Course Descriptions for Fall 2016

150.001: Introduction to the Study of English

TR 1100-1215
Kadeshia Matthews, kadeshia@unm.edu

This course guides non-English majors in how to read, think, speak and write about narratives and texts. We'll examine poetry, short fiction, novels, drama, and some film and music from various time periods and regions, with particular attention to questions of response and adaptation. How do writers read and respond to their predecessors and contemporaries, and to what purpose? What is lost but also gained in the move from page to stage or screen, across time and national or other conventional, but perhaps illusory, borders? Through class discussion, quizzes, at least one presentation, and various kinds of writing assignments, students will develop skill in reading closely, thinking critically, analyzing, interpreting and making claims about stories of various kinds.         

150.002: Introduction to the Study of English

MWF 1300-1350
Carolyn Woodward

Problems of gender center our work in this section of English 150. We’ll read poetry—for example, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s “Mrs. Sisyphus” and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:“The Fire-Sermon” with its “carbuncular” bored lover. Our study of fiction includes Daniel Defoe’s Roxana, in which the eponymous heroine follows a career of sexual intrigue and fraud in 18^th century England, France and the Netherlands; and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, set in Nigeria during the Nigerian-Biafran war, which centers in complex sexual and political conflicts, especially those experienced by the teenage village boy Ugwu. We’ll read two Shakespeare plays, act out brief scenes, and watch film adaptations. The comedy Much Ado about Nothing features warring lovers. The tragedy Richard III not only problematizes ideas about women and power but also confronts notions of disability and sexuality. Two exams and three 4-6 page papers using methods of literary formatting and documentation.

220.001: Expository Writing: Graphic Novels as a Lit Genre

MWF 0900-0950
Lauren Perry, perryl@unm.edu

This course focuses on learning to read, contextualize, analyze, and respond to graphic novels. Students will sample graphic novels of all kinds, ranging from autobiographical, historical, fantasy, science fiction, superhero comics, and more. Supplemental texts and films will be used to help students understand the impact, range, and expansion of graphic novels over the course of 20^th to 21^st century American literature.  

220.002: Expository Writing: Sexuality, Intersectionality, and Listening

MWF 1100-1150
Rachel Gift, rgift@unm.edu

In this version of English 220, we will explore sexuality, sexual identity, and their intersections with other identities (for example: Hispanic first-generation college bisexual) in relation to rhetorical situations. We will examine the roles language and genre play in representing and defining sexual identity, in shaping perception, and in silencing or giving a voice to marginalized groups. We will examine power structures, ideologies, and dominant narratives and their effect on our actions and voices. We will explore our degrees of agency, our minds, our histories, the histories of others, the world around us, and the similarities and differences we find there. In short, through writing, multimodal assignments, class discussions, and listening, we will explore and examine the rhetorical/situational nature of sexual identity, its social implications, and the ways it influences, and is influenced by, different social and cultural structures and different aspects of the self.

220.003: Expository Writing

MWF 1200-1250 
Abigail Robertson, agrobertson@unm.edu

This course aims to look at various representations of violence and mourning in documentary and literature from the time of the Crusades through 9/11 with a simple question in mind: what is the rhetoric of mourning and violence and how is it politicized? Rather than interested in any political affiliation, this course is instead centered around understanding the methods by which violence and trauma are represented and how those representations influence our understanding of historical and contemporary events. By analyzing the texts, students will gain a more enriched understanding of the way that different forms of expository writing (both visual and aural) impact audiences of diverse demographics and how this has changed over time—the way the Holocaust was represented at the end of World War II differs greatly from 9/11 and our current conception. Looking at these events of violence and tragedy, this course aims to promote discourse that questions the efficacy of new media forms in comparison to those in the past and raises questions about the objectives of each of these forms. To do this, students will read both contemporary fictionalized accounts of recent events, primary sources of historical ones, and view recently-produced documentaries that conceptualize the past in order to answer questions such as: how does this source influence our understanding of the past? what is the rhetorical role of this genre? how are violence and trauma politicized (or not) in these texts? Students will also compare fictionalized accounts of real events with reporting on those events by the news media in order analyze the ways in which form, genre, and structure inform audience.

220.004: Expository Writing: Gather Your Party and Venture Forth

MWF 1300-1350
Breeanna Watral, bwatral@unm.edu

This course will explore the quest narrative’s medieval roots as well as its modern manifestations in contemporary fantastic literature.  We will examine the key elements of the quest narrative (characters, plot, theme, etc.) and explore the ways in which the function and ideas of the quest change over time.  In addition to analyzing texts, we will also have a chance to investigate the presence of the quest narrative in popular films, television shows, and video games.  The course itself will be structured like a role-playing game, thus allowing students to engage with the quest narrative in a hands-on fashion. 

220.005: Expository Writing: Dr.Seuss: More Than Children's Books

MWF 1400 -1450 
Misty Thomas, mthoma08@unm.edu

Do you think that anything by Dr. Seuss is just a children’s story?

Have you ever been interested in what is behind the rhymes and illustrations?

Then come and take English 220 where we will investigate and discuss Dr. Seuss and his wartime cartoons, his children’s stories, and the movie adaptations. We will be looking at The Lorax, The Sneetches, Horton Hears a Who, and many others. Together, we will investigate and understand the underlying themes in his work that subtly teach children about a variety of issues. We will be watching both long and short film adaptions to discuss how the film and the text inform or differ from one another. The class will contain class discussions and a variety of writing assignments. 

Register for this class and together we can investigate and discuss Dr. Seuss, his works, and what they mean now in the 21^st century. 

220.006: Expository Writing: Hip Hop: The Intersection of Poetry, Storytelling, and History

MWF 1500-1550 
Jason Thayer, thayerj@unm.edu

Is hip hop an off shoot of poetry?  Or is it more akin to narrative?  If so, should we evaluate it as fiction or as memoir?  The best hip hop employs elements of all three genres.  As a result, when analyzing hip-hop, we must borrow strategies used to dissect poetry, fiction, and memoir.  In this class, students will begin by analyzing the poetic devices used in various hip-hop songs.  Next, they will describe the narrative arc, themes, and characters that inhabit specific songs and albums.  Concurrently, students will research the historical context—the unique environment and moment in history that birthed the work—and speculate on the influence that a rapper’s life experience plays in the construction of his or her art.  We’ll look at how the 90s crack epidemic influenced the story the Notorious B.I.G. tells in his album Ready to Die.  We’ll investigate how Detroit’s economic apocalypse resulted in Danny Brown’s magnum opus, Old. Finally, we’ll investigate how Compton’s gang violence coupled with the escalation of police brutality and murder of unarmed black men in the U.S. propelled the potent narratives in Kendrick Lamar’s epic, To Pimp a Butterfly.  Political history will be a significant component to this class as we will look at how mandatory minimum sentencing, Reaganomics and the Iran-Contra scandal coalesced to create the violent and volatile environment that propels the stories told in rap music. For interested students, there will be an oppurtunity to do an alternate creative project (instead of a literary analysis of someone else's music), writing, recording, and analyzing their own original song, while placing it within the history of hip hop, in terms of thematic material, as well aspoetics employed.

