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English Course Descriptions

English Course Descriptions – Fall 2008

All literature courses fulfill the College of Arts & Sciences literature requirement and MPSL culture track requirement.
Any writing course 200 or above fulfills the advanced writing requirement.
May & Summer 2008 Courses

CRN • Course • Sec • Crd • Course Title • Faculty • Days • Times • Room • Limit • Prereq

13928 • EN 105 01 • 1 • Intro to Millikin English Studies • O’Conner • R 2:00-3:15 20 • none

This one-credit roundtable, required of all English majors, introduces students to the ways that English Studies are taught at Millikin University. Content includes an introduction to typical learning communities in English Education, English Writing and English Literature majors. Students will examine the requirements and options students have in each major, including possible career choices. Exposure to "doing" English Studies is also key, with presentations on the Writing Center, Bronze Man Books, the Decaturian, the Collage Literary Magazine. Course expectations include attendance at campus events and activities that are English Studies-related. Required of all declared English majors/transfers, recommended for all minors and Elementary Education students with an English emphasis.

13929 • EN 110 01 • 1 • Tutoring ESL • Crowe • tba • 10 • none

This Tutoring Roundtable offers you an understanding of the ESL student writing experience, the kinds of writing that might be generated and why, and offers insight into the needs and concerns of these writers. You will also have the opportunity to learn about and apply useful and effective tutoring strategies and tools for working with ESL students. Upon completion of this course, you will have developed an understanding of the background of the ESL writer and ESL writing issues, be able to identify common as well as some of the unique challenges ESL students may have with writing and communicating, and will have developed, practiced, and demonstrated a repertoire of strategies and tools for addressing ESL student writing needs.

13701 • EN 111 01 • 3 • ESL Listening & Speaking • Staff • tba • 15

English as a Second Language: Beginning Listening and Speaking offers opportunities to practice listening and speaking skills necessary for academic and social settings for students whose first or primary language is not English. It helps students practice listening skills such as listening to college lectures, dialogues, and group discussions. It also emphasizes speaking skills such as pronouncing words correctly, speaking sentences with correct stress and intonation, and making short oral presentations.

13702 • EN 112 01 • 3 • ESL Reading & Writing • Staff • tba • 15

English as a Second Language: Beginning Reading and Writing offers opportunities to practice reading and writing skills necessary for academic and professional settings for students whose first or primary language is not English. It emphasizes skills and strategies to improve reading comprehension, expand vocabulary, and conduct basic research. Students develop skills and strategies to generate ideas for academic essays, develop paragraphs for better cohesion and coherence, revise and proofread for better organization and correct grammar.

13419 • EN 160 01 • 1 • LV Reading Roundtable • Matthews, Anne • W 6:00-6:50 • 15 • LV Scholar

In this course, we will read and discuss significant texts by minority intellectuals, paying particular attention to the ways they use language in the construction of their identities. Weekly journals will invite students to reflect on the literature, as well as on their own experiences as Long-Vanderburg Scholars. Students will also help plan the African American Read-In, which will be held in February 2009. Possible texts: Keith Gilyard’s Voices of the Self: A Study of Language Competence and Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.

12753 • EN 160 02 • 1 • Reading Roundtable—Lolita and Friends • McKenna • W 3:00-3:50 • 15 • none

For this Reading Roundtable, students will be reading Vladimir Nabakov’s classic Lolita. Often when literature enters the realm of the “classic,” other writers will respond to or offer complementary texts related to, or responding to, the original. The two additional texts include Lo’s Diary, which uses the medium of a personal diary to write the story of Lolita from the young girl’s perspective, and Reading Lolita in Tehran which focuses on a group of women in Iran (where reading such books is illegal) who find the story of Lolita resonates with them and their current circumstances. In addition, we will explore a variety of critical reviews of Nabakov’s novel to see how others have responded to the shocking satire over the last five decades.

