Department of English

English Course Offerings - Spring, 2008

English 123.04: Composition II (Service Learning), Dr. Leigh Ann Litwiller

While this course shares the same goal as all 123 courses (giving you experience writing papers that include research), it is a service learning course, meaning that it has a community service component that is integrated into course content. Our course has a thematic focus: education. Course readings will be focused around the issue of education-reading short stories, poems, a novel, and some non-fiction (autobiography and an essay)-that engage the complex relationship among teachers, students, parents, pedagogy, discipline, and peer relationships in the classroom. We will volunteer 20 hours of our time over the course of the semester in schools and tutoring programs around the city. This service time will also act as a form of research as your observations, local research, and interviews are integrated into your papers alongside traditional forms of research. Course texts include: Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, excerpts from Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, Grace Paley’s “The Loudest Voice,” and poems by Langston Hughes, Jane Kenyon, and Paul Zimmer.

Eng 240.01: Introduction to Poetry, Dr. Michael Kaffer

A comprehensive study of all aspects necessary for the understanding, analysis, and enjoyment of poetry. Students will write three critical essays.

ENG 242.02 : Introduction to Drama and Theatre, Dr. David K. Sauer

This course examines words in action-with a quick overview of early plays, and then concentrates on modern plays, particularly American drama. There is a three-fold focus, on the work in relation to its culture (time, place and context), and the work as it is conceived in The theatre (in space and time), and on the work making its audience more human through its participation in the play with intellect and emotions. Students read 15 plays with daily quizzes, short papers on video presentations to class comparing a moment from two tapes of a play, short scenes acted in class, and a review of a production. Finally, there is a longer paper on one dramatist, or a play of one’s own. In addition, there are three exams.

ENG 243.01 : Introduction to Non-Fiction (W), Dr. John Hafner

An introduction to the genre and study of representative works of non-fiction prose, such as Capote’s In Cold Blood, Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain, Thomas’ The Lives of a Cell, Herr’s Dispatches, and others. Course work will include two examinations, two papers, reading and discussing the material of the course. Prerequisite: Eng 123.

ENG 243.02: Introduction to Non-Fiction, Fr. Michael Williams, S.J.

Higher education has been defined by one scholar as “the great conversation”-a dialogue between the student and the great minds of the past and present. The goal of this conversation is to expand our horizons, challenge our assumptions, test our ideas, and thus make us more aware and appreciative of the world in which we live. This course will introduce students to the world of ideas, to the best that has been thought and written, to authors and works which have rightly been acclaimed as classics worthy of study by any educated man or woman. In this course, we will study ideas and issues from the worlds of philosophy, political science, business, and religion, and we will explore such topics as the meaning of life, individual freedom, the problem of evil, the nature of happiness and the good life, the role of the press, censorship, women in society, and civil disobedience. Although it is true that we live in a multicultural world, this course will focus on ideas and authors that form the basis of Western culture and are incorporated into the foundations of both European and American society. Student mastery of the course objectives will be measured by class discussions, papers, quizzes and a final examination.

ENG 246/496 : Intro to Hispanic Literature, Dr. Margaret Davis

This course introduces fiction, poetry, memoir, and essays of Latino/a-American writers living in the United States. Readings come from such novels as Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (Chicano), Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas (Nuyorican), and Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (Cuban). We will also read a memoir of a Mexican family on the migrant trail in Crossing Over by Ruben Martinez and essays from Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands / La Frontera. A few short stories and poems from an anthology will round out the readings. Students will be asked to go in pairs to interview members of the Latino/a immigrant community in the Mobile area and write their stories. The emphasis in this course is on appreciating the rich literatures and understanding the cultures of Spanish-speaking peoples who have made their homes in the United States and write about their experiences both in their native lands and in this one. There will be a formal research paper and a project report. This course carries D and W designations.

ENG 248/496 Introduction to American Indian Literature , Dr. Leigh Ann Litwiller

In this course, we will read a variety of different types of literature-myths and legends, fiction, poetry, autobiography and other non-fiction-to better understand American Indian culture and particular world view. These texts provide alternative insights into our understandings of community, the environment, spirituality, and American history that complicate and broaden traditional Western views of these concepts. Course readings span from ancient myths and legends to 19^th century texts to works from the Renaissance of American Indian writing in the 1960s and 1970s to texts by contemporary authors, including such writers as: Zitkala Sa, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, Simon Ortiz, Peter Blue Cloud, and John (Fire) Lame Deer. Assignments include: two papers, a presentation, and mid-term and final examinations.

