Fall 2024 Course Descriptions - 5 Groups

Instructor: Joanna Collins

Course Description: In this course, you will gain the communication skills necessary to succeed in a career that relies on technical writing and your ability to write concisely with a focus on audience, purpose, genre, and medium. Through recorded lecture, discussion posts, quizzes, peer review, virtual presentations, and projects, you will learn how to set yourself apart in a sea of job candidates, claim your spot in the workplace, and thrive there. After completing this course, students will be able to write concisely with a focus on audience, purpose, genre, and medium; understand and use effective document design to make information attractive and accessible for users; collaborate on writing projects and critique and edit the writing of others; and communicate in multiple modalities (written, oral, visual).

Please note that while this is an asynchronous, online course, it is not self-paced. Assignments will have fixed due dates, and students must attend a synchronous, one-on-one Zoom appointment with the instructor at least once during the semester.

Required Materials: 

Textbook: Mike Markel & Stuart A. Selber. Practical Strategies for Technical Communication: A Brief Guide. Fourth edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2022. Print or digital.

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: jcollins@txstate.edu

Instructor: Joanna Collins

Course Description: In this course, you will gain the communication skills necessary to succeed in a career that relies on technical writing and your ability to write concisely with a focus on audience, purpose, genre, and medium. Through recorded lecture, discussion posts, quizzes, peer review, virtual presentations, and projects, you will learn how to set yourself apart in a sea of job candidates, claim your spot in the workplace, and thrive there. After completing this course, students will be able to write concisely with a focus on audience, purpose, genre, and medium; understand and use effective document design to make information attractive and accessible for users; collaborate on writing projects and critique and edit the writing of others; and communicate in multiple modalities (written, oral, visual).

Please note that while this is an asynchronous, online course, it is not self-paced. Assignments will have fixed due dates, and students must attend a synchronous, one-on-one Zoom appointment with the instructor at least once during the semester.

Required Materials: 

Textbook: Mike Markel & Stuart A. Selber. Practical Strategies for Technical Communication: A Brief Guide. Fourth edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2022. Print or digital.

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: jcollins@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. Mogull

Course Description: ENG 3303 covers writing in technical professions. It emphasizes planning, writing, revising, editing, and proofreading professional communications for a variety of audiences. The goal this class is to learn and practice communicating clearly in your field. Specifically, you will learn to analyze an audience and create the following: (1) informative, fact-based paper for a general audience, (2) stepwise instructions, and (3) persuasive cover letter and resume for a job or internship (or graduate school application). Additionally, we will cover technical and professional writing style, editing, researching scholarly literature, visual communication, and document design. Students will also be introduced to software tools that facilitate team writing and editing in professional settings.

Required Materials: N/A

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: mogull@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. Mogull

Course Description: ENG 3303 covers writing in technical professions. It emphasizes planning, writing, revising, editing, and proofreading professional communications for a variety of audiences. The goal this class is to learn and practice communicating clearly in your field. Specifically, you will learn to analyze an audience and create the following: (1) informative, fact-based paper for a general audience, (2) stepwise instructions, and (3) persuasive cover letter and resume for a job or internship (or graduate school application). Additionally, we will cover technical and professional writing style, editing, researching scholarly literature, visual communication, and document design. Students will also be introduced to software tools that facilitate team writing and editing in professional settings.

Required Materials: N/A

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: mogull@txstate.edu

Instructor: Sean Rose

Course Description: A writing-intensive lecture course, English 3303 covers the practice of writing in the technical field and workplace. We’ll emphasize precise and concise writing, revising, editing, and proofreading proposals, reports, and other forms of technical communication for a variety of diverse readers.

This is an asynchronous, online course, but will be just as involved as an in-person course. Hard deadlines still exist in the asynchronous format.

Required Materials: 

1. Textbook: Practical Strategies for Technical Communication, Fourth Edition, by Mike Markel

2. Microsoft Word

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: sgr24@txstate.edu

Instructor: Sean Rose

Course Description: A writing-intensive lecture course, English 3303 covers the practice of writing in the technical field and workplace. We’ll emphasize precise and concise writing, revising, editing, and proofreading proposals, reports, and other forms of technical communication for a variety of diverse readers.

This is an asynchronous, online course, but will be just as involved as an in-person course. Hard deadlines still exist in the asynchronous format.

