2303-002/WOMS 2301-001 Badass Women 8am TR Bethany Shaffer

What does it mean to be a Badass? What does it mean when we add Women to the end of that phrase? How would we get anything done without them?This course will explore key texts that examine answers to all three questions above. Students will read a variety of fiction, non-fiction and critical essays to develop their own thoughts on Badass Women. Two exams, weekly quizzes, discussion forum posts, and one major paper make up the major assignments of the course. This course satisfies the Language, Philosophy, and Culture requirement in the UTA Core.This course satisfies three credit towards a Women’s and Gender Studies Minor.

______________________________________2303.003: SCIFI & FANTASY SHORT FICTION330pm TR Christian Worlow

Margaret Atwood described science fiction as what “belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going through a wormhole in space to another universe." In contrast, Warren Ellis observed how “[s]cience fiction didn’t see the mobile phone coming,” let alone how we use smartphones to make “amazing things happen by pointing at it with our fingers like…wizards.” Ellis argues that Sci-Fi

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fundamentally concerns itself with the present and about how we imagine the world might become. Accordingly, Sci-Fi arguably says more about the culture that produces such stories than about the future. In a similar manner, Michael Moorcock argued that “[f]antastic fiction is like the majority of modern fiction primarily fashionable, written for a particular audience at a particular time.” In this course, we will look at a selection of short fiction in the Sci-Fi and fantasy genres, including works by Moorcock (The Elric Saga), Ellis (Gun Machine), Ursula la Guin (Earthsea), Arthur Machen, J. R. R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Charles Stross, Kurt Vonnegut, H.P. Lovecraft, Octavia Butler, Lavie Tidhar, Mary Shelley, Nisi Shawl, and others. This course includes a Signature Assignment project as well as other shorter writing assignments. We will consider the purposes and contexts of speculative fiction. This course samples these genres rather than attempting a comprehensive examination.

2303-004: Reading for Answers7pm TR Luanne Frank

Reading literature for answers: “Who are you and what are you doing about it (--or not)?” This course reads a selection of literary works each of which implicitly confronts us with these questions and lays out its understandings of what may be, for us, possible answers--or not. We shall read them, trying them on as potential “fits,” to be integrated with who we “are” or are becoming, or could be becoming--or to be set aside.We shall look at what goes to make up this “who” of which we, and the literature, speak, of what that freedom may consist that we and the literature avail ourselves in determining it, and how, unlike that of the sciences (i.e., this is not a psychology course), literature’s very dependence on interpretation for its “knowing” rather than on demonstrable proofs (“tested” hypotheses), may be the source of that freedom, not only releasing us, but forcing us, to be the ones who, within genetic and cultural limits, decide our own direction.We shall also look at contemporary theories that argue the above.The literary works in question may include the following: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Sophocles, Oedipus; Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”; Kleist, Penthesilea and “The Marquise of O”; and Rilke, The Letters of Malte Laurids Brigge.Requirements: 5 one-page papers, possible quizzes (announced), exam.Goals: progress in close reading; progress at integrating the event-line contents and ideas of literary works with the “situation” in mind out of which one interprets literary works; familiarity with theories that lay out the nature and ultimate source of meanings conveyed via language; refinement of writing ability.     

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___________________________________________2303-008 Bible as Literature11am TR Joul Smith

 The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with substantial portions of the Bible—both Old and New Testaments—and the critical tools employed for examining it as a literary text.  By exploring its stories, characters, compositional techniques, and generic varieties the biblical texts will be analyzed based on traditional literary questions of form, structure, and style.  And by exploring its historical periods, multiple authors, and English translation the biblical texts will be analyzed as rich and complex products of historical and social contexts.  Though discussions about religion will be inevitable, this course examines the Bible as a phenomenon poised between artistic human experience and culturally institutionalized values. Our key distinctions for exploring the biblical texts will be: Stories and Ideas. Using the Bible as an anthology of literary narratives and philosophies, this course will consider the historical and cultural impact that the Bible has had on its readers.  Student projects, aside from a blog and major paper, will be digital expressions that explore the pervasive nature of the Bible in modern American culture.  Some critical concepts that will serve as welcome guides to our readings include:  mythology, authorial intention, textual criticism, translation studies, feminism, (post)structuralism, narratology, deconstructionism, reader-response, psychoanalysis, Marxism, gender studies, queer theory, ethnic studies, ecocriticism, postcolonialism._____________________________________2329 American LiteratureSection 002 1pm MWF Section 006 2pm MWFAmy Bernhard

