English classes
Writing classes
English classes
ENG 301U TOPICS: Shakespeare & Genre
Instructor: Jonathan Walker
In this course we will read and discuss four Shakespearean plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Richard II, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and Titus Andronicus. Titus Andronicus is perhaps Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy, which was first printed in 1594 with no authorial attribution. Classified as a chronicle history play in the 1623 Folio—the first collection of Shakespeare’s plays, from which this course takes its title—Richard II recounts historical events in England’s recent past. Instead of being called a “history” play, however, the first printed edition was titled The Tragedie of King Richard the second (1597). Pericles didn’t appear in a Shakespeare Folio until 1664, and is now usually called a “romance,” which is a modern label. Finally, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s premier early comedies, featuring romance, magic, and mistaken identities.
One of our guiding questions in this class will center on the generic or formal identities of these plays. In other words, we will discuss what it is that makes these plays either tragical, historical, or comical, while at the same time considering the possibility that such classifications are themselves forms of mistaken identity. We will examine how the literary forms of tragedy, history, and comedy predispose us as readers and playgoers to interpret dramatic action in certain ways, and, in turn, how the plays’ disruption or frustration of our formal expectations transforms the possibilities of interpretation. We will likewise give attention to questions of social class, race, and gender (among other issues) as they are posed by these four plays and by the larger English Renaissance culture from which they come.
Most of our in-class time will involve discussing such questions in these four texts, along with a few other short readings. There will be very few lectures. The course will therefore require you to have read the plays carefully and to be prepared to discuss and ask questions about them during class meetings. Because of the course’s discussion-based format, its success will depend upon everyone’s active participation as we seek to answer these various questions together.
ENG 304 CRITICAL THEORY OF CINEMA
Instructor: Michael Clark
ENG 305 TOPICS IN FILM: Imaginarium in Film
Instructor: William Bohnaker
ENG 305 TOPICS IN FILM: Africa in Western Film
Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
“The cinema is war pursued by other means.” — Sylvère Lotringer
Since the earliest days of cinema, the "dark continent" has fascinated filmmakers and audiences, and provided a setting or subject for hundreds of Hollywood films, from big-budget epics to now-forgotten "B" movies. Recently, with films like Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, The Constant Gardener, The Last King of Scotland and Tears of the Sun, Hollywood has once again turned its attention to Africa. Why Africa, why now?
In this fast-paced four-week summer course, we will be studying representations of Africa and Africans in Western film and television during the twentieth century, looking at the ways that myths, stereotypes and assumptions about the continent have persisted, been reinforced, and evolved over time. Comparing films made during the British Empire with later works that tackle Africa's place in the "war on terror," we will consider the relationship between film and imperialism, and the changing role of the media in shaping popular ideas about war, wealth, individualism, intervention and ethics.
Films we will study include Kony 2012; King Solomon’s Mines (1937); Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932); Zulu (1966); Out of Africa (1985); Gorillas in the Mist (1988); Black Hawk Down (2001); Blood Diamond (2006); and possibly District 9 (2009).
Each week’s work will include viewings of films (available online and on reserve in the library) and discussion of the films and supporting perspectives from theoretical, historical and critical works. Course requirements include weekly journal essays, contributions to online discussion and quizzes, and a final exam.
ENG 305 TOPICS IN FILM: Asian-American Literature in Film
Instructor: Marie Lo
This course examines the adaptation of Asian American literature into film. Rather than view the book as “better” than the film (or vice versa), we will examine how the different mediums of representation inform our understanding of Asian American experiences. For example, what facets of Asian American culture and identity are dramatized, changed, and/or obscured by this shift in medium? How are narrative elements transformed by the translation from page to screen? By foregrounding both the medium as well as the politics of representation, this course offers an introduction to some key themes and issues in Asian American literary studies and the critical contexts that have rendered certain works amenable to filmic adaptation.
