Upper-Level Course Offerings for Spring 2012  

401-01 Special Studies in British Literature  (Could also count as 404 Special Studies in Genre, Literary Criticism and Writing)

“History of the English Language: Freak, fraud, farad, falafel!  Thral, threat, thrill, threnody, theremin!”*
Patricia R. Bart
TTh 6:00-7:15

This course will explore the development of English from a collection of tribal dialects into the most dynamic social phenomenon of the twenty-first century.  The faculty of language is inscribed within human physiology, so we will first consider how we were made for language.  Moreover, the history of a people is inscribed in its language.  Therefore, we will balance study of historical linguistics generally, in the Indo-European context, with an examination of social, religious, literary, scientific, political and economic history as it is inscribed in the English word-hoard.  This will take us from the prehistoric association of lords and ladies with the kneading and protection of bread all the way to the invention of rigorous scientific nomenclatures and infuriating political spin.  Students will become familiar with the tools and methods of historical linguistics, and with the ways and means of studying literary and non-literary documents from the perspective of language itself. Throughout the term, we will use one of the classic “HEL” textbooks as a stepping off point, but we will also ground our study in selected passages of writing in English—whether it is English writing, or writing in English by someone else entirely.

Standard graded writing and assessment: term paper and final examination.

Prerequisites: ENG 310, or ENG 320, or ENG 330, or permission of the instructor.

* Henry Fitz Empress, Geoffrey Chaucer, Bartolomaeus Anglicus, William Shakespeare, Neil Armstrong, Elvis.  Wifman, werman, chairman, Man and Superman.  Osama/Usama, Khadaffi/Ghadaffi/Qadaffi.  Moslem/Muslim, Peking/Beijing, Ceylon/Sri Lanka, Bombay/Mumbai.  Weird, nice, blond, churlish, pencil.  Parsi, Farsi, Paradise, jungle, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, dinner jacket.  Shall, she, shampoo, Shangri-la, shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo.  Regime change, police action, insurgency, terrorism, incursion, invasion, War Department, Department of Defense.  DoD, OSS, MI6, CIA, FBI, NSA, FEMA, U.N.C.L.E., C.H.A.O.S.  XML, DTD, CSS, WWW. 007, .223, 9mil, 16d, 45, 33lp, 2000ppi, 1080p, 4G.  LCpl, Spec, Adm (ret.), KCBE, Bart., Ph.D., MBA, Mrs., Esq., M.D., D.O.  Croissant, crescent roll, scone/scone, tomato/tomato. Clique, gang, threat, Viking, pirate, privateer.  Wassail!  Skoal!  L’chaim!  Hasta la vista, baby!

401-02: Special Studies in British Literature

“Jane Austen and Moral Education”
Dr. Lorraine Eadie
TTh 2:30-3:45

Jane Austen was acutely conscious that her narrative fiction emerged against a background of debate regarding the moral quality of the English novel. By devoting herself to crafting works in that genre Austen not only positions herself within a literary tradition; she lends her voice to a moral debate. In this seminar we will consider how Austen’s novels participate in that debate at several levels: by modeling what fiction should be and should do (how and to what extent it ought to instruct readers); by scrutinizing moral attitudes and habits of thought through the lens of a subtle (or sometimes not-so-subtle) satire; and by holding up examples of fallible young men and young women who illustrate the process of moral education. Our reading and discussion of Austen’s works in their various contexts will center on questions such as the following: How does Austen’s selection of narrative techniques reflect a distinctive sense of the novel’s purpose and value? Are her satiric representations gentle and affirming (as the novel’s conclusions might suggest), or does the vein of satire run deeper, imparting a bitter tone and perhaps inviting us to question the likelihood of such “happily ever after” endings? And what are the essential elements of the moral education her protagonists experience? Does Austen’s delineation of character have a limited and superficial quality (as Charlotte Brontë would have it) or does she manage to portray serious conflicts in a world of emotional restraint? Through our reading of the novels and contextual research, we will set out to discover and evaluate the ways in which Austen’s portrayal of moral education engages with the serious questions about women and men, morality and novel reading that circulated around her.

