This page lists text selections and other details that go beyond the course descriptions listed in your academic catalog. This is not a complete list of all courses offered each semester. View the most recent copy of the Academic Schedule and Academic Catalog for complete course offerings and descriptions.
SEGL 252: Understanding Grammar--MWF 10-10:50 am Marlow
Taught by a dude used to HATE grammar, students examine real sentences, apply rules to real-life errors, and explore how to use (and even intentionally break) rules to strengthen their writing. Two papers are required (3 & 5 pages).
SEGL 280: Survey of American Literature II--MWF 11-11:50 Caster
American literature has always been multicultural, and our survey of short stories, poetry, plays, novels, and essays since 1865 demonstrates how the most important writing engages challenges of difference in terms of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. The national literature of a country defining itself by democracy requires inclusiveness, while the artistic designation literature mandates exclusivity: the best writing. U.S. literature represents the struggle with what it means to be an American.
SEGL 290: Survey of British Literature II--MW 2-3:15 Murphy
In everyday speech we talk about a "romantic adventures" and "Victorian morality," buildings that look “modern” and even cartoons that are "postmodern." In this class, we’ll read the diverse literature from the periods that defined these now-common terms, and study the larger social and cultural changes to which writers responded. The rise of the British Empire and management of its decline provide a powerful analogy to us in 21st-century America, so in examining the literature from 1800 to the present, we study not just "their" past but our own present, and how it got that way.
SEGL 319: Development of the Novel--TTH 3:05-4:25 Murphy
Fictions of Growth and the Growth of Fiction. Compared to poetry and drama, the novel is still a young genre. Perhaps because the novel itself has been growing up, it has often focused on the development of youthful heroes and heroines, who struggle both to “be themselves” and to fit in to the world around them. Taking these formative fictions as a starting point for what realist novels try to do, we will ask: How do these novels define what it means to mature—whether as a character or as a genre? And what do we make of protagonists and novels that fail or refuse to develop according to the norm? Selected readings by theorists of the novel will inform our work on four or five novels of formation and deformation, fitting in and dropping out.
SEGL 320: Development of Short Fiction--TTH 12:15-1:30 McConnell
We’ll conduct a survey of short fiction from the 19th century to today, focusing on American and British authors though also some writers in translation. Students will take a midterm exam, write several brief papers and one long one on a collection of short stories.
SEGL 368: Life Writing/Biography--TTH 1:40-2:55 McConnell
Readings from an anthology will provide models for students as they compose two parallel projects, one biographical, one autobiographical. We’ll workshop these works-in-progress as the semester progresses. Additionally, students will write a short critical paper on a book-length biography or autobiography.
SEGL 387: Topics in Literature, Culture, and Difference: Postcolonial Literature--TTH 1:40-2:55 Kusch
Colonialism and/or imperialism have shaped the histories of all continents. Postcolonial literature designates the writing of authors from areas of the world that are invaded, occupied, and ruled over by another nation, as well as writing from newly sovereign nations that rebelled against their colonizers to become independent. Postcolonial authors invent several strategies to voice their national, cultural, and individual identities, often in the context of an imperial language (in our case, English), education system, class system, and lingering imperial economy. Our course will focus particular attention on the ways that literature addresses and articulates issues of difference, gender, race, displacement, self-definition, and self-determination throughout our global community. Authors include Salman Rushdie (India/Pakistan), V. S. Naipaul (India/Trinidad), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Derek Walcott (St. Lucia), Athol Fugard (South Africa), Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), and others. Students in English and English Education may count this course as their required Cultural Difference and Diversity course (English) or Minority Literature course (Education).
SEGL 406: Special Topics in Shakespeare: Shakespeare and the Mob--MW 3:25-4:40 Canino
Back by popular demand: So-called “mob” films and TV shows have become so much a part of the American pop culture scene that they are quoted, often inadvertently, in everyday lexicon and discourse. The same can be said of Shakespeare, who is the most quoted source (often unknowingly quoted) in the English language, far exceeding even the bible. It has even been said that every single story line conceived after Shakespeare has borrowed something from him. This is certainly true of the “mob” films. There are some Mafia films that are direct adaptations of a Shakespeare play, but all of them contain echoes of Shakespeare, either in plot, theme, or characterization. This course will examine some of those echoes, and explore how Shakespeare is reflected in the Mafioso of Hollywood.
