The Department of English is soliciting submissions for our annual Essay Prizes.
A prize of $125 will be awarded to the best essay written for developmental
freshman writing courses (English 14, 14x) during Summer 2010, Fall 2010, or Spring 2011.
A prize of $125 will be awarded to the best essay written for freshman writing courses (English 16, 16x) during Summer 2010, Fall 2010, or Spring 2011.
A prize of $125 will be awarded to the best essay written for one of the core courses (English 61, 62, 63, 64) during Summer 2010, Fall 2010, or Spring 2011.
A prize of $125 will be awarded to the best essay written for one of the upper-division courses (except 190) during Summer 2010, Fall 2010, or Spring 2011.
A prize of $150 will be awarded to the best essay written for English 190, the English Department’s senior seminar. Papers written Summer 2010, Fall 2010, or Spring 2011 are eligible.
To submit:
1. The instructor or the student should fill out a submission form and submit it with three copies of the essay.
2. Essays must be free of hand-written comments and grades with the name of the author blocked out on every page.
3. Developmental freshman essays should be 4–5 pages, doubles-spaced.
4. Freshman essays should be 5–7 pages, double-spaced.
5. Sophomore core and upper division essays should be 5–15 pages, double-spaced.
6. Senior Seminar essays should be 20–25 pages, double-spaced.
7. All essays should follow MLA format for documentation.
8. Students may enter essays in more than one category, but no student can win more than one prize. Please submit only one paper per category.
Please note: the above essay lengths are suggested parameters. No essay will be excluded for exceeding the page numbers stated above.
Submit essays by 5 pm on Friday, April 22, 2011 to: Prof. Michael J.K. Bokor, English Department, Humanities Building, Fourth Floor.
Questions? Reach Prof. Bokor at Michael.Bokor@liu.edu
Voices of the Rainbow Event: Annual Reading By LIU Adjuncts and Graduate Students
Patricia Spears Jones has taught in the Writers on Writing series in the English Department's Creative-Writing MFA program. She has long been involved in the New York City poetry and theater scenes. She has been a former Program Coordinator for the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and has worked with Mabou Mines, the internationally acclaimed theater collective. She is the author of the poetry collections, Painkiller, The Weather That Kills, and Femme du Monde.
Alicia Berbenick is a gradute student in the English Department's Creative-Writing MFA Program. She has been featured in The Lanthorn, Downtown Brooklyn, and Brooklyn Paramount. She focuses primarily on writing short stories.
When & Where
April 13, 2011
1:30 PM
Humanities Building, Fourth Floor, Robert Spector Lounge
Light refreshments will be served.
Co-sponsored by the English Department's Creative Writing MFA Program.
Book Party for Jessica Hagedorn & Louis Parascandola
Please join us in the English Department for a book reading/signing to celebrate the release of Toxicology, a novel by Jessica Hagedorn, and In Search of Asylum; The Later Writings of Eric Walrond, by Louis Parascandola and Carl A. Wade. Light Refreshments will be served.
When & Where
April 13, 2011, promptly at 5 PM
Humanities Building, 4th Floor, Robert Spector Lounge
For further information, please contact the English Department at 718.488.1053.
When & Where
April 13, 2011, promptly at 5 PM
Humanities Building, 4th Floor, Robert Spector Lounge
For further information, please contact the English Department at 718.488.1053.
Prospective Students: Find Out More About the English Department at LIU Day
Representatives from the English Department will be on hand to answer all your questions about both undergraduate and graduate programs in the English Department.
Drop by and introduce yourself, and let us tell you why the English Department is for you!
Click here for more information.
Drop by and introduce yourself, and let us tell you why the English Department is for you!
Click here for more information.
English Faculty to Present as Part of Teaching-&-Learning-Initiative Brown-Bag Lunch: "The Riddle of Reading"
Brooklyn-Campus faculty members are invited to attend an informal discussion sponsored by the LIU Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI).
The Riddle Of Reading: Teaching Reading Across the Disciplines
Join Larry Banks, Esther Brill, William Burgos, Margaret Cuonzo, Jonathan Gough, Susan Halio, Tim Leslie, Shaun McGuire, Maxine Morgan-Thomas, Deborah Mutnick (English Department), Ben Saunders, Patricia Stephens (English Department), Brook Stowe, Cecelia Traugh, and Sharman Yoffie (English Department) for this Teaching & Learning Initiative Brown Bag Lunch on Teaching Reading across the Disciplines.
When & Where
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
1:00 - 2:30 PM
Jonas Board Room
Lunch will be served, but in the spirit of Brown Bag informality, you are welcome
to bring your own lunch instead!