10626 • EN 170 01 • 1 • Writing Roundtable—Writing from Family Legends • McKenna • M 3:00-3:50 • 15 • none

Students will explore the process of turning family lore into creative works. The writing will encourage the students to look beyond mere reporting of events to enhancing their writing in a variety of creative ways. The course will encourage students who have never taken a creative writing course to use family materials to discover that truth can indeed be as entertaining as fiction!

13207 • EN 170 02 • 1 • Haiku Writing Roundtable • Brooks • W 3:00-3:50 • 15 • none

Haiku Writing Roundtable is a one-credit haiku workshop modeled after Japanese haiku schools. Reading goals will be to become familiar with contemporary American haiku and an understanding of Zen poetics. Writing goals will be to try a wide variety of approaches to writing and editing haiku in order to find your own way to the highest quality haiku possible for you. The class will have several anonymous kukai contests. Each student will create a small chapbook of their best haiku and submit haiku to a literary journal.

13930 • EN 180 01 • 1 • Tutoring Writing • Crowe • tba • 10 • none

This course provides you with theoretical and experiential grounding in peer tutoring of writing, engaging you in examining and experiencing the roles of peer tutor and collaborator. Throughout the course our concerns will be practical as well as pedagogical. We will explore the philosophy of the Writing Center and how it fits into the theoretical/ pedagogical approaches to peer tutoring, and move into practice, focusing on interpersonal dynamics, audience adaptation, and collaborative learning. You will engage in active sharing and development of tutoring styles, skills, and strategies, investigate writing in the disciplines, and engage in self-reflection concerning the practice of peer tutoring. This course will be a combination of discussion, reflection, group work, and tutor presentations which will allow us opportunities to share, analyze, and critique as well as connect theory and pedagogy to real world tutoring experiences.

10633 • EN 201 • 01 • 3 Introduction to Creative Writing • Frech • TR 3:30-4:45 • 20 • IN 151

As the department's introductory creative writing workshop, EN 201 will cover the essentials of form and structure (rhyme & meter, figurative language, narrative point of view) with an eye for improving and situating our own writing, whatever it is we wish to write. The expectations of critical writing and class presentation are limited in terms of length, but essential to our developing a vocabulary for talking about work and improving our own. We will write a few assigned creative responses to familiarize ourselves with form as a vehicle for meaning and a model for structure. Every effort in the course will focus on improving the student's own writing.

12756 • EN 202 01 • 3 • Writing About Literature • George • MWF 12:00-12:50 • MAC • 20 • IN 151/consent

This is an entry-level course to learn how to write about literature, with special emphasis on literary criticism and critical approaches. The course begins with forms of writing about literature for the general public—book and film reviews, personal essays, diaries and journals. The course then moves to careful reading and close textual analysis, with written forms to include explication and interpretation based on primary texts from a variety of authors and genres. Finally the course includes basic critical approaches to reading literature, such as feminist, formal, cultural studies, biographical, and psychological. Students compile a portfolio of writing by the end of the course. Required of all literature majors, and can fulfill one of the advanced writing requirements for all English majors. Usually taken in the sophomore year. Does not fulfill the A&S Literature requirement.

10635 • EN 215 01 • 3 Newswriting I • Meddaugh • MW 5:00-6:15 • Lib. 13 • 20 • IN 151/consent

News writing provides the introduction of news reporting and writing. Students learn a variety of story formats and writing techniques including hard news, feature writing, and views and opinions. In addition, students examine the responsibilities of a free press in contemporary society, including the role of first amendment, as well as challenges regarding libel and journalism ethics.

13931 • EN 220 01 • 3 • City in Modern American Novels • Matthews, Anne • TR 11:00-12:15 • 10

This course will examine works by Crane, Norris, Dreiser, Wharton, West, and Wright in their literary, historical, and cultural contexts, with special emphasis on the problems urbanization, industrialization, materialism, and determinism create for personal identity. Students will keep weekly reading journals, write two interpretive essays, and give a research presentation. Texts: Stephen Crane, Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (1893); Frank Norris, McTeague (1899); Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900); Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905); Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust (1939); Richard Wright, Native Son (1940). [Note: texts may change, but the course theme will remain the same.] Fulfills the literature after 1900 requirement for all English majors.