What is an essay, anyway? Where does it fit into the literary canon? In this course, we’ll return to the root of the word, given to us by the father of the essay himself, Michel de Montaigne. His definition comes from the French verb essai, meaning “to attempt.” This seems like a pretty low bar to set. Is merely attempting enough to create a piece of art? What does an essay attempt to do anyway? What distinguishes this form from fiction, poetry, or drama, and where do these genres overlap? Looking at work as early as Montaigne and much earlier, we’ll trace the beginnings of the form back to some of the oldest known literature. We’ll look at work as diverse as travel writing, philosophy, memoir, criticism and hybrid texts. Writers we read will include Diogenes, Sei Shonagon, Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, Jamaica Kincaid, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, David Shields, Lydia Davis, David

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Foster Wallace, and recent Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. Beyond copious reading, we’ll try our hand at some (very light and low pressure!) creative work to better understand the underpinnings of the texts we’ve read. We’ll also write critical analyses of both published work and original essays.

Required texts: All readings will be posted to Blackboard with the expectation that they will be printed and brought to each class, no laptops or cell phones permitted._______________________________2329-003 American Literature: 930am TR Bethany Shaffer

“In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which”-George R.R. MartinAre people inherently good?  Evil?  Can we be both simultaneously?  What makes something good or evil?  How do we evaluate these ideas?This course will explore key texts that examine answers to all three questions above.  Students will read a variety of fiction, non-fiction and critical essays to develop their own thoughts on good and evil.  Two exams, weekly quizzes, discussion forum posts, and one major paper make up the major assignments of the course.This course satisfies the Language, Philosophy, and Culture requirement in the UTA Core.

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2329-015 American Literature: Celebrating Identity Formations1230pm TR Ken Roemer

 “Celebrating Identity Formations” introduces students to a chronological selection of significant American works that contributed to an on-going dialogue about defining what it is to be an “American” (individual, group, national). This dialogue is often a fascinating index to important American cultural and aesthetic values. Despite the selectivity of the readings, the course examines a broad range of time periods, genres geographical areas, and perspectives shaped by different gender, class, ethnic, and generational backgrounds. By the end of the semester, students who have successfully completed the assignments should: (1) have a basic knowledge of eighteen significant American texts, and (2) have the ability to consider how various historical periods, literary forms, concepts of audience, environments, and personal, generational, economic, and cultural backgrounds have

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influenced how Americans imagine and communicate concepts of who they are. This course satisfies the University of Texas at Arlington core curriculum requirements in Language, Philosophy, and Culture.

REQUIREMENTS: Two Papers: one short autobiographical paper; and a short “Signature Assignment”; Exams: three or four essay exams; short-answer readings/lectures exams; One, one-page written identity experiment TEXTS: Two short autobiographies (Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain and excerpts from Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass); two novels (Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima); and a packet of short readings from different periods and genres (exploration accounts, letters, essays, poetry, and short stories).______________________________________

2338 Technical Writing Section 003 1pm MWFSection 002 530pm MWSection 008 7pm MWLarry Huff

2338 is a technical approach to academic argument. It encompasses correctly formatted, persuasive emails and business letters. 2338 includes visual argument in the form of an informative brochure stressing layout and other forms of graphic design in the presentation. Letters of applications and resumes are designed, formatted, and worded to put your best foot forward. Business teamwork is introduced in researched how-to documents called Team Instructional Projects (TIP) and a final project called a Team Feasibility Project (TFP) includes surveys, research, business graphs, and other aspects of graphic design including argument, both visual and rhetorical. The group projects celebrate synergy, team work, and they honor disciplined time frames. The common denominator of all writing in this course is an ethical presentation of yourself, your team, and your audience.

 _______________________________________________2338.005: TECHNICAL WRITING530pm TR Christian Worlow

What is technical writing? You can think of technical writing as including technical and professional writing and communications, and in this class, you will learn how to prepare several kinds of these

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documents. You will work on resumes and cover letters, instructional materials, and formal reports. Furthermore, you will work on revising and editing a document that requires you to use all of the skills you will learn in this class as you help prepare documentation for the Arlington Public Libraries. Before you begin working on these projects, you will also experience a crash course in writing style that emphasizes concision and clarity and in basic graphic design. In all cases, you should focus on creating documents that keep their readers’ goals and needs in mind even as you try to fulfill your purposes in these documents. If First Year Writing (1301 and 1302) taught you to prepare persuasive documents for community and academic audiences, then this course teaches you to prepare persuasive documents for most any other audience. ____________________________

2350-002 Introduction to Textual Analysis and Interpretation11am TR Ken Roemer

Preamble

Although we will be reading and discussing works of literature, this course differs from literature courses, since in the readings and discussions we will be examining various ways of interpreting the literature as much as we will be discussing the literature per se.