Required Materials: 

1. Textbook: Practical Strategies for Technical Communication, Fourth Edition, by Mike Markel

2. Microsoft Word

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: sgr24@txstate.edu

Instructor: Sean Rose

Course Description: A writing-intensive lecture course, English 3303 covers the practice of writing in the technical field and workplace. We’ll emphasize precise and concise writing, revising, editing, and proofreading proposals, reports, and other forms of technical communication for a variety of diverse readers.

This is an asynchronous, online course, but will be just as involved as an in-person course. Hard deadlines still exist in the asynchronous format.

Required Materials: 

1. Textbook: Practical Strategies for Technical Communication, Fourth Edition, by Mike Markel

2. Microsoft Word

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: sgr24@txstate.edu

Instructor: Sean Rose

Course Description: A writing-intensive lecture course, English 3303 covers the practice of writing in the technical field and workplace. We’ll emphasize precise and concise writing, revising, editing, and proofreading proposals, reports, and other forms of technical communication for a variety of diverse readers.

This is an asynchronous, online course, but will be just as involved as an in-person course. Hard deadlines still exist in the asynchronous format.

Required Materials: 

1. Textbook: Practical Strategies for Technical Communication, Fourth Edition, by Mike Markel

2. Microsoft Word

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: sgr24@txstate.edu

Instructor: Edward Alan Schaefer

Course Description: English 3303 is an advanced writing course designed specifically to study the special demands of technical writing in your future profession. Students will learn to produce concise, precise, and useful technical writing and communication in a variety of genres, including job application materials, instructions, definitions, workplace memos, and notes on ethical concerns in various professional fields.

Required Materials: A CONCISE GUIDE TO TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION by Graves and Graves, 978-1554815487

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: es46@txstate.edu

Instructor: Amanda Scott

Course Description: This is an advanced course designed specifically to study the special demands of technical writing. The course will emphasize and help you develop the skills necessary to solve complex workplace problems, initiate and complete communication projects, and even challenge and revise outdated or ineffective communication processes and documents. As you work through course projects, they will also gain experience collaborating with others on writing, revising, and editing their work to meet professional standards. Most importantly, students will consider the ways in which accepted communication practices might be made more ethical and inclusive. Thus, throughout the semester you will be asked to analyze technical processes, documents, and other artifacts—written, visual, auditory—to understand technical communication’s unique impact on race, gender, sexuality, and other markers of identity, and further, consider how technical and professional communication may be enhanced to better serve all citizens.

Required Materials: N/A

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: aes126@txstate.edu

Instructor: Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth

Course Description: How does documentary film, a genre with its roots in anthropological observation, come to build trust with its subjects, persuade its viewers, and traverse the boundary between truth and fiction in the twenty-first century? In this course, we will investigate how filmmakers use the documentary genre to argue for structural change, open an audience’s eyes to marginalized experiences, and reveal everything from wrongful conviction to the human need to create art. In doing so, we will analyze and research documentaries across the globe from 1921 to the present day. We will also read theory on the documentary film as a genre, criticism concerned with individual documentaries, and interviews with documentary filmmakers. While the course is primarily concerned with the critical study of major documentary films, students will have the opportunity to produce short documentary films that put into practice the elements we’ve discussed during the semester or apply their insights about the genre to writing an original argument about a documentary on or off our syllabus.

Required Materials Materials: Films may include: Nanook of the North (dir. Robert Flaherty, 1921), Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929), Paris is Burning (dir. Jennie Livingston, 1991), The Act of Killing (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer, 2013), Grey Gardens (dir. Albert and David Maysles, 1975), Faces Places (dir. Agnès Varda and JR, 2017), The Thin Blue Line (dir. Errol Morris, 1988), The 13th (dir. Ava Duvernay, 2016), Cave of Forgotten Dreams (dir. Werner Herzog, 2010), This is Spinal Tap! (dir. Rob Reiner, 1984), episodes of Serial (podcast, created by Sarah Koenig, 2016), The Case Against Adnan Syed (dir. Amy Berg, 2019) and Documentary Now! (created by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Seth Myers, 2015), F for Fake (dir. Orson Welles, 1974), Close-up (dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 1990), Flee (dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen, 2021), The Zone of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

Instructor: Lauren Brentnell

Course Description: Participatory action research (PAR) is a research practice that asks us to consider how we develop partnerships and relationships in our communities. When we engage in PAR, we position ourselves as participants in a community that work for and with others to create actionable knowledge. In this course, we will examine theories and approaches to PAR, considering what methods and ethics may be involved in this work. Throughout the semester, we will also develop PAR projects by identifying issues within our own university community, reaching out to stakeholders, and creating a proposal (with community input) to respond to these issues.