13208 • EN 222 01 • 3 • Adolescent Literature • Meyer • T 5:00-7:30 • 25 • IN 151

This course focuses on contemporary adolescent literature with a special focus on exploring various genres (such as science fiction, graphic novels, and novels in verse, as well as more traditional forms) and on exploring the portrayal of adolescence in literature (particularly issues of diversity and of relationships). This course is required for English education majors, and there will be numerous opportunities to examine the role of contemporary adolescent literature in the English language arts classroom.

10657 • EN 231 01 • 3 • American Lit through Twain • O’Conner • MWF 10:00-10:50 • 25 • IN 151

This course is a study of major American writers, ideas, and literary trends from early native and Puritan literature through the work of Mark Twain. The course provides cultural background for the readings, and it emphasizes writers of the 19th century including Poe, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Stowe, Melville, Douglass, Whitman and Dickinson. Themes and units covered include Native Voices, Contact and Conflict in North America, the Utopian Promise, the Spirit of Nationalism, American Expansion, Ambiguity and Anxiety in the 19th Century, Race and Identity in Antebellum America, and Regional Realism.
Fulfills the English core American Literature to 1900 requirement.

13932 • EN 235 01 • 3 • Methods for 2nd Language Arts • Meyer • MWF 1:00-1:50 • 15 • IN 151/consent

This course focuses on ways of teaching English language arts in middle and secondary schools. Together we will examine teaching methods for each aspect of language arts, prepare lesson plans, and practice ways of presenting material. This course is required for English education majors. IT IS OFFERED ONLY EVERY OTHER YEAR, so if you will be a sophomore or junior you must take it now.

10662 • EN 241 01 • 3 • Classical Traditions • Braniger • TR 9:30-10:45 • 20

Focusing on the primitive cusp of orality and literacy, this course examines the tension between oral traditions and the emergence of a radical new technology, or techne, called writing. The examination occurs through close readings and analysis of primary texts such as The Illiad and The Odyssey, Greek dramas, Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics, Plato’s Phaedrus and Gorgias, Longinus’ “On the Sublime,” Homer’s hymns, Sappho’s fragments and the poetry of Hesiod. We will be particularly interested in the poetic and rhetorical implications of the primary texts we examine, the power of language (both written and oral) as communicated through these texts, and the oral tradition from which rose the written word. Rather than focusing on simply reading great literary works from the ancient Greek and Roman cultures, we will deliberately study the simultaneous emergence of rhetoric and poetic in ancient Greece. By looking at both common and less well known classical texts, we will seek to explore the emerging role of writing and the rhetorical act. Required of all English writing majors, this course fulfills the Classical & Medieval studies requirement for all English majors.

13933 • EN 270 01 • 3 • Computer-Aided Publishing • Fitzgerald • TR 11:00-12:15 • MAC • 20 • IN 151

This course is an introduction to layout and design and the computing environment in which designers work. The course revolves around Adobe InDesign CS2. In addition, you will work with image software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. By the time you finish this course you will be able to:
• Use InDesign to design a variety of professional materials
• Know the key concepts of layout and deisgn
• Know more than you ever wanted to about type
• Know how to manipulate images for your publications
• Gain experience in producing designs and reports for a real audience
• Have fun doing all of the above

Class sessions are a combination of presentation and discussion, with some workshop time built into the course.
Fulfills the English Department publishing requirement. Does not fulfill the Arts & Sciences literature requirement.

11413 • EN 280 01 • 1 • Decaturian Newspaper Staff • Meddaugh • tba • 20 • EN 215/consent

Staff members of the Decaturian, Millikin's campus newspaper, receive credit for writing and other staff responsibilities. This course can be repeated each semester for up to eight credits.

