Graduate Studies Bulletin

Fall 2017 Course Offerings

English 501: Teaching of Writing: Methodology of Composition

Mike Edwards, Thursdays, 3:10-6 pm

Description not available. Contact the instructor for more information.

English 525: Law and Literature in 17th Century England

Todd Butler, Thursdays, 2:50-5:20 pm

Deep into the rebellion that animates Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 2, Jack Cade reflects on the dangers of contracts, explaining “Some say the bee stings: / but I say, ‘tis the bee’s wax; for I did but seal / once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.” Cade’s argument highlights the extent to which early modern law, far from being simply a matter of institutional techne, also engaged deep questions about subjectivity, class, and the appropriate exercise of power. Such questions are also of concern to contemporary critics, who have increasingly found in the field of “law and literature” new ways to engage the often troubled nexus between literature and social power.

In this course we will pursue this path, reading widely in both contemporary theory but also early modern literature. In each case our scope will be widely interdisciplinary and offer significant flexibility for individual interests for specialists in early literature, rhetoric, and contemporary theory. As per the sample syllabus, the course will be organized topically. It begins with an overview of the interdisciplinary field of “law and literature” and then examines foundational classical texts (Aristotle, Seneca, Quintilian, Cicero) before moving into early modern works. The latter section is organized through a series of case studies juxtaposing early modern literary texts with both period and contemporary materials. These studies cover a range of topics, including gender and sexuality (marriage, divorce, domestic homicide), processes of writing (slander, censorship), witchcraft, and treason. Assignments to include short response papers, book review, and a seminar-length paper, the latter of which will allow for considerable individual flexibility in approach and interests.

English 543: Phonology

Lynn Gordon, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12-1:15 pm

Description not available. Contact the instructor for more information. 

English 545: Graduate Student Writing Workshop

Elizabeth (Liz) Siler, by arrangement

The Graduate Student Writing Workshop is open to all graduate students at Washington State University, including those for whom English is not a first language (ESL). Enrollment is limited. No over-enrollments are allowed in any section at any time, so encourage students, friends, and colleagues to sign up early.    

This is a completely web-arranged class, but it is taught through the English Department, not through Global Campus. To be in the class, a student needs two things: a substantial piece of graduate writing to work on and a computer that handles web video conferencing via Zoom. A substantial piece of writing could be an article, a proposal, a report, a presentation, a dissertation, a thesis, or any of many other types of writing. A minimum of seven individual conferences are held via Zoom. At each meeting, the student and I meet online at a mutually arranged time to work on their writing.   

Each student is different; each student has different writing needs. This class offers a highly individualized type of instruction — each student’s needs form that student’s course of studies. The class is suitable for students at all levels, from incoming graduate students to those in the last stage of dissertation production.   

There is some collateral instruction in oral production skills available through this class, often in the context of work with students who are preparing presentations for conferences, defenses, etc. However, the primary focus of the class is writing development.

English 548: Critical and Cultural Theory: Critical Theories, Literacies, and Pedagogies

Ashley Boyd, Tuesdays 2:50-5:20 pm

In this graduate seminar, we will interrogate influential theoretical texts that uphold each of the four pillars of Janks’ model of critical literacy: domination, access, diversity, and design.  Works will include those by Marx, Foucault, Freire, and Gee, as well as more contemporary texts from Critical Race Theory, Feminist Theory, and Critical Whiteness Studies.  Our study will imagine varied processes of social reproduction and will posit how systems of power are constructed and upheld.  We will apply these theories to enact critical literacy, reading both the ‘word’ and the ‘world,’ using analytic strategies to critique popular as well as traditional texts.  Finally, we will explore how these intellectual practices inform pedagogies for enacting social change with regard to both teachers and students.

