FALL 2009 POST-COLON COURSES*
I. Upper-Level Undergraduate Courses
ENG 376 Non-Western Literatures: Modern Chinese Literature
(Dr. Qi / Email: qis@wcsu.edu)
The course is designed to introduce students to the most important and representative works (in English translations) by Chinese authors from the early 20th century to the beginning of the new millennium. Situated in the contexts of Chinese culture and history as well as Western literature, this course examines the emergence of modern consciousness for the Chinese as they are straddled between tradition and change, individual and society, and other competing demands, obligations, and temptations. It focuses on their painful, oftentimes tragic, search for new identities (social, psychological, and sexual), new expressions, and new rules of the game in an ever-changing world. The goal is for students to develop a heightened appreciation of the common values present in both Chinese and Western literature while attuning them to culture-specific traditions and nuances.
ENG 450: Studies in Major Authors: Oscar Wilde and James Baldwin
(Dr. Üsekes/Email: usekesc@wcsu.edu)
In this course, we will explore the literary careers of Oscar Wilde and James Baldwin, who left their artistic, social, political, and philosophical marks on the 19th century and the 20th century respectively. We will investigate their ambitious literary vision by examining their contributions to various genres: selected plays, fairy tales and poetry by Wilde as well as The Picture of Dorian Gray; and selected essays, the novel Giovanni’s Room and the play Blues for Mister Charlie by Baldwin.
ENG 453: Special Topics in Literature
From the Gold Coast to the White House:
An African American Literary Journey
(Dr. Gagnon /Email: gagnond@wcsu.edu)
This course will chart a literary history of African America, using the motif of the journey to address aspects of African American experience through literature. From the stories of the Middle Passage, to the subversive genre of the slave/escape narrative, to tales of the Great Migration, to the Civil Rights-era marches and struggles to reach "the Promised Land," to Barack Obama's trek across the American political landscape and finally down Pennsylvania Avenue, the story of African American history is the story of its literature and the journeys it records--literary, geographical, and philosophical. The course will focus on writers such as Briton Hammon, Phillis Wheatley, Martin Delaney, Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, Charles Chesnutt, W.E.B DuBois, Zora Neal Hurston, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Ernest J. Gaines, and August Wilson, among others.
II. Graduate Courses **
ENG 502 Critical Theory
5:25-7:55pm, Tuesday
(Dr. Pruss /Email: prussi@wcsu.edu)
(From the catalog: This course examines major schools of contemporary critical theory from new criticism through gender theories. The goal of the course is to provide students with a varied repertoire of current approaches to texts and to facilitate their understanding of the ideological stances inherent in each scholarly perspective. Students are encouraged to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each critical approach and to learn to develop their own critical, scholarly voice by selectively applying aspects of theories which yield significant readings of any given text.)
ENG 541: "The Soul Selects Her Own Society":
Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature
5:25-7:55pm, Wednesday
(Dr. Levy /Email: levyh@wcsu.edu)
This course will examine visionary works from twentieth century British and Irish writers. We will read non-canonical texts from Henry James, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Ford Madox Ford and others. We will use feminist literary theory to help us contextualize questions of the provisional relationships between intellectual and physical desire, memory, national identity, sexuality and material privilege.
ENG 574: Poetry Studies: Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” and the Poems
5:25-7:55pm, Monday
(Dr. Chappell / Email: chappellm@wcsu.edu)
A
reading of Samuel Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” and the poems critiqued by
Johnson in those essays. We will study works by Milton, Dryden,
Pope, Swift, Gray and others to get an idea of the history and progress of
English poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries. Johnson’s essays are
important examples of the roots of modern criticism.
* For questions about a particular course, please contact the professor teaching it.
** Graduate Students: For Creative Writing and Language/TESOL courses, please contact the Writing Department.