Graduate Studies Bulletin
Spring 2021 Course Offerings
English 515: Rhetorics of Racism
Robert Eddy
Rhetoric is theorized within the national, linguistic, political-economic and cultural settings in which it is contested and in which it is used. Systemic racism/white supremacy and its rhetorics are often ignored or minimally studied or confronted in contemporary white rhetorical theory work. This seminar will look closely at how Burke’s rhetorical politics of identification fits into contemporary rhetorics of racism and the current expanding threat of white supremacy and white-controlled rhetorics of the less than human. How, when and why does contemporary rhetorical theory ignore rhetorics of racism and white supremacy? Which current rhetorical theorists confront racism/white supremacy in depth and how are their racialized politics of identification complicated by the Burke texts we will study? The theorists we will look at will start with Anzaldua, Gertrude Buck, bell hooks, Krista Radcliffe, Richard Weaver, Richard Vatz, and will move to emerging contemporaries like Layla Saad. Seminar question: is the massive overrepresentation of white people in contemporary expanding atheism and AI the final theoretical stage of white supremacy? The replacing of the infinite, the transcendent, the divine, and the human, with a white self who is claiming all power while incarcerating or excising the outsider, the less than human others of color? What is the full rhetorical significance of white AI facial recognition software not seeing black and brown faces?
English 527: 17th & 18th Century Literature
Kirk L. McAuley
Description not available. Contact the instructor for more information.
English 544: Syntax
Michael Thomas
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 548.01: Critical and Cultural Theory: The Politics of Affect
Roger Whitson
Reacting to a “sense of disaffection” following the inability of the Obama administration to offer a progressive solution to the financial crisis of 2008, a 2019 New York Times profile on Lauren Berlant describes how she saw Americans growing emotionally unsteady. “It was as though [people] were in relationships that lacked reciprocity,” profiler Hua Hsu says. “[C]onsider our Twitter-fed swings of anger and mirth, the oversharing and moodiness ascribed to younger generations, the paranoia stoked by proliferating conspiracy theories, even the emergence of the eternally sad pop star.” This seminar will offer an introduction to the politics of affect, the inscription by cultural and political ideologies of what Benedict Spinoza called our “capacity to affect and to be affected.” We will not only consider how this capacity operates as a site of struggle, but also how it operates intersectionally, in terms of what Jasbir Puar has called the “differential normalities” of biopolitical societies; how it circulates within cultural and political milieus, pointing to what Sarah Ahmed calls a “sociality of emotion;” how it entangles us with our environment, suggesting what Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino call an “affect-environment confluence;” and how it is intensified technologically, by what Tero Karppi calls the “affective flow” of scrolling through Facebook. The final design of the course will be structured to appeal to both students in literary studies and in rhetoric and composition. Requirements include a major project, whether seminar paper, pedagogical intervention, or digital project; and two presentations during the semester.
English 548.02: Critical and Cultural Theory: Narrative Theory
Aaron Oforlea
Foundations and Innovations may conjure up the terminology of “classical” and “postclassical” narratology, but for this Graduate Seminar we have something bigger and more dynamic in mind. Rather than orienting the field of narrative theory around distinct periods, we’ll explore it by setting up feedback loops among strong theories, primary narratives in different media, and their implicit challenges to interpretation. We’ll range from Aristotle’s Poetics to contemporary (serial) television and graphic narrative, from Russian Formalist poetics to queer and feminist narratologies, from Chicago School theory to innovative prose fiction. We’ll also examine other contemporary narrative-theoretical approaches, and save time for students to workshop their own innovative—and newly foundational—projects.
English/Digital Technology and Culture 561: Studies in Technology & Culture
Description not available. Contact the instructor for more information.
English 562: Writing and Rhetoric in the Science & Tech Seminar
Julie Staggers
This course is an introduction to the rhetorical, historical and social analysis of science as a discursive and material practice. Arguably, “science” is the dominant discourse of our time. Whether we are focused on technology, medicine, the environment, or public policy, science affects all our lives in profound ways, and it does this through written and digital texts. This course provides a brief overview of the field of Rhetoric of Science, Technology and Medicine (RSTM) by way of historical context and then focuses on understanding how the writing done in science works in a variety of different contexts.
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.