SEGL 426: American Literature 1830-1865--MWF 11:00-11:50 O'Brien
American Romanticism: Free Spirits, Free Labor, and Free Love. During the period from 1830 to 1865, American literature and American citizenship underwent a series of radical revisions. Believing, as Romantics did, in the revolutionary potential of the human imagination, authors including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglass, Frances Watkins Harper, and Margaret Fuller inspired their readers and challenged authority at every turn. This course will read a variety of American authors who introduce revolutionary ideas about sex, citizenship, work, and religion to a nation suffering from repression, inequality, and a suffocating Puritan heritage. We will explore different genres with an eye toward their historical and cultural context—an era that witnessed political and social movements advocating free love, free labor, spiritualism, emancipation, and women’s rights.
SEGL 428: American Literature 1910-1950--TTH 9:25-10:40 Kusch
Cultural Encounters. Modernist American authors describe their literary movements as a break from the standards and traditions of British and European literary culture. Their motto, as Ezra Pound describes it, is to "make it new," and these writers experiment with new ways to create and express a distinctly American literature and culture that can effectively describe the complicated problems of modern life. By reading texts about the cultural encounters and conflicts between rich and poor, popular and elite, masculine and feminine, immigrant and "native," technological and traditional, students will develop skills in close reading and analytic writing, and they will demonstrate those skills through class discussions, response papers, class presentations, research papers, and exams. Texts include poems, novels, and plays published between World War I and the Cold War, such as The Waste Land, Passing, The Great Gatsby, The Sound and the Fury, and A Streetcar Named Desire.
SEGL 453: Development of the English Language--11-1:15 Marlow (Summer I)
Ever wondered why there are so many exceptions to the rules in English (like why making a word plural: dogs, deer, oxen, children, and alumni)? Answers to these questions and more will be found as you tour the history of English.
SEGL 490: Senior Seminar--MWF 9-9:50 O'Brien
SFLM 480: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Film: Prison Films and Masculinity--MW 2-3:15 Caster
The recent movie Law Abiding Citizen is the latest in a long series of films treating prison as a stage for the contest not only between law and crime, but the struggle over what it means to be a man. Films such as The Hurricane, American History X, The Shawshank Redemption, American Me, and others describe the challenge of determining what constitutes right action in an imperfect world. At the same time, questions regarding the justice of violence and the consequences of racism cannot be separated from the expectations of masculinity--the performances, behaviors, and representations of acting like a man. Gender studies, sociology, history, and film analysis will be used to engage course movies.
SSPN 305/Honors 301: Don Quixote TTH 9:25-10:40 Polchow
Join us as we explore one of Spain's most iconic figures, Don Quixote. We will read one of the world's greatest literary works and examine modern quixotic connections in literature and contemporary film. Course taught in English; knowledge of the Spanish language is not necessary. Although the class is cross-listed with Honors 301, all students are welcome to enroll.
SEGL 102H: Honors Composition and Literature--MWF 11-11:50 Kusch
Is literature an escape from global realities or can literature help us to imagine a better world for ourselves? This class will focus on literature that offers utopian representations of our world as well as representations of our failure to reach those utopian dreams. In the first half of the course students will study literary representations of the American Dream and of Hollywood's role in inventing that dream. Then we will turn our attention to utopian dreams from around the world, including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Great Britain, and Palestine/Israel. By exploring the relationships between literary texts and contexts, students will develop skills in close reading, research, and analytic and argumentative writing. Students will write four papers and complete one research-based group presentation. Students must qualify for the HONORS PROGRAM to enroll in this course.
- English 319: Development of the Novel--Williams
Under what conditions did this most popular of literary forms appear and evolve? How are contemporary novelists influenced by (or responsive to) the writers who came before? Students in this course will engage in a critical and historical study of this genre by reading four pairs of novels, each pair consisting of one early and influential work and one later one that revises, reimagines, or revisits the earlier. We will read the following: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and J. M. Coetzee's Foe; Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea; Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Julian Barnes' Flaubert’s Parrot; and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Students will take a midterm and a final and will write three essays. They are expected to think for themselves, to form strong opinions, to disagree, to argue persuasively and eloquently when they speak and when they write.
