300-400 Level Course Descriptions
Spring Semester 2008

The following descriptions of individual courses and sections supplement the general catalog descriptions. Most upper-division English classes are represented here. For the complete registration listing and CRN numbers, see the official schedule. All 300 and 400 level courses have prerequisites. Please refer to page 2 of this handout or the general UHM catalog before enrolling.

English majors, minors, and Secondary Education majors should see their department advisor for information and assistance; others may contact Prof. John Zuern, Undergraduate Director, in KUY 429. If you are interested in declaring English as your major, see Prof. John Zuern in Kuykendall 429; call 956-3048 or email <zuern@hawaii.edu> to schedule an appointment.

Please note the following:
Qualified non-Honors students may enroll in ENG 393/394 or 491/492 on a space available basis with the permission of the instructor or of the English Department’s Honors Director. See Professor Caroline Sinavaiana in KUY 426 <sinavaia@hawaii.edu> for further information.
English 322, 366, and 385 will be large courses with an enrollment of 60. They are designed for non-majors, though majors and minors may enroll in them for major/minor credit. Majors may count up to two large enrollment courses toward their major. See your advisor for further information.

All 400-level “Studies” courses are designed to have a significant research component and are designated as Writing Intensive (W). In compliance with the Focus Hallmarks for Writing Intensive classes, you will produce a least 16 pages or 4,000 words in these classes. Courses designated W will partially fulfill the Writing Intensive graduation requirements. You are encouraged to have had prior 300-level course work in a related field before taking a “Studies” course.

Completion of English 100 and two English 270-273 courses (or two 250-257 courses at the UHM Community Colleges) with grades of “C” or better is prerequisite to 300-level literature courses. An English major or minor may take one 300-level course and the second 270-273 course concurrently. English 320 and one other 300-level English course are prerequisite for 400-level Studies courses.

English 306 is prerequisite for 400-level expository writing courses; English 313 is prerequisite for 400-level creative writing courses.
For 306: 100 and 200 or 100 and one 270-273.

For 311: 100 and one 270-273.

For 313: 100 and one 270-273.

For 411: 313 and 410.

For 414: 313 and 413.
Prior to enrolling in a 400-level Studies course, please try to take at least one 300-level course in a related area.

If you have not completed the prerequisite for a course but feel qualified to take it, see the instructor, who may grant you consent to enroll. Be prepared to document your readiness for the course.

See the Undergraduate Director in Kuykendall 429 for further information on prerequisites.

ENGLISH 300 (01) (E)(O): THE RHETORICAL TRADITION (TR 9:00-10:15) – John Zuern

In this class we will examine some of the most influential texts from the rhetorical tradition alongside contemporary examples of rhetoric in action, including advertisements, public debates, presidential speeches, and corporate web sites. Our aim will be to reflect on how we employ language to entertain, to instruct, to persuade, and to manipulate our audiences. You will receive a firm grounding in the history of rhetorical concepts and techniques, and you will engage some of the key philosophical questions that arise from the study of rhetoric: how can we speak and write convincingly? what are the ethical demands on speakers and writers? what is the relationship between rhetoric and truth? in what ways can language be violent? The course will also introduce you to the discussions of visual and spatial rhetoric that have arisen in recent studies of art, design, and architecture.

A background in rhetoric, and an understanding of its philosophical foundations as well as its practical applications, will be highly valuable to a wide range of students, especially those entering fields such as teaching, law, public service, advertising, literary criticism, professional writing, and publishing.

This course has the UHM Contemporary Ethical Issues (E) Focus designation. Contemporary ethical issues are fully integrated into the main course material and will constitute at least 30% of the course content. At least 8 hours of class time will be spent discussing ethical issues. Through the use of lectures, discussions and assignments, you will develop basic competency in recognizing and analyzing ethical issues, deliberating responsibly on ethical issues, and making ethically determined judgments. Your exercises in rhetorical analysis will ask you address the ethical implications of the messages and rhetorical strategies of the materials you examine.

The course also has the UHM Oral Communication (O) Focus designation. 40% of your final grade in the course will be a function of your oral communication. You will receive explicit training, in the context of the class, in oral communication concerns relevant to these assignments and activities. These oral assignments will give you the chance put rhetorical theory into practice as you learn to communicate clearly and effectively.

Your grade will be based on your performance in the following assignments:
Four one-page précis in response to your readings for class (15%).
One five-page rhetorical analysis of material of your choice (15%)
One ten-minute in-class presentation focusing on one of the assigned texts (15%).
One position statement in a roundtable discussion (10%)
One formal ten-minute presentation in the class symposium, for which you will also submit a written paper (15%)
A midterm and a final examination (15% each)

TEXTS: Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg, THE RHETORICAL TRADITION: READINGS FROM CLASSICAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT; Butler, Judith. EXCITABLE SPEECH: A POLITICS OF THE PERFORMATIVE; a course packet. Books will be available at Revolution Books.

This course offers an overview of the historical development and diversification of modern English(es) and how these varieties have been used in both speech and writing. Through a variety of texts, we will discuss notions such as register, dialect, pidgin. and creole, and we will examine the varying degrees of social and political power (and powerlessness) that the use of these different Englishes encodes. We will also explore language use in terms of gender, ethnicity, and class, and special emphasis will be given to the discussion of such problematic issues as grammatical correctness, native speaker competence, and the relationship between language and nation building.

Assessment: One Midterm and a Final Examination plus oral in-class presentations.

TEXT: Course reader

ENGLISH 306 (01 & 02) (W): ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING 1 (01)(MWF 8:30-9:20); (02) (MWF 9:20-10:30) – Georganne Nordstrom
Everything is an argument—or so some scholars have argued. Argumentation, the art of persuading someone to act in a certain way, is at work on different levels all around us—in ads on TV, music on the radio, political speeches, on the internet, and often takes shape in less obvious forms, such as software programs. In this course, we will look at a variety of forms of public discourse to discover the different kinds of persuasion at work, and to ask ourselves what/whose purpose do such persuasive acts serve. We will return to the opening statement frequently to determine, if indeed, “everything is an argument.”

The classical rhetoricians of Ancient Greece believed for one to be a responsible citizen, one must be educated in rhetoric—the study of how language is used to persuade—so that he could participate in public deliberations. In the 21st century, it is equally important to understand the arguments bombarding us as it is to construct our own arguments. Thus, in this course, we will examine rhetorical strategies, how appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos work in public discourse as well as employ those strategies so as to participate in public deliberations.

Assignments will include, but are not limited to 3-4 short response papers (2-3 pages) to different forms of public discourse (i.e., speeches, advertisements, music); a critical rhetorical analysis of a public argument (5-6 pages); a formal rhetorically informed response (i.e., an editorial) to a public issue (5 pages); and an oral presentation with visual aids.

TEXT: Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee's ANCIENT RHETORICS FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDENTS, 3rd edition. (Available at a discount at Revolution Books). And other forms of media accessible through the newspaper, magazines, and Internet.

ENGLISH 306 (03) (W): ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING I: (MWF 11:30-12:20)—Suzanne Kosanke

This course provides an introduction to critical components of argument and prepares students for the more advanced course, Eng. 406 (Argumentative Writing II). It will give you practice analyzing and writing a variety of well-reasoned arguments that reveal the complexity of the topics chosen. All writing assignments will require that you consider your writing's impact on intended audiences and will provide practice thinking critically, which leads to writing clearly. In addition to the assigned text, we will use KA LEO, local newspapers and internet web sites as resources.

Written arguments will include weekly one-page arguments on topics supplied by your fellow students, a movie evaluation, an argument based on a topic supplied by a journal in your own discipline, and a trial analysis using the Famous Trials website. Prerequisite: C or better in English 100 or 200; or consent.

TEXT: FROM CRITICAL THINKING TO ARGUMENT: A PORTABLE GUIDE and writing handbook of your choice—available at Revolution Books.

ENGLISH 306 (04)(W): ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING I: (TR 12:00 – 1:15) – Jolivette Mecenas

In THE PHAEDRUS, one of the required texts of this course, Plato's Socrates writes: "Rhetoric, taken as a whole, is the art of influencing the soul through words." What better purpose to influence souls than to talk about love? This is an advanced course in argumentative writing, in which our main objectives are: to gain a foundational understanding of classical rhetorical theory; to explore through interpretation of various texts (including music, film, and new media) how argumentation has changed in contemporary culture; and to apply these theories and practices in our own reading and writing. The focus of our discussion, however, is love: how some have defined it throughout history, how some have instructed others to practice love for greater success and reputation; how others have used language to seduce. For instance, what is the 90s rock duo Extreme trying to persuade their beloved of when they sing, “More than words is all you have to do to make it real”?

Course requirements: Eight short (500 words) reading responses; two 5-page essays; one ten page research-based argument. Prerequisite: C or better in English 100 or 200; or consent.

The following required texts will be available at the UH bookstore: THE PHAEDRUS and THE SYMPOSIUM by Plato; ON RHETORIC by Aristotle.

Plus, a course reader with various poems, short stories, essays, and song lyrics by “love experts” such as Andrew Marvell, Foucault, Bob Dylan, selections from the how-to guide for polyamory called “The Ethical Slut,” and much, much more.

ENGLISH 308 (01) (W): TECHNICAL WRITING (TR 09:00-10:15)—Jim Henry

During the first phase of this course you will learn the basic principles of technical writing—including readability and usability—grounded in the rhetorical principles of ethos, logos, and pathos. You will learn techniques for reading as a technical writer, and you will compose a memo evaluating your performance as a reader. You will also compose a set of instructions or procedures. During the second phase, you will collaborate with one or two other students to complete a technical writing project for some organization of your choice—a business, a government agency, a community organization, a non-profit, a school, etc. This work will include some onsite analysis of the organization to get a better understanding of the rhetorical context. During the second phase, you will compose a formal proposal, a progress report, a group self-evaluation, and the writing project itself. You will also write a final analysis of the organization's culture as you perceived it. All of our class meetings will take place in a computer lab and sessions will make use of much online material. Weekly grammar and usage quizzes will strengthen your prowess. At the end of the term, you will compose an e-portfolio of your work that will prove helpful in job searches.