220.007: Expository Writing: Novels As Linked Stories

MWF 1000-1050 
Celia Laskey, claskey@unm.edu

Have you ever wondered about the difference between a novel and a book of short stories? What if the short stories are linked somehow? Can you then call the book a novel? We will examine three novels comprised of linked stories to answer these questions: 1) A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 2) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 3) In Other Rooms, Other Wondersby Daniel Mueenuddin. Students will become familiar with the genre of short stories by reading selections from Alice LaPlante’s The Making Of a Story. Discussion of the novels will be focused on the craft elements of each individual story, and what elements link the stories in each collection. The major writing assignments for the class will be a book review, a literary analysis, and a research paper.

220.008: Expository Writing: Writing the Southwest

TR 1100-1215
Jana Koehler, jmkoehler@unm.edu

Welcome to English 220: Expository Writing. This class explores various representations of the American Southwest from the 19th through 21st Century. In this class students will practice their critical thinking and expository writing skills while focused on the written works of authors ranging from Edward Abbey, Leslie Marmon Silko, Cormac McCarthy, and Rudolfo Anaya as well as visual works such as Breaking Bad (2008) and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014). We will also explore different genres, such as memoirs, novels, non-fiction, films, and academic research. Through our study of these texts we will explore how racial, social, political, environmental, and economic issues are represented as well as how these works shape our perceptions of what defines the Southwest. Students will compose informal weekly reading responses as well as two major projects, including a multimodal research project concerning an issue facing the American Southwest. The class will culminate with a portfolio that includes a revision of one of your works from the class. Research, composition, exposition and presentation skills will be practiced and developed. Prerequisite: 110 with a B or better, or English 120 with C or better, or ACT=>26 or SAT=>610, or successful Writing Proficiency Portfolio.

220.009: Expository Writing: The Graphic Memoir as Art

TR 1230-1345 
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu 

English 220 is an expository writing course designed to hone and advance your academic and critical reading and writing skills. In this section, we will study the genre of comics and assess their value as works of art and literature. We will focus specifically on graphic memoirs as a medium for conveying stories from the artist-author’s life; we will also look at how aspects of history and culture serve as a backdrop for these stories. Naturally, we will examine how image and words work together to enrich a text. Given that comics is often viewed as a childish genre, we will give ample consideration to the target audience for such works. Does the use of pictures allow for a broader readership? Is the storyline ever made more simplistic because of the dependency on pictures? Do the pictures clarify certain elements of the written text or add complexity and depth to the artist-author’s perspective? Does the style of the artwork affect the readability of the book? 

Texts will include The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman, One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry, and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. In addition to reading these graphic works, we will also consult academic research essays, YouTube videos, and the artist-authors’ websites to supplement our discussions. Writing assignments will include several short essays; a research project; and an original graphic project of your own. (Yes, I know this isn’t an art class! The quality of your artwork won’t be part of your grade; your effort will.) These assignments represent a few of the writing styles appropriate for your academic work.  

The issues raised by our readings, writing assignments, and discussions will occasionally tackle controversial or sensitive subject matters and often reflect the fact that we come from different backgrounds and have different value systems. In all of your writing and during group work and class discussions, I expect you to express your viewpoints responsibly and respectfully. You can expect the same of me.

220.010: Expository Writing: Sobering Reality: Alcoholism, Addiction, and Recovery in Film and Literature

TR 0930-1045
Catherine Hubka, chubka@unm.edu

This course will interrogate cultural texts of alcholism, addiction, and codependency. Students will investigate the role personal narratives play in recovery to better understand the disease and gain sensitivity for the problem alcoholics and addicts encounter both while actively afflicted and while in recovery: the deeply embedded belief that sufferers are morally deficient and recovery is simply a matter of abstinence, or put another way, a matter of simple abstinence.  

220.021: Expository Writing

Online 
Ty Cronkhite, tcronkhite@unm.edu

In this online class we will explore writing as it occurs in the city, both in literature and on the walls. Albuquerque itself provides many opportunities to experience unique urban narratives, from the Petroglyph National Monument to the rainbow dripping down from the Anasazi Building at Sixth and Central. We will read essays and literature about the city in addition to reading the city itself as it is written on walls (graffiti), billboards, street signs, cardboard signs, help wanted signs, monuments, people (tattoos), etc. The words and images in the city, wherever they may be found, tell a story. We will learn to make sense of this story by performing a rhetorical analysis of a local artifact, by writing a personal narrative describing the city similar to Walter Benjamin's "Hashish in Marseilles" (preferably without the hashish) and George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris" (Preferably without becoming down and out), and we will synthesize this work into a larger final project on the topic of the city and urban space. Ideally, we will leave the class with a more profound sense of our relationship to the city, the social issues that define the city, and a vital competence in reading, composing, and participating in the urban public sphere.

220.022: Expository Writing

Online
Ying Xu, yingxu@unm.edu

Textbooks and Materials

224.001: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1000-1050
TBA

224.002: Introduction to Creative Writing

TR 1400-1515 
TBA

224.003: Introduction to Creative Writing

TR 1100-1215 
TBA

224.004: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1300-1350 
TBA 

224.005: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1100-1150  
TBA

224.006: Introduction to Creative Writing

TR 0930-1045  
TBA

224.007: Introduction to Creative Writing

Online  
Lisa Chavez, ldchavez@unm.edu

This online introductory course will introduce students to the craft of writing literary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.  We will begin with issues that all genres share, and then go on to  look at some of the conventions of the individual genres.  Students should be prepared to learn to read like a writer, to try out a lot of different exercises, to learn the art of revision, and to write in all three genres.  I also expect lively online discussion of the assigned readings, and there will also be an introduction to peer review in small groups.  

240.001: Traditional Grammar

MWF 1300-1350 
Cristyn Elder, celder@unm.edu

Most native speakers of a variety of English use the language every day without having to think about the rules. In fact, people who have learned English as a foreign language often know the grammatical rules of standardized English, for example, better than native speakers. In this class, we will learn various parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions) and how they are put together to create meaningful units of sentences and basic sentence patterns. And, as English is a rule-governed system that changes over time, we will also look at examples of language change and common language attitudes. Course work will consist of quizzes, short assignments, short papers, readings, and discussion assignments.

240.002: Traditional Grammar

TR 1230-1345 
Bethany Davila, bdavila@unm.edu 

English is a rule-governed system that changes over time. In this course, you will uncover the many levels of structure that make up the English language, language change over time, and common language attitudes. You will have an opportunity to apply what you learn to your own writing. Course work will consist of regular homework, quizzes, tests, and a paper.

249.001: Introduction to Studies in English

W 1100-1150
Sharon Warner, swarner@unm.edu 

English 249 is a one-credit, 8-week class that brings together students majoring in English.  It is a required course and must be taken before embarking on the major coursework.  Students are introduced to the subfields of rhetoric and professional writing; creative writing; literary studies; and critical theory and cultural studies.  Students will be introduced to the life of the department through class visits with faculty members; attendance at Departmental events; and a variety of readings and discussions.  The final task will be to craft a letter of intent documenting their intended course of study.

