30000

Refinement of expository writing skills through analysis of models and writing practice.

Study of works by African-American, Hispanic, Native American, female and other historically marginalized authors specifically to address issues of culture, value and self-development. Literature poses critical issues that arise in the increasingly diverse societies of our shrinking world. Prerequisite: 20000-level English course or consent of instructor.

Treats history and development of the English language with special attention to grammar, syntax and phonetics. Applies various linguistic approaches to the task of understanding evolution and system of the language. Not designed to treat special problems in speaking or writing English.

Course development skills in writing drama, poetry and fiction. Develops critical skills and encourages students to develop tools to refine expression.

Explores how image and text work together to make meaning in contexts such as illustrated literature, film, advertising, visual poetry, performance art, and graphic novels. Readings from fields such as visual cultural studies, semiotics, art history, film criticism, postmodernism, and psychoanalytic theory will illuminate the relationships between image and text, language and representation.

An examination of a variety of literary works from several genres, focusing on the portrayal of physical environments and the connections between these environments and human spheres of influence. This course will explore how human beings relate to the natural world, and how that relation influences the way we read texts and the world around us, Authors to be studied might include Leopold, Thoreau, Defoe, the Brontes, Wordsworth, Merwin, Snyder and Kingsolver. Cross-listed with LAS 33523 Environmental Literature.

Course reviews the written and material record of continuous settlement in the Orkney Islands, dating back 5000 years. Topics include a select review of archaeological evidence for Neolithic and Bronze Age sites as well as the contemporary socio-cultural structure of the Islands from a literary and anthropological perspective. Cross-listed with LAS 34000 and SOC 34000.

A study of the literature of social protest, emphasizing the relationship between aesthetics and politics, or the political purposes of literature. This course will examine how various authors assault the status quo of an often inhumane, brutal, and repressive society. Readings might include works by Richard Wright, Upton Sinclair and Nelson Algren.  Cross-listed with LAS 34023.

Explores some of the ways spiritual experiences and understandings are expressed in a variety of literary forms. Students will discover how authors embrace or struggle with essential religious questions and issues, how they challenge and communicate themes from the major world religions and how religious identities can be shaped through these texts.

Literature, from ancient to modern times, has taken up themes of peace and sought to examine the fragile dynamics of the human community. This course will explore the literature that offers reflections, sorrowful and hopeful, pragmatic and prophetic, on peace.

A philosophical examination of the arts and aesthetic experience. This course explores theories of beauty and drama from ancient and contemporary theorists. Students apply aesthetic theories to analyze works of art in multiple domains from different perspectives. Cross-listed with LAS 37223.

Interdisciplinary seminar which interrogates the literary, artistic, and cultural representations of madness across culture and time. Cross-listed with LAS 37623.

An examination of key existentialist thinkers. Readings include Kierkegaard, Nietzsch, Sartre, and others. After a survey of existentialist philosophers, students explore works of art from an existentialist perspective.  Cross-listed with ENG 38223, LAS 38223.