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Upper Division Courses - Fall 2009
Welcome
Please note: the following list is subject to change and may not be comprehensive. Please check the online course listing for the full roster along with information on class days/times and room numbers. The course location is at UHD Main Campus unless otherwise noted.
Course Titles
ENG 3302 - Business and Technical Report Writing
ENG 3306 - Introduction to Literary Theory
ENG 3310 - Studies in Non-Fiction Writing
ENG 3313 - Studies in Dramatic Literature (UHS at Cinco Ranch)
ENG 3318 - Studies in English Grammar (UHD at LSC - Kingwood)
ENG 3318 - Studies in English Grammar (UHD at LSC - CyFair)
ENG 3320 - History of the English Language
ENG 3328 - Documentation and Manuals
ENG 3347 - Studies in Early Modern British Literature and Culture
ENG 3364 - Studies in US Literature and Culture after 1900: The 1930s
ENG 3367 - Nineteenth-Century British Literature & Culture: British Romanticism
ENG 4311 - Contemporary Literature: Literature and Culture of the South Asian Diaspora
ENG 4322 - Editing, Rewriting, and Copyreading
ENG 4330 - Humanities Seminar: Christmas in American Culture
English 3302 - Business and Technical Report Writing
Wayne Schmadeka
Three sections:
MW 10:00 - 11:15 a.m. (CRN: 11503)
MW 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. (CRN: 11148)
TR 8:30 - 9:45 a.m. (CRN: 11208)
Prerequisite
Three credit hours of English literature.
Description
Students will study and practice writing the types of documents frequently used in the workplace, including cover letters and resumes, proposals, progress reports, formal reports, and PowerPoint presentations.
Learning Outcomes
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Research, design, create and prepare informal and formal documents suitable for the workplace
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Balance visual and verbal elements of communication in documents and oral presentations
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Use current technology to search for and report information
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Edit documents for correctness
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Respond usefully to others' writing
Major assignments include writing
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Cover letters and resumes in response to job announcements
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A proposal for a recommendation/feasibility report
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A progress report
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A recommendation/feasibility report
Recent examples of reports include
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Recommending construction of a pedestrian walkway froman off-campus parking lot to the UHD campus
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Evaluating whether it is better for a student to remodel her existing home or build a new home
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Soliciting funds from the Gates Foundation for an HIV prevention program in provincial China
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Recommending upgrading HISD Police vehicles with state-of-the-art communications equipment
Textbook
Jones, D., and Lane, K. Technical Communication. 7th ed. New York : Pearson Education, 2002. ISBN: 0205325211.
English 3306 - Introduction to Literary Theory
Giuliana Lund
TR 1:00 - 2:15 p.m.
CRN: 11280
This course introduces students to the major theoretical approaches employed in contemporary literary studies. Students will not only learn how to recognize and critically evaluate distinct theoretical approaches, but also how to utilize these approaches in their own original analyses of texts. The course includes formalist, structuralist, poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, queer, new historicist, Marxist, and postcolonial theories. It provides students with a broad range of sophisticated analytical tools and a heightened critical acumen that prepares them for advanced literary and cultural studies.
The course is organized around a case study, using vampire tales as the central object of analysis, particularly as represented in Bram Stoker's Dracula, a novel that has produced a large body of criticism drawing on different theoretical schools. Studying psychoanalytic, feminist, Marxist and other approaches to Dracula illustrates the way in which various methodologies produce distinct readings of the same story. The course thus follows a tripartite structure: first, students analyze an influential theoretical text; second, they examine a work of criticism on Dracula inspired by this theoretical text; third, they apply a chosen methodology to their own interpretation of a vampire narrative. Requirements include attentive reading, four short interpretive essays, and two quizzes. No previous exposure to literary theory or special interest in vampires is expected. This course is highly recommended for English majors and students interested in graduate study in literature or the humanities.