Required books:
- M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
- When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip
Films:
- M Butterfly (1993) dir. David Cronenberg
- The Heaven & Earth (1993) dir. Oliver Stone
- The Joy Luck Club (1993) dir. Wang Wang
- The Namesake (2006) dir. Mira Nair
ENG 306U TOPICS: Norse Myths
Instructor: Katya Amato
Come to the radiant world tree, to the sacred well of Mimir where Odin left his eye, to Asgard and Jotunheim, to the lands of the giants and the dark and light elves. In Midgard, watch Loki kill the otter and fill his skin with gold that will be guarded by the otter's brother, a dragon who dies by the hand of Sigurd, the great hero of the north. These are the ancient Old Norse tales told in the medieval EDDAS and THE SAGA OF THE VOLSUNGS, and we will read them in translation from their original Icelandic sources. Then we will follow the gods across America to see what Neil Gaiman makes of them in his 2001 epic, AMERICAN GODS.
Note: All the books in recommended translations are available at the PSU Bookstore; see their list for ISBN numbers if you require them. Also, if you wish to know more about the course, feel free to get in touch: amatok@pdx.edu.
ENG 306U TOPICS: Post Mod Pop Culture
Instructor: William Bohnaker
ENG 313U AMERICAN SHORT STORY
Instructor: Lorraine Mercer
ENG 343U ROMANTICISM
Instructor: Tracy Dillon
The PSU catalog has this to say about ENG 343: “Selected works of Romantic literature; introduction to themes, genres, history, and culture of Romanticism.” Beyond these objectives, you should expect to come away from the course with an enhanced understanding of the function of poetry (as Romantic poets attempt to explain it), a sense of the historical continuity that constitutes “a poetic tradition” (a euro-western one, anyway), and emerging expertise on authors or topics of your choice related to the very broad historical and aesthetic movement commonly referred to as “Romanticism.” Plan to think independently and to have fun wrestling with highfalutin ideas!
ENG 365U AMERICAN FICTION II
Instructor: A.B. Paulson
ENG 367U TOPICS IN AMERICAN LIT AND CULTURE: Toni Morrison/J Baldwin
Instructor: Maria Depriest
ENG 446 AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS: 20th Century (Online 4-week summer intensive)
Instructor: Maria Depriest
Our readings include one novel, one book of short stories, and one book of poems from the point of view of 20th/21st-century American women writers. We will discuss ways in which our writers pick through the ruins of history—to find voice and presence, reclaim roots, re-imagine mobility, and evoke communities of interdependence. We will examine innovative uses of literary strategies that portray oppression and resistance. And we will keep a close eye on the luminous and precise uses of language to summon what is beyond language, what is inchoate and tangled, but, also, to summon what is irrepressible: laughter, dreams, pleasures, and love.
- Required Texts: Suheir Hammad, Zaatar Diva
- Toni Morrison, Jazz
- Susan Power, Roofwalker
n.b., Our texts should be available at the PSU bookstore. If not, check the library, Powell’s, Amazon and other sources that you know about.
ENG 546 AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS: 20th Century (Online 4-week summer intensive)
Instructor: Maria Depriest
Our readings include one novel, one book of short stories, and one book of poems from the point of view of 20th/21st-century American women writers. We will discuss ways in which our writers pick through the ruins of history—to find voice and presence, reclaim roots, re-imagine mobility, and evoke communities of interdependence. We will examine innovative uses of literary strategies that portray oppression and resistance. And we will keep a close eye on the luminous and precise uses of language to summon what is beyond language, what is inchoate and tangled, but, also, to summon what is irrepressible: laughter, dreams, pleasures, and love.
- Required Texts: Suheir Hammad, Zaatar Diva
- Toni Morrison, Jazz
- Susan Power, Roofwalker
n.b., Our texts should be available at the PSU bookstore. If not, check the library, Powell’s, Amazon and other sources that you know about.