Required Materials: N/A

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: brentnell@txstate.edu

Instructor: Amanda Scott

Course Description: Within the discipline of composition, computers and writing seeks to explore how technology has uniquely shaped rhetoric and traditional modes of writing. As such, this course begins by with a background of foundational questions underpinning our field, interrogates changing modes of writing as a result of technology through time, and seeks to understand our current rhetorical position within this new technological framework. We focus on the introductions of computers as communication devices and the move to social media, examining influences related to textuality, communication, relationships, and culture. Throughout the course, students will examine social, political, epistemological, pragmatic, creative, and other concerns related to communication technologies.

Required Materials: N/A

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: aes126@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. John Blair

Course Description: An introductory course in creative writing which will involve study, discussion, and composition of both fiction and poetry. Students will learn the basics of fiction and poetry writing, as well as compose their own fiction and poetry and have it critiqued in class.

Format: Online

Required Materials: N/A

Instructor Contact: jblair@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. Eric Leake

Course Description: How do political candidates and movements make their cases and attract supporters? What are the roles of identities, emotions, and facts in political discourse? How do advertisements, campaign events, and social media posts engage politics? Is it possible to talk about politics civilly and persuasively, and how might we do so? These are the types of questions this course will address as we apply a rhetorical approach to better understand contemporary political discourse in the U.S. This course is not a place to argue competing political positions. It is designed instead to take advantage of the coinciding 2024 election—and Texas State’s selection to host a presidential debate—as an opportunity to study political rhetoric at work.

Required Materials: 

Caulfield, Mike and Sam Wineburg. Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online. University of Chicago Press, 2023.

Roberts-Miller, Patricia. Demagoguery and Democracy. The Experiment, 2020

Instructor Contact: eleake@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. Susan S. Morrison

Course Description: This course provides an overview of the historical development and changes of English from its Indo-European roots to contemporary American Englishes and Global Englishes that exist throughout the world today. We will discuss the origins and growth of the English language with particular attention to the social, cultural, and historical contexts for phonological (pronunciation), morphological (form of words), and grammatical changes. We will also examine dialects, spelling, and dictionaries. This course is vital for understanding American English today and for understanding literature written in English in both the medieval and postmedieval periods.

Required Materials: Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 6th Ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2013. 6th edition:

ISBN-13: 978-0415655965

Extra material on CANVAS

Instructor Contact: morrison@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. James Reeves

Course Description: How does mythology shape our understanding of what it means to be human? What do myths from different times and places have to say about community, conflict, violence, the natural world, our duty to the gods and to each other, and so forth? Why is myth so persistent? Does it still have a place in our “modern,” secular world? And what are myths in the first place? In this course, we will attempt to answer such questions by focusing on two specific strands of mythology: creation myths and myths about the end of the world. We will read myths from around the globe, and we will consider the ways in which myths are constantly reworked and recycled over time. My hope is that by the end of term we will have a much better grasp of what mythology is and that we will recognize the many surprising ways mythology continues to inform our lives today.

Required Materials: 

Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology (Norton, 2018)

Cormac McCarthy, The Road (Vintage, 2007)

Instructor Contact: jreeves@txstate.edu

Instructor: Graeme Wend-Walker

Course Description: So far as we can tell, myths have been a part of every culture throughout history. They resonate through our own, both as stories informing our sense of reality and as rich sources of inspiration for literature, the arts, and popular culture.

This is a literature class, so the emphasis here is on mythology as literature and on literature’s use of mythology. Having said that, the study of literature can encompass many other fields, such as history, sociology, psychology, and archaeology. There are many ways of approaching myths. They can tell us about real historical events, the values of a given society, what it means to be human, how the universe came into being, how cultural customs and rituals came into being, rules of social behavior, or the path to self-knowledge. Students will learn to consider myths from all of these perspectives.