TEXTS: Lay et al., TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION. Chicago: Irwin, 1999. ISBN: 0-256-11985-6.
Diana Hacker's POCKET STYLE MANUAL (any edition) Bedford/St.Martin's. ISBN 0312412703.

ENGLISH 311 (01) (W): AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING: (03) (TR 1:30-2:45) – Steven Curry

Life is not that which one lives, but that which one remembers, and how one remembers to tell it,” writes Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his memoirs. Autobiographical Writing is designed to give serious students an opportunity to write about their lives and their family history. The course will employ a workshop format, in which students will share both their rough and their finished writing with each other—something that will require honesty and courage. The goal is to write prose that others will want to read.

Texts include, LIVING TO TELL THE TALE: A GUIDE TO WRITING MEMOIR, Maxine Hong Kingston’s HAWAII ONE SUMMER, plus selected autobiographical essays in a course packet.

ENGLISH 313(01): FICTION AND POETRY (MWF 10:30-11:20) – Morgan Blair

Two books necessary for class, one you buy from me, the other from a used bookstore or Borders or Barnes and Noble sale tables—a picture book, NOT of Hawaii or cute animals or war or paintings or anything that has a closed understanding attached to it. Choose a book of photographs that makes you perhaps a little uneasy, curious, that makes you question: “What’s in the room behind that curtain?”; What kind of music is coming out of that door?”; “What happened to the ceiling?”; “What is that woman doing?” The book can have people in it, but not necessarily happy, smiling, static figures. NO historical figures or scenes that have stories attached to them already. There can be buildings, fields, but no vistas that look like travel folders.

The book must stimulate your imagination because you will be working from it for poems and for the story you will write during our time together.
The first half of the class will be poetry. Nothing you write will be autobiographical or about anything you know or have heard. You will be drawing with words psychological portraits of characters in some sort of action in a scene/landscape that is a metaphor who and what the character is. If you write a first person piece, it will be a persona piece. You will wear the mask of someone else. The class is about imagination. None of the characters on your page will be you.

There will be weekly assignments. We will develop a critical language by reading closely from the book you buy from me. You will re-write everything completely at least three times, more probably. The class will become a workshop after you have explored the different frames I assign, and you will discuss each others’ work at length. You will need at least two manila folders, one for your work—don’t throw anything away, not from the first note to the last draft of any work you write—and one for your colleagues’ work. The object is to mark up your colleagues’ work and hand it back to him/her so that each of you has feedback not only from me but from each other as well.

The story half of the semester will also be generated from the book of photographs and the book of poetry. You will select two very different from each other photographs and perhaps a scene, an object from a poem and, using your imagination, write a story. If the book of photographs has scenes from the past in it, you can update them to now. If the only landscape you know is Hawaii, don’t feel pressured not to imagine what a field smells like, or how the air inside a room feels in an apartment building with an oil refinery out the window.

You will be working toward making a chapbook that can include everything you’ve written during our time together, or only the poetry or the story. Every piece that is in the chapbook I must have seen in complete re-write at least three times. You will make an edition of at least two chapbooks, one for me, and the other you keep.

You must attend class and turn your work in on time. Don’t fall behind. Four unexcused absences and you will fail the class. If you must be absent, tell me by calling my office phone: 956-3056, or emailing me, or telling me in class so you can stay current. I do not email students for any other reason than to tell information about the class. Prefer you call so we can talk. There will be more handouts.

ENGLISH 313 (02 & 03): FICTION/CREATIVE NON-FICTION (02)(MWF 12:30-1:20); (03)(MWF 1:30-2:20) - Rodney Morales
In this course we will be practicing the art of prose writing in two forms: fiction and creative non-fiction. Initially, we will look at how these genres are intimately connected and we will proceed from there. In the fiction portion of this course we will study different authors and focus on the elements—plot, setting, character, point of view, tone & style, and theme—that make the whole (the story, that is) greater than the sum of its parts. For the creative non-fiction part of this course, we will be studying various authors to see how they bring life to non-fictive prose. For both fiction and creative non-fiction, we will be doing exercises that are geared toward improving our sentences and word choices, and getting our storylines going. There will be specific exercises involving a) recalling, transcribing and inventing dialogue; b) scene crafting; and c) constructing a narrative. For this course the student is expected to produce 20-25 pages of polished prose.

Grades will be determined by the quality of the work produced by the student, but this is not the only factor. Attendance is also very important. ENG 313 is a discussion-oriented class and we spend a great deal of time critiquing each other’s work.

TEXTS: No books are required, but students need to purchase a course reader at Professional Image.

ENGLISH 313 (04): Writing Centered in the Pacific: Poetry and Fiction (TR 9:00-10:15) – Robert Sullivan

This course aims to guide your creative writing cognizant of the places and cultures of Hawai‘i Nei and Polynesia.

This introductory course to two types of creative writing, fiction and poetry, will follow a standard and well-respected textbook written by Janet Burroway from the University of Florida, and also an anthology of Polynesian poetry in English which I co-edited with Professors Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri. For the record, we receive no royalties for the anthology! The Burroway text grounds you in standard approaches to creative writing; the Wendt text centers you in the indigenous cultures of Polynesia. We will use the Whetu Moana anthology to ground us in island Polynesia through both the poetry and fiction sections of the course as a constant reminder of place and the importance of setting in poetry and fiction.

Our creative writing students in the English Department have had many books published and have won many awards. I hope that you take up this opportunity to join in their success. You will only succeed with commitment and passion.

You will be expected to produce a weekly writing exercise which will be critiqued every week. At the end of the course, you will select your best five poems and your best short story to put into your portfolio for grading which will include the penultimate draft and the final draft of each piece of writing.

You are also expected to read and respond to both textbooks in each class.

REQUIRED TEXTS: Burroway, Janet. IMAGINATIVE WRITING: THE ELEMENTS OF CRAFT 1st ed. New York: Penguin , 2006. Wendt, Albert, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan, eds. WHETU MOANA: CONTEMPORARY POLYNESIAN POEMS IN ENGLISH. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 2003.

Our Course Objectives
• To explore and develop your creativity in the genres of poetry and fiction.
• To familiarize yourselves with some major stylistic techniques and concepts practiced by leading writers.
• To center your writing here in Hawai‘i Nei by reading the poetry in English of Polynesia; you will allow the cultures and settings of the Polynesian poems to influence your own writing.
• To maintain an open attitude to the discipline of writing.
• To produce writing that meets your own vision of excellence.
• To develop a sense of audience.
• To achieve a large body of writing this semester by creating multiple drafts of each piece of prose or poetry.
• To lay down foundations for writing that you can build on after the course.
• To begin or maintain a writing journal for future use.

ENGLISH 313 (05 & 06): CONTEMPORARY POETRY AND SHORT FICTION (05)(10:30-11:45); (06)(TR 12:00-1:15) – Steven Goldsberry

The basics in how to write contemporary poetry and short fiction. Book: THE WRITER’S BOOK OF WISDOM. The students create short books of their own. Much in-class editing work using transparencies. A great process. You will learn to write something that can’t not be read.

ENGLISH 320 (01 & 02): INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH STUDIES (01)(MWF 11:30-12:20); (02)(12:30-1:20) – Jeffrey Carroll

The catalog reads: ENG 320 Introduction to English Studies (3) Introduction to the purpose, practice, and potential of literary and rhetorical study of texts. Prerequisite to 400-level work for English majors. Pre: any two of the following: 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257; second may be taken concurrently; or consent.

Those 3 p’s—purpose, practice, and potential--are critical to our understanding the work of English Studies; we’ll spend some good time on them, as well as our looking at traditional and contemporary creative and scholarly works to guide us.

Your work will consist of much reading, much discussing, occasional individual and/or team reports to the class, and four papers, two of which will be in-class. The topics of those papers will be, in general, the work of English Studies as illustrated by you, the author. Final grades will be based on the papers—50% or so—and your participation in the class periods. Please note, too, the pre-req for this course; do no work in this course unless you know you have fulfilled these pre-requisites. If you are not qualified for the course, you can be dis-enrolled at any time.

The good news is that English Studies is a tremendously fertile field of study today; I hope you will discover and explore its pleasures and values both for yourselves and your communities.

MAJOR TEXTS: James Berlin, RHETORICS, POETICS, AND CULTURES; Henry James, DAISY MILLER; David Richter, FALLING INTO THEORY; Tennessee Williams, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE; Lois-Ann Yamanaka, BLU’S HANGING.

ENGLISH 320 (03): Introduction to English Studies (TR 10:30-11:45) – John Rieder

This course is about ways to read, which means that it is about the different ideas people have about how meaning comes about, how literature works, why people tell stories, what makes one work of art better than another, and what difference any of these things makes.

We will read a number of essays on the interpretation and analysis of literary and cultural artifacts, and students will be introduced to a variety of theoretical approaches to culture and to literary interpretation. The goal is to get a clear sense of what kinds of questions the various approaches help you to ask, to practice asking them, and to keep talking to one another about the process of interpretation as we go through it.
Class attendance and participation will be required. Five short papers plus a final exam.

READING LIST:
Essays by Louis Althusser, Cristina Bacchilega, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Laura Mulvey, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde.

Carter, Angela, THE BLOODY CHAMBER; Hitchcock, Alfred, dir. VERTIGO

Poems and short stories by William Blake, bradajo, Mme. Prince de Beaumont, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ralph Ellison, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Marie Hara, John Keats, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, Darrell Lum, Charles Perrault, Edgar Allan Poe, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H. G. Wells, William Wordsworth.

