FIRST SESSION

UCCS Learning Objectives for Literature and Performing Arts (LPA)

Upon completing these courses, students will be able to:

(1) Produce oral and written assessments of literary and cultural texts and/or performances using the language and concepts of the discipline of literary studies.
(2) Articulate how literary and cultural texts can transform one’s understanding of self, others, and communities.
(3) Apply the methodologies of literary criticism to representative works of literature.

English 1002: Rhetoric and Composition 2                                    

• Section 101 -- 11:30-1:05 MTWR

Josh Steffey

English 2710: Introduction to Fiction                                             

• Section 101 -- MW 5:30-9:00

Kris Ratcliffe

Thematic Title: COMPETING PARADIGMS: LITERARY PERIODS & ETHNIC CATEGORIES

Course Description: This summer we will read lots of short stories (by Dorothy Allison, James Baldwin, Charles Chestnutt, Ralph Ellison, Louise Erdrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Gish Jen, Cynthia Ozick, Edgar Allan Poe, Amy Tan, Helena Viramontes, Kurt Vonnegut, and others) and a couple novels (e.g., The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Beloved by Toni Morrison); in the process, we will question/evaluate two paradigms used to read U.S. literature. First, we will study U.S. literary periods of Romanticism, Realism/Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism not just as historical periods but as cultural threads that continue to inform contemporary U.S. literature and culture; second, we will examine muliti-ethnic categories of African American literature, American Indian literature, Chinese American literature, Latino/a Literature, (White) Suburban literature, “White Trash” literature, and (unmarked) literature not just as classifications of literary texts but as cultural threads that inform contemporary U.S. literature and culture.

• Upon completing this course, you will be able to: (1) identity elements of narrative and explain their functions in fictional texts; (2) identify and critique two paradigms for studying literature—literary periods and multi-ethnicity; (3) identify values in U.S. fiction and evaluate the merits of these values today; (4) enhance your analytical reading, writing, and speaking abilities.

Assignments: 2 position papers; 2 essays; 1 oral presentation; and one final exam.

UPPER DIVISION

English 4710: Studies in Genre                                                        

• Section 101 -- 9:45-11:20 MTWR

John Boly

Thematic Title: The Dystopian Novel.

Description: What happens to a society when its inhabitants lose control of what they had always been taught to believe was their democratically elected government? When its politicians insolently defy the vast majority and answer only to a tiny group of super-powerful corporations? When the military abandons its mission of defense and turns into a weapon of world domination? When the state imposes an inescapable surveillance grid which spies on every conversation and action? When the medical profession becomes an instrument of perpetuating and profiting from easily cured disease? When television and radio networks, tasked with alerting people to the truth, degenerate into mechanisms of mass mind control? When a cynical elite of eugenicists decide that most of the human population is to be killed off, and the survivors chemically reduced to brain-dead slaves? Fortunately, jittery Americans need not guess about what their future might hold because creative writers have already explored these scenarios. We will begin with the masterpiece which launches the dystopian genre, Zamyatin’s We. We will then trace the dystopian novel’s rapid evolution through Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, the stories of Kurt Vonnegut, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and Michael Crichton’s Next. Finally, we will study a narrative which explains why 9-11 was an inside job, Steve Alten’s The Shell Game.

Requirements: Two essays and two exams.

GRADUATE

English 6210: Studies in English Literature, The Beginnings to 1500

*(NOTE: fulfills Medieval or Renaissance requirements)

•Section 101 -- TUTH 1:30-5:00

MC Bodden

Thematic Title: Gender and Politics in Medieval and Early Modern England. This course views politics as late medieval and early modern England viewed it, namely as “political culture.” They assumed a “broader and more inclusive understanding of politics” that encompassed different social ranks and different aspects of human activity (e.g., the light entertainment of poets and playwrights, dispensing patronage, unruly festivals of people, gift-giving, writing, –almost any contestation between authorized desire and subversive practices). Even women’s domestic duties and “roles were generally recognized as already possessing an inherently political dimension.” We will read the following texts with Elaine Tuttle-Hansen’s remark in mind: “Fiction-making is not gender-neutral activity, and both the benefits and the risks of authorial daring and excess are clearly (re)attached to questions of gender, sexuality, and power.” The texts include three medieval writers’ works, and five early modern English dramas: Chaucer: The General Prologue, The Miller’s Tale, The Clerk’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Morte Darthur, Edward II, Convent of Pleasure, Volpone, Measure for Measure, Roaring Girl.

UCCS Learning Objectives for Literature and Performing Arts (LPA)

Upon completing these courses, students will be able to:

(1) Produce oral and written assessments of literary and cultural texts and/or performances using the language and concepts of the discipline of literary studies.
(2) Articulate how literary and cultural texts can transform one’s understanding of self, others, and communities.
(3) Apply the methodologies of literary criticism to representative works of literature.

English 1: Rhetoric and Composition                                             

• Section 101 -- 8:00-9:30  MTWRF

• Section 102 -- 9:45-11:20  MTWRF

Derek Blemberg

English 2720: Intro to Drama                                                          

• Section 101 -- Online

Virginia Chappell

This online course will take place during the six weeks of Summer Session 2, July 5 - August 13. There will be a preparatory face-to-face meeting on Monday, April 18, 4:30–6:00 p.m., in Raynor 320A.  Attendance is recommended, not required.  Registered students will receive letters of invitation.

Using books, video and PowerPoint lectures available through D2L, and a wealth of other Web-based materials, we will together read and analyze plays that range from the ancient to the contemporary, from Oedipus Rex to the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner, Wit, taking into account along the way the work of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and August Wilson.  The sum of it all should be enjoyable and thought-provoking.  Your primary work for grading will consist of short weekly assignments, regular participation in D2L Discussion Forums, one paper, one exam, and online quizzes about each play.

UPPER DIVISION

English 4800: Studies in Lit and Culture

•Section 101 – MTWR  11:30 – 1:05

John Su

Thematic title: The Graphic Novel: Love, Death, and the USA

Course description: with the 1992 Pulitzer Prize special award going to Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale, the graphic novel came of age. No longer simply entertainment for adolescent boys, the genre gained legitimacy as literature worthy of study and admiration. In the past two decades, the graphic novel has become a place not just for spandex-clad superheroes but also for explorations of life stories and struggles with some of the most important issues of our day including cultural identity, sexuality, consumerism, and the so-called “culture wars.” In this course, we will look at some of the most widely admired graphic novels published since the 1980s. Our focus will be on how graphic novels address significant debates in American society, and what cultural impact they might have.

Possible readings: Maus: A Survivor's Tale, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, American-Born Chinese, The Dark Knight Returns, Blankets, Watchmen.

GRADUATE

English 6500: Studies in Twentieth-Century British Literature  

*(NOTE: fulfills 20^th c American or British requirement)

•Section 101 – MTWR  9:45-11:20

John Su

Thematic title: literatures of the new millennium

Course description: In this course, we will engage in a transnational study of anglophone fiction published since 2000. We will have significant components devoted to American, British, and so-called postcolonial literatures. Key issues will include 9/11, international migration, global capitalism, biotechnology, and new conceptions of the human. We will also be exploring how these new literatures develop on historical conceptions of the Western European novel.

Possible readings: Monica Ali, Brick Lane; Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go; J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello; Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark; Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies; Marilynne Robinson, Home.