We will read all six of Austen’s finished novels as well as selections from her juvenilia and Sanditon, the novel left incomplete at her death in 1817. We may also view selected film versions of the novels (in whole or in part) to consider how our own culture confronts Austen’s moral vision.

The course will be conducted in seminar style; students will at times be responsible for leading discussions based on secondary research and will present seminar papers to the class at the end of the semester.

Prerequisite: ENG 330.

Texts:

Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon, ed. James Kinsley and John Davie, Oxford World’s Classics, 2003. ISBN: 978-0199535545.

Sense and Sensibility. Ed. Claudia L. Johnson, Norton Critical Edition, 2001. ISBN: 978-0393977516.

Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald L. Gray, Norton Critical Edition (3rd ed.), 2000. ISBN: 978-0393976045.

Mansfield Park. Ed. Claudia L. Johnson, Norton Critical Edition, 1998. ISBN: 978-0393967913.

Emma. Ed. George Justice, Norton Critical Edition (4th ed.), 2011. ISBN: 978-0393927641.

Persuasion. Ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks, Norton Critical Edition, 1994. ISBN: 978-0393960181.

401-03 Special Studies in British Literature

“Victorian Poetry and Poetics”
Dr. Dwight Lindley
TTh 2:30-3:45

In this course, we will study six of the great Victorian poets with the care their craft deserves, working our way up from the ground level of poetic form to the upper flights of synthetic imagination. We will begin the semester with a general study of meter, verse-form, figures, and tropes, for the sake of paying particular attention to the technical aspects of prosody and rhetoric that were the finely-wrought tools of these poets’ trade. What C.S. Lewis wrote of the Early Modern poets is in some degree also true of the great Victorians: “The ‘beauties’ which they chiefly regarded in every composition”—its formal poetic and rhetorical aspects—“were those which we either dislike or simply do not notice. This change of taste makes an invisible wall between us and them.” It follows that, if we can surmount this wall by developing a fluent sense of poetic form, we will stand a much better chance of understanding the Victorians as they understood themselves. In addition to our close study of their poetry, we will discuss the Victorians’ most important contributions to poetics in general, relating the development of theory to the age’s dominant cultural, theological, and philosophic concerns. Grades will consist of an assortment of small assignments dealing with prosody, as well as a midterm, a final, and a major essay.

Pre-requisite: ENG 340, or permission from the instructor.

Reading List:

Adams, Stephen. Poetic Designs: An Introduction to Meters, Verse Forms, and Figures of Speech. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview, 1997. ISBN 978-1551111292.

Arnold, Matthew. Selected Poems. Ed. E.K. Brown. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2011.  ISBN 978-0882950075.

Browning, Robert. Robert Browning’s Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks & Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Ed. New York: Norton, 2007.  ISBN 978-0393926002.

Hardy, Thomas. Selected Poetry. Ed Samuel Hynes. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.  ISBN 978-0199538508.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. The Major Works. Ed. Catherine Phillips. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.  ISBN 978-0199538850.

Rossetti, Christina. Poems and Prose. Ed. Simon Humphries. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.  ISBN 978-0192807151.

Tennyson, Alfred. Tennyson’s Poetry. Ed. Robert W. Hill, Jr. New York: Norton, 1999.  ISBN 978-0393972795.

402-01 Special Studies in American Literature

“The Novels of William Faulkner”
Dr. John Somerville
MW 2:00-3:15

And they appeared, the several of them, indomitable, believing still in the old verities, callow perhaps, yet steeped in the old wisdom of a world for them hardly real, a world past but not dead, not even past, always born anew in the heart of every man.  And there they took them up, the books, each from the veritable dust and afire with life and sorrow and truth and loveliness, each in its place a witness to the vast spectacle of human experience: Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, Go Down, Moses, The Hamlet, Light in August, Sanctuary, The Sound and the Fury, The Unvanquished.  And there, in the reading, in the rich colloquy, in the gathering in and the story, they found themselves translated, not from that to this, not in the old crude quotidian dream of the mourner’s bench, but as light made new moment by moment, multitudinous, soul mind flesh all, made whole.

