Spring 2012 Courses: 4000-Level

ENG 4023.001: Romanticism

Instructor: Karen Dodwell
Class Time: TR 11:00 - 12:15 p.m.
Class Location: MB 0.224

Course Description
The course focuses on major writers of the Romantic era in British literature (late 1700s through mid 1800s). Students will read a variety of texts and learn the basic characteristics of Romantic writing as well as study contemporary critical perspectives.

The course is writing intensive, and students are required to develop a substantial research project that results in a formal term paper.

Examples of topics in Romanticism students might research include the following: nature writing, imaginative excursions, fiery prophetic visions, literal journeys, the Byronic hero, journal writing, historical contexts such as the French Revolution and the abolition of slavery, the picturesque, the sublime, the dark and even pathological side of the imagination, the Gothic.

Course Texts

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. Eighth Edition. Paperback, Volume(s): D, Stephen Greenblatt- editor, December 2005 , ISBN 978-0-393-92720-7 , 6 × 9.2 in / 1104 pages , Volume(s): D / The Romantic Period.
The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Stuart Curran, editor. Cambridge University Press. 2nd edition (August 23, 2010) ISBN-10: 0521136059 ISBN-13: 978-0521136051 Paperback
Mansfield Park: Norton Critical Edition. Jane Austen, author. Claudia Johnson, editor. W W Norton. January 1998 ISBN 978-0-393-96791-3 Paperback

Requirements
Three tests, including final exam; two short papers and a term paper; journal writing, online quizzes.

ENG 4053.001: Modern British and American Poetry

Instructor: Wendy Barker
Class Time: W 5:30 - 8:15 p.m.
Class Location: MH 2.01.30

Course Description
Just as many say we have undergone a paradigm shift since 9/11, inhabitants of Western Europe and the United States experienced a radical shift in consciousness during the early years of the twentieth century. We will explore elements of that cultural, psychological, intellectual, and artistic shift by studying the poems of Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Owen, H.D., Lawrence, Hughes, Frost, Williams, and Stevens. What were these poets reacting against and reacting to? What kind of poetry were they trying to create and why? Why, we will also ask, was poetry so crucial to them during this literary period we still call “modern”?

Our class time will focus on close readings and will involve much discussion. Students will complete weekly responses to the readings, as well as a mid-term, final exam and two essays.

Course Texts

Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volume 1, Ramazani, Ellmann, and O’Clair, eds., 2003.
Dictionary of Poetic Terms, Myers and Wukasch, eds., 2003.

ENG 4113: Shakespeare's England and Italy

Instructor: Bernadette Andrea
Class Time: M-R 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., January 17 - February 9, 2012 (4 weeks)
Class Location: University of Urbino, Italy

Course Description
This course will examine the English fascination – and even obsession – with Italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This period, known as the Renaissance, was inspired by Italian innovations in art, literature, politics, and science from the fifteenth century onwards. Starting in the sixteenth century, English men (and some women) traveled to Italy, bringing its Renaissance themes and forms back home to infuse the literature of Shakespeare’s era. Roughly at the same time, one of the most influential treatises of the Italian Renaissance, Baldassar Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, was translated into English as The Book of the Courtier. Set in the court of Urbino, it profoundly influenced Renaissance modes of politics, and informed – sometimes through parody – the theater of Shakespeare’s day. Beginning with narratives from early modern English travelers and with a close reading of Castiglione’s The Courtier, we will turn to a range of English dramas focusing on Italy: from Shakespeare and his contemporaries to the first Englishwoman playwright for the public stage, Aphra Behn. Italy in the English plays we will study is often no more than a projection of English desires and fears regarding gender relations, sexuality, religion, and politics. But it is more than that: Italy as Renaissance England’s “near” other was compelling as a model and a foil. Our engagement with these plays will be enriched by the setting of our class in Urbino, the site of The Courtier, and by possible trips to Verona and Venice (settings for Shakespeare’s Italianate plays). This course is crosslisted as ENG 3223 or 3233 (Shakespeare), ENG 4113 (Renaissance), HUM 3033 (Renaissance Humanities), and HON 3233 (Honors Seminar). Undergraduate students may enroll in one of these sections for credit. Additional sections may be added for graduate students who are interested in the course.

