Course Descriptions for Spring 2017

150.001: Introduction to the Study of Literature: The World is Flat

TR 0930-1045
Jesús Costantino, jcostantino@unm.edu

We live in a world filled with flat images and surfaces. Our world is awash in screens, pages, and prints. As media theorist Marshall McLuhan argues, the invention of the printing press led to the “visual homogenizing of experience,” but it has also led to the visual flattening of experience. In this course, we will study the origin and trajectory of our increasingly flat media landscape and think carefully about what is at stake—personally, politically, historically, socially—in a flat world. We will begin our examination in the late-nineteenth century when a whole host of new technologies and sciences rapidly accelerated the process of flattening, an acceleration that continues into the present day. While our primary points of reference will be traditional literature, film, and photography, we will expand our reach to include a variety of visual and verbal media like graphic novels, board games, video games, and cartoons. Like Alice entering a new world through a (flat) looking glass or Neo achieving enlightenment by seeing his world as a (flat) code, we too will attempt to understand our world anew by looking at and through its flatness.

150.002: Introduction to the Study of Literature

MWF 1100-1150
Kathleen Washburn, washburn@unm.edu

This course is an introduction to the study and appreciation of literature for students who do not plan to major in English. Our course will take up the category of “literature” for popular and academic audiences and the techniques that distinguish critical analysis from other forms of reading and interpretation. We will investigate fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama, comics, and mixed media works by writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Harriet Jacobs, Raymond Chandler, and Marjane Satrapi. From the expectations of genre and the effects of stylistic innovation to the challenges of literary adaptation and remediation, we will explore various approaches to literary analysis and will practice these skills in written responses, a literary letters project, a research presentation, and an exam. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with key debates about literary history across print and digital forms as well as the value of the humanities; students also will address their own experiences as readers, writers, and researchers.

150.003: Introduction to the Study of Literature

TR 1400-1515
Justin Larsen, jlarsen1@unm.edu

English 150 serves as an introduction to the study and appreciation of literature for non-English majors. As such, this course is designed to increase enjoyment from reading by providing students with the tools to understand how literature works and the vocabulary necessary to talk about literature with others, eventually leading to the development of students' understanding of what "good" literature is and how they can find it and enjoy it. Classes will center around the discussion of readings of different genres from various times, locations, and cultures, and the development of arguments about those readings. Three short (2-3 page) papers, one presentation, and a midterm and a final exam will be required.

220.001: Expository Writing: Sexuality, Intersectionality, and Listening

MWF 0800-0850
Rachel Gift, rgift@unm.edu

In this version of English 220, titled “Sexuality, Intersectionality, and Listening," we will explore sexuality, sexual identity, and their intersections with other identities (race, class, culture, religion, gender, language, etc.) in relation to narratives (historical, generational, personal, etc.) and rhetorical situations. We will examine the roles language, discourse, and genre play in representing and defining sexual identity, in shaping perception, in constructing or deconstructing narratives, and in silencing or giving a voice to marginalized groups. We will also examine power structures, dominant narratives, and their effect on actions and voices. Additionally, we will explore our degrees of agency, our perception, our histories, the histories of others, the world around us, and the similarities and differences we find there. In short, through writing assignments, various texts, multimodal projects, class discussions, and listening, we will explore and analyze the narratives about, and rhetorical/situational nature of, sexual identity, as well as the ways it influences, and is influenced by, intersecting social and cultural structures.

220.002: Expository Writing: Stories of War

MWF 1000-1050
Lucas Shepherd, lshepherd@unm.edu

Stories of War: Expository Writing investigates three facets of modern warfare: war reporting, men and women in combat, and veteran status. What is modern warfare? Can it affect the psyche of an entire nation? Why do we fight? Are there alternatives? And, perhaps most importantly: do we the American people construct a narrative of war glorification? Stories of War encourages the asking of those questions that have no easy answers. We will explore war reporting with Kim Barker’s The Taliban Shuffle (the basis for Tina Fey’s film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot); men and women in combat with Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory; and veteran status with David Finkel’s Thank You for Your Service.

220.003: Expository Writing: Modern Love

MWF 1100-1150
B. Colby Gates, bcolbygates@unm.edu

How do we define love in the modern age? In this course, we will search contemporary novels, films, and albums for answers. Through the lens of science and anthropology, we will examine a diverse, wild, gutsy array of narratives that challenge and reinforce ideas about what excellent composition can accomplish. The supporting course materials range in scope and experience— from Anne Carson to Beyoncé .

220.004: Expository Writing: Writing for Change

MWF 1300-1350
David Puthoff, dputhoff@unm.edu

English 220 is an intermediate composition course for students who wish to increase their skills in gathering, reporting, and interpreting information, and advancing their writing for academic situations. This section focuses on some of the genres of writing that are used to directly affect change within a society, whether it be political, economic, social, or lifestyle changes. Students will sample and write posters, banners, reports, and zines, among other formal and informal reading and writing assignments. We will consider how narrative and technical features work together to create community and negotiate complex social decisions. The class will culminate with a reflective letter on how student writing operates once it is out of the classroom as well as out of the writer’s hands.

220.005: Expository Writing: Writing the Southwest

MWF 1200-1250
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, Willa Cather, and Mario Suárez as well as visual works such as Breaking Bad (2008) and Turquoise Rose (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, engage in student led presentations on class materials, and submit 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.

220.006: Expository Writing: Sobering Reality: Alcoholism & Addiction in Literature & Film 

TR 0800-0915
Catherine Hubka, chubka@unm.edu

This course will explore the myths and misconceptions of alcoholism/addiction by examining texts that dramatize alcoholism/addiction, codependency, and recovery. Our objective is to interrogate the problems alcoholics and addicts encounter both while actively afflicted with the disease and while in recovery: the deeply embedded belief that sufferers are morally deficient and that recovery is simply a matter of abstinence, or put another way, a matter of simple abstinence.

220.007: Expository Writing: The Cultural Hero

TR 1230-1345
Mark Caughey, mcaughey@unm.edu

This course will explore not only how cultures construct their heroes but also how heroes construct a sense of cultural identity. We will consider both the hero’s ancient origins and its transformation over time and across cultures -- from the epic hero to its latter-day counterpart: the superhero. To that end, we will examine such texts as The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Saga of the Volsungsand Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Along the way, we will develop a framework that will help us understand how some characteristics of the hero remain constant while others arise from specific cultural beliefs and values. Students will hone their writing and research skills through assignments that include reviews, comparative analyses and annotated bibliographies.

220.008: Expository Writing: Identity: Studies in Caring and Conflict

TR 0930-1045
Kyle Fiore, kfiore@unm.edu

Identity: Studies in Caring and Conflict– “I contain multitudes" wrote poet Walt Whitman, referring to the many ways we see ourselves. From poetry and memoirs to art and selfies, we struggle with the question of, "Who am I?" We also struggle to understand “Who are you?” These two questions have joined and separated us from one another since the beginning of language. How do we see ourselves and how do others see us? How do we make our mark and how do we translate the marks of others? In this course, we will study identity by considering how we have defined ourselves and other people in the past and the present, through art, writing, and activism. We will consider customs and rituals that bring us together and cultural differences that separate us. We will look at the actions people take to make their voices heard. Students will keep a journal, write a memoir, and research a biographic article. Short papers and a research project will culminate in a final semester multimedia project. Authors, artists, and activists we will study include: Tracy Chapman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Frida Kahlo, Kee and Peele, Tim O’Brien and others.