Click image to see larger version of flyer for this event.
The Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI) of Long Island University was established to support faculty members in their effort to provide excellent instruction that promotes student learning. TLI is sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, Long Island University. Please visit the TLI Web site for more information about upcoming TLI events.
The Riddle Of Reading: Teaching Reading Across the Disciplines
Join Larry Banks, Esther Brill, William Burgos, Margaret Cuonzo, Jonathan Gough, Susan Halio, Tim Leslie, Shaun McGuire, Maxine Morgan-Thomas, Deborah Mutnick (English Department), Ben Saunders, Patricia Stephens (English Department), Brook Stowe, Cecelia Traugh, and Sharman Yoffie (English Department) for this Teaching & Learning Initiative Brown Bag Lunch on Teaching Reading across the Disciplines.
When & Where
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
1:00 - 2:30 PM
Jonas Board Room
Lunch will be served, but in the spirit of Brown Bag informality, you are welcome
to bring your own lunch instead!
Click image to see larger version of flyer for this event.
The Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI) of Long Island University was established to support faculty members in their effort to provide excellent instruction that promotes student learning. TLI is sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, Long Island University. Please visit the TLI Web site for more information about upcoming TLI events.
Leah Dilworth to Speak at NYU about the City Reliquary
We are pleased to note that Professor Leah Dilworth (Co-Chair of the English Department) will be giving a talk at NYU about The City Reliquary, which is a not-for-profit community museum and civic organization located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her talk is entitled "The DIY Museum: Re-Purposing the Past at The City Reliquary."
When & Where
Friday, April 8
5:00-7:00 PM
14 University Place, Ground Floor
NYU, Manhattan
About The City Reliquary: Through permanent display of New York City artifacts, rotating exhibits of community collections, and annual cultural events, The City Reliquary connects visitors to the city's past and present. http://www.cityreliquary.org/
Leah Dilworth is Professor of English at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus (and Resident Academic at The City Reliquary). She has written and lectured widely on cultural meanings of tourism, collecting, the history of craft in America, and museums. She is the author of Imagining Indians in the Southwest: Persistent Visions of a Primitive Past and editor of Acts of Possession: Collecting in America.
When & Where
Friday, April 8
5:00-7:00 PM
14 University Place, Ground Floor
NYU, Manhattan
About The City Reliquary: Through permanent display of New York City artifacts, rotating exhibits of community collections, and annual cultural events, The City Reliquary connects visitors to the city's past and present. http://www.cityreliquary.org/
Leah Dilworth is Professor of English at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus (and Resident Academic at The City Reliquary). She has written and lectured widely on cultural meanings of tourism, collecting, the history of craft in America, and museums. She is the author of Imagining Indians in the Southwest: Persistent Visions of a Primitive Past and editor of Acts of Possession: Collecting in America.
Voices of the Rainbow Event: Gary Shteyngart & Sonya Chung
Monday, April 4, 2011
12:00 noon
Humanities Building, Room 206
Russian-born author Gary Shteyngart has written the award-winning novels The Russian Debutatante's Daughter and Super Sad True Love Story.
Korean-American author Sonya Chung has written the critically-acclaimed novel Long for This World. She teaches at Columbia University.
For more information, contact Professor Maria McGarrity or Professor Louis Parascandola: 718-488-1050.
Click image to see larger version of flyer for this event.
12:00 noon
Humanities Building, Room 206
Russian-born author Gary Shteyngart has written the award-winning novels The Russian Debutatante's Daughter and Super Sad True Love Story.
Korean-American author Sonya Chung has written the critically-acclaimed novel Long for This World. She teaches at Columbia University.
For more information, contact Professor Maria McGarrity or Professor Louis Parascandola: 718-488-1050.
Click image to see larger version of flyer for this event.
MFA Reading Series Event: Every Time We Say Goodbye
Two readings of poetry and fiction by writers in the MFA program of the English Department at Long Island University (Brooklyn).
Where
Bowery Poetry Club
303 Bowery
New York, NY
212 714 0505
Reading #1
Friday, April 1, 2011
5-6:45 PM
Readers
Rachel Jackson
Eric Alter
Willie Perdomo
Elspeth Macdonald
Mary Walker
Kyle De Ocera
Christine Francavilla
Yani Gonzalez
Aimee Herman
Jon Jenkins
Tina Barry
Amyre Loomis
Jessica Wedge
Joe Infante
At the April 1 reading, we will also celebrate the publication of two new magazines Brooklyn Paramount and By The Overpass.