249.002: Introduction to Studies in English

T 11:00-1215
 Sharon Warner, swarner@unm.edu

English 249 is a one-credit, 8-week class that brings together students majoring in English.  It is a required course and must be taken before embarking on the major coursework.  Students are introduced to the subfields of rhetoric and professional writing; creative writing; literary studies; and critical theory and cultural studies.  Students will be introduced to the life of the department through class visits with faculty members; attendance at Departmental events; and a variety of readings and discussions.  The final task will be to craft a letter of intent documenting their intended course of study.

250.001: Literary Textual Analysis

TR 0930-1045 
Bernadine Hernandez, berna18@unm.edu

This course will provide an introduction to literary studies through Hemispheric American Literary Studies.  We will examine and interrogate how texts form, circulate, and mitigate by focusing on several zones of contact and discussing the ways in which major and minor genres - the novel, travel literature, short stories, the captivity narrative, political essays, poetry, and drama – knit the extended Americas together in complex narratives of interdependence.  Focusing on how literature produces meaning, we will build a literary vocabulary necessary for critical literary analysis, supplemented by theoretical literary methods.  We will examine how the complexities of multilingualism, competing nationalisms/colonial powers, ethnic, and racial differentiations, migrations, and U.S. expansion and imperialism inform robust literary readings that take into consideration a literary history of culture, politics, production, and form.  Texts we will examine are Mary Jemison A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison, Jean Laffite Le Journal de Jean Laffite/The Memoirs of Jean Laffite, William Faulkner Absalom Absalom, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton Who Would Have Thought It, John Rollin Ridge/Yellowbird Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, Geromino: His Own Story, Rosario Ferre Sweet Diamond Dust, Junot Diaz The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Ana Castillo So Far From God, and others.

250.002: Literary Textual Analysis

TR 1230-1345
Belinda Wallace, bwallace@unm.edu

Through an examination of contemporary queer Caribbean literature, this section of English 250 will introduce students to a number of literary genres—novel, essay, poetry, and short story—and several modes of theory and criticism—queer theory, intersectionality, new historicism, and formalism. We will engage Caribbean writers such as Marlon James, Shani Mootoo, Thomas Glave, and Michelle Cliff, as we seek to understand the queer Caribbean experience. These writers, among others, offer intriguing narratives which allow for complex analysis on the intersections of sexuality, race, gender, class, and nation.

250.005: Literary Textual Analysis

MWF 1000-1050 
Scarlett Higgins, shiggins@unm.edu

English 250 is the gateway course to the English major. In it we will learn the fundamental skills needed for literary textual analysis, including critical reading practices, construction of an argument, the use of textual evidence to support an argument, and the best practices for bringing all of these skills together in a research essay.  

To do so, we will study a variety of texts in the major genres (literary fiction, poetry, and drama, in addition to film and graphic novels) all of which have themselves been adapted, transformed, or created as an homage to a text in a different genre. Close analysis of these texts will allow us to see clearly the ways that concepts of genre, inherently involving reader/viewer expectations, affect our reading practices.  

Sample texts may include a segment on noir, with Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep (1939), Howard Hawks’ film adaptation of the novel (The Big Sleep (1946)), and the Coen brothers’ comic update to the noir genre, The Big Lebowski (1998); a segment on Shakespeare’s sonnets and a variety of writers’ tranformations and re-writings of them; Vladimir Nabokov’s novel-as-poem Pale Fire (1962); and Ron Wimberly’s 2012 graphic novel adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, entitled Prince of Cats.

264.001: Survey of Native Literatures and Rhetoric

MWF 1100-1150 Amy Gore, gorea@unm.edu

What is Indigenous literature? Who writes Indigenous literature? What makes Indigenous literature unique? In this class we will read from the major genres of poetry, fiction, and drama while discussing Native literature as artistic, as well as political and cultural, expression. We will also examine other kinds of objects that tell stories in addition to the book, such as winter counts, ledger art, and wampum belts, in order to examine the multiple mediums Indigenous peoples used to create literature before putting pen to paper. This class places Indigenous literature and literary theory at the center of our discussions, but we will also consider the similarities and differences between tribal literatures, between Indigenous literature and American multi-ethnic literature, and between Indigenous literature and Euro-American literature. Throughout the course, students will continue to develop their skills of textual analysis, critical thinking and discussion, and research-based written arguments.

290.002: Introduction to Professional Writing

MWF 1300-1350
Julianne Newmark Engberg, newmark@unm.edu

This is a hybrid Intro to Professional Writing course. It will meet one week in the classroom and one week online, alternatingly. This class will introduce you to methods of effectively communicating technical, professional, and business information to multiple audiences, in multiple modes. You will develop an understanding of theories of technical communication and will practice technical communication in many forms. With an eye constantly focused on audience needs and expectations, we will plan, organize, draft, revise, and edit documents and multimedia texts. We will learn that the content and appearance of each written document must be appropriate to the intended audience.  This course introduces strategies of expository writing style, persuasive communication, and multimodal document design. You will also learn about ethical considerations in the workplace that impact technical and business communicators and the public.  Assignments in this course will represent the most common genres of workplace writing, including resumes, informational graphics and data visualization, usability studies, memoranda, business letters, technical reports, proposals, and instructions. These projects are designed to help you create some initial materials for a portfolio you can use when looking for an internship or employment in the field.  A key component of this hybrid course will also be engagement with and observation of professionals working as technical communicators in workplace settings. 

292.001: World Literature through the 16C

TR 1400-1515
TBA

292.002: World Literature through the 16C

MWF 1300-1350 
Abigail Robertson, agrobertson@unm.edu

English 292 introduces students to a survey of influential works from a variety of the world’s traditions—from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, to Greece and Rome, China, India, Japan, Africa, Europe and the Americas. We will not only seek an understanding of different literary forms and cultural traditions, but will also put these diverse texts into conversation in order to gain a sense of history and, possibly, a sense of how culture can be dialectical and dialogical. We will read, analyze, and discuss our primary works in historical context as well as the contexts of our contemporary globalized world while paying attention to the roles of translation, colonization, trade, religion, and changing concepts of social norms and constructions. Also, we will consider how (or if) literary works from these cultures and historical periods relate to readers and the world today. We will read a variety of sacred texts as literature, that is, we will examine them as works of art and culture. 

293.001: World Literature 17C through Present

MWF 0900-0950 
Deborah Weagel, dweagel@unm.edu 

294.001: Survey of Earlier English Literature

MWF 1100-1150
Carolyn Woodward, woodward@unm.edu 

295.001: Survey of Later English Literature

TR 1100-1215
Feroza Jussawalla, imohf@aol.com

This is a course in the second half of British Literature. We will be using the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II. We will start with some Augustan and restoration Literature, possibly Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock, do the  Romantic poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron and Shelley up through Browning, Virginia Woolfe, E.M. Forster. We will read Passage to India and work our way up into colonialism, postcolonialism and read one Post colonial novel to be determined, possibly Zadie Smith's  White Teeth. YOu will be required to write 3 papers, 2 short reaction response papers and one longer research paper on a topic of your choice. This will be a fun course, reading some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.