How This Section Differs from Other 2350 Sections

To fulfill the Departmental objective of preparing students to identify the characteristics of at least three literary genres, we examine works of fiction, poetry, and life narrative (autobiography). In each case we begin by discussing a well-known American text that is routinely defined as a novel, poetry, or autobiography. I pair these texts with Native American texts that can also be defined as novels, poetry, or autobiography, but they challenge typical ways of defining these genres. The pairings invite discussion about how readers, authors, editors, scholars, and publishers conceive of genres and about literary canon formation

Goals, Requirements, Assessment

The Departmental goals for this course are to prepare students to: (1) identify characteristics of literary genres (at least three); (2) recognize and understand critical and literary terms; (3) develop methods and strategies for analyzing and interpreting texts; and (4) demonstrate a command of these methods and strategies in written work.

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The basic Departmental written requirements aimed at achieving and demonstrating the goals are: (1) a close reading of a text or a portion of a text; (2) an analyses of a text or portion of a text using an appropriate critical term or critical method; and (3) a research paper that demonstrates a knowledge of criticism on the text and (a) method(s) relevant to the study of that text.

To be more specific, in this course we will address the goals in (1) class and group discussions; (2) assigned readings; (3) short answer exams drawn from terms in the Bedford Glossary, How to Interpret Literature or Critical Theory Today ( final choice not made)and the course packet; (3) three essay exams; and (4) the three papers mentioned above.

Required Readings

Course Packet (CP) ,available only at the UTA BookstoreThe Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, Murfin and Supryia (BG)Critical Theory Today, Tyson or How to Interpret Literature (Parker)The Great Gatsby, FitzgeraldCeremony, SilkoSelections of different versions of Dickinson's poetry (CP)Translations of American Indian Songs (CP)The Autobiography, Franklin, focus: Part II of Autobio. (“Other Writings”-NOT required)The Way to Rainy Mountain, MomadayThe MLA Handbook (8th Ed.)

_________________________2350 Introduction to Textual Analysis and Interpretation930am TR Tracey Daniels Lerberg

This course, a required core course for English majors, is an introduction to different practices of analysis and interpretation, from the basic to the more advanced skills and methods of English Studies. It is intended to address how do we interpret a text’s “meaning,” and why it matters? How do we translate an interpretive reading into a piece of analytic writing? Students will study several schools of literary criticism, and will read|watch, discuss, and write about works of literature (poems, short stories, films, and novels) as they apply critical theories to primary texts. Like other disciplines, English Studies has its own vocabulary and methodology, which have to be learned in order to undertake literary analysis at the college level (and beyond). Students will become familiar with these methods through various schools of interpretation.

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Class time will consist of lecture, discussion, individual presentations, exercises, small group work, and small group presentations.  Requirements include:  a poetry analysis, an application paper on one critical theory, a research paper, an individual presentation, and a comprehensive final exam.  Careful, thoughtful reading and active, informed participation is crucial for success in this class.

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2350 Introduction to Textual Analysis and Interpretation10am MWF Charles Hicks

This course is designed to introduce current and potential English majors to the language practices that inform English Studies. In this course students will study several influential schools of literary criticism, learning how they build off of each other and to theories in disciplines such as philosophy, history, and sociology. Students will practice applying the various critical theories to primary texts, both in class discussion and essays. The course will teach student to (1) identify characteristics of genres, (2) recognize and understand critical and literary terms, (3) develop methods and strategies for analyzing and interpreting texts, and (4) demonstrate a command of these methods and strategies in written work. This course is a prerequisite for all upper-level English courses.

____________________________________________2384 Structure of Modern English Gyde MartinSection 001 10am MWFSection 002 2pm MWF

Course Description:We will examine English grammar, not to teach you “proper” grammar but to discover what is unique about the structure of this particular language.  In other words, we will discover the “real” rules, rules you already know as speakers of the language.  To see these structural rules in operation, we will use Chomsky-style diagrams in our analysis of sentences and phrases.We will also discuss topics in linguistics particularly relevant to teachers, for example, language acquisition in children (versus adults) and dialect differences.  Course Goals:By the end of the semester, students should have the deep understanding of syntax and phrase structure that is needed when

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working with the English language, be that as writing coaches, editors, or ESL teachers. Students going into secondary education will be able to teach grammar with confidence from any grammar handbook adopted by the school, and those who go on to take courses in the history of the English language or in technical writing will be exceptionally well-prepared.   Textbook:We will create our own textbook in class, one class meeting at at a time! The Practice Manual for the homework assignments is available on Blackboard.  Download it ASAP!____________________________________________

