English 503:  Old English (cross-listed with English 416)
Dr. Dabney Bankert
T 5:00-7:30
“Cædmon’s Hymn” (purported to be the first poem written in English)

Nu sculon herigean         heofonrices weard,
meotodes meahte         and his modgeþanc,
weorc wuldorfæder,         swa he wundra gehwæs,
ece drihten,         or onstealde.
He ærest sceop         eorðan bearnum
heofon to hrofe,         halig scyppend;
þa middangeard         moncynnes weard,
ece drihten,         æfter teode
firum foldan,         frea ælmihtig.

Old English, “the language of the dawn,” was spoken and written 700 years before Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late 14th century.  It is the language of Beowulf, of monks, of scops, and of firelit meadhalls, it is the language of a complex alien culture yet it gave birth to 1400 years of English literature and is the foundation of Modern English. Contrary to popular assumptions, a considerable variety of Anglo-Saxon literature survives—risqué riddles, love laments, letters from grumpy monks about women’s toilet habits, bizarre dialogues between the soul and the body; strangely complex tales of Christ and his saints, wildly unique adaptations of biblical narratives, and heroic stories of battle, betrayal and heroism.  In this class, students will learn to read the Old English language, beginning with short prose pieces and gradually tackling poetry as we study the grammar and acquire vocabulary.  We will also read some works in translation, explore the remarkable literary culture of the Anglo-Saxons, and investigate manuscript culture – learning how manuscripts were prepared and copied, and what these often unique documents can tell us about the people who made and read them.

Assignments will include regular short language quizzes and two translation exams (a midterm and final), as well as two short essays and a seminar paper.

Texts:
Reading Old English:  A Primer and First Reader.  Eds. Robert Hasenfratz and Thomas J. Jambeck.  W. Virginia University Press, 2005.  ISBN 1-933202-01-7

Marsden, Richard.  The Cambridge Old English Reader.  Cambridge University Press.  ISBN 0-521-45612-6 (paperback)

English 509:  Contemporary Critical Practices (cross-listed with ENG 426)
Dr. Katey Castellano
M/W 2:00-3:15
Description:  This demanding course is for students who ardently wish to read technically difficult, personally challenging, and ultimately rewarding theoretical texts that examine the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding aesthetics, literary production, and the act of reading.  According to Terry Eagleton, “Literature, in the meaning of the word we have inherited, is an ideology.  It has the most intimate relations to questions of social power.” Our class will then interrogate the political and ideological structures that lead to formation of English literature as a discipline, and in the process we will become acquainted with the various theoretical methodologies that English scholars use, including formalism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial/race theory.  These theoretical positions ask questions with which all English majors (and professors) must struggle: what should we read and how should we read it?  Terry Eagleton’s Introduction to Literary Theory and David Richter’s Falling Into Theory will provide this initial overview.
With that intellectual history in our background, we will read the work of several contemporary theorists who have interrogated the way that literature relates to, arises from, or resists history and political power.  Theorists may include Theodor Adorno, Benedict Anderson, Jean Baudrillard, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Michel Serres, and Raymond Williams. 
            Assignments will include a reading journal, application exercises, two exams, a presentation, and a final seminar paper.  

English 599:  Bibliography and Methods of Research
Dr. Dabney Bankert
TH 5:00-7:45 pm, Keezell 307
Description:  Advanced Training in the use of scholarly materials, procedures and techniques, including scholarly writing and computer-based library and research technology, for graduate-level work.  (Required for all Master of Arts students in their first semester).  English 599 is an introduction to graduate studies in English, specifically to bibliographic research and methods, to academic writing, and to the various categories of scholarship in which literary scholars engage.  It is also an introduction to graduate school and to the fundamental and important distinctions between undergraduate- and graduate-level scholarly research and writing.  These distinctions are rather sharper than might feel initially comfortable, but intellectual progress is rarely comfortable and a certain sense of dislocation is inevitable.  Resist panic by accepting that these feelings are endemic to graduate study.  You will learn how to do research on a number of levels, how to locate and assess research sources for various types of scholarly problems, how to develop and refine such problems; in short, how to ask good questions and how to go about answering them productively, rigorously, and eloquently.   The course is designed to provide the tools essential to progressing in content courses.
Texts:  Harner, James L., ed.  Literary Research Guide:  An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies.  4th ed.  MLA, 2002.  Some updates are at:  http://www-english.tamu.edu/pubs/lrg/
Gibaldi, Joseph, ed.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, MLA, 2003.
Gaskell, Philip.  A New Introduction to Bibliography.  2d printing.  Winchester & New Castle, DE:  Oak Knoll Press, 2007.  ISBN 1-884718-13-2 (paperback).
Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1417.  Garland, 1994.
A reader (to be determined) and various articles

ENG 510:  Willa Cather (Cross-listed with ENG 410)
Dr. Mark Facknitz
M 7-9:30
Description:  A chronological study of the author’s works.