296.001: Earlier American Literature

TR 1530-1645
Vincent Basso, vbasso@unm.edu

Our course begins with the work of Richard Slotkin, whose Regeneration through Violence investigates the mythopoeic labors of colonial America. Working from this theoretical framework our class will consider how the idea of America in the United States became mythologized through the writings that sought to define it. The first several weeks of our course will orient our engagement with early America as hemispheric in nature, as we consider both Spanish and English colonial writings in relation to Native American societies. The Protestant theologian Jonathan Edwards and his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741) will provide a touchstone for our shift into the 18th century and a clear antecedent to the persistence of Puritan thought in America. Susanna Rowson’s seduction tale, Charlotte Temple (1791), provides a means by which to analyze the boundaries of women’s social power and the concerns with policing gender and sexual desire in the period. Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative (1789) reflects the international nature of the trade in enslaved African bodies that so marked the insidious production of wealth in the New World. Emerging in the revolutionary period too is Charles Brockden Brown’s Weiland (1798), a novel that indexes American national life in the early days of the republic as anything but stable. The class will then work through the American fables and historical writings of Washington Irving and place these texts in relation to A Son of the Forest (1829) by the Methodist minister and Native American activist William Apess in order to question and critique the narratives of American colonization in relation to the sustained presence and survival of Native American peoples. Our class will conclude with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his essay “Nature” (1836), which helped to launch the transcendentalist movement in America and provides a narrative of national selfhood that is at once bound to its mythological precursors and yet markedly differentiates itself through its idealism and reshaping of potentially new cultural paradigms.

297.001: Later American Literature

MWF 1400-1450
TBA  

This course surveys U.S. literary history from 1865 to the present. Over the course of the semester, we will study works from major styles, movements, and forms in American literature, including regionalism, realism, naturalism, modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, confessional poetry, the Beat movement, postmodernism, and contemporary writing. American literary history is a contested terrain, and accordingly, this course is designed to foreground the central themes, problems, and concerns of American literature. We will devote particular attention to the question of the "individual" in American literature and the relation of literature to economics, politics, and society. This course is fully online. Requirements include 2 short essays, reading quizzes, and midterm and final exams.

300-Level

304.001: Bible as Literature

TR 1100-1215
TBA 

305.001: Mythology

TR 0930-1045 
TBA

315.001: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature

TR 1530-1645
Amy Brandzel, brandzel@unm.edu

315.002: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature: Rewriting Slavery

TR 1400-1515
Kadeshia Matthews, kadeshia@unm.edu 

Just over 150 years have passed since ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed chattel slavery in the U.S., but only after a bloody and divisive four-year war. Given these facts and the numerous changes in American society since 1865, how does slavery and how we perceive and remember it matter? What have been and are the implications for and consequences of the ways in which we do (and do not)understand and remember? This course examines a variety of rewritings of slavery from the antebellum era to the present to begin to answer these questions. We’ll look at literary, historiographic, cinematic and pictorial representations of slavery as institution and set of practices in order to explore how they have shaped our understandings of freedom, labor, race, racism, masculinity and femininity, and American history and culture more broadly. Requirements include substantive participation in class and on-line discussions, a presentation, and two formal essays. Cross-listed with Africana Studies and American Studies.

320.001: Writing Across Academic and Public Cultures

TR 1230-1345
Michelle Kells, mkells@unm.edu

English 320 is an advanced introduction to composition from a rhetorical perspective. The course will focus on the writing process, organization, style, revision, editing, communication strategies, and the use of ethnographic, library, and electronic sources of information. The course is designed to promote the cultivation of a network of relationships conducive to the development of emerging writers (through digital literacy, ethnographic, bibliographic, and other literacy sponsorship practices).  

The aim of ENG 320 is to actively engage you in writing and publishing for diverse audiences by helping you analyze rhetorical situations, construct interpretations of texts, and generate writing samples in a variety of genres. This course will explore the distinguishing features of genre as well as examine how the boundaries of genre become blurred in academic and public culture. During the semester, you will have extensive practice in writing, editing, and presenting your work.  To support the emphasis on the writing process, multiple drafts of major projects are required as well as pre-writing and in-class assignments designed to develop critical thinking skills. 

Group work, writing circles, conferences, peer review, reader response journal writing, film viewing, and field exercises, and oral presentations are integral features of the course. Production of writing samples suitable for submission for publication and/or presentation in academic, popular, or public on-line venues will represent the capstone project of this course.    

The first half of the course will concentrate on the formation of the writer by exploring multiple voices and genres of writing. You will produce:  Reader Response Journal; Literacy Narrative. 

The second half of the course will focus on generating texts for different readers by:  Writing and Publishing for Academic Culture; Writing and Publishing for Public Culture.

 Required Texts:  The Norton Field Guide to Writing, 4^th ed. Richard Bullock; Field Working: Reading and Writing Research.4^th ed. Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater.

321.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction

MW 1600-1715
Jack Trujillo, jacktru@unm.edu  

This is a craft-based class in short literary fiction. The focus of our work is one the specific elements of craft that writers (that's you) use to construct stories and an examination, using your own writing and the writing of others, of how those craft elements can be manipulated to achieve different narrative ends. The first half of the semester is spent attacking in multiple ways the first short story you write: changing point of view, starting the story at an entirely new place, or removing back story, for example. The second half of the semester is spent workshopping a second story written for the class. Both stories have specific limitations and rules (known lovingly around UNM as "Jack's Creativity-Destroying Rules"). Class requires much writing, much reading, two complete stories, a live reading review, a craft review of a collection of short fiction and written critiques of each of your fellow student's stories. Texts are Deepening Fiction by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren and a collection of short fiction by a contemporary writer to be chosen by you in consultation with me.

321.002: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction

TR 1400-1515
Jack Trujillo, jacktru@unm.edu  

This is a craft-based class in short literary fiction. The focus of our work is one the specific elements of craft that writers (that's you) use to construct stories and an examination, using your own writing and the writing of others, of how those craft elements can be manipulated to achieve different narrative ends. The first half of the semester is spent attacking in multiple ways the first short story you write: changing point of view, starting the story at an entirely new place, or removing back story, for example. The second half of the semester is spent workshopping a second story written for the class. Both stories have specific limitations and rules (known lovingly around UNM as "Jack's Creativity-Destroying Rules"). Class requires much writing, much reading, two complete stories, a live reading review, a craft review of a collection of short fiction and written critiques of each of your fellow student's stories. Texts are Deepening Fiction by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren and a collection of short fiction by a contemporary writer to be chosen by you in consultation with me.

322.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Poetry

TR 1230-1345
Diane Thiel, dthiel@unm.edu 

In this intermediate workshop course, class sessions will focus on particular techniques or elements of poetry (i.e.: diction, perspective, rhythm, forms of poetry, etc.).  Creative exercises and assignments will accompany these discussions.  Students will also be workshopping several poems throughout the course.  Because students arrive in such courses with a variety of backgrounds, styles, and interests in poetry, discussions about lineage and the different schools of thought in poetry will be a vital element of the class.  Some of this discussion will arise from the workshop of student poems.

