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2303-002/WOMS 2301-001 Badass Women
8am TR Bethany Shaffer
What does it mean to be a Badass? What does it mean when we add Women to the end of that phrase? How would we get anything done without them?
This course will explore key texts that examine answers to all three questions above. Students will read a variety of fiction, non-fiction and critical essays to develop their own thoughts on Badass Women. Two exams, weekly quizzes, discussion forum posts, and one major paper make up the major assignments of the course.
This course satisfies the Language, Philosophy, and Culture requirement in the UTA Core.
This course satisfies three credit towards a Women’s and Gender Studies Minor.
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2303.003: SCIFI & FANTASY SHORT FICTION
330pm TR Christian Worlow
Margaret Atwood described science fiction as what “belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going through a wormhole in space to another universe." In contrast, Warren Ellis observed how “[s]cience fiction didn’t see the mobile phone coming,” let alone how we use smartphones to make “amazing things happen by pointing at it with our fingers like…wizards.” Ellis argues that Sci-Fi fundamentally concerns itself with the present and about how we imagine the world might become. Accordingly, Sci-Fi arguably says more about the culture that produces such stories than about the future. In a similar manner, Michael Moorcock argued that “[f]antastic fiction is like the majority of modern fiction primarily fashionable, written for a particular audience at a particular time.” In this course, we will look at a selection of short fiction in the Sci-Fi and fantasy genres, including works by Moorcock (The Elric Saga), Ellis (Gun Machine), Ursula la Guin (Earthsea), Arthur Machen, J. R. R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Charles Stross, Kurt Vonnegut, H.P. Lovecraft, Octavia Butler, Lavie Tidhar, Mary Shelley, Nisi Shawl, and others. This course includes a Signature Assignment project as well as other shorter writing assignments. We will consider the purposes and contexts of speculative fiction. This course samples these genres rather than attempting a comprehensive examination.
2303-004: Reading for Answers
7pm TR Luanne Frank
Reading literature for answers: “Who are you and what are you doing about it (--or not)?”
This course reads a selection of literary works each of which implicitly confronts us with these questions and lays out its understandings of what may be, for us, possible answers--or not. We shall read them, trying them on as potential “fits,” to be integrated with who we “are” or are becoming, or could be becoming--or to be set aside.
We shall look at what goes to make up this “who” of which we, and the literature, speak, of what that freedom may consist that we and the literature avail ourselves in determining it, and how, unlike that of the sciences (i.e., this is not a psychology course), literature’s very dependence on interpretation for its “knowing” rather than on demonstrable proofs (“tested” hypotheses), may be the source of that freedom, not only releasing us, but forcing us, to be the ones who, within genetic and cultural limits, decide our own direction.
We shall also look at contemporary theories that argue the above.
The literary works in question may include the following: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Sophocles, Oedipus; Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”; Kleist, Penthesilea and “The Marquise of O”; and Rilke, The Letters of Malte Laurids Brigge.
Requirements: 5 one-page papers, possible quizzes (announced), exam.
Goals: progress in close reading; progress at integrating the event-line contents and ideas of literary works with the “situation” in mind out of which one interprets literary works; familiarity with theories that lay out the nature and ultimate source of meanings conveyed via language; refinement of writing ability.
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2303-008 Bible as Literature
11am TR Joul Smith
The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with substantial portions of the Bible—both Old and New Testaments—and the critical tools employed for examining it as a literary text. By exploring its stories, characters, compositional techniques, and generic varieties the biblical texts will be analyzed based on traditional literary questions of form, structure, and style. And by exploring its historical periods, multiple authors, and English translation the biblical texts will be analyzed as rich and complex products of historical and social contexts. Though discussions about religion will be inevitable, this course examines the Bible as a phenomenon poised between artistic human experience and culturally institutionalized values.Our key distinctions for exploring the biblical texts will be: Stories and Ideas.