Course Outline

Week One: English Travelers in Renaissance Italy
Andrew Hadfield, ed. Amazons, Savages, and Machiavels: Travel and Colonial Writing in English, 1550-1630: An Anthology (Oxford University Press, 2001). [We will focus on selections in Part 1, “Motives for Travellers and Instructions
Week Two: Urbino in England
The Book of the Courtier, ed. Daniel Javitch and Charles S. Singleton (Norton Critical Edition, 2002). [This edition is required, as we will be reading the critical essays along with the primary text.]
Week Three: Shakespeare’s Italian Plays [Any scholarly edition of these plays is acceptable.]
- Two Gentleman of Verona (1594)
- The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1595-96) [Verona]
- The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice (1596-97)
- The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice (1604)
Week Four: Seventeenth-Century English Drama in Italy [Any scholarly edition of these plays is acceptable.]
- Ben Jonson, Volpone, or the Fox. A Comedy (1605) [Venice]
- John Webster, The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi (1623) [Almalfi]
- Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677) [Naples]

Students are encouraged to read as many of these plays as possible in advance of the course.

Assignments for the class will consist of regular in-class writing on the required reading for the day, short response papers at the end of each week, and a final research paper due after the end of the course. These assignments will build on each other, with students receiving extensive feedback from me. Class participation will weigh into the final grade.

Optional Background Texts (e-resources from UTSA Library)

D’Amico, Jack. Shakespeare and Italy. Tampa: University of Florida Press, 2001.
Redmond, Michael J. Shakespeare, Politics, and Italy Intertextuality on the Jacobean Stage. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
Marrapodi, Michele. Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories: Anglo-Italian Transactions. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011.
Tosi, Laura, and Shaul Bassi. Visions of Venice in Shakespeare. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011.

ENG 4523.001 Creative Writing: Advanced Fiction Hybrid Workshop

Instructor: Catherine Kasper
Class Time: W 2:00 - 4:45 p.m.
Class Location: MH 3.02.32

Course Description
This course assumes the student has previous experience writing the short story and has taken an introductory university-level course in creative writing, such as English 2323 or 2333, 3423, or an approved equivalent. Students will have the opportunity to discuss relevant works of fiction in an online and classroom forum, and to engage in a number of writing exercises employed to generate ideas and improve writing through extended practice. Revision being crucial to writing improvement, students will be required to turn in substantial revisions of their work. Students must be open to traditional and experimental writing, and to learning more about genre, and to improving their work through participation in the hybrid class form. Students are required to have regular access to computers that support UTSA’s Blackboard system, to be responsible for maintaining communication online, as well as attending the traditional classroom meetings. All students are required to adhere to the UTSA Blackboard and Creative Writing Workshop codes of conduct in all their work.

To be considered for enrollment for this course, please contact the professor by email (catherine.kasper@utsa.edu). Students must meet the prerequisite and will be asked to submit a writing portfolio via email for consideration for approval to enroll.

Requirements
Class participation (which means regular attendance and informed discussion are a crucial part of your grade), in-class and online writing, writing prompt assignments including short stories and a significant revision of one short story, reading response papers, clearly written and typed critiques of all your classmates’ workshopped pieces, oral and written presentations, and attendance of one literary outside event. All homework assignments must be typewritten/word processed.

Course Texts
The following texts are required for this course (that is, you must obtain a copy of each text, and you must bring these texts to each class in which we discuss them):

Steven Millhauser, The Barnum Museum, Dalkey Archive Press, 2007, paperback [1564781798]
Joanna Scott, Various Antidotes, Picador, 2005, paperback [031242387X]

Recommended texts/suggested reading:

Strunk/White/Kalman, The Elements of Style, Penguin Press, 2005, [1-59420-069-6]

ENG 4533.001: Advanced Creative Writing - Poetry Workshop

Instructor: David Ray Vance
Class Time: T 2:00 - 4:45 p.m.
Class Location: MH 3.03.12

Course Description
This course offers students opportunity to further their study of the art of writing poetry. Because learning to read critically is crucial to developing as a writer, much of our class time will be devoted to discussing poems and essays on poetics by various contemporary poets. Students will be expected to produce at least one substantial, analytical essay intended to deepen and clarify their understanding of a specific poet’s work. Additionally, students will be expected to regularly submit their own poems to the class (up to one a week) and to critically engage their peers’ poems both in writing and in class discussion. Students are expected to submit revisions of their poems that take into account the suggestions they received by way of the workshop. Attendance is mandatory.