ENGLISH 321 (01): BACKGROUNDS OF WESTERN LITERATURE (TR 9:00-10:15) – Stephen Canham

We will study a variety of monumental Western texts, all “big” super-canonical names that you SHOULD know. You will encounter fascinating and enduring “people” such as Odysseus, Job, Lancelot, Guenevere, Oedipus, Dante, Antigone, Daphne, Apollo, Jesus, Penelope, Orestes, and so on. I am interested in the protean nature of story, the way fictions change, evolve, and yet retain an identity across time and culture, so we will consider certain key problems, such as the relation of the self to physical and spiritual worlds, the problem of power, and the motif of the quest as they work themselves out in what have become archetypal texts. You may expect to read Homer (THE ODYSSEY), selections from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, Aeschylus (THE ORESTEIA), Sophocles (THREE THEBAN PLAYS), Sappho (poems), Ovid (selections from THE METAMORPHOSES), Dante (THE INFERNO), and Malory (selections from LE MORTE D’ARTHUR).

You will take three in-class mid terms and a final exam; there may be group presentations in the second half of the semester. Reading quizzes will be inflicted if necessary. This course fulfills a Diversification Literature requirement and the English major’s Pre-1700 requirement.

ENGLISH 322 (01): THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE (TR 9:00-10:15) – Mark Heberle

NOTE: This is a large-enrollment class (maximum 60 students) intended both for English majors and for non-majors who have completed their English 100 requirement and, ideally, one or more sophomore literature courses.

No previous knowledge or even reading of the Bible is a prerequisite for taking this course, however. By the end of it, you will have experienced and come to appreciate its literary and cultural importance, and your reading of other works of literature and the textual world within which we live will be enhanced and enriched.

The Bible is perhaps the most influential book--or collection of books--that has ever been written. In reading and discussing it as a literary text, we will become well-acquainted with some of the most important works and ideas in the cultural history of the Western world, and we will see them in the textual and ideological contexts within which they were composed and transmitted. Readings in historical and literary background will supplement our study of selected books, including all of Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, Job, Ruth, Jonah, Amos, Judith, Tobit, Matthew, Romans, and Revelation and excerpts from some other books, including Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Acts, Corinthians, James, and Hebrews. We will also look at one or more excerpts from the Qu’ran concerning the patriarchs.

Most classes will be lectures, with some time reserved for questions. Requirements include 2-3 e-mail postings during the semester, two exams, and a paper. A comprehensive mid-term exam will cover our readings in the Old Testament (i.e., the Hebrew Bible); a final exam will cover the New Testament and Apocrypha. Students will write one paper, choosing from one of three formats: a comparison of translations of some portion of the Old Testament; an analysis of a piece of Biblical literary criticism chosen from a list of possible works; or a comparison between some portion of the Bible and a literary or other work (e.g., film, painting) that has been influenced by it. .

REQUIRED TEXTS: Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Bible), Stephen L. Harris, UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE, Seventh Edition

ENGLISH 324 (01) LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 1660-1900 (TR 12:00-1:15) – Stephen Canham

This course will expose you to major texts in various genres by major British and American writers from the English Restoration to the end of the nineteenth century. The course will require intensive reading in primary sources, but rather than attempt to "cover" 240 years, it will look selectively and comparatively at texts which may be thought representative of an author, a style, an attitude, or a period some of the best that has been thought and said, as Matthew Arnold put it in the middle of the nineteenth century. Because 324 is primarily a reading rather than a writing class, there will be several exams and a reading log, but no formal essays. This course satisfies the English major 1700-1900 Historical Breadth requirement and is designated DL for General Education purposes.

TEXTS: THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE VOLS. C, D, E (paper); Stephen Cushman and Paul Newlin, A NATION OF LETTERS, VOLUME 1 (paper).

ENGLISH 325 (01) (W): LITERATURE IN ENGLISH AFTER 1900 (MWF 9:30-10:20) – Kathy Phillips

We will look at divergent views of what literature in the 20th and 21st centuries should or can do. (a) REALISM VS. NON-REALISM- What in our reading shows realism with a social purpose? Where do you see non-realism used to make a point about society? Where do you see non-realism for aesthetic play? (b) RETURN TO MYTH- Are cultural myths being used ironically or straight in our works, for comfort or as a measure of something lost? (c) ART AS SOCIAL INTERACTOR OR CLOSED SYSTEM- Can art record history? Can it change anything? Does it have social responsibility or only aesthetic responsibility? Is it dangerous? Is it healing?

We’ll read a wide variety of fiction, poems, and plays, some in a Course Reader. Longer works will include William Faulkner’s novella THE BEAR, Raja Rao’s novel KANTHAPURA (about Gandhi’s followers in India of the 1930s), Anna Deavere Smith’s play FIRES IN THE MIRROR, and Derek Walcott’s play DREAM ON MONKEY MOUNTAIN. Authors of shorter works include E. E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, Leslie Silko, and Lois-Ann Yamanaka.

ENGLISH 326 (01): LITERATURE AND COLONIALISM (TR 12:00-1:15) - LaRene Despain

The title of the course defines its purpose: to examine how Africa and the West have looked at each other. Starting with Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS and with Chinua Achebe’s look at HEART, we will consider how various Western texts have constructed Africa and how various African texts have constructed the West and reconstructed Africa. From Conrad, we will move to Joyce Cary’s MISTER JOHNSON (also seeing the film version), then to Chinua Achebe’s pioneering THINGS FALL APART, written in response to Cary’s picture of a bumbling African clerk in love with all things English. Achebe puts such characters into their own cultural perspective. With THINGS, we will consider Florence Nwapa’s EFURU, which sees Achebe’s world from a woman’s point of view.

The material in the first part of the text is from early colonial times. We next consider a number of texts that come from a “settled” colonial situation. Ferdinand Oyono’s disturbing HOUSEBOY is set in Cameroun, a French settler colony. A more hopeful look come from Sembene Ousmane’s GOD’S BITS OF WOOD, an account of a strike of workers on a railroad being built by the French through Senegal and Mali. With these, we will consider one of America’s most noted writers about the white experience in Africa: Ernest Hemingway. We will read his two African stories, “The Snows of Kilamanjaro,” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” along with some excerpts from THE GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA and a book completed by his son, TRUE AT FIRST LIGHT. After considering Kenjo Jumban’s THE WHITE MAN OF GOD, a look at Christianity in Cameroun, we will consider another American “look” at Africa: Barbara Kingsolver’s THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, also largely about missionaries in Africa.

We will end with some looks at postcolonial Africa. First we’ll consider Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s wonderful PETALS OF BLOOD. Then we’ll read a contrasting pair: an account of a young Ghanaian woman visiting Europe--Ama Ata Aidoo’s OUR SISTER KILLJOY-- and the account of an African American woman, Maya Angelou’ in Ghana just after independence--ALL GOD’S CHILDREN NEED TRAVELING SHOES. Finally, we consider Ngugi’s telling satirie, DEVIL ON THE CROSS. In addition, we will draw on the wonderful collection of writing by African women: UNWINDING THREADS, inserting short stories into the reading where they will be most telling.

The last week of the class will be devoted to group reports about the construction of Africa by contemporary media sources, noting how fictional representations differ or do not differ from “factual” ones. All of this will be placed in the context of postcolonial critiques, such as Edward Said’s ORIENTALISM, Ngugi’s DECOLONISING THE MIND, Anthony Appiah’s IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE, etc. Such books will be on reserve and/or excerpts will be included in a course packet.

We will consider at least 14 texts (including the short story collection). Though most of the texts are short (the only long text is the Western one: POISONWOOD), it is a considerable amount of reading. Most of these texts will be available at Revolution Books; others will be in the course packet, mainly the excerpts and the short stories. Besides the media report, students will do a reading journal for a portion of the semester (they may choose to substitute a report on another African novel for some of the journal), and will write a seminar paper on some aspect of the African novel—specifically attempting to wrestle with the problem of seeing and saying another culture.

ENGLISH 330 (01): MEDIEVAL BRITISH LITERATURE (MWF 2:30-3:20) – Peter Nicholson

The medieval literature course must cover an enormous time-span, from the very beginnings of English literature in the seventh century up to the dawn of the Renaissance in the fifteenth. The literature of this nearly 1000-year period is both rich and diverse, and it is also both unfamiliar to most modern students and different in significant ways from more modern writing. In other words, there is a lot to study here and a lot to learn, but within the limits of a one-semester course, all we can do is present the highlights. The highlights, happily, are very bright indeed: we will read the epic BEOWULF, the romances of YVAYN AND GAWAYN, THE ALLITERATIVE MORTE ARTHURE, and SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, and the allegories PEARL and PIERS PLOWMAN, plus a selection of lyrics from both the Old English and Middle English periods. All but YWAYN AND GAWAYN and the Middle English lyrics (which we’ll try to read in the original) will be presented in modern English translation.

Three short papers; several reaction papers; a mid-term; and a final.

ENGLISH 331 (01): RENAISSANCE BRITISH LITERATURE (MWF 10:30-11:20) – David Baker

This course will cover a range of literary works from early modern England. We will read these works in their historical and cultural contexts. What made them powerful and persuasive in their own time? And now?

Two papers, a mid-term, and final exam, class presentations.

TEXT: NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, VOL. 1

ENGLISH 335 (01): BRITISH LITERATURE AFTER 1900 (MWF 1:30-2:20) – Joan Peters

In this course, we will study representative works of twentieth and twenty-first British literature—novels, poetry, drama—and explore how the enormous historical, political, cultural, and literary changes taking place over the past century are reflected in those literary texts. In particular, we will explore modern and postmodern experimentations with language and form creating new concepts of narration and genre; the political and aesthetic legacies of British colonialism; the catastrophic effects of two world wars on British literature and society; and the more general issues of politics, class and gender as they are represented by British writers over the last century.

Works under discussion will include poetry by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, Stevie Smith, Tony Harrison, Ted Hughs and Eavan Boland; the novels MRS. DALLOWAY by Virginia Woolf, LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER by D. H. Lawrence, WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys, THE GRASS IS SINGING by Doris Lessing, REGENERATION by Pat Barker, and ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan; and plays by Tom Stoppard and Caryl Churchill.

The writing requirements are three two-part mid-terms and a final exam.