323.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Nonfiction

TR 1530-1645
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu 

This intermediate creative nonfiction course will introduce you to the many possibilities of creative nonfiction, including memoir and the personal essay, literary journalism, travel and nature writing, humor writing, and graphic nonfiction. The writing you do for the class will ask you to draw from your past experiences and passions, your interests and observations. In the first half of the semester, you will read a number of published pieces and do a variety of short exercises intended to target various craft elements of literary nonfiction and generate material for full-length works. The second half of the semester will be devoted to writing and workshopping your own literary-quality essays. You will draft two essays in our class, one of which will be read and evaluated in workshop by the entire class and significantly revised at the end of the semester. Class discussions throughout the semester will concern elements of literary craft, naturally, but also the special kinds of responsibility that fall on writers of nonfiction.

324.003: Introduction to Screenwriting

T 1800-2100
Matthew McDuffie, mcduffie@unm.edu 

335.001: French Literature in Translation: Paris 

TR 1230-1345 
Pamela Cheek, pcheek@unm.edu

Exceptional cities incite great leaps of imagination, while works of art shape urban life.  This course explores the relationship between writing and one of the greatest cities: Paris. We will look at significant changes in the city and the evolution of literary and artistic movements grounded in Paris from 1650 to the present. How did Paris became an international capital of culture? How have struggles to integrate migrants and their traditions and innovations affected the city?  Class lectures and discussion will be in English, but course readings and assignments will be available in both English and French.

349.001: From Beowulf to Arthur

MWF 0900-0950
TBA 

This course is designed as an introductory survey to the literary works produced in England in the Middle Ages, c. 700-1500. While most texts will be read in Modern English translations, class lectures will provide some background on the development of the English language. The class will focus on both the specialized terminology and literary devices particular to medieval English texts as well as the cultural, social and political factors that influenced the development of English literature. Readings will introduce students to a wide variety of medieval genres and will include epic, lyric poetry, romance, mystical revelation and outlaw tale as illustrated in such works as Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood, Sir Orfeo, The Showings of Julian of Norwich and the Rhymes of Robin Hood.

351.001: Chaucer

MWF 1200-1250
TBA

This course focuses on The Canterbury Tales, the final work and masterpiece of Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the greatest and most important writers in English. A mix of the bawdy and the chaste, the sacred and the profane, the high- and the low-class, amongst other dichotomies, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a work that provides its readers with a host of personalities, literary conventions, styles, and much, much more. All primary texts will be read in Chaucer’s Middle English, though students do not need to have any experience with the language in order to take this course. Chaucer wrote during the fourteenth century, a time of great tumult, including famine, plague, political uprising, and religious rebellion. We will consider the Canterbury Talesin light of this complicated historical context while also paying attention to the long and rich history of scholarly criticism on the Tales. Coursework and assignments designed to develop knowledge of the conventions of medieval English poetry, a competence in Middle English, and to recognize Chaucer’s contributions to English language and literature. 

352.001: Early Shakespeare

TR 1400-1515Yulia Ryzhik, yryzhik@unm.edu

In this course we will read and discuss plays from the first half of Shakespeare's career, roughly from 1590 to 1603.  We will follow Shakespeare's development as an artist from his earliest plays (The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, Richard III), in which we see him learning his craft even as he displays his enormous talent, progressing to the lyrically brilliant Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream and to politically savvy histories such as Henry IV Part 1.  The course will conclude with the mature phase of Shakespeare's career, in which he wrote two of his best-loved comedies, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, and reached the artistic and emotional crisis ofHamlet, often considered a culmination of the Bard's interest in representing the life of the mind. 

The main goals of this course are for students to become familiar with each of the plays individually, to learn to appreciate complex dramatic structures and the rich interplay between language and performed action, to understand the plays' literary, historical, and material contexts, and to grapple passionately and analytically with recurring issues such as individual consciousness and conscience, family and relationships, good and bad government, war and violence, sexuality and race, magic and imagination.  Part of achieving these goals is a thorough commitment to learning various methods of literary analysis and improving critical reading and writing skills.

352.010: Early Shakespeare

Online
TBA

This online class is a survey of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan-era drama and poetry (up through 1603 when she died, and it became the Jacobean period when James became king). This includes such works as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, and The Merchant of Venice as well as supplemental works where appropriate and secondary sources that explain and explore commonly discussed themes. Throughout the course then you will learn to identify and describe dramatic structure, characterization, poetics and a variety of themes in their historical context. We will focus not only on analyzing the texts, but understanding the historical and cultural moments they represent. This is an online course which operates asynchronously, which means we will not all be on at the same time, but we will all work off of the weekly schedule. Online courses require your attention and participation, as well as careful reading of all the materials in the course.

353.001: Later Shakespeare

TR 1230-1345
Yulia Ryzhik, yryzhik@unm.edu 

In this course we will read eight plays from the second half of Shakespeare's career as a playwright, roughly from 1603 to 1611.  We will encounter Shakespeare at the height of his artistic powers, yet constantly challenging himself to grow and learn from one play to the next, whether by setting up new formal problems or by exploring new psychological depths and heights. Beginning with Twelfth Night, the last of Shakespeare's "festive" comedies, we will delve into the troubled world of Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, with their pervasive sense of malaise in the state and its people, and of the great tragedies such as Othello, King Lear, andMacbeth, which elevate fundamentally human disasters to a cosmic scale, before concluding with the haunting romances The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. 

The main goals of this course are for students to become familiar with each of the plays individually, to learn to appreciate complex dramatic structures and the rich interplay between language and performed action, to understand the plays' literary, historical, and material contexts, and to grapple passionately and analytically with recurring issues such as individual consciousness and conscience, family and relationships, good and bad government, war and violence, sexuality and race, magic and imagination.  Part of achieving these goals is a thorough commitment to learning various methods of literary analysis and improving critical reading and writing skills.

354.001: Milton

Online
Marissa Greenberg, marissag@unm.edu 

A fully online course on Paradise Lost and adaptation, from the Bible to Sandman!

John Milton’s Paradise Lost holds a unique place in the history of literature and culture. Milton found inspiration for his retelling of the falls of Satan and Adam and Eve in the Bible and Shakespeare, in science and global encounters, and in the religious and political turmoil of seventeenth-century England. So too modern writers – Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, and Philip Pullman, to name just a few – have found inspiration in Milton’s epic.

The primary goal of this course is to introduce you to Paradise Lost and its broad tradition of literary and cultural influence. Through in-depth reading of Paradise Lost alongside some of Milton’s earlier poetry, we will explore his characterizations of heavenly and earthly beings, the themes of free will, temptation, virtue, and poetic invention, and his engagement with the pressing issues of his day. These discussions will prepare us to explore modern adaptations of Milton’s epic in multiple genres, including blackout poetry, graphic novel, and sci-fi and fantasy.

