printer friendly pageENGLISH 15SC: A New Millennial Mix: The Art & Politics of the "Mixed Race Experience"
Recently, The New York Times and the National Geographic have hailed the "new face of America" as young, global, and hybrid. The NY Times gave this demographic a name: Generation E.A. (Ethnically Ambiguous). Our course examines the political and aesthetic implications of Generation E.A., and the hot new vogue for all things mixed. Galvanized by the 2000 census with its "mark one or more" (MOOM) racial option, dozens of organizations, websites, affinity and advocacy groups, modeling and casting agencies, television pilots, magazines, and journals--all focused on multi-racial/multi-cultural experiences--have emerged in the last few years. We will analyze representations of mixed race and multiculturalism in law, literature, history, art, performance, film, comedy, and popular culture. These cultural and legal events are changing the way we talk and think about race. Importantly, our seminar also broadens this discussion beyond race, exploring how crossings of the color-line so often intersect with other aspects of experience related to gender, religion, culture, or class. Field trips, films, communal lunches, and interactive assignments help us explore the current controversies over mixed-race identification and, more generally, the expressive and political possibilities for representing complex identities. Requirements include three two- to three-page analytical writing assignments, a presentation that can include an optional artistic or media component, and a final group-designed project. If you are a citizen of the 21st century, this class is for and about you.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
Instructors:
Elam, M. (PI)
ENGLISH 16SC: Learning Theater: From Audience to Critic at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, an anonymous member of the audience waiting to be entertained, charmed, and challenged? But how many of us know enough about the details of the plays, their interpretation, their production, and acting itself, to allow us to appreciate fully the theatrical experience? In this seminar, we will spend 13 days in Ashland, Oregon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where we will attend these plays: Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard II, The Winter's Tale, Timon of Athens, and Twelfth Night; the world premiere of Lisa Loomer's Roe; Qui Nguyen's Vietgone; William F. Brown and Charlie Smalls' The Wiz (adapted from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz); the world premiere of Penny Metropulos and Linda Alpers' adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and a world premiere adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard. (To read more about these productions, go to
www.osfashland.org). We will also spend time backstage, meeting with actors, designers, and artistic and administrative directors of OSF. Students will read the plays before the seminar begins. In Ashland, they will produce staged readings and design a final paper based on one of the productions. These reviews will be delivered to the group and turned in on Thursday, September 22. n Note: This seminar will convene in Ashland on Monday, September 5, and will adjourn to Stanford on Sunday, September 18. Students must arrive in Ashland by 4:00 p.m. on September 5. Room and board in Ashland and transportation to Stanford will be provided and paid for by the program.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
Instructors:
Lupic, I. (PI)
;
Paulson, L. (PI)
ENGLISH 67N: The Ethical Gangster: How to be Moral, How to be Good--Mafia Style
Is there a difference between being moral and being good? Does it matter? Does knowing the difference matter at all to how a person should conduct him or herself in close relationships, in social groups, in professional life, in politics? The answer to all these questions is a resounding yes. This class will explore human moral psychology: the intuitions we have about right and wrong, fair and unfair, harm, justice, loyalty, authority, sanctity, freedom and oppression. We will then relate these intuitions to systematic ethical theories of right and wrong. We will do so by immersing ourselves in a somewhat surprising source¿the greatest hits of Mafia movies from Little Caesar to The Sopranos. We will also consider recent findings in experimental moral psychology.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER
Instructors:
Vermeule, B. (PI)
ENGLISH 90: Fiction Writing
The elements of fiction writing: narration, description, and dialogue. Students write complete stories and participate in story workshops. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite:
PWR 1 (waived in summer quarter).
