Graduate Studies Bulletin

Spring 2023 Course Offerings

English 515: Contemporary Theories of Rhetoric: The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine

Melissa Nicolas, Tuesdays, 2:55-5:25 pm

The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (Rhm) is an emerging sub-field in rhetorical studies. The project of (Rhm) is to understand, examine, critique, and analyze, how language shapes all aspects of health and medicine from public health messaging to research paradigms, to medical education, to the ways we think and talk about the body. As such, Rhm is interdisciplinary, drawing on work from such areas as sociology, psychology, medicine, humanities, anthropology, feminism, critical race theory, and disability studies. In that spirit, in this course, we will read widely across many examples of Rhm in pursuit of three questions: How does language construct “health” and “medicine” in Western Culture? How have bodies been constructed/(dis)embodied throughout the history of medicine? What are the consequences, implications, and impacts of these constructions?

English 531: Administering a Writing Program

Wendy Olson, Thursdays, 2:55-5:35 pm

This seminar will emphasize both theory and praxis of writing program administration in multiple types of writing programs in a variety of diverse institutional environments: first-year composition, professional writing, writing centers, WAC/WID programs, etc. Understanding that WPA work and the role of the WPA is distinctly situated depending upon the institutional context and circumstances, the course will address a broad range of WPA work: program design and development; curricular design and development; training and professional development; assessment and evaluation; program-related textual production; and research. Course themes will include the following: the ethical implications of defining and doing writing program administration; developing inter-institutional relationships to advocate for writing instruction; rhetorical strategies for developing and documenting writing program administration; the institutional politics of characterizing writing (“talking back” to the student deficient approach); and other issues suggested by students and course readings.

English 544: Syntax

Michael Thomas, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 1:10-2 pm

Description not available. Contact 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/Digital Technology and Culture 561: Studies in Technology and Culture: Media Archaeologies

Roger Whitson, Mondays, 3:10-5:40 pm

This course will act as an introduction to the multidisciplinary field of media archaeology, which studies the residual forms and practices of media as a critique of contemporary media culture. Focusing particularly on quirks, accidents, and haphazard inventions, media archaeology imagines alternate histories and futures of technology. Additionally, it combines these cultural histories of technology with a focus on the media operative capabilities of time-critical devices and geological and environmental phenomena to demonstrate how media process our experiences of history and temporality. While the beginning weeks of the course focuses on canonical writings, like Walter Benjamin’s examination of the transformation of artworks when subjected to technological reproduction and Marshall McLuhan’s elucidation of media as extending the human sensorium; the majority of the course applies Benjamin and McLuhan’s focus on media materiality to subjects such as racist infrastructure and surveillance, cybernetics and critical theory, environmental humanities and animal phenomenology, and revolutionary politics and guerilla tactics. Course requirements include two presentation and a seminar paper, or digital or pedagogical project.

English 584: Sixteenth-Century English Literature

William Hamlin, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:35-11:50 am

Description not available. Contact the instructor for more information.

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 591: Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies

Ashley Boyd, Wednesdays, 3:10-5:40 pm

How do we translate theory into practice? This course, broadly conceived to apply to teaching different forms of texts and genres, will survey various anti-oppressive pedagogies (Kumashiro, 2007) and apply them to a host of texts in order to model myriad approaches to teaching. We will develop ways to teach from the perspectives offered in fields such as feminism and critical race studies, and we will simultaneously analyze these approaches for their benefits and their limitations in the classroom. In addition, we will review and practice relevant pedagogical strategies, such as leading effective discussion or engaging students through learning experiences. Finally, we will consider issues related to the social contexts of pedagogy, such as being inclusive of the needs of diverse students and discerning how social justice relates to the study of pedagogy. Students will develop, through course assignments, a series of documents to accompany their teaching portfolios, including a teaching philosophy and pedagogical demonstration.

English 595: Topics in English: Anthropocene Narrative

Jon Hegglund, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:05-1:20 pm

Since its widespread adoption by the scientific community in the early 2000s, the word “Anthropocene” has become a touchstone for writers, filmmakers, intellectuals, and scholars. Describing the irreversible human alteration of the material systems and ecologies of Earth—from the heights of the atmosphere to the depths of the lithosphere, and everything in between—the Anthropocene offers a new conceptual framing for the world-historical moment in which we live, foregrounding environmental and ecological crisis along with political, economic, and social inequities. Encompassing more than just ecological disaster, resource scarcity, and climate change (though it does deal directly with these circumstances), the idea of the Anthropocene juxtaposes the rhythms and habits of late-capitalist, everyday existence with the deep-historical temporalities of geological change and the spatial finitude of planet Earth. As a result, literatures and cultures of the Anthropocene epoch (including prose fiction, art, film, television, music, video games, comics, social media, and other forms) engage in complex ways with changing understandings of time, space, nature, humanity, materiality, life, and death. In particular, we will focus on how the conditions of the Anthropocene transform narrative, at the levels of medium, structure, and content. Because conventional narrative ideas are premised on ideas such as linearity, progress, spatially coherent storyworlds, and consistent human characters, we will be especially concerned with narratives (and theories of narrative) that twist, warp, or otherwise transform Anthropocene storytelling at the most fundamental levels. Written course work will consist of a few short position papers, along with a longer essay (or equivalent research project).