Undergraduate Literature Courses Fall 2009

ENGL 1923. 001-004 Great Works of Literature / Wallen MW 12:30-1:20 / Disc. Group F 10:30 CID 13641, 11:30 CID 13642, or 12:30 CID 13640 or 13643 This is a course for people who would like to know which works of literature are truly great. We shall read a wide array of works from different eras and cultures; and when the class is done, everyone will be able to say they have read some of the very best literature.

 ENGL 2413. 008 / 010 Introduction to Literature / Eldevik TR 9:00-10:15AM CID CID13078 / TR 2:00-3:15PM CID13080  This course, taking a broad definition of literature that includes live stage drama and film in addition to prose fiction and poetry, will introduce students to all of these various modes of expression while giving special emphasis to certain topics.  The topic emphasized this semester will be Diversity in America.

ENGL 2413. 701 Introduction to Literature (Honors) / Walker MWF 10:30-11:20 CID 13654 Growing up is hard to do—at any time, at any place, at any age. Find out how hard—by viewing life and death through the comic and tragic lens, seeing how storytellers give shape to great literature (fiction, poetry, film, drama) through their various agents (melodrama, irony, satire, wit, farce, parody) and their use of diverse narrative strategies.

ENGL 2543. 002 Survey of British Literature I / Staff MWF 2:30-3:20 CID 13096 British Literary tradition --- about one thousand years of literary foundations. Expect to read and discuss various genres including epic, romance and drama. Texts may include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Behn and Pope. Essays, quizzes and exams.

ENGL 2543. 002 Survey of British Literature I / Hall   MWF 10:30-11:20AM CID13097 British Literary tradition --- about one thousand years of literary foundations. Expect to read and discuss various genres including epic, romance and drama. Texts may include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Behn and Pope. Essays, quizzes and exams.

ENGL2653.001 Survey of British Literature II  / Franzese  TR 10:30-11:45AM CID13098 
This course will attend to the styles, concepts and cultural context to be identified with significant works from the periods of Romantic, Victorian and Twentieth Century British literature. Thus, the course will endeavor to offer not so much a history of literary events as a literary history of consciousness. We will measure our success by our ability to discern demonstrable continuities and creative departures in the course of our readings as we consider them, in large measure, through the lens provided by John Fowles, a 20th century author.

ENGL 2653. 002 Survey of British Literature II / Staff TR 2:00-3:15 CID 13099 England 's literary tradition after 1798. Read works by Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Yeats, Lawrence, and others.  

ENGL 2773. 001 Survey of American Literature I / Frohock MWF 1:30-2:20 CID 13100 An interdisciplinary tour through early American culture and history, from the voyage of Columbus to the end of the Civil War. We will read and learn about early colonial encounters, Puritan faith and experience in New England, Enlightenment and Revolution, the struggle to overthrow slavery, and the emergence of distinctly American poetry and fiction.

ENGL2773.002  Survey of American Lit I / Decker TR 9:00-10:15AM
CID13101 American literature from the colonial period to the end of the Civil War. Four exams.

ENGL 2883. 001 / 002 Survey of American Literature II / Staff MWF 12:30-1:20 CID 13102 / TR 9:00-10:15 CID 19145 A cultural and social history of American literature from the Civil War to the present. Movements from Realism to Postmodernism, fiction from Mark Twain to Toni Morrison, poetry from Robert Frost to Sylvia Plath.

ENGL3153.001 Readings in Literature by Women / Austin MWF 1:30-2:20PM
CID13106  Short stories by women, beginning with early examples from nineteenth and twentieth-century writers in Britain and America and then through the work of Jhumpa Lahiri, Angela Carter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Alice Munro.  Two papers, one final exam, and oral reports.

ENGL3163.001 World Literature I  / Austin MWF 12:30-1:20PM CID13107          
Continental literature weighted toward the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries.  Works include Goethe’s Faust, Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, and Hamsen’s Hunger.  We shall also read two plays by Moliere, short stories by Thomas Mann, poetry by Giacomo Leopardi, and Ted Hughes’s versions of some of Ovid’s tale from Metamorphoses. 2 essays, one final exam, and numerous reading quizzes.

ENGL3170.001  Readings in Literature & Other Disciplines: Disability Studies & Literature / Grubgeld TR 10:30-11:45AM CID13108   Neither depressing nor sentimental, literature by and about disabled persons can engage us in thinking about the body in new ways.  With readings drawn primarily from 20th century American writers (with forays into Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Poe, and Wilde), the course will analyze representations of the disabled body from a wide variety of sources, including performance art and graphic (comic book) narrative, as well as traditional genres such as fiction and non-fiction, drama, and poetry. Final exam, one mid-length paper and a series of short assignments.