Instructor approval is required for admission to this course (and for all intermediate and advanced undergraduate creative writing workshops). To apply, please e-mail the instructor at david.vance@utsa.edu. Include a brief overview of your previous creative writing workshop experiences (the classes you’ve taken and what you learned from them) as well as a brief statement of your personal goals for this class. Be sure to include your student id#. In addition, please provide a 5 page writing sample (preferably poetry, but prose is acceptable) as an attachment in either rtf., pdf., or .doc formats.

ENG 4613.001: Topics in Mexican-American Literature: Autobiography and Life Story

Instructor: Norma E. Cantú
Class Time: R 2:00 - 4:45 p.m.
Class Location: MB 1.204

Course Description
Critical study of a topic in Mexican American literature: author, genre or theme. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. The class will explore the various genres of life writing--memoir, autobiography, autoethnography, testimonio, etc.—by Chican@ authors, and the critical theories of narrative and of life story writing.

Possible Extra Credit: Attendance at an extra-credit event earns .5 points. Maximum 3 points added to the final computed grade.

Course Texts
Required Readings:

Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera
Baca, A Place to Stand
Cantú, Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera
Mendez, Las Hijas de Juan
Moraga, Loving in the War Years
Santos, Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
Treviño Hart, Barefoot Heart
Intro and selections from Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios

Students will select ONE other text from the following and participate in a reading group:

Galarza ,Barrio Boy
Rodríguez, Hunger of Memory
Ponce, Hoyt Street
Mora, House of Houses
Tywoniak and Garcia, Migrant Daughter
Rios, Capirotada
Chavez, Taco Testimony
Sánchez, My Spanish Speaking Left Foot
Lopez-Stafford, A Place in El Paso
Villegas de Magnon, La Rebelde

Requirements
3 personal autobiographical essays (short 1-2 pages), 9 reaction papers (1 page), critical essay, digital story, presentation and book report, attendence and participation

ENG 4713.001: Topics in African-American Literature: African American Women Writers: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Instructor: Joycelyn Moody
Class Time: TR 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Class Location: MB 1.22

Course Description
This course is an exhaustive single-author study of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 24, 1825, Harper lived through most of the nineteenth century, and after witnessing the worst years of US slavery as well as its alleged erasure, she died on February 22, 1911, at age 86. During her life, Harper was one of the most prominent and prolific of 19th-century African American women writers, making use of every literary genre, especially fiction and poetry. In addition, she was an abolitionist, temperance activist, educator, orator, suffragist, and Race Woman. We will read all of her major literary works in relation to her social activism and professional journalism, paying particular attention to her evolving constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic class.

Course Texts

Iola Leroy (Penguin ed., ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Hollis Robbins) ISBN-10: 014310604X and ISBN-13: 978-0143106043
Minnie’s Sacrifice; Sowing and Reaping; Trial and Triumph (Beacon ed., introduction by Frances Smith Foster) ISBN-10: 0807062332 and ISBN-13: 978-0807062333
Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E. W. Harper, 1825-1911, by Melba Joyce Boyd (Wayne State UP) ISBN-10: 0814324894 and ISBN-13: 978-0814324899
A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader, ed. Frances Smith Foster. (Feminist Press) ISBN-10: 1558610200 and ISBN-13: 978-1558610200
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 3rd ed. ISBN-10: 0199208271 and ISBN-13: 978-0199208272

Requirements

Archival research paper project on Harper, her literary and activist production, and her reception by the US public
Weekly quizzes
Midterm and final exams
Close reading argumentative essay

ENG 4933: Internship

Instructor: Maia Adamina

Course Description
Whether a student’s interest is in the field of editing, publishing, print or broadcast journalism, technical writing, media, grant, or creative writing, ENG 4933 is designed to help him or her gain real-world experience and translate skills learned in a classroom into marketable assets. Additionally, students who complete internships can develop contacts and apply new skills in a hands-on environment.

Students must apply for entry into ENG 4933 and are responsible for securing their internship by the first day of the term.

Requirements
Three meetings with Internship Coordinator (start, middle, and end of term); professional, detailed, and well-organized weekly Blackboard blog; signed time-sheets (at least 150 hours at the host site); professional and well-organized portfolio; evaluation from internship supervisor

ENG 4953.002:P Sp. Topics: Queer Studies

Instructor: Megan Sibbett
Class Time: TR 4:00 - 5:15 p.m.
Class Location: Main Campus

Course Description
This interdisciplinary course introduces students to the academic fields and debates within Queer Studies and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) Studies. The central focus is to examine, theorize, challenge, critique, and destabilize normative conceptualizations and representations of gender and sexuality. We will concentrate on different aspects of queer studies including history, queer theory and scholarship, popular culture, media, and literature. Specifically we will complicate notions of queer identity through intersections of race, class, gender, and globalization.