English 549: 20th Century British Literature: “Color me English”: History, Politics, and the Evolution of twentieth-Century British Literature

Pavithra Narayanan, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:35-11:50 am

At the turn of the twentieth century, Britain’s position as the “global hegemon” appeared secure, the empire was a central character in British narratives, and early to nineteenth century authors who became canonical figures dominated the world of letters. A post-empire sensibility or as Yeats described it, a recognition that “the center can no longer hold,” emerged with moral, social, and psychological anxieties that accompanied the World Wars. Literary conventions dramatically shifted with the rise of modernists such as Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce, specifically with politically engaged writers such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and John Osborne. But, it was the arrival of the Empire Windrush, exiles, and émigrés that radically uprooted and reframed discourses about imperialism. Attentive to these historical, political, cultural, and social transformations that shaped and continue to influence British writing and literary criticism, this seminar will examine and assess concepts, terms, themes, issues, and stylistic innovations that characterize twentieth-century British literature. In this course, the category “British Literature” only serves as a tool to explore and understand how writers challenge and redefine notions of nativist, individual, and literary identities. Selected readings for the seminar illustrate that while literature has the capacity to entrench imperialism, it also has the capacity, as Caryl Phillips notes, “to wrench us out of our ideological burrows and force us to engage with a world that is clumsily transforming itself.” The goals of this course include identifying and employing methodologies and theoretical frameworks (historical, comparative, and global) to interpret, read, and teach literature; and conducting research to produce coherent and polished analytical arguments that could contribute toward scholarship in the intersecting fields of British, global, and postcolonial studies.

English 573: American Literature: American Writers and Online Editions

Donna Campbell, Tuesdays, 2:50-5:20 pm

This course focuses on the theoretical, analytical, and practical skills needed to explore and create online and print editions. We will focus on an in-depth study of such authors as Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, and Charles W. Chesnutt in the publication context of their works both during their own day and in their new incarnations as digital editions. In addition to reading one or more books by these authors, the class will read current critical interpretations and analyze the content, publication history, and other features of the texts. Students will learn both digital and traditional editorial markup and will perform some actual editing work to explore the underpinnings of digital editions. A major focus will be Edith Wharton, but we will investigate other editions and the best practices of creating them.

Those enrolled in the class will learn traditional editing through Williams and Abbott (below); they would then examine the editing practices of such well-established online projects as the Mark Twain and Walt Whitman editions and sites from modnets.org, the NINES project, the Willa Cather Archive, the Women Writers Project, the Colored Conventions Project, and so on. They will complete editing projects such as transcribing the manuscript of a short story, following it through its periodical publication, and then creating an edition with textual notes that describe the changes. Students will also write an essay or introduction that contextualizes the piece, describes editing challenges, characterizes its initial reception, and reviews current criticism. In addition to literary criticism on the novels, readings will include theories of digital humanities and of editing by Jerome McGann, Lisa Gitelman, Matthew K. Gold, Matthew Kirschenbaum, William Procter Williams and Craig S. Abbott, Anne Drucker, and Amy Earhart. 

The class will also be introduced to some of the digital tools that enable scholars to design and mount an online edition of a text. Among the tools to be explored are the TEI (Text­ Encoding Initiative), Scalar, and Neatline, etc. For one proposed assignment, students either alone or in a group will identify an unknown or little­ known author or text that they wish to recover as worthy of more attention. They can find these texts through reading 19th­ and early 20th­century journals online (the Making of America Project, the Modernist Journals Project, Hathi Trust, etc.) or by investigating the print volumes of journals in the Holland/Terrell Library (Atlantic, Harper’s, Scribner’s, The Century, and so on).

All assignments are geared toward eventual presentation or publication: a 30­minute oral presentation; minor 5­minute presentations of critical material; and two papers or digital projects, one of conference length and one longer paper or a digital editing project.  

English 590: Research in English Studies

By arrangement

English 590 is a graded independent study designed to provide directed research in English studies for individuals (or small groups) in conjunction with one or more faculty members. English 590 may be taken for 1 credit per semester up to a total of 3 credits altogether. One credit of English 590 is required for the Ph.D. program.

In Option One, the student would prepare least a one-page (typed and double-spaced) bibliography on key primary and secondary works in a specific research field along with a project description or rationale for choosing the works. In Option Two, the student’s work might include not only readings but also a practical exploration of other methods of research, including but not limited to learning statistical methods, working with digital technologies, or gaining experience with editorial work.