220.009: Expository Writing: The Irish Short Story

TR 1100-1215
David O'Connor, dmoconnor@unm.edu

Read them. Analyze them. Discuss them. Write them. Present them. Submit them.

A chronological survey of The Modern Irish beginning with James Joyce up to the present. Such themes as post-colonialism, feminism, political unrest, terrorism, immigration, The American diaspora, and trans-nationalism will be discussed and studied in context. Approached as a genre course: what is the writer doing and why? As well as, introducing theoretical lenses: how do the themes relate to our current experiences of time and place?

220.010: Expository Writing: Exploration of The Self: Visual Readings of Identity

TR 1400-1515
Melisa Garcia, mgarcia28@unm.edu

A diverse survey of most recent graphic novels that explore the notion of identity through autobiographical narratives of the self. The purpose of the course is to have students understand the relationship of text and image, thematic themes strung through each graphic novel and to question the use of identity as a means to tell a story about the self. Students will critically have analyzed texts they will also compile their own version of a graphic novel exploring the themes and stories found in the graphic novels read.

Furthermore, students will explore the aspects of identity which include race and ethnicity, social status, gender and sexuality, coming of age and religion. They will pay close attention to how language fits its way visually and textually to bring forth various interpretations through a multimodal presentation. This course is designed to grapple and critically analyze the exploration of The Self found in contemporary graphic novels. The graphic novels read will span from Bechdel’s Fun Home, Clowes Ghost World, to Lat’s The Kampung boy and Tomine’s Shortcomings.

220.021: Expository Writing: Just Add Water: The Global and Cultural Roles of Water

Online
Dalicia Raymond, dalicia@unm.edu

Issues surrounding water—access to it, cleanness and preservation of it, and cultural significance of it—have become highlighted recently with major protests over the Dakota pipeline which would affect the water use of Native American tribes, with the massive droughts in California, with the massive flooding on the East coast, yet the importance water plays in our daily lives is not a modern invention. Water has long played a significant cultural role around the world as is reflected in cultural myths, religious practices, and cultural practices. This class will examine water in various ways, exploring how a substance so vital to our survival, yet so often taken for granted has contributed to the shaping of our cultural structures, laws, understandings, practices, and beliefs. The course will consider discussions of water in cultural myths and religious practices, in history and literature, and in environmental science, and in political and social activism. Just as water is liquid and therefore can adapt itself to any circumstances, so too will students learn to be adaptable in their compositions. Students will practice being flexible, fluid writers by composing in various styles, genres, and modes to meet the needs of their audience and purpose.

220.022: Expository Writing: Hamilton's America...and Ours 

Online
Ana June, anajune@unm.edu

The Broadway musical Hamilton is a sensation. Some people have argued that it's one of the greatest works of art ever written, and its composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has been compared to Shakespeare. Using Hamilton as a launching point, we will look deeply in to the issues that arise and affect American culture to this day. Students will compose three major writing assignments: A personal narrative inspired by Hamilton; an issues-based research paper; a rhetorical analysis of the researched issue as it is represented in the greater culture today.

224.001: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1000-1050
Crystal Zanders, cjzanders@unm.edu

A beginning course in the writing of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Emphasis on process over product. Introduces issues of craft, workshop vocabulary, strategies for revision, and the habit of reading as a writer. (CW)
Prerequisite: 101

224.002: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1300-1350
Andrew Bourelle, abourelle@unm.edu

Introduction to Creative Writing will expose students to the genres of literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Students will read, analyze, and discuss published examples of each, examining elements of craft in the different genres. Students will write in each of the genres and share their work with classmates, giving and receiving feedback as a way to improve their writing and the writing of their classmates.

224.003: Introduction to Creative Writing

TR 1100-1215
Mark Caughey, mcaughey@unm.edu

This course will introduce students to the craft of writing in the genres of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction.  In the first half of the course, assignments will stress generative strategies; in the latter half, we will focus on structuring, revising and refining our work.  Likewise, while the first few weeks will address issues of craft common to all genres, we will ultimately be focusing on those concerns and conventions that define and distinguish each genre.  Although each student will be writing in all three genres, no one will be expected to master any of them.  After all, the goal is exploration, not conquest.

Because one cannot be a thoughtful writer without first being a thoughtful reader, we will be engaged in quite a bit of reading -- using stories, poems and essays by established authors as models for our own work.  Moreover, students will be expected to give considerable and considerate feedback on their classmates’ writing.

224.004: Introduction to Creative Writing

MW 1700-1815
Jason Thayer, thayerj@unm.edu

224.005: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 1100-1150
Lydia Wassan, lydiawassan@unm.edu

224.006: Introduction to Creative Writing

TR 0930-1045
Steven Howe, showe@unm.edu

In this course, students will read, write, and discuss/analyze craft elements in the genres of literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Class time will include lecture and discussion of the writing craft, both in large and small groups. In addition to primary writing assignments in each genre, students will read and analyze published works and complete smaller assignments geared toward honing their writing skills. The goal is not perfection in writing, but understanding the expectations and the freedom found in producing work in these creative genres. 

224.007: Introduction to Creative Writing

MWF 0900-0950
B. Colby Gates, bcolbygates@unm.edu

224.009: Introduction to Creative Writing

TR 1400-1515
David O'Connor, dmoconnor@unm.edu

In this Introduction to Creative Writing, we will be exploring poetic forms, non-fiction writing and short stories. We will be writing, reading, analyzing, and discussing published and non-published works. The goal is to expose students to the creative writing process, the publishing world and the writing career. A substantial amount of writing and responding to other works is required. 

224.010: Introduction to Creative Writing

Online
Julie Shigekuni, jshig@unm.edu

This introductory course in creative writing will focus on investigation. We will begin by examining an event from the past, contextualizing it as memoir, then recasting it as a fiction and again as a poem. Life confronts us with a series of questions: the simplest daily goals—such as, what do I want, and how do I get what I want?—are fraught with complications, sometimes related to the search, sometimes not, yet what we are looking for affects the path we choose to take. This class will focus on inquiry and methods of investigation. You will learn a range of methods by which to posit questions and search for answers. We'll read with an eye trained on identifying elements of craft and style used by creative writers. Published essays, stories, and poems will be analyzied alongside participant work . Classwork will consist of close reading and discussions in small and large groups as well as individual writing experiments.

240.001: Traditional Grammar

TR 1230-1345
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 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 board posts.

240.002: Traditional Grammar

MWF 1000-1050
Erin Lebacqz, lebacqze@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. We will also consider cultural applications and norms in reference to current usages of English. Course work will consist of regular homework, quizzes, tests, and a paper.

248.001: From Beowulf to Braveheart

MWF 1400-1450
Abigail Robertson, agrobertson@unm.edu

“A tale,” according the anonymous author of The Saga of Grettir the Strong, "is but half told when only one person tells it.” To understand how something came to be, the thing must be explored from every angle; this is especially true for the story behind the small island off of the coast of France that became home to the unified kingdom of England. Under the staticity of the land we today call England lies the tale of a nation forged by battles against ruthless invaders, decisions made by famous (and infamous) rulers, and the intellectual triumph of poets, theologians, and philosophers. The tale of how England came to be is thus best understood by exploring the rich and tumultuous history, not through the experience of a single mind, but through the writing of the various rulers and scholars who watched it take shape before their very eyes. In this course, students will explore the origin story of England by examining epics like Beowulf and The Wallace (the medieval poem that served as the basis for the film Braveheart), the legend and lore of King Arthur, and the miraculous accounts of local saints. In addition to this, students will consider how our modern conception of the medieval world influences our ability to represent this history in television programs and films like Braveheart, The Last Kingdom, and Vikings. Through these mediums, this course will be centered around questions of what it truly meant to be “English” in the medieval world and how centuries of artistic and literary production paved the foundation for a nation.

