300
Surveys the ideas, images, legends, and verse method that form American poetry from colonial times to the early 20th century. Attention is given to the English and traditional quality of the poetry as well as the desire to forge a new literature based on the sense of America as a unique experiment.
Studies the origins and development of American literature including the study of 16th century Spanish voyages of discovery, colonial Puritanism, and the Civil War period. Emphasis is given to the development of literary forms such as the sermon, the Puritan hagiography, the novel, the short story, and the corresponding evolution of myths of American identity.
Concerns the literary reflections on the cataclysmic events of the American Civil War and its aftermath in modern America. This course examines how the nation's premier writers and poets attempt to define American identity within the crises of the modern world.
Comprises primarily a close study of Dante's masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, though additional readings in his epistles, La Vida Nuova, De Monarchia, and the Convivio might illumine the major work. An understanding of the cultural, political, and theological background of the work is the major goal of the course.
Explores the Romantic ideal in literature as it appeared in various European nations. Dominant themes and forms of the movement are encountered in the works of major romantics and their contemporaries, such as Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, and Heine (Germany); Rousseau, Hugo, and Balzac (France); Foscolo and Leopardi (Italy); and Kierkegaard (Denmark).
Deals with the genre of informational writing found in scientific prose and in business communication. Not only are composition and format skills stressed, but the strategy behind this writing is also studied, especially with the job-packet section (résumé/interview). A foundation of composition knowledge is necessary for this course. Computer-assisted instruction as a tool in the writing process is optional.
Continues with the argumentative process where audience analysis becomes a focus and where the appeal to both logic and emotion is studied and modeled. Students should know composition techniques and should have a command of the research process.Computer-assisted instruction as a tool in the writing process is utilized.
Covers the study of syllogistic/logical strategy, persuasive writing, and the principles involved not only in rhetoric, but also in the rhetorical act. Focus on fallacious argumentation in political and advertising rhetoric alerts students to manipulative techniques. Critical thinking, writing, and speaking skills are the main ingredients of this class. Students need a thorough understanding of research and composition skills before taking this course.
Explores Shakespeare's development as a writer of comedies and historical dramas. By studying plays representative of different phases in Shakespeare's career, students gain an appreciation of his growing mastery over the genre of comedy and historical plays. Attention is given to Shakespeare's development in plotting, characterization, and style from his early plays to the maturity of the high comedies. While this course primarily enables students to deal with the plays as literature, attention is also given to their nature as theatrical productions.
Explores Shakespeare's development as a writer of tragedies and romances. The nature of tragedy is explored as Shakespeare's growing mastery over this genre is traced-from the early, derivative plays to the pinnacle of achievement in this form, and beyond. By studying Shakespeare's romances, students gain an appreciation of his last phase, the period of the tragi-comedies. While this course primarily enables students to deal with the plays as literature, attention is also given to their nature as theatrical productions.
Studies English literature from its beginning to about 1485. Works such as The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, Beowulf, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and Mallory's Le Morte de Arthur will be read in translation. Middle English works will be read in their original forms.
Is designed to meet the needs of students who will teach English on the secondary level or who will continue with graduate studies in English. The study of grammar includes traditional, structural, and transformational terminology and characteristics. The methodology includes sentence expansion, sentence combining, and other classroom teaching strategies. Grammar will be approached as a functional and rhetorical device to the writing process and not in total isolation. Students who register for this course should have some general knowledge of grammar.
Is designed to meet the needs of those students who are working on secondary certification. Since composition theory is part of the high school curriculum, students can concentrate on methods of teaching composition. The nucleus of this course focuses on the stages of the writing process, along with various teaching techniques. Students have the opportunity to simulate a classroom situation where they will present a lesson in composition study so that different methods can be critiqued for their effectiveness.
Affords students the opportunity to appreciate the richness and variety of the Father of English Poetry." Chaucer's writings will be examined as exemplary works of Christian humanism. Working in the poet's own Middle English (itself a rewarding challenge), students experience the moral complexity and timelessness of The Canterbury Tales as well as several lesser-known works such as The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, or Troilus and Cressida."
Provides training and practice in the use of imaginative writing: the short story, poetry, and the one act play, with particular emphasis given to the demands of each genre. Students will read good works, learn the value of risk, language play, precision, and revision as they participate in a workshop approach.