ENGLISH 337 (01): AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM MID-19th TO MID 20TH CENTURY (MWF 10:30 - 11:20) – Barry Menikoff

Wordsworth said it was bliss to be young during the time of the French Revolution. For the twentieth century, it was "'s wonderful" (to steal a word from Ira Gershwin) to be alive in the nineteent twenties.
Flappers and speakeasies, jazz and abstract art, musical theater and modernist poetry--these are only some of the names for things that constituted possibly the most exciting and imaginative period in modern American cultural history. As high as the "roaring" twenties soared, however, it ended with a dramatic crash in 1929, and was followed by a decade that imprinted itself on the American Imagination for a single dominant experience--the Great Depression. The writers and artists and
musicians and filmmakers who were identified with the twenties and thirties are too numerous to even list. But there is no question that Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway are two who defined and reflected those eras.

Although the focus of the class will be on selected texts from these primary authors, the larger project of the course is an exposure to the wider culture of the twenties and thirties, a culture that was
international in scope. Fitzgerald and Hemingway were, after all, famous for being exiles, and Paris and Spain were as much a part of their work as Michigan and New York. To this end students are
encouraged to venture beyond the strictly literary in presenting their oral reports. Music (e.g., Ellington, Gershwin, Porter) and art (e.g., Cubism, American Gothic) and theater (e.g., O'Neill, Clifford Odets) and film (e.g., the gangster genre, comedy [Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields]) are among the possibilities, but each person will be free to explore his/her area of special interest.

In light of the international theme mentioned above, the course will begin with the great nineteenth century author who virtually created the theme, and who was the American godfather of Modernism, Henry James. We will begin with a selection of his short stories, which should be read before class commences.

In addition to the oral presentation there will be a take home midterm exam, a final exam, and a term essay of 10 pages.

TEXT: Henry James: TALES OF HENRY JAMES; Scott Fitzgerald: THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED; THE SHORT STORIES; TENDER IS THE NIGHT; THE CRACK-UP, ed. E. Wilson; Ernest Hemingway: THE SUN ALSO RISES; THE SHORT STORIES; A FAREWELL TO ARMS; A MOVEABLE FEAST.

ENGLISH 338 (01): AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE MID 20TH CENTURY (MWF 11:30-12:20) – Linda Middleton

This course is the last in the series of upper-division survey courses on American Literature, and as the title indicates, covers representative works across the genres for the latter half of the twentieth century. Because this is a relatively recent period of literature, the texts produced in this era are less definitively stamped with a canonical “seal of approval” than those from earlier phases of America’s literary past. For this reason, students will be called upon to apply their own critical instincts as they experience the assigned works, assessing their literary value and resonance, while also remaining open to considering their worth as designated by socio-cultural and academic consensus.

Semester evaluation will be based, primarily, upon: three 3-4 page essays, one of which may be rewritten for a higher grade; a Midterm, and Final Exam. There may be an occasional quiz and possible impromptu in-class writing assignments. Steady, on-task participation will count towards the semester grade, as will regular attendance.

TEXT: THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, Vol. 2: 1865-Present. Ed. Nina Baym. Shorter 7th Edition. Text will be available at Revolution Books

ENGLISH 350 (01): 18th CENTURY NOVEL IN ENGLISH (MWF 12:30-1:20) – Joan Peters

The Eighteenth Century marked the beginning of the English novel. In this course, we will study the early novel as an innovative genre. We will consider the ways eighteenth-century authors experimented with this new bulky, self-consciously democratic form to explore issues of gender, politics, economics, literature, ethics, and culture. We will also look at narrative technique, particularly how writers incorporated textual “discussions” about the novel into the language and structure of their works. Finally, we will examine the historical changes taking place in England and the world that contextualized this new genre and made it possible. The novels under study include Daniel Defoe, MOLL FLANDERS, Samuel Richardson, CLARISSA (Abridged edition), Henry Fielding, TOM JONES, Elizabeth Inchbald, A SIMPLE STORY, Ann Radcliffe, A SICILIAN ROMANCE, and Mary Wollstonecraft, MARY AND THE WRONGS OF WOMEN.

ENGLISH 361 (01): POETRY (MWF 1:30-2:20) – Jonathan Morse

As I write this course description on September 30, 2007, a United States Senator stands accused in the media of patronizing a prostitute. Asked for details, the alleged prostitute had nothing but complimentary things to say about the senator. “He was a very clean man,” she told a reporter. “He came in, took a shower, did his business and would leave.”

There’s a couple that thinks in prose.

To put it metaphorically, prose is about doing your business and poetry is about love. To put it in terms of language, prose is about communicating through grammar and definition, while poetry is about communicating through grammar, definition, AND the musical properties of words. Poetry is a more efficient kind of language than prose; it works simultaneously on the rational and the irrational parts of our minds. It’s like love that way — and, like love, it helps you understand that there’s more to joy than just doing your business.

In this course, we’ll get acquainted with the mystery by learning the patterns that words can make as they enter into poetic structures. We’ll do this in three steps. First we’ll read some poems and learn the technical nomenclature that will help us understand their language in detail; then each of you will memorize a sonnet (one kind of short poem) and spend a few minutes teaching it to the rest of us; and finally, after you have the sonnet pattern securely internalized, you’ll write a sonnet of your own. Aside from the sonnet you’ll write and the mini-class you’ll teach, there will be two exams, a five-page paper, and a final.

TEXTS: THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY and Robert Pinsky’s THE SOUNDS OF POETRY.

ENGLISH 362 (01) (W): DRAMA (MWF 11:30–12:20)—Roxanne Fand

Dramatic literature has come a long way since its origins as religious ritual. We shall study how ceremonial performance became modified over time into traditional theatrical conventions which continue to evolve into forms that express a more modern sensibility, while fulfilling age-old communal and personal needs to project deep human emotions into a living enactment that engages all the senses. We will begin with the ancient Greek tradition and move through other representative plays of western literature as well as one Japanese play.

Readings of the plays will be supplemented by sample of performances, including a live rehearsal and performance of an adaptation of Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST at Kennedy Theater and video clips of productions of other plays. You will be expected to read the plays closely with a pencil or keyboard to jot down notes that contribute to the class discussion and to your preparation for papers and a final exam. It will not be enough to merely be familiar with plots or to summarize; you will also need to reflect, ask questions, and find connections in order to collect your own body of evidence to develop two short papers (1,000 words each) and a research paper (of 2,000 words). You will be given credit for current reading and performance-response notes and other forms of class participation, such as joining the discussion, giving peer feedback on drafts (anonymously on our ReMark web site), and evaluating your own papers. The two short papers may be revised for a better grade and extra participation credit. The final paper will require some discussion of a play's production(s) and will be guided in the research and writing stages, fulfilling the Writing Intensive designation.

A Service-Learning option will be available that involves play readings and/or production.

The following paperback TITLES will be available at Revolution Books bookstore: EVERYMAN AND OTHER MIRACLE AND MORALITY PLAYS. Dover, 1995. Moliere. TARTUFFE. Dover, 1994. Monzaemon, Chikamatsu. THE LOVE SUICIDES AT AMIJIMA. U of Michigan P, 1991. Shakespeare, William, THE TEMPEST. Dover, 1994. Shaw, George B. PYGMALION., Dover, 1994. Sophocles. OEDIPUS REX. Dover, 1991. Williams, Tennessee. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Signet, 1970.

ENGLISH 366 (01): SHAKESPEARE AND FILM (MWF 12:30-1:20)–Robert McHenry

NOTE: This is a large-enrollment course that is open to non-majors.

This course will offer a introductory survey of six of Shakespeare’s plays along with an analysis of a range of the film versions made from them. It will stress the critical reading of the plays as a first step in understanding the choices made by film makers in bringing them to the screen, and explore the distinctive language of film as well. Since a film version of a play is always an interpretation, and sometimes a radical modification, of the dramatic text, this course will encourage students to compare and contrast films from different times and countries. Students will be encouraged to explore how the different techniques and audiences of Shakespearean films produce effects quite different from what may have been possible in the original performances, or in later revivals on stage. In general, each play will be matched with at least two films, but students will have the opportunity to explore other Shakespearean films, or films that appropriate or represent Shakespeare, including early silent movies, classic Hollywood adaptations, and contemporary radical appropriations of Shakespeare. Separate screening sessions will be scheduled outside of class time, and students must attend them or arrange to view the films on their own. There will be two medium-length papers, regular quizzes, plus a midterm and a final exam.

REQUIRED TEXTS:
Bevington, Davis, Michael L. Greenwald, and Anne Marie Welsh, eds. Shakespeare: SCRIPT, STAGE, SCREEN. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006.
Jackson, Russell, ed., THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO SHAKESPEARE ON FILM. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

ENGLISH 370 (01)(H): ETHNIC LITERATURE OF HAWAI`I (MWF 10:30-11:20) – Rodney Morales
(Cross-listed with ES 370)

This course is a study of the literature of Hawai‘i from ancient (pre-colonial) times to the postcolonial present. While this course focuses on writers who are “Hawai‘i born and raised” and strives to be inclusive in terms of race, gender, and class, to bring various perspectives to our discussion we also occasionally examine outside works—from the U.S. Continent, Europe, the Caribbean, as well as the South Pacific—whether these works are exotic portrayals of the Hawaiian Islands or whether they offer parallel situations from (what might be labeled) postcolonial sites.

We will be looking at the works of INDIGENOUS writers, Native Hawaiians who, with everything from chants and mo‘olelo (folk tales) to written forms of poetry and prose, provide the foundation for a deeper understanding of Hawai‘i’s multifaceted culture. We will be studying writers who are not Hawaiian in terms of blood but claim a home here. We will be reading fiction, poetry, essays, and mo‘olelo, listening to songs and chants, and viewing documentary and dramatic film. Attention will be given to works that examine or reflect current socio-political trends and tendencies as well as the prevailing cultural climate.

There will be informal writing in the form of reaction papers, and two formal essays. There will also be a midterm and a final. Grades are determined by these papers and exams, as well as the quality of the student’s in-class performance (including contributions to discussions and a good attendance record).

TEXTS: LOCAL GEOGRAPHY, KAMAPUA‘A, THE HAWAIIAN PIG-GOD, LIVIN’ PIDGIN, ROLLING THE RS, SISTA TONGUE, HO‘IHO‘I HOU: a tribute to George Helm and Kimo Mitchell, and THE WHALE RIDER. There will also be a course reader, which will be available at Professional Image.