Course Texts

Meem, Gibson, and Alexander’s Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies
Nikki Sullivan’s A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory
The majority of the other readings will be posted on Blackboard

Requirements
Multi-media project, Essays, Annotated Bibliography, Class Presentations, On-line Postings

ENG 4973.001: Senior Seminar: Mexican-American Literature

Instructor: Norma Cantú
Class Time: M 5:30 - 8:15 p.m.
Class Location: MH 3.03.12

Course Description
Seminar for English Majors (3-0) 3 hours credit. Prerequisites: 12 upper-division semester credit hours in English or the equivalent. This undergraduate seminar, limited to English majors in their senior year, offers the opportunity to study a genre, author or period in English or American literature. Content varies with each instructor. May be repeated once for credit when topics vary. (UTSA Undergraduate Catalog)

Conceptual Framework: Since 1848, the border between the US and Mexico has posed a cultural enigma. Initially, it meant shifts in language use for official documents and a military presence as well as an influx of settlers from the north, the United States of America. Culturally, as Daniel Arreola asserts, the region is a zone set apart from the US and from Mexico. The literature of the people inhabiting this area reflects the diverse and complex society that has evolved over a period that spans over 150 years. The novels and films we will explore present the border reality from distinct subject positions of Mexico and the U.S. Initially we will use historical and thematic approaches as we read the texts; we will conclude our discussions with a postmodern approach that blends cultural studies as well as literary and film analysis rooted in semiotics and postcolonial approaches.

Course Texts
We will read texts that explore the history and condition of borderlands culture. Listed texts will be read by everyone; students will choose ONE other text from a list provided by the instructor for a Book Report/presentation. We will also watch 4 films: Señorita Extraviada, A Touch of Evil, Lone Star, and The Garden of Eden OR Under the Same Moon.

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands la frontera/The New Mestiza
Américo Paredes, George Washington Gómez
Emma Perez, Forgetting the Alamo
Ana Castillo, The Guardians
Benjamin Alire Saenz, In Perfect Light
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Desert Blood
Norma E. Cantú, Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera
Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains

Requirements
Formal paper(s), 3 short informal papers, presentation/book report, final exam, midterm exam, quizzes, minutes

ENG 4973.002: Senior Seminar: The Wire

Instructor: Bonnie Lyons
Class Time: W 2:00 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
Class Location: MH 2.02.22

Course Description
Students will watch all 60 episodes of this extraordinary HBO series at home or in the library. In class we’ll discuss “the best TV show ever broadcast in America” in depth as a powerful work of social criticism as well as a work of art (what the creator called a “paperless novel").

Cross-listed with HON 3233.003

Course Texts

The Wire: Truth Be Told, Rafael Alvarez
The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, Tiffany Potter and C.W.Marshall

Requirements

Perfect attendance and class participation are expected.
Weekly response papers
5 (3-8) page papers-- one per season
15 page seminar paper
One oral presentation

ENG 4973.003: Senior Seminar: The Literature of King Arthur

Instructor: Mark Allen
Class Time: M 2:00 - 4:45 p.m.
Class Location: MH 3.02.32

Course Description
King Arthur, Lancelot and Guenivere, the Quest of the Holy Grail, the Round Table, the Isle of Avalon, the sword in the stone. Arthurian literature includes most of the major romance motifs of Western literary traditions. Students will have opportunities to trace the roots of these motifs in ancient Celtic poetry to their flowering in the Middle Ages and their development through the centuries to modern re-tellings, exploring how such motifs adapt to cultural and historical changes. As a series of connected stories told and retold for some 1500 years, the literature of King Arthur allows us to observe how, through time, individual writers have shaped these stories aesthetically and thematically, and how English and American societies have received them.

Course Texts

Lewis, C. S. That Hideous Strength. Simon and Schuster, 2003
Matarossa, P.M.. trans. The Quest of the Holy Grail. Penguin, 1969.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord. Idylls of the King. Dover, 2003.
White, T. H. The Once and Future King. Penguin (Ace), 1987.
Wilhelm, James, ed. The Romance of Arthur: An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation. Garland, 1994.

