Graduate Courses

ENG 504 Seminar in Writing Poetry 5cr

CRN: 22864 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Wong, Jane

Notes & Prerequisites: Restricted to MFA only for the first phase of registration. 

The Poetics of Engagement and Dissent

Audre Lorde writes: “Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.” This graduate level seminar will explore the role of poetry as deeply engaging, resisting, and changing our current society. Who are we as poets in today’s world? How can we wrestle with the complexities and intersections of our personal and collective lives through language? With rigorous attention to the relationship between form and content, we will write poems in dialogue with prominent contemporary poets. As an active poetry community, we will revisit the stakes of poetry via seminar discussions, constructive feedback, and radical revision strategies. We will also welcome guest poets in our class, Patrycja Humienik, and more TBA!

Required Texts

• Layli Long Soldier, Whereas
• Diana Khoi Nguyen, Root Fractures
• Danez Smith, Bluff
• Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Rocket Fantastic
• Lucille Clifton, The Book of Light 

ENG 535 Studies in Nonfiction 5cr

CRN: 23516 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Dorr, Noam

Notes & Prerequisites: Restricted to MFA only for the first phase of registration. 

Examines the characteristics, history, uses and criticism of nonfiction. Repeatable with different topics.

ENG 560 Studies in British Literature: Manuscript Culture 5cr

CRN: 22867 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Vulic, Kathryn

Manuscript Culture: Literary Production in Late Medieval England

In this class, we will read medieval texts in their manuscript context (in facsimile and in original medieval documents) to understand better how literate people in late-medieval England would have thought about reading and writing. Though we will be reading all texts in modern edited/published forms, we will also be able to examine the original manuscripts themselves, as either paper or digital facsimiles. We will also discuss medieval textual production, high and low literary tastes, and the different means through which an individual might have experienced a literary work (through the eyes, or if the person was illiterate, through the ears). Though the items on the reading list have mainly been chosen according to the significance of the manuscript(s) in which they survive, the readings nevertheless represent a wide range of medieval genres and literary tastes.

A secondary focus of this class will be the study of manuscripts as historical artifacts; students will receive general instruction in medieval paleography (the study of medieval handwriting) and codicology (the study of manuscript construction) and will learn some of the basic principles of manuscript creation and preservation. These experiences will help students to imagine better the medieval experiences of reading, composing, and physically constructing texts. Students will also have an opportunity to edit actual medieval manuscript fragments currently on loan in our library. To accomplish these secondary goals, our class will meet in the Special Collections library (6th Floor of Wilson Library).

This class is intended for graduate students of all backgrounds, and will serve as an introduction to some of the earliest recorded reflections on the social, political, material, and aesthetic stakes of writing. Students will develop a working understanding of Middle English language over the course of the quarter.

Class texts (bring hard copies to class):

• Anonymous, The Pearl Poet, trans. Casey Finch (UC Press, 1993)
• Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (Broadview, 2nd ed., 2012)
• Clemens and Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Cornell UP, 2007)
• Canvas excerpts from Piers Plowman (Norton, 2006) to print, annotate, and bring to class
• Selected Middle English romances from TEAMS to print, annotate, and bring to class: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm

ENG 575 Studies in Women's Literature 5cr

CRN: 23517 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Giffen, Allison

Domesticity and the Construction of Race and Gender in 19th-Century US Women Writers

In this seminar will examine texts by Black and white women writers in the United States, focusing on the nineteenth century. Our approach will be largely cultural and historical as we examine women writers’ complicated relationship to domesticity as it intersects with cultural constructions of race and gender. We will consider such questions as “How is race implicated in the construction of gender?” and “What is the relationship of scientific discourse to the construction of racial and gender identity?” We will also think about sentimentalism and its relation to reform and the rise of the middle class. Writers include Rowson, Stowe, Jacobs, Alcott, Wilson, Gilman, Dickinson, and Harper. 

ENG 597 MA Capstone Seminar 5 cr

Notes & Prerequisites: ENG 501  

CRN: 23927 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00am-12:00 pm Instructor: Rivera, Lysa

As a closing companion to ENG 501, this course supports second-year MA English students in developing and completing their Capstone Projects. Through collaborative writing workshops, students will create original work, share drafts, and critique peers’ projects. The course will also explore research methods, writing practices, and strategies for presenting work in academic, professional, and creative contexts.