This course will focus on four regions/time periods: The Classical mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome; Old Norse mythology; the mythology of East and Southeast Asia (primarily China and Vietnam); and African myths (primarily from West Africa—Uganda and Nigeria, specifically—but also the Congo and the African diaspora). Significant time will also be allowed for the discussion of myths from other times and places.

Materials: Thury, Eva M. and Margaret K. Devinney. Introduction to Mythology: Contemporary Approaches to Classical and World Myths. Fourth Edition. Oxford UP: 2017.

Other texts will be provided.

Instructor Contact: graeme@txstate.edu

Instructor: drea brown

Course Description: This course explores foundational Black feminist texts (literature, theory, criticism) as a means of uncovering core themes and definitions of a rich tradition of Black feminist thought, practice, and imagination. Using the works of Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Patricia Hill Collins and others as springboards and guides, we will trace how ideologies and theories of ancestry, self-definition, and liberation persist and expand in contemporary cultural productions such as Beyoncé Knowles’ LEMONADE, Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, and Solange Knowles A Seat at the Table.

Required Materials: Potential texts include for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, Ntozake Shange, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde, The Gilda Stories, Jewelle Gomez, Sula, Toni Morrison, The Color Purple, Alice Walker, Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley C. Ford, Black Chameleon, Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton

Instructor Contact: drea.brown@txstate.edu

Instructor: drea brown

Course Description: In a 2020 call for papers titled “Black Horror and the Relentless Haunting of Traumatic Pasts” Tashima Thomas defines Black horror and the Afrogothic as an aesthetic or means of working through the everyday horrors experienced in Black life. In this area of study and interest writers/scholars/filmmakers/artists investigate how elements of the gothic and horror, such as “constructions of the monstrous, the villainous, the mad and the haunted—take on wholly different valences when they are studied within the context of blackness, particularly under the modern colonial project.” In this course we will explore how Black writers reckon with sordid histories to move toward possible futures. Over the semester we will study texts that reposition these frightening constructions while reclaiming cultural traditions and other ways of being, beyond the imagined horror.

Required Materials: Potential Texts: Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark, The Gilda Stories, Jewelle Gomez, We Cast a Shadow, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Ghost Summer, Tananarive Due, Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele, Stigmata, Phyllis Alesia Perry, Mama Day, Gloria Naylor (1988)

Instructor Contact: drea.brown@txstate.edu

Instructor: Emily Banta

Course Description: This course will explore a wide range of performance practices, both on stage and off, in the early United States (1780s-1865). In addition to studying the rich but often neglected archives of early U.S. theater, we will also survey the volatile and competing paratheatrical performances that shaped public life: street protests, crowd actions, Pinkster parades, violent spectacles of slavery, fiery abolitionist oratory, and popular museum exhibitions and freak shows. In the process, we’ll investigate how writers, artists, and impresarios used performance to mobilize, captivate, and entertain nineteenth-century publics. We will also ask how the literature of this period critically engages with the theatricality of American life. Along the way, we will pay special attention to the various ways in which performance creates cultural identities along the lines of race, gender, and class. And we’ll consider how the legacies of nineteenth-century performance continue to be felt in our contemporary moment. By the end of the semester, students will have gained familiarity with some of the most central works of early U.S. literature while learning to deploy “performance” as a critical framework and methodology with which to read both theatrical and extra-theatrical events.

Required Materials: N/A

Instructor Contact: rbw58@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. John Blair

Course Description: An online synchronously-taught survey of American literature from the end of the Civil War to the end of World War II. Writers to be studied include Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and others. Readings will be placed into historical social, and cultural context and discussed in terms of both meaning and importance.

Format: Online

Required Materials: N/A

Instructor Contact: jblair@txstate.edu

Instructor: Steve Wilson

Course Description: A survey of major U.S. movements, attitudes and texts from the years after the U.S. Civil War to the birth of Modernism. Our course will examine the many conflicts at the center of a growing United States as it spread across the continent and gained in world influence. Texts in the course will embody a broad ranges of minority and mainstream voices and methods. Class meetings will rely on lively discussions built upon student participation.

