| ENC1102/12595 | MW 3:00 - 4:15 |
| ENC1102/12596 | MW 3:40 - 5:45 |
Special Topics in Business: Branding and Cowboy Codes
In a Chicago Tribune article (9-24-2008), Garrison Keillor suggests that Wall Street's recent plunge is the result of the "cowboy economic philosophy" of deregulators. Put succinctly, "cowboy economics" describes a kind of mentality associated with the American old West--that is, one has the right to take over whatever one can, with little regard for inhabitants who were there before, or for those who have to come after. American business narratives often draw upon the terminology of the old West: "cowboy economics," branding, territories, mavericks, hired guns, circling the wagons, scouting new frontiers, hostile takeovers, etc. Why might these cowboy mythologies so permeate business thinking?
This course is designed for students interested in familiarizing themselves with the templates of modern business writing while also thinking beyond the template, asking theoretical questions about economic, political, and rhetorical issues. We will work on research strategies and writing skills that lend themselves to effective professional communications, but we will also be investigating, through our writing and research, how such "cowboy" terms and ideologies contribute to business identities and what influence they may exert on broader economic policies.
| ENC1102/12298 | MWF 11:00- 11:50 |
| ENC1102/12301 | TR 9:25-10:40 |
Special Topics in Engineering: Collapse and Catastrophe
This course will focus on writing about topics in engineering and more specifically, we will examine and write about famous engineering disasters and failures such as the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse, the Hyatt Regency Walkway collapse, the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers 1 and 2, and other infamous events in engineering. The course will familiarize students with the types of non-technical and technical writing templates and styles common to the engineering field. We will read, research, and apply that research in our writings. Some sample documents that we will investigate are case studies, proposals, reports, and employment documents that you, as an engineering major, might be required to compose in your work. Health:Sex, Drugs and Public Health.
| ENC1102/12300 | TR 8:00 – 9:15 |
| ENC1102/12303 | TR 12:15 – 1:30 |
Killer germs. Killer viruses. AIDS. Sexually transmitted disease... Heart disease. Lung disease. Cancer. Smoking tobacco. Medicinal marijuana... Obesity. Anorexia. Drug addiction. Underage drinking. Overprescribing drugs... Lack of vaccines. Vaccines linked to autism. Lead in toys. Chemicals in water... Dying. Death. Physician assisted suicide... Expensive health care. Substandard health care. No health care at all...
Got your attention yet?
In the early years of the 21st Century, Americans and the American health-care system face these public health issues and more. Are they scary? Yes. But how often do we sit down to separate fact from fiction when it comes to our health? How often do we focus, not only on our own health, but the health of our nation: health as public policy?
This course focuses on the thoughtful examination of these issues and more, with concentration on developing writing and research skills important in a broad range of undergraduate courses, including health. To do so, we write in a variety of genres--report, personal narrative, proposal, web-based, correspondence, case studies—as well as conduct a research project in the field of public health.
In short then, this course is an investigation of topics currently facing those who enter the health disciplines, as well as an introduction to how we might begin to think, discuss and write about such topics.
| ENC1102/12299 | MWF 12:00- 12:50 |
Genetic Research: Issues and Trends
Few topics related to natural science dominate scientific, political, religious, entertainment and news media discourses like genetic research. Presidents, religious pundits, scientists, novelists, and filmmakers are constantly weighing in on the importance of this issue, with commentary on everything from cloning, to mutation and stem cell research. How and why have discourses on genetic research come to permeate so many areas of modern American culture?
This course is designed for students interested in thinking about economic, political, moral, and rhetoricalissues related to genetic research. We will work on research strategies and writing skills that are important for effective communication in natural science, as well as in a broad range of undergraduate courses. We will also investigate through our writing and research, how different communities argue topics related to genetic research and what influence they may exert on broader social, moral, political, and economic trends. Topics may include, but are not limited to use of fetal tissue, mitochondrial DNA lineages, cloning, hereditary disease and its treatment, mutation, decoding the human genome, creation vs. evolution, etc.
| ENC1102/12302 | TR 10:50 – 12:05 |
| ENC1102/12304 | TR 1:40 – 2:55 |
Special Topics in Social Sciences:
Immigration:
This course is designed for students interested in examining the controversial topic of immigration. We will investigate the issues through primary and secondary research and propose solutions. This will also require self-examination. After all, America was founded by immigrants or maybe not. Perhaps we will need to clarify this country's origins, and surely we will read some interesting texts in a variety of genres which pose provocative questions about who we are as a country, how we feel about newcomers, and how we treat people who want to be like us.