ENGLISH 371 (01): LITERATURES OF THE PACIFIC (TR 10:30-11:45) - ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
(Cross-listed with PAC 371)

Keu a ka ‘ono, ma ke alopiko la Oh how delicious is the belly Kahi momona piko ka nenue la Sweet and succulent nenue fish Lihaliha wale ke momoni aku la Rich, tasty to swallow
‘O ka ‘o‘io halale ke kai la The ‘o‘io fish swims in gravy, slurp it up ‘O ka ‘opelu e pepenu ana la Dip into the delicious ‘opelu fish
He ‘ono toumi tou ho‘i tau i tou Delicious, delicious, oh so sweet to swallow pu‘u te momoni atu slides down your throat He ‘ono a he ‘ono a he ‘ono ‘i‘o no, Delicious, delicious, oh so tasty indeed.
a he ‘ono no.
- “He ‘Ono” (Bina Mossman, composer)

Think of this course as a literary luau, a buffet of choices from around the Pacific to fit (almost) every appetite. The “brain food” at this party covers the breadth of Oceania, a pupu platter of “Pacific Regional Cuisine” focusing on (but not specific to) Hawai‘i, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, and Tahiti. This foray into the Pacific will draw from the growing pool of talented indigenous writers. We will explore aspects of literature such as themes, aesthetics, and techniques utilized in these texts as they are shaped by their respective social, political, and historical settings. As such, issues such as the intersection of oral traditions and contemporary literature, and the use of pidgins and native languages will also be addressed. Other key issues include the cultural politics of identity, as the new indigenous writing from the Pacific serves both to challenge earlier representations by outsiders, and also highlights emerging discourses of gender and self-determination in the region today.

We will also play “food” critic, by learning how to discuss and analyze Pacific literature in terms important to western and indigenous Pacific modes of literary analysis and definition: What is orature? What is literature? What are mo‘olelo and mele, fagogo and waiata? How do they function in Pacific societies? How are their aesthetics determined? How do we evaluate, as primarily western readers, the value of indigenous writers to their cultures? To the greater Pacific? As part of world literature?

Attendance is required; excessive absences will adversely affect your final grade. Class participation through regular class discussion and e-letters posted to our class website. An oral presentation on a text/author, and a panel presentation. You will write 2 papers on separate topics at a length of 6+ pages each. You will “experience art” by attending at least one literature-related event during the semester, such as a poetry reading or play, and write a reaction/review of that experience. There will be a mid-term and a final. The exams will be mixed format, and include essay questions. The exams are not cumulative. There may be occasional quizzes. You must also be reasonably computer literate (enough to function on e-mail, and navigate your way through the discussion area in our course website).

TEXTS: ‘OIWI: A NATIVE HAWAIIAN JOURNAL VOL. 2 by Mahealani Dudoit, ed., BREADFRUIT by Celestine Vaite, BABY NO EYES by Patricia Grace, THE GIRL IN THE MOON CIRCLE by Sia Figiel, SONS FOR THE RETURN HOME by Albert Wendt, THE LAST VIRGIN IN PARADISE by Vilsoni Hereniko, NUANUA, Albert Wendt, ed., VARUA TUPU, Frank Stewart et. al, eds., a course reader and miscellaneous handouts, with poetry, essays, short stories, and interviews by acclaimed writers Haunani-Kay Trask, Joe Balaz, Epeli Hau‘ofa, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Robert Sullivan, Alan Duff, Teresia Teaiwa, and others.

While it may look a bit overwhelming, no one has ever died of indigestion in this course, although you may burp a bit. And you may gain a little intellectual weight from the rich brain food you will be absorbing. If anything, be inspired by the words of Mäori writer Keri Hulme:

“To those used to one standard, this [class] may offer a taste passing strange, like the original mouthful of kina roe (sea urchin eggs). Persist. Kina can become a favourite food.”

And don’t forget your breath mints.

ENGLISH 374 (01) (W): RACE, ETHNICITY AND LITERATURE (MWF 1330-1420) – Ruth Hsu

One of the goals of this class is to help you develop your own ideas and viewpoints about literature with specific focus on the ways that race and ethnicity impact writers and stories. The readings can be fun, thought-provoking and controversial. The list includes more popular narrative genres, such as graphic novels and film. Although our emphasis will be on these two identity categories, some of the texts used in this class will invite discussions on gender and sexuality. Possible questions we might ask the texts: How do race, ethnicity and gender impact the formulation of self and national identity and the notions of family and community? What are some ways to rethink the significance of race and ethnicity in artistic creativity, in movies, in urban space, in the workplace? In what ways have issues of race, ethnicity (and gender) impacted the United States, Hawai'i and the Pacific?

TEXTS may include (Books ordered through UHM Bookstore):
1. Gary Pak’s WATCHER OF WAIPUNA AND OTHER STORIES;
2. Toni Morrison’s BELOVED;
3. Art Spiegelman’s MAUS (graphic novel);
4. Joe Sacco’s PALESTINE (graphic novel);
5. Patricia Grace’s BABY NO-EYES;
6. Joy Kogawa’s OBASAN;
7. James Lee Burke’s THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN
8. Spike Lee’s WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE (selection from; and in conjunction with Burke) (HBO film).

WRITING REQUIREMENTS will likely include: A bi-weekly one-page response paper (single-spaced); two essays (minimum of 5 pages, double-spaced); a class presentation with a handout; a final. This is a Writing Intensive class.

ENGLISH 375 (01) (W)(O): PHILLIPINE CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE IN ENGLISH (T 3:00 – 5:30) – Ruth Mabanglo
(Cross-Listed with IP 363)

This course will introduce post-World War II Filipino literary writings in English in the Philippines and in the United States. The various socio-cultural contexts, the political conditions and the emotional dilemmas of fictional characters in different times and space will be analyzed and critically studied. One important aspect of the course is the subject of diaspora or migration. It will focus on some writings that touch on the causes, problems and the concomitant effects of this phenomenon as viewed by various Filipino writers.

The course will begin with the development of Philippine Literature in English and then proceed to the discussion of literary works by well-known fictionists like Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose, Estrella Alfon, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, Marianne Villanueva, Manuel Arguilla, Wilfredo Nolledo, Carlos Bulosan; poets like Marjorie Evasco, Edith Tiempo, Eric Gamalinda, Merlinda Bobis and Luis Francia, playwrights like Severino Montano and Amelia Lapena Bonifacio; as well as essayists like Nicholas Pichay, Gilda Cordero Fernando and Luis Teodoro.

Requirements: Class participation (attendance), three 7-paged papers; two group presentations; one individual presentation of a novel read; listening to guest speakers.

REQUIRED TEXT (available at Professional Image): READINGS IN IP 363 (A compilation of short stories, poems, plays and essays by Filipino writers). The instructor will provide a list of novels for the individual presentation.

ENGLISH 385 (01): FAIRY TALES AND THEIR ADAPTATIONS (TR 10:30-11:45) – Cristina Bacchilega

NOTE: This is a large-enrollment course that is open to non-majors.

The Western “fairy tale” is a genre we may think we know from childhood memories, but this course is an introduction to its complex history and multiple social uses. By transforming oral tales of magic into printed literature, especially from the XVII century on, fairy tales became established as a popular genre across national boundaries in the modern world. They continue to permeate contemporary culture in various media (film, advertisements, fiction for adults, children’s books, jokes), and one of our ongoing projects as a class will be to explore why they “stick” and how they’ve changed. Organized around popular fairy-tale plots or themes, the course will have historical and cross-cultural breadth—moving from the XVI-century Italian and XVII-century French early fairy tales to the “traditional” German tales of the Brothers Grimm to contemporary filmic productions, graphic novels, and literary self-reflexive questionings of the genre in poetry and fiction for adults. Fairy tales—and folktales—have over the centuries and in different social contexts offered an imaginative outlet for desire and change, while maintaining a strong grip on ordinary social life. In reading fairy tales as socializing narratives, we will focus on how they encourage and discourage specific gendered and cultural behaviors as well as how they enable new possibilities.

Assignments include a group presentation, quizzes, a short paper, a midterm, and a final examination. Attendance is mandatory.

TEXTS: Angela Carter, THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES (selections); Francesca Lia Block, THE ROSE AND THE BEAST; Emma Donoghue, KISSING THE WITCH: OLD TALES IN NEW SKINS; Bill Willingham, FABLES: 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL; Marina Warner, ed. WONDER TALES: SIX FRENCH STORIES OF ENCHANTMENT; Tatar, Maria, ed. THE CLASSIC FAIRY TALES.
Books will be available at Revolution Books.

We will also discuss several films, and their viewing will be outside of class time.

ENGLISH 394 (01) JUNIOR HONORS TUTORIAL: ASIAN LITERATURE AND FILM AGAINST CONQUEST (M 2:30-5:00) —Frank Stewart

This course explores the ways that literature and film are used by people in conquered, colonized, or repressive countries to express themselves on issues that cannot be spoken about directly, either because of censorship or self-censorship. We will focus on Cambodia, Tibet, and Viet Nam. Each has large numbers of citizens in exile as a result of recent wars or continuing conflicts; in each, significant segments of the population are, or in the recent past have been, denied free expression. We may also look for examples in Germany, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, China, and other places.

Because they risk some form of persecution if they blatantly violet certain bans, authors and other artists in these countries sometimes employ indirect or coded methods, which are comprehended by their audiences and not (for the most part) by their censors. We will look at these methods, and the influence they have on the art and literature of the countries.

Our approach will be to discuss each society or nation separately, beginning with an overview of the history of the county and the circumstances under which the artists write or create films. We will read, view, and discuss fictional and non-fictional narratives. We will ask unavoidable questions about important contemporary ethical issues: whether or not censorship in its various forms can ever be benevolent and justifiable, whether or not opinions held as a result of intense propaganda can excuse and justify morally questionable acts (or inaction) by individuals, whether or not there can be a morality of resistance that can justify morally questionable acts by the resistors. However, this is NOT a class with a political agenda. It is a SAFE class in terms of free expression, which does not censor or propagandize. Students are encouraged to develop and hold their own beliefs.