This fully online course will be split between real-time lectures (see below) and online assignments, both individual and caucus style (which may be completed for a range of time). In addition, you will complete two exams on Paradise Lost (also available for a range of time) and a significant final project, either a formal paper or a multimodal production, on an adaptation of Milton’s epic.

Real-time lectures require you be at a computer with reliable Internet access on several Tuesday evenings; exact dates and times will be posted well in advance of the start of the fall semester. Your computer must also have a microphone to allow your participation in real-time lectures. I write “participation” because this portion of the course will be as interactive and dialogic as the static, caucus-style assignments: during lectures you will be expected to ask questions, respond when called on, and collaborate in breakout sessions.

Questions about this course? Please contact Prof. Greenberg directly at marissag@unm.edu.

360.001: Topics: D. H. Lawrence and New Mexico 

MWF 1000-1050
Julianne Newmark Engberg, newmark@unm.edu 

This topics course will focus on the British modernist writer D. H. Lawrence, specifically his period of residence in New Mexico and the texts he produced during these years (1922-1924).  In this span of years, Lawrence lived for periods of months outside of Taos, New Mexico, and traveled to adjacent states, to Pueblo communities throughout New Mexico, and to Mexico.  This course will focus on the poetry, non-fiction (Mornings in Mexico and Studies in Classic American Literature), short stories, and one novel of this era (The Plumed Serpent). We will also read texts by members of Lawrence's circle, including Mabel Dodge Luhan, Mary Austin, Witter Bynner, and John Collier.  Our scope will be interdisciplinary, as well, involving epistolary and journalistic texts from those living in New Mexico in the same period as Lawrence whose insights shed light on what is included and what is excluded in Lawrence's textual output (we will read texts produced by members of the All Pueblo Council, by New Mexico politicians from the Congressional Record, and from contemporaneous newspaper writers).  Finally, Lawrence's importance to American literary criticsm, as established by his Studies in Classic American Literature (finished in New Mexico), will be a focus of this course's final segment. 

360.002: Topic: Classic American Fiction 

MWF 1400-1450
Antonio Marquez, amarquez@unm.edu

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald

This course on literary history offers a study of classic American fiction. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner are arguably the most celebrated and influential writers in American Literary Modernism. We will read the major works and examine their historical-literary contexts. Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night; Hemingway: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Sun also Rises, and A Farewell to Arms; Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, and Go Down, Moses.

387.001: Intro to C20 Poetics

TR 1530-1645
Matthew Hofer, mrh@unm.edu

This course will introduce students to some of the most influential and enduring poetics theories of the twentieth century, with a special focus on the experimental work that amplifies and extends the “classical” tradition (in the senses of “Romanticism” and “classicism”). The goal of the course is to reveal how key discoveries of the twentieth century inform how writing is written now. Given the scope of the topic, some breadth has been surrendered in order to attain deeper knowledge in the main line of aesthetic and intellectual development of the so-called “language art.” Our readings will detail the progression from 1) high modernist poetics, 2) objectivist poetics, 3) projectivist/open-field poetics, 4) “new thing” poetics, to 5) language-centered poetics.

388.002: Shooting Up Montmartre: French Film Noir

TR 1400-1515
Pim Higginson

The expression "noir" was coined in France specifically to address the new American hard-boiled crime fiction of the ‘20s and ‘30s and subsequent films produced by Hollywood in the ‘40s and ‘50s based on this new genre. Yet beginning with the French Poetic Realism of such movies as "Quai des brumes," and "Pépé le Moko," and continuing with the post-War French cinema inspired by the American crime thriller, there is a noir strain in French cinema that continues to this day.

What is and what was “Noir”?  How did French Film Noir address evolving attitudes towards mass commodity cultures, the changing status of women, the place and role of the foreigner, violence, the city, movement...? How did the critical events of the French 20^th Century (two world wars, the fall of  the French colonial empire, and complex social conflict) shape French noir’s own style? 

400-Level

410.001: Criticism and Theory

TR 1230-1245 
Bernadine Hernandez, berna18@unm.edu

This course will chart a diverse field of theoretical schools of thought, from formalism to decolonial theory.  We will study major theoretical movements and critical theories such as structuralism, post structuralism, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, New Historicism, and Cultural Studies.  We will consider the main arguments and distinguishing elements of each theoretical field and the questions and ideas they are attempting to think through, but more importantly, we concentrate on the dialectical relation of these theories and thinkers.  To add to this dialectical conversation of major works, we will examine and interrogate critical theories that have emerged in line with or in direct juxtaposition to these major authors.  Feminist theory, Critical Gender and Sexuality Studies, Queer Theory, Settle Colonial Theory, Women of Color feminism, and Decolonial Theory are some of the adjacent workings that will intervene on these critical approaches.  You will come out of the class with the critical tools necessary to craft an analytical and theoretical argument. 

412.001: Capstone and Honors Seminar

TR 0930-1045
Kathleen Washburn, washburn@unm.edu

This seminar is designed for students who are participating in or planning to apply to the English Department Honors Program. We will address the various research and rhetorical challenges of designing a successful proposal, assessing scholarship across fields, and drafting and revising the Honors thesis. In addition, this capstone course brings together literary, rhetorical, and theoretical materials from different periods in order to investigate the cultural economies of authorship. From the history of proprietary authorship and copyright law to the rise of digital platforms for self-publishing, we will address the relationships among writers, readers, and publishers as well as related debates about print and digital culture, literary history, forms of adaptation and appropriation, and various measures of value for the humanities. We will examine anonymous publications, recovered texts, fan fiction, fake memoirs, experimental histories, and graphic novels. Texts will include Sherman Alexie’sReservation Blues, Unca Eliza Winkfield’s The Female American, Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain, and Marjane Satrapi’sPersepolis. Course requirements include regular response papers, an annotated bibliography, and a research presentation.

413.001: Scientific, Environmental, and Medical Writing

TR 1530-1645 
Michelle Kells, mkells@unm.edu

This course will examine writing across academic, public, and professional spheres to promote the circulation of knowledge toward environmental justice, public health, and community wellbeing. We will apply the theoretical frame of Rhetorical Studies to Technical/Professional Writing as a field of practice to apply, analyze, evaluate, and engage diverse genres and media for a broad spectrum of document users (and stakeholders) within Science, Medical, and Environmental Studies.

Course projects include: Selecting a research topic (an environmental issue in and beyond the borders of the Americas) and writing and revising an intellectual project for academic, public, and professional audiences for publication. Capstone Project: Multi-Modal Working Group project researching (using field research and bibliographic inquiry methods) toward the production of digital articles on public health, environmental justice, and community wellbeing for digital publication in Writing Communities.

Required Books:

• Albrecht, Glenn. “Solastalgia: A New Concept in Human Health and Philosophy.”Philosophy, Activism, Nature (PAN) 1.3 (2005): 41-55.
• Cooperrider, David. L. et al. eds. Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization Toward a Positive Theory of Change.
• Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.
• Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World.
• Killingsworth, M. Jimmie and Jacqueline S. Palmer. Eco Speak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America.
• McMillan, Victoria E. Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences. 3^rd ed.
• Miriam F. Williams and Octavio Pimentel, eds. Communicating Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Technical Communication.
• Edward O. Wilson Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.