We will begin with government-generated literature, such as the Citizenship Test. Will you pass it? We will look at the Oath of Allegiance to this great country. Could you swear to uphold the principles this oath requires? Our reading of immigrant narratives will take us on fascinating journeys after which we will examine immigration theory and ask if the metaphors that have been used to describe the way immigrants have integrated into American society shed any light on the process. Are we a melting pot? A salad bowl? A mosaic? Furthermore, a course on immigration cannot ignore Mexico, and we will consult experts to help us develop the broadest possible perspectives. This course will culminate with a final research project in which we will construct oral histories of real immigrants.
Consider joining the maiden voyage of this pilot course. Will our views about immigration change during the course of the semester? Will we take a "Love Train" approach to this national concern or will some of us scream, "Hey! You! Get Off of My Cloud"?
Does not satisfy the general education writing sequence requirement
This course will focus on acquainting us more fully with the vocabulary and grammar of film. We will look closely at how film is constructed of individualframes to achieve apparent motion, and at how films are constructed of various shots to achieve apparent continuity. We will also examine exactly what kind of strange and contested space the film screen is. By alternating between formalist and theoretical texts, we will open up our eyes to how various film practitioners and critics regard the seemingly unproblematic phenomenon of a white rectangle. Is it a frame, a window, mirror or a filter? Does this white plane hold within it other geometries, like white light holds within it all other colors? Be mindful that this will be an intensive reading course as well as an intensive viewing course.
Re-membering the Shattered Self: Memory, Trauma and the Construction of Identity.
Who we are is, in large measure, what we remember about ourselves.Traumatic experience disrupts memory.It disrupts the impression of continuity and sameness in personality that we think of as self. Identity, the sense of self, is changed by trauma.
This course will examine the importance of memory to identity and the ways trauma complicates our conception of self. Through a range of texts, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and the 2004 film, The Machinist, we will witness the violent interaction of self, memory, and trauma.Through these texts, I hope to engage us in a conversation about that power of trauma and memory to both destroy and construct the self.
Required Texts:
Douglass, Frederick,The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Morrison, Toni, Beloved
Vonnegut, Kurt,Slaughterhouse-Five
Foer, Jonathan Safran, Everything is Illuminated.
Provided Texts:
TBA:Various theoretical texts- articles and excerpts provided to you as handouts.Handouts may be used to explore trauma and memory in literature. These texts are to be read along with the assigned reading. The Machinist, Brad Anderson (2004)
Imagining Post-Apocalyptic Fiction (and Film)
In a country that is rather free and technologically advanced, is imagination needed to build a post-apocalyptic world? We will read four novels from this genre and write a substantive paper on each.The texts for the class are still being considered, but here are four books that presently head the list: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country.
We will also watch one, perhaps two movies: Children of Men, Logan's Run.We will thoroughly canvass the landscapes that these artists present. Ultimately, we will come to some consensus of the cumulative vision that awaits us and whether or not the post-apocalyptic scene is evolving beyond the need for imagination.
Ever since people have lived together in social groups, the need to disguise one's true intentions and emotions has existed. Tribal chiefs and elders; kings and queens; heads of state; servants, slaves-anyone hoping to achieve a higher level of social power have used masks-literal and figurative-to reach their goals.It's no different in current culture. The stars of popular films assume attractive poses and personalities to draw in an audience and a huge box-office dollar. The man who robs a bank puts on a ski mask in order to get what he wants without being identified.The young woman who dresses up for Halloween or a costume ball-whether her intention is to provoke, amuse, or seduce-dons a mask that allows her to assume that role with confidence.
We all know the power of the mask. Masks abound in human life. And, as literature is a reflection of life, they abound in our stories as well: The villain who is handsome and charismatic on the outside; the hero who appears to be the consummate "nerd" the serial killer who hides behind a blank hockey mask; the righteous activist who does the same.
Masks may be physical-they offer an anonymity that is liberating to those who choose to step outside cultural lines (for good or for bad). Most often, however, masks are psychological. This course, through an examination of several novels and short stories, will delve into the concept of how we attempt to manipulate our destinies by using the mask to deceive-not just others, but ourselves.
