Department of English

Fall 2008 English Department Graduate Courses

English 654: Language Bias

Elizabeth Birmingham 8711 W 5:00-7:30

Examines the relations among gender, sexuality, power and language, and specifically how asymmetrical power relationships are reflected and sustained through language. The course requires rigorous reading, data collection, daily writing, and projects that explore interdisciplinary research methods, pedagogical practices, and applications of theory.

English 672: 20^th Century American Writers

Linda Helstern 8708 TR 2:00-3:15

This course will consider the development of the waste land as a key theme in works by four major American modernists (Nobel laureates all). We will read poems by T. S. Eliot and novels by Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner.

required texts

Jessie Weston From Ritual to Romance
T. S. Eliot The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems
Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls
John Steinbeck To a God Unknown, The Grapes of Wrath
William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom

Students should also have access to The Heath Anthology of American Literature, 5^th ed., Vol. D (1910-1945), ed. Paul D. Lauter

English 685: 18^th Century Literature

RS Krishnan 8710 M 5:00-7:30

Texts: Burney, Frances, Evelina; Defoe, Daniel, Moll Flanders; DeMaria, Robert, ed. British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology; Lindsey, David, ed. The Beggar's Opera and Other Eighteenth-Century Plays; Richardson, Samuel, Pamela; Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's Travels.

Course Description: This course is designed to provide a broad overview of British literature written between 1660 (Restoration) and 1798 (French Revolution). The course will focus on these works in relation to the social and political contexts, as also to their aesthetic and artistic (and theoretical ) formulations. The works studied will encompass a variety of genres and forms (poetry [satire], drama, fiction and non-fiction).

English 758: Topics in Rhetoric & Writing:

War and Peace in the Global Village: Rhetorical Acts post 9/11

Kevin Brooks 8712 TBA

Primary Texts:

• Baudrillard, Jean. The Spirit of Terrorism And Requiem for the Twin Towers.
• Kellner, Douglas. From 9/11 to Terror: The Dangers of the Bush Legacy. [or essay on Baudrillard]
• Haraway, Donna, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium or The Haraway Reader
• McLuhan and Fiore, War and Peace in the Global Village.
• Ulmer, Gregory. Electronic Monuments.
• Farenheit 9/11 and other video / film responses to 9/11.
• Faludi, Susan. The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 or her new book if it is available in time.
• List subject to revision.

Secondary Texts:

• The Internet.
• Second Life.
• Second Life tutorials.
• Student selected texts.

This seminar will explore electronic monumentality and possibly build a Virtual Peace Garden in Second Life. Students will also write pedagogical and scholarly materials in response to the problem: how might we, in the rhetorical-poetical arts, act in response to 9/11? We will consider how other rhetorical-poetical thinkers from McLuhan and Baudrillard to Donna Haraway, Douglas Kellner, and Greg Ulmer have responded to war and peace in the global village, as well as consider responses in main stream media venues, specifically the work of Michael Moore and Susan Faludi. The course might include one trip to the International Peace Gardens on the North Dakota-Manitoba Border, or other video / field research in the FM area.

English 760: Graduate Scholarship

Miriam Mara 5493 T 5:00-7:30

Introduction to scholarship in English studies, the nature and state of the discipline, and issues of professionalization.

English 764: Classroom Strategies for TAs

Amy Rupiper Taggart 5494 TR 2:00-3:15

This course is primarily an introduction to the teaching of first-year composition at NDSU, but more generally, it is an introductory course in the scholarship and practice of teaching college English. Students will be trained to understand NDSU's first year writing program goals and approaches. They will write the genres they will teach, practice teaching approaches, and develop teaching portfolios.

English 770: Studies/American Literature: Erdrich & Vizenor

Linda Helstern 8713 T 4:00-6:30

This seminar will focus on the novels of Louise Erdrich and Gerald Vizenor, two of the most prolific contemporary Native writers. The fact that both are Anishinaabe (Erdrich affiliated with the Turtle Mountain Reservation, North Dakota; Vizenor with the White Earth Reservation, Minnesota) offers a unique opportunity to explore Native American literary nationalism, as well as Native identity, and a range of other issues.

required texts

Louis Owens Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel

Course pack/theoretical texts

Louise Erdrich Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Crown of Columbus (with Michael Dorris), Four Souls

Gerald Vizenor Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles, Griever: An American Monkey King in China, The Trickster of Liberty, The Heirs of Columbus, Dead Voices

English 795: Field Experience

Staff 6813 TBA

English 797: Master's Paper

Kevin Brooks 5495 TBA

English 797R: Paper Continued Registration

Kevin Brooks 5496 TBA