This course will be a semester-long seminar on eight of the major novels of William Faulkner.  Those novels are Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, Go Down, Moses, The Hamlet, Light in August, Sanctuary, The Sound and the Fury, The Unvanquished.

Prerequisite: Permission of Instructor.

402-02 Special Studies in American Literature

“The Southern Agrarians and Wendell Berry”
Dr. Michael M. Jordan
MWF 11:00-11:50

This course will examine the Southern Agrarians and Wendell Berry, the greatest and most influential agrarian spokesman in our time.  We will focus on three features of the Southern Agrarians: their early verse as Fugitive poets (1915-1928); their essays, verse, and fiction as Southern Agrarians (1930-1940); and their critical essays and principles as “New Critics” (the 1940s and beyond).  Then we will take up some of the verse, essays and fiction of Wendell Berry. 

Texts for the course will include the following:

The Fugitive Poets: Modern Southern Poetry in Perspective, Ed. William Pratt.
I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition, by Twelve Southerners.
The Southern Critics: An Anthology, Ed. Glenn C. Arbery.
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, Ed. Norman Wirzba.
The Memory of Old Jack, by Wendell Berry.
Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry.
Remembering, by Wendell Berry.

In this seminar course, students will lead some discussions based upon our readings and their secondary research.  They will also present a seminar paper to the class.

403-01 Special Studies in Western Literature (Could also count as 404: Special Studies in Genre, Literary Criticism and Writing)

“Philosophy and Literature, Existence and Personhood”
Dr. Justin Jackson
M 6:00-9:00

“Alone, none of us can save himself or herself; we’re linked together inextricably”—this haunting line permeates the banal living space of Sartre’s existential hell in No Exit and eventually leads the reader to Sartre’s most famous line: “L’enfer c’est les autres.” (“Hell is other people”).  In this course, students will be introduced to literary and philosophical figures commonly associated with existentialism and phenomenology.  Authors will include Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Martin Buber, Sartre, Camus, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Christos Yannaras, and John Zizioulas.  Coming from different backgrounds—atheist, Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox—these authors share a healthy doubt regarding western metaphysics and a strong desire to assert that, first and foremost, man is a creature defined by his freedom, even if it means that he is “condemned to be free.”  Above all, these writers, each in his own way, point to a lived philosophy founded upon human relationships that can either imprison us in this existence, thus making it a hell, or can perhaps rupture the very horizon of existence itself, thus ushering into the finite world a moment of the Infinite.  And then, of course, there is God; there is always God.  But for these authors any question of God ought to resist the temptation of metaphysics—unless one simply desires to join the funeral march following the death of God—for He too is question of experience, of relationship, of love and of suffering. All of these authors, then, continue to ask the same difficult questions one finds in Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, The Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, Augustine, Dante, and Shakespeare, but they ask them differently and arrive at different answers (even amongst themselves).  Disparate in their beliefs and in their visions of man, nevertheless, they all preach, even the most ardent atheist, a difficult freedom, “a religion for adults.”

Requirements: Seminar paper (23+ pages); final exam; exam on The Brothers Karamazov on the first night of class; participation on a message board.

Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

403-02 Special Studies in Western Literature

“The Fire and the Rose: Dante’s Divine Comedy”
Dr. Stephen Smith
MWF 10:00-11:50

The course will focus on making a close, canto-by-canto reading of Dante’s Comedy. We will consider other texts, classical and biblical, as they bear on Dante’s poem.

Main Course Texts
Dante, Inferno.
Dante, Purgatorio.
Dante, Paradiso.

Other Texts
Dante, Vita Nuova.
Dante, Convivio.
Dante, De Monarchia.
Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia.
Dante, "Letter to Can Grande."

Aquinas, Summa Theologica (selections).
Augustine, Confessions (selections).
Bernard of Clairvaux (selections).
Bible (selections).
Bonaventura (selections).
Ovid, Metamorphoses (selections).
Virgil, Aeneid (selections).
Virgil, Eclogues (selections).
Virgil, Georgics (selections, especially the myth of Orpheus).