ENGL3183.001  Native American Literature / Smith  MWF 9:30-10:20AM
CID13110  This class is an introduction to major writers of diverse and varied Native American cultures of the United States. Our study will include samples from early, modern, and contemporary Native literary traditions; we will read selections by authors such as William Apess, Zitkala Sa, Alice Callahan, Ella Cara Deloria, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, Susan Power, and Sherman Alexie. Attendance and active participation in class discussions are mandatory.

ENGL3183.701 Native American Literature (Honors) / Smith MWF 10:30-11:20AM CID19144  This course is an introduction to major works of Native American literature and the theoretical parameters for the field of Native American studies. We will read selections from early, modern, and contemporary authors such as William Apess, Zitkala Sa, Alice Callahan, Ella Cara Deloria, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, Susan Power, and Sherman Alexie. Our secondary readings will include the work of Gerald Vizenor, Paula Gunn Allen, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Robert Warrior, Craig Womack, and others. Course requirements include presentations and other class leaderships assignments in addition to standard essays and exams. Attendance and active participation in class discussions are mandatory.

ENGL3243.001 Literary Theory & Criticism / Mayer  MWF 9:30-10:20AM
CID19140  Important theoretical views of literary texts, reading, authorship, and the link between works and the world from the ancient world to today.  The class will read and discuss major philosophical statements (Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Derrida, and so forth) and important pronouncements by British and American poet-critics like Pope, Coleridge, and Eliot.

ENGL3333.001 Short Story / Bruner   MWF 12:30-1:20PM CID13137  In this examination of the short story, students will review the development of the genre and proceed with close reading of selected modern and contemporary authors.  Learn what cigarettes, rain, erectile dysfunction, and puffed rice have in common.  Two exams, two papers, take-home quizzes, and an oral presentation required.  Attendance is essential.  What would Kafka do?

ENGL3363.001 Readings in Drama / Macvaugh  MWF 9:30-10:20AM
CID13138All the world's a stage, but what do plays written for the contemporay stage tell us about the second half of twentieth century America? While developing the skill of analyzing drama and understanding dramatic conventions, we will explore the plays of dramatists such as Sam Shepard, August Wilson, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, Anna Deavere Smith, Suzan-Lori Parks, Wendy Wasserstein, and others. 3 informal responses/presentations, 1 critical essay, 2 essay exams, and a review of one play performed at OSU.

ENGL3410.351 Popular Fiction: Murder Will Out--The Detective in Fiction / Walker   MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM CID13140  Follow the trail of the detective in fiction (on the page) and in film (on the stage); use your power of deductive reasoning (elementary, really); and discover who did what, to whom, and how. Lots of good reading and lots of problem-solving puzzles and papers.

ENGL3813.001  Readings in the American Experience / Decker TR 123:0-1:45PM CID19132   Is deracination the common denominator of American experience? We will pursue this and other questions while reading the following works: Theodore Dreiser Jennie Gerhardt, Mary Antin, The Promised Land, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, James Welch, Fools Crow, Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior, and several shorter readings. Three essays and final exam.

ENGL3933.001 Shakepeare / Staff MWF11:30AM-12:20PM CID 13145 An introduction to Shakespeare's drama. Careful engagement with these plays is essential for any educated person.

ENGL4120.001  Studies in 17th-C British Literature: The English Stage, 1600-1642 / Jones MWF 12:30-01:20PM CID19138 Performed not only in outdoor theaters such as the Globe and Swan but also indoors at Blackfriars and at court, Elizabethean and Jacobean plays vary in subject matter, genre, and innovation.  Close study reveals a healthy competition among writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and John Webster: each experiences popularity, but audience demands never accord any one of them the degree of prominence bestowed by later generations.  The constant need for theater companies to offer new plays produced variety and quantity.  We will begin looking at dramatic works performed in the final years of Elizabeth's reign and end with those appearing during the reign of Charles I in the years leading up to the closing of all theaters in 1642.  The standard fare will be to read one play a week.  2 papers, 2 exams, 1 tutorial, reading quizzes.

