMICS THEORY

Instructor: Susan Kirtley
Instructional Method: Hybrid

Comics, graphic novels, comic strips, cartoons. There are many terms for them, but they are all names for innovative storytelling done through some combination of words and images. While picture-images date as far back as the Egyptian tombs, or the caves of Lascaux, our course will consider the development of the modern comic in twentieth- and twenty-first- century America. This course will focus on comics theory, understanding and applying theory to primary texts.

Note: If you do not have the prerequisites but would like to take the class, please email skirtley@pdx.edu for override permission.

ENG 498 001 ECOLOGY, CRITICISM, & CULTURE

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

In the past two decades, scholars of environmental literature have begun expanding the Euro-American canons and contexts that have long dominated ecocriticism and publication, teaching, and reading practices in the West. The perspectives on humans’ relationship with the nonhuman world that emerge from alternate global sites often complicate and even challenge the values and priorities of Western environmental scholarship and activism. We will make our own contributions to this conversation by focusing our attention on a range of literary and critical works from and about these “underdeveloped,” ruined, or otherwise peripheral regions of the world. Greg Garrard’s book Ecocriticism will provide us with an organizing structure, as we approach some of the key questions, topics, and problematics in the field: pollution; wilderness; pastoral; apocalypse; dwelling; and animals. We will begin by considering the relationship between colonialism and “nature,” empire and the environment, before turning to some literary and non-fictional responses to three ecological disasters: the gas leak at Bhopal, India in 1984; the ongoing devastation of the oil-producing regions of the Niger Delta; and the effects of global climate change on the peoples of the “third world.” The remainder of the term will be taken up with works that explore alternative ways of “dwelling”—living, doing and being in the world—beyond both naïve Romanticism and environmental indifference.

Likely texts include:

J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K. (978-0140074482)
Helon Habila, Oil on Water (978-0393339642)
Michael Marder & Anaïs Tondeur, Chernobyl Herbarium (978-1785420269)
Indra Sinha, Animal’s People (978-1416578796)
Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night (978-0802144621)

Winter 2024: Graduate English Courses

ENG 507 001 SEM: THE FIRST FOLIO IN 5 ACTS

Instructor: Jonathan Walker
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

When Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, 18 of his 38 plays had been published in small quarto (and one octavo) editions. Also in 1616, Shakespeare’s friend and fellow playwright Ben Jonson published a volume in folio titled Workes, which contained 9 plays, 2 works of poetry, 13 masques, and 6 “entertainments.” Several of Jonson’s contemporaries scoffed at the classicized title Workes, which they viewed as an attempt to elevate vernacular English plays to the status of serious literature. Because the folio format tended to be reserved for prestigious and perdurable books, Jonson’s Workes in folio aspired to transcend the ephemerality that characterized not just theatrical performance but also the cheap imprints of plays in quarto and octavo. Yet it was Jonson’s audacity to collect and publish his plays in folio that made possible the 1623 printing of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, now known as the First Folio. Even then, however, the success of the First Folio was not guaranteed.

In the 400th anniversary year of the First Folio’s publication, we will explore the impact that this book has had upon subsequent literature, the arts, and culture. Examining 5 plays over our 10-week seminar, we will consider a wide variety of questions raised by the plays themselves, by the First Folio as a material book, and by larger social issues with which the plays and the book engage. Our first play, Twelfth Night, is a conventional comedy, featuring disguises, cross-dressing, and a love triangle. Antony and Cleopatra is also a love story, but, uncommonly, it showcases a love affair between older individuals, who likewise hail from the radically different cultural contexts of Rome and Egypt. Scholars usually call Measure For Measure a “problem play” because it strains the conventions of comedy to the breaking point, while they typically classify The Winter’s Tale as a “romance” because it obscures the line between comedy and tragedy. Unlike our other 4 plays, the tragedy of King Lear had appeared in an earlier quarto edition in 1608, but the differences between the quarto and folio texts will permit us to explore book history and the transmission of dramatic texts in the English Renaissance.

This seminar is reading-intensive and above all discussion-based. This means that you should be prepared to commit considerable time to reading and preparing for class and to participate actively in the discussions that will occupy most of our class time. During our conversations, I encourage you to voice your questions as well as your observations and ideas about the material: such contributions will be essential to the insights and knowledge we will gain about the First Folio and the influential effects that the book has produced over the last 400 years.