3300 Passing and Self-Making in American Literature2pm TR Neill Matheson  This course explores narratives of impersonation and racial passing, featuring people who cross social boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, or gender, disguising or abandoning their original identity to seek a better life.  American self-fashioning has often been celebrated as evidence of a society defined by freedom and opportunity, open to enterprising individuals who make their own way in the world, pursuing self-interest.  But the democratic promise of social mobility embodied in the self-made American individual is shadowed by more negatively valued ideas about self-invention, involving “bad subjects” who refuse to stay in their proper place or play by the established rules, who succeed through guile, charm, or deception.  Examining the stories of imposters, tricksters, con men and artful women, we will consider why some forms of social mobility are devalued, even stigmatized, while others are privileged as fundamentally American. Texts include Louisa May Alcott, Behind a Mask; Charles Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars; Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley; Matt Johnson’s graphic novel Incognegro (if available); and Nella Larsen, Passing, among various other texts. In addition to course readings, we will watch the films Imitation of Life, Gattaca, and The Imposter.__________________________________________

3340-002 History of American Lit:11am MWF Kenton Rambsy

In “Remixing the American Dream: History of American Literature,” we will explore a range of authors and works, both canonical and less well-known, illustrating the diversity of perspectives and kinds of writing

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produced in what is now the United States. Students will gain experience analyzing stylistics features of literary texts and making connections between a diverse cast of American artists. We will read the works of mainstream American writers alongside those who represent more marginalized perspectives, exploring shifting ideas of cultural identity and national belonging._____________________________ 

3340-003 History of American Literature1230pm TR Desiree Henderson

This class provides students with a broad introduction to American literature from the 17th century to the present. Students will be exposed to major texts, authors, and movements from American literary history. They will read a variety of literary genres, including political documents, essays, autobiographies, poetry, and short fiction. The breadth of the course and the variety of the reading allow students to gain an understanding of the role that literature played in both contributing to and reflecting the development of the nation. Assignments include 2 tests, 3 short writing assignments, and a Final Exam. Required reading: The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Shorter Edition. Eds. Belasco and Johnson. Bedford. ISBN: 978-0-312-59713-9

3345: African American Literature, from the Early-American Period to the Present 11am TR Cedrick May

Texts or Major Resources:Norton Anthology of African American Literature; editor, Gates Why We Can't Wait, by  Martin Luther King, Jr.The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X with Alex Haley

Course Description: This course is designed to familiarize students with the various texts of African American literature. We will study a number of genres throughout the semester, including slave narratives, poetry, sermons, essays and science fiction. We will study the ways by which Africans and African Americans constructed identities, a usable past, enjoyed life, and resisted oppression through literature, particularly through a variety of forms of writing.  One of the primary objectives of this course in African American literature is to introduce students to writers most people know by name, but have never actually studied in depth. The goal is to provide a unique and developed perspective for people like

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W.E.B. Dubois, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Students should expect to take a quiz over each of the daily reading assignments. The quizzes are designed to test that you are, in fact, keeping up with the reading assignments and coming to class prepared for discussion of the text for the day.There will be a midterm and final exam, as well as a new-media research project.___________________________________

3346 Mexican American Literature930 TR Erin Murrah-Mandril This course will examine literature written by Mexican American authors from 1900 to present. We will ask the question, what makes Mexican American literature a cohesive category? From a diverse body of literature that includes everything from realist short stories published popular literary venues like The Century Magazine, to post modern poetry printed by independent Chicano presses, we will explore common stylistic practices and look for themes that cross genre and time. By the end of the course, students will demonstrate strong analytical skills and an understanding of key concepts in Mexican American literature through written and oral communication in class discussions and writing assignments.

________________________________________3347 Life & Times of S Carter1pm MWF Kenton Rambsy

“The Life and Times of S. Carter” places Jay Z’s The Black Album in a broad African American literary continuum of autobiographical works. In this course, we will use text-mining software to quantify linguistic and thematic trends between Jay Z’s albums and classic literary texts by writers such as Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, and Ralph Ellison. We will compile metadata on Jay Z in order to produce thematic data visualizations, literary timelines, and a list of key terms, pinpointing intellectual and cultural components of rap music.

3352 History of British Literature II9am MWF Gyde Martin

In this course we will survey the literary movements from ca. 1800 to the present, while keeping a close eye on the historical backdrop. Since different movements favored different genres, we will sample a wide selection of poetry, plays, short fiction, and at least to novels.   In short, it is a reading-intensive course.

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 Apart from the texts we will read and discuss together, additional texts and topics will be presented by individual students or in panel discussions.  ____________________________________ 

3362 History of World Literature II2pm MWF Tim Morris

Our material will be literature translated into English from other European languages, from the mid-17th century to the present. We have two goals: to develop a “Bayardian” knowledge of the major literary traditions of European languages (from Europe and around the world); to read, and discuss in scholarly terms, a selection of important texts.

