[nimble-portfolio]
Graduate Course Descriptions for Ex Libris
ENG 407 Language and Style for Writers
W 6:00-9:15, LPC
Robert Meyer
A comprehensive examination of structural and stylistic devices that accomplished writers use in creative and literary nonfiction contexts. An application of the insights gained by this examination, in which students will both employ and analyze increasingly sophisticated techniques.
MAE: Language and Style core requirement; elective
MAWP: Language and Style core requirement; LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 419 Topics in Medieval Literature: Arthurian Romances
T 6:00-9:15, LPC
Lesley Kordecki
Our broad categories of study for Arthurian Romance include Arthur himself, his rise, reign, and demise, the legends surrounding the infamous and star-crossed lovers: Lancelot and Guinevere, and Tristan and Isolde, the tales of the magician Merlin, the English Gawain and the Grail knights, and the 13-century French romance, Silence, a text that opens up larger considerations of gender, humor, and language in the genre.
MAE: Medieval requirement; elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 431 Studies in the 19th Century Novel: Invention of the Novel
M 6:00-9:15, LPC
John Shanahan
How did readers from the seventeenth- to the early-nineteenth centuries come to identify some types of prose narrative as “novels”? We will read some candidates for the title of “first English novel” alongside some precursor and rival narrative forms (romance, allegory, scandal narrative, autobiography, etc.). Topics will include changing strategies for representing psychology in prose; changing opinions of ‘realistic’ narration and truth; epistolary form; rival critical models for the “rise” (or not) of the novel as the dominant modern genre. Readings include Behn, Congreve, Bunyan, Manley, Defoe, Haywood, Richardson, Fielding, Cleland, Sterne, Walpole, and Austen.
MAE: 19th C. requirement; elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 451 The Modern British Novel
TH 6:00-9:15, LPC
James Fairhall
The Modern British Novel provides an introduction to 20th-century English novels. Most of the novels are modern rather than modernist; six of the authors and many of the main characters are female. Half a dozen of these works have London settings. Themes include the shifting socio-economic status of women, the construction of gender, the unequal relations between people caused by colonialism, patriarchy and social class, and the conflict between the heart’s aspirations and reality’s dictates. We will pay close attention to the construction of the novels and other factors that contribute to their beauty and human interest.
MAE: 20th/21st C. requirement; elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 464 Studies in American Authors: Hawthorne and Poe
W 6:00-9:15, LPC
Marcy J. Dinius
Hawthorne’s and Poe’s short stories often bear an uncanny resemblance to each other that exceeds their creators’ contemporaneity. This course will focus on pairings of such stories, situating their shared themes of beauty, identity, creation, oppression, and destruction (among others) in the context of contemporary conversations about aesthetics, science and technology, religion, and politics (among others). Secondary readings will include literary criticism and theory. These are challenging writers, to whom many of the most challenging critics and theorists have responded, so come prepared for some heavy reading, thinking, and writing.
MAE: 19th C. requirement; elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 471 Bibliography and Literary Research
T 6:00-9:15, LPC
Jonathan Gross
The New Bibliography
In the 1980s, Jerome McGann’s A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism challenged the Gregg-Bowers-Tanselle approach to literary editing, focusing on the fact that single editions of works were no longer tenable or desirable. McGann’s Radiant Textuality discusses the implications of the world-wide web for editing. He notes how editing specific nineteenth century texts, such as the works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, challenged him to think in new ways about the field of bibliography. We will consider how editors have struggled with the tasks assigned to them, by reading Alexander Pettit’s collection of essays which discusses editions of Faulkner, Conrad, Cather and other writers. We will also look at specific internet sites, such as the Blake Archive, the Rossetti project, Romantic Web Circles, and the Dickens website to conduct research. Students will learn to write abstracts in preparation for presentations at scholarly conferences.
MAE: Core requirement
ENG 474 Teaching Literature
M 6:00-9:15, LPC
Carolyn Goffman
This course prepares students to teach introductory literature courses at the post-secondary (primarily community college) level. The course includes examination of the profession of teaching literature, its history, and changing practices and philosophy. The course is practical and collaborative: we will address pedagogical approaches to different genres and consider diverse, sometimes contradictory, ways to teach literary works. Students will design and practice assignments in a workshop environment. The final project is a Course Plan that includes syllabus and assignments.
MAE: elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 476 Topics in Genre and Form: Narrative Strategies in Fiction
T 6:00-9:15, LPC
Dan Stolar
This is a craft course on contemporary novels. We’ll look at these books as aspiring novelists ourselves, asking what we can learn from these books for our own writing. We will look at novels like an apprentice car mechanic might look at a Porsche’s engine–how is this thing put together? How does it work? Questions of meaning are inevitable in a reading course, but perhaps more than the question what does this mean, we’ll ask the question how does this mean. How does the writer accomplish what he or she accomplishes? We’ll use the language of creative writing workshops—plot, conflict, resolution, character, action, point of view, story shape, showing vs telling, dialogue. We’ll ask what the character(s) want and what keeps them from achieving it. And we’ll respond to this contemporary fiction with fiction of our own.