“If you do try to read it, I think the great point is to give up any idea of reading it in long stretches... instead, read a small daily portion.”
--CSL on Dante

404-03 Special Studies in Genre, Literary Criticism and Writing (Could also count as 403: Special Studies in Western Literature)

“That Forlorn Demon: The Dimensions of the Literary Imagination”
Dr. Daniel Sundahl
MWF 10:00-10:50

I note from a recent course that when I used the term "religious imagination," students wished the term to own a literary definition.  If the term could own a literary definition, or so went the argument, one could enclose any number of works within the limits of that definition and pass judgment on those works enclosed within the boundaries of that judgment.  I remarked that might lead to the great literary sin of smugness.

I remarked further that such tendencies toward literary hygiene are well within a formalistic point of view but tend toward superficiality; readers possess a definition that passes as a formal "prescription," but the result is often disappointing: Genre deference, as it were, to be blamed on Aristotle, who dissects sacred and reverenced literary genres without doing justice to the imagination that unleashed the genre in the first place.

And so the imagination, that forlorn demon.

I should run to the dictionary for a definition but I suspect there would be an endless chain of references with meaning deferred: imagination, see imagine, imagine, see image, and so on.  And then, too, down through the chain of events in our critical theory history there are many who tended to think of the imagination as a single faculty or power of the mind, although it is more likely there are a variety of mental activities that are imaginative.

Truth is, then, that I have an evil plan or scheme here: What are the imagination's affinities or activities?  Multitudes of dimensions, of course, as we would be quick and wise to remark over the semester's term.  For purposes of pre-registration though, some romanized numerals follow, indicating topics which will never thoroughly immerse us in the argument but might help.

It's important to note, furthermore, that I'm listing this course under two categories.  Listing the course under English 403 is self-explanatory given the diverse readings.  I'm listing the course under English 404 because the topical survey is also theoretical, surveys traditional genres, and may include some creative writing.

Students:   The following itemized reading list is partially complete.  (The highlighted areas are more or less complete but I'm still cogitating.)  It will be complete by the end of the semester but for purposes of pre-registration this general outline was necessary.   There will be certain texts eventually in the bookstore; others, obviously, will be duplicated handouts.  More on that, too, by semester's end.

I. Imaginative Cosmogonies, The Infinite, The Endless, The Dream:  Genesis 1-11,  Plato's Parmenides, Virgil's Eclogues, Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," Keats' "To Autumn," Frost's "Build Soil."

II. The Imagination and Time: Genesis 12ff, Aristotle, Physics (selections), The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, Giovanni Pascoli's "Last Voyage" in his Selected Poems, Eliot's Four Quartets.

III. The Imagination and the World, The Definite, The Finite, The Pasteboard Mask, The World of the Moral Fable: Kafka's The Trial, Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

IV. The Analogical Imagination:

 A. The Search for Man, Part One:  Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, The Old Testament Book of Job, Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Shelley's  Prometheus Unbound, Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, Marx's Communist Manifesto.

 B. The Search for Man, Part Two:  Sophocles' Antigone, The New Testament Gospels, Silone's Bread and Wine, Malraux's Man's Fate, and Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ.

 C. The Search for Man, Part Three: Aristophanes' Frogs, Plautus' The  Prisoners, Beckett's Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Pinter's The Birthday Party.

V. The Religious and Christian Imagination:  Aristotle's On the Soul (selections), The Essential Plotinus, Longinus' On the Sublime, Eco's "The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas," Newman's Grammar of Assent (selections), Mauriac's "Young Man in Chains."

404-01 Special Studies in Genre, Literary Criticism and Writing (Cross-listed under Journalism 314)

“Advanced Writing"
Mr. John Miller
TTh 11:00-12:15

Permission of instructor required.

This course is for good writers who want to become great writers. We will read examples of excellent writing, both old and new, but primarily we will produce and examine our own work. Expect regular writing assignments and come prepared to give and receive constructive criticism. The instructor is Dow Journalism Program director John J. Miller, who is also national correspondent for National Review.