Students will write weekly e-mail letters to the class as a whole, and write midterm and final papers.

ENGLISH 403 (01): MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR (MWF 10:30-11:20) – RICHARD W. NETTELL

Grammar is a subject that usually sounds intimidating because most of us immediately think of the grammar rules (partially) taught us in school, usually through those red marks on our papers in English and other writing classes. However, there are competing grammars, all of which are actually nothing more than a variety of attempts to describe what (mainly first-language) speakers do because of what they intuitively already know: how to communicate successfully in a range of codes we oversimplify into the one category--English. The course will therefore offer a brief history of grammatical description as well as some of the competing ways used to explain how language users make sense of each other.

Two Midterms and a Final Examination, plus oral in-class presentations.

REQUIRED TEXT: Course reader

ENGLISH 405 (01)(W): TEACHING COMPOSITION (TR 1:30-2:45) – Todd Sammons

[Please note that this restricted enrollment course is designed primarily for English 101 peer tutors; so, if you are not an English 101 peer tutor and you want to take this course, you must contact the instructor before trying to register for the class. Please note also that the instructor of this class has a proposal in to have the class granted an “O” focus designation, in addition to the “W” focus designation that the class already has.]

Our general goals in this class are to help you learn (a) how to teach writing and (b) how to tutor. You will, therefore, be learning various theories about teaching writing and various theories about tutoring; in addition, you will learn quite specific methods for implementing these theories. The bottom line: you will discover how to help your tutees (i.e., the students whom you will be tutoring) improve their planning, fluency, revising, editing, and workshopping; and you will discover how to work with your tutees in small groups and in one-on-one conferencing. This is a practical, hands-on class, with a minimum of lecturing and a maximum of problem-solving collaborative learning.

Course requirements include short letters to the class (distributed via e-mail), a literacy narrative, one individual class presentation, one collaborative class presentation, three short essays, a midterm project, a course project (several options here), and a collaborative class project. Faithful class attendance is a must, as is frequent class participation.

Our main text is Ben Raforth’s A TUTOR’S GUIDE: HELPING WRITERS ONE TO ONE, 2nd edition (2005), supplemented by Leigh Ryan’s THE BEDFORD GUIDE FOR WRITING TUTORS, 4th edition (2005). Useful theoretical material appears in Cristina Murphy and Steve Sherwood’s THE ST. MARTIN’S SOURCEBOOK FOR WRITING TUTORS, 3rd edition (2007). An optional text for this class is Martha Maxwell’s WHEN TUTOR MEETS STUDENT, 2nd edition (1994).

ENGLISH 408 (01): PROFESSIONAL EDITING (M 2:30-5:00) - Ann Rayson

The text is THE CAREFUL WRITER by Theodore Bernstein (available at Revolution Books in Puck’s Alley). Students will also need a grammar book and an up-to-date dictionary. THE CAREFUL WRITER, a dictionary of usage, will be supplemented with numerous handouts for reading, discussion, and editing. Most of the time we will be engaged in the actual editing of various types of articles and reports—i.e., in identifying and solving problems of organization, logic, clarity, diction, tone, grammar, mechanics—and in discussion of that editing. There will be some material on and discussion of the basic principles of editing, levels of editing, and book/journal design and production as part of the editorial process, but our main focus will be on substantive editing. There may be one field trip to a local publisher and one assignment involving an interview with a working editor.

You are expected to work on a professional level and will be graded accordingly; you should have a solid understanding of English grammar and usage as preparation for taking English 408.

Prerequisites include one of the following English courses: 306, 311, 313, 403, 405; or consent of instructor. This course should enable students to decide whether they would like to pursue careers in editing; it should also help students to become better editors of their own writing.

ENGLISH 409 (01)(W) : STUDIES IN COMPOSITION /RHETORIC/ LANGUAGE (TR 12:00-1:15)
Hilgers

We could subtitle this class with questions: “Why English 100? Why W Focus classes? Why teach writing at all?”

Our inquiry in the class will center on what happens in writing-focused classrooms, what experts suggest, and what we learn from research. What we find through this inquiry—the validity of what we find, and the coherence of what we find—will provide us with tools that we can use to interrogate institutional as well as pedagogical practice.

Our investigation will play out in different contexts. One will be human development, and what research suggests about learning to write. Another is the college, a context in which we may find skills-focused and rhetoric-focused and discipline-focused instruction taking place in adjoining classrooms. We can’t ignore political contexts, given the role of “No Child Left Behind” on public education. We will try to see if there are “ideal” situations and, if there are, discuss how to work toward achieving them.

Our basic procedures will be writing, reading, research, and critical discussion. Some students may want to focus on the writing in public middle schools. Others may focus on our own campus’s English 100. Still others may choose to work on policy statements for a service institution that tries to help recent immigrants.

Readings will come from a course collection and from books such as these: Mayher, J., Lester, N., & Pradl, G. (1983). LEARNING TO WRITING/WRITING TO LEARN. Upper Montclair, NJ: oynton/Cook. Herrington, A., & Moran, C. (Eds.). (1992). WRITING, TEACHING, AND LEARNING IN THE DISCIPLINES. New York: Modern Language Association.Petraglia, J. (Ed.). (1995); RECONCEIVING WRITING, RETHINKING WRITING INSTRUCTION. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

ENGLISH 410 (01): FORM AND THEORY OF POETRY (W 3:30-6:00) - Frank Stewart
This course is for developing writers of poetry and for those who love poetry and want to learn how to get the most from reading it. Poetry at its best can be one of the most powerful and illuminating art forms there is; poetry at its worst can be criminally self-centered and irrelevant. This course is about poetry at its loving, compassionate, and engaged best. The course is not easy; much will be expected from every student’s heart and mind. But for those who want to learn something about real art and the practice of writing poetry, it will be illuminating.
In ancient times, the greatest writers, philosophers, and wise people wrote in poetry and only hacks would think of writing fiction—poets were the historians, philosophers, shamans, magi, alchemists, warriors, generals, ecstatic visionaries, and storytellers. Poetry was sacred and revered, and expressed sacredness and reverence, even if it was in the language of the enemy.
Why has poetry been essential in human societies for so long? What is it about poetry? And how can we hope to write or read it well unless we know?
This class is primarily a reading and discussion course, in which questions are valued more than conclusions and opinions. We may read each other’s poetry, but not until we have a foundation of shared ideas and a shared vocabulary that will enable us to have constructive conversations.
Students will write an e-letter to the class every Monday. The letters are a substantial part of the final grade. Students will also be required to write midterm and final essays. Attendance is mandatory.
Tentatively, the readings will include Lorca, Whitman, Rilke, Anne Carson, Machado, Rumi, Lalla,

ENGLISH 411 (01): POETRY WORKSHOP (W 3:30–6:00) — Morgan Blair

BOOKS:
REFLECTIONS AND SHADOWS, Saul Steinberg
ORPHAN FACTORY, Charles Simic
THE BOOK OF FABLES, W.S. Merwin

The above books are texts for the class.

There will also be handouts.

You will need at least 3 folders: one to keep your work in; one for your colleagues’ work; and one for the handouts I will give you.

Don’t throw anything you write toward the completion of a piece away. No note, rough draft, nothing. Paperclip everything to do with a piece together so that you can look at what you have when you re-write, when we have conferences concerning your work.

This is not a class in autobiography. It is a class in imagination.

It is a workshop class. There will be writing assignments.

4 unexcused absences and you will automatically fail the class. If you must miss class, let me know before hand. Leave a message on my phone—956-3056, or email me at <mblair@hawaii.edu>. Do NOT email me for any other reason than you will be absent. All our dealings with each other will be face to face, in the classroom or in conference.

You will hand in at least 3 poems a week, one of which you will duplicate for your colleagues. All Poems must be titled, even if it’s only POEM 1 or POEM 2.

You will re-write everything, using comments from your colleagues and me as well as your own careful and thoughtful reconsideration of your page as tools toward that end.

We will read from the above books, closely.

Always carry a notebook or 3X5 cards with you everywhere you go and write down what pops into your mind, what you see, what you hear, no matter how silly. Writers collect toward their work just as visual artists do. If you find something that catches your attention, tape it or fold it into your notebook. Chance is often the trigger for new work.

At the end of our time together you will make two chapbooks of you work, one you keep, the other you give to me.

ENGLISH 412 (01): CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING (T 3:00-5:30) – Robert Sullivan

In this workshop we will deploy the techniques commonly used in creative writing genres with a focus on the self whether in a collective (myth-based) or individual sense (memoir).

The goal of the class is to produce imaginative writing based on memory. You will:
1. Develop skills and techniques for writing autobiography, confessional poetry, and myth-based writing
2. Develop your creative-writing skills in areas useful across genres.
Memoir/biography, confessional poetry, and myth-based writing will provide the templates for the weekly exercises to be workshopped in class.

The boundaries between fiction and non-fiction are permeable. The reliability of memory, or rather its unreliability, and the storyteller’s desire to make events more interesting, are factors in this blurring of the boundaries. The essayist, the memoirist, the ‘confessional’ poet, and the storyteller, are all reliant on memory to tell their tales. Each is, in a sense, a non-fiction. The myth or legend is handed down by a people as a ‘truth’ to explain the world they live in. Stories are handed down within families as a remembrance of a relative. The memoirist is concerned with the self, with interiority, and so it is harder to distinguish between the memoir and the novel (Marcus 235).

I will be assigning grades only to your completed portfolio of work, which will consist of the following:
• 1 autobiographical piece of prose, no shorter than five and no longer than ten typed double- spaced pages (1200 – 2400 words);
• 1 extended confessional poem, no shorter than one page, no longer than 2 pages, typed double-spaced;
• 1 imaginative piece of myth-based non-fiction, no shorter than five and no longer than ten typed double-spaced pages (1200 – 2400 words).

You will also be required to attend literary readings during semester and will receive credit for that.

Readings will be handed out during semester.

