Course Descriptions

 

Undergraduate/Graduate Courses

• ENGL 501        LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN                 A. Allison
  
  Here's a chance to reconsider the books you read as a child, or perhaps a chance to read them for the first time and to consider them as you would other works of literature: as meaningful expressions of artistry, as emotionally impacting, and as social messages.  Each book is multi-layered, open to diverse interpretation including post-colonial, historical, feminist, and philosophical perspectives. Works include fairy tales and classics like Tom Sawyer and The Wind in the Willows, culturally-diverse novels such as Salman Rushdie's fantasy Haroun and the Sea of Stories, very contemporary books such as Gene Yang's graphic American-Born Chinese and Mark Haddon's world-wide bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and genre-bending books like Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child and Karen Hesse's Witness.

• ENGL 502        ADOLESCENCE IN LITERATURE                 Phillip Serrato
  
  This semester we will survey the ways that adolescence has been depicted in a splendid sample of texts about, for, and by adolescents. We will begin by accompanying Alice, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys on their adventures in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Secret of the Old Clock, and The Tower Treasure, respectively, contemplating on the way how the experience of adolescence is configured in these early texts. Then we will take a look at the emergence of modern, more complicated depictions of adolescence in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Judy Blume’s Deenie,and S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Once we have finished asking, among other things, Why does Holden insist on wearing that stupid hat? What’s with Deenie’s secret place? and, Why does Pony Boy have Paul Newman on his mind? we will plunge into more contemporary fare that—for better or worse—pushes/Pushes (you’ll catch the joke embedded here around week 11) the parameters of adolescent literature. We will consider the breakthroughs managed by Patricia McCormick in Cut, Ellen Hopkins in Crank, Bejamin Alire Sáenz in Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, and Laura Whitcomb in A Certain Slant of Light. To close the semester, we will indulge a mini-unit on Asian-American literature of adolescence with Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter, Lori Carlson’s American Eyes, and Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese, all in anticipation of Yang’s visit to campus on May 6.Course requirements include 2 exams, a final exam, a paper, and a lot of in-class writing that expects you to keep up with the reading.

  Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland  (Dover 0486416585)
  Franklin Dixon. The Tower Treasure (Grosset & Dunlap 0448089017)
  Carolyn Keene. The Secret of the Old Clock (Grosset & Dunlap 0448095017)
  J.D. Salinger. Catcher in the Rye (Little Brown 0316769487)
  S.E. Hinton. The Outsiders (Puffin 014038572X)
  Judy Blume. Deenie (Laurel Leaf ISBN 0440932599)
  Bejamin Alire Sáenz. Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood (Rayo 0060843748)
  Lori Carlson (ed.). American Eyes: New Asian-American Short Stories for Young Adults
  (Fawcett 0449704483)
  Patricia McCormick. Cut (Push 439324599)
  Ellen Hopkins. Crank (Pulse 0689865198)

Graduate Courses

• ENGL 606. Tricksters and Iconoclasts in 20th-Century Children’s Poetry. Prof. Joseph Thomas.

In ENGL 606: Tricksters and Iconoclasts in Children’s Literature, we’ll theorize the odd, the queer, the nasty, funky, strange, & disgusting; we will investigate the counter & those who embody it: tricksters, oddballs; the deformed, the geek, the circus freak, the sword swallower, the child, the adolescent. We’ll explore outlaws, practitioners of the Hype or the Bill, the Murphy Man, & Diddlers, runners of “The Big Store,” & “pickpockets trained from early childhood.” We will read from Freaks, Freakshow, The Cat in the Hat, Trickster Makes the World, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Black Folktales, (including the story of “Stack” who shoots a man for jostling his hat [“Don’t shoot me, Mr. Stagolee!” the offender begs, “I got two children and a wife to support.” Stack responds: “The Lawd’ll take care of your children. I’ll take care of your wife.”]), No Future, The History of Shit, “A Metamorphosis of Shit,” Harriet the Spy, American Born Chinese, and other unpalatable, difficult, mistaken, wrongheaded, and beautiful texts. This class is a seminar. Students will be responsible for engaging in rigorous, peer led discussion, producing one in-class presentation on a theoretical text, and writing a short, mid-term paper and a longer, final paper.