Undergraduate Studies

The annual Department of English end of the year Commencement Celebration takes place Friday, May 9, from 4:30-6:30 pm in Lind 207A. All graduating senior English majors, scholarship recipients, faculty, grad students, staff, and family members are invited to celebrate. There will be excellent food, a small ceremony, and plenty of socializing.

Assistant professor Siobhan Craig received the Ruth Christie Distinguished Teaching Award for English for 2008-10. The Ruth Christie prize is decided by undergraduate student voting.

EngL 3960W Senior Project Seminar: Jane Austen and George Eliot
Tuesday and Thursday, 10:10 AM - 12:05 PM
Professor Gordon Hirsch
Jane Austen and George Eliot (Marian Evans) are probably the outstanding women novelists of 19th-century England. Both writers investigate their society’s structures and customs, the role of women, and the psychology of individuals. In this seminar we will study three novels by each of these authors—most likely “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” “Persuasion” by Jane Austen; and “The Mill on the Floss,” “Middlemarch,” and “Daniel Deronda” by George Eliot. We will also probably view parts of a film adaptation or two to examine how our age has adapted these texts. Assignments will consist of three short papers, plus a term paper or senior project (including a revision thereof). Students will assist other students by reading and commenting on one another’s papers. The course will be conducted in the style of a seminar: students will give short oral reports in class and class participation is a requirement. Because the six novels—particularly Eliot’s—are lengthy and challenging, students are advised to begin their reading before the semester starts.

EngL 3960W Senior Project Seminar: Punk Literature
Wednesday and Friday, 12:20 - 2:15 PM
Professor Maria Damon
Punk Literature looks at some early texts that could be considered punk (Rimbaud's A Season in Hell, for example) and then looks at key texts from both British and US punk scenes, including autobiographies, criticism, novels and poetry, such as Rotten: No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish; Go Now; Skels; Please Kill Me; I Need More, etc.

ENGL 3960W Senior Project Seminar: Medieval Literature and Self Help
Monday and Wednesday, 10:10 AM - 12:05 PM
Professor Rebecca Krug
A great deal of literature from late medieval England is concerned with self improvement. In this course, we will read literary works including Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, the anonymous dream vision called Pearl, and Margery Kempe’s spiritual autobiography in conjunction with pragmatic writing from the period that is specifically concerned with “self help.” Topics to be discussed in the seminar include the role the following played in the Middle Ages: sleep/dreams; use of lapidaries (books of gemstones and their powers); astrology; diet; herbal remedies, and various forms of prognostication (palmistry, number divination; interpretation of thunder). Students need not have taken a prior course about medieval literature (although this would be helpful) but will be expected to gain some familiarity with Middle English over the course of the semester.

EngL 3960W Senior Project Seminar: Hip Hop
Monday and Wednesday, 10:10 AM - 12:05 PM
Professor Geoffrey Sirc
This section of EngL 3960W will focus on Hip Hop, an exceptionally fruitful topic for academic inquiry in the way it offers a variety of research ‘portals’: not just the aesthetics of beats and rhymes, but issues of race, gender, sexuality, economics, marketing, fashion, violence, media representation, and a host of others. The goal is for students to work steadily through our common course readings, sources you find for your own research, and the course writing, to produce an interesting, scholarly solid paper, one that represents an exciting academic investigation into a compelling aspect of contemporary culture. We’ll average – between assigned reading and the readings you find on your own (specific to their research project) – about 100 pages a week. Figure around a semester total of 40 pages of prose (a mix of notes, draft, and finished text). Class time will consist of some lecture, mostly discussion.

EngW 3960W Writing Workshop for Majors: Poetry
Tuesday 1:25-3:55 PM
Professor Madelon Sprengnether
Creative writing workshop for Fall 2008. Comprehensive description to follow in course guide.