ENG 598 Seminar in Teaching English 5cr

CRN: 21327 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Celaya, Anthony

This course explores theories, methods, and practices for conducting research on the teaching of English. Specifically, we will learn about practitioner research methods that position the teacher as a researcher in their own classroom. Teacher-researchers often develop research questions to explore their experiences and to evaluate their teaching methods. For example, if a teacher develops or adapts a new practice or assignment, how will they know if the practice or assignment was successful? And how might this research provide insight into future revisions and refinements? Along with research into academic success, practitioner research also invites questions about the fundamental goals of teaching and schooling, such as: how are our teaching practices fostering civic engagement and engaging students in critical inquiry. 

Students will develop a research plan to enact in their classroom, whether here at Western or in their future career. Additionally, we will explore venues for potentially sharing of practitioner research, such as conferences, columns, and journals. Therefore, this course requires active and ongoing development of materials through teacher conferencing and workshops.  

The goal for this course is to prepare students to engage in classroom-based research and share their findings with the wider education community. Whether you plan to teach in higher education, community organizations, or elementary/secondary schools, this course will prepare you to be a teacher-researcher and contributing meaning-maker in those spaces.  

ENG 502 Seminar in Writing Fiction 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: Restricted to MFA students for the first few days of registration. 

CRN: 12949 DAY/TIME: TR 04:00-05:50 pm Instructor: Guess, Carol

This workshop will focus on writing short fiction. Assignments include two original short stories and several short pieces. 

ENG 506 Sem Creative Wrtg: Multigenre 5cr

Notes & Prerequisites: Restricted to MFA students for the first few days of registration. 

CRN: 13884 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Magee, Kelly

The theme of this multi-genre writing workshop is “Speculative Writing,” and together we’ll examine short and book-length works of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction that incorporate elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The category of “speculative literature” is permeable, broad, and in flux, and there are many subgenres and styles grouped under it, including work that engages with the supernatural, futuristic, and fantastic. There are even subsets of “speculative poetry” and “speculative creative nonfiction,” so writers working in any genre are welcome in this course. Broadly, this is any work that reflects reality not as it is, but as it could be—given some single or set of crucial differences: a different past, different technological innovations, different futures, different power structures, different planets, different laws of physics…. The power of speculation is in its ability to imagine new and different futures, whether to serve as a warning or a source of hope. And, as many writers have pointed out, what is speculation for the mainstream may be reality (or history) for marginalized populations. We’ll discuss what’s included and excluded from this category, and why it’s so attractive to contemporary writers—especially those who use it to make space for marginalized identities.  

The class will be primarily concerned with the discussion of student-produced work, with smaller emphases on writing exercise to practice new modes. While students will be free to write in any genre or blend of genres, my hope is that the ideas and techniques behind speculative writing can vitalize any kind of project, from small moments to the defining apparatus. Students can use speculation to begin new work, develop in-progress work, or add depth to existing work. Assignments will be open-topic and open-genre, so all different kinds of writers are welcome in this class! Writers will also be supported on longer projects, such as theses-in-progress, as well as single, shorter, or experimental work.  

ENG 510 Topics in Rhetoric: Disability Rhetoric 5cr

CRN: 10241 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Lucchesi, Andrew

Disability Rhetoric

This class focuses on the ways disability identity, expression, and community have deep connections to rhetorical traditions both ancient and contemporary. Topics will range from the rhetoric of personal disclosure, to the power of community writing about disability, to the ways disabled voices promote accessibility and activist reforms. We will draw from the Disability Justice principles of intersectionality, cross-movement solidarity, and collective liberation. What does it mean to question what is normal, or to move beyond individualist binaries of ability and disability?  How can we be attentive to the connections between embodiment and rhetorical agency? Projects for this class will include recording public-facing videos and writing original research papers or creative projects on topics of your choosing.  

Here is a list of books I am considering. Most texts are available for free as ebooks through the library.

• Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk
• Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness by Remi Yergeau
• Disability Rhetoric by Jay Dolmage
• Mad At School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life by Margaret Price
• Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life by Margaret Price
• The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepsna-Samarasinha (new $20)
• Graphic Public Health: A Comics Anthology and Road Map  
• Sensory: Life on the Spectrum by Bex Ollerton (new $17)
• Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People, A Disability Justice Primer (ebook $7, print $21) 