12303 • EN 300 01 • 3 • These Stories with No Plot and Less Action • Frech • TR 12:30-1:45 • 20 • IN 151
Sequences and Series

We will think about strategies other than narrative that sustain longer works, novels or long poems. If we assume that the traditional methods are only a few of numerous possibilities, we can begin to think about genre, about maintaining reader interest, about sustaining continuity in different ways. We will focus primarily on series and sequences: how they work, what features they share with each other and with more traditional structures, and how they satisfy basic needs readers have coming to almost any text. We should leave this course with more structural options than we had entering and a clearer understanding of those traditional methods themselves. We will read poems The Waste Land by Eliot and The Wild Iris by Gluck and fiction On Love by de Botton and Invisible Cities by Calvino.

13934 • EN 305 01 • 3 • Web Publishing • Fitzgerald • TR 9:30-10:45 • MAC • 20 • IN 151

Web Publishing is a workshop on writing and publishing web sites. Are you ready to expand your mind into cyberspace? Will computer screens shape your thoughts? Or will you shape computer screens to create and project your cyber-self into the virtual world of the web? This workshop examines web publishing and takes you from reflective interaction to critical creation of new hypertexts. You will learn how to critique web site designs and how to create web pages for campus and off-campus clients. This is an advanced writing course, with extended individual projects ranging from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literary criticism, bibliographical web resources, technical writing, educational resources and web reference collections.
Web publishing fulfills an advanced writing or publishing requirement for all English majors.

13583 • EN 315 01 • 3 • News Writing 2: Beat Reporting • Staff • TR 2:00-3:15 • 20 • EN 215

Beat reporting is a crucial element to providing fair and balanced news coverage of a community. Reporters are assigned a subject matter (or beat) to cover. It is the reporter's responsibility to keep readers up-to-date on events and occurrences related to his or her beat. For example, reporters might deal with issues related only to science, safety, the arts, health, finance, religion, a specific sports team, education, etc. Students will master how to form relationships with sources, become subject experts and how to write engaging stories while on continual deadline. In addition to the practice of news writing and research, students will discuss issues of ethics in the media, convergent media, media law, the First Amendment, research and the importance of accuracy. This is a 300-level class for students who are interested in becoming (or working with) professional writers.

10665 • EN 321 01 • 3 • Major English Authors 1 • Klotz • MWF 9:00-9:50 • 25 • IN 151 & 1 lit course

A survey of British medieval, early modern, and eighteenth-century literature in its historical contexts. We will examine the ways in which selected writers negotiate the conflicting religious, philosophical, political, social, and scientific ideas of their cultures. We will also use the techniques of close reading, paying attention to the imagery, the language, and the form or genre of texts. We will learn about literary legacies such as satire, epic, romance, and the sonnet, and we will explore the connections between such genres and the cultural norms and values that get contested or confirmed in them. Authors studied will include Chaucer, Thomas More, Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and John Milton. Teaching methods: Lecture and discussion. Requirements: 2 midterms, an essay, a final exam. Required text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th ed. Vols. A-C (2006).

13935 • EN 322 01 • 3 • Major English Authors 2 • Banerjee • TR 2:00-3:15 • 25 • IN 151 & 1 lit course

This course is both a historical and thematic survey of British literary texts from just before 1800 to the present. During this period one of the major influences upon British identity formation was the historical, cultural, and material reality of the empire. Personal and national experiences of empire were, however, constantly mediated by cultural notions of race, gender, and class. This course follows the thematic thread of British identity formed through the expansion, transformation, and degeneration of the Empire. However, the course is also organized in chronological order with three major periods: the Romantics, the Victorians, and the 20th century (Modernism and Postcolonialism). Discussion in the class would range from inquiring into the intersections of race, class, and gender with the effects of empire as well as learning the hallmarks of each of these periods.

The three modules in which the course is divided are as follows:
Unit 1: The Romantics—Emergent Empire and Transformations of British Society
Unit 2: The Victorians—British Empire Coloured Red
Unit 3: The Twentieth Century—Empire Breaks Up
Fulfills the British to 1700 literature requirement for all English majors.