249.001: Introduction to Studies in English

T 1100-1215
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.

249.002: 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.

250.001: Literary Textual Analysis

MWF 0900-0950
Melina Vizcaino-Aleman, mviz@unm.edu

This course introduces the practice of literary analysis and the various methods, terms, conventions, and theories that guide scholars as they approach texts. Students become familiar with canonical and non-canonical writers, and read from a variety of genres, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, film, and a novel. Readings consist of both creative works and criticism that together form the vocabulary, theoretical methods, and literary tools students will utilize in oral and written assignments.

250.002: Literary Textual Analysis

TR 0930-1045
Carolyn Woodward, woodward@unm.edu

This English 250 class offers study and practice of literary theory (formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory, gender theories, and literary-cultural theories), grounded in analysis of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, and a collection of poetry. You will write six short papers and one final research paper of 8-10 pages.

265.001: Introduction to Chicano-a Literature

MWF 1300-1350
W. Oliver Baker, woliverb@unm.edu

This course introduces students to the study of Chicano/a literature. We will trace not only the history of Chicano/a literature from the nineteenth century to the present, but also learn of its varied themes, styles, forms, and genres. The goal of the course will be to learn of the role Chicano/a literature plays in the formation of American literature and culture as well as how Chicano/a literature expresses the cultural and political experience of a peoples’ struggle against colonialism, imperialism, racism, patriarchy, dispossession and exploitation. This course will use the theoretical and critical frameworks of borderland studies, settler-colonial studies, critical race theory, feminism, Marxism, and queer theory. Some of the authors we will read and discuss include: María Ruiz de Burton, Américo Paredes, José Villarreal, Rudolfo Gonzalez, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, John Rechy, Tomás Rivera, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Luiz Valdez.

281.001: African-American Literature I

TR 0930-1045
Kadeshia Matthews, kadeshia@unm.edu

This course is a survey of early African American literature. We will read poetry, folktales, oratory, essays, narratives and fiction written by black Americans from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twenieth, focusing on issues of slavery and freedom, and of racial, gender and national identity. Authors will include those you have probably heard of, like Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois, as well as those who are less widely known, like Maria Stewart, Frances E.W. Harper and Sutton Griggs. Grades will be based on participation in class discussion, reading quizzes, short writing assignments and a final exam. Cross-listed with Africana Studies. For more information, please contact Prof. Matthews at kadeshia@unm.edu.

287.001: T: Introduction to Studies in Genre

MWF 1500-1550
Matthew Hofer, mrh@unm.edu

While poems may seem easy enough to recognize, they are notoriously hard to define, and often any literary artifact that isn’t easily categorized as “prose” is often by default called a “poem.” For our purposes in this course, a poem—regardless of shape or length, theme or occasion—is any instance of literary language charged to carry the greatest possible degree of meaning. Poems are about images, music, ideas, perceptions, and, sometimes, feelings. However, in a poem, how a thing is said is as important as what is said, or who is saying it, or where, or why. This is what form adds to mere communication, and it is why poems (unlike technical manuals) continue to interest readers who can accurately paraphrase their content.

"Introduction to Poetry Analysis" is a literary critical course: its purpose is to help you attain the skills necessary for rigorous analysis as well as meaningful evaluation. By examining one poetic feature or effect at a time—i.e., tone, speaker, situation, setting, language, sounds, internal structure, and external form—we will build a foundation for complex critical thinking, which means a consideration of both what poems can do and what critics can do with them. Successful students will not only acquire a range of strategies for approaching difficult texts with confidence, but also develop a vocabulary that is specifically suited to a crucial process of differential reading, word for word, line by line, in order to comprehend entire works fully.

Our reading is deliberately not limited by either period of nationality, and what you learn in this course will be portable to many other English classes as well as your own future reading and/or writing. We will hone our skills by reading and discussing some of the most interesting, memorable, and accomplished poems written in English (I.E., well-crafted or powerfully conceptual), from the Renaissance to the present, always concentrating on influential work that stands as a definite contribution to the art of verbal expression in the English language. This will ultimately help you understand and appreciate the rich poetry culture of the present day. Despite what people may say--usually people who don't read poems--poetry is not dead. Far from it.

290.001: Introduction to Professional Writing

Online
Julianne Newmark Engberg, newmark@unm.edu

This is an online Intro to Professional Writing course. 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, white papers, and instructions. In addition, this class will serve as an introduction to the field of professional communication, and will educate you about the history of Scientific and Technical Communication (S&TC), about career options in TC and related fields, and about workplace issues in these fields (including analysis of audience, significance of user-centered design and usability, expectations for collaborative work, and the standards of web writing). All projects in this course 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. Key components of this online course are group collaboration and the viewing of and writing about a series of videos created specifically for this course by working professionals in the field.

292.001: World Literature-Ancient through 16C

MWF 0900-0950
Lisa Myers, myersl@unm.edu

English 292, “World Literatures: Ancient World through the Sixteenth Century,” introduces students to a representative sample of influential works from a variety of the world’s traditions—from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, to Greece and Rome, China, India, Japan, Europe and the Americas. Readings range from The Epic of Gilgamesh and Shakuntala to The Tale of Genji, and Othello. In addition to such key literary works, the course will also include some philosophical, historical, and cultural texts in order to place these works in their unique time and place. The aim is not only to gain a greater understanding of the development of literary forms and cultural traditions of the world, but also to put these diverse texts into conversation with each other in order to gain a sense of history and the varieties of human experience. Students will consider the ways in which literary works from these various cultures and historical periods relate to readers and the world today.

293.001: World Literature-17C through Present

TR 1100-1215
Belinda Wallace, bwallace@unm.edu

This course will introduce students to literary styles and cultural traditions from across the world. We will examine a myriad of global texts representing different historical periods, multiple points of view, and different geographical areas such as Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. Promoting a culturally and historically informed reading practice, this section of English 293 will place texts in conversation with one another in order to gain a sense of history as well as an understanding of and respect for the varieties of human experience. Furthermore, students will consider how literary works from different cultures and historical periods relate to contemporary readers’ lived reality, cultural norms, and artistic expressions.

294.001: Survey of Earlier English Literature

TR 1230-1345
Kevin Jackson, kj273@unm.edu

Covering more than one thousand years of literary history in sixteen weeks(!), this course is a lightning-fast immersion in English literature from its inception in the early Middle Ages through the 18th century. As such, we will closely examine texts which are representative of literary movements and ideas, as well as important historical and cultural developments. From the angelic visit to the unlettered cowherd Caedmon, to the heroic poems concerning Beowulf or Arthur, and on to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton and beyond, this survey provides groundwork foundational to an understanding of English literature.

295.001: Survey of Later English Literature

MWF 1000-1050
Feroza Jussawalla, fjussawa@unm.edu

English 295 is the second half of the British Literature survey. We start with the Romantic poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, move on to the Victorian period and then into the beginnings of Colonialism, with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and E.M. Forster’s Passage to India and into more contemporary Postcolonial Works. We will use the three part Norton Anthology of English Literature. There will be three short reaction –response papers and a longer research paper on a topic of your choice. Come enjoy reading poetry and prose in a relaxed literature loving atmosphere.