ENGLISH 413 (01): FORM AND THEORY OF FICTION (M 3:30-6:00) - Robert Onopa
English 413 is a creative writing course, the first in the department’s sequence of upper-division courses in fiction writing. Early in the term we focus on theory – on what makes a story a story and how a story’s put together – and then we put the theory into practice. Eventually the overall focus of this class is practical, and we mainly operate as a workshop course, one in which the student’s primary job is to write fiction, and to read, discuss, and edit the work of fellow students. The ultimate aim of the course is to develop students' skills as fiction writers.

Over the term, class members will be asked to produce two pieces of original fiction (totaling twenty-five or thirty pages), to read the assigned manuscripts, and, of course, to contribute to the workshops. We’ll also do some exercises in class and a bit of outside reading, including a few essays in handout and fiction from the 2007 edition of THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES.

ENGLISH 414 (01): FICTION WORKSHOP (M 3:30-6:00) – Ian MacMillan
This is a course that blends close reading of provided texts (stories, essays, etc.), and workshop treatment of student work. The study of technique and theory in connection with fiction writing is applied to the work students hand in, ordinarily two short stories in the course of the semester.

ENGLISH 421 (01) (W): STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: “Realism and Naturalism” (MWF 11:30 - 12:20) - Jim Caron
As a background to understanding the achievements of our authors, we will examine the societies represented in these French, Russian, American, and British works. The authors considered these works of their imaginations to be accurate portrayals of the social realities of their day. But what is meant by accurate? These narratives do not function as court transcripts or unedited film documentaries: the dramatic focus and intensity of art requires a selection process. Thus the course will also focus on how selection impacts verisimilitude. Another focus will be the philosophical differences that underpin realism and naturalism. How do these differences impact plot and character development, especially issues of agency?

Grades will be based on participation, short weekly responses, essays, a midterm, and a final

(Probable) Texts: Maupassant: SHORT STORIES (c. 1880s); Zola: GERMINAL (1885); Chekov: SHORT STORIES (c. 1880s-1890s); Tolstoy: ANNA KARENINA (1878); Crane: RED BADGE OF COURAGE (1895); Norris: MCTEAGUE (1899); Hardy: THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE (1886); Joyce: DUBLINERS (1914)..

ENGLISH 430 (01) (W): STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: DREAM VISION (TR 10:30-11:45) – Judith Kellogg
In the medieval dream vision, an individual is led into a symbolic landscape where s/he is offered a privileged vision meant to teach some profound truth not fathomable from lived experience alone. This parallel universe is structured to translate abstract concepts into concrete form. In the spiritual visions, authors give shape, face and character to God’s invisible realms, allowing the dreamer to peek beyond the cusp that separates mortal from eternal existence. In Dante’s INFERNO, damnation is imagined, and in THE PEARL, the rewards of salvation are envisioned. In PIERS PLOWMAN, Langland interfaces raw human reality with fantastic spiritual allegory to ask where Truth lies in a world plagued with social injustice, self-interest and hypocrisy. In a more secular form, the genre allows Christine de Pizan, in her BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES, an outspoken voice to criticize the misogynist views of her day and to rewrite human history to give women their due as smart, virtuous, and vital to the development of culture. The authors of the Romance of the Rose dissect the intricacies of love, lust, and seduction, whereas Chaucer plays with the genre for comic effect.

This course includes some of the most important and memorable works of the Middle Ages, works that encompass a broad spectrum of medieval learning, and richly illuminate the period’s cultural attitudes.

Weekly written reading responses, two formal (4-5 page) essays on course readings, research paper, midterm, and final.

REQUIRED TEXTS: Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY; Pearl; Jean de Meun and Guillaume de Lorris, THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE; Christine de Pizan, THE BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES; Langland, PIERS PLOWMAN; Chaucer, selected dream visions.

ENGLISH 434 (01) (W, E): 20th C TO PRESENT: REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMANCE (MWF 8:30-9:20) – Cynthia Franklin
In this course we will consider a variety of contemporary North American texts (popular music, novels, journals, poetry collections, films) by women working from different cultural contexts (i.e., white Southern, Native American, diasporic Indian, black lesbian, Chicana, white Canadian, local Japanese) that explore romantic love. We also will read some essays that approach love from a theoretical (often feminist) or historical perspective. Our premise in the class will be that there is nothing natural or inevitable about romantic love—that it is a culturally produced ideology that is integral to the operation of our society and the various institutions that sustain it. In addition, then, to coming to a historical understanding and definition of romantic love and what differentiates it from other kinds of love, through analyzing representations of romantic love, we will take up questions and concerns such as the following ones: How and why are ideologies of romantic love necessary to the functioning of our society in economic and political as well as social terms? What is the relationship between romantic love and violence? Are the two necessarily opposed? Why and/or why not? What happens when romantic love is decoupled from heterosexuality and/or from marriage and the nuclear family? How and when can romantic love serve as a refuge from social norms, and/or as a source of social critique, political resistance, or even revolution? What alternatives exist to romantic love?

The course will be conducted as a seminar, with mandatory attendance. Grades will be determined by the following components: a 12-15 page paper (200 points); a class presentation (50 points); in-class activities, quizzes, and several short essays (150 points); group journal entries (100 points). The distribution given here is approximate. Missed classes or failure to attend required conferences will impact your grade negatively.

ASSIGNED TEXTS (To be ordered through Revolution Books): Dorothy Allison, BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA; Margaret Atwood, THE HANDMAID'S TALE; Lucha Corpi, BLACK WIDOW'S WARDROBE; Audre Lorde, THE CANCER JOURNALS; Leslie Marmon Silko, CEREMONY; Juliana Spahr, THIS CONNECTION OF EVERYONE WITH LUNGS; Alice Walker, THE COLOR PURPLE; Lois-Ann Yamanaka, SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE PAHALA THEATRE

FILMS: BOYS DON'T CRY; FIRE; THE HANDMAID'S TALE

ENGLISH 440C (01): GEORGE ELIOT (MWF 11:30–12:20) – Gay Sibley
Mary Anne Evans, who later took the pseudonym “George Eliot”, was born in 1819, the same year as Queen Victoria. Eliot went on to lead not only a famous, but a slightly scandalous life—writing essays, reviews, and novels nearly all her early readers assumed were written by a man. Spending all of her creative years with George Henry Lewes, a prominent scientist of the time (and married), she was a proto-feminist without preaching feminism. And because her work reveals an access to British culture less restricted than most to class and gender, it provides an unusually complex panorama of Victorian history and culture. In addition, many of Eliot’s insights have turned out to be prophetic, as for example her observation on 19th-century communication that appears in an 1854 essay, “Woman in France: Madame de Sable”: “[T]he evident tendency of things to contract personal communication within the narrowest limits makes us tremble lest some further development of the electronic telegraph should reduce us to a society of mutes, or to a sort of insects, communicating by ingenious antennae of our own invention.”

In this “single author” class, we will be reading nearly everything George Eliot wrote, and the poetry and some of the essays not assigned to the entire class will be covered in oral reports. One of the most valuable lessons to be learned from reading the entire canon of a famous author is that doing so ends up defining the nature of excellence. Careful readers come to understand the gradations of quality in an individual author’s work—come to see the skills evolving in interesting, but not necessarily positive, directions. And finally, careful writers learn how to delineate for others the differences accruing as a result of that evolution.

One short (5-page) paper; one oral report (with written/illustrated handouts); one 10-15 page final research paper; one midterm and one final examination (both examinations containing take-home essay questions).

MAJOR WORKS TO BE ASSIGNED (all by George Eliot): SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, ed. Jennifer Gribble (Penguin); Adam Bede, ed. Stephen Gill (Penguin); THE MILL ON THE FLOSS, ed. Carol T. Christ (Norton Critical); SILAS MARNER, ed. David Carroll (Penguin); ROMOLA, ed. Dorothea Barrett (Penguin); FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL, ed. Lynda Mugglestone (Penguin); MIDDLEMARCH, ed. Bert G. Hornback (Norton Critical); and DANIEL DERONDA, ed. Terence Cave (Penguin). Essays on handout.

ALSO: OXFORD READER’S COMPANION TO GEORGE ELIOT, ed. John Rignall (Oxford, Oxford UP, 2000).

ENGLISH 445 (01) (W): SHAKESPEARE (MWF 10:30-11:20) - Frank Ardolino
In this course we will read seven plays. Two comedies, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and TWELFTH NIGHT, contain great comic characters like Sir Toby Belch, Andrew Aguecheek, and Nick Bottom; dark and tragic figures like Malvolio; serious themes, much laughter, and a mixture of poetry and buffoonery guaranteed to enchant all audiences. The third comedy, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, is a darker comedy with gender conflict themes. The three tragedies—HAMLET, OTHELLO, and KING LEAR—represent Shakespeare's magnificent presentation of the human condition in all of its variety. Finally, PERICLES provides a tragi-comic view of one man's journey on the sea of life replete with its multiple ups and downs.

The course will consist of four essays of three to five pages, an essay final exam, seven video responses, and numerous in-class reaction papers. Attendance will count.

ENGLISH 445 (02): SHAKESPEARE (TR 9:00-10:15) - Valerie Wayne
In five of the plays that Shakespeare wrote, a woman is falsely accused of being unfaithful to her husband or fiance, so much of the play turns on issues of fidelity and trust, gender and power. In this course we will read all of these plays plus one that provides the historical context of these narratives, and conclude with HAMLET, whose central character is obsessed with the reliability or frailty of women. Since Shakespeare worked and reworked the plot of the falsely accused woman from the middle to the very end of his career, this course provides an opportunity to see how it was transformed through different genres, from the comedies and tragedies to the late romances, and how the story itself could change over time.

The books for this course will all be recent, single-volume editions of the plays, which will allow us to read some excellent introductions that situate the texts in relation to early modern social, political, and theatrical culture. The play that will help us appreciate the early modern interest in this story is KING HENRY VIII, because that king executed two of his (six) wives on the grounds of adultery. Since those executions affected the ways that Elizabethans and Jacobeans read these narratives, we will also explore the intersections between those events and the plays.