ENGL4160.001  Studiess in 19th-C British Literature: Romanticism as Word and Vision  / Wallen MWF 2:30-3:20PM CID13154  The Romantics not only redefined beauty, but they also demonstrated what terror meant for the modern era.  Romantic poetry and Gothic novels have long served as emblems of what is most beautiful and terrifying, and now, thanks to the miracle of painting, it is also possible to SEE the beauty and terror as well.  Juxtaposing the verse of poets like Schiller, Wordsworth, and Coleridge to the paintings of Turner, Constable, and Morland, we shall encounter ecstasies of delight and dread.  Assignments include exams and essays.

ENGL4170.001 Studies in 20th-C British Literature: Love and War in the 20th Century / Grubgeld   MWF 10:30-11:20AM CID13155 We will look at the interrelated issues of love and war as treated by modern and contemporary fiction writers, poets, and playwrights, including Seamus Heaney, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Sri Lankan expatriate Michael Ondaajte. Exams, two mid-length papers.

ENGL4310.001 Studies in Modernism / Smith MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM
CID13158  This course problematizes understandings of modernism as disconnected from social and political justice. In addition to studying writers who are widely regarded as touchstones for American modernism, we will uncover modernist strains in the works of writers who formed parallel, sometimes coinciding, sometimes diverging literary movements in the early twentieth century. To achieve these aims, we will study writers such as Hemingway, Pound, and Faulkner as well as giants of the Harlem Renaissance such as Jean Toomer and Zora Neale Hurston. Likewise, we will learn about lesser-known indigenous writers of the modernist period who offer fruitful counters to non-Native writers' exploration of "authentic" American identity during this period. Overall, we will discover ways in which Modernism can be understood as pluralistic, dynamic, and ripe for reevaluation. Course requirements include presentations, exams, and essays. Attendance and active participation in class discussions are mandatory.

ENGL4400.801 Regional Literature: Oklahoma Authors / Miller  (Tulsa)
R 4:30-7:10PM CID13159  This course explores how Oklahoma writers have reached beyond Grapes of Wrath stereotypes to make lasting contributions to American literature.  Featured authors include:  Ralph Ellison, N. Scott Momaday, Joy Harjo, S.E. Hinton, Billie Letts, Angie Debo, and Michael Wallis.

ENGL4600.001 Studies in Chaucer / M. Price TR 12:30-1:45PM CID13166 
In this class we will be reading several shorter Chaucerian works, but concentrating chiefly on Chaucer’s most approachable long poem, The Canterbury Tales. All primary readings will be in Middle English, which we will work on both independently and together as a class. Before the end of the class, you will be a fluent reader of Middle English. Assessment includes quizzes, tests, and a choice of research paper or timed essay exam. Our text will be The Riverside Chaucer; please notice that the paperback edition is half the price, but may not be available in the United States, so you may wish to try amazon.co.uk (not amazon.com) ahead of time.

ENGL4710.001 Single Author/Work Post-1800: W.B. Yeats  / Grubgeld MWF 11:30AM-12:20PM CID13167 A course for people who like poetry or want to learn how to read poetry by immersing themselves in the work of one writer. We will look at the poets Yeats read (Blake, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Morris) and enhance our understanding of the poems by reading some of Yeats’ plays, folk tales, and essays, but our primary work will be close readings of his great poems of love, politics, imagination, and what he called “tragic joy.” Guided reading journal due in three installments, final exam.

GWST4113.001  Feminist Theories / Mason TR 10:30-11:45AM CID19410        
This course is designed as a first class in learning how to articulate the problems that come with analyzing what you should already know (preferably via previous Women’s Studies courses) as women’s issues.  In an introduction to Women’s Studies you likely focused on problems that women face – racial discrimination, economic and sexual exploitation, violence, mandatory motherhood, sexist stereotyping, reproductive issues, second-class social status, consequential emotional experiences  – and gained awareness of how women in various cultural contexts struggle against such subordination.  In Feminist Theories we face a new set of problems that grow from an awareness of the first set.  With an already existing understanding of the fact of women’s subordination, we begin to question how – historically, disciplinarily, and epistemologically – feminists think about “women’s issues.”  What assumptions have shaped feminist inquiries into women’s issues and women’s studies? In moving from women’s issues to feminist theory, we will emphasize the differences, rather than the similarities, among women and feminists. Are there situations in which such differences are so substantial that the category of “women” is politically and socially ineffective?  On what, then, do we base feminism – either as an intellectual tradition or as a political or social movement?  What are the various types of feminism that have emerged because of undeniable differences?  Can you recognize a particular kind of feminist theory as it infuses fiction, political commentary, film, artwork, or other texts?

English Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Oklahoma State University
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Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-9474
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