In How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read, French theorist Pierre Bayard demonstrates that discussing literature always means more or less talking about books we haven’t read or don’t remember. “Culture is above all a matter of orientation,” says Bayard. “Being cultivated is a matter not of having read any book in particular, but of being able to find your bearings within books as a system.” No World Lit class can hope to read Les liaisons dangereuses, Faust, Les Misèrables, Anna Karenina, À la recherche du temps perdu, Il gattopardo, Cien años de soledad, L’amica geniale, and the dozens of other classics that form the world literary tradition, in one semester – but we can have some hope of assembling what Bayard calls a “collective library” of these classics that can help us understand their interrelations and better prepare us to read some of them some day.

Meanwhile, we will be reading some shorter works from this tradition (all in English translation): Molière’s L’avare (The Miser, 1668), Holberg’s Jeppe pa bjerget (Jeppe on the Hill, 1722), Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774), Droste-Hülshoff’s Die Judenbuche (The Jew’s Beech, 1842), poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, stories by Jorge Luis Borges, Dürrenmatt’s Der Richter und sein Henker (The Judge and His Hangman, 1952), Beckett’s Fin de partie (Endgame, 1957), Hébert’s Kamouraska (1970), García Márquez’s Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1981), and Lakhous’ Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio (Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, 2006).

There will be weekly writing and discussion exercises, and midterms

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and final to evaluate progress on our Bayardian project. Attendance is required.______________________________________3371 Advanced Exposition8am TR Peggy Kulesz

English 3371 is a demanding upper level English course, and it is expected that all students enrolled will be able to read, discuss, and write at a sophisticated intellectual level. Although the course name is “Advanced Exposition,” we all realize that most writing involves some level of argumentation as well. In this course we will think, write, and talk about our own writing, the writing of others, and the ways in which writing has been taught historically. All students will be engaged in writing reflection and setting personal writing goals. The main objective is to hone our own writing and to understand writing as a conversation in context with other voices. _____________________________________

3373 Technical Communication 330pm TR Estee BeckWhat does it mean to be an effective workplace communicator? How does the preparation of technical, scientific, and professional materials prepare people for workplace success? This course will provide advanced techniques in document design to address these questions through the preparation of professional correspondence, a resume and cover letter, a set of instructions, and an informational report. Prerequisites: ENGL 1301, ENGL 1302.

3375 Creative WritingSection 001 1230pm TRSection 003 330pm TRLaura Kopchick

This course is designed to introduce students to the world of contemporary creative writing, particularly to the genres of literary prose fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry.  This will be accomplished through discussions, readings, writing assignments, and workshops. _____________________________________3375 Creative Writing4-520pm MWF Amy Bernhard

"Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can

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go any further.  The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is, finally, the necessary, irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

In this course, you will each be in pursuit of your own artistic singularity, that unique place of imaginative expression where you arrive only after risking failure and reaching continually for the core of what is most essential to you and your vision of the world: the beautiful, the tragic, the comic, etc. In addition to workshops of our own writing, we will read, discuss, and write in response to the poems, personal narratives, and short stories of other artists. We will also explore elements of craft, the tools that will help get you where you need to go.Students are expected to do all the assigned reading and will write poetry and creative non-fiction as well as fiction. There are no exams, but the course will be reading- and writing-intensive. Grading will be based on attendance (which is mandatory), active and respectful participation, completed writing assignments, and three unit portfolios. Required texts: Three Genres, 9th ed. by Stephen Minot, and Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott.

4301: History of the English Language11am TF FayThe goal of this course is to change how you think about English.  You will learn how the English language developed into its present form from its earliest recorded appearance as Old English, through Middle English, the Renaissance and modern periods.  The course will combine technical information, such as how to make a phonetic transcript and how to parse Old English sentences, with historical background about the events that motivated language change.  You will be encouraged to understand the progression of the English language as enmeshed with social and cultural movements, such as the migration of peoples or the political dominance of a region/group. _______________________________________________________

4326: SHAKESPEARE2pm TR Christian WorlowIn this course, I intend to provide you with an introduction to Shakespeare, his works, and his contexts. Towards these ends, you will learn about Tudor and Jacobean Britain and their theatrical and cultural

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contexts. Before we get to Shakespeare, we will also encounter Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince and work to connect this text to Shakespeare over the course of the term while also integrating historical contexts from the period. From there, we move into Shakespeare, beginning with his sonnets. After the sonnets, we move into the drama, moving from comedies to histories to tragedies: Much Ado about Nothing; Richard III; Othello; Macbeth; and King Lear. Along the way, we will work to situate these works in terms of gender constructions, politics and power, theatricality, art and imagination, and more. Our purpose is not only to understand Shakespeare in his historical context but also to understand him within modern contexts.