Required Materials: 

Toomer, *Cane*; MacLane, *I Await the Devil's Coming*; Venegas, *The Adventures of Don Chipote*; Elliot, *The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 1865-1914* (Volume C, Ninth Edition)

Instructor Contact: sw13@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. John Blair

Course Description: An online synchronously taught survey of American literature from 1945 to the present. Writers to be studied include John Gardner, Sylvia Plath, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyaka, Toni Morrison, and others. Readings will be placed into historical social, and cultural context and discussed in terms of both meaning and importance.

Format: Online

Required Materials: N/A

Instructor Contact: jblair@txstate.edu

Instructor: Simon Lee

Course Description: This course explores the evolution of the horror genre in British literature, examining the codification of its tropes and motifs in response to cultural shifts. Commencing with an analysis of the Gothic during the Romantic period, we will track the genre's development through the Victorian era, where it transformed into a popular form of entertainment grounded in societal concerns. Moving into the 20th century, the course delves into the genre's subdivision and redefinition, encompassing various forms such as weird fiction, folk horror, postmodern fiction, splatterpunk, and eco-horror. It goes without saying that all of these texts contain visceral and upsetting content, especially in terms of their depictions of violence. Nonetheless, we will consider them all as products of their moment, identifying and considering their dialectical capacity as cultural mirrors. The course concludes with an examination of the contemporary relevance of horror, questioning whether the genre's original cathartic impulse endures or if new motivations have emerged in response to the present cultural climate.

Required Materials:

Books may include Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmella, Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out, Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, Susan Hill's The Woman in Black, James Herbert's The Rats, Ian Banks' The Wasp Factory, Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, David Mitchell's Slade House, Max Porter's Lanny.

Instructor Contact: simonlee@txstate.edu 

Instructor: Dr. Sara A. Ramirez

Course Description: Chicana/o Narrative and Social History considers narratives produced by people of Mexican descent living in the United States. As such, the course offers students an opportunity to enhance their multicultural competence and meets the requirements for an elective in the Latina/o Studies minor.

Under the guidance of Dr. Ramírez, this section of ENG 3344 will focus on Chicanx feminist narratives. Together, we will consider intersectional dilemmas that Chicanxs face and Chicanx feminist solutions to these issues. The course asks us to reflect on foundational sociopolitical concepts proposed by Chicana feminist thinkers such as Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, for instance, as we examine creative works by Chicanx cultural producers.

Required Materials:

• Various texts on Canvas

• Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 1987. 4th ed., Aunt Lute, 2012.

• de la Luz, Rios. Itzá. Broken River Books, 2017.

• Grise, Virginia. blu. Yale UP, 2011.

• Pelaez López, Alán. Intergalactic Travels: Poems from a Fugitive Alien. Operating System, 2020.

• Sánchez, Erika L. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Knopf, 2017.

Instructor Contact: sramirez@txstate.edu

Instructor: William Jensen

Course Description: This course is the first in a two-course sequence leading to a minor in Southwestern Studies, designed to examine the richness and diversity of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The course offers a multicultural focus by studying the region’s people, institutions, history, and physical and cultural ecology. An intercultural and interdisciplinary approach increases awareness of and sensitivity to the diversity of ethnic and cultural traditions in the area. Students will discover what distinguishes the Southwest from other regions of the United States, as well as its similarities, physically and culturally. The images, myths, themes, and perceptions of the region will be examined in light of historical and literary texts.

Required Materials: 

• The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (available free online at http://alkek.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv/index.html)

• Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 by David Montejano (University of Texas Press, 1987)

• Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage International 1992)

Instructor Contact: wj13@txstate.edu

Instructor: Cyrus Cassells

Course Description: Description of Course: This once-a-week poetry course is an intermediate undergraduate workshop designed to deepen students’ involvement with their own poetry and to enhance their critical reading of significant contemporary American poets.
 

Objectives: An affable, constructive workshop environment that provides strong support for individual poetic efforts. The course also provides greater exposure to the field through energetic discussion of the work of acclaimed modern and contemporary American poets.

Required Materials: 

Contemporary American Poetry (8th edition)

Instructor Contact: cc37@txstate.edu

Instructor: Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler

Course Description: We know that Shakespeare belongs to World Literature: from the late sixteenth century onward, people throughout the world have studied, performed, and taken inspiration from his plays. Our goal in this course is to understand why this is so. We'll focus on four of Shakespeare's best known early comedies: Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream,, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. We'll pay special attention to film interpretations and international performances, accessible through MIT Global Shakespeares: https://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/.