296.001: Earlier American Literature

MWF 1400-1450
Finnie Coleman, coleman@unm.edu

This course in Earlier American Literature is bound to a deceptively complex question: “What does it mean to be an “American?””  Even our most provisional definitions of the term “American” require contradictory exceptions and complicated caveats because the definition refuses to sit still for very long.  What does it mean to be an American in our historical moment on the mourn of the contentious 2016 Presidential election?  How is the current definition of “American” different from what it may have meant to be an American a century ago? …on the eve of the Civil War? …when the Declaration of Independence was signed by the founding fathers?  If we throw in gender, class, and race the potential answers become even more difficult to pin down. 

Our course will be divided chronologically into weekly learning modules that highlight particular themes, authors, and works of literature. Focusing on “Colonial Agencies” we will review colonial history, analyze selected works of literature by prominent colonial authors, and parse the nation’s “founding” documents.  We will then move on to works by major authors who wrote from the end of the War of 1812 to the beginning of the Civil War.  An important final note -- courses dedicated to this period tend to focus almost exclusively on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, James Fennimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.  In addition to these authors we will also read works by women writers of the period such as Margaret Fuller and Harriet Beecher Stowe; African American writers including Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, and Frederick Douglass; and the works of early Native American writers like Samuel Occum and William Appess.  We will end this course with The Emancipation Proclamation as we peek forward into the Civil War, the Age of Realism, and the Gilded Age.  This is an extensive Reading and Writing intensive course.  

297.001: Later American Literature

MWF 1200-1250
Vincent Basso, vbasso@unm.edu

This course is a survey of American literature and its movements after 1865. The class begins with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Poet” (1844) and Walt Whitman’s Democratic Vistas (1871), which provide a sense of literature as a democratizing power as well as the writer’s place in the evolving story of America. Moving from one of the primary texts of the American romantic period, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855), the course looks at the emergence of realism following the American Civil War and the philosophical shift from idealism to the studied pessimism of the naturalist movement at the turn of the century. The course’s preoccupation with a roving and variable American self leads to readings of Kate Chopin, Charles Chesnutt, and Jack London, among others, and consideration of the social issues with which they contend. Bearing in mind the course’s concern with writing and democratization, the class then transitions to modernism and the aftermath of World War I with T.S. Eliot’s visionary The Waste Land (1922) and then to Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The course then takes up post-modernism with Truman Capote’s true crime novel, In Cold Blood (1966). Ana Castillo’s So Far from God (1993) and Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985) provide the tragic-comical capstone texts for the course. Through the study of this diverse array of culturally and stylistically distinct writers the class will consider how Whitman’s vision of the writer as a democratizing agent of modernity has been produced, transformed, and subverted across the 19th and 20th centuries as a means by which to express the polyphony of American cultural life.

304.001: Bible as Literature

Online
Kelly Van Andel, kvanande@unm.edu

This course studies biblical stories within their literary and historical contexts, and it examines how the authors of the Bible utilize literary forms and tools such as the parable, proverb, allergory, and so on to convey particular messages. It additionally stresses the importance of the Bible as a source of English and American literature. Units of study include Narrative, Poetry, the Synoptic Gospels, the Letter, Apocalyptic Literature, and the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament in English and American Literature. There are two exams and one short paper or presentation.

305.001: Mythology

MWF 1300-1350
Nicholas Schwartz, nschwar@unm.edu

This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of mythological traditions that are most necessary to learn and recognize for the study of American and British literature and culture. As such, our focus will be primarily—but not only—on the Western mythologies which most often exerted a major influence on these literatures and cultures. This does not mean, however, that we will spend all of our time reading those myths which feature prominently in Ancient Greek and Roman Literatures. The scope of this course is broad, both geographically and temporally speaking. Texts include the ancient Mesopotamian Gilgamesh and other myths, the Judeo-Christian Bible, along with works from the classical and medieval periods, amongst others. Students will not only develop a valuable familiarity with these various mythological traditions, but they will also be exposed to a number of different ways of reading and analyzing them.

315.001: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature: Hip Hop America: Underground Hip Hop & the Rise of Black Lives Matter

MWF 1300-1350
Finnie Coleman, coleman@unm.edu

The startling election of Donald Trump in 2016 forced wholesale shifts and revisions in the ways we think about race, gender, class, ideology, and their impact in American society and politics.  We take up these important issues in a two-part course on the history of Hip Hop in the United States and the subsequent Globalization of Hip Hop Culture; Hip Hop America and Hip Hop World.  Borrowing the title from Nelson’ George’s important book on the history of rap music, Hip Hop America is divided into three overlapping sections: Introduction to Hip Hop Culture, Underground Hip Hop (politically charged rap music), and the Rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement.  We will begin this highly interdisciplinary course with an exploration of the social, political, and historical roots of Hip Hop Culture - tracing those roots from the griot tradition in West Africa to Cindy Campbell, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and the advent of the culture in the Bronx during the early 1970s.  Our historical exploration of the culture will serve both as foundation and backdrop for a close examination of the systematic marginalization of politically conscious rap music or “Overground” Hip Hop.  Beginning with Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” we will discuss works by Public Enemy, KRS-ONE, NWA, TUPAC, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Lowkey, Angel Haze, Kendric Lamar, Ruby Ibarra, Lupe Fiasco, Vinnie Paz, Brother Ali, and many more.  We will complete the course with a look at the seminal role that politically conscious rap and Hip Hop Culture played in shaping the political sensibilities of the Black Lives Matter Movement.  We begin this section with TI’s response to Lil’ Wayne’s problematic dismissal of the movement as a gauge for how Hip Hop culture will move forward in what promises to be one of the nation’s most controversial social epochs.  We will close the course with a look at emerging trends in Spoken Word poetry, B-Boying, and Graffiti.  Throughout the course we will draw heavily from literary theory, critical race theory, sociology of race and ethnicity, social anthropology, and philosophy of culture as we tease out the intricacies of a profoundly complex cultural tradition.  

320.001: Advanced Expository Writing: Rhetorics of Place & Belonging

TR 1400-1515
Michelle Kells, mkells@unm.edu

Cultivating skills in critical analysis is productive for students of Rhetoric, Literature and Creative Writing. "As soon as a [text] tries to influence one or more persons, to orient their thinking, to excite or calm their emotions, to guide their actions, it belongs to the realm of rhetoric." This course invites students to consider the notion of place and the dimensions of belonging as central to the formation of community and rhetorical act of writing.

This course will apply rhetorical theory to the analysis of diverse literary and rhetorical genres centering on themes of place and belonging: fiction, poetry, film, field exercises, argumentative essays, and narratives. Selected readings and course assignments will be of interest to undergraduate students in English concentrating in Rhetoric and Writing, Literature, and Creative Writing. The content of the course will be equal parts: Rhetoric; Philosophy; Myth; Ecology.

Learning Outcomes:

• Promote awareness and reflection on issues of place and belonging;
• Cultivate a rich intellectual community within the classroom settin g;
• Explore the dimensions of the rhetorical situation shaping texts, authors, and audiences;
• Offer an introduction to a variety of place-based texts and genres;
• Examine environmental ethics in relation to cultural world views and epistemologies;
• Guide opportunities for writing and research on topics relevant to student's experience and understanding of place and belonging;
• Participate in field research exercises and visit local field sites;
• Provide opportunities to circulate and share students' research and writing;
• Form alliances with colleagues and work collaboratively toward common goals;
• Revise texts in response to comments from others so that improvement is evident to readers;
• Engage assignments and writing projects with an awareness of academic integrity (honesty) and the ethics of professional communication;
• Write effectively under time constraints;
• Cultivate a writerly identity and effective work habits (able to produce written products both independently and collaboratively).