Course Projects:

• Multi-Modal Capstone Team Project;
• Field Research Exercises;
• Bibliographic Research (Annotated Bibliography);
• Student Selected Supplementary Reading.

417.001: Editing

TR 0930-1045
Bethany Davila, bdavila@unm.edu

This course focuses on editing as a professional skill. Along with practicing advanced copyediting skills, you will learn about "information design": the creation of documents that are complete, accurate, comprehensible, usable, and appropriate for readers. The class is intended for students interested in careers in technical and professional writing; however, the emphasis on the precision of language will be applicable to any students interested in improving their writing or editing skills.

417.011: Editing

Online
Stephen Benz, sbenz@unm.edu

This course focuses on editing as a professional skill. Along with practicing advanced copyediting skills, you will learn about "information design": the creation of documents that are complete, accurate, correct, comprehensible, usable, and appropriate for readers. Because editors must often be responsible for a document from its inception to its presentation as a finished product, you will also learn about layout and document design, as well as contemporary production processes. Successful completion of this course will provide you with the foundation necessary for a future career in the field.

418.002: Proposal & Grant Writing

MWF 1000-1050
Kyle Fiore, kfiore@unm.edu

This course explores the fine art of raising money for non-profit organizations. You will analyse and/or write effective non-profit documents, including appeals letters, cover letters, brochures, annual reports, case statements and, most importantly, grant proposals. You will study existing non-profit documents and proposals to understand the rhetorical moves they make. You will also learn how to locate and evaluate requests for proposals to ensure the documents you write
contains information necessary to persuade a client or funder that they should fund your project.

419.001: Visual Rhetoric

MWF 1100-1150
Cristyn Elder, celder@unm.edu

Visual Rhetoric is the art of using images to inform or persuade one’s audience. This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of visual argumentation and will cover various aspects of document design, including layout, use of headings, typography, photos, illustrations, charts, tables, and graphs for both personal and professional contexts. The assignments in the course include visual analyses of images and redesigns of images. 

420.001: T: Writing with Class Tropes

TR 0800-0915 
Jerome Shea, jshea@unm.edu 

This course focuses on rhetorical tropes and schemes, on recognizing them and using them in our writing. You will develop a store of particularly useful tropes to amaze your friends and confound your enemies. Not only will we write, but we will analyze other writings, leaning to spot the coy apophasis, the elusive hypophora, the flashy chiasmus, the bullying bdelygmia, and many more. No exams, just writing: five or six short papers.

420.002: T: Writing About Popular Culture

TR 1100-1215
Stephen Benz, sbenz@unm.edu 

This professional writing course focuses on writing about popular culture. Topics include music, film, television, advertising, fashion, visual culture, graphic novels, and gaming. We will study the work of writers such as John Updike, Tom Wolfe, Sherman Alexie, Joan Didion, and Hilton Als. We will learn about publications (magazines, journals) that focus on popular culture. Through short exercises and longer writing assignments, we will work on writing our own pieces about popular culture in a range of formats, including blogs, reviews, informative articles, personal essays, and analytical studies. 

420.003: T: Blue Mesa Review

TR 1230-1345 
Jose Orduna 

This class introduces you to the production of UNM’s national literary magazine, Blue Mesa Review. We receive hundreds and sometimes thousands of submissions each year from authors hoping to see their stories, essays, or poems published in our journal. Your primary responsibility in this course is to assess these submissions—collectively called “slush”—for possible publication in BMR. In addition, you will keep an informal journal about your participation in slush, attend discussion meetings, and write a few short papers. This class requires you to be self-motivating; in some respects, it is very much like an independent study. You must be able to keep up with the workload on your own—and often on your own time.

Please contact instructor for more information on requirements and meeting times.

421.002: Advanced Creative Wriring-Fiction Workshop

TR 1400-1515
Jose Orduna

An advanced course in fiction with a strong emphasis on revision. Combines the workshop experience with classroom study of published authors as well as some theorists on writing. 

421.003: Advanced Creative Writing-Fiction Workshop

Online
Julie Shigekuni, jshig@unm.edu

Note that this is an online offering!

Course Description:  Strong content arises out of identifying and carefully nurturing each layer of a story. We will isolate and combine elements of craft and imagination that generate story. I’m particularly interested in the various influences on a given work of fiction: How is imagination a necessary component of narrative? How does what we experience in our daily lives affect our stories? We will read interviews of writers talking about their work, distill our thoughts in journals, and transform journal entries into aspects of story. Workshop will involve discussion of stories written by workshop participants alongside published stories.

Course Objectives: Development and revision are the focus of this advanced level fiction course. In the introductory and intermediate levels, you learned about the contemporary American short story. You experimented with elements of craft, including character development, image, setting, point of view, plot, theme, and voice. You’ve likely written a half dozen stories that chart your progress as a writer coming to understand how craft informs content. Now it’s time to take a look at what you have and revise. The first draft of a story can be likened to behind the camera work in film, which in the end constitutes a mere twenty percent of the labor. The bulk of writing takes place in revision. The first step involves understand what a story is about; from there, a writer must examine the arsenal of craft, questioning each line—each word. It’s in this process that the novice becomes a seasoned writer. It’s a lot of work! But take heart. You will have access to peer critique and instructor feedback to help hone your sensibility and style.

422.001: Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry

MWF 1400-1450
Michelle Brooks, mbrooksteaching@gmail.com

423.001: Advanced Creative Writing-Nonfiction

TR 1230-1345
Lisa Chavez, ldchavez@unm.edu

This is an advanced creative writing workshop in creative nonfiction.  This class presupposes a certain understanding of the genre: ie. at least a basic understanding of the use scene and dialogue and reflection.  Our goals in this course will be to hone craft skills, try out new techniques in exercises,  and practice revision skills.  While we will read the work of published authors and explore the variety of types of essays that fall into the category of creative nonfiction,  we will primarily focus on workshopping student work.

424.001: Creative Writing Workshop - Script

R 1700-2100
Matthew McDuffie, mcduffie@unm.edu 

444.001: Practicum: Tutoring Writing

MWF 1400-1450
Erin Lebacqz, lebacqze@unm.edu  

Tutoring Practicum students learn to provide effective feedback to newer writers and develop their own skill set as tutors and potentially as future teachers, writers, or professional communicators. The class readings focus on education and the writing process, helping us think about how students draft their papers and what we can do to support their development of their writing and their education. English 444 students are placed in an online English 110 or 120 class, in which they provide revision support to 110 and 120 students. The course requires a final portfolio showcasing the student's work as a tutor and analytic thinker.

445.001: History of the English Language

MWF 1300-1350
Jonathan Davis-Secord, jwds@unm.edu

The English language can be traced back many centuries to a form nearly unrecognizable to most modern speakers. Nonetheless, Present-day English still contains many significant features of its previous incarnations. This course will examine the history of English from its Indo-European roots through its medieval developments to its modern, international forms and the politics and racism of language. In the process, students will learn methods of linguistic analysis and description along with the historical contexts of the developments. No previous knowledge of Old or Middle English is necessary.