English 3309 - Creative Writing
Jane Creighton
Fall 2009
MW 8:30 - 9:45 a.m.
This class will introduce students to the skills, practices, and innovations of published writers in the genres of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. We will experiment daily and weekly with different forms in these genres. Over the course of the short semester, students will build a portfolio of their own writing, and will engage in lively critical response to the writing of others. Whether you are just beginning or have been writing for awhile, the class will serve you by encouraging you to write and become a part of a literary dialogue that is going on well beyond the confines of the classroom.
Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft. 2nd edition. Janet Burroway. New York: Penguin, 2007, plus one or two collections of poetry to be determined.
English 3310 - Studies in Non-Fiction Writing: Islam and Christianity: Ancient Religions Coexisting in the Modern World
Paul Fortunato
Thursday 4:00 - 6:45 p.m.
CRN: 11376
We will be reading memoirs, essays, and exchanges dealing with the following themes:
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How does traditional religion fit in the modern world, in the democratic public sphere?
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How can Christians and Muslims work together in order to promote peaceful solutions to world problems?
Some of the possible texts:
Ghosh, A. In an Antique Land.
Pope Benedict. Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.
Percy, W. Lost in the Cosmos.
Frankl, V. Man’s Search for Meaning.
Bhutto, B. Reconciliation.
Selected essays by: Terry Eagleton, Mohandas Gandhi, Czeslaw Milosz, Talal Asad, T.S. Eliot, as well as exchanges in the on-going Catholic-Muslim Forum.
Service-Learning Opportunity: This means you will participate in public symposia, discussions, and film screenings as part of the course.
English 3313 - Studies in Dramatic Literature
Paul Kintzele
Thursday 5:30 - 8:15 p.m.
UHS at Cinco Ranch
CRN: 11203
In this course we will investigate the forms and conventions of writing for the theater from ancient Greece to the present. Not only will we pay special attention to the fundamentals of drama (character, plot, scene, dialogue, action, staging), but we will also consider how plays both respond to and shape events in the world outside the theater. Keeping in mind that plays are meant to be experienced and not only read, we will include one Houston-area production in the course as well as watch some excerpts of our chosen plays on video. Requirements: occasional quizzes, several short response papers, and three essays.
Required texts:
1. Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle (Harvest). ISBN: 015602764X.
2. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Pelican). ISBN: 9780140714685.
3. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (Pelican). ISBN: 0140714898.
4. Chekhov, Five Plays (Oxford World's Classics). ISBN-10: 0199536694.
5. Ibsen, Four Major Plays (Oxford World's Classics). ISBN-10: 0199536198.
6. Beckett, Waiting for Godot (Grove). ISBN-10: 0802130348.
7. Harrington, ed. Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (Norton). ISBN-10: 0393932435.
8. Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Penguin-NAL Trade). ISBN-10: 0451218590.
9. Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (Vintage). ISBN-10: 0679755330.
10. Yasmina Reza, Art (Dramatists Play Service). ISBN-10: 0822216582.
English 3318 - Studies in English Grammar
Malcolm Williams
Tuesday 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.
UHD at Lone Star College - Kingwood
Room TBA
CRN: 11929
This 3-credit-hour course is an intensive survey of the principles and problems of English Grammar. We will begin by developing fluency in the vocabulary that is specific to a discussion of grammar and syntax. In addition, we will focus on how to apply these principles to teaching and to studies in bilingualism. Error analysis will be addressed also. Upon completion of this course, students should demonstrate
- ability to articulate the goals of prescriptive as well descriptive grammar;
- knowledge of the terminology of grammar and writing;
- fluency in this terminology;
- ability to find, correct, and explain common errors in language use;
- application of basic language analysis skills to words and sentences;
- ability to generate basic sentence trees using basic principles of phrase structure theories; and
- proficiency in exploiting corpus-external and corpus-internal evidence to explain how meaning emerges from structure.
English 3318 - Studies in English Grammar
Malcolm Williams
Sunday 1:00 - 3:45 p.m.