ENG 540 Studies in Global Lit: Afro-Pessimism/Black Joy 5cr

CRN: 11987 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Lee, Jean

Afro-Pessimism/Black Joy
Afro-pessimism is a critical framework which interrogates how attempts to allay Black suffering by appealing to a shared humanity or theories of liberation (feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, etc.) only entrench the ways “Black people are positioned, contained, and punished…both excluded from and necessary to the category of the Human.” Yet some critics of Afro-pessimism argue that it essentializes and exceptionalizes Black suffering, papers over substantial material changes in racial justice, and preempts a coalitional politics and a more, dare I say, “optimistic” hope for a Black futurity not overdetermined by trauma and violence. Concurrently, there has been a proliferation of the Black Joy movement. For instance, the nonprofit, Upset Homegirls, claims that their Black Joy project does not to erase Black pain but “affirm[s] that I am not a victim. I am agent of change. It rejects the idea that violence…injustice, discrimination, prejudice, and dominance over others are normal and acceptable actions.” In this class, students will engage with Afro-pessimist deconstructions of humanism through Black scholars such as Frank Wilderson, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Sylvia Winter, Fred Moten, Calvin Warren, and Marquis Bey. This class also queries the resonance or dissonance between the aforementioned academic and activist turns in the early 2020s.

ENG 550 Studies in American Literature 5cr

CRN: 12951 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Laffrado, Laura Fernandes

American Auto/biographics

CONTENT: In this seminar we’ll read American autobiographical texts from the seventeenth century through the early twentieth century. We’ll look at stories of selfhood by Black, Native, and White authors. We’ll pay close attention to how gender and racial identities are blurred in these texts and in the ways the texts were received. We’ll think about self-representation, subject formation, and other autobiographical practices. On our way, we’ll consider American puritanism, domestic violence, gender, genre, race, and capitalism, among other issues.  

While this isn’t a seminar in pedagogies, the texts and contexts of this seminar provide solid preparation for those who might go on to teach an American literature survey. Past participants in this seminar have subsequently had their seminar papers published, have presented parts of their seminar papers at national academic conferences, and have successfully used their seminar papers as writing samples for applications to doctoral study and law school.

Note: As with much early American writing, the readings contain scenes/subjects that may be triggering for some readers.

ASSIGNMENTS: Regular reading, oral presentations, and a 15-20 page seminar paper.

EVALUATION:  Evaluation based on seminar participation, oral presentations, and the seminar paper.

TEXTS:  

• K. Z. Derounian Stodola (ed.), Women's Indian Captivity Narratives  
• Abigail Abbot Bailey, The Memoir of Abigail Abbott Bailey  
• Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano
• Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth
• Sarah Winnemucca, Life Among the Piutes
• James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
• Ella Higginson, Selected Writings of Ella Higginson: Inventing Pacific Northwest Literature

Most if not all texts will be available at no cost online. 

ENG 580 Studies in Film: Spirituality in Global Cinema 5cr

CRN: 12527 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Odabasi, Eren 

+ Film Viewing: W 5:00-7:50pm 

Note: The film screening time conflicts with the weekly meetings of graduate student instructors and will be rescheduled. Please stay tuned for updates.

This graduate seminar explores multiple theoretical approaches to spirituality in global cinema. Since Paul Schrader first formulated the transcendental style in the early 1970s, several scholars have inquired about what makes certain films contemplative, profound or spiritual. How do films move beyond questions of narrative progression or ideology to explore universal, timeless, and often abstract themes about the human condition? In order to answer this question, Gilles Deleuze developed the notion of “time-image” while Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky made a series of poetic, unclassifiable films about time, faith, and the human soul before writing a book that summarized his approach to cinema. Then the “slow cinema” movement emerged, utilizing stillness and filmic duration to create a similar, albeit distinct sense of spirituality and transcendence.  

What are the common thematic and stylistic elements that characterize cinematic portrayals of spirituality? This seminar aims to offer a range of possible answers to this question by tracing the lineage outlined above. Throughout the quarter, we will discuss canonical films by various important directors and work towards a mid-length research paper as a part of our inquiry.  

FILMS:

• The Mirror, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975
• Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979
• Nostalghia, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983
• An Autumn Afternoon, directed by Yasujiro Ozu, 1962
• Au Hasard Balthazar, directed by Robert Bresson, 1966
• Ordet, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955
• Winter Light, directed by Ingmar Bergman, 1963
• Tree of Wooden Clogs, directed by Ermanno Olmi, 1978
• Uzak, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002
• The Turin Horse, directed by Bela Tarr, 2011

BOOKS:

• Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. Paul Schrader, University of California Press, 2018.
• Sculpting in Time. Andrey Tarkovsky, University of Texas Press, 1989.
• Poetics of Slow Cinema: Nostalgia, Absurdism, Boredom. Emre Caglayan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

ENG 501 Literary Theories & Practices 5cr

CRN: 40002 DAY/TIME: TR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Vulic, Kathryn

Course Description: This course is designed to introduce you, a new Master’s-level student, to your new role and program while also preparing you for further graduate-level study. Graduate school, among its many qualities, helps students deepen their knowledge and skills in their chosen field(s), and gives them the tools they need to function as professionals in their discipline. This class will therefore focus on both of these two areas in order to launch you successfully into your graduate program.  