Required Materials: The Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays/The Sonnets. 3rd ed.

Instructor Contact: es10@txstate.edu

Instructor: Joe Falocco

Course Description: English 3354 studies representative works of Shakespeare’s early career up to, but not including, Hamlet. Students will read these plays in their entirety, take quizzes on this reading, and prepare paraphrases and textual analyses for key passages from each play. For a final project, students will have the opportunity to either write a three-to-five-page essay or prepare a scene/monologue for performance.

Required Materials: Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. Seventh Edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2014. ISBN: 0321886518. Note: You must purchase a hard copy of this edition of this book and bring it to class every day.

Format: Online

Instructor Contact: jf48@txstate.edu

Instructor: Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler

Course Description: Like us, English writers of the early seventeenth century lived in a time when the core values and beliefs they held were undergoing profound changes.  Like us, they confronted the challenges of science and politics.  But their starting point was unlike ours.  Their worldview was different and they responded in ways that we have forgotten.  Our forgetting, however, does not render their perspectives irrelevant. In this multicultural course, we engage another culture—the culture of past English speakers—to attempt to understand them as well as ourselves. We shall study both male and female writers, most English but some American, from diverse social classes.

Required Materials: Seventeenth-Century British Poetry 1603-1660. Ed. John P. Rumrich and Gregory Chaplin. Norton Critical Edition

The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell, ed. Thomas N. Corns

MLA Handbook, 9th ed.

Instructor Contact: es10@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. James Reeves

Course Description: How does mythology shape our understanding of what it means to be human? What do myths from different times and places have to say about community, conflict, violence, the natural world, our duty to the gods and to each other, and so forth? Why is myth so persistent? Does it still have a place in our “modern,” secular world? And what are myths in the first place? In this course, we will attempt to answer such questions by focusing on two specific strands of mythology: creation myths and myths about the end of the world. We will read myths from around the globe, and we will consider the ways in which myths are constantly reworked and recycled over time. My hope is that by the end of term we will have a much better grasp of what mythology is and that we will recognize the many surprising ways mythology continues to inform our lives today.

Required Materials: N/A

Instructor Contact: jreeves@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. Denae Dyck

Course Description: Gloomy castles, hidden passageways, mysterious disappearances, uncanny returns, hauntings. This course considers how Gothic tropes were developed and put to strategic uses during the Romantic era (1780s to 1830s). Our study will situate British Romantic writers in global contexts, examining how their texts engaged critically with Enlightenment ideas about rationalism and reasserted the vital role of imagination and intuition. How did they adapt elements derived from folklore, legends, and myths to challenge political hierarchies and expose the chaos lurking beneath a seemingly orderly society? We will analyze why their ideas about the sublime and the supernatural resonated so powerfully within this historical moment; we will also contemplate their contemporary afterlives.

Required Materials: Readings will draw from a wide array of Romantic era writers, ranging from novels such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey to shorter works of poetry and prose by authors including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Robinson, Olaudah Equiano and George Gordon Lord Byron.

Instructor Contact: denae.dyck@txstate.edu

Instructor: Dr. Denae Dyck

Course Description: The Victorian period might well be considered an age of mystery. From the advent of detective fiction and sensation novels to the resurgence of Gothic tropes, much Victorian literature focuses on encounters with what seems to be inexplicable. This course probes and ponders the cultural, critical, and creative functions of Victorian mysteries. Even as this age saw increasing emphasis on historical and scientific knowledge, the Victorian era also witnessed a renewed fascination with supernatural forces and spiritual ideas. How did Victorian writers make strategic use of plots involving secrecy, discovery, and surprise? What does this literature have to say about experiencing intrigue, terror, wonder, and awe? How might these texts expand the horizons of our thinking, while simultaneously testing the limits of our thought? Our study will consider how Victorian mysteries gave rise to enduring fascinations that can still be seen in literature and popular culture today.

Required Materials: Readings will draw from a wide array of Victorian literature, featuring major fictional works by Charlotte Brontë, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Oscar Wilde, along with shorter pieces by various writers of both prose and poetry.