12404 • EN 325 01 • 3 • Shakespeare: Poems & Early Plays • Klotz • MWF 11:00-11:50 • 25 • IN 151 & 1 lit course

This course emphasizes the study of Shakespeare’s work in its historical context. We will examine the ways in which this poet/playwright negotiates the conflicting religious, philosophical, political, social, and scientific ideas of his day. We will also engage in close readings that pay attention to genre and language. Works studied will include a selection of poems and earlier histories, comedies, and tragedies, written before the year 1600 or so. Methods: Lecture and discussion. Requirements: 2 midterm exams, an essay, a final exam. Required text: The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Portable Edition. Ed. David Bevington. Longman Publishers, 2007. Fulfills the Shakespeare requirement for English majors and a drama course outside the Theatre department for Theatre majors.

13936 • EN 335 01 • 3 • International Literature • Banerjee • M 5:00-7:00 and W 5:00-6:15 • K128

Indian writing in English or the “Indo-Anglian” tradition in literature is not a contemporary phenomenon. Its origins can be traced to the infamous "Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education," authored by Lord Macaulay. In it Macaulay expressed a desire to create "a class of interpreters between us [the English] and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect" (359). However, Macaulay did not anticipate that this class of interpreters would, put the master's tools to subversive use. For decades Indian writers have used the colonizer's language, English, to produce an Indian reality that is very different from anything Macaulay might have envisioned. Thus, the twentieth century witnessed the rapid development of what is the "Indo-Anglian" tradition. In this class we will read a series of well-known novels, essays, and plays (and their filmic adaptations) by Indian authors who are central to Indo-Anglian literature. We will begin this course with E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India.” Forster’s novel serves as a backdrop of Orientalized consciousness that not only epitomized western response to India/ns, but also partially influenced in India’s self-construction. As we explore the development of this tradition, we will pay particular attention to the important social and cultural developments in Imperial and Post-Independence India, as well as to the diversity of contemporary Indian writing.

13937 • EN 375 01 • 3 • History of English Language • George • MWF 8:00-8:50 • 25 • IN 151

Ever wondered where the variety in English vocabulary comes from? Ever wonder why English is such an idiomatic language? This course will answer those questions. This course provides an introduction to the history of the English language. Major topics include the Anglo-Saxon base; the effects of the Norman Invasion; changes in vocabulary and semantics due to borrowings from French, Latin, and other sources; and changes in morphology and phonology. Through intense study of the history of the language, you will learn about the stages in the development of English—from Indo-European through modern English, with a special emphasis on changes during the medieval period, changes that transformed our language into what it is today. We will read selections from Old English like Beowulf, Chaucer’s Middle English, and Early Modern texts like the King James Bible. We will explore the fascinating world of dialect, as well, and learn the history of many of those words that you can’t say on TV.

13213 • EN 382 01 • 1-3 • Art of Publishing • Brooks • MWF 1:00-1:50 • MAC • 10 • consent

Art of Publishing is a learning practicum in publishing. Students learn by working as an editor or student leader carrying out specific responsibilities for Bronze Man Books, Millikin University’s student publishing company. Students may enroll by consent only, following applications and interviews for needed positions in the publishing house. Interviews will be conducted on advising day or the day before advising day. Watch for campus posters promoting this opportunity. Possible student positions include: editor, acquisitions editor, assistant editor, legal research, production manager, art director, designer, sales manager, marketing manager, marketing research, publicist, and advertising manager. For questions contact either one of the co-teachers: Randy Brooks or Ed Walker.

13983 • EN 382 02 • 1 • Broadside Publishing • Frech • W 4:00-4:50 • MAC • 15• consent

This course will launch a press company here at Millikin for printing broadsides (commonly called posters). Students involved in this particular term will help to name and shape the mission and goals of that press. We will discuss the history of broadsides, explore different designs and aesthetics, and ultimately select a poem, design, and print the press’ first poetry broadside.