While developing close reading, critical thinking and writing skills, and analyzing literary criticism in group projects, students in this class explore jazz as a trope that has continued to circulate in American art beyond the music itself and into novels, poetry and film. Texts include THE GREAT GATSBY, the poetry of Langston Hughes, Gershwin's PORGY AND BESS, Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN, the poetry of Amiri Baraka and Toni Morrison's novel, JAZZ. Students are required to produce traditional essays that investigate the ways writers and playwrights incorporate a jazz aesthetic and jazz techniques into their work. In addition, students will be required to apply these same jazz techniques to creative work of their own that is designed to get the students "thinking jazz."
In this course students will examine the connection between works of literature and the social discontent that spawned them. We will study protest literature in several genres from the mid-twentieth century to modern day. We will begin with current political issues and then look back at how culture/social climate has manifested itself in the written word, and how those words have, in turn, affected our culture. This course includes CLAST writing competencies and serves to meet the Gordon Rule writing requirement that students write a minimum of 6000 words. You must earn a grade of C or better in order to receive full credit
Cultural texts inform identities of women by exposing how women are portrayed, restrained, and violated as sexualized objects or conversely how women take charge of their portrayals both as strong and independent characters. These texts can subvert a social order that stigmatizes women as inferior by exposing misogyny, displaying counter examples of women who appear self-sufficient, and actively changing the ways in which texts are consumed by women. However, text after text presents similar ways of subverting this social order that elicit no real social change:texts both subvert a culture of misogyny and at the same time reinstate it.
This course will examine this repetition of subversion and question the shifting attitudes towards women's cultural images and identities and the ways in which women are (mis)represented in texts.
This creative writing course is designed to help students write their own poems in a friendly and supportive workshop atmosphere. We will read selections from an anthology of contemporary poetry as a way to gain insight into the craft and see how different individual writers work within or against their poetic traditions. Students will become familiar with specific techniques, forms, and elements of creative writing available to the poet. We will use this knowledge to talk about how to craft our own poems. In order to get started, students will be given writing prompts based on formal and subject-driven exercises. Students will share their poems and give constructive feedback on each others' writing in intensive workshop sessions. No prior experience in writing poetry required.
Joseph Campbell calls the pattern that fuels stories of the quest "the monomyth." A character takes a journey into the African veldt, the forest, a city-or, like Luke Skywalker, into outer space. The act of leaving home is a symbolic first step toward self-awareness. The journey itself is a test of spirit. Not all the characters make it home; those who do are changed for life. Using the formula--departure/initiation/return-we will discuss short stories and novels that exemplify the quest themes of peril, self-at-risk encounters with otherness, and urgent spiritual pursuits. Grades will be based on weekly quizzes and a paper. Texts will include: a collection of short stories, Catcher in the Rye and Shoeless Joe.
In recent years episodic televisual narratives have changed dramatically with the availability of alternative media. Viewers have become active participants through online discourse, new technologies in film, video games and the formation of virtual communities. In this course we will examine the television series Lost, one key example of this phenomenon. Over the last four seasons Lost has become an ever-expanding text, with responsive viewers continuously extending interpretations and deepening the show's narrative. It has developed a life outside the television medium through both the writers' efforts and audience participation. Both parties employ various media including the hundreds of websites dedicated to the speculation and analysis of the story, canonical literary works, film, telephone recordings, fictional advertisements, homemade videos and historical texts. We will discuss the cultural implications of this intertextuality and of the viewer as participant.
What is lost and what gained in perpetual childhood? What does a young girl do, in the midst of the Spanish civil war, when she is commanded by a mythical beast to murder her baby brother? Why do boys turn into savage, murderous horrors after a few weeks without adults? How does a young Indian boy cope when he is a castaway on a small lifeboat with a wild, man-eating tiger for company? Can you walk in the shoes of a fifteen year old math genius who defines his days by the number of red cars he sees or how many brown or yellow foods he is given to eat? How do people survive in a city where six year olds have automatic weapons? How do two children, one privileged and the other a low caste servant, cope with reversals and corruption in Afghanistan? Choosing four books from the list below and using four films as text, we will discuss these questions and also the origin of savagery, truth and deception, oppression and heroism, and freedom and responsibility.
Four possible texts:
Peter Pan: J.M.Barrie
Lord of the Flies: William Golding
The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi: Yann Martel
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Mark Haddons
And also, four films from: Miyazaki's Japanese anime Spirited Away, Fernando Meirelles brilliant expose of Brazilian street children in City of God, the moving and strange Pan's Labyrinth, Peter Brook's 1963 version of Lord of the Flies filmed with real British schoolboys rather than actors, Barmak's post Taliban Afghanistan Osama, and POV's chilling Refrigerator Mothers.