ENG 510:  Major Author:  Ayi Kwei Armah  (cross-listed with ENG 410)
Dr. Ramenga Osotsi, TT 8:00-9:15 a.m.
Description:  This course is centered on the prose fiction of Ayi Kwei Armah. Since 1969 when he first published The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Armah has come out with novels that are well grounded in the history and artistic tradition of the African peoples. This focus has made him one of the  most innovative, consistent and stylistically interesting writers today. In his works that include poetry and prose fiction and essays, Armah relocates the African people at the center of our history, a perspective that is difficult for a lot of “modern” literary theory to understand or address. This writer remains active today, always bringing forth new works that challenge the reader on many levels. We shall study Two Thousand Seasons, Fragments, Why Are We So Blest?, Osiris Rising, and KMT, among others. Apart from these and other works, we shall also utilize criticism relevant to the understanding of issues at the heart of this writer’s concerns.

English 512E:  Traditional Grammar (cross-listed with English 421)
Dr. Sharon Cote
M/W 2:30-3:45
Description: In this course, we will explore the shapes that English sentences may take and learn the traditional rules for building and identifying those shapes. In other words, we will work on developing the kind of conscious understanding of the structure of our language that permits us to edit and analyze our own grammar and the grammar of others. In doing so, we'll focus on lexical and syntactic structures with some attention to semantic and cultural issues that affect these structures. While the course focuses on understanding how English grammar works rather than on memorizing a large number of unexplained prescriptive rules for "proper" English, we will, in fact, discuss a number of prescriptive issues as we study the relevant aspects of English grammar. We will also practice using our knowledge of grammar to identify syntactic paraphrases and to remold ungrammatical or awkward sentences into acceptable or more elegant new shapes.

English 512E:  English Linguistics (cross-listed with English 418)
Dr. Sharon Cote
M/W 5:15-6:30
Description:  Language is an essential part of who we are as human beings. It has been described as a biological imperative, as a communicative tool, and as an art. We all have very extensive and subtle language skills and, indeed, we all have opinions about what is good or bad language. Few of us, however, really understand what language is. This course is a broad survey of the theoretical, the historical, the psychological, and the sociocultural issues related to human language in general and English in particular. Objectives for this course include the following: for students to become aware of how important language is to understanding human cognition, behavior and society; for students to learn that knowing the "structure" or grammar of a language requires much more than just knowing a set of rules for good and bad sentences and to understand that the study of language is more than just the study of grammar; for students to recognize some general types of variation in different human languages; for students to recognize syntax, semantics, phonetics, language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and other subfields of linguistics and to understand basic concepts and issues in these subfields; for students to gain some perpective both on how much has been learned about language and on how many more questions there still are to be answered; for students to be able to apply general linguistic concepts and vocabulary to particular examples and to related fields of research; and for students to have gained a novice ability to read additional linguistic sources and apply the information in these sources to language as they find it in the real world.

ENG 625: Studies in 16th-Century Literature:  Edmund Spenser and the Politics of Literature in the Early Renaissance.
Dr. Mark Rankin
W 6:00-8:30
Description: This course will focus on Edmund Spenser, the most important poet of the early Renaissance period. Spenser’s paradoxical identity derives from his innovative fusion of continental literary models and native verse forms and modes. He produced his mature work while existing on the margins, as a colonial administrator in Ireland, and simultaneously seeking recognition and patronage from the highest centers of Tudor political power. Spenser’s approach to poetic achievement in the Virgilian manner allowed him to redefine the limits of English poetics as it then existed. In order to understand Spenser’s importance to the broader trajectory of literary history, we will assess his writing from a variety of perspectives currently debated by scholars. They include the historical and religious contexts under which he wrote, the nature of his allegory, his reading in classical, continental, and native verse, his use of language, his sexual politics, his royalist panegyric, the publication history of his work, and the extent of his nationalist ethos. Readings will include The Faerie Queene, The Shepheardes Calender, A View of the State of Ireland, Colin Clouts Come Home Again, and selections from among his shorter poems. Our understanding of Spenser as a political poet will be enhanced by interdisciplinary readings drawn from Ovid, Tasso, Skelton, Tyndale, Bale, Sidney, and others. Requirements include short presentations, a critical book review, an annotated bibliography, and a substantial research project.

