Communication Studies
CA270 Oral Communication
Heffron, S. (Fri. 9.30-12.15)
This course will focus on the way nonverbal communication influences daily life. Students will learn to identify and interpret nonverbal cues across a variety of social and interpersonal situations, and will study the importance of controlling what they communicate, both intentionally and unintentionally, through nonverbal messages.
CA271 Acting II
Minor, K. (Tues. 7.45-10.10 p.m.)
This course is a workshop that explores the craft of acting through scene study, focusing on verse and highly-styled dramatic literature such as Shakespeare, Moliere and possibly Samuel Beckett and Caryl Churchill. Through rigorous attention to the text, students learn to identify and personalize a character’s driving need (objective) and to engage themselves (voice, body, mind, and spirit) in its active pursuit, informed by character-specific listening. Students will rehearse privately, work monologues and two two-person scenes in class.
CA321 Theories of Communication
Cain, J. (Thurs. 12.30-3.15)
This course explores the major 20th and 21st-century communications theories from their prescriptive background in classical thought (Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero) to the most recent descriptive developments in the field: Genderlect Theory, Standpoint Theory, Face-Negotiation Theory, Muted Group Theory, and others. Each student will become the class "expert" on one major theorist and will give a long oral report on the implications of that theorist's work. We will seek to compare and contrast underlying paradigms in order to understand the possibilities for writing descriptive theories of communication.
Literary Studies
EN288 Ecstasy in World Literature: Sufi Mystical Poetry
Moores, D. (Tues. 12.30-3.15)
This course is a survey of the mystical poetry of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Sufism developed under the watchful (and at times) intolerant eyes of orthodox Muslims, who often found esoteric spirituality threatening. Sufi poets, consequently, developed an elaborate set of symbols and images for the purpose of disguising their religious ideas. The result was a rich body of poetry that celebrates, often in erotic images, ecstatic joy in all of its nuances. We will pay close attention to the concept of ekstasis (Gr. To stand outside of oneself), the root of the word ecstasy, and follow its trajectory through the work of six Sufi writers – Rabia, Saadi, Sanai, Attar, Hafiz, and Rumi.
EN299 Special Topics: Sentimentalism in 19th Century American Literature
Magee, R. (Mon. 9.30-12.15)
In this course we will study the most popular literature of the middle of the nineteenth century. Sentimental literature entertained readers with stories of home and family life, and featured characters who faced threats to their domestic stability. These highly emotional works dealt with many important issues of the day, especially the position of marginalized groups (such as Native Americans, slaves, and women) in American society, frequently viewed through the eyes of characters much like the readers themselves: middle-class American women. We will read several novels as well as critical works on the cultural and historic background. Prerequisites: EN121/2 and EN131/2 or EN101
EN299 Special Topics: Modernist Women ~ New York-Paris-London
Falcetta, J. (Mon. 5.10-7.35)
Poets Marianne Moore and H.D., fiction writers Jean Rhys and Katherine Mansfield, and journalists Janet Flanner and Rebecca West broke the rules on the page – and off. As a way into selected works by these and other women modernist writers, the course will examine their unconventional lives, including their urban contexts, creative communities, and personal relationships.
EN313 Literature of the Restoration and the Enlightenment
Moores, D. (Thurs. 5.10-7.35)
This course will deal with the literature written in England between 1660 and 1785 – or what is called the “long eighteenth century.” Since the literature of this period takes many forms, we will read essays, poems, plays, “travel” narratives, allegories, and a novel. Restoration and Enlightenment writers played with boundaries and established some of the rules that govern many of our current genres. Our primary focus will be on the concept of genre(s) in the long eighteenth century, and we will read writers such as Dryden, Bunyan, Swift, Pope, and others.
EN356 The Golden Age of the Novel
Loris, M. (Weds. 9.30-12.15)
This course examines the development of the American novel from World War I through the Jazz Age and the Great Depression to World War II. Authors studied include: Stein, Anderson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hurston, Wright.
EN390 Literary Theory and Praxis
DiPace, A. (Weds. 5.10-7.35)
This course examines poststructuralist theory – literary theory since 1965. From close reading, critical reading, and analysis, to interpretation define the process involved in the reading and application of critical theory to selected poems by W. B. Yeats. Students will examine the following contemporary literary theories: Formalism (New Criticism); Structuralism (and Linguistics); Psychoanalytical Critical Theories; Marxist Critical Theory; Deconstruction; Feminisms; Gender Studies; Historicisms; Post Colonial Studies; and Cultural Studies.
Writing, Composition, & Rhetoric
EN272 Studies in Writing: Advanced Creative Writing – Drama
Young, S. (Weds. 11.00-1.45)
In this course, a continuation of English 175, students will concentrate on writing drama, specifically monologues and one-act plays; also, students will be at work on a draft of a full-length script (perhaps reworking lines from the monologues and one-acts). Students will participate in the Writers' Workshop, bringing to the class their works-in-progress and their revisions, continue to learn how to analyze the work of professional writers and fellow students in a workshop setting, and apply these critical techniques to writing and revising your own work. Students will be expected to develop both as critics and writers, to participate in classroom discussions and private conferences with me, and to submit a portfolio of their work at the end of the semester. The focus of Advanced Creative Writing is to prepare their work for a staged reading by the SHU Players.
EN375 Advanced Composition
Young, S. (Tues. 9.30-12.15)
Advanced composition explores writing strategies beyond the introductory level. Stresses refining style, finding a voice, determining an audience and discovering the rhetorical strategies appropriate for particular genres. This course is a workshop; students write and revise in class.
By the end of this course, the student should have the following skills:
1. The ability to produce well-written, cohesive, and learned pieces of writing that exhibit the writer’s crafting of his/her style.
2. The ability to discover and employ the appropriate voice (such as expression, word, phrase, tone, mood, presence, and credibility, among others) for the pertinent text.
3. The ability to determine an audience and adapt rhetorical strategies for that particular audience.
4. The ability to understand the various genres and adopt appropriate rhetorical strategies for writing within a particular genre.
5. The ability to research a topic using both traditional and on-line sources, and to document the sources used according to a specific documentation style.
EN380 Rhetoric and Composition Pedagogy
Young, S. (Thurs. 3.30-6.15)
This seminar is designed for students who want to teach in a secondary education environment. The course will demonstrate how research, scholarship, and theory can inform the teaching of writing. In the course we will survey the range of theories and approaches in the study and teaching of writing, including expressive, cognitive, social, and cultural.
By the end of the course student should have the following skills:
1) the ability to conduct composition research in preparing to write secondary education writing assignments;
2) the ability to produce scholarship in composition theory and practice;
3) the ability to write writing assignments appropriate to a variety of courses and educational levels.