4333 Lifewriting 11am TR Desiree Henderson

This class examines the genre of life writing (autobiography, memoir, letters, diaries, social media, and so forth) with a particular focus on the intersection between self-improvement and political activism. We will explore critical approaches to self-representation from a variety of fields including autobiography, gender, LGBTQ, and critical race studies. Students will engage in the practice of life writing in both material and digital formats. This course also has a required Service Learning component that gives students the opportunity to explore life writing as a method within real world situations. Assignments include (at minimum) 2 essays, a life writing project, and a Service Learning project.

_____________________________________4334: Jane Austen10am MWF Kathryn Warren Do you love Jane Austen? Have you read Pride and Prejudice seven times, watched film adaptations of the novels, and named a pet (or child!) after an Austen character? Then this class is for you! In it we’ll discuss several of Austen’s novels and at least one film adaptation. We’ll revel in the pleasures of Austen’s wit while also exploring the rich field of Austen scholarship, becoming acquainted with—and participating in—discussions about the rise of the novel, gender roles in Austen’s time and in her work, the question of her politics, her deployment of irony, and even game theory. Do you hate Jane Austen? Does Janeite fandom perplex you, do you object to spending time with the idle rich and the striving middle class, do you find stories of courtship trivial? Then this class is for you! Take it—I dare you—and find out whether your distaste can withstand a semester of immersion in the work of one of the English language’s

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preeminent stylists. Together we’ll consider whether Austen’s prose merits the lofty praise it has received—whether she is a novelist who reveals us humans to ourselves, in all our marred complexity, by teaching us to feel, to judge, and to think. After this class you’ll have reams of evidence to support your position on Jane Austen (every educated person ought to have one), whatever it winds up being. Probable primary texts: Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Clueless. Probable assignments: Two short papers and one long research paper, a midterm and a final._______________________________________________4347 Fiction530-830pm T Laura Kopchick

This advanced workshop class centers around the writing of creative, fictional short stories.  Prior to the commencement of this course, all students must have taken 3375 (Intro to Creative Writing) since the class assumes basic knowledge of literary devices. In this class, we will look in more particular detail at the basic qualities of a short story that you learned about in 3375.

4349 Creative Nonfiction530-650pm MWF Amy Bernhard

Advanced Nonfiction Writing: Obsession, Wonder, and The EssayWhat drives a writer to spend weeks, months, years immersed in a topic? It’s one thing to say you’re interested in writing about the world around you. It’s another thing entirely to get absolutely lost in that world – when you no longer just want to research a particular topic: you literally want to inhabit it. In this course, designed for those who have some prior experience with creative writing, we’ll be exploring wonder and obsession and how those impulses are channeled into riveting essays. We’ll be looking at the way writers inhabit other people’s wonders and obsessions, as well as how they’re guided by their own.  We’ll do this through readings, and most of all, through lots of writing of your own--from shorter essays designed to give you a chance to experiment with different styles and forms, to three substantial essays (personal essay, literary journalism, and one hybrid essay) that we will workshop over the course of the semester.

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Students are expected to do all the assigned reading and writing. There are no exams, but the course will be reading and writing intensive. Grading will be based on attendance (which is mandatory), active and respectful participation, completed writing assignments, and three unit essays. Required Texts: All readings will be posted to Blackboard, with the expectation that they will be printed and brought to each class, no laptops or cell phones permitted.

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4356 Literary Criticism & Theory II11am MWF Tim Richardson

The study of literature is a tradition because literature begs to be talked about.  This course will survey various recent approaches to what literature does with an ear toward critique as we consider what’s still valuable, how these approaches intersect, and how these inform our understandings of texts and the world.  By the end of the course, students should be able to identify rhetorical and literary elements, develop methods and strategies for analyzing and interpreting texts, recognize and synthesize multiple interpretations of a single text, and explain the differences among different types of critical analytical approaches.__________________________________________

4366 Young Adult Literature11am TR Joanna Johnson

This course will analyze young adult (adolescent) literature from both education and literary perspectives. We will incorporate ideas of practical application into critical and scholarly discussions of the work. Young adult literature is unique in that, unlike other literatures—African-American, Native-American, women’s literature, etc.—the description indicates the audience and not the author (of course, there are children authors but they are not publishing the majority of children’s literature). By looking at a variety of genres within young adult literature, we will assess how these works both reflect and shape general literature and culture.Since many successful YA texts have been made into films we will view two movies based on popular and canonized YA novels. One film attempts to translate the film into another era while the other stays true to the time period in which the novel is set. Our discussions will revolve around how successfully (or not) the filmmakers were able to

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convey the original themes/characterization as we explore how social conventions, cultural expectations, and/or cinematic devices enriched or compromised the original texts.This class will be conducted primarily in a seminar format with major contributions from the students. Grading will be based on quizzes, an exam, short papers, short presentations, and creative projects relating to both assigned and additional readings of the student’s choice.