UHD at Lone Star College - CyFair
Room TBA
CRN: 11930
This 3-credit-hour course is an intensive survey of the principles and problems of English Grammar. We will begin by developing fluency in the vocabulary that is specific to a discussion of grammar and syntax. In addition, we will focus on how to apply these principles to teaching and to studies in bilingualism. Error analysis will be addressed also. Upon completion of this course, students should demonstrate
- ability to articulate the goals of prescriptive as well descriptive grammar;
- knowledge of the terminology of grammar and writing;
- fluency in this terminology;
- ability to find, correct, and explain common errors in language use;
- application of basic language analysis skills to words and sentences;
- ability to generate basic sentence trees using basic principles of phrase structure theories; and
- proficiency in exploiting corpus-external and corpus-internal evidence to explain how meaning emerges from structure.
English 3320 - History of the English Language
Michael Dressman
MW 10:00 - 11:15 a.m.
CRN: 11271
This course is a study of the English language, as it has developed from a variety of German, spoken in northwest Europe in the fifth century, into the major world language it is today. One major benefit from the course is that you can learn to analyze language as a systematic human process, not just a jumble of words and rules with mysterious reasons for being “right” or “wrong.”
We begin with a brief overview of human language and the method of studying it. At many universities, as at UHD, this course serves for many students as an introduction to the formal study of language, which is called “linguistics.”
Next, there is a progressive study of the various stages of English from its Germanic beginnings to its modern varieties as spoken in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries. We will pay attention to changes in the sound systems, development of vocabulary and word forms, and dialect differences based on social and regional differences. The discussion of dialects includes a review of regional and ethnic varieties of American English.
In addition, there will be discussion of semantic change, which covers such topics as sexism in language, the adaptation of English to modern communication needs, and the history and uses of the dictionary.
The purpose of the course, then, is to (1) familiarize you with linguistics and its various areas of study and (2) familiarize you with the historical development of the English language. Your becoming knowledgeable of linguistic terms, procedures, and reasoning will aid you in your perceptions about human society.
Requirements: three exams, a class presentation, and a paper.
English 3328 - Documentation and Manuals
Wayne Schmadeka
TR 10:00 - 11:15 a.m.
CRN 11251
Prerequisite
Three credit hours of English literature.
Course Description
This course involves the application of general rhetorical principles and current theory in document design to the development of procedures manuals and other documentation.
Learn to evaluate and prepare documents that guide people in using products and tools, carrying out procedures, making organizational decisions, establishing and maintaining order in organizations, and taking other necessary action.
Learning Outcomes
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Distinguish between policies and procedures and explain their relationship
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Identify the needs of specific audience(s) in writing, designing, and organizing policy and procedure documents
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Develop research strategies needed to write (or revise) policies and procedures, including reviewing source documentation; identifying the main reason(s) the policy or procedure needs to be written (or revised); interviewing users, subject matter experts (SMEs), and managers; and writing a rationale for the research conducted and documentation decisions made
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Apply usability testing concepts and methods to evaluate user documentation
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Create and apply style guides that govern text, graphics, and design features
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Develop knowledge of and use appropriate Microsoft Word software tools to fulfill specific documentation needs, such as defining and using styles, creating tables and figures, developing tables of contents, inserting hyperlinks, and working with graphics
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Write user-friendly policies and procedures
Required Texts
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Wieringa, Moore, and Barnes, Procedure Writing: Principles and Practices, 2nd edition, ISBN 1-57477-052-7
Additional readings will be from the web and will be posted on WebCT.