MAE: elective
MAWP: Writing Workshop requirement; open elective
ENG 477 Topics in Publishing: Big Shoulders Books (Idea Development)
TH 6:00-9:15, LPC
Chris Green
This course is part of an innovative book-publishing sequence that gives students hands-on experience in editing, publishing, and promoting a real book published by the English Department’s new press, Big Shoulders Books. Students will gain hands-on experience in the creation of I Remember: A Poem by Chicago veterans of war, which will be compiled with the help of students who will lead poetry workshops with veterans and gather their memories into poetry. The idea is to weave together voices of veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, and WWII—to portray both the similarities of any war and also the uniqueness of each war. The class will also help students develop their own book ideas and will introduce the basics of the publishing world and of finding a publisher.
MAE: elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 484 Writing Workshop: Nonfiction Places and Spaces
T 6:00-9:15, LPC
Barrie Jean Borich
The most compelling nonfiction subjects are located somewhere, beholden to places and spaces it takes all our senses to describe. How do memoirists, personal and lyric essayists and literary reporters use location to: ponder the relationships between memory, landscape, politics and identity; explore issues of immigration and exile; scrutinize loyalty to home and places of origin; embrace or reject some ground they can’t forget? In this workshop we write, critique and revise new writing as we consider the work of a few creative nonfiction writers whose stories, immersions and inquiries are bound to public and private landscapes and whose works attempt to describe, explore, question, and honor the hard-to-pin-down aspects of place and space. Students read example texts, write and revise essay-length nonfiction prose drafts, and participate in writing workshops.
MAE: elective
MAWP: Writing Workshop requirement; open elective
ENG 484 Writing Workshop: Novels I: Writing (Hybrid)
M 6:00-9:15, LPC
Face-to-Face Meeting Dates: Sept. 15, Sept. 29, Oct. 13, Oct. 27, Nov. 10
Rebecca Johns Trissler
Joyce Carol Oates often says that a writer can’t compose the first line of a novel until she’s written the last line—meaning that the shape and form of a novel aren’t clear, even to the author, until after she’s completed an entire draft. In this course, then, we will do very little editing and revision. Instead we will do our best to silence our inner (and outer!) critics and complete an initial draft of a novel, flaws and all, from page 1 to The End, considering the particular challenges of the novel form in terms of plot and structure. Students should come prepared with an outline for a project they would like to draft, along with a list of 5-10 novels they plan to turn to as inspiration and guidance. By the end of the term, writing 20 pages a week, students should have a complete first draft of approximately 200 pages.
This course (an online hybrid meeting in person every other week) is the first of a two-course sequence. The second course, ENG 484: Novels II: Workshop (Winter 2015), will include a more traditional workshop focusing on editing and revising the novel. Any student who has a completed manuscript of at least 200 pages can apply to take the second course without the first.
MAE: elective
MAWP: Writing Workshop requirement; open elective
ENG 490 Writing for Magazines
TH 6:00-9:15, LPC
Ted Anton
This course offers a cutting edge introduction to the tradition and skills of free lance writing. In a fun and supportive atmosphere, students will learn to come up with ideas, to research and write stories, to sell them and revise for publication in print or on the web. Helpful guest professionals will read student work. Written work in this class will be publishable. No previous experience required, just a willingness to speak to strangers and see the world anew.
MAE: elective
MAWP: Writing Workshop requirement; open elective
ENG 492 Writing Fiction
W 6:00-9:15, LPC
Christine Sneed
In English 492, you will write original short stories, complete a number of writing exercises, and at the start of the term, we will review fiction-writing terminology. We will also read and discuss published short-story writers in order to make a close study of contemporary writing, i.e. we will identify and evaluate the elements of craft employed in these stories, such as point of view, character development, dialogue, setting, tone, voice, imagery, figurative language, pacing, effective beginnings and endings, narrative structure.
MAE: elective
MAWP: Writing Workshop requirement; open elective
ENG 493 Writing Workshop: Writing Poetry
W 6:00-9:15, LPC
Chris Green
“Writing Poetry” is a seminar in writing and reading poetry. The class will experiment with various types of poetic creation and critique. The course will be challenging, but playful; in general, we will explore poets and principles that make poetry feel alive and open. Much time will be spent on workshopping of student work. At the midterm and end of the course, students will turn in a portfolio of poems.
MAE: elective
MAWP: Writing Workshop requirement; open elective
ENG 496 Editing
M 6:00-9:15, LPC
Jeremy Mulderig
An introduction to editing principles and practices in professional and technical fields.
MAE: elective
MAWP: LLPT elective; open elective
ENG 509 English Department Internship in Writing and Publishing
Online*
Chris Green
*Registration is by permission of Professor Chris Green. Contact cgreen1@depaul.edu
“Internship in English” is a four-credit course designed to complement your English course of study along with your internship experience (100 hours of internship work). Using literature, film, and career guides, the class explores both academic and pragmatic aspects of work. We will analyze definitions of and strategies for career success, what makes work meaningful, the positive and negative power of technology in the workplace, and issues of ethics and social justice for employers and employees. Most practically, we will explore current career opportunities for English graduates and reflect on your ideal career paths, ask you to create job-finding strategies, and improve your resume and cover letter writing along with your interviewing skills. Ultimately, we will relate our readings and discussions to your internship and apply what we learn to your future career.
MAE: elective
MAWP: open elective