Writing classes
WR 121 COLLEGE WRITING
Instructor: Shane Jimenez
WR 121 COLLEGE WRITING
Instructor: Kirsten Rian
WR 121 COLLEGE WRITING
Instructor: Caroline Hayes
WR 212 INTRO TO FICTION WRITING
Instructor: Matthew Robinson
WR 213 INTRO TO POETRY WRITING
Instructor: Ryan Mills
This course will focus on the writing of poems, at least one per week. Most of our time will be spent reading, thinking about and discussing contemporary practitioners in the genre, who will be selected from various realms in our poetic world, in order to instigate interest and influence upon our own poems.
WR 222 WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS
Instructor: Sarah Huddleston
WR 227 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING
Instructor: Garret Romaine
WR 227 INTRO TO TECHNICAL WRITING
Instructor: Christine Mitchell
WR 313 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WRITING
Instructor: John Beer
Intermediate: something has begun, and we’re on the way to somewhere else. The question of transition will orient us in this workshop class; we’ll focus our attention on how poems move: from one line to another, one image to another, one thought to another; and in so moving, move us. Discussions of student work will be our primary method; we’ll also attend, though, to exemplary poems of the past and present, and to issues of form and metrics.
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Jacqueline Arante
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Benjamin Craig
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Sarah Lincoln
Garbage dumps are stinky, ugly, toxic and dangerous, places where societies send their embarrassing, broken, or just plain useless remainders. But they are also a richly productive resource, supplying not only food, shelter, valuable commodities and other necessities to millions of people around the world, but also inspiring some of the contemporary world’s most beautiful and important works of art, along with abundant writing on behalf of political, environmental, ethical, and economic causes. In this course, we will take garbage seriously as an aesthetic, social, and political object—and a subject for writing—asking what waste, excrement, refuse and disposability have to do with writing, representation, narrative, beauty, and pleasure. How do different genres of writing and other media deal with waste, and what does it mean to think of writing as itself a form of recycling? What can garbage tell us about the past, about our present, and about the possibilities for a sustainable future? How can the wasteful aspects of writing (drafting, editing, revising) become your most productive practices? As a Writing Intensive Course, the class will focus on rhetorical analysis and on developing student skills in research, writing, argumentation, editing and other elements of successful academic writing.
Required Texts:
- Graff & Birkenstein, They Say I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (978-0393933611) (TSIS)
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: TBD
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Hildy Miller
In this upper division writing course we will focus on developing a more sophisticated understanding of our own writing processes, reflect on the concept of academic discourse and how to express abstract ideas, and see how writing in your discipline will require certain conventions and that, as you leave the university, the writing tasks that lie ahead will require others. Includes formal writing, responding to a variety of readings, sharing writing with other students, and reflecting on writing. Our class will run as a workshop in which you’ll be collaborating with other students throughout phases of both your and their writing processes.
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: KL Fisette
WR 323 WRITING AS CRITICAL INQUIRY
Instructor: Cooper Lee Bombardier
WR 327 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
Instructor: Jack Bedell
WR 327 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
Instructor: Maralee Sautter
WR 327 TECHNICAL REPORT WRITING
Instructor: Arlene Krasner
WR 331 BOOK PUBLISHING FOR WRITERS
Instructor: Abbey Gaterud
Provides writers who aspire to one day publish a book with an overview of the book publishing process, organized around the division of labor typically found in publishing houses. In addition to learning how to find an agent or publisher, students learn about editorial, design, production, marketing, distribution, and sales.
WR 474/574 PUBLISHING STUDIO
Instructor: Abbey Gaterud
Perform the work of a real publishing house, from acquiring manuscripts to selling books. Gain publishing experience by participating in the various departments of a student-staffed publishing house, Ooligan Press.
WR 475/575 PUBLISHING LAB
Instructor: Abbey Gaterud
Perform the work of a real publishing house, from acquiring manuscripts to selling books. Gain publishing experience by participating in the various departments of a student-staffed publishing house, Ooligan Press.