Themes:

• Metaphors of Nature
• Alienation and Engagement
• Rootedness and Displacement
• Local and Global Environments
• Culture and Nature
• Balance and Imbalance
• Scarcity and Abundance
• Continuity and Change
• Body (Physical) and Spirit (Metaphysical)
• Competition and Cooperation
• Regeneration and Extinction
• Community and Solitude
• Urban and Wilderness
• Consumption and Conservation
• Sustainability and Depletion

Course Units:

Unit 1: Writing for the Soul
Unit 2: Ceremony for the Soul
Unit 3: Places for the Soul
Unit 4: Food for the Soul
Unit 5: Journeys for the Soul

Required Texts:
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Janisse Ray.
Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. Thomas Moore.
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. Lewis Hyde.
Reverence: A Forgotten Virtue. Paul Woodruff.
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual path to Higher Creativity. Julia Cameron

321.001: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction

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

This is a craft-based class in short literary fiction. The focus of our work is on 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 revising, in multiple ways, the first short story you write: changing point of view, starting the story at an entirely new place, 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. The class requires much writing, much reading, two complete short stories, a live reading review, a craft review of a collection of short fiction and written critiques of each of your fellow students' stories. Texts are Deepening Fiction by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren and a collection of short stories drawn from a short list.

321.002: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction

MWF 1000-1050
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu

This intermediate fiction-writing course emphasizes the analysis, production, and revision of literary short stories. In the first half of the semester, you will read published stories by a diverse assortment of authors and do exercises designed to hone the basic elements of craft, such as the use of scene and summary in plot, character development, POV, and setting. Ideally, these exercises will help you unearth ideas for literary stories. You can expect to write two short stories in the second half of the semester and to workshop and revise one.

TR 1100-1215
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 0930-1045
Diane Thiel, dthiel@unm.edu

In this course, we will explore a variety of different types of creative nonfiction, including travel narrative, personal essay, and memoir, among others. We will read a number of shorter pieces of creative nonfiction by writers such as Judith Ortiz Cofer, Sherman Alexie, Diane Ackerman, and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as essays about the writing of creative nonfiction, by writers such as Tracy Kidder, Lee Gutkind, and Margaret Atwood. The course will include workshop of students’ writing and provide a number of creative exercises to address particular techniques and strategies.

323.002: Intermediate Creative Writing: Nonfiction

TR 1400-1515
Michelle Brooks, mbrooksteaching@gmail.com

This course will focus on the writing and reading of contemporary creative nonfiction. Students will be required to present and respond to essays in a workshop format. Students will also read, write, and speak about contemporary writers.

347.001: Viking Mythology

TR 0930-1045
Vésteinn Ólason

The most important sources we have about the pre-Christian mythology of Scandinavia and Scandinavian settlements in the North Atlantic are two medieval works, usually called The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda or Snorri’s Edda. Both were written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, more than two hundred years after Iceland was Christianized. The Eddas will be our main texts in the course, and we shall read and discuss a wide range of their poems and prose narratives about heathen gods and cosmology. These narratives are great literature that we shall learn to enjoy and appreciate. They contain a wealth of information that we shall try to interpret and organize with reference to other available sources. We will use two course books: The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2014), and Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans. Anthony Faulkes (Everyman, 1995). Each week’s reading will consist of selections from these, together with some other translated material, which students will be able to download from UNMLearn. Other sources and background critical reading that can be consulted in the library will appear in a bibliography, which will also be posted on UNMLearn.

350.001: Medieval Tales of Wonder

MWF 1200-1250
Lisa Myers, myersl@unm.edu

Medieval Tales of Wonder will introduce students to European texts from the Middle Ages that are designed to amaze and astonish. We will read about heroes and monsters in Beowulf and the Saga of the Volsungs and about magic and fairies in medieval romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Sir Orfeo. We will examine the ideology surrounding the natural world through bestiaries, maps and travel narratives like The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and we will study the afterlife and miracles in religious texts such as Dante’s Inferno and The Passion of St. Edmund. The class will place an emphasis on the historical and cultural contexts of these works and approach them through the techniques of literary analysis and theory in order to uncover the ways in which these texts use wonder to explore issues of gender, power, faith and the fear of the unknown. All texts will be read in modern English translations. Class work will include two exams, two short papers and a multi-modal project.

351.001: Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

MWF 1000-1050
Nicholas Schwartz, nschwar@unm.edu

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 Tales in 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 are 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

MWF 1100-1150
Yulia 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, 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 of Hamlet, 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 gender, 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.

353.001: Later Shakespeare

MWF 1400-1450
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, and Macbeth, 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.

353.002: Later Shakespeare

Online
Kara Shimabukuro, kshimabukuro@unm.edu

This online class is a survey of Shakespeare’s Jacobean or Late drama which means they were written and performed once James becomes king in 1603. This course will use four key plays, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest to examine and analyze key issues of the early modern world, including but not limited to race, madness, the role of the supernatural, and globalization.

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 on analyzing the texts, and understanding the historical and cultural moments they represent.

This is an online course which operates asynchronously, which means we will not always be online at the same time, but we will all work off of the weekly schedule. Online courses require your active attention and participation, as well as careful reading of all the materials in the course. While we have a Help Forum for questions (to be answered by classmates, me, and the teaching assistant), if you are not very technologically savvy, and/or cannot navigate or use the programs in the course easily, this may not be the course for you. You do need regular internet access, and a working computer, as well as updated operating systems.

This course focuses on several interconnected assignments including a presentation, a close reading paper, a thematic paper, a final project/paper, and practice assignments and discussion boards that prepare you for the larger assignments.

360.001: T: Hawthorn 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.

364.001: Native Literature and Rhetorics

MWF 1400-1450
Kathleen Washburn, washburn@unm.edu

From species shifts to climate change, the Anthropocene charts our geologic age in terms of the extraordinary impact of human actions on the natural world. What would it mean to read Native American literature on a planetary scale? How do structures of sovereignty and settler colonialism intersect with environmental models of temporality and agency? This course investigates how Indigenous writers and filmmakers from various regions and communities represent homelands, human/non-human relationships, and forms of ecological knowledge. We’ll take up debates about uranium mining on Native territory, oil culture and Indigenous labor, conflicting jurisdictions for natural resource management, and the complex rhetoric of environmental stewardship for storied lands. Beyond these related themes, we’ll also address questions of aesthetic form and applied knowledge as linked to the biopolitics of language and literature.

Texts for the course include fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by William Apess, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, Thomas King, Simon Ortiz, LeAnn Howe, John Joseph Mathews, Gerald Vizenor, and Craig Santos Perez. Course requirements include a presentation, analytical essays, and a final exam.

388.002: T: I, Rebel: Youth and Rebellion

TR 1230-1345
Jesus Costantino, jcostantino@unm.edu

In this course, we will examine the relationship in cinema between youth culture and political resistance, a tense relationship that deepens in the post-World War II era and continues into the present. Is it possible for a commercial medium like film to have a truly revolutionary politics? Is rebelliousness just the personal style and emotional affect of adolescence? Do we outgrow our revolutionary spirit? Why are movies particularly interested in these questions? And why are American cinema and culture so frequently the reference points for filmmakers (and filmgoers) around the world who seek to understand, articulate, or experience more fully the relationship between youth and rebellion? In order to answer these questions, we will look at example films made since 1950 in the United States and abroad. Ultimately, our goal will first be to uncover what makes film ideally suited to the contradictory impulses of revolutionary aesthetics and youth-driven commodity culture, and second, to examine why this problem is so frequently expressed in the idiom of American cinema.