Requirements
Assigned readings, regular quizzes, in-class report, critical notebook, semester paper

ENG 4973.004: Horror Text & Theory

Instructor: Kinitra Brooks
Class Time: R 5:30 - 8:15 p.m.
Class Location: MH 3.02.32

Course Description
This course will examine the construction of horror over the past (almost) 200 years. We will begin our exploration with Mary Shelly’s early 19th century text, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus and move forward to the postmodern horror film, such as George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Robert Kirkman’s ongoing horror comic series, The Walking Dead. We will begin our theoretical studies with Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror and continue to theoretically examine how horror studies exposes pointed intersections of gender, class, and critical race studies.

Course Texts
Novels and Short Stories

Various Stories, Edgar Allen Poe
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, H.P. Lovecraft
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Salem’s Lot, Stephen King
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman

Theory

The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart, Noël Carroll
Black Frankenstein, Elizabeth Young
The Horror Film, Peter Hutchings
Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Carol J. Clover
Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture, Annalee Newitz

Film

Nosferatu (1922), dir. F.W. Murnau
Psycho (1960), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Night of the Living Dead (1968), dir. George Romero
The Exorcist (1973), dir. William Friedkin
Sugar Hill (1974), dir. Paul Maslansky
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), dir. Tobe Hooper
Halloween (1978), dir. John Carpenter
I Spit on Your Grave (1978), dir. Meir Zarchi
Aliens (1986), dir. James Cameron

ENG 4973.006: Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Sandra Cisneros and Third Space Feminist Theories

Instructor: Sonia Saldivar-Hull
Class Time: R 2:00 - 4:45 p.m.
Class Location: MB 1.102

Course Description
This seminar will center on three Chicana feminist writers whose texts have established contemporary Chicana feminist theories. We will read This Bridge Called My Back in order to identify early articulation multiple U.S. women of color feminist theories. Students will also study critical essays that elaborate and challenge those theories as well as additional essays, poetry, drama, and fiction by Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Sandra Cisneros.

The course builds on a preliminary knowledge of Chicana literature and/or feminist theory.

Required Texts

Gloria Anzaldúa & Cherríe Moraga, eds. This Bridge Called My Back
Gloria Anzaldúa: Borderlands/la frontera,
The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader
Interviews/Entrevistas
Cherrie Moraga: Loving in the War Years
     The Last Generation
     Waiting in the Wings
     Heroes and Saints and Other Plays
     A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness
Sandra Cisneros: The House on Mango Street
     My Wicked, Wicked Ways
     Loose Woman
     Caramelo

Requirements
Attendence and participation, weekly position papers, oral presentation, two essays

ENG 4973.009: Shakespeare's England and Italy

Instructor: Bernadette Andrea
Class Time: M-R 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., January 17 - February 9, 2012 (4 weeks)
Class Location: University of Urbino, Italy

Course Outline

Week One: English Travelers in Renaissance Italy
Andrew Hadfield, ed. Amazons, Savages, and Machiavels: Travel and Colonial Writing in English, 1550-1630: An Anthology (Oxford University Press, 2001). [We will focus on selections in Part 1, “Motives for Travellers and Instructions
Week Two: Urbino in England
The Book of the Courtier, ed. Daniel Javitch and Charles S. Singleton (Norton Critical Edition, 2002). [This edition is required, as we will be reading the critical essays along with the primary text.]
Week Three: Shakespeare’s Italian Plays [Any scholarly edition of these plays is acceptable.]
- Two Gentleman of Verona (1594)
- The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1595-96) [Verona]
- The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice (1596-97)
- The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice (1604)
Week Four: Seventeenth-Century English Drama in Italy [Any scholarly edition of these plays is acceptable.]
- Ben Jonson, Volpone, or the Fox. A Comedy (1605) [Venice]
- John Webster, The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi (1623) [Almalfi]
- Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677) [Naples]

Students are encouraged to read as many of these plays as possible in advance of the course.

Optional Background Texts (e-resources from UTSA Library)

D’Amico, Jack. Shakespeare and Italy. Tampa: University of Florida Press, 2001.
Redmond, Michael J. Shakespeare, Politics, and Italy Intertextuality on the Jacobean Stage. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
Marrapodi, Michele. Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Theories: Anglo-Italian Transactions. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011.
Tosi, Laura, and Shaul Bassi. Visions of Venice in Shakespeare. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011.