ENG 309.01: British Literature from 1798-Present, Dr. Catherine Swender

This course will provide a survey of British literature from the nineteenth century to the present. As part of our study of the major literary movements, we will examine the cultural and political forces that have influenced the creation and transformation of these traditions. Our reading list will be comprised of representative works of poetry, fiction, drama, and prose from such authors as Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, Charlotte Brontë, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, and Derek Walcott. Course assignments will include quizzes, literary analyses, in-class essay exams, and a major research paper.

ENG 319.01 American Literature from 1865 to the Present, Dr. Leigh Ann Litwiller

Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Connor, Baldwin, Wright, Vonnegut, Updike, Morrison-these are just a few of the literary greats who wrote in the period from 1865 to the present. Their work is compelling because these writers were responding to an immense time of change in America, shaped by immigration, industrialization, urbanization, suburbanization, modern warfare, modern psychology, changing gender roles, racial inequality and unrest, consumerism, and socio-economic stratification. Because these issues are very much with us in our contemporary moment, this literature continues to illuminate American culture and social issues. In this course, we will study key texts as in conversation with many of these issues while also situating them in a literary and artistic context (particularly literary movements such as realism, naturalism, modernism, and post-modernism). Course requirements include two papers, mid-term and final examinations, and a presentation.

ENG 460.01 Irish Literature, Fr. Michael Williams

This course will survey major nineteenth and twentieth Irish writers in the areas of fiction, poetry, and drama. Significant works will be read from three of Ireland’s Nobel Prize laureates: George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, and Seamus Heaney. The course will explore and discuss issues such as: the struggle for social justice, the cruelty of poverty and oppression, the pain of emigration and exile, the power of religious hatreds, and the familial and gender conflicts of a nation in transition. Special attention will be paid to the tragic situation in Northern Ireland. The critical focus of the course will be to approach Irish literature as a response to colonialism. We will also listen to Irish music, see some optional Irish films, and possibly attend a concert by Mobile’s Irish music group, Mithril. Student achievement will be assessed by: two papers (one analysis, one research-based), quizzes, and a final examination.

ENG 492/498 The Plays of Tom Stoppard, Dr. Michael Kaffer

A study of the major plays of Tom Stoppard, arguably the greatest living English playwright. Students taking the course, as Eng 492 will write three, 4-6 page critical analysis of Stoppard’s plays. Students taking the course as Senior Seminar will write two 4-page papers and a major research paper which will be presented to the English faculty as part of their comprehensive experience. Depending on the size of the class, it will be conducted as a seminar with students sharing the responsibility of the conduct of the class.

ENG 495.01 Plays Into Movies, Dr. David Sauer

What works as a play doesn’t always work as a film; some films can do better than the plays from which they originate. What are the problems, solutions, and illuminations that result from comparing and contrasting adaptations from one medium to the other? Film started as pure adaptation of plays; then moved to more epic scripts, away from the room, one-set centered work with which it began. So now, the rule is never do a film that stays in one room-the movie audience would feel too claustrophobic. This course will look at all these variations-from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) in which the great director tried to do one continuous shot in one set-to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (at least seven filmed adaptations made) and Henry V (the two famous ones, Branagh and Olivier) where epic techniques expand the canvas dramatically and cinematically Focus will be on techniques of adaptation. Other play/films to consider: Shaw, Pygmalion (1912/38/My Fair Lady 1957/64); Barry, Holiday (Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant 1928/38), The Seventh Seal (1957) based on Bergman’s play Wood Painting; Pinter’s The Caretaker (1960/63); Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1965/66); Kander and Ebb, Chicago 1978/02; Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross (1983/92); Shepard, Fool for Love (1985); Hwang, M. Butterfly (the worst adaptation ever made 1988; 1992); Six Degrees of Separation (1990/93); Angels in America (1992/2003) and Wit (2000).

WRI 452.01 Creative Writing: Poetry, Dr. John Hafner

A study of the craft of poetry writing, emphasizing the forms and techniques of the genre. The course will be organized as a writing workshop in which student work will be discussed by the class. Weekly assignments, often-daily assignments, will be required. Prerequisites: English core.

WRI 495.01 Introduction to Literary Publishing, Dr. Michael Piafsky

This course will explore the exciting world of literary publishing and is designed to act in conjunction with the publishing of Spring Hill College’s own literary magazine, The Motley. Students in this class will learn the proud history of the literary magazine, its role in the world of ideas, and its current tenuous hold in society. We will look at a number of smaller and larger literary magazines, exploring the editorial decisions that go into the construction of this artistic endeavor, all the while formulating our own editorial decisions in The Motley. All students will be expected to work (to greater or lesser extent) on The Motley and should look forward to both literary analysis and creative writing but there are no requirements to this class save enthusiasm and diligence.