397.001: Regional Literature

MWF 1100-1150
Melina Vizcaino-Aleman, mviz@unm.edu

Regional literature has shaped and responded to American history and culture from the very beginning. We will explore the topic byway of three major themes: the newcomer, modern change, and the folk. These three themes structure the class and its exploration of regional literature, from New England, New Orleans, the South, the Far West, Plains West and Southwest. We’ll examine how the emergence of regionalism occurs from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries as a response to national and global pressures bearing down on a specific geographical locale; we’ll come to understand the aesthetic diversity of regional writing as it encounters romanticism, realism, naturalism, local color writing, modernism and feminism; and we’ll grasp the major issues impinging on contemporary criticism. We focus our readings on canonical and lesser-known short fiction and come away with a solid grasp of the historical and aesthetic diversity of regional American literature.

414.001: Documentation

Online
Julianne Newmark Engberg, newmark@unm.edu

This online documentation course in advanced technical communication will focus on creating various kinds of documentation to serve specific audiences’ and clients’ needs. This course will prepare you to write technical documents in professional and organizational contexts (business, government, nonprofit agencies) and this class will model the document-creation practices common in technical writing careers. Students will learn what technical writers and editors do and what skills they need. We will also learn about other tasks in the content development process, such as creating visual content and editing. Specifically, students will focus on writing instructions, procedures, product descriptions, safety manuals, and other texts/multimodal outputs that help users to solve problems. A key component of this online course is group collaboration, as this course seeks to model to “remote” workplace nature of many technical writers’ careers today, which require synchronous and asynchronous collaboration using a variety of communication tools.

417.001: Editing

MWF 1000-1050
Bethany Davila, bdavila@unm.edu

This course focuses on editing as a professional skill. Along with practicing advanced copyediting skills, you will learn how to perform a comprehensive edit: editing documents so they 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 precision of language will be applicable to any students interested in improving their writing or editing skills.

418.001: Grant and Proposal Writing

TR 1100-1215
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.

420.001: T: Blue Mesa Review

MWF 1400-1450
Jose Orduna, jorduna@unm.edu 

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. 

420.002: T: Writing in Global Contexts

TR 0930-1045
Todd Ruecker, truecker@unm.edu  

This course arises out of the recognition that there are more nonnative than native speakers of English and that we can increasingly expect to communicate with people from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds in our professional lives. The class will begin by giving students a theoretical grounding in cross-cultural communication with readings primarily from scholars in applied linguistics and rhetoric that focus on issues such as native/nonnative speaker power hierarchies, communication styles, and cultural situatedness. As the semester progresses, the readings will focus on cross-cultural communication considerations when communicating in different settings: journalism, creative writing, advertising, technical communication, internal corporate communication.

420.003: T: Better Call Cicero: Legal Rhetoric & Writing for Undergrads

MWF 1200-1250
Soha Turfler, turflers@unm.edu 

Thinking about law school?  Like to argue with your family friends, but want to improve your style?  Want to debate who’s the better lawyer—Chuck or Jimmy from Better Call Saul?  Then this course is for you!

This class is designed to introduce undergraduate students to the basics of legal rhetoric and writing.  We will study the appeals commonly used by the legal profession and begin to “think like lawyers.”  We will learn how to create persuasive arguments in response to a variety of situations.  And we will examine popular representations of lawyers (fictitious and real) in order to better understand the role of the profession in contemporary American society.

Although this class is designed for future law students, the concepts we will explore and skills we will develop can help students from a variety of majors and fields prepare for their future careers.

Class assignments will include several low-stakes arguments, memoranda, and responses; moot court or group debates using multiple modes and mediums; and an analysis of a legal argument of the student’s choosing.  Readings will be drawn from a variety of rhetorical and legal theorists.  We will also look at arguments and appeals made by famous American lawyers, both fictitious and real.

Outcomes for the course include:

A. Analyze Legal Rhetoric:You will analyze rhetorical situations and commonly used appeals in legal rhetoric and writing.

B. Compose Multimodal Arguments: You will compose persuasive and coherent arguments and counterarguments using multiple modes and in various mediums.

C. Conduct Focused Research: You will conduct research into focused questions and issues using publicly available legal databases and University library resources.

D. Explore the Professional Ethos: You will explore the ethos and role of the legal profession in contemporary American society.

E. Reflect on Your Progress: You will reflect on your experiences and engagement with the goals and outcomes for the course. 

421.002: Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction

TR 1530-1645
Daniel Mueller, dmueller@unm.edu

I believe every piece of fiction has contained within it the seed, or blueprint, of what it ultimately wants to be.  For the author, fully realizing a piece of fiction requires carefully listening to what the narrative is telling them during the act of composition, from the first sentence to the last, and at every stage of revision.  In this way, it seems to me, pieces of fiction are born.  Fully realized works of fiction rarely happen in single sittings; for this reason, the fully realized short story, meant to be read in a single sitting, is always a sleight-of-hand, the weeks, months, and even years the author has devoted to it seamlessly concealed.  For this reason, too, fiction writing must be a practice, excelled at, if such a thing is possible, only over time and by making it a routine in our lives.

Responding well to another writer’s fiction is, I also believe, as arduous an act of the imagination as writing one’s own for it requires us not only to imagine the fictional world summoned by the words the author has chosen, but to imagine ourselves in the author’s position to their text. 

As members of a fiction workshop, we will listen to each work as carefully as its author has and formulate in words the messages it has for them.  English 421 provides the serious fiction writer an invaluable opportunity to have their work read deeply and discussed deeply by a panel of equally serious fellow writers who share, in their hearts and minds, a singular commitment to bringing the piece of fiction as close as possible to completion.

During the semester, expect to complete several writing prompts, read one published story and one published craft essay per week, write thorough critiques of your peers' original fiction and no less than two of your own original works of fiction, meant to be shared with the workshop group.  This course is both writing- and discussion-intensive.

422.001: Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry

TR 1400-1515
Lisa Chavez, ldchavez@unm.edu 

This is an advanced creative writing workshop in poetry.  This class presupposes a certain understanding of the genre: ie. at least a basic understanding of the use of image, line, and form.  Our goals in this course will be to hone craft skills, try new styles and forms of poetry, and practice revision skills.  While the focus of the class is on workshopping student poems, we will also read a variety of work from poets new and established. 

423.001: Advanced Creative Writing: Nonfiction

MWF 1300-1350
Marisa Clark, clarkmp@unm.edu

In this workshop-centered course, you will hone the skills you learned in English 323 and expand on and experiment with them. Each student will write, workshop, and significantly revise two essays, as well as work on a number of exercises. We will read a variety of published works by a diverse assortment of essayists to broaden our knowledge of the subgenres of creative nonfiction, with an emphasis on literary journalism and the personal essay. This is an advanced creative writing course, and I expect your creative works, workshop evaluations, and participation in discussions to reflect an advanced level of understanding of the genre. Additionally, in all of your writing and during workshops and class discussions, I expect you to express your viewpoints responsibly and respectfully—you can expect the same of me.