Teaches scansion and other elements of contemporary formal prosody. Students in this course will imitate poetic forms, and in doing so both develop a sense of the relationship between content and reusable forms, and discover the value of surprise and revision. A workshop approach will be employed as they study forms such as sonnet, villanelle, rondeau, sestina, and haiku.
Studies the major literature in English from 1485 to 1650. Particular emphasis will fall on the extraordinary luxuriance of literary works that examine religious and political issues near the end of the reign of Elizabeth I-the period that produced Lyly, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne, Marlowe, and Jonson.
Examines the tendency in the late 16th and early 17th centuries to create a poetry that fused the earthly and the transcendental, the human and the divine. Attention will be given to such poets as Donne, Crashaw, Herbert, Vaughan, Traherne, and Marvell.
This course offers an intensive study of representative films of one of the premier film directors of the 20th century, "Master of Suspense" Alfred Hitchcock. Students will learn to identify Hitchcock's characteristic style and themes, read major film criticism on Hitchcock, and learn how to write about film in composing their own criticism. Particular attention will be given to the Cahiers du Cine'ma school of Hitchcock criticism, which claims a special place for Hitchcock's Catholic sensibilities, notably in terms of the doctrine of Original Sin, and the related cinematic concept of "transference of guilt."
Actually begins in 1660 with the restoration of Charles II to the English throne. Writers in this period actively engaged in the great struggles over religion, politics, and philosophy. Consequently, some of the greatest satires in the English language emerged, typified by the works of John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope. This course emphasizes these writers, but also examines new literary expressions of the period such as Restoration Comedy, the periodical essay, the mock-epic, the biography, and literary criticism.
Provides students with an historical overview of late modernist critical theory and creative work before moving into the postmodern period. There it will show students how serious poets have wrestled with poetic matters of theme and Christian belief. Christian poets studied might begin with people like Allan Tate, Richard Wilbur, and Thomas Merton, and move into the contemporary scene with poets like Kathleen Norris, Les Murray, and Paul Mariani.
Provides students with an historical overview of late modernistic critical theory and creative work before moving into the postmodern period. There it will show students how serious fiction writers have wrestled with technical matters and matters of theme and Christian belief. Fiction writers studied might begin with people like Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Flannery O'Connor, and move into the contemporary scene with writers like Larry Woiwode, Andre Dubus, and Ron Hansen.
Explores the poetic reaction to the so- called "Age of Reason" and the Industrial Revolution, attempting to balance reason with spirit and imagination, and industrialization with a renewed emphasis on nature. The poetry of this period (1798-1832), particularly the works of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, will be read and analyzed.
Is a survey of the literature of England after the Romantics and before the 20th century, the period of Victoria's reign (1837-1901). A study of the nonfiction prose of this period gives the student a background of the major ideas of the period, which tried to yoke the spiritual/creation power of the individual to social forms including the rise of democracy, the advent of evolutionary theory, the waning of religious faith, and experiments with socialism-all of which will offer background to the major poetry of the era.
Concentrates on the revolution in the theater that occurred with the establishment of the so-called "people's theater" in France, in Germany, and in Russia during the late 19th century. By exploring the themes, characterizations, and styles (both literary and theatrical) of playwrights such as Ibsen, Chekov, Strindberg, Shaw, O'Casey, Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Sartre, Beckett, Brecht, and Arthur Miller, students will appreciate the diversity and the difficulty in understanding what is "modern" in modern drama.
Provides an in depth study of representative masterworks of Russian literature. Exploring prose and poetry of spiritual, literary, and political influence, the course traces the interplay of typically Russian elements and European influences. Authors studied may include Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoi, Solzhenitsyn, Mandelstamm, Akhmatova, and others.
Is the study of representative texts from the late 18th through the 20th century, examining how women philosophers and novelists have responded to such issues as the birth of modern feminism, women's place in the public sphere, art and what it means to be a woman artist, and marriage and the family. Authors studied may include Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, and Sigrid Undset.
At least one previous literature course.
Introduces students to the fundamentals of professional editing and proofreading, especially as they pertain to the copyediting of manuscripts written according to The Chicago Manual of Style. Topics include the editorial process, conventions and controversies in editing, and the role of the editor in publishing. Students gain intensive, hands-on practice with the mechanics of both copyediting and proofreading. To these ends, emphasis will be placed on issues pertaining to diction, grammatical usage, and punctuation.