First, we will study a selection of influential critical theories and work with them in projects that give you advanced experience using theory to craft and support arguments. One 10-week course can’t hope to cover all of literary and cultural theory, but you will gain experience with significant representative samples that will help you determine which approaches are most in line with your own scholarly identity. 

Second (and completely related), the course will equip you with the professional skills you will need through and after your graduate program. We will cover how to write for different specific publication or presentation opportunities, but also the less concrete aspects of academic culture that are extremely difficult to learn without the guidance of someone who has prior experience. We will be treating the classroom as a professional workplace so that you can start inhabiting the role of professional scholar from day one. I take my role as professional mentor very seriously, and I expect that class will be a supportive and collaborative space within which we will do our work.  

ENG 505 Seminar in Writing Nonfiction 5cr

CRN: 44049 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Roach-Orduña, José

In this class we will concentrate on the literary profile. We’ll read them, we’ll talk about them, we’ll pitch one, and the class will culminate with the writing/workshopping of one! A literary profile is not a chronological list of the “great” events of a life. They’re not always about well-known people. It doesn’t need to be comprehensive, in fact, they usually aren’t, and its most urgent imperative is not to inform. Well maybe it is to inform, but it’s twin equally urgent imperative might also be to titillate, transfix, disquiet, rupture, complicate, move, evoke, scramble, pluralize, deepen. In other words, a literary profile is a piece of art—art that centers on a person and what makes them tick their peculiar tick. 

Some of what we read might include: the ins and outs of a garbage collector’s morning; the night shift with a worker at a Dunkin Donuts; the life of a 14-year-old girl that was photographed (in a now iconic photo) next to a protestor that had just been shot by the National Guard at Kent State; Dylann Roof; and the life and times of America’s comic prophet of race, Richard Pryor; among others. 

Students will prepare and present a pitch, and do several guided writing exercises that will feed into our major writing assignment for the quarter – a literary profile!   

CRN: 44171 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Cushman, Jeremy W.

ENG 513 is what some folks in my field have called the impossible: a practicum for grad students in the teaching of college composition. Why does is it get dubbed impossible? For lots of reasons, I suppose. I can’t list them all here, but a good way to start thinking about this impossibility is simply to try and define “composition” for yourself. What does in mean in a 21st century classroom? What’s the process underlying composing? What does a composition look like? In other words, how does one learn to teach relatively new college students a diverse activity that is also a kind of nebulous noun. It’s hard to say exactly how one does such a thing. Still, much of this class is to recognize that impossibility and proclaim “challenge accepted!” 

So we’ll look to historical definitions of composition, and we’ll put those up against more contemporary questions and concerns as we work to better understand what you will be doing in your own composition classrooms. What that means is that, together, we’ll try on all of the theory and the assignments that your own students take up in ENG 101; we’ll ask questions and write responses concerning how and why we might produce more useful theory and create better assignments; we’ll reflect on the place of our college composition course within the larger university. 

What’s more, we’ll spend a good deal of time together working through the relationship between rhetorical theory and composition pedagogy. The goal here is to ground both your thinking about composition and your developing pedagogical style in the imaginative and productive questions that, I think, grow out of an authentic engagement with rhetoric and composition (both ancient and contemporary approaches). 

Clearly, it’s a busy class. And while teaching composition may very well be impossible, we’ll still build a few practical paths through the strange project of teaching as a graduate student. 

ENG 520 Studies in Poetry 5cr

CRN: 44051 DAY/TIME: TR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Winrock, Cori Anne

The Lyric

The concept of the lyric is attached as an adjective to all sorts of things—from poetry, to essays, to fragmented fiction, to songs, to fashion, to advertisements for cars and hearing aids. But what is it? A genre? A mode? A means for conveying emotion? Is it small? Overheard? Is it really the style that Sappho was writing in? Does it have to involve a lyre to be lyric? Can you karaoke it? In this Studies in Poetry class, we will explore the concept of ‘the lyric’—backtracking through history to consider where/when/how the term was introduced and what it means to attach this one term to such a diverse set of poems/texts. Across the course of the quarter, we will chart the strange and sneaky form of the lyric and its attendant ‘I’, attempting to disentangle it from other possible forms while simultaneously creating our own working definition of the lyric in this contemporary moment. Through reading and writing craft essays, experimental criticism, and lyric sequences, each of you will consider as well as create the lyric.