13939 • EN 382 03 • 1 • Podcast Publishing • Hardenbrook • T 5:00-5:50 • MAC • 15

With over 200 million iPods and MP3 players sold since 2001, podcasts present themselves as a convenient, informative, and often entertaining medium for delivering content. This hands-on course will introduce students to the use of podcasting as a publishing tool. Conducted in a workshop-style format, students will produce varying forms of podcasts from audio to video. A culminating project involves pairing students with a client on campus, or in the community, to produce and publish podcasting content.

10672 • EN 410 01 • 3 • Senior Writing Portfolio • Brooks • MWF 11:00-11:50 • MAC • 20 • senior

Senior Writing Portfolio focuses on matters of process and production, theory and practice, related to the construction of writing portfolios. After an overview of these matters, students will identify and study the type of portfolio they are creating in depth, revise past work and create new work as necessary, and construct professional writing portfolios for presentation to their intended audiences. The class is a combination of lecture, discussion, and workshop. Students must be senior writing majors or minors to take the class; each participant should be prepared to use the knowledge and skills they have gained as writing majors to contribute to the course in significant ways.

13250 • EN 425 01 • 1 • Adv. Methods Teaching Language Arts • Meyer • T 4:00-4:50 • 10 • consent

This course is aimed at English education majors who are planning to student teach in the spring or in the next fall. Together we will go more deeply into examining curriculum, resources, and pedagogy as you prepare to student teach.

10673 • EN 470 01 • 3 • Internship: Teaching Writing O’Conner • R 4:00-4:50 • 10• consent

In this course, students work with an English faculty member in an IN150 course, helping to design assignments, tutor students and read about and discuss various composition theories. Students will also do readings and have in-depth discussions with a wide range of English professors on issues of theory and best practices. This capstone course is required for English Education majors and encouraged for English majors planning to attend graduate school.

13940 • EN 480 01 • 1-3 • Professional Writing Internship • Brooks • tba • 10 • consent

Professional Writing Internship is a chance for you to gain experience using your writing skills in the workplace. Work as a writer a few hours a week for local organizations writing and designing brochures, web sites, books, newsletters, grant proposals, and other documents. Establish a network of contacts for future job referrals and build up a portfolio of successful documents. You must complete a learning contract including (1) site supervisor contact information, (2) task description, (3) learning goals, and (4) professional expectations. See Dr. Brooks for further details and help getting placed.

May & Summer 2008 Courses

for course registration and cost information see:
http://www.millikin.edu/immersion/courses.asp

50038 • EN 170 01 • 1.000 • Creative Commercial Writing• MTRF • 10:00 am-02:55 pm
Jim Gustafson • 05/19-05/23 • LIB 29 •  

Creative Commercial Writing Roundtable
Credits: 1
Commercial creative writing is the point where rhetoric and literature intersect. If rhetoric is the art of using language to persuade, influence and call to action… And literature is the art of using language to enlighten, inform and entertain... it follows that Commercial Creative Writing is "the best of both." The words of commercial creative writers surround us… On the airwaves in radio and TV commercials... On store shelves in the copy on packaging… In our mailboxes with junk mail and catalogs… On the Internet at every web site. Corporations need writers to introduce products, explain new programs, brag about their successes... And take the “sting out of” failures or problems. There are exciting opportunities that are virtually unknown outside the business such as corporate theater where writers script spectacular theatrical productions... And hour-long “info-mercials” that clever writers disguise as “documentaries.” These are potential career opportunities for any English Major that can turn a phrase. In many respects, commercial writing is simply another form of 21st Century literature. Think about it, what’s a jingle? It's a poem set to music...What's a TV commercial? It's a short story... What's a film script? A novel with moving pictures... A documentary? It's non-fiction- visualized. This class in Commercial Creative Writing will examine the unique and specialized writing disciplines that don’t fit under the traditional creative writing umbrella. The course is designed as a “hands on” workshop that provides a “Street-Level View” of commercial writing from a professional writer’s perspective. For students planning a future in writing this course offers insights into the typical—and little known—markets for practicing your craft.

