Special Topics in English
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: MORAL MYSTERIES:
THE FICTION OF WILLIAM TREVOR
Dr. Richard Bonaccorso
Close readings from an extensive selection of William Trevor’s stories
and novels. Published since the late Sixties, Trevor’s realistic portraits
often use concealment and partial apprehension in order to ultimately illuminate
what can be called a moral situation.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: FROM SHERLOCK HOLMES TO 007:DECTECTIVES,SPIES
AND SECRET AGENTS IN FICTION AND FILM
Dr. Jon Hegglund
Investigating both fiction and film, this course will stake out detectives and
spies from the all-knowing Sherlock Holmes to the hard-boiled Sam Spade to the
figure of the suave secret agent in James Bond. Readings will come from the
following witness list: Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Agatha Christie,
Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, Ian Fleming, and perhaps some
other usual suspects. We will also look for clues in several films noirs, including
The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Body Heat, and Blade Runner.
ENG. 288: STUDIES IN LITERATURE: VOYAGE AND DISCOVERY
Mr. Walter Connolly
A study of the written accounts of voyages, explorations, and discoveries—real
and imaginary—from Viking times to the present.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE:THE HERO: FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE RENIASSANCE
Dr. Brian Folker
From the plains of Troy to the mountains of Spain this course will consider
major works of epic and romance. Unifying them all will be the theme of the
warrior hero: the man of excess and violence, love and revenge. Does the hero
inspire us with admiration or fear? What limitations or sanctions are imposed
upon his actions? Are these limitations imposed by society, by God, or simply
by the structure of the Cosmos? Come and meet the men who embraced heroism and
the women who loved (and occasionally killed) them.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: LATINO/LATINA LITERATURE
Richard Blanco
Close readings of contemporary poetry and prose of Latina/Latino authors. We
will examine literary themes and subjects reflective of various Latina/Latino
experiences in the United States, including, the redefining of the American
Dream, Americanization, displacement and marginalization, regional loyalties,
Spanglish, and cultural and religious myths.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: WHERE NO WOMAN HAS GONE BEFORE: WOMEN WRITING
FANTASY, MYSTERY, AND SCIENCE FICTION
Dr. Susan Gilmore
This course will explore women’s contributions to and innovations within
three popular literary genres: fantasy, science fiction, and mystery/detective
fiction. How texts by women working in these genres envision gender, make possible
or limit female heroism and adventure, and replicate or challenge the everyday
conditions of women’s lives will be key questions in this class. We will
read short stories, poetry, and novels by Margaret Atwood, Agatha Christie,
Angela Carter, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Sexton, and
others.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: FUTURE TENSE:SCIENCE FICTION AND VISIONS OF
TOMOTTOW
Mr. Robert Spiegel
Representative works of American science fiction by such writers as: Bear, Bester,
Butler, Dick, Disch, Gibson, Hoban, LeGuin, Russo, Tevis, Sterling and Vonnegut.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: “CHILDHOOD: REMEMBRANCE AND INVENTION”
Mr. Robert Spiegel
A survey of contemporary literature focusing on the experiences of childhood.
Readings will include essays, memoirs, short stories, and novels.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: SCIENCE FICTION: FROM H.G. WELLS TO CYBERPUNK
Mr. Robert Spiegel
Survey of major writers and movements in the development of 20th century science
fiction. Among the writers included are: Ballard, Bester, Burroughs, Clarke,
Dick, Gibson, Hoban, LeGuin, Lem , Tevis, Vonnegut, Wells, and Zamyatin.
ENG. 288 STUDIES IN LITERATURE: CONTEMPORARY FICTION: AN INTERNATIONAL TOUR
Mr. Robert Spiegel
Representative stories and novels from around the world.
ENG. 418 STUDIES IN JOURNALISM: THE PRESS AND HITLER
Mr. Anthony Cannella
An examination of U.S. press coverage of Adolf Hitler and Nazism from 1920 to
the establishment of Israel in 1948. Drawing upon periodicals such as The New
York Times, The New York Post, The Nation and Commonweal, the course will focus
on the debate over how well the press kept the public informed about Hitler,
beginning with the early days of his rise to power. It also will explore relevant
contemporary issues, such as “Holocaust-denial” and Neo-Nazism.
ENG. 418 STUDIES IN JOURNALISM: COVERING ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Ms. Vivian Martin
This course will provide instruction in the writing of arts/entertainment reviews
and longer articles about popular culture. Increasingly, popular culture fuels
discussion in most spheres of life, as illustrated by the extensive news coverage
when “Seinfeld” ended. Readings and lectures will put the rise of
this journalistic emphasis in context. The class also will become familiar with
the First Amendment issues raised by more controversial exhibits and public
art. All students must attend a live professional theatre performance with the
class.
