Spring 2011 Baruch English Department Themes

SPRING 2011 BARUCH ENGLISH DEPARTMENT THEMES

2100/2100T/2150/2150T

As of October 14, 2010

ENG 2100 DG13A

Towns, Saundra

Engagement

The course aims to introduce student writers to the conventions of academic writing and to develop those critical reading and thinking skills that will be called for in academic, civic, and professional life. Primary attention is given to writing as a process, from formulating a thesis, to outlining, drafting, and revision, to writing the research paper. Essays by both contemporary and "classic" writers will be read and analyzed as they speak to both rhetorical and cultural issues of concern.

ENG 2100 DG24A

Donovan, Thom

Writing as Civic and Social Mediation

The following course will attempt to teach students to write with rhetoric effectiveness and critical rigor through the study of ways that writing and art mediate our civic and social responsibility. The first part of the class will be devoted to studying the essay as a literary form; the second to writing and art practices concerned with land use and ecological responsibility; the last to media literacy and ecology. Core texts include writings by Martin Luther King Jr., Jonathan Swift, Michel de Montaigne, George Orwell, Karl Marx, William Cronon, Stephen Collis, Henry David Thoreau, Agnes Denes, Robert Smithson, Amy Balkin, The Yes Men, Roland Barthes, and The Situationist International. Students will be expected to write two shorter papers and one longer one, participate in class discussion and writing exercise, fulfillregular homework assignments, and provide one oral presentation throughout the semester.

ENG 2100 JM13A

Towns, Saundra

Engagement

The course aims to introduce student writers to the conventions of academic writing and to develop those critical reading and thinking skills that will be called for in academic, civic, and professional life. Primary attention is given to writing as a process, from formulating a thesis, to outlining, drafting, and revision, to writing the research paper. Essays by both contemporary and "classic" writers will be read and analyzed as they speak to both rhetorical and cultural issues of concern.

ENG 2100 JM13B

Mascarenhas, Kiran

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Nature is in. You can see concern for nature everywhere, from President Obama’s campaign promise to create “green jobs” to the changing aesthetics of potato chip packages, from bright yellow plastic to brown plastic (that looks biodegradable). What feels like a current American mood, however, has been a cause of anxiety, speculation and ineffectual reparative action for human beings for centuries. In this course, we will examine some of the discourses around environmentalism. We will see what novelists, poets, politicians and advertising agents have to say about the environment.

The discourses around environmentalism will hopefully provide us with a rich source of material to think, read and write about. This is primarily a composition course, and so our aim will be to take all this green stuff and put it down as clearly as possible, in black and white. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2100 LP13A

Riley, Charles

(not submitted)

ENG 2100 MW74A

Lask, Ellen

American snapshots

Since its birth as a nation, the United States has grappled with a variety of social issues that remain unresolved even today. Many of them are a result of our unique history and development; others are universal concerns not necessarily specific to this country. Whichever the case, however, they are questions that caused conflicts in the past and that are still grounds for debate in the 21st century. Among them are economic and social inequality, religious differences, attitudes toward race and the absorption of immigrants into the fabric of American society.

Such questions will be the focus of our course. Through the reading of personal essays, memoirs and other non-fiction writing, we will examine, discuss and write about the role these issues have played in the American experience overall and the impact they have had, and continue to have, on individuals. Our readings will include works by Russell Baker, Barbara Ehrenreich, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King, Maxine Hong Kingston, Malcolm X, Mike Rose, Gary Soto, Studs Terkel and Richard Wright.

ENG 2100 PS13A

Stewart, Michael Seth

The Dark American Woods

In this class, we will be examining the trope of the dark woods in American literature. In the stories and poems of early settlers through the twentieth century (and beyond), the woods have functioned in literature (and other media) as a place of temptation, mystery, and transformation. We will be reading exemplary texts by writers including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emerson and Thoreau, Robert Frost, Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. The focus throughout will be on the development of strong critical reading and writing skills, developed over the course of three papers of increasing complexity, responding to the class’s texts and the ones you bring in yourself.

ENG 2100 TR54A

Hoffman, Meechal

Authorship: A Study in the Nature of Authority

The theme of our course is “Authority.” In what ways do we assert our authority with family members, friends, teachers, bosses, coworkers, and strangers, or fail to, in our daily lives? In what ways have we been affected by authority—our own and that of others? How does authority affect our lives on a global scale? What are some ways of gaining authority? Is writing an assertion of authority? What is the word “author” doing in the word “authority?” Why does an essay written in a clear, meditative, and factual voice assert authority? In what ways can playing with the form of our essays (writing personal narratives, opinion pieces, research papers, etc.) assert our authority, or detract from it?

Our course will be split into three main sections. First we will discuss the role authority plays in personal relationships. Next, we will look at the effect authority has on the world around us, on a global scale. Lastly, we will look at writing as a way of asserting authority, and we will make sure that our writing has the power to grant us the authority we need, for the rest of college and beyond, and for our personal satisfaction. By finding ways compose writing with more authority, be it through experimentation with different stylistic voices or through a nuanced use of punctuation or paragraph form, we will become writers better equipped to write for college and beyond.

Each of our three units will culminate in an essay, at least one of which will involve research. We will also practice writing outside the essays (by writing outlines, by practicing free writing, by writing in journals) in order to prepare for and reflect on our writing. Our readings will include Moshin Hamid’s “Focus on the Fundamentals;” Joan Didion's "Why I Write" and "On Keeping a Notebook;" George Orwell's "Why I Write," "Shooting an Elephant," and "Politics and the English Language;" Kurt Vonnegut's "How to Write With Style;" and Stanley Milgram's "An Experiment in Autonomy." We will also regularly read work written by the students in our class.