4370: Rhetoric and Composition for Secondary School Teachers930am TR Jim Warren This course is required for students pursuing an English BA with Secondary Teacher Certification, so these students are the primary audience. However, the course is designed to appeal to any student interested in the history, theory, and practice of reading and writing instruction. We’ll frame the course with some of the historical and epistemological issues involved in the study of rhetoric, paying particular attention to the quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy that spans virtually the entire history of Western thought. In many ways, this dispute remains with us today and determines the type of language instruction predominant in public education. As we delve into rhetorical theory as manifested in the classroom, we’ll consider questions like: What is “rhetoric,”  “composition,” and “rhetoric and composition?” Why do we teach reading and writing differently from the way it was taught 50 or 100 years ago? Why is reading and writing taught so differently in college and in high school, and what, if anything, should we do to improve alignment between the two?This is a content course, not a pedagogy course, but we will examine writing instruction itself as a research field. You’ll learn what pedagogical practices are supported by recent scholarship in rhetoric and composition, and as you do so, you’ll occupy the dual role of student and teacher-in-training. For example, you’ll learn how to teach analytic reading skills as you practice these skills. You’ll learn how to teach argument as inquiry as you produce written arguments that engage timely issues. I’ll include you in the process of composing writing assignments that you then complete. We’ll talk about how to comment on and grade student writing as I give you feedback on your writing. We’ll consider the best ways to teach grammar and mechanics as you sharpen your command of Standard Written English._______________________________4377 Topics in Science and Technology: Theory and Cultural Spaces

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930am TR Cedrick May

This section of ENGL 4377 is an introduction to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to reading and writing that are historically important to the study of literature and culture. We will focus our attention on architecture and digital technologies as objects of study within critical theory and engage these topics from a Cultural Studies perspective. Archival and field research will be a large part of our work, as you will be visiting various archives and architectural sites in the DFW area in order to produce original Cultural Studies research. In addition to a variety of short theoretical works, we will also be reading selections from the literary productions of Jorge Louis Borges, Nnedi Okorafor, Wilfred Owen, Harriet Jacobs, E.T.A. Hoffman and other writers of short fiction, non-fiction, and poetry--works that all share an interest and concern with cultural spaces, both real and imagined.

This course requires several writing assignments and oral presentations. There will be two field trips to nearby architectural sites. The final project for the course will be a multi-media exhibit of theoretical readings of architectural spaces in the DFW area. The reseach project will incorporate text, image, material objects, and sound.

TEXTS:The Poetics of Space, by Gaston Bachelard (1994)Dust: The Archive and Cultural History , by Carolyn Steedman (2002)Architecture in Black: Theory, Space, and Appearance, Darell W. Fields, 2nd ed. (2015)Diversity and Design: Understanding Hidden Consequences, by Tauke, Smith, and Davis (2016)Various Handouts4381: Medieval Literature12:30pm TR Fay

The Environment Before Environmentalism: Thinking Nature, Landscape, and Topography through Medieval Culture The modern environmentalist movement emerged in response to fears about the potentially apocalyptic effect of industrial practices on soil, air, water, plants, and animals.  Environmentalism did not only habituate us to recycling or re-use, but also ushered in a new vocabulary and an ethical mode of conceptualizing the interactions of humanity and nature—for example, eco-system, sustainability, and green, among other terms.  The “environment” would thus seem to be a modern phenomenon, comprised of the interaction of climatological and chemical factors and those discourses that represent and govern

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these factors.  This raises the question--did the environment exist before the twentieth-century? And if so, in what way? What were the predominant analogous terms to refer to the pre-environment? And, most importantly, can we learn anything from the pre-environment that can help us approach our own environmental issues with fresh eyes?   Through an interdisciplinary course of reading in medieval primary texts (literary, historical, scientific and hagiographical), and scholarship drawn from landscape history, pedology (soil studies), ecocriticism, and new materialism, this course will operate as a kind of think-tank for the above questions.  It is suitable for students interested in rigorous interdisciplinary work and conversations that look beyond either the medieval period or the contemporary moment.

4390: INTERNSHIP IN ENGLISHChristian Worlow

Internships are practicum (rather than lecture) courses in which you work with an organization to gain experience with your skills that you have developed as an English Major. Typically, internships take place outside of a traditional classroom environment: you operate within a professional setting, learning from your internship supervisors and practicing your skills. Most internships require 10-12 hours per week on your part, and you and your organization must set an appropriate schedule. While on an internship, you must also maintain a professional demeanor and appearance as you represent the organization in question, the Department of English, and the University. Most internships are unpaid. Often times, internships require students to apply to the organization in question and to compete against other prospective interns. The Department has also coordinated with various organizations in the community to provide internships specifically for English Majors here at UT Arlington. During your internship, you will complete weekly reflection pieces and submit time logs for the week on Blackboard. Dr. Worlow asks for periodic evaluations of interns from the organizations with which they work. If you are interested in this course, please email Dr. Worlow at worlow@uta.edu.Requirements: application materials; successful completion of ENGL 2350 and ENGL 2384; permission of the instructor and English advisors  __________________________________4399-001: Senior Seminar: Existentialism, or, The Projects of Our Lives930am TR Kevin Porter