ENG. 418 STUDIES IN JOURNALISM: EDITORIAL CARTOONS
Mr. William Lewis
This course will examine how editorial cartoons in newspapers and magazines
have helped reflect and mold public opinion. Topics will include the history
of modern-day political cartoons and their ancestors in the Revolutionary War
and other eras, an examination of the effect cartoons have had on public policy,
and a look at how a variety of present-day cartoonists from around the world
approach a common topic.
ENG. 418 STUDIES IN JOURNALISM: INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Mr. Joshua Kovner
Students will research and write articles using public records and computer
databases, and learn techniques of in-depth reporting. They also will explore
journalistic ethics and freedom of information law. Investigative reporters
will be guest speakers.
ENG. 430 STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS
AND LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY
Dr. Leyla Zidani-Eroglu
Survey of the world languages with a primary focus on linguistic universals,
which are properties that hold of all languages, and the classification of languages
based on their grammatical characteristics.
ENG 448 STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICAN MYSTICISM
Dr. John Heitner
We shall focus on both the dark and light aspects of mysticism(emphasizing the
light) in such significant American writers as Whitman, Melville, Faulkner,
Lovecraft and John Gardner. Both humanistic and transpersonal psychology will
help us in understanding and applying mystical, meditative, death, out-of-body,
dream, and reincarnation experience.
ENG. 448 STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: WOMEN’S WORK
Dr. Christine Doyle
An examination of the work of American women writers, focusing on writers before
1900.
ENG. 448 STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: LOVE AND TERROR IN THE 20th CENTURY
: DENISE LEVERTOV
Dr. Denise Lynch
Readings in the award-winning poetry, criticism, and autobiographical essays
of the 20th century writer and activist Denise Levertov. This course offers
an opportunity to discuss techniques of "exploratory verse" and to
consider the limits and possibilities of political poetry.
ENG. 449 MAJOR AMERICAN AUTHOR: HAWTHORNE
Dr. Gilbert Gigliotti
This course will examine Hawthorne’s major novels, short stories, and his
relationship to his contemporaries.
ENG. 449 MAJOR AMERICAN AUTHOR: MELVILLE
Dr. John Heitner
Although Herman Melville was an obscure literary figure when he died in 1892,
today he is considered one of the most important writers in American literary
history. We will study the life, principal work, and historical times of Melville,
including some writings by his contemporaries. In addition, we will survey the
critical reception of Melville in his own time up to the present –-in particular,
paying close attention to how literary critics of the twentieth century “rediscovered”
Melville, and analyzing his status in the current theoretical debates over the
American literary canon.
ENG. 449 MAJOR AMERICAN AUTHOR: HEMINGWAY
Dr. Barry Leeds
A close study of the life and works of Ernest Hemingway.
ENG. 449 MAJOR AMERICAN AUTHOR: WHITMAN
Dr. Susan Gilmore
We will explore the prose and poetry of Walt Whitman as well as his persona
and public reception, his political vision, and writers who were influenced
by him.
ENG. 449 MAJOR AMERICAN AUTHOR: FROST
Dr. Richard Bonaccorso
An extensive study of Frost’s poetry. Selected prose. Secondary readings.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: YEATS
Dr. Richard Bonaccorso
Extensive readings of the poetry and selective readings of the prose and drama
of W.B. Yeats. Secondary readings also.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITHISH LITERATURE : JAMES JOYCE
Dr. Richard Bonaccorso
Studies of Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist, and Ulysses. Secondary readings.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: ROMANTIC RENIASSANCE
Dr. Mary Anne Nunn
In this course we will look at the Renaissance epics that influenced and shaped
much of the work of the British Romantics. We will read selections from The
Faerie Queene, as well as the “Shepheardes Calender,” and Paradise
Lost in preparation for studying works by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron,
Shelley, and Keats.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: VIRTUAL CULTURE
Dr. Stuart Barnett
This course will examine the fate of art and culture in the age of mass media.
Some time will be spent considering cultural critics such as Benjamin, Baudrillard,
McLuhan, Jameson, and Taylor in order to establish a theoretical framework for
the notion of virtual culture. Then a variety of cultural artifacts from a host
of media will be examined. Possible topics: Julian Barnes, Steve Reich, Alan
Moore, Cindy Sherman, the Sex Pistols, U2.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: ENGLISH VICES
ENG. 501 SEMINAR IN BRITISH LITERATURE: ENGLISH VICES
Dr. Stuart Barnett
Masochism, masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution, and pre-marital and extra-marital
sex—what would England or its literature be without them? A survey of the
best of the worst of them, ranging from Richardson to the present. That said,
however, the course will not be a thematic exploration. Rather, it will examine
the way in which culture, particularly literary culture, participates in a standardization
and codification of sexuality—that is, its concomitant genitalization and
heterosexualization—and yet requires the transgression of it.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: FOUL, FLIPPANT, AND FLAMBOYANT LANGUAGE
Mr. Donald McDonough
The course involves a close reading of modern Irish and British poets.