ENG 514 001 COMPOSITION THEORY

Instructor: Hildy Miller
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

ENG 518 001 COLLEGE COMP TEACHING

Instructor: Susan Kirtley
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 529 001 ADV TOP: SCIENCE FICTION

Instructor: Bill Knight
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

J.G. Ballard. The Drowned World (1962). ISBN: 978-0871403629
Sue Burke. Semiosis (2018). ISBN: 978-0765391360
Philip K. Dick. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). ISBN: 978-0345404473
N.K. Jemisin. The Fifth Season (2015). ISBN: 978-0316229296
Jeff VanderMeer. Annihilation (2014). ISBN: 978-0374104092
Peter Watts. Blindsight (2008). ISBN: 978-0765319647

ENG 531 001 TOP: COLLOQUIUM

Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

ENG 549 001 ADV TOP TEXTUALITIES OF TRAVEL

Instructor: Marcel Brousseau
Instructional Method: Hybrid

ENG 598 001 ECOLOGY, CRITICISM, & CULTURE

Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Likely texts include:

J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K. (978-0140074482)
Helon Habila, Oil on Water (978-0393339642)
Michael Marder & Anaïs Tondeur, Chernobyl Herbarium (978-1785420269)
Indra Sinha, Animal’s People (978-1416578796)
Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night (978-0802144621)

Winter 2024: Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 121Z 001 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Nina Rockwell
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121Z 002 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Kelly McLysaght
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121Z 003 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Megan Hudson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 121Z 004 COMPOSITION I

Instructor: Kayla Vokolek
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Chukwudaru Michael
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: JT Maruyama
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

In this class we will explore the practice of writing fiction as an experience that not only includes putting words to page and telling stories, but also listening, observing, giving attention, feeling, moving, walking, and sensing. The course will work as a creative laboratory, giving the students the opportunity to experiment and investigate within the realm of fiction. Our work will be guided by writing exercises, readings by diverse contemporary authors, and discussions of core craft elements such as point of view, character, plot, and setting. There will also be discussion of student work. Throughout, we will explore what it means to articulate via language, to be challenged by language, to recreate intimacy with language, and to see differently because of and via language.

WR 212 003 INTRO FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Alex De La Cruz
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

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

WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Lora Kincaid
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This is an introductory course in poetry--both writing and reading--intended for creative writing students and writers of any genre, as attention to language at the poetic level can benefit all writing. We will read and study a variety of poets--focusing more often than not on living/contemporary poets, but also studying poets from previous generations when appropriate. This class will also instruct and practice workshopping, where students will get the chance to give and receive peer feedback on their work. This is primarily a writing course, but we will also learn craft and poetic vocabulary, formulate reading strategies, and discuss assigned poems from a variety of celebrated poets.

WR 213 002 INTRO POETRY WRITING

Instructor: David Seung
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

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

WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

Instructor: Kate Chilleli
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Kelly Connor
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

One of the challenges of performing research is communicating your findings to an array of audiences. Academic research is, of course, crucial to advancing any given field of study. But transmitting that research to the ‘real world’ is equally crucial. In this course, you will learn not only the basics of performing college-level research writing, but also the skills to translate your academic work into a genre which speaks to an alternative audience. You will analyze critical sources as well as propose, research, draft, workshop, and revise a research essay. The course assignments require you to define a specific audience, and then make strategic choices with that audience in mind. Along the way, you will regularly reflect on your experiences and what you have learned, and those of your peers. This process is meant to help you develop a toolkit for thinking, researching, composing and audience analysis that will transfer to many different contexts and situations.

Learning Outcomes:

Students will become familiar with…
- Elements of rhetoric
- Elements of argument
- The anatomy of an academic article
- Discipline-specific writing conventions
Students will be able to…
- Effectively utilize library resources and scholarly databases
- Perform peer-revision with an appropriate feedback style
- Properly cite sources (in-text citations and creating a works cited page)
- Engage in conversation within a discourse community
- Transfer literacy skills to other academic and/or professional settings

WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Instructor: Hannah Ahern
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 227Z 001 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Emma Luthy
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 227Z 002 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Francisco Cabre Vásquez
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 227Z 003 TECHNICAL WRITING

Instructor: Jacob Tootalian
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 227 is a course designed to give students experience with forms of technical communication. While other composition classes often focus on academic genres, this course emphasizes writing relevant to workplace situations and technical applications. Students will consider how to engage with audiences with a diversity of cultural values and informational needs. They will develop a practical understanding of specific genres—ranging from resumes to project proposals—while learning to exercise skills that they can then apply to other forms of communication that might be unfamiliar to them or new to their fields. In addition, they will practice collaboration and consider the role of individuals, communities, and institutions in the exchange of information. Overall, students will hone a rhetorical awareness that will allow them to succeed as both effective communicators and careful interpreters of knowledge.