432.001: T: Borderlands Culture

MWF 0900-0950
Bernadine Hernandez, berna18@unm.edu

In this course we will utilize a historical framework to investigate the production of the US-Mexico border and the culture that surrounds this arbitrary construct.  We will start our investigation in the nineteenth-century and move to our global age to examine how the process of racialization and technologies such as gender and sexuality inform the constantly shifting ideologies of the border.  Starting in the nineteenth century, we will look at political and legal documents of US Expansion and Manifest Destiny in the wake of empire to not only examine the production of the border, but also examine how the logics of settler colonialism and the construction of blackness are a haunting presence in the invention of “Mexican America”.  We will be focusing on “invention” and “construction” as a historical process and will look at letters, editorials, newspapers, and visuals to think through the logics of shifting borders within US Empire and how the many wars going on within this historical time period further shaped its existence.  In conjunction with the historical specificity, we will be looking at borderland theories that consider how border histories reflect different subjectivities and positionalities, beginning with the canonical Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands: La Frontera (1987).  Some questions we will be asking are: How do the legacies of racial, gender, sexual, and class differentiation inform or (re) produce the geopolitical space of the border within U.S. Empire and Imperialism?  How do the fiction, short stories, letters, film, art, and theories undermine and challenge conventional histories of citizenship, US history, and shifting borders?  In constructing a historical and structural framework of the border, we will move to contemporary discussions of how the border becomes an abject and fungible space in our current global age.  Focusing on gender, sexuality, and the border, we will look at films by Lourdes Portillo Senorita Extraviada (2001), Funari and De La Torres Maquiapolis (2006), and the new TV series The Bridge (2013).  Other requires texts we will be drawing from are: Sandra Cisneros Woman Hollering Creek (1991), Norma Cantú Canicula (1995), Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita Lunar Braceros (2009), Kelly Lyttle-Hernández Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (2010), Mary Pat Brady Extinct Land, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space (2002), selections from Rosa Linda Fregoso and Alicia Schmidt Camacho. Requirements: active participation and attendance, reading responses, a midterm, and final paper. 

442.001: Major Text in Rhetoric

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

This course will explore classical rhetorical theory and practice as reflected in literary representations of Western history, education, and democratic political systems. We will examine the Greco-Roman Rhetorical tradition as it has shaped our historical and current roles as citizens, rhetors, and scholars. We will apply the lens of Classical Rhetoric to examine and critique contemporary civic issues such as the 20^th century U.S. civil rights movements; environmental justice; feminist movements, etc. The rich literary and rhetorical legacy of the classical Greco-Roman tradition will be examined through diverse rhetorical artifacts including film, poetry, speeches, drama, essays, letters, fiction as well legal treatises and policies. These different genres tell the stories of collective struggle, achievement, and citizenship that shape current trends in education, law, socio-economic policy, government, and political participation.

Course Assignments include:

Team Rhetorical Analysis Exercises (5)

• Class Discussion Presentations (2)
• Mid-Term Take Home Exam
• Final Rhetorical Analysis Project

Learning Outcomes:

Course readings, assignments, exercises, and class discussions are designed to promote the following learning outcomes:

• Generate principled interpretations of rhetorical texts;
• Appropriately explain and apply rhetorical theory;
• Analyze diverse literary and oral genres from various rhetorical perspectives;
• Synthesize and evaluate various rhetorical theoretical systems toward the production of an intellectual project;  
• Engage and apply key terms of classical rhetorical theory;
• Situate the study of classical rhetorical theory within the context of deliberative democratic social systems;
• Define and apply critical rhetorical terms to text analysis;
• Produce a research-based intellectual project using the critical lens of rhetorical analysis;
• Guide and participate in class discussions of course readings;
• Cultivate alliances with peers and work collaboratively toward common goals;
• Connect classroom learning to rhetorics of everyday life.

Required Texts:

Crowley, Sharon and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 5^th ed.
Kells, Michelle Hall. Héctor P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights.
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie Killingsworth. Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary-Language Approach.
Lanham, Richard A. A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. 2^nd ed. University of California Press, 1991.
Woodruff, Paul.  First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea. Oxford UP, 2006.
 
Required Film:
Athens: The Dawn of Democracy

444.001: Practicum: Tutoring Writing

MWF 1300-1350
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 provide real feedback for student writers in an online English 110 or 120 class. The course requires two Case Study assignments, in which students analyze and provide feedback for 110 or 120 students; and a culminating investigative paper and student-led class discussion in which students study a pedagogical or writing-based question of their own choosing. 

447.001: Introductory Old English

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

Hwæt! In this class, we will return to the earliest recorded form of English and read some of the oldest literature ever written in the language. We will read of a divinely inspired cowherd, a cross-dressing saint, a wandering exile, and other texts, all in the original Old English. No prior knowledge of Old English needed!

451.001: T: Uppity Medieval Women

W 1600-1830
Anita Obermeier, obermei@unm.edu 

This course examines medieval discourse about women and by women. Even though many dichotomous labels exist for women in the Middle Ages—such as saint and sinner, virgin and whore—these belie the variety of subcategories within the spheres of medieval women: handmaidens to God, virgin saints, mystics, anchoresses, trobairitz, courtly ladies, ethereal dolce stil nuovo women, bourgeois merchants, lovers, witches, and writers. The course will explore female characters penned by male authors and works written by medieval women. Women in the Middle Ages can be “uppity” in a number of ways but especially through sword, pen, and sex. For instance, female authorship is a transgressive act. We will examine in which ways the writing of medieval men differs from the works by women, both in British and continental literary texts. For the theoretical framework, we will apply medieval authorship theories, ancient and medieval gender theories, and modern feminist approaches. Authors and texts may include, but are not limited to, Sappho, Ovid’s Heroides, trobaritz poetry, Lais of Marie de France, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Julian of Norwich, Celtic Women, the Virgin Mary, Christina of Markyate, Margery Kempe, Hildegard of Bingen, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Silence, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Christine de Pizan, The Condemnation Trial of Joan of Arc, the Malleus Maleficarum.

455.001: Middle to Late 18C: Gothic Fiction

TR 1230-1345
Carolyn Woodward, woodward@unm.edu  

During the last decades of the eighteenth century, English society unraveled. The philosophies of Shaftesbury, Adam Smith, and David Hume, which for most of the century had justified the self-interested behavior of the privileged classes, lost their power. Contradictions surfaced, between an English ideology that inscribed individual and social mutual well-being, and England’s actual economic and political conditions. Events like the Gordon riots in 1780 and 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? Requirements: questions for class discussion, 2 exams, one research paper. 
Texts: William Beckford,Vathek; Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya; James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; Matthew Lewis, The Monk; and Ann Radcliffe, The Italian.

457.001: Bigamists, Thieves, and Murderers: Criminality and the Victorian Novel

TR 0930-1045
Aeron Haynie, ahaynie@unm.edu 

In this course we will examine the Victorian novel's representations of criminality, including juvenile gangs, madness, infanticide, murder, and vampirism. What does this Victorian fascination with transgression reveal about the construction of the self, English notions of the colonial 'other', gender, and social class? How does the novel both critique and uphold social authority? We will use Foucault's notions of the diffusion of power and D.A. Miller's argument that the 19th century novel enacts a form of surveillance as a frame for our discussions.

At the same time, we will read and relish the prose of a diverse group of Victorian novels: Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, George Eliot's Adam Bede, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. 