Students will be required to write three papers, take two exams, and give one oral presentation on a critical essay or part of one introduction. By the end of the course, students should have a fuller appreciation of how the same narrative can assume different generic forms, how historical events relate to literary texts, how the material requirements of theater affected the kinds of plays that one could write, and how some issues of gender and power were constructed in early modern culture. ALL BOOKS FOR THIS COURSE WILL BE AVAILABLE AT REVOLUTION BOOKS ON KING STREET, AND STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO PURCHASE THE SPECIFIED EDITIONS.

Reading list: THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, ed. Giorgio Melchiori (Arden); MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, ed. Claire McEachern (Arden); OTHELLO, ed. Michael Neill (Oxford); CYMBELINE, ed. Martin Butler (Cambridge); THE WINTER’S TALE, ed. Susan Snyder and Deborah T. Curren-Aquino (Cambridge); KING HENRY VIII, ed. Gordon McMullen (Arden); HAMLET, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (Arden)

460 (01) (W): STUDIES IN FICTION: POSTCOLONIAL FICTION IN ENGLISH (TR 9:00-10:15) - S. Shankar
Soon after World War II, the great European empires in Africa and Asia were dismantled. Some of the most exciting prose fiction written in English in the last half-century has emerged from the postcolonial world that was created as a result. This course is an introduction to questions and issues regarding this postcolonial fiction, mainly from Africa and South Asia. Who are a few of the great postcolonial writers? How have they adapted the novel or the short story, largely European cultural forms, to their own worlds? How has the English language (for example) been adapted to their needs? Through these and other questions, the objective of this course is to explore the unique contributions of contemporary postcolonial fiction. As this is a Studies course, we will explore both the texts and their historical and cultural backgrounds in depth. By the end of the semester, students will have a close understanding and knowledge of some of the great writers and fiction of the postcolonial world.

During the semester, students will be expected to engage with the basic aspects of fictional technique (for example, point of view and characterization) as well as fundamental concepts in postcolonial studies (such as “decolonization” and “development”). Inevitably, the fiction will take us to discussions of such topics as nationalism in colonial situations and the place of women in traditional societies. To help us navigate these issues, we will also do some supplemental reading in history and criticism.

This course fulfills W focus requirements.

For each assigned novel or group of stories, students will write a 250 word response that should be posted on the message board on the course home page for the class to read as well as presented to me in hard copy on a day the novel is to be discussed. Mid semester students will select novel or novels that they are going to discuss in their final term paper and write a five page paper (a) analyzing the novel/s and (b) indicating what some of the responses to the novel/s have been in critical essays and reviews (i.e. they should do some research). At the end of the semester, a twelve-page research term paper, complete with bibliography and proper citations and constituting the bulk of the grade for the semester, will be due. In addition, students will be expected to participate in online discussions conducted in parallel to our class sessions.

Required Texts (tentative list): THE GUIDE, R. K. Narayan.; HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES, Salman Rushdie; CLEAR LIGHT OF DAY, Anita Desai; THE ENGLISH PATIENT, Michael Ondaatje; THINGS FALL APART, Chinua Achebe; BURGER’S DAUGHTER, Nadine Gordimer; THE BEAUTYFUL ONES ARE NOT YET BORN, Ayi Kwei Armah; THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD, Buchi Emecheta.

COURSE PACKET with short stories and with historical and critical material from Fanon, Gandhi, Nkrumah, Rushdie, Ngugi, Achebe, Mukherjee and others.

ENGLISH 463 (01): STUDIES IN FILM: SATIRE (TR 1:30-2:45) – Reinhard Friederich
The course will deal (first and briefly) with satire as a literary and pictorial form; at its core with cultural and political satirical targets in film; and finally with specific satiric emphasis on, for instance, family, documentaries, religion, and film genres themselves.

While most of our detailed viewing will be US films of the last 50 years, some earlier works will come into play: Bunuel’s L’AGE D’OR, Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES, the Marx Brothers’ DUCK SOUP. Altogether I expect us to focus on 9-12 films, with a good many others by way of shot clips, also in reports. To keep things brief I list a number of films I think of as major options: AMERICAN BEAUTY, BORAT, C.S.A.: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, HENRY FOOL, MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, DR. STRANGELOVE, WHERE’S POPPA?. We’ll schedule viewing times and alternates for our major selections. Short clips we can (re)play during class, as you can do with selections for reports.

Aside from class activities (reports, etc.), we may settle on some midterm topic and certainly on a longer final project.

ENGLISH 470 (01) (W): 50 YEARS OF MAORI NON-FICTION (MWF 09:30-10:20) – Reina Whaitiri
50 Years of Maori Non-Fiction will provide an opportunity to explore and examine this genre which includes by far and away the largest body of work by Maori writers in existence. Through the writing students will have access to the political and social aspirations and development of a people who have been struggling for justice in a mostly unsympathetic environment for well over 200 years. The writing will show how individuals and communities have learnt to cope with being a minority in their own country and how the struggle has helped to generate and inspire great leaders, artists, writers, politicians, educators, and sports people. Some of New Zealand’s most well respected ambassadors have been Maori who have helped present a modern, visionary, and humane nation to the world and this, in spite of difficulties often experienced in their own country. A wide range of writing drawn from many different fields will be included in the course.

Students will be asked to complete: two expository essays and one research essay, four quizzes based on the readings, discussions, film clips, and lectures, and write at least two response papers and/or reviews.

TEXTS: Ihimaera, Witi, ed. GROWING UP MAORI. Auckland, N.Z.: Tandem Press, 1998. ISBN: 1877178160 (pbk); Mulholland, Malcolm & contributors. STATE OF THE MAORI NATION. Auckland: Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd., 2006. ISBN: 0790010429 (pbk), 9780790010427 (pbk); Walker, Ranginui. KA WHAWHAI TONU MATOU - STRUGGLE WITHOUT END. Auckland; New York: Penguin, 2004. ISBN: 0143019457 (pbk)

A course Reader will also be available which will include a range of articles, essays, letters, and other documents relevant to the course.

ENGLISH 472 (01)(E)(O)(W): STUDIES IN DIASPORIC LITERATURE: VOODOO AND LITERATURE (TR 12:00-1:15 ) - Cynthia Ward
" Read and write I don't know. Other things I know."

VOODOO (vodoun, vaudou, vodou, vodu, vodun, etc.) Stereotyped, mocked, reviled, and feared as the incarnation of evil in many works of literature and film, voodoo is not a cult or even a religion but a way of living, a way of seeing, and a way of reading. Originating in West Africa, it has spread throughout the African diaspora, challenging dominant power, values, and meaning and affirming the life that exists in the worlds of the visible and the invisible. The course will seek to provide some understanding of the practice, through ethnographies and critical essays and through an examination of its symbolic systems, which combine poetry, art, music, and dance. We will also look at voodoo in literature and film, assessing these representations against what we have learned and attempting to compare the different modes of seeing, reading, viewing, and knowing inherent in each. (Disclaimer: the various types of voodoo are esoteric practices and thus require lengthy initiation, which this course will not provide.)

Requirements: 4-6 page literary essay; 8-10 page research paper; two formal presentations; homework; midterm and final; regular attendance and active participation.

REQUIRED TEXTS will be available at Revolution Books, 2626 S. King Street.
Alejo Carpentier, THE KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD; William Gibson, COUNT ZERO; Ishmael Reed, MUMBO JUMBO; Jean Rhys, WIDE SARGASSO SEA.

A substantial COURSE READER (will be available at the UHM Curriculum Group)

ENGLISH 492 (01) (W, E): SENIOR HONORS SEMINAR: UNDYING WORDS IN US MINORITY LITERATURE (W 2:30-5) – Cynthia Franklin
In this course, we will put 20th-century texts by US minority writers into dialogue as we explore how each group’s distinct inform their literary traditions. We will begin the course by reading Ruth Wilson Gilmore's article "Race and Globalization," where she analyzes how civil death (a legal term), social death (a concept formulated by Orlando Patterson), and premature physical death play into one another. Gilmore argues that due to the history of racism in the United States, African Americans and other people of color are not only criminalized, but have experienced and continue to experience inordinately high rates of premature death. With Gilmore's analysis in mind, as we read works of literature, we will seek to understand how the authors represent these three kinds of death and the forms of criminalization that Gilmore outlines. We also will consider what means of resistance the texts offer to forms of death and criminalization--either through the lives of those whom they represent in their works, and/or through the act of writing itself. We will analyze similarities and borrowings among the texts, and we will identify differences that we can trace to distinct histories and processes of racial formation in the United States. It will be important for us to historically contextualize each text, both through secondary readings and through class presentations on topics such as African American women and breast cancer, the Indian Child Welfare Act, Japanese American internment, US immigration laws, etc. We will pay particular attention to key laws and legislation passed in the United States that contribute to the three kinds of death and the criminalization outlined by Gilmore. Alongside our analysis of race, we will address the importance of interrelated categories of gender, class, sexuality, and nation. We also will be interested in questions of genre, as the texts we will read include “literary” novels, historical novels, popular mystery novels, autobiography, and works that refuse clear-cut distinctions of genre. We will consider how these various genres enable their authors to address forms of violence directed at marginalized peoples and to resist this violence.

The course will be conducted as a seminar, with mandatory attendance. Grades will be determined by the following components: 15-page seminar paper (200 points); class presentation (35 points); presentation of ethical questions (10 points); in-class activities, quizzes, and short essays (150 points); group journal (105 points). The distribution given here is approximate. Missed classes or failure to attend required conferences will impact your grade negatively.

ASSIGNED TEXTS (To be ordered through Revolution Books):
Sherman Alexie, INDIAN KILLER
Alani Apio, KAMAU
Lucha Corpi, BLACK WIDOW'S WARDROBE
Chang-rae Lee, NATIVE SPEAKER
Audre Lorde, THE CANCER JOURNALS
Rodney Morales, WHEN THE SHARK BITES
Toni Morrison, BELOVED
Leslie Marmon Silko, CEREMONY
Richard Wright, NATIVE SON

A COURSE READER containing a selection of theoretical and critical articles will be ordered through BWI Campus Copy Shop.