ENG 671:  Studies in World Literature:  Literature in Translation and the Visual Medium
Dr. Maria Odette Canivell
T 3:30-6:00
Descriptions:  The purpose of this Literature in translation course is to showcase the works of Major Spanish-speaking authors. We will be examining the literary masterpieces authored by these writers under the dual prism of the visual medium: cinema, and the written word. I have selected authors from every major period in history, both from Latin America and Spain, ranging from the 16th century to the 21st century.  If you choose to, you may do the readings in the Spanish language, although the class will be taught in English. We will have screenings of the films for each book, and you are required to attend these as well.
You will have to choose one of the authors and do an oral presentation in class. That day, you will lead the class discussion on the author and his work. In addition to the assignments mentioned above, you will have to write a critique of one page for every book we will read, as well as a commentary on how the film complements the reading of the day; your written work will serve to guide your very informed discussion in class. I will expect you to include quotes and passages you are especially keen on, and state with a degree of sophistication, the reasons why these passages are remarkable.
This class is reading and writing intensive. If you do not feel you can read and write an extensive number of pages, you might consider switching to another less intensive class.

Required readings:
Allende, Isabel. The House of Spirits
Amado, Jorge. Dona Flor and her Two Husbands
Cortazar, Julio. Blow Up and other Stories
Eca de Queiroz, Jose Maria. The Crime of Father Amaro.
De la Cruz, Sor Juana. Poems, Protest and a Dream
Dorfman, Ariel. Death and the Maiden
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate
Neruda, Pablo. Selected Poems
Puig, Manuel. The Kiss of the Spider Woman
Serrano, Marcela. Antigua And My Life.
Skarmeta, Antonio. The Postman
Vargas Llosa, Mario. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

ENG 672:  Studies in African-American Literature ( Topic:  Cross-Cultural Black Women Writers)
Dr. Sandra Duvivier
M 3:35-6:05
Description:  Contemporary black American women’s fiction includes writings by not only African American women, but of others, such as Caribbean/American women, who fit under this categorization.  This interdisciplinary course examines cross-cultural black American women’s fiction, investigating the multiplicity of experiences—cultural, racial, gendered, sexual, economic, and/or migratory—that has shaped it.  We will analyze how selected authors gender, politicize, and problematize notions of identity and “home” in their writings.  Furthermore, we will explore the ways in which these writers’ fiction not only complicates and expands the very meaning of “blackness” and “American-ness,” but also disrupts traditional boundaries “governing” racial, ethnic, and/or national identity.  To further frame and contextualize the literature, we will draw upon critical scholarship.

Required Readings:
Toni Morrison, Tar Baby (1981)
Paule Marshall, Praisesong for the Widow (1983)
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John (1985)
Michelle Cliff, No Telephone to Heaven (1987)
Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988)
Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994)
Erna Brodber, Louisiana (1994)
Opal Palmer Adisa, It Begins with Tears (1997)
Myriam J.A. Chancy, The Scorpion’s Claw (2004)
Marie-Elena John, Unburnable (2006)

ENG 634:  Studies in Early American Literature
Dr. Henigman
T 5:00-7:30

Each of our three terms needs our interrogation. 
Early:  While in the past literature associated with the American continent 1500-1800 was seen merely as precursor to “real” literature of the American Renaissance, more recently we look at it not as an “early” version of later achievement but as a field in its own right, allowing us to examine issues of textuality and culture in a non-teleological fashion. 
American:  in what sense “American”?  Much of our period pre-dates the establishment of the US, a time when the continent was occupied and imagined by peoples of many different groupings – European, African, native American.— putting the idea of national identity in flux and under contest
Literature:  the familiar belletristic genres are of little relevance to our study.  We take a broad view of what is available for our study, examining cultural discourse through texts with identifiable authors and texts with little-known or unidentifiable authors, in a variety of genres and coming to us through a variety of means. 

We will read sermons, diaries, military accounts, letters, captivity narratives, miscellanies, diaries, conversion narratives – and a novel or two.    We will look at such authors as Roger Williams, Edward Taylor, Mary Rowlandson, Cabeza de Vaca, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Hannah Foster, Charles Brockden Brown – and Anonymous.  We will take a cultural studies approach generally, with particular attention to these topics, among others:  the history of the book – how did changing technologies of writing, printing, and distribution affect the texts we know about now?; postcolonial theory – how can we best be attuned to relationships of power between different contesting groups, and the negotiations within discourse that come from this international/cosmopolitan situation?; problems in interpreting religious discourses – how do we not only recognize but also interpret the texts of a Bible-based culture, being attuned to tensions and innovations within communities as well as their shared Biblical literacy?  public sphere theory – how specifically did new ways of imagining community in the eighteenth century change reading, writing, and political practices?

English 698:  Comprehensive Continuance.  1 credit
Continued preparation for the comprehensive examinations.  (May be repeated as needed.)

English 699.  Thesis Continuance.  2 credits
Continued study, research and writing for the thesis.  (May be repeated as needed.)

English 700.  Thesis.  6 credits.
Required for Master of Arts candidates in the creative writing concentration;  optional for others.  Students who write a thesis must register for 3 credit hours each of their final two semesters in the program, typically fall and spring of their second year.  This course is graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory (S/U) basis.