WR 300 001 TOP: PODCASTING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Welcome to WR 300 Podcasting! In this course students will learn the basics of every aspect of narrative podcasting. The course will give students the theoretical and practical framework to produce a narrative podcast and gain enough skills for entry-level work in the growing podcast field. The class will focus on the essential skills for podcast production – from research to audio interviewing techniques, workflow and organization, structuring episodes, script writing, postproduction mixing, scoring, and critical review.

Students will also explore how to identify an audience, distribute, and market podcasts and get an understanding of analytics, metrics, and monetization practices, all within a framework of ethical production. Due to the hands-on workshop style of this class, students can expect to have an audio portfolio by the end of this class.

Course Objectives (CO):

Having successfully completed this course, students will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of audio storytelling, recognizing the podcast medium as an intimate form of storytelling.
Learn the essentials of quality sound for podcast production.
Explore the most effective strategies, arrangements, and media to use in different podcast genres.
Understand the role of ethics and diversity in podcasting.
Improve broadcast skills, including writing, research, interviews, editing and on-air presentation.
Appraise and establish protocols to launch and distribute podcasts.
Use the power of podcasting to benefit ourselves and society.
Learn how to publish podcasts on RSS feeds like iTunes, Spotify, and Pod bean.

WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

Instructor: Sara Atwood
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This writing-intensive course extends the skills developed in WR 300 by studying selected theoretical and disciplinary approaches to literary and other texts (including literary and rhetorical theory), and by introducing students to research methods as a way of entering scholarly conversations. Through studying a wide variety of texts and through both formal and informal writing exercises, students will gain confidence and ability in close reading and interpretation, exploring the formal and thematic intricacies of a text, conducting research, and using writing as a tool for developing complex interpretations supported by evidence.

WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRITING ENGLISH

Instructor: Elisabeth Ceppi
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

This course is designed to develop advanced skills for writing clear, compelling, and sophisticated interpretations of literary texts. We will focus on strategies, conventions, and techniques for conducting research within the text (gathering evidence through the method of “close reading”) and outside the text, using a variety of secondary sources to develop ideas and insights and to explain why those ideas matter. During the term, students will learn and practice a variety of methods for becoming more astute readers and critics of literature and scholarly writing. They will learn to anticipate what readers expect in clear and persuasive writing and how to meet those expectations. They will also learn to become better readers and critics of their own scholarly writing through the process of drafting, peer review, and revision.

The course will improve students’ ability to:

Use close reading skills to develop interpretations of literary texts
Communicate those interpretations clearly and persuasively in their scholarly writing
Locate and cite works of scholarship and engage with them effectively to frame complex arguments about texts
Grasp the importance of drafting and revision to intellectual growth and successful college writing

Required Book: Toni Morrison, A Mercy (@PSU bookstore)

WR 312 001 INTERMED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

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 intermediate course will examine these and other questions, along with generative writing exercises, weekly student workshops, and a strong emphasis on writing as a process rather than a product.

The reading list includes single stories and craft essays by Ursula K. LeGuin, Matthew Salesses, Carmen Maria Machado, Morgan Talty, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Barry Lopez, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri and others.

WR 312 002 INTERMED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Mark Cunningham
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

In this course we will strive to hone our perceptive powers as writers, in order to breathe new life into our language, forms, characters, plots, and use of perspective. Through reading and discussion, writing experiments, and analysis of published texts and student work, we’ll broaden the ways we think about fiction and creative writing in general. Note: Rather than using this course to polish their pre-existing work, students will be expected to create new writing in response to explorative prompts, and will leave this course with new generative tools at their disposal, several pieces of fresh creative writing in progress, and a longer, more developed work of original fiction.