ENG 525 Studies in Fiction 5cr

CRN: 42284 DAY/TIME: TR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Dietrich, Dawn Y.

This course will introduce you to the radical creativity of the U.S. indie comix scene that largely originated in Seattle. Focusing on handmade comics and contemporary indie presses, we will explore the intersectional themes of identity, community, and agency through a queer-positive lens. Through our eight texts, we will try to articulate and understand the strange, the beautiful, the complex, and the interesting . . . in these graphic narratives. The selected texts feature multiracial, queer, trans, and non-binary characters with themes that center around love and friendship (relationship building), depression, desire, resiliency, creative expression, body image, autonomy, and loneliness/isolation. The themes in these writers’ and artists’ works intersect and overlap with politics and rebellion while highlighting the complex ways in which individuals are situated in larger generational, regional, and national contexts. We will celebrate comix as a potentially queer space where openness, fluidity, and non-conformity represent textual strategies as well as characters’ identities. We will also study comix form and technique as well as learn to perform media-specific analysis through an introduction to intermedial theory. You will have the opportunity to write academic blogs and a longer critical work as well as create your own comix in the course. No artistic experience or illustrating talent is required for this assignment or this class! I also invite you to share your favorite comix or web comix throughout the quarter.  

*Please note: this class content contains adult language and themes. Topics discussed will include racism, homophobia, abortion, depression/mental health, bullying, sexual assault, and suicide. There are also many light, funny, and tender themes, but I don’t want anyone to be caught off guard with some of the more sobering topics. I will provide content notes for the reading in each module, and you are always welcome to give me feedback on these notes. 

Assignments and Evaluation 

You will have the opportunity to write multimodal academic blogs and a longer, research paper as well as engaging in comix production. You will receive full credit for doing Lynda Barry’s art experiments from Making Comics, and no artistic experience or illustrating talent is required. Additionally, you will be digging into comics scholarship and criticism and learning about this lively field of multimodal textual production. Final projects may include an academic blog or essay or producing your own short comic. This seminar is geared for both literature and creative writing students. 

Required Texts 

• Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud (print or PDF available)
• Comix Samples, Eroyn Franklin (print and online)
• Skim, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
• Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
• Making Comics, Lynda Barry
• Hot Comb, Ebony Flowers
• My Favorite Thing is Monsters (vols. 1/2), Emil Ferris
• Megahex, Simon Hanselmann
• The Pervert, Michelle Perez & Remy Boydell
• Sabrina, Nick Drnaso
• Free Comic Book Day’s (FCBD) Our Favorite Thing is My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Ferris (PDF available) 

Critical Texts on Reserve 

• The System of Comics, Thierry Groensteen (print or PDF available)
• Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation, Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson II
• The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America, David Hajdu
• Selected criticism (Canvas) 

ENG 570 Topics in Lit & Cultural Crit 5cr

CRN: 44053 DAY/TIME: TR 12:00-01:50 pm (NEW TIME) Instructor: Warburton, Theresa

Indigenous Retellings  

In this course, we will explore some of the ways that contemporary Native authors are reimagining canonical texts from the field of English literature in order to both illuminate their dependence on problematic tropes about Indigenous peoples, sovereignty, and land while also reorienting these narratives in ways that center Indigenous cosmology, epistemology, and storytelling practices. In doing so, we’ll focus especially on form and craft, looking to the methods that contemporary Native authors are using to shift conversations around the uses, power, and importance of literature for addressing how the structures of colonialism persist in a wide swath of the written word including legal documents, political treaties, poetry, novels, memoirs, and public history projects. Our course texts will include work by authors like: Rena Preist (Lummi), Heid E. Eridrich (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), Jordan Abel (Nisga’a), Debra Magpie Earling (Bitteroot Salish), Cherie Dimaline (Métis), Layli Long Solider (Oglala Lakota), Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg), and Deborah Miranda (Ohlone / Costanoan-Esslen).  

At the end of this course, students can expect to have a strong writing practice focused on clear and concise literary analysis; a working knowledge of the contemporary state of the field of Native and Indigenous Literatures; a familiarity with some of the core critical approaches of Native literary studies; the ability to analyze critical and creative texts in the field; and to communicate effectively in both written and verbal forms about this body of work. 

This is a seminar course, so our work together will be largely focused on in-class discussion coupled with a rigorous reading practice outside of the classroom. Students can expect to read one book a week and to write short responses every week as well.