ENG 2100 TW24A

Dolack, DJ

Living with New Media

Although our means of interaction have increased drastically, often making information and communication available instantaneously, the quality and scope of that interaction is being challenged. Since when did saying ‘I love you’ become simply ‘ILY’typed into a digital screen? What are the consequences of being addicted to the availability of a cellular phone or email? When we socialize online, how does the fact that we can edit our own profiles impact our sense of identity? We are caught in the classic dichotomy of quantity verses quality, and are living within a culture that is redefining the ideas of personal contact and Proxemics, while promoting abstraction as a viable means of correspondence. This course will explore the ways in which our basic human communication is being altered by the onslaught of technology and new media devices such as the internet (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, dating sites, blogs, etc.), cell phones, and PDA’s. It will also take a look at the discrepancies between our “real life”personalities and our online identities and avatars, as well as how these differences can color our senses of self and our insecurities.

Sample of readings to include:

“Television: The Plug-In Drug” by Marie Winn

“Dearly Disconnected” by Ian Frazier

“On the Internet, There’s No Place to Hide” by Jonathan Koppell

“Convergence Culture” by Henry Jenkins

“It’s All About Us” by Steven Johnson

“Enough About You” by Brian Williams

“Multitasking State of Mind” by Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson

“Free Speech and Censorship in Online Communities” by Teten and Allen

Also, articles from the New York Times, Wired Magazine, New York Magazine, etc.

ENG 2100 UX13A

Miller, Michael

Identity and Culture in America

American culture is a stew in which the various parts retain something of their own identity and flavor as they rub up against and influence each other, affecting the flavor of the whole without necessarily losing our own original cultural identity in the mixture. Much of the challenge of becoming good citizens in an increasingly complex world is to hold onto the parts of our culture that make us feel comfortable and at the same time to be part of the greater whole. As a writing course, each student will begin to explore his or her individual culture, where each comes from, and gradually move out into the challenges of understanding American culture and the problems we face.

We will examine the Freshman Text by Charles Li extensively. In the course of the semester we will also read and write in journals about such writers as Richard Rodriquez, Maya Angelou, Thomas Jefferson, Langston Hughes, George Orwell and many others, and discuss in groups within the class their writings from a cultural perspective. Writing assignments will move from the very personal recollections of the culture of the family and neighborhood into broader and more complex questions of the kind of world students want to create for ourselves.

ENG 2100 CNOW

Sylvor, Jennifer

Come to the Table

Hunger is perhaps the most basic of human urges; yet deciding what to eat has never seemed more complicated. In this course, we will sift through some of the complex and often contradictory messages we receive about eating in America. We will investigate the social and symbolic underpinnings of human eating practices, particularly the use of food to define cultural or ethnic identity. How has the desire for certain foods (sugar, spices, salt) shaped the course of history, nation-building, and colonialization? How is our thinking about food informed by our ideas about pleasure, sensuality, and morality? We will consider the impact of globalization, capitalism, and consumerism on the production, preparation, and consumption of food in the United States today. The French epicure Brillat-Savarin famously declared “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” Given the close relationship between food and identity, how do the choices we make around food signal our cultural, socio-economic, and ideological affinities? We will be reading texts that offer trenchant critiques of agribusiness, but we will also be exploring narratives that suggest alternatives to mainstream modes of production and consumption.

ENG 2100T EL13A

Dalgish, Gerard

Writing I for ESL Students

This course is designed to provide you with additional preparation in writing, reading and speaking to help you improve your written academic English, your speaking fluency and oral presentations, your reading comprehension, and your vocabulary and idiom. We will focus on grammar, writing, reading, and vocabulary development, with the study of your first language, the role of language and communication in the world today, the freshman text, and other related activities as the source materials. You will also learn how to do research, how to edit, how to rewrite, and how to participate and communicate effectively in a class setting.

ENG 2100T EL13B

Gordon, Casey

The Eye of the Beholder

We view, we interpret, and we give meaning to all things we encounter visually – so much so, that we often encounter images with a certain amount of passivity, never pausing to ask ourselves how an image works aesthetically, sociologically, and psychologically. This course is a writing course intended for speakers of languages in addition to English; while we will spend much of our energy studying the process of essay writing, essay structure, methods of analysis, methods of argument, and sentence-level grammar, we will center our writing on the ideas we glean from our studies of the image. We will study the fine arts and photography, pop culture images, advertisements, comic books, and literature. Readings will include two graphic novels, one novella (Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur), several essays, one book on writing (Seeing and Writing by Donald McQuade and Christine McQuade), and various handouts. In addition to readings and classroom discussions, we will take a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Students will write several short, ungraded assignments, three three-page papers, and a final six-page persuasive paper; students will also give a group presentation.

ENG 2100T EL24A

Thornhill, Karen

Nature and Ecology

This course will focus on a multi-media approach to Nature and Ecology. We will conduct independent internet research projects in class on a variety of natural phenomena to discover and foster a greater understanding and deeper appreciation of the beauty and complexity of nature. Topics of choice may include Rainforest Ecology; The Marshlands of Louisiana; coral reef formation; the jet stream and weather patterns; earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and global warming; how the aurora is formed; meteor showers; how butterflies ‘see’; the great Monarch butterfly migration; flowers of the tropics; how medicine is harvested from plants; etc. In addition to the independent internet research projects, we will view three-and four-star films /documentaries in class which link to our theme, we will read from a selection of both English and American nature poets and essayists, including Wordsworth, Shelley, Emerson and Thoreau.