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According to Walter Kaufmann, “Existentialism is not a philosophy but a label for several widely different revolts against traditional philosophy”; although embodying “a timeless sensibility that can be discerned here and there in past,” it has only since the mid-nineteenth century “hardened into a sustained protest and preoccupation.” Kaufmann believes that the core of existentialism is comprised of “[t]he refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life.” But when all schools of thought are overthrown, what remains for the individual confronted with the sensation of being abandoned in a possibly meaningless world and plagued with the manifold problems that attend daily life, if not doubt intensifying into anxiety and then anxiety intensifying into dread? Maybe, for those strong enough and honest enough to navigate the maelstrom intact, what remains is precisely nothing (or no-thing) at all but the seemingly paradoxical freedom and necessity to think and act—not in ways that confirm for ourselves that what we are (our “existence”) is what we must be (our “essence,” whether determined by God, nature, or society), but in ways that unsettle what we have been—because what we always are, from birth until death, is a continuing, future-oriented project constituted by successive choices for which we alone are responsible. As Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote, rather than our essence preceding our existence, our existence precedes our essence: “Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be, and since he conceives of himself only after he exists, just as he wills himself to be after being thrown into existence, man is nothing other than what he makes of himself.” The goal of this course will be to consider, then, what “existentialism” has meant, what it means now, and, perhaps most importantly, what it might yet mean for each of us in the ongoing projects that constitute our lives; to do so, we will engage in exploratory study of the varied existentialisms—both philosophical and literary—of, among others, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir._______________________________________________________

4399-002 Senior Seminar: Heidegger530pm TR Luanne Frank

The tradition of Western thought, guided for 2500 years by classical thinking deriving from Plato, established numerous ideals to which members of Western societies were expected to adapt their lives. Little explicit philosophical attention was paid to an individual’s developing, in addition, his or her own, individual self as a goal worth acknowledging or achieving. It was generally assumed that the needs

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of society and of the given person matched. (This is still, not incorrectly, assumed.)The nineteenth century, however, witnesses a number of specific breakthroughs--in literature, politics, psychology, philosophy--toward recognition of the need of many humans “to become who they are” should this somehow fall outside the body of a society’s conventional requirements. But it remains for the twentieth century to produce a systematic account 1) of the potentially deleterious effects of failing to look beyond society’s directives and toward the fulfillment of one’s own possibilities, should these two differ, and 2) of what the means might be to become who one is. This account is Being and Time, the chief textual focus of this course and the grounding text of much cotemporary theory.Within two years of its publication, this book made its author the West’s most celebrated thinker. It continues to spawn legions of readers (literary and cultural critics, psychoanalysts, sociologists, preachers, priests, health professionals and others) who “let [themselves] learn” from it, as well as scholars of its method, one beauty of which is to avoid a methodology, avoid rules.  This is not a “how to” book.  The individual is left to the individual.This text’s grounding the literary critical movements of post-structuralism and deconstruction and influencing literary critical movements since, however, is its ticket to English departments, making it indispensable to their study of theory, rhetoric, and creative writing.Required text: Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson.  New York: Harper, 1962.Other requirements: 5 one-page papers, quizzes (announced), final exam.Goals: close reading of theory, experience writing about literature “across” it, refining scholarly writing ability. 

4399-003 SENIOR SEMINAR: Modern American Poetry1230pm TR Stacy AlaimoEnglish 4399: SENIOR SEMINAR is a capstone course for English majors. It is a writing-intensive, seminar-style, in-depth study of a topic. Because this is a capstone course the emphasis will be on independent research, thinking, writing, and learning, as well as on intense in-class discussions.  The topic of this particular section of the Senior Seminar is Modern American Poetry. We will discuss an exciting range of 20th-Century American poetry, including the following topics: the poetics of dissent; modernisms and the Harlem Renaissance; gender, sex, love, desire; animals, nature, environment.  We will examine poetry as an art form as well as discuss its cultural and political contexts and the philosophical questions it provokes. Students

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may do their final projects on a 20th century American poet of their choice or on a thematic topic of their choice.  We will take advantage of the extraordinarily rich and informative web site that accompanies Cary Nelson’s magnificent Modern American Poetry anthology.  The class is organized as a seminar, focusing on students’ interpretations and culminating with students’ research projects.  [The syllabus will be available on Blackboard and on Dr. Alaimo’s Mentis page.]

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