Announcing Special Sections of 1101 for Spring 2008!
Are you good with computers? Do you want to take a class that engages new Internet technologies? Do you like to socialize? Are you already a pretty strong writer and want to get more out of ENGL 1101? Are you up for a challenge? Are you already a member of Second Life? Then these sections of English Composition I might be for you.
“Science fiction is that branch of literature that deals with human responses to changes in the level of science and technology.” —Isaac Asimov
This section of Special Topics (ENGL 3999) will explore the genre of science fiction in the last half of the twentieth century in short stories, novels, films, and futurism. Much of humanity’s hopes and fears about its relationship with the universe is explored by the various writers and directors known for their work in science fiction. Science, or speculative, fiction also considers humanity’s responses to changes in the level of science and technology. This class will consider science fiction as located historically and attempt to relate culturally texts that explore, discover, learn, by means of projection, extrapolation, analogue, hypothesis-and-paper-experimentation, something about the nature of the universe, of humanity, of “reality.” Cyberpunk, world building, gender, cyborgs, robots, space travel, aliens, war, time travel, mad computers, and other similar subjects will fall under the purview of the course. Talk to your advisor to see if this course will work for you.
The course will focus on the American West as represented in film and literature, looking particularly at the West as a regional culture, at times raised to a mythical level. While the West has typically been viewed as the land of cowboys and outlaws, the course will examine the diverse populations that lived and interacted within this region, including Native Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans, as well as women. The course will look at a number of associated topics through literature and film, including the mythology of the Wild West, Westward expansion and the introduction of the railroad, the American cowboy, women in the West, Native American displacement, contributions of African Americans and Hispanics to Western history and culture, the Gold Rush, and the emergence of West Coast cultural centers such as San Francisco in the 1890s.
In this course, we will examine forms of medieval media—medieval manuscripts, archeology, songs, and poetry—as forms of cultural expression in these areas:
We will study methods of preserving manuscripts with digital technology. This course requires a research component as well as a final project in media production. Students will produce a media presentation involving any combination of manuscript images, music, (live or recorded) and images of archeology and art.
This course is an introduction to the prose of contemporary Mexican-American, Cuban-American, Dominican-American, and Mainland Puerto Rican authors. Discussions will focus on the following themes and perspectives: the “Americanization” process, the struggle to define, redefine, and attain the “American Dream”, identity; the use of cultural myths; language and memory, biculturalism, bilingualism, Diaspora, the effects of popular culture (music, film, and television) on self-definition, race, family ties, migration, urban life, sexuality, love, and gender.
Crossing Waters is a course that examines various aspects of Caribbean life through the experience of exile, as it is manifested in literary works produced inside as well as outside of the region. Caribbean history begins with the physical crossing of the Atlantic from the coast of West Africa to island plantations. This historical crossing has become a metaphor for talking about Caribbean life experiences. The advent of Independence and mass migration from the islands to Britain, Canada and America in the 1960s have introduced new concepts of nation and nationhood. Since then, especially since the 1980s, a new wave of immigration has given birth to a new group of Caribbean artists whose works have contributed to reshaping Caribbean concepts of culture and identity.
No, this class will not be about the band! Instead, we’ll explore some of the most entertaining and challenging fiction written by Southern women writers since the late 1960s. These women came of age during or since the end of segregation and the beginning of the women’s rights movement and offer unique insights into an “age of transition,” as one critic states.
Together, we’ll consider questions such as:
We’ll explore how war has influenced American cultural values and attitudes with an emphasis on the dynamic interplay among war, technology, media, and gender.
This class will explore a range of issues, such as how