In this course we explore the spiritual lives of Quaker and Buddhist individuals through an examination of their autobiographies and biographies. We will begin with the Journal of George Fox, the founder of the former tradition in England in 1640 and with Freedom in Exile, the Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, the present day spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. We will also read other texts by and about Quaker-Buddhists, and discern the similarities between the two traditions in the process. For example, we will read Mary Rose O'Reilley's The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd, Jim Pym's Listening to the Light,and Sallie B. King's,"They Who Burned Themselves for Peace: Quaker and Buddhist Self-Immolators during the Vietnam War," published in the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies. We will especially be concerned with the concepts of meditation, compassion, and nonviolence in these two religions as revealed in these texts.
Long dismissed as "simple" and "childish," graphic novels have exploded in popularity: both in terms of sales and praise from critics. They have also become very popular films: from Iron Man to 300 to 30 Days of Night to V for Vendetta to Men in Black. And filmmakers like the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix), Sam Raimi (Spider Man),
and Kevin Smith (Clerks) acknowledge how graphic novels have shaped their work. Increasingly, these texts are seen as a valid, complex art form...and even, possibly, as literature.
However graphic novels, by their very nature, frustrate categorization. Are they literature? Are they "novels" at all? Kids'books? Or just trash? Perhaps because such genre boundaries are blurred, studying these texts can help us tune our critical mind to better comprehend all sorts of verbal and non-verbal texts. Yet, this course is not a history of the graphic novel or comic books; nor does the course attempt to represent all the varieties of graphic novel out there.
This is a writing course, in which we will use these texts and how they interact with some of our culture's most perplexing issues---terrorism, genocide, religion, divisive politics, violence, sexism, racism---to become stronger writers and thinkers.
Be aware of two important things, however. First, graphic novels are not cheap. While I have tried to choose less expensive texts, be aware that the total cost of texts for this course could run over $100. Second, these novels are "graphic" in every sense. They address sensitive subjects, and sometimes use explicit, even shocking, words and images. While we will treat these texts, and each other, with respect and tolerance, you should be prepared for mature material.
In his book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff argues that Americans' worldviews can be described through the metaphor of the family. As the inside flap of his book's cover explains, "Lakoff analyzes the unconscious worldviews of liberals and conservatives, explaining why they are at odds over so many seemingly unrelated issues-like taxes, abortion, regulation, and social programs. The differences, Lakoff argues, are not mere matters of partisanship, but arise from radically different conceptions of morality and idealfamily life-meaning that family and morality are at the heart of American politics, in ways that are far from obvious."
Our urgent task this semester is to work on making those "unconscious worldviews" conscious. We each need to understand and clarify our own worldview, as well as to understand the worldview of those people who do not hold the same "values" as we do. Until we understand ourselves and each other, until we recognize our common ground, our country will continue to be malignantly divided.And it seems there is no better place to start the work of uniting than among the intelligent and (relatively) privileged Americans who are college educated-in other words, us.
To this end, we will become familiar with Lakoff's theories and then consider his metaphors of the "strict father" and "nurturing parent" alongside literary works (primarily short fiction, films, and poetry) that portray family life.
This class highlights argument-not only those arguments created by the writers of the texts we study but also those produced by students - and the close and careful reading of texts. For our purposes, "texts"include not only those things we expect to encounter in a literature class, but also things perhaps not currently perceived by students as texts. Additionally, this class demands that we make connections, not only between the texts that we read and discuss but also between texts and what some refer to as "real"life.
In this course, we will examine over one hundred years of Irish fiction, and in particular the short story. We will read works from James Joyce (1882-1941) to Anne Enright(1962-).We will learn how the culture, music and history of Ireland are inexorably linked to her literature. We will view some films that have been written and directed by Irish writers, and are set in Ireland:Michael Collins, Agnes Browne, The Snapper, and others which depict a more modern Ireland.
The texts we will read are the following:
Modern Irish Short Stories. Ed. Ben Forkner (ISBN: 0-14-024699-1).
The Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories 2006-7.. Ed. David Marcus (ISBN: 978-0-571-23045-7).
A Bit on the Side: Selected short Stories by William Trevor (ISBN: 0-14-303591-6).
There will be two papers and a Final Thoughts paper.