455.001: Middle and Late Eighteenth Century: The Early Development of Gothic Fiction 

MW 1600-1715
Carolyn Woodward, woodward@unm.edu

During the last decades of the eighteenth century, English society unraveled, as contradictions surfaced between an English ideology that inscribed individual/societal mutual well-being and England’s actual economic and political conditions. Incidents like the Gordon riots in 1780 (as well as the terrifying reality of the French Revolution) revealed a rupture in the culture. The Gothic novel, which grew from this social climate, was a new and fearful genre for a new and fearful time. The specter of social revolution is manifest in the supernatural specters of the Gothic: a crumbling way of life emerges as a crumbling and haunted Gothic manor; the loss of English social identity becomes the Gothic protagonist’s search for identity. The incredible popularity of the genre in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as for us today, points to a resilience that cannot be overlooked. What is it about these repetitive and fantastical works that is so seductive to readers?  We will read these novels:  William Beckford,Vathek; Horace Walpole, Castle of Otranto;  Charlotte Dacre,Zofloya; Matthew Lewis, The Monk; James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner;  Ann Radcliffe, The Italian.  We’ll view the 2007 film of Jane Austen’s send-up of Gothic, Northanger Abbey.  Requirements: questions for class discussion, 2 exams, one research paper.

456.001: British Romaticism

TR 1100-1215 
Gary Harrison, garyh@unm.edu

Studies in British Romanticism this semester will examine literary works of British and Irish literature from roughly 1769 through 1832 as they intersect with pertinent historical events, cultural practices, and philosophical ideas emerging in Britain, Ireland, and Europe. One aim of the course will be to construct a genealogy and working definition of Romanticism. We will also consider the role of Romantic literature in shaping the rise of Romantic nature philosophy and what some critics call proto-ecological poetics. Primary reading will be in the poetry and fiction of Charlotte Smith, Anna Barbauld, Mary Robinson, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Clare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John Keats, Felicia Hemans, L.E.L., Jane Austen, Sydney Owensen, Mary Shelley, and possibly Emily Brontë. Selections from Rousseau, Herder, Goethe, Kant, Schiller, de Staël, Heine, and Hegel will help us establish the theoretical/aesthetic grounds of Romanticism that for better or for worse still underpin literary criticism and theory.

459.001: Irish Literature

TR 1530-1645
Sarah Townsend, sltownse@unm.edu

This is a momentous year to study Irish literature: 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, which launched the Irish war for independence. With the spirit and energy of the centenary guiding us, this course will investigate Ireland’s rich, beautiful, irreverent, hilarious, and path-breaking literary tradition from the early 20th century to the present. Our focus will be the tricky project of Irish nation-building, and through our readings we will consider how Ireland’s many others (women, Travelers, minorities, immigrants) both complicate and contribute to conceptions of the nation. We will trace Ireland’s political transformation from a British colony to an independent nation, as well as its economic transformation from an impoverished colonial outpost to a modern European destination, and our literary readings will be animated by historical and cultural study. Our course materials include drama, poetry, and nonfiction from the Celtic Revival; literature of 1916 and the war for independence; James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, which we will read in its entirety; mid-century domestic narratives; literature and films from the Northern Irish Troubles; and finally, contemporary works about the Celtic Tiger “boom” and multicultural Ireland. No prior knowledge of Ireland is required – just curiosity and a good sense of humor.

463.001: Modern American Literature

TR 1530-1645
Kathleen Washburn, washburn@unm.edu

The early decades of the twentieth century brought extraordinary economic, political, and cultural changes to the United States. In response to the Great War, reconfigured social hierarchies and gender roles, and economic restructuring through industrialization and global capitalism, some writers turned to nostalgic visions of a rural and pre-modern past; others explored the possibilities of new technologies and urban spaces. From the lost worlds of New Mexico and oil-rich Osage territory to the Lost Generation’s European wanderings, we will investigate how various novels experiment with the new subjects and narrative forms of American modernity. In turn, we will take up contemporary scholarly debates about the history, boundaries, and cultural concerns of literary modernism as movement, period, or set of formal strategies.

The course will include texts by James Weldon Johnson, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and John Joseph Mathews. Course requirements include a research project, two essays, and a final exam.

468.001: Hawthorne and Melville

TR 1400-1515
Jesse Aleman, jman@unm.edu

 This course examines the life, times, and major works of two of nineteenth-century America’s most celebrated and complex writers—Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. By necessity, the course will span biography, cultural history, and literary studies as a way of understanding a selection of letters, essays, short stories, novellas and novels by both authors. We’ll study each author, but we’ll also compare their works for influences and aesthetic innovations, especially in The Scarlet Letter and Moby-Dick. By the end of the class, we will have read the major works by each author; we will have covered each author’s biography, as well as their much-debated special relationship; and we will also emerge with a fairly solid understanding of US literary history and culture during the mid-nineteenth century. 

474.001: Contemporary Southwestern Literature 

TR 930-1045 
Melina Vizcaino-Aleman, mviz@unm.edu

This course is a study of contemporary Southwestern literature from the 1920s to the present. We will read a range of literary texts, and we will understand them in the context of race, class, and gender, paying close attention to how they represent the cultural and geographical landscapes of the Southwest. We will compare these literary landscapes to visual ones in art, cinema, and photography, both mainstream and independent, traditional and experimental. Students will learn about major and minor Anglo, Native, and Mexican American writers and artists of the Southwest, and they will also become familiar with key moments, terms, and tools in Southwest studies. The class is reading-intensive and students should be prepared to write analytical essays, participate in classroom discussions, and complete in-class exams, all of which will enhance their critical understanding of the topic.

480.001: Imagining Ireland 

MW 800-915 
Sarah Townsend, sltownse@unm.edu

This is course connected to a UNM Study Abroad course, “Imagining Ireland.” Admission is by instructor approval only. The deadline to apply has passed.

English 480/580 will explore how Irish history and identity is negotiated through the production of literary canons and counter-canons. Focusing on Irish realism, the Celtic Revival, literature of the Troubles, contemporary writing, and the recent controversy over the Abbey Theatre’s commemoration of the 1916 Rising, we will consider how literature shapes and challenges the very idea of the Irish nation. The class includes regular reading and discussion, short written responses, a final exam, and a research report and presentation. This course is taught in conjunction with History 418/618: Modern Ireland. Our approach to the two courses (each 3 credits) is interdisciplinary: we will study important events in Irish history and explore the ways they are commemorated and contested in literature and culture. The course will include a site-specific immersion in Irish history and literature through study in three cities (Dublin, Galway, and Letterkenny); visits to important landmarks (like the Aran Islands, the Cliffs of Moher, Sligo and W.B. Yeats’s grave, the Derry Guildhall, the ancient monastery at Glendalough, the medieval city of Trim, the National Library, the National Museum, Glasnevin Cemetery); theatrical productions and a tour of the Abbey Theatre; lectures and guest speakers; and much more.

487.001: Advanced Studies in Genre 

W 1600-1830

N Scott Momaday, nmomaday@unm.edu