Using the Bible as an anthology of literary narratives and philosophies, this course will consider the historical and cultural impact that the Bible has had on its readers. Student projects, aside from a blog and major paper, will be digital expressions that explore the pervasive nature of the Bible in modern American culture. Some critical concepts that will serve as welcome guides to our readings include: mythology, authorial intention, textual criticism, translation studies, feminism, (post)structuralism, narratology, deconstructionism, reader-response, psychoanalysis, Marxism, gender studies, queer theory, ethnic studies, ecocriticism, postcolonialism.
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2329 American Literature
Section 002 1pm MWF
Section 006 2pm MWF
Amy Bernhard
What is an essay, anyway? Where does it fit into the literary canon? In this course, we’ll return to the root of the word, given to us by the father of the essay himself, Michel de Montaigne. His definition comes from the French verb essai, meaning “to attempt.” This seems like a pretty low bar to set. Is merely attempting enough to create a piece of art? What does an essay attempt to do anyway? What distinguishes this form from fiction, poetry, or drama, and where do these genres overlap? Looking at work as early as Montaigne and much earlier, we’ll trace the beginnings of the form back to some of the oldest known literature. We’ll look at work as diverse as travel writing, philosophy, memoir, criticism and hybrid texts. Writers we read will include Diogenes, Sei Shonagon, Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, Jamaica Kincaid, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, David Shields, Lydia Davis, David Foster Wallace, and recent Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. Beyond copious reading, we’ll try our hand at some (very light and low pressure!) creative work to better understand the underpinnings of the texts we’ve read. We’ll also write critical analyses of both published work and original essays.
Required texts: All readings will be posted to Blackboard with the expectation that they will be printed and brought to each class, no laptops or cell phones permitted.
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2329-003 American Literature:
930am TR Bethany Shaffer
“In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which”
-George R.R. Martin
Are people inherently good? Evil? Can we be both simultaneously? What makes something good or evil? How do we evaluate these ideas?
This course will explore key texts that examine answers to all three questions above. Students will read a variety of fiction, non-fiction and critical essays to develop their own thoughts on good and evil. Two exams, weekly quizzes, discussion forum posts, and one major paper make up the major assignments of the course.
This course satisfies the Language, Philosophy, and Culture requirement in the UTA Core.
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2329-015 American Literature: Celebrating Identity Formations
1230pm TR Ken Roemer
“Celebrating Identity Formations” introduces students to a chronological selection of significant American works that contributed to an on-going dialogue about defining what it is to be an “American” (individual, group, national). This dialogue is often a fascinating index to important American cultural and aesthetic values. Despite the selectivity of the readings, the course examines a broad range of time periods, genres geographical areas, and perspectives shaped by different gender, class, ethnic, and generational backgrounds. By the end of the semester, students who have successfully completed the assignments should: (1) have a basic knowledge of eighteen significant American texts, and (2) have the ability to consider how various historical periods, literary forms, concepts of audience, environments, and personal, generational, economic, and cultural backgrounds have influenced how Americans imagine and communicate concepts of who they are. This course satisfies the University of Texas at Arlington core curriculum requirements in Language, Philosophy, and Culture.
REQUIREMENTS: Two Papers: one short autobiographical paper; and a short “Signature Assignment”; Exams: three or four essay exams; short-answer readings/lectures exams; One, one-page written identity experiment
TEXTS: Two short autobiographies (Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain and excerpts from Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass); two novels (Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima); and a packet of short readings from different periods and genres (exploration accounts, letters, essays, poetry, and short stories).
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2338 Technical Writing
Section 003 1pm MWF
Section 002 530pm MW
Section 008 7pm MW
Larry Huff
2338 is a technical approach to academic argument. It encompasses correctly formatted, persuasive emails and business letters. 2338 includes visual argument in the form of an informative brochure stressing layout and other forms of graphic design in the presentation. Letters of applications and resumes are designed, formatted, and worded to put your best foot forward. Business teamwork is introduced in researched how-to documents called Team Instructional Projects (TIP) and a final project called a Team Feasibility Project (TFP) includes surveys, research, business graphs, and other aspects of graphic design including argument, both visual and rhetorical. The group projects celebrate synergy, team work, and they honor disciplined time frames. The common denominator of all writing in this course is an ethical presentation of yourself, your team, and your audience.