For both options, students typically meet with their research mentors once a week and at the outset draw up a memorandum of understanding that delimits the relative proportions of readings, discussion, and, if appropriate, practice, along with a clearly delineated set of standards for assessing quality and progress. The student’s research goals should be the focus of all work undertaken for the project. Under no circumstances may the instructor allow the needs of a larger project (for data collection, coding, and so forth) to supersede the benefit to the student.

All doctoral students must take at least 1 credit of English 590, but no more than 3 credits total are allowed. English 590 is not intended to be a substitute for a viable graduate seminar. M.A. students may take English 590 but might not find the time to do so in their program of study.

Students are encouraged to seek out faculty members to learn their research areas and availability for an English 590.

English 595: Topics in English: Writing for Publication

Victor Villanueva, Wednesdays, 3:10-6 pm

One of the great transitions of a graduate student is the move from student to professional.  And nowhere is that transition more apparent than in moving from writing for a course (and a professor you kind of understand) to writing for a new set of peers (as in several thousand readers, most of whom have been active professionals for many years).

I began this career with all of the fears of publishing of any graduate student—e.g., “thousands of readers,” nothing to say that isn’t “obvious,” not being a “talented” writer, etc.—yet managed to write quite a bit (national award-winning books and articles).  So let’s talk about it.  Let’s work through the expectations of this profession and let’s work through something you’d want to publish.

For this course, we’ll put aside the how-to book.  We will write, and we will talk about what you write (and I’ll tell of rejections and acceptances). 

And what’s most important, you will workshop among yourselves (well, I’ll be there, listening, putting my two cents in). In other words, we’ll be less generic and actually write and workshop and talk and revise and take the leap into submitting one essay.

English 597: Topics in Rhetoric and Composition: Public(s) Rhetoric(s), Pedagogies, Praxis in the 21st C.

Julie Staggers, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:25-2:40 pm

This course explores the production and interpretation of public acts of rhetoric (“texts” aimed at persuading, engaging, moving adults in the U.S. and globally), and the implications of a new focus on “public rhetoric” for researchers and teachers of writing. Questions we will explore include:

  • The public sphere in the 21st century: Does it exist? How do we define it?
  • Who can/cannot participate in the public sphere? And who/what sets those rules?
  • What counts as a public issue?
  • How are power relations embedded in competing visions of the public sphere, by what means are power and knowledge authorized and circulated? How might rhetoricians intervene in public deliberations to dismantle unequal power relations?
  • In an era where there is much talk about the role of the public intellectual, what is the relationship between academia and the public sphere? What should it be?
  • How does dissent function in the public sphere?
  • How does the Web2.x culture change the public sphere?
  • How do we as teachers and rhetoricians enact participation in the public sphere?
  • How do we teach our students to enact participation in the public sphere?
  • How do we study publics?
  • What is public rhetoric?

Readings: Articles, chapters, and digital texts addressing these themes:

  • Meanings of Public
  • Public in Rhetoric and Composition
  • Tools for Tracing Publics
  • Teaching Public as Engagement
  • Public as Place/Non-place
  • Public as Embodied/Disembodied
  • ANT and Researching Publics
  • Defining Public
  • Writing and Public Rhetoric
  • Public Rhetoric and Democracy

Potential booklist:

  • Flower, Linda. (2008). Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement
  • Latour, Bruno, and Peter Weibel. Eds. (2005). Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy
  • Latour, Bruno. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory
  • Mayhew, Leon H. (1997). The New Public: Professional Communication and the Means of Social Influence
  • Warner, Michael. (2005). Publics and Counterpublics

Major Assignments:

In addition to weekly critical posts and responses (focused on a breaking public issue students select during the first week of the semester) to the assigned readings, students will complete one major written project (approx. 15 pg. final product), which may take any of these forms:

  • Traditional seminar paper
  • An annotated syllabus, major assignment, and 4-6-week daily sequence supporting the major assignment for an undergraduate class
  • Multimodal “tracing” (students revisit their weekly critical posts and create an argument that addresses a key theme from the course. Instructor pre-approval required. This piece should be polished and professional quality.)
  • Students will submit a 2-4 page written proposal for the final project (at midterm) that describes the project.
  • Annotated teaching philosophy.