50059 • EN 180 01 • 1.000 • Intro Writing Center Tutoring • MTFSU • 12:00 pm-02:55 pm
Judith A. Crowe • 08/22-08/26• LIB writing center•

Introduction to Writing Center Tutoring
Credits: 1
The course aims to provide students with theoretical and experiential grounding in peer tutoring of writing, allowing them to move from the traditional role of instructed subjects to a more dynamic role as peer tutors and collaborators. Throughout the course our concerns will be practical as well as pedagogical. We begin by examining the philosophy of the Writing Center and how that fits into the theoretical/ pedagogical approaches to peer tutoring, and move into practice, focusing on interpersonal dynamics, audience adaptation, and collaborative learning. Students will engage in active sharing and development of tutoring styles, skills, and strategies, investigate writing in the disciplines, and engage in self-reflection concerning the practice of peer tutoring. This course will be a combination of discussion, lecture, reflection, group work, and tutor presentations which will allow us to opportunities to share, analyze, and critique as well as connect theory and pedagogy to real world tutoring experiences.

50070 • EN 220 01 • 3.000 • Rep of Middle Ages in Film• MTWRF • 09:00 am-01:55 pm
Michael W. George• 05/16-05/25 • SCO 315 •  

Representations of the Middle Ages in Film
Credits: 3
The last forty years has produced a veritable cornucopia of films set in the Middle Ages. From Camelot to Beowulf, each film translates the historical period that has come to be known as the Middle Ages for twentieth- and twenty-first-century audiences. In this sense, they interpret what the producers know about the Middle Ages and offer that interpretation to the viewer. In this course, we will examine films set in the Middle Ages to determine the interpretation of the films’ producers and to evaluate the films’ representation of the medieval period. We will view a wide range of films, such as The Seventh Seal, The Lion in Winter, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Excalibur, King Arthur, A Knight’s Tale, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Kingdom of Heaven, The 13th Warrior, The Name of the Rose, Braveheart, and, if available, the 2007 Beowulf. The instructor will provide texts in a course pack, for which you will be billed. You need to supply the popcorn! Prerequisites: EN 220, none; IN 350, junior standing.

50071 • EN 220 02 • 3.000 • Literature of the Holocaust • MTWRF • 09:30 am-11:55 am
David A. Matthews• 06/10-07/02 • SH 420 •  

Literature of the Holocaust
Credits: 3

We will consider representations of the Holocaust from various perspectives: survivors (and their children), bystanders, and perpetrators, from Germany and German-occupied Europe.. Among the questions we will consider are the following: What motivated the genocide? How was it possible to carry it out? How are the horrors of the Holocaust best represented? How did some victims survive the camps? What effects did the experience have on survivors and their children? What motivated the perpetrators, and how did ordinary people become killers? What uses has the Holocaust been put to? What lessons does it have for us?

50036 • EN 301 01 • 3.000 • Web Publishing • MTWRF • 08:00 am-09:55 am
Randy M. Brooks • 06/10-07/01 • LIB MAC

Web Publishing
Credits: 3
Web Publishing is a workshop on writing and publishing World Wide Web pages. Are you ready to expand your mind into cyberspace? Will computer screens shape your thoughts? Or will you shape computer screens to create and project your cyber-self into the virtual world of the web? This workshop examines web publishing and takes you from reflective interaction to critical creation of new hypertexts. You will learn how to critique web site designs and how to create web pages for campus and off-campus clients. This is an advanced writing courses, with extended individual projects ranging from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literary criticism, bibliographical web resources, technical writing, educational resources and web reference collections.

50048 • EN 331 01 • 3.000 • Bollywood: Nations, Cultures, Genders • MTWRF • 11:00 am-04:30 pm
Purna Banerjee • 05/19-05/30 • SH 315 • (India travel immersion course, from 05/31 – 6/27)