Reading #2
Friday, April 8, 2011
5-6:45 PM
Readers
Sarah Wallen
John Casquarelli
Liz Dalton
Tiffany Johnson
Uche Nduka
Jhon Sanchez
Marita Downes
Lisa Rogal
Micah Savaglio
Gulay Isik
Patia Braithwaite
Alicia Berbenick
Wendi Williams
Tony Iantosca
Where
Bowery Poetry Club
303 Bowery
New York, NY
212 714 0505
Reading #1
Friday, April 1, 2011
5-6:45 PM
Readers
Rachel Jackson
Eric Alter
Willie Perdomo
Elspeth Macdonald
Mary Walker
Kyle De Ocera
Christine Francavilla
Yani Gonzalez
Aimee Herman
Jon Jenkins
Tina Barry
Amyre Loomis
Jessica Wedge
Joe Infante
At the April 1 reading, we will also celebrate the publication of two new magazines Brooklyn Paramount and By The Overpass.
Reading #2
Friday, April 8, 2011
5-6:45 PM
Readers
Sarah Wallen
John Casquarelli
Liz Dalton
Tiffany Johnson
Uche Nduka
Jhon Sanchez
Marita Downes
Lisa Rogal
Micah Savaglio
Gulay Isik
Patia Braithwaite
Alicia Berbenick
Wendi Williams
Tony Iantosca
Voices of the Rainbow Event: Sapphire
When & Where
Monday, March 28, 2011
11:00 AM
Health Sciences Building, Room 119
Sapphire is a poet and fiction writer. He works include American Dreams; Black Wings & Blind Angels; and the best-selling novel Push, about a brutalized Harlem teenager. Push, winner of many awards, was made into the major motion picture, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.
Click image to see larger version of flyer for this event.
Co-sponsored with Africana Studies.
Monday, March 28, 2011
11:00 AM
Health Sciences Building, Room 119
Sapphire is a poet and fiction writer. He works include American Dreams; Black Wings & Blind Angels; and the best-selling novel Push, about a brutalized Harlem teenager. Push, winner of many awards, was made into the major motion picture, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.
Click image to see larger version of flyer for this event.
Co-sponsored with Africana Studies.
MFA Reading Series Event: Calvin Baker
Please join us to welcome Creative-Writing MFA Program Visiting Writer Calvin Baker.
Reading and Reception
Friday, March 25, 6-8
The Spector Lounge, 4th floor, H Building
Calvin Baker is the author of three novels: Naming The New World (St. Martins, 1998), One Two Heroes (Viking, 2003) and Dominion (Grove, 2006), which was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Award, as well as one of Newsday's Best Books of the Year. He was born in Chicago, attended Amherst College, and has taught at Barnard and Columbia. Esquire named him one of the best young writers in America in 2005.
Reading and Reception
Friday, March 25, 6-8
The Spector Lounge, 4th floor, H Building
Calvin Baker is the author of three novels: Naming The New World (St. Martins, 1998), One Two Heroes (Viking, 2003) and Dominion (Grove, 2006), which was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Award, as well as one of Newsday's Best Books of the Year. He was born in Chicago, attended Amherst College, and has taught at Barnard and Columbia. Esquire named him one of the best young writers in America in 2005.
Check Out Bernard Schweizer's Blog Post at CNN Website
Professor Bernard Schweizer (English Department) has contributed a special post ("My take: Why some people hate God") to CNN's religion blog Belief.
Check it out here.
Check it out here.
Stephanie Gray (MFA alum) Part of Group Program at Black Maria Film Festival
From Stephanie:
30th ANNUAL BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
FRI. MARCH 4. STARTING TIME - 8pm Admission $8 / $6 members
A selection of award-winning independent films and videos from the 2010 festival. Festival director and co-founder, JOHN COLUMBUS will be present to introduce and discuss the works shown. Black Maria, one of the most well known festivals of new film and video in the United States, organizes a travelling showcase tour of 40 or more works exhibiting at more than 50 host institutions. Each program presents a different selection of work and is introduced by the festival's director.
Visit http://www.blackmariafilmfestival.org for more info on Black Maria.
SELECTED FILMS:
CET AIR LA (3 min, 2010) by Marie Losier, Brooklyn, NY
This witty musical ditty features April March and Julien Gasc performing a popular 1963 French while floating over a superimposed projection of clouds, birds, bubbles, whiffs of smoke and glitter.
DRUMS+TRAINS (12 min, 2009 ) by Paul Winkler, Sydney, Australia
This work ironically juxtaposes seemingly innocent shots of drummers (but in actuality appropriated from the notorious Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will) with shots of toy trains, becoming an incisive meditation on the Holocaust.
