English 200, 250, 251, 260, 261, 261H, 271

Spring 2012

Completion of the first-year composition sequence is a prerequisite for all 200-level English classes.

General Education Requirements for Literature Survey
English 250-251
English 260-261
English 270-271

200-001           Introduction to English Studies                      MWF 2-2:50                           CRN:  20698    
Lynn Alexander
Do you know how to write an explication?  What is the difference between a novella and a long short story?  What is a villanelle?  Why are sonnets written in iambic pentameter?  What is iambic pentameter?  English 200 is designed to introduce students to the principles of and practice in literary analysis.  Required of all English majors and recommended for English minors, English 200 covers terminology, genre study, and writing techniques used in English studies and should be taken as soon as possible.

English 251 may be taken before English 250; English 261 may be taken before English 260; English 271 may be taken before English 270.

250-001           British Literary Tradition I                                MWF 9-9:50                          CRN:  20696
250-002                                                                                           MWF 1-1:50                          CRN:  20697
Chris Hill
This will be a fast-paced, reading-intensive introduction to the beginnings of English literature.  Starting with Beowulf, we will read multiple works involving knightly heroism, love and desire, and how people determine what makes for true goodness.  We will focus on social and material contexts of the works we read, but we will also spend a good amount of time discovering how writers respond to each other and to the demands of the forms they choose to write in:  epic, romance, lyric, drama, religious prose, and so on. Major writers we are sure to cover include Shakespeare and Chaucer, Milton and Pope, Jonson and Johnson, Sidney and Donne.

251-001           British Literary Tradition II: “The Two Faces of Empire”
Jeffrey Longacre                                                                               MWF 11-11:50               CRN: 20699
By the late nineteenth century, Great Britain had become the most powerful and vast empire the world had ever seen.  The British navy effectively controlled the commercial waterways, and the expanding colonial project brought approximately one quarter of the earth’s land mass and approximately one quarter of the earth’s population under some form of British control.  By the early twentieth century, however, things began to fall apart; and by the 1990s, the mighty British Empire was no more.  This section of English 251 will focus on the rise, decline, and fall of the British Empire as the primary historical context through which to survey much of the significant literature from approximately 1800 to the present.  In particular, we will focus on the concept of duality and British identity in key texts from the period. Through the reading of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction prose, students will be introduced to all of the major literary forms, major literary-critical terminology, and to many of the major British and Commonwealth writers of the nineteenth and twentieth century. 

251-002           British Literary Tradition II                                     TR 1-2:15                      CRN:  20700
251-003                                                                                                 TR 2:30-3:45                CRN:  20730
David Williams
This will be a fast-paced, reading-intensive introduction to great works of British literature from the late 18th century to the present. Beginning with the passionate and political Romantics, we will continue our study with the erudite writers of the Victorian era, and conclude with the alienated modernists of the 20th century. Particular attention will be given to the influence of culture and history on literature. Notable authors will include William Wordsworth, John Keats, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, and T.S. Eliot.

260-001           American Literary Tradition I                                  MWF 10-10.50           CRN: 20701
Daniel Pigg
 While we will look at some of the seminal texts and authors that make up the American Literary Tradition, our task will be to read, discuss, and describe the complexity and richness of America’s literature before the Civil War. While we will discuss Franklin, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville and other well-known authors, we will also read significant selections from Native American tales, slave narratives, and sentimental novels. We will move historically from European discovery and exploration, colonization and the arrival of the Puritans through the Revolutionary War and up through Romanticism.  We will examine the way American voices in literature were created through the interplay of multiple agents.

261-001      American Literary Tradition II                                     MWF 12-12:50              CRN:  20703
Melvin Hill
The purpose of this course is binary. First, it is designed to acquaint students with a variety of classical texts written by Americans who have fundamentally shaped American literary traditions in America. Second, it is designed to introduce students to critical inquires that are significantly central to an American consciousness. Within this framework, students will obtain a better understanding of the continuous concerns involving meaning and identity in American society. We will examine both visual and written texts chronologically beginning with the institution of slavery and its dark legacy and conclude with texts that represent a current American consciousness in American society.

261-002           American Literary Tradition II                              TR  9:30-10:45           CRN:  20704
David Carithers
Students will learn about American literature from the Realistic Period to the present by reading a variety of texts from the era, submitting weekly reading journals on those texts, writing two formal essays, completing a series of short quizzes and two exams, and actively participating in the class through discussions, presentations, and student-led summaries of previous days’ material.  Readings will include selections from the Norton Anthology of American Literature 7th edition and one book length work: Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.

261-003           American Literary Tradition II                             TR 11-12:15                  CRN:  20705
Laura Jarmon

261H-001        Honors:  American Literary Tradition II             MWF 11-11:50              CRN:  20706
Melvin Hill
The purpose of this course is to expose students to a broad spectrum of American Literature through art, politics, religion, philosophy, etc., in order to gain a greater understanding of the American Literary Tradition and American cultural history. In addition to an intense examination of American Literature, students will be expected to summarize, analyze, and evaluate the literature covered in written journals, essays, reports, projects, and oral presentations. Students will be responsible for tracing the development of major ideas and attitudes expressed in the literature of the period, identifying major authors and works of the period, identifying characteristics of major literary movements in the period, listing and describing characteristics of literary types written during the period, identifying cultural, philosophical, political, historical, and religious influences on the literature of the period, and finally, analyzing and criticizing literary works of the period.

271-001           World Literature                                                     TR 11-12:15                     CRN:  20726
Mary Cowser