Instructor Contact: denae.dyck@txstate.edu

Instructor: Julie Weng

Course Description: This course will study British Modernism, a diverse and decentralized creative movement that took place (approximately) in the first half of the twentieth century, and which included writers born in Britain, its colonies, and elsewhere. Our course will study modernist prose and drama, noting their interest in the interior life of the human subject, which is conveyed through formal experimentation at the heart of the movement. We will also consider modernist poetry, including its relationship to poetic movements of the past as well as its drive to innovate new forms of expression. Prompted by our course materials, we will ask: What is modernism? Is it a time period? A literary style? A philosophy or idea? What holds modernism together? With these questions in mind, our final unit will consider the possibility of a late modernism that is still practiced by living writers today. As we read these authors, we will ask: is it possible for contemporary writers to be modernists?

Instructor Contact: julie.weng@txstate.edu

Instructor: Geneva M. Gano

Course Description: As a literary mode that foregrounds the writer’s acts of reflection and self-expression, the memoir is perhaps unsurprisingly one of the most popular vehicles for queer and trans storytelling. In this course, we will read, reflect on, and analyze queer and trans memoirs that have been published since the Stonewall Riots: that is, the era of contemporary GLBTQIA+ movements and the ongoing struggle for civil and social equality. We will also read some of the foundational texts of queer theory in conversation with queer-of-color critique. Some of the writers we will explore include Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Leslie Feinberg, Janet Mock, Casey Parks, Alison Bechdel, and Ocean Vuong.

Required Materials: TBD

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: gmgano@txstate.edu

Instructor: drea brown

Course Description: This course centers the lived experiences and cultural productions of black queer/LGBTQAI+ people and engages students in critical interdisciplinary conversations through an investigation of 20^th-21^st century texts. Throughout the semester we will explore ideas of ancestry, community, and imagining self beyond imposed limitations.

Required Materials: Books may include Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde, The Gilda Stories, Jewelle Gomez, Trumpet, Jackie Kay, All Boys Aren’t Blue, George M.Johnson, The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr., love, conjure blues, Sharon Bridgforth, A Visitation of Spirits, Randall Keenan

Instructor Contact: drea.brown@txstate.edu

Instructor: Graeme Wend-Walker

Course Description: This course examines one of the fastest growing of literary genres. Adolescent literature—often also referred to as young adult literature, or “YA” for short—has a relatively brief history, having only emerged as a distinct marketing category in the 1960s. It now enjoys a very high profile in publishing and filmmaking, due in part to how popular it has become with readers beyond the traditional adolescent age range.

We will look at key texts from the history of YA and texts from diverse cultural backgrounds, including Mexican American, African American, and Nigerian American. We will consider the socio-economic and cultural factors that gave rise to the genre, with a particular focus on those cultural exchanges between the United States and Britain which created the phenomenon of young adulthood as we know it. Music and film will be a key part of this historical approach, as these became important components of YA culture well before YA books emerged. We will also discuss issues such as social media and their place in YA culture today. Students will learn to apply a range of critical tools to these texts so as to better understand the role they have in both reflecting and shaping society.

Materials: The book list is likely to include works such as the following: S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders; John Green, Looking for Alaska; Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter; Neil Shusterman, Unwind; Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down; Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak; Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch.

Instructor Contact: graeme@txstate.edu

Instructor: Julie Weng

Course Description: Perhaps no modern writer has been more influential than James Joyce. His works have been banned, parodied, and translated. They have been taught in university classrooms, read aloud in pubs, and adapted into films. They have even become recent bestsellers in China. In academic criticism, scholars point to Joyce’s texts to delineate the boundaries of modernism and postmodernism, to consider the power of literary form to capture individual human consciousness, and to demonstrate the flexibility and playfulness of the English language itself. Regarding his genre-bending “novel” Ulysses alone, TS Eliot called it “the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape.” Ford Madox Ford affirmed the cataclysmic shift caused by the novel, saying that “Certain books change the world. This, success or failure, Ulysses does.” Virginia Woolf offered the text more critical words, writing, “Never did any book so bore me.” And yet her most celebrated novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is often read as an homage to Ulysses.

This course will study the major writings of James Joyce. We will grapple with his artistic development over the course of his writing career, including his increasingly explosive experiments with literary form. We will also position Joyce’s works within an Irish historical context, considering their commentary on Ireland’s status as a colony of Great Britain. Pervading all of our class discussions will be a focus on the individual human and the sympathy Joyce solicits for his flawed protagonists. Indeed, Joyce challenges us to forge a new concept of what it means to be the hero(ine) of a story.