SEGL 397: Special Topics in Writing--T 6:30-8:00 pm Johnson
WRITING ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS: This course is a creative nonfiction workshop within a framework of feminist gender studies. Students will read several recent contemporary memoirs devoted to romantic relationships, as well as several feminist treatments of gendered power and sexual politics. These works will serve as models for the students’ original creative writing projects.
SEGL 406: Special Topics in Shakespeare--TTH 12:15-1:30 Canino
SHAKESPEARE AND THE MOB: So-called “mob” films and TV shows have become so much a part of the American pop culture scene that they are quoted, often inadvertently, in everyday lexicon and discourse. The same can be said of Shakespeare, who is the most quoted source (often unknowingly quoted) in the English language, far exceeding even the bible. It has even been said that every single story line conceived after Shakespeare has borrowed something from him. This is certainly true of the “mob” films. There are some Mafia films that are direct adaptations of a Shakespeare play, but all of them contain echoes of Shakespeare, either in plot, theme, or characterization. This course will examine some of those echoes, and explore how Shakespeare is reflected in the Mafioso of Hollywood.
SEGL 427: American Literature 1865-1910--TTh 1:40-2:55 Kusch
LAW AND ORDER:Law and order are central concerns in American literature from 1865-1910. The realism and naturalism produced during this period question the social and natural order and respond to new laws regulating race relations, Native American territories, immigration, industry, and workers rights. The literature covered in this class focuses on murder cases, race riots, immigrant stories, and social climbing. Texts include Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition, Henry James's Daisy Miller, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, and many examples of short fiction from the period.
SEGL 455: Sociolinguistics--Marlow
If you are scared because you've heard Linguistics is like math formulas, patterns and symbols but have to take a course in it anyway, SEGL 455 is the course for you. Here we deal with the people side of language: dialect, race, gender, education, location. The projects for this class focus on applying the information we study to language in the Upstate or around the globe.
SEGL 468: Advanced Creative Writing--TTh 12:15-1:30 McConnell
NOVEL WRITING: In this edition of advanced creative writing, we'll write a novel, or at least the beginning of one. Students will be expected to produce fifty (50) pages of polished prose by the end of the term. We'll employ a workshop approach to hone our skills as both critics and writers. We'll also have several working novelists visit our class and read two+ novels during the semester (Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Trimalchio, an earlier version of Gatsby) and another novel of the student's choice. Students will write brief analytical papers on these required texts.
SFRN 398: Special Topics in French Literature--Raquidel
FRANCOPHONE LITERATURE: This class will concentrate on 20th-century writers from countries other than France who write in French. Most of the authors studied deal with issues of postcolonialism, race, beliefs, lore, and the place of women in society.
SFRN 402: Masterpieces of French Drama--Raquidel
This course is taught in French, however if any theater student is able to understand and participate in class, he or she will be allowed to write papers in English. In the first part of the course, we will look at drama from its medieval origins until the 19th century. We will study the the main writers, the actors who made history, and the different styles reflecting the period when the plays were produced. In the second half of the class, we will concentrate on 20th-century theater and on authors and movements who changed not only the course of French drama, but that of the world. The theater of the absurd, of cruelty, of derision, pataphysics, dada, surrealism, existentialism, etc. We will look at the importance of Jarry, Artaud, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Vian, Tardieu, and others.
SSPN 420: US Latino/a Literature--Carter
This course is designed to analyze and gain further knowledge of and appreciation for current significant literary works of the following Latino/a writers born or raised in the United States: Pri Thomas (Down These Mean Streets), Julia Álvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents), Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street), Christina Garcia (Dreaming in Cuban), and Rudolfo Anaya (Bless Me, Última). The aim is to foster an understanding of major issues, cultural and literary tendencies revealed in selected texts by these authors. Students will further develop skills in analytical and critical thinking through close reading and interpretation of various literary texts and cultural essays.