English 3347 - Studies in Early Modern British Literature and Culture
Jon Harned
MW 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
This course will explore the extraordinary richness and variety of English poetry and drama from about 1590 to 1660, the period formerly known as the Renaissance. We will give special emphasis to Christopher Marlowe’s deeply enigmatic drama of sin and damnation, Dr. Faustus; Shakespeare’s sweet and bitter poetry as well as his comic masterpiece, Twelfth Night; John Donne’s witty love and religious poetry, Ben Jonson’s satiric drama on the emerging mercantilism, Volpone, and John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost. One objective of the course will be to understand the distinctive styles of these writers (and a few others), their particular use of the resources of language for expressive purposes. Another will be to discuss the role of this literature in the fierce struggles of the times between faith and humanism, an authoritarian social world and defiant individualism, a deeply embedded patriarchy and startlingly modern conceptions of marriage, gender, and sexuality—indeed, the struggles that still beset us. Work required will be an oral/written report on a background reading, a group presentation on a poem or portion of a play, a research paper, occasional quizzes, and a final exam.
English 3364 - Studies in US Literature and Culture after 1900: The 1930s
Dr. Chuck Jackson
TR 10:00 - 11:15 a.m.
When the stock market collapsed in late October 1929, the nation plummeted into a decade-long period known as the Great Depression, during which time the public trust in big business, secure futures, and other overarching national myths was shattered. Progressive-era ideas and beliefs about American individualism, cultural beauty, capitalist progress, and the self-made citizen clashed with the material reality of dislocation, suspicion, rage, helplessness, and hunger. As a result, many writers, artists, and intellectuals experimented with new forms in representation -- including broken narratives and poetic shards, but also stream of consciousness – to shock readers out of their complacent reading practices.
Together, we will immerse ourselves in an intensive study of an entire decade of U.S. writing that broke the mold, at times a wholesale fracturing the plot-driven literatures that preceded it. In order to understand these literal, figurative, and formal fragments, we will set about trying to pick up the pieces of 1930s national culture and national identity across and along the lines of racial, gendered, sexual, and regional differences. We will study literary innovation as well as raise questions about how and why writers return to representations of: waste, brokenness, and isolation; consumption, production, and alienation; outlaws and wanderers; as well as social conflict and social upheaval.
Because of the overlap between literary and cinematic depictions of shattering and the Depression, and because several of the literary texts we will read refer to going to the movies as integral to their stories, we will close the course with a look a few choice films from the 1930s, and learn how to read and interpret the moving picture in much the same way that we do the written text.
In their written work, students will be required to make claims about American literature from the 1930s, sustain them with examples and close readings, and perform research. Attentive reading and productive class participation is required for this class.
Possible texts include:
Nella Larsen, Passing (1929)
John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel (1930)
William Faulkner, Light in August (1932)
Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933)
Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and Day of the Locust (1939)
Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty (1935)
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Younghill Kang, East Goes West (1937)
Richard Wright, Uncle Tom’s Children (1938)
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
Possible Films:
Scarface (dir. Howard Hawks, 1932)
Modern Times (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming, 1939)
English 3367 - Nineteenth-Century British Literature & Culture: British Romanticism
Caroline Kimberly
MW 7:00 - 8:15 p.m.
CRN: 11164
This class will focus on the Romantic period as a historical, literary, and cultural jumping-off point for the birth of our modern world. Located roughly during the years 1780-1830, the Romantic period is noteworthy for revolutions in several cultural areas that helped to create the modern world as we know it: the American and French Revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the working class, early advocacy for women’s equality, the beginnings of the Abolitionist movement, and rapid advances in science and technology. With these changes also came new developments in literary taste: poetry written to be accessible to everyone, not just the upper classes; gothic novels, the precursor to modern horror; sentimental fiction and the “marriage plot,” the forerunner to today’s “chicklit”; and the first examples of science fiction. Over the course of the semester we will explore key texts in the Romantic timeline (including essays, poems, plays, and novels), cultural artifacts from the period, and modern responses to the era in film and other media with the goal of tracing the continued relevance of such works in our twenty-first century lives. Authors covered may include Wollstonecraft, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, the Shelleys, Lewis, and Austen. Classwork will include in-class discussion and occasional quizzes, along with oral presentations, close reading papers, and semester-length research projects.
ENG 4311 - Contemporary Literature - Migrant Voices: Literature and Culture of the South Asian Diaspora
Sucheta Choudhuri
MW 10:00 - 11:15 AM
The term diaspora evolved from a Greek verb that means “to scatter” or “disperse” and has come to indicate displaced communities that have relocated to territories remote from their country of origin. The South Asian dispora has been a significant presence in the United States and the United Kingdom in the past five decades. Although comprised of diverse ethnic groups from the countries of the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal etc.), the South Asian diaspora has a distinctly homogenous voice, which yet manages to preserve the specific cultural cadence of each immigrant community. This homogeneity-in-diversity is one of the characteristics that we will explore in this course by examining the cultural texts of the South Asian diaspora. We will also examine how the process of displacement, with its implicit associations of nostalgia and loss, becomes a determining influence in the creative expressions of the diaspora. We will understand how the diasporic experience is perceived through the lenses of gender, sexuality and class. We will also consider how extant ties with the country of origin and a continued investment in both its history and its contemporary sociopolitical developments shape the identity of the diaspora, and how “home” becomes a contested term in the diaspora’s effort to straddle multiple cultures. Our focus will be on narrative fiction and cinematic texts by well-known names as Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri and Mira Nair and also by powerful new voices such as Monica Ali and Mohsin Hamid. We will frame our readings of the primary texts with a selection of theoretical readings, and thereby arrive at an in-depth understanding of how the diasporic self-definition intersects with the discourses of colonialism, globalization, nationalism and multiculturalism.
Coursework will include in-class discussion, maintaining a reading journal, a midterm and a final exam, a close-reading paper and a research project.
Possible texts include:
Salman Rushdie. Shalimar the Clown (2005)
Jhumpa Lahiri. Unaccustomed Earth (2008)
Mohsin Hamid. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)
V.V. Ganesananthan. Love Marriage (2008)
Monica Ali. Brick Lane (2003)
English 4322 - Editing, Rewriting, and Copyreading
Catherine Howard
TR 1:00 - 2:15 p.m.
CRN: 11500
In this course students will learn to copyedit manuscripts, mark copy, and proofread redlines, galleys, and page proofs. We will cover editing both paper and digital copy as well as editing online. In addition, we will discuss such topics as consistency of style, visual design, creating style sheets, and dealing with authors. Fair warning: there will be a heavy emphasis on grammar and mechanics. ENG 3318, Studies in English Grammar, is a prerequisite for 4322, and we will be reviewing applied grammar throughout our course.
ENG 4322 is a core requirement for the Professional Writing major.
Books:
Carolyn D. Rude, Technical Editing, 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2005. ISBN: 0-321-33082-X.
U of Chicago P Staff, eds., The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago: U of Chicago P,
2003. ISBN: 0-226-10403-6.
Course Prerequisites: ENG 3302, ENG 3318
English 4330 - Humanities Seminar: Christmas in American Culture
Michael Dressman
MW 1:00 - 2:15 p.m.
CRN: 11152
Crosslisted with HUM 4350 (CRN: 11153)
This semester’s theme is an examination of the Christmas holiday as it is and has been celebrated in the United States. This theme will allow a review and analysis of literature and the arts connected to Christmas, as well as laws and policies promoting and limiting acknowledgement of the holiday.
Work for the class will include becoming familiar with visual art, music, drama, films, and readings – fiction and nonfiction – all on the theme of Christmas. Research will be demonstrated in papers and in-class presentations. We will explore historical, cultural, esthetic, religious, and personal identity issues, including notions of childhood.
This class is appropriate for students majoring in Humanities, English, and Interdisciplinary Studies. Students in Professional Writing, Sociology, Political Science, Communication, Social Sciences, and other fields may also find a place for this course in their degree plans.
Last updated or reviewed on 6/15/10