POSSESSED (9 min, 2010) by Fred Worden, Silver Spring, MD
This arresting experimental work incorporates clips with Joan Crawford from the classic 1931 Hollywood film Possessed. Hyper-kinetic, mirrored images create a strobe effect positioning the heroine both on the inside and outside as a train leaves the station. The colliding frames shift between "adagio" and "allegro" phases much as with musical phrases but in the language of visual "montage."
SIX EASY PIECES (10 min, 2010) by Reynold Reynolds, Stuttgart, Germany
Basing this on the book "Six Easy Pieces: Essential Physics" Reynolds de-constructs film as a synthesis of art and technology and refers to an age when artists and scientists had similar concerns and were often the same person at typified by Leonardo da Vinci
YOU KNOW THEY WANT TO DISAPPEAR HELL'S KITCHEN (17 min, 2010) by Stephanie Gray, Flushing, NY
Composed of mysteriously insistent and gritty shots taken with a Super-8 camera, Stephanie Gray's quasi "underground" film was inspired by a letter to E.B. White, famed for his "Here is New York" essay. Mixing the filmmaker's voiceover invoking White's prose combined with lines from a 1960s tune "New York's a Lonely Town", this films is an "essay on the disappearing character of New York's Hell's Kitchen, a neighborhood regrettably renamed Clinton by developers.
COW BOY'S, HEIFERS (W)RAP (5.5 min, 2010) by Jerry Orr, Wyomissing, PA
Perhaps drawing on some inspiration from Leger's "Ballet Mechanique" this riske work plays with an auctioneer's rap under images appropriated from vintage "Blue" films.
LABYRINTHINE (14.5 min, 2010) by Greg Biermann, Hackensack, NJ
Forty-one separate shots that have been appropriated and excised from the Hitchcock classic Vertigo are repeated and transformed into a composite sequence of concentric rectangles as the narrative of the original is replaced by a hypnotic and meditative display of forms and sounds.
RETROGRADE PREMONITION (5 min, 2010) by Leighton Pierce, Iowa City, IA
Shot with a digital still camera, handheld at long exposures, each individual image bears the mark of time from the motion blur - a blur that may in fact contradict the apparent motion of the frame. Part of fifteen pieces that will explore consciousness, it looks and sounds like floating mind - the vicissitudes of thought, feeling and the senses.
SOUND OF A SHADOW (10 min, 2010) by Lynn Sachs & Mark Street, Brooklyn, NY
A summer in Japan, observing that which is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete, produces a series of visual haiku, accompanied by the haunting notes of Japanese flute, in search of teeming street life, bodies in motion, and leaf prints in the mud.
THE GARDEN(10 min. 2010) by Ann Steuernagal, Cambridge, MA
This gritty work is a personal reflection on climate change, created from found, recycled film footage, a truly tactile sense of the filmmaker's message.
Program runs approximately 96 min.
FULL PROGRAM DETAILS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE. www.millenniumfilm.org
Programs are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnerhsip with the city council; and various foundations and individuals.
MILLENNIUM FILM WORKSHOP
66 East 4th Street, New York N.Y. 10003
TEL & FAX 212-673-0090 / EMAIL cinema@millenniumfilm.orgg
WEB www.millenniumfilm.org
"myrecent film 'you know they want to disappear hell's kitchen' (17 min) will be screening (as video, actually instead of film for this screening) this friday as part of a group program of the black maria film fest at millennium film workshop, which is in the east village on east 4th st between 2nd ave and bowery. closest trains are 6 to Bleecker or F to 2nd Ave or BDFM to Bwy/Lafayette... i believe the below listing is the line up order. show time is 8pm, i think they try to start on time. my work is 5th in a 95 minute program and will probably show about 30 minutes into the program."
here's the facebook event page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194983797193287&ref=mf
Left: THE GARDEN by Ann Steuernagal
Right: YOU KNOW THEY WANT TO DISAPPEAR HELL'S KITCHEN by Stephanie Gray
30th ANNUAL BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
FRI. MARCH 4. STARTING TIME - 8pm Admission $8 / $6 members
A selection of award-winning independent films and videos from the 2010 festival. Festival director and co-founder, JOHN COLUMBUS will be present to introduce and discuss the works shown. Black Maria, one of the most well known festivals of new film and video in the United States, organizes a travelling showcase tour of 40 or more works exhibiting at more than 50 host institutions. Each program presents a different selection of work and is introduced by the festival's director.
Visit http://www.blackmariafilmfestival.org for more info on Black Maria.
SELECTED FILMS:
CET AIR LA (3 min, 2010) by Marie Losier, Brooklyn, NY
This witty musical ditty features April March and Julien Gasc performing