462.001: American Realism & Naturalism

MWF 1300-1350
Kathryn Wichelns, wichelns@unm.edu

As literary movements, American realism and naturalism express and respond to the crisis in national identity that characterizes the late-19th, early-20th-century period. The era is marked by cultural shocks: demographic shifts, as non-white and non-Protestant immigration to the U.S. increases; unprecedented economic inequality, urbanization and overcrowding; federal withdrawal from the South and the rise of Jim Crow; Manifest Destiny, the so-called “Indian Wars,” and the 1898 Spanish-American War; and the emerging visibility of women workers. Writing in the period of the railroad, the typewriter, and the photograph, these authors call for an end to literary romanticism, seeking to depict the realities of an American landscape increasingly marked by ethnic conflict, monopoly capitalism, and urban poverty. In different ways, each examines the influences of environment, race, heredity, and gender on individual development. Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, Henry James, and Mark Twain represent the conflicts of their own changing society through depictions of characters who most embody its values. Rebecca Harding Davis, Louisa May Alcott, W.E.B. DuBois, Jacob Riis, and Upton Sinclair form new approaches to writing as activism. Sarah Orne Jewett, Zitkala-Ša, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sui Sin Far, and Abraham Cahan dismantle the notion of a cohesive national identity by articulating differences of region, race, and ethnicity. The contradictions evident in literary expression during this dynamic era lie at the foundation of twentieth-century questions surrounding the role of literature in the construction of an American “national” consciousness. Student evaluation will be based on active participation, a mid-term essay exam, regular unannounced short-answer quizzes, and a final paper.  

466.001: African American Literature: Anger, Voice and Violence in Black Women's Stories 

TR 1530-1645
Kadeshia Matthews, kadeshia@unm.edu  

This course interrogates the stereotype of the angry and vocal black woman, focusing particularly on texts authored by black women and the ways in which they offer more complex and nuanced depictions of black women's anger than those we are used to seeing in popular culture (e.g., Amos ‘n Andy’s Sapphire, Martin Lawrence’s Sheneneh, Tyler Perry’s Madea). We know the stereotype, but what do black women themselves have to say about their own and other black women’s anger? At whom or what have they been angry and why? Why and how is that anger expressed, suppressed, marginalized or denied? Under what circumstances, if any, might it be acknowledged and validated? What are the uses of anger? Are certain kinds of anger more legitimate, empowering or productive than others? How do black women think they should respond to the wrongs and oppressions that produce anger? Our examination of these and other questions will be historically grounded, and we will consider music, film and other kinds of texts alongside traditional literary works. Crosslisted with Africana Studies, Women's Studies and American Studies. 

468.001: T: Latino/a 19th Century

TR 1100-1215
Jesse Aleman, jman@unm.edu  

This course maps nineteenth-century American literary history through the lives and writings of Latinos/as living in the United States as citizens, exiles, immigrants, or ex-patriots, who used key publishing hubs, such as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, San Antonio, Santa Fe, and San Francisco, to write about topics ranging from slavery and independence; race and religion; republicanism and the railroads; and American customs and Latino/a cultures. These writings—many of them only recently recovered from archival research—tell the story of the emergence of US Latino/as in the literary, political, and cultural world of nineteenth-century America, where debates about slavery took on different contours for Cubans, Manifest Destiny meant dispossession for many Mexican Americans, and the Spanish-language press proved to be the bedrock of the literary scene. The course will be, in part, a study of genre emergence, as we’ll read texts that are “firsts” for Latino/a print history: the first historical novel; the first collection of poetry; the first novel to be written in English; the first autobiography; and the first short-story cycle. However, the course will also be one in mapping a new literary history, one that reads Latino/a texts that span the nineteenth-century, from the 1820s to the 1890s, and chart the correlation between Latino/a literary production, American cultural history, and the bifurcated nature of national belonging that continues to vex U.S. Latino/as in the literary and political spheres. All texts will be read in English—some texts will puff the rhetoric of republican governance; other texts include cross-dressing and racial passing; and more than a few extol enough high melodrama in bad fiction to compete with the best contemporary telenovela.

479.001: Postcolonial Literatures

MWF 1100-1150
Feroza Jussawalla, fjussawa@unm.edu

This is a class in literature written in English by peoples of the “postcolonial” world or those writers emanating from countries that were previously colonized by the British Empire. We will be reading Indian authors such as Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie, African authors, not just the classics like Achebe and Ngugi, but contemporary writers like Ya Gassi ( African diaspora) Helen Oyeymi, Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This class will be of interest to creative writers seeking to know what makes a novel a New York Times best seller to students interested in issues of diversity and some postcolonial theory. There will be short reaction- response papers and a longer research paper to be completed. Please contact Dr. Jussawalla at fjussawa@unm.edu, with your questions.

480.001: T: The Irish Literary Imagination

MWF 1000-1050
UNM Study Abroad - Late Starting - March 20th
Sarah Townsend, sltownse@unm.edu

This is course connected to a UNM Study Abroad course, “Imagining Ireland.” Admission is open only to students who apply to and are accepted into the study abroad program. Admitted students will complete two linked spring courses, English 480/580 and History 418/618, and then will travel to Ireland May 17-31. For more information, visit:

https://studyabroad.unm.edu/student-programs/imagining-ireland-unm-short-term-study-abroad-ireland

This course is a late-starting spring course and will begin on March 20.

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 Gweedore); 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.

486.001: British Fiction

TR 1400-1515
Belinda Wallace, bwallace@unm.edu

Over the last 50 years, Black Britons represent the most rapidly growing demographic in Great Britain. The term “Black” in Britain denotes not only descendants of the African Diaspora, but also people of Asian and Middle-Eastern origins. Thus “blackness” represents a political position just as much as it is signals a “racial” identity. In this course, we will examine the literature of Black British writers and explore the ways in which their literature may be seen as a critical response to British exclusion, most commonly practiced through colonialism, imperialism, and xenophobia, as they seek to articulate a British identity and lay claim to Britain as their homeland. 

487.001: T: T.S. Eliot & W.C. Williams 

T 1600-1830
Matthew Hofer, mrh@unm.edu

T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams are two canonical American writers whose bodies of work tower over the development of modernist and contemporary literature alike. While both tend to be read and celebrated primarily as poets, we will be studying their poetry and poetics in the broader context of their prose—fiction and criticism—as well as Eliot’s drama. The objective of the seminar, which emphasizes close formal and historical analysis, is to refine our understanding of the nuances of Eliot and Williams’s influential careers.    In this fashion, we will strive not only to come to better terms with their individual contributions to literature and culture, but also to discover more precisely how the tensions between these modernists’ sharply opposed aesthetic, intellectual, religious, and political commitments informed the literary work of their contemporaries . . . and continues to inform that of ours.

499.001: Internship

TR 1400-1515
Julianne Newmark Engberg, newmark@unm.edu 

Are you a Professional Writing Student currently in your Junior or Senior year, and want to put all that book-learning to good use in the world beyond the university? Do you want to get credit for it? Maybe even get paid? Then you should enroll in ENGL 499, our Internship course. In our Internship course, you will develop resumes, cover letters, work on your web presence, get tips for engaging the job search, build a professional portfolio, and generally prepare for the next steps you take as a professional writer once you graduate. Students are responsible to set up their own internships, however, several firms around town contact our faculty with opportunities, so please feel free to contact Dr. Newmark to ask about opportunities and "Like" the UNM Professional Writing Program on Facebook to keep track of our most recent internship announcements. Please join us this Spring for a great internship course!