Materials: All of our course materials are in the public domain. I will post links to our readings online. However, some students may prefer reading from hardcopies. Our bookstore will have the following texts below:

Recommended if you prefer hardcopies:

James Joyce, Dubliners, edited by Keri Walsh (9781554811229)

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, edited by John Paul Riquelme (9780393926798)

James Joyce, Ulysses (Standard Academic Edition), edited by Hans Walter Gabler (978-0394743127)

Harry Blamires, The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide through Ulysses (978-0415138581)

Jefferson Hunter, How to Read Ulysses and Why (9780820456683)

Instructor Contact: julie.weng@txstate.edu

Instructor: Geneva M. Gano

Course Description: In this course, we will examine writings by one of this century’s most highly regarded writers: Sandra Cisneros. We will explore Cisneros’ varied literary career—one that spans literary genres of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry—as well as her presence in media that situates her as an activist, fashion icon, and philanthropist. Students will also have the opportunity to explore Cisneros’s journals, correspondence, and ephemera at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. We will also read contemporary book reviews and literary critical studies of her work, works that inspired her, and other kinds of secondary source materials and we will have the opportunity to engage with literary scholars who focus on Cisneros’s oeuvre.

Materials: Cisneros, My Wicked, Wicked Ways

Cisneros, House on Mango Street

Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek

Cisneros, Loose Woman

Cisneros, Caramelo

Other works TBA

Format: Asynchronous, Online

Instructor Contact: gmgano@txstate.edu

Instructor: Emily Banta

Course Description: Poet, short story writer, essayist, critic, magazine editor. A versatile and innovative writer, Edgar Allan Poe occupies a central place in antebellum American literature and culture. Yet his career was also shaped by economic precarity, tenuous professional networks, and literary feuds. In this course, we’ll work to reconstruct the literary networks of US print culture by studying Poe alongside his literary friends, enemies, and frenemies. Along the way, we will survey Poe’s substantial body of work, including his tales of gothic horror, his invention of detective fiction, his innovations in mystery and science fiction, his satiric writings and newspaper hoaxes, his poetry and literary criticism. Students in this course will conduct archival research on nineteenth-century periodicals and make critical forays into the vast scholarship on Poe.

Materials: N/A

Instructor Contact: rbw58@txstate.edu

Instructor: Jennifer duBois

Course Description: In this course, students will explore how technical choices about craft—such as character, plot, and point of view—can mysteriously conjure an affecting piece of fiction. By discussing published fiction and participating in workshop, students will investigate what makes fiction satisfying, astonishing, and beautiful—and will work to capture these qualities in their own writing.

Format: Online

Required Materials: 

Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, 2nd Edition, Edited by Michael Martone and Lex Williford

Instructor Contact: jjd64@txstate.edu

Instructor: Kate McClancy

Course Description: This capstone class in the film emphasis examines the medium of film from three directions: the narrative, the spectacular, and the critical. To do so, we will study the elements of screenwriting, cinematography, and cultural and historical analysis, putting these three puzzle pieces together to create a multifaceted understanding of cinema. Using the films of Stanley Kubrick as a case study, students will unpack the details of how—and why—motion pictures work, and what work they do. Finally, students will submit as a final project a short screenplay, a short film, or an analytical paper integrating these three components.

Materials: Films may include: Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyseey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Instructor Contact: kmcclancy@txstate.edu

Instructor: Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler

Course Description: Fulfilling the single-author course requirement for English majors, this class provides an overview of Milton’s works and focuses on the construction of the self in both his poetry and prose. Students will learn how even a “major writer” like Milton may be fruitfully studied as a participant in contemporary debates, and how ideas about public action form an important part of Milton’s understanding of the pursuit of truth. Students will also consider the continuing relevance of Milton's public and private concerns and artistry. This is a senior-level class that assumes students have some basic familiarity with literature written before 1800, such as what they have learned in English 2310 (British Literature before 1789) or a similar survey course.

Materials: John Milton, The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose, ed. William Kerrigan et al. Modern Library, 2007. (Kindle edition available).

Instructor Contact: es10@txstate.edu