Introduction to Bollywood: Nation(s), Culture(s), and Gender(s)
Credits: 3
This course will use one medium of visual representation—cinema—to explore the portrayal of the diversity inherent in the Indian concept of nation, culture, and gender. Students will be introduced to and will inquire into the world’s largest film industry. Together we shall raise questions about the interplay and contradictions that exist between reality, images, and representations of the Indian people and the country. It is highly recommended that students taking this course have a global interest and/or awareness; however, no specialized knowledge of the subject will be necessary. Students would be encouraged to embrace, celebrate, and critique cultural differences. The most rewarding aspect of this course is when students can also critically identify sparks of commonalities in the midst of difference. After all, it is often people’s humanity that defines them even while and especially when they resist stereotypical definitions.
In this course we will cover key Hindi filmmakers, genres, and films. Not only will the representations of the Indian nations/people/cultures will be interrogated, but also its Diaspora will be recognized and critiqued. We will examine another culture through its cinema, involving close textual and cultural analysis. Students will become more adept at reading film closely, sharpening their eye for visual and narrative details. Students will treat films as their primary texts and will develop their skills in analyzing film by making historical, cultural, political, and aesthetic arguments.

50049 • EN 360 02 • 3.000 • India: Anglo-Indian Fiction-US • MTWRF • 10:00 am-11:50 am
Anne M. Matthews • 05/19-05/30 • SH 418 • (India travel immersion course, from 05/31 – 6/27)

Passages from India: Anglo-Indian Fiction in the United States
Credits: 3
EN366/IN250—Passages from India: Anglo-Indian Authors in the United States

May Immersion 2008, Millikin University and India

This course will explore evolving attitudes toward ideas of “the Orient,” as represented in the works of E.M. Forster, Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee, and Jhumpa Lahiri. From the West’s “invention” of the East (Forster), to a postcolonial counternarrative (Rushdie), to assimilationist views of immigration (Mukherjee), to the embrace of a hybrid identity (Lahiri), we will explore encounters between eastern and western cultures, encounters which often involve violence—and which are often left ambiguous, indeterminate, and unresolved. Forster, a Briton, will introduce us to the conventional representation of “orientalism,” while Rushdie, Mukherjee and Lahiri, all of whom have immigrated to the United States in recent years, will offer their own negotiations of their multicultural experiences. Students will keep a daily reading journal (50% of the course grade) and will write a final, critical/interpretive essay (50% of the course grade). We will meet at Millikin for two hours every morning in the two weeks before we leave for India; we will have further class meetings throughout our time in India itself. Required texts: Forster, A Passage to India; Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories; Mukherjee, The Middleman and Other Stories; and Lahiri, The Namesake.

This is a travel course. Check with the instructors listed above for costs and other information.

50067 • EN 360 01 • 3.000 • European Novella in Translation • MTWRF • 09:30 am-11:55 am
Stephen J. Frech  • 06/10-07/01 • SH 422

European Novella in Translation: Studies in Fiction
Credits: 3

The novella shares features with the short story and the novel, but has its own distinguishing characteristics, not the least of which is its possibility of being read in an afternoon. This course will explore which narrative structures and methods lend themselves to the novella’s shorter length. Focused on European novellas from a tumultuous 20th century, the course will make cultural comparisons ranging from Western to Central to Eastern Europe: France, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Russia. And the course will pose questions about the lives of individuals in the midst of those major, turbulent events. Among those we will read are three Nobel Prize winners (Camus, Kertesz, and Pasternak) and two novellas made into films (Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Hrabal’s Closely Observed Trains).

50037 • EN 382 01 • 3.000 • Advanced Web Graphics • MTWRFSU 09:00 am-02:55 pm
Randy M. Brooks (P) • 05/19-05/25 • LIB MAC

Advanced Web Graphics
Credits: 3
Advanced Web Graphics is an intensive technical writing workshop on advanced web graphics with an emphasis on mastery of graphic development using Photoshop and ImageReady. Each student completes a web-based tutorial on advanced web graphics techniques. Students in this workshop should already have some experience with basic web design. In this course we will consider four key roles of graphics in web sites: orientation graphics to help create identity and atmosphere, navigation graphics to prompt and guide the user through the web site, framing graphics to establish featured spaces for web content and graphics as content. We will develop user knowledge of graphics software including Photoshop, ImageReady and Dreamweaver.