XAVIER UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

GRADUATE COURSES

SUMMER 2008

INTERSESSION:  MAY 14-MAY 25
ENGL 331/531 - WORLD LITERATURE

Taught by Dr. Tyrone Williams, Monday through Friday, 1:00-4:45 p.m.

     These novels and poetry by Chinese, Japanese and American-born Asian writers explore the trauma of Diaspora, war and "second" language adjustments in the context of family relations and emigration, voluntary and not.
 

MAY 19 - JUNE 26
ENGL 558 - WOMEN IN THE RHETORICAL TRADITION

Taught by Dr. Christina Fisanick, Mondays/Wednesdays, 6:15-9:30 p.m.

     We will investigate and recover women in the rhetorical tradition from ancient times to the present including Sappho, Margery Kempe, Ida B. Wells, Julia Kristeva, and others. We will read primary and secondary texts that both illuminate and obfuscate the role of women rhetoricians in Western thought with the goal of expanding our notions of the rhetorical canon.

JUNE 16 - JULY 17
ENGL 688 - SEM: MIDWEST IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Taught by Dr. John Getz, Tuesdays/Thursdays, 6:15-9:30 p.m.

     This new course will analyze literary representations of the Midwest in American autobiography, poetry, and fiction from frontier days in the nineteenth century to the present.  We’ll study changing definitions and perceptions of the Midwest in the past 200 years and some of the many ways American writers have portrayed its diverse landscapes, cityscapes, and rural and urban cultures.

      Readings will include Caroline Kirland’s A New Home—Who’ll Follow?, Mark Twain’s Old Times on the Mississippi, Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, and the work of several poets including Gwendolyn Brooks and at least one from Cincinnati.

JULY 7 - AUGUST 14
ENGL 640 - STUDIES IN 18th CENTURY LITERATURE

Taught by Dr. Jodi Wyett, Mondays/Wednesdays, 6:15-9:30 p.m.

     This course will survey the literature and culture of the “long” eighteenth-century (1660-1800), a period marked by many dynamic social and cultural changes such as a flourishing literary marketplace, a growing urban population, increasing awareness of national identity and class consciousness, changing gender roles, commercialization and colonial expansion, and contention over human rights.

     Readings will include poetry, prose fiction, correspondence, and intellectual prose by writers such as Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Frances Burney and Jane Austen; cultural texts such as paintings, conduct literature, and summaries of legal trials; and current critical, theoretical, and historical writing about the eighteenth century.

     A research paper, a short literary analysis paper, a comprehensive final exam, and two formal presentations will be required.  Significant student contribution to the class discussion is also expected.