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: CONTEMPORARY BRITISH NOVEL
Dr. Wayne Cook
Selections from such authors as Ackroyd, K. Amis, M. Amis, Barnes, Boyd, Burgess,
Byatt, Doyle, Drabble, Fowles, Golding, Greene, Ishiguro, Moore, Murdoch, O’Brien,
Spark, Swift, Trevor, Unsworth, Waugh, A. Wilson, and others
ENG. 458 STUDIES IN BRITISH LITERATURE: DONNE, HEBERT, MARVELL
Dr. Denise Lynch
A close reading of the poetry and selected prose works of three seventeenth-century
“Metaphysical” writers in light of their intellectual and political
milieu. The course will include discussion of the classical and Biblical traditions
influencing the poets.
ENG. 488 ART OF THE STORY
Dr. Richard Bonaccorso
Styles in the deliberately limited fictional form, with reference to British
and European traditions.
ENG. 488 STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE: MYSTICISM IN WORLD LITERATURE
Dr. John Heitner
Our focus is creative essence expressed in and through literary works. We shall
investigate both the dark and light sides of mysticism in works by the Persian
Poet Rumi, William Blake, Herman Hesse, H.P. Lovecraft, and Jorge Luis Borges.
Help in understanding and applying mystical, contemplative, death, out of body,
dream, and reincarnation experience will come from transpersonal and humanistic
psychology.
ENG. 488 STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE: HITCHCOCK Dr. Stuart Barnett
This course will present a broad survey of Hitchcock from his early British
films to his mature work. By means of an intense examination of one director,
this course will explore issues in film theory and criticism as well as semiotics,
gender studies, gay studies and cultural studies. Accordingly, readings relevant
to both Hitchcock and theory will be read in conjunction with the films. One
film will be shown at each meeting. A discussion will follow the screeningENG.
488
ENG. 488 STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE: ROMANTIC
RUSSIA
Dr. Paul Karpuk
An in-depth survey of the Golden Age of Russian literature, the Romantic era
of the first half of the nineteenth century, focusing in particular on the three
great founding fathers of Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov,
and Nikolai Gogol. Among other things, we will read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin,
as well as several prose masterpieces including The Tales of Belkin and his
historical novella "The Captain's Daughter"; Lermontov's A Hero of
Our Time; and Gogol's Petersburg tales as well as Dead Souls.
ENG. 488 STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE: TOLSTOY
Dr. Paul Karpuk
A survey of the life and works of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. We will
read Tolstoy’s two great novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as well
as several short masterpieces including “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”
and “The Kreutzer Sonata.” We will critically analyze the texts, discuss
Tolstoy’s ideas about universal human problems, and examine his works within
their historical and autobiographical context.
ENG. 500 SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICAN
CANON(S)
Dr. Robert Dunne
The American literary canon has been the subject of intense critical debate
for over two decades. Beginning with readings in early and recent theories of
canon-making in American literature, we will grapple with such deceptively simple
terms as “American,” “literary,” and “canon,”
in light of studying such authors as Melville, Faulkner, Cather, Hannah Foster,
Nella Larsen, and others.
ENG. 500 SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: MAILER
AND KESEY
Dr. Barry Leeds
A close reading of the major works of Norman Mailer and Ken Kesey.
ENG. 501 SEMINAR IN BRITISH LITERATURE: ENGLISH
VICES
Dr. Stuart Barnett
Masochism, masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution, and pre-marital and extra-marital
sex—what would England or its literature be without them? A survey of the
best of the worst of them, ranging from Richardson to the present. That said,
however, the course will not be a thematic exploration. Rather, it will examine
the way in which culture, particularly literary culture, participates in a standardization
and codification of sexuality—that is, its concomitant genitalization and
heterosexualization—and yet requires the transgression of it.
ENG. 501 SEMINAR IN BRITISH LITERATURE: BRITISH ROMANTICISM-THE SUBLIME, THE
SENTIMENTAL AND THE SCATOLOGICAL
Dr. Mary Anne Nunn
Critics have argued for generations about the proper way to define the term
"Romantic" when it is applied to British literature of the early 19th
century, but with the recent recovery of the popular and influential poetry
written by women in the period it has become even more of a challenge to make
assertions about British Romanticism with confidence. In a broad range of readings
of both long canonized works and material recently brought to light, we will
explore the meaning of Romanticism and the critical issues raised by its study.
ENG. 530 SPECIAL TOPICS IN LITERATURE: ULYSSES
Dr. Robert Dunne
This course will study the milieu of modernism through an intensive examination
of James Joyce's Ulysses. Selections from A Portrait and Dubliners will serve
as flashbacks during our Bloomsday tour, and varied interpretive strategies
will be explored.