WR 313 001 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING

Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 001 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Jarrod Dunham
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 002 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Sara Atwood
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

It might be said that all writing is a form of inquiry, to one degree or another, because writing is always a process of discovery. The broad project of fiction and poetry is to inquire into and convey something meaningful about the human condition; the critical essay explores the nuances of structure and language; the research essay seeks to answer a question or demonstrate a claim. We write for many reasons, but curiosity is chief among them—curiosity about ourselves, our families, communities, histories, about the world and its complexity. Even when we think we are writing on a subject we know well or think we have mastered, we often end up learning something new during the writing process—the writing itself takes us in a new or different direction.

In this course we will engage in close reading and critical analysis of a variety of texts, looking closely at structure, form, and language, with an eye to the ways in which writers approach the project of inquiry (there are as many ways as there are writers!). Students will learn to craft meaningful and productive critical questions, to write in various forms and styles, to examine the connection between form and meaning, and to bring together what they have learned in their own writing.

WR 323 003 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Travis Willmore
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 323 004 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 323 005 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Travis Willmore
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 006 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Caroline Hayes
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 007 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 008 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Perrin Kerns
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 323 009 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

Instructor: Amy Harper Russell
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

In this class we will learn what it is to be a writer. We will explore genres of writing, draft work, reflect upon work, and have the opportunity to peer-review work. Please save all notes, discussion posts, journaling, drafts, source materials, peer reviews, and papers to include in a portfolio. The end result should be a complete portfolio of work to share.

WR 327 001 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Julie Kares
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 327 002 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

Instructor: Sidouane Patcha
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 327 Technical Report Writing will prepare you to gain an understanding of the theories, issues, and practices of technical communication, which you might encounter in the workplace, such as general correspondence, proposals, reports, oral/visual presentations, cross-cultural document design, effective language practices, writing about and with data.

Learning to create technical reports for different stakeholders in workplace contexts will strengthen your ability to research, draft, revise and present information in a concise and ethical manner. You will also gain proficiency in the use of online tools used to create workplace communication documents, and hone your overall professional communication etiquette.

WR 327 003 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

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

This course prepares students for writing as professionals in engineering, scientific and other technical disciplines. Topics covered include technical and workplace genres of writing, such as proposals and reports, oral presentation, writing about and with data, effective language practices, writing collaboratively and ethics. Emphasis (and the ultimate end-product) will be a short but formal technical report based on your own personal interests and experience. The report will propose a solution to a problem to decision makers who have the authority to act on your recommendations.

What about textbooks? Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of students taking this course for their program requirements or electives, no one-size-fits-all textbook will work for us. Course lectures should be sufficient to help you complete assignments. In short, no textbook is required. However, if you want to purchase a textbook, the course materials identify options for each major.

Should be fun!

WR 394 001 CAREERS FOR ENGLISH MAJORS

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course gives students an opportunity to explore and write on the career paths open to English majors. This includes areas commonly associated with English—teaching, writing, editing, and so forth—but also some you might not expect. English is the 4th most common major among law school students, for instance, and the 8th most frequent major – and the most common humanities degree—among medical school students.

We'll engage in critical reflection on what each student is considering for their own path, and on the meaning of the English major and of labor itself. What is the English major, and how did it come about? What are the demographics of English majors? What's the research on the various career routes that they take? What are the technological, financial, and ethical challenges and changes in these fields?

This course counts towards the University Writing Requirement. It can be used as upper-division elective in the English BA/BS, the Creative Writing BFA, or the English or Writing minors. Readings will be drawn from articles available online, and through research journals accessible through our library.

WR 398 001 TOP: WRITING COMICS

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 410 001 TOP: DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY

Instructor: Adam McBride-Smith
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 412 001 ADVANCED FICTION WRITING

Instructor: Matthew Robinson
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 416 001 SCREENWRITING

Instructor: Thom Bray
Instructional Method: Online - No Scheduled Meetings

WR 420 001 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 420 002 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This course is a cross-genre creative space for developing new writing and for reimagining your prior writing. Along with prompts and exercises for creating new work and experimenting with texts, we'll read fiction, poetry, nonfiction and critical essays that embody aspects of development, reflection, and revision.

