English Department
Post-Colon and Graduate Course Descriptions
Fall 2008
ENG 372 Film and Literature: The Oscar Novel
Dr. Üsekes
Phone: (203) 837-9329
E-mail: usekesc@wcsu.edu
In this course we will study novels whose film adaptations have been nominated for and/or received Academy Award(s). Examples include Heart of Darkness, Remains of the Day, Atonement, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and The Hours.
English 450 Studies in Major Authors: George Eliot and Thomas Hardy
Dr. Shouhua Qi
Phone: 203-837-9048
Email: qis@wcsu.edu (preferred)
This course studies the major works by George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, two of the most important Victorian writers. Through an intense examination of Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Return of the Native, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and so on, the course seeks to gain a critical understanding and appreciation of the complexity of gender, sexuality, morality, socioeconomics, authorship, and other important sociohistorical as well as literary issues that George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and other Victorian writers grabble with in their works.
English 453: Satire in Literature
Anam K. Govardhan
This course is intended to provide students with an understanding of how satire has been defined and used by writers. Tracing its origins in Horace and Juvenal, students will have the opportunity to explore and discuss its successful application in a variety of genres of English and American literature.
ENG 552 American Literature to 1860: New Voices in a New Wilderness
Dr. Don Gagnon
This course will focus on writers whose work engages particularly the need for a new way to narrate the experience of new nationhood. While some of the writers will be traditional and/or canonical (i.e. Emerson, Franklin, Irving), much of the semester will focus on such "marginal" writers as Equiano, Wheatley, Fuller, Fern, Stowe, Rowlandson, Blake, and Tyler, among others. Students will be asked to compare and contrast the experience and works of these less-studied writers to some of the more traditional voices in an effort to clarify such concepts as canon and culture formation. The course will require significant reading and a major research project, as well as opportunities for travel.
ENG 572: Drama Studies—in Contrast (Fall 2008 Wednesdays 5:25-7:55 pm)
Dr. Üsekes
Phone: (203) 837-9329
E-mail: usekesc@wcsu.edu
This course focuses on the origins and evolution of social realism in modern drama with special emphasis on the works of Ibsen, Shaw, and Miller. We will investigate the challenges facing the dramatist as social critic by considering the following questions: In what ways is the theatre an effective—or ineffective—medium for social change? How did these playwrights attempt to make their social criticism both instructive and entertaining? How did these experiments change over time? These questions will be considered in the context of pressing social concerns of the time, such as marriage, women’s rights, prostitution, and the Holocaust.
Required Texts:
· Ibsen, The Complete Major Prose Plays, trans. by Rolf Fjelde
· Shaw, Plays Unpleasant, Candida & Major Barbara
· Miller, All My Sons, The Price, The Crucible & Incident at Vichy