Courses

ENG 501, 502: Graduate Creative Writing Tutorial I, II (4,4) Benedict, Hankla, Johnston, Larsen, Majors, Trethewey
Graduate tutorial seminars in the generation, examination, and interpretation of literary texts in the light of literary history and theory with attention to the writing of the students in the class. The exact contents of any given seminar will be determined by the needs and interests of its members. Limited to graduate students in the program in creative writing.

ENG 503: Topics in Literary Theory (4) Moriarty
This course offers students the opportunity to examine philosophical, historical, literary, and theoretical writings. The course will focus on the issue of representation from classical to poststructural thought. We will consider mimetic and expressive views of representation as well as the postmodern crisis in representation.

ENG 506: How Writing is Written (4) Hankla
An exploration of the creative process of poetry and fiction writing. The course will include readings of literature and works by writers on their art and craft, writing assignments, and discussion of student work.

ENG 507, 508: Advanced Creative Writing (4,4) Department
A workshop course in the writing of prose and poetry. Selected works by students will be read and discussed. Frequent conferences.

ENG 511, 512: Graduate Creative Writing Tutorial III, IV (4,4) Benedict, Hankla, Johnston, Larsen, Majors, Trethewey
Graduate tutorial seminars in the generation, examination, and the interpretation of literary texts in the light of literary history and theory with attention to the writing of the students in the class. The exact contents of any given seminar will be determined by the needs and interests of its members. Limited to second-year graduate students in the creative writing program.

ENG 521: Screenwriting (4) Dillard
An intensive hands-on course in the art of writing for the screen, for beginners and for writers experienced in other genres (fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction). Screenings, writing exercises, and workshop-style critiques comprise the course.

ENG 543: The Modern Novel I (4) Dillard
An examination of how the mystery story has become one of the primary literary forms for deconstruction and reconstruction in the modern novel. After a study of the sources for the genre in the Bible, Sophocles, and Poe, the course will move on to novels by Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, William Faulkner, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Vladimir Nabokov, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Chester Himes, and George Garrett.

ENG 547: Studies in Short Fiction (4) Hankla
Selected readings in the short story from masters to recent innovators, with attention to stories by women and the contemporary "short short" story.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Advanced Studies in the Novel (4) Dillard
Studies in the form of the novel, ranging throughout the history of the novel. Close readings of a variety of novels with an effort to determine the demands of the form and ways in which it has been and can be developed.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Advanced Studies in Contemporary Poetry (4) Larsen
An intensive exploration of poetry in our time, with primary focus on writers from the United States. Can poetry, really, matter? How does it mean now? Is craft dead, murderous, of the essence? How do poets of the past speak through/against/around contemporary writers? Is aesthetic progress possible? Is subversion? What are the orthodoxies, transgressions, blunders, con-texts of the age? Previous experience in close reading of poetic texts strongly recommended.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Advanced Studies in the Novel (4) Dillard
Studies in the form of the novel, ranging throughout the history of the novel. Close readings of a variety of novels with an effort to determine the demands of the form and ways in which it has been and can be developed.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Advanced Studies in Short Fiction (4) Hankla
Close readings of representative stories past and present that define or defy our expectations for the form. Attention to building a vocabulary for discussions and to the analysis of technique and structure.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Advanced Studies in Creative Nonfiction (4) Trethewey
A study of non-fiction prose: autobiography, memoir, and essay.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Poe and Borges (4) Dillard
A close reading of the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges, with an examination of relevant poems and essays by both authors. Poe's influence on Borges will be assessed as well as their mutual influence on contemporary world literature.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Poetry in Performance (4) Anderson
This course examines the aesthetics of textual performance as it has been applied to poetry. By examining the work of a diverse group of modern and contemporary poets, students will learn to develop methods of critiquing and performing a broad range of cultural expression that incorporates poetry with other media (oral, video, disc, cassette, sound, etc.). Using original material (student poems, essays, interviews, etc.), the course offers to explore the rich sources and influences that create this vibrant form. Poets discussed include Jayne Cortez, Jackson Mac Low, David Antin, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Jessica Hagedorn, John Cage, Cecelia Vicuna, Harryette Mullen, and several others.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Queer Writing/Lesbian Literature (4) Boyle
This course explores the "lesbian experience, authorship, and expression" in contemporary prose fiction, poetry, and drama. It employs both historical and contemporary approaches in tracing the changing definitions of what constitutes lesbian themes within literature. The focus is on how these texts traverse and transverse differing terrains and geneologies of identity, sexuality, and culture, rather than on the territorial limits of characters, themes, and authors who come to define lesbianism. We'll remain mindful of the diverse stylistic possibilities for describing the "lesbian experience" and how such variance amplifies the at-once contested and complimentary resonance of bodily presence and language.

ENG 550: Special Topic: Who's Doing the Writing? (4) Wier
We'll read books by Fernando Pessoa, Elias Canetti, John Ashbery, Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, and Marco Polo's travels. We'll talk about what these books bring up and we'll focus on your writing, be it prose or poetry, as it figures into our discussions regarding authorships of imaginary figures and voices. You will probably be asked to adopt a second persona through which to write and consider our adventures, as well as keep your own.

ENG 553: Film as Narrative Art I (4) Dillard
Films of Roman Polanski as moral, aesthetic, and psychological narratives with particular attention to the development of cinematic style in relationship to his concerns throughout his career. Such films as Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Dance of the Vampires, Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth, Chinatown, The Tenant, Tess, Pirates, Frantic, Bitter Moon, Death and the Maiden, and The Pianist.

ENG 554: Film as Narrative Art II (4) Dillard
Films by a major filmmaker as moral, aesthetic, and psychological narratives with particular attention to the development of cinematic style.

ENG 562: Russian Cinema (4) Mahaffy
A survey of the work that comprises the term Russian Cinema and characteristics that make it unique and significant among the world art histories. Students will discover world-shaking films, subtle and profound in their insights on life, beautifully transcendent, and brutally real. Prerequisite: Prior film course or permission.

ENG 566: Contemporary American Poetry (4) Larsen
Contemporary American poetry and its roots. A study of the origins and the present modes and voices of poetry in North America, with emphasis on works written since World War II. We’ll consider the lives of poets in our times, the issues that have mattered to them, and the ways they’ve found to make art from words.

FILM 581, 582: Film and Video Production I, II (4,4) Mahaffy
Introductory courses in film and video production, considering the making of films and videos as an art and as a technical skill. Students produce their own work. All equipment is provided. Lab fee. Prerequisite for FILM 582: FILM 581 or permission.

ENG 584: Advanced Studies in American Literature (4) Department
Short stories, novels, and nonfiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. The course will cover their theories of fiction and conceptions of the artist, their sense of the past, their attitudes towards Europe and America, their treatments of the supernatural, and their relationships to each other.

ENG 599: Thesis (8) Department
A collection of original work: poetry, fiction (short fiction or a novel), screenplay, play, or an appropriate grouping of more than one genre.

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