Texts:

Jane Alison: Meander, Spiral, Explode (‎9781948226134)
Philip Gerard: The Art of Creative Research (9780226179803)
Carmen Maria Machado: In The Dream House (9781644450383)
George Saunders: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (9781984856036)

WR 424 001 GRANT WRITING FOR PROF WRITERS

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

Grant Writing for Professional Writers (WR 424/524) is an online, community-based learning (CBL) course designed for two main audiences: 1) students primarily from the Technical and Professional Writing Program who wish to supplement their professional development options or to explore a career path with grant writing and 2) students who understand that their professional, often academic, careers will require familiarity with grant writing processes, practices, and funding cycles. Students majoring in Public Administration or Social Work should consult their departmental offerings for PA 425/525 Grant Writing for Nonprofit Organizations and for SW 585 Fund Development and Grant Writing. Grant writing is a key competency of all three of the graduate programs that run a course in grant writing (MTPW, SW and PA) and each program offers the course in the professional context that best trains their students.

As an online course, students do not meet collectively, working instead in small teams or occasionally independently. As a CBL course, communication management and planning occur outside the norms of a traditional—even an online—academic classroom. Attendance and participation policies adapt to the challenges of online, CBL teaching and learning.

The course introduces students to best practices in grant writing. Students will work with community-partner nonprofits that are seeking funds to solve social problems. Students can expect to become involved in a variety of grant writing activities depending on where they find their community partners are at in the grant writing cycle. You might, for instance, develop business plans, identify potential funding sources, and begin preparing grants according to your funder’s template. Additionally, this course is an elective in the MA/MS in Technical and Professional Writing along with serving as a general writing elective.

An end goal: Your name on a well-done (even funded? Yeah, it happens!) grant is a great addition to a professional portfolio.

Questions? Just ask THE PROFESSOR: dillont@pdx.edu.

WR 431 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: Chad Kreiger
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 456 001 FORMS OF NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

"Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant." –Emily Dickinson

This course will explore various forms of nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, graphic narrative/comics, literary journalism & criticism, and oral history, with practice writing in each. We will also investigate the permeable boundaries between these and other literary forms, with a focus on the braiding of the personal and the political, the creative and the critical. Individual classes will contain discourse and writing experiments designed to deepen students' critical understanding of various nonfiction forms, and to enhance their creative repertoires with a wide variety of nonfiction techniques and craft elements. Along with participation in numerous writing exercises, students will craft a final essay in which they will be challenged to analyze, synthesize, and respond creatively to a number of the course readings.

The reading list includes In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado; In Waves: A Graphic Memoir by A.J. Dungo; Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories, of Crime, Prison, and Redemption by Walidah Imarisha; and Tell It Slant: Crafting, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction (3rd Edition) by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola.

WR 460 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Paige Brayton
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Provides a detailed overview of the publishing process, organized around the division of labor, including introductions to contemporary American publishing, issues of intellectual commerce, copyright law, publishing contracts, book editing, book design and production, book marketing and distribution, and bookselling. Based on work in mock publishing companies, students prepare portfolios of written documents, i.e., book proposals, editorial guidelines, design and production standards, and marketing plans. Guest speakers from the publishing industry and field trips provide exposure to the industry. Also offered for graduate-level credit as Wr 560 and may be taken only once for credit. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

WR 461 001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: Katie Van Heest
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

This is a comprehensive course in professional book editing. Here we will encounter acquisitions editing, substantive/developmental editing, copyediting, freelance editing, and—perhaps most important of all—mindful editing. You’ll gain familiarity with book publishing’s leading handbook, The Chicago Manual of Style, and edit a live manuscript by a real author. The goal is to acquaint you with the editorial processes that transform a manuscript (or an idea for a manuscript!) into a book and to help you put professional editing skills to work in your studies, your occupation, and your life.

WR 462 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: Jessica Reed
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 463 001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

The objective of this course is to understand the role of marketing and publicity in book publishing, both traditional and self-publishing, and to obtain the necessary skills to position a title, create sales materials, and develop a marketing and publicity plan. Your goal is to end the course able to demonstrate skills in target audience analysis, copywriting, metadata management, author platform building, media and reviewer outreach, budgeting and scheduling, email and social media marketing, and metrics and analytics that are directly applicable to a career in book publishing.

WR 466 001 DIGITAL SKILLS

Instructor: Elaine Schumacher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Gives hands-on training in digital skills and surveys developmental trends in writing in computational environments: webpages, computer programs, word processing programs, multimodal essays. Learn core principles and methods of web design, web management, media history, and present-day uses of authoring software. Assess scholarly articles about writing and reading in computational environments. May be taken only once for credit.