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2338.005: TECHNICAL WRITING
530pm TR Christian Worlow
What is technical writing? You can think of technical writing as including technical and professional writing and communications, and in this class, you will learn how to prepare several kinds of these documents. You will work on resumes and cover letters, instructional materials, and formal reports. Furthermore, you will work on revising and editing a document that requires you to use all of the skills you will learn in this class as you help prepare documentation for the Arlington Public Libraries. Before you begin working on these projects, you will also experience a crash course in writing style that emphasizes concision and clarity and in basic graphic design. In all cases, you should focus on creating documents that keep their readers’ goals and needs in mind even as you try to fulfill your purposes in these documents. If First Year Writing (1301 and 1302) taught you to prepare persuasive documents for community and academic audiences, then this course teaches you to prepare persuasive documents for most any other audience.
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2350-002 Introduction to Textual Analysis and Interpretation
11am TR Ken Roemer
Preamble
Although we will be reading and discussing works of literature, this course differs from literature courses, since in the readings and discussions we will be examining various ways of interpreting the literature as much as we will be discussing the literature per se.
How This Section Differs from Other 2350 Sections
To fulfill the Departmental objective of preparing students to identify the characteristics of at least three literary genres, we examine works of fiction, poetry, and life narrative (autobiography). In each case we begin by discussing a well-known American text that is routinely defined as a novel, poetry, or autobiography. I pair these texts with Native American texts that can also be defined as novels, poetry, or autobiography, but they challenge typical ways of defining these genres. The pairings invite discussion about how readers, authors, editors, scholars, and publishers conceive of genres and about literary canon formation
Goals, Requirements, Assessment
The Departmental goals for this course are to prepare students to: (1) identify characteristics of literary genres (at least three); (2) recognize and understand critical and literary terms; (3) develop methods and strategies for analyzing and interpreting texts; and (4) demonstrate a command of these methods and strategies in written work.
The basic Departmental written requirements aimed at achieving and demonstrating the goals are: (1) a close reading of a text or a portion of a text; (2) an analyses of a text or portion of a text using an appropriate critical term or critical method; and (3) a research paper that demonstrates a knowledge of criticism on the text and (a) method(s) relevant to the study of that text.
To be more specific, in this course we will address the goals in (1) class and group discussions; (2) assigned readings; (3) short answer exams drawn from terms in the Bedford Glossary, How to Interpret Literature or Critical Theory Today ( final choice not made)and the course packet; (3) three essay exams; and (4) the three papers mentioned above.
Required Readings
Course Packet (CP) ,available only at the UTA Bookstore
The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, Murfin and Supryia (BG)
Critical Theory Today, Tyson or How to Interpret Literature (Parker)
The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
Ceremony, Silko
Selections of different versions of Dickinson's poetry (CP)
Translations of American Indian Songs (CP)
The Autobiography, Franklin, focus: Part II of Autobio. (“Other Writings”-NOT required)
The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday
The MLA Handbook (8th Ed.)
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2350 Introduction to Textual Analysis and Interpretation
930am TR Tracey Daniels Lerberg
This course, a required core course for English majors, is an introduction to different practices of analysis and interpretation, from the basic to the more advanced skills and methods of English Studies. It is intended to address how do we interpret a text’s “meaning,” and why it matters? How do we translate an interpretive reading into a piece of analytic writing? Students will study several schools of literary criticism, and will read|watch, discuss, and write about works of literature (poems, short stories, films, and novels) as they apply critical theories to primary texts. Like other disciplines, English Studies has its own vocabulary and methodology, which have to be learned in order to undertake literary analysis at the college level (and beyond). Students will become familiar with these methods through various schools of interpretation.