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ENGLISH 90V: Fiction Writing
Online workshop course that explores the ways in which writers of fiction have used language to examine the world, to create compelling characters, and to move readers. We will begin by studying a selection of stories that demonstrate the many techniques writers use to create fictional worlds; we'll use these stories as models for writing exercises and short assignments, leading to a full story draft. We will study figurative language, character and setting development, and dramatic structure, among other elements of story craft. Then, each student will submit a full draft and receive feedback from the instructor and his/her classmates. This course is taught entirely online, but retains the feel of a traditional classroom. Optional synchronous elements such as discussion and virtual office hours provide the student direct interaction with both the instructor and his/her classmates. Feedback on written work ¿ both offered to and given by the student ¿ is essential to the course and creates class rapport.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors:
Pufahl, S. (PI)
ENGLISH 91: Creative Nonfiction
(Formerly 94A.) Historical and contemporary as a broad genre including travel and nature writing, memoir, biography, journalism, and the personal essay. Students use creative means to express factual content.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 92: Reading and Writing Poetry
Prerequisite:
PWR 1. Issues of poetic craft. How elements of form, music, structure, and content work together to create meaning and experience in a poem. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
Instructors:
Carlson-Wee, K. (PI)
;
Evans, J. (PI)
;
Grey, K. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Carlson-Wee, K. (PI)
;
Evans, J. (PI)
;
Grey, K. (PI)
;
Sharif, S. (PI)
;
Shewmaker, M. (PI)
;
Wrenn, G. (PI)
ENGLISH 125B: Make It New: Literature of the Jazz Age
Introduction to modernism through a survey of its major writers and the world in which they wrote. We will look at poets like T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein who changed the language, prose-writers like James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway who changed the story, painters like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse who changed the view, and populists like Louis Armstrong and Charlie Chaplin who changed the scene. Along the way we will think about the basic questions of modernism: Who was involved? How did they interact? And perhaps most importantly, what features make their work modernist? With brief but lively introductions to this world, students will gain entry into academic habits of mind through authors and artists they already love.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Porter, J. (PI)
ENGLISH 127A: American Madness
This course delves into the bizarre annals of nineteenth-century madness -- the world of Ahab¿s ¿monomania,¿ Edgar Allan Poe¿s ¿brain fever,¿ and Charlotte Perkins Gilman¿s ¿hysteria¿. Placing these literary texts in the context of the historical development of psychiatry during the nineteenth century, we will find that madness often assumes different forms in men and women, white Americans and African-Americans, capitalists and laborers -- suggesting that social inequalities cannot be cleanly separated from biological dispositions in our understanding of insanity. Reading these fictions of madness will not only illuminate the fundamental tensions of American culture, but will give us a new perspective on the construction of mental illness in the contemporary United States.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Walser, H. (PI)
ENGLISH 166: Who were the Vikings? (GERMAN 166)
Who were the Vikings and what has been their influence on contemporary culture? This course provides a broad introduction to Viking society and culture as well as to their legacy in the modern world. We will look at Viking life, mythology, literature, art and archaeology as well as modern adaptations of Viking culture in music, literature, film and television. We will read some of the great works of Viking literature ¿ tales of Odin and Thor, of magic and monsters, of adventures across the seas - and examine online exhibitions of Vikings artefacts and settlements in Europe and Newfoundland. During the first half of the course, students will begin thinking about their final project ¿ a creative reimagining one of the texts or artefacts which we will discuss in class. The latter half of the course will focus on the development of the Vikings as a cultural model for modern creative expression. We will investigate how Norse themes, characters and forms were adapted in Germany, England and the USA in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by writers, artists and composers such as Richard Wagner, William Morris, Henry Longfellow and J.R.R. Tolkien. The course will conclude with a discussion of how the Vikings (and Viking ideas) are represented today in popular culture, including the 1958 Kirk Douglas film, ¿the Vikings¿, the TV shows ¿The Vikings¿ and ¿Game of Thrones¿ and the Marvel comic books series. Students will be encouraged to examine the ways in which these texts engage with their historical models and consider how this might influence their own creative project.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors:
Hutchinson, C. (PI)
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