WR 471 001 TYPOGRAPHY, LAYOUT, PRODUCTION

Instructor: Frances Fragela
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 473 001 DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 474 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
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
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.

Winter 2024: Graduate Writing Courses

WR 507 002 SEM: MFA FICTION

Instructor: Leni Zumas
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Camera Angles:

Point of view is at the core of any text: how is the world perceived? what particularities of history, culture, time, psyche, and language shape the aperture for this perception? In this seminar we’ll read work that will illuminate and deepen (and perhaps even challenge) our understanding of narrative perspective. Assignments will include reading responses, creative exercises, class presentations, and a final project.

Tentative reading list:

Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile, Verlyn Klinkenborg
The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector (trans. by Idra Novey)
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Eleanor, or, The Rejection of the Progress of Love, Anna Moschovakis
There, There, Tommy Orange
White Is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi
Women Talking, Miriam Toews
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

WR 510 001 TOP: DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY

Instructor: Adam McBride-Smith
Instructional Method: Hybrid

WR 520 001 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Consuelo Wise
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 520 002 WRITING STUDIO

Instructor: Paul Collins
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Texts:

Jane Alison: Meander, Spiral, Explode (‎9781948226134)
Philip Gerard: The Art of Creative Research (9780226179803)
Carmen Maria Machado: In The Dream House (9781644450383)
George Saunders: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (9781984856036)

WR 521 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP FICTION

Instructor: Dao Strom
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

In this graduate-level creative writing workshop course we will explore prose through a hybrid and poetic lens. What happens to prose when it is imbued with a poetic impulse? How might the ways we read and write be altered when we approach language through a hybrid lens? What does “hybrid” mean in literature, and why might we choose to work in such forms? In lieu of conventional fiction forms (such as the novel or short story), in this course we will look at hybrid-literary and experimental forms of writing, including image-text, the lyric essay, ekphrastic writing, mixed-genre and multimodal works, and prose written by poets. This class will utilize reading assignments, discussion, writing exercises, some collaborative exercises, written critiques, and workshop sessions to explore these topics and prompt students to create their own original creative works based on the concepts introduced in the course. As a workshop course, students will be expected to generate original new works of prose or hybrid prose, and to engage actively and constructively with the works of their classmates.

Some readings/authors we will engage with in this course include: Teju Cole, Vi Khi Nao, Douglas Kearney, Jennifer S. Cheng, and others.

WR 522 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP POETRY

Instructor: John Beer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 523 001 MFA CORE WORKSHOP NONFICTION

Instructor: Justin Hocking
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Music Matters: Lyrical Language, Improvisation & The Act of Listening in Nonfiction:

"I know what I’m doing here: I’m improvising. But what’s wrong with that? . . . in jazz they improvise music, jazz in fury, improvising in front of a crowd." –Clarice Lispector, from Água Viva

The word lyric derives from the ancient practice of reciting poetry accompanied by a lyre. Though this course will unfold much like a standard MFA workshop, we will place significant emphasis on exploring possibilities for musical language and acts of improvisation within our prose. The first third of the quarter we’ll read and discuss various lyric essays, consider Pauline Oliveras’ work on Deep Listening, and share some of our favorite music to inspire our in-class generative writing exercises. We’ll also closely examine our own prose at the sentence-level, with an ear for rhythm and melody. The last two thirds of the quarter will be devoted primarily to workshop. (Note: though the course theme & reading list emphasize lyric essays, students are welcome to workshop any style of nonfiction they wish.)

The tentative course reading list includes single essays/excerpts from Clarice Lispector, T Clutch Fleishman, JJ Ellis, Sejal Shah, Carole Maso, Dao Strom, and others.

WR 524 001 GRANT WRITING FOR PROF WRITERS

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

An end goal: Your name on a well-done (even funded? Yeah, it happens!) grant is a great addition to a professional portfolio.

Questions? Just ask THE PROFESSOR: dillont@pdx.edu.

WR 531 001 ADV TOP TECH WRITING TECHNLOGY

Instructor: Chad Kreiger
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 550 001 PORTLAND REVIEW

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

WR 560 001 INTRO TO BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Paige Brayton
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 561 001 BOOK EDITING

Instructor: Katie Van Heest
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 562 001 BOOK DESIGN SOFTWARE

Instructor: Jessica Reed
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 563 001 BOOK MARKETING

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 566 001 DIGITAL SKILLS

Instructor: Elaine Schumacher
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 571 001 TYPOGRAPHY, LAYOUT, PRODUCTION

Instructor: Frances Fragela
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 573 001 DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

Instructor: STAFF
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

WR 574 001 PUBLISHING STUDIO

Instructor: Robyn Crummer
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
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 579 001 RESEARCHING BOOK PUBLISHING

Instructor: Kathi Berens
Instructional Method: In-Person Meeting

Winter 2024 Courses

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Winter 2024: Undergraduate English Courses

ENG 106 001 INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

ENG 204 001 SURVEY OF BRITISH LIT I

ENG 253 001 SURVEY OF AMERICAN LIT I

ENG 300 001 LITERARY FORM AND ANALYSIS

ENG 300 002 LITERARY FORM AND ANALYSIS

ENG 301U 001 TOP: SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY

ENG 304 001 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA

ENG 305U 001 TOP: DAVID LYNCH & FILM NOIR

ENG 305U 002 TOP: MIDCENTURY MODERNIST FILM

ENG 305U 003 TOP: APOCALYPSE CINEMA

ENG 306U 001 TOP: LATINX COMICS

ENG 306U 002 TOP: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL

ENG 313U 001 AMERICAN SHORT STORY

ENG 320U 001 THE ENGLISH NOVEL I

ENG 327 001 CULTURE, IMPER, GLOBALIZATION

ENG 330U 001 JEWISH AND ISRAELI LITERATURE

ENG 333U 001 HST CINEMA/NARRATIVE MEDIA II

ENG 335U 001 TOP: ADAPTING LIT TO FILM

ENG 335U 002 TOP: CONSPIRACY THEORY

ENG 341U 001 RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

ENG 352U 001 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIT II

ENG 367U 001 TOP: GHOSTS & HAUNTINGS

ENG 372U 001 TOP: BODIES, POWER AND PLACES

ENG 372U 002 TOP: GENDER/EXPERIMENTL GOTHIC

ENG 378U 001 AMERICAN POETRY II

ENG 414 001 COMPOSITION THEORY

ENG 428 001 CANONS AND CANONICITY

ENG 429 001 ADV TOP: SCIENCE FICTION

ENG 449 001 ADV TOP TEXTUALITIES OF TRAVEL

ENG 458 001 ADV TOP: ROMANTICISM

ENG 496 001 COMICS THEORY

ENG 498 001 ECOLOGY, CRITICISM, & CULTURE

Winter 2024: Graduate English Courses

ENG 507 001 SEM: THE FIRST FOLIO IN 5 ACTS

ENG 514 001 COMPOSITION THEORY

ENG 518 001 COLLEGE COMP TEACHING

ENG 529 001 ADV TOP: SCIENCE FICTION

ENG 531 001 TOP: COLLOQUIUM

ENG 549 001 ADV TOP TEXTUALITIES OF TRAVEL

ENG 598 001 ECOLOGY, CRITICISM, & CULTURE

Winter 2024: Undergraduate Writing Courses

WR 121Z 001 COMPOSITION I

WR 121Z 002 COMPOSITION I

WR 121Z 003 COMPOSITION I

WR 121Z 004 COMPOSITION I

WR 212 001 INTRO FICTION WRITING

WR 212 002 INTRO FICTION WRITING

WR 212 003 INTRO FICTION WRITING

WR 213 001 INTRO POETRY WRITING

WR 213 002 INTRO POETRY WRITING

WR 214 001 INTRO NONFICTION WRITING

WR 222 001 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

WR 222 002 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

WR 227Z 001 TECHNICAL WRITING

WR 227Z 002 TECHNICAL WRITING

WR 227Z 003 TECHNICAL WRITING

WR 300 001 TOP: PODCASTING

WR 301 001 WIC: CRITICAL WRTING ENGLISH

WR 301 002 WIC: CRITICAL WRITING ENGLISH

WR 312 001 INTERMED FICTION WRITING

WR 312 002 INTERMED FICTION WRITING

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 327 001 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

WR 327 002 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

WR 327 003 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING

WR 394 001 CAREERS FOR ENGLISH MAJORS

WR 398 001 TOP: WRITING COMICS

WR 410 001 TOP: DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY