Summer 2008 Graduate English Course Descriptions
SUMMER A
LIT 5934 CRN 50509
Problem of Evil, MW 9:00-12:30
Mary Baron
This course explores the nature, causes, effects, and possible responses to human evil through readings in history, literature, psychology, sociology, and theology. The material is often disturbing to students. I do not recommend that you enroll during a semester when you are having a difficult time with life in general.
The course requires no previous work in the disciplines listed above, but students should have completed the Gordon Rule sequence or should have equivalent skills in reading and writing about complex texts.
LIT 5934 CRN 50773
Play Production, MW 610-940
Pamela Monteleone
Question: What 413 year-old Shakespearean comedy speaks personally to
young people today?
Answer: The Taming of the Shrew
Have you ever been crazy in love? Have you ever played a role to get a “guy” or a “girl” to notice you? Has it ever worked? Has it ever backfired? Have you ever admired or mocked the role playing of others? Have you ever been fooled by the role playing of others? Have you ever noticed the discrepancy between what people seem and what they really are? Have you ever questioned who you are in relation to the roles you play?
Shakespeare’s plays come alive in performance. This course will focus on making one comedy from the 1590s speak to the concerns of young people in 2008. Specifically, we will focus on the connection between love and role playing, on both role playing’s positive and negative aspects, on its transformative power and its limitations. We will begin with brief lectures on how to read a script, on Shakespeare's dramatic technique, and on how to develop a character. The remainder of the course will be devoted to a fully realized production of The Taming of the Shrew for the university and Jacksonville communities.
Mark Twain once said, “The fellow holding the cat by the tail is getting twice as much information as the fellow just watching.” This is a hands-on course. Holding the cat by the tail means students will participate in the planning and execution of all aspects of play production. This course offers opportunities for students who wish to focus on different kinds of work for course credit: academic research, acting, technical and other behind-the-scenes work, business/production management. There are roles for 20 male and females of all ages and races. Auditions will be held during the first week of class. There is no extensive reading list for this course, but if you audition for and are cast in a major role expect to rehearse both inside and outside of class.
This course has four objectives: (1) to learn how to read a Shakespeare play as actors looking for clues to performance (2) to learn how to translate a script into a theatrical event (3) to learn how to concentrate on our lives in the present by living in the moment as part of an ensemble (4) to learn about our “selves” through focusing on the transformative power of role playing. For more information contact Dr. Pam Monteleone at pmontele@unf.edu; 704-3207.
LIT 5934 CRN 51673
International Film, TR 1240-410
Jason Mauro
SUMMER B
LIT 6934 CRN 51368
Satire in the Age of Late Night, TR 6:10-9:40
Chris Gabbard
This course counts toward satisfying the pre-1800 and the English literature requirements. In this age of LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN, most people confuse satire with comedy or parody. To re-familiarize ourselves with the genre, we will begin by examining satires by the Roman writers Horace and Juvenal. And we will read satires by Dryden, Rochester, Behn, Pope, Swift, and Johnson. We also will look at Mikhail Bakhtin on satire as well as Dustin Griffin and Howard Weinbrott. And to inform our historical perspective by way of a compare and contrast, we will view a film, DR. STRANGELOVE, excerpts from BORAT, and one FAMILY GUY episode: “Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington.”
LIT 5934 CRN 51374
Fantastic Cosmologies, MW 9:00-12:30
Mary Baron
In this course we will analyze fantasy fiction that creates an entire alternate cosmos. We will read C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkein and Philip Pullman with a view to outlining and analyzing the rules that govern their fictional worlds.
We will also discuss whether, individually and/or as a group, their proposed worlds are dystopias or utopias.
LIT 6047 CRN 51376
Studies in Drama: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in the Dramatic Literature of the United States
MW 1240-410
Pamela Monteleone
Plays are not only works of art but powerful social commentaries. Moreover, because they are also scripts that are only fully realized in performance, they have particular relevance to questions of identity. This course will examine social constructs of race/ethnicity, class, and gender through the reading of plays that reflect diverse cultural perspectives on U.S. history and lifestyles. We will examine the strategies playwrights use to describe their perspectives on American life, through their treatment of such common themes as the American Dream, the meaning of home, growing up, and the importance family. In addition to reading, writing, and discussion, we will act out scenes. Scene presentations will require approximately 6-7 hours of group rehearsal outside of class. No previous theatrical training or experience is required. I will simply ask you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Playing roles and witnessing them, like telling family stories, is an act of self-definition. As we bring these plays to life, we shall ask ourselves such questions as:
· What role do the categories of race, class, and gender play in shaping our American experience?
· Are we all the same, universally human, or does difference make a difference?
· What about groups in the United States who consider themselves denigrated or just plain invisible?
· Is ideology an important factor in shaping one’s identity? And what is ideology anyway?
LIT 5934 CRN 50768
Wild Encounters: Uncaging the Beast in Modern Literature and Film
TR 900-1230
Bart Welling
Why do “trained” wild animals turn on their human masters? Why do good pets go bad? What happens when humans give expression to “the beast within”? Our airwaves and movie houses in the U. S. have long been full of sensationalistic or simply trivial answers to problems like these. Meanwhile, generations of writers, filmmakers, and theorists have been dealing with animal behavior, human/animal interactions, and questions of human/animal identity in ways that challenge our most fundamental assumptions about who we are, what—or who—“they” are, and how “we” ought to be treating “them.” In this class we will not just encounter some of the most famous “beasts” in modern literature and film, from Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s human and animal yearlings to Jaws to James Dickey’s nightmarish backwoodsmen in Deliverance, but will frame our encounters with them by means of critical engagement with leading animal rights philosophers, biologists, ecocritics and ecofeminists, and other participants in the growing field of what might be called animal studies. Instead of advocating a particular political agenda, our goal will be to create an open and informed dialogue about the functions animals and “beastliness” serve in modern culture, and, more broadly, about the roles literature and film can play in helping humankind make sense of its place in a world full of other life forms.
Primary texts: Erica Fudge, Animal (Reaktion); Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling (Scribner); J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals (Princeton); James Dickey, Deliverance (Delta); Marc Bekoff, Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart (Oxford UP).
Requirements: Strong attendance and participation; one research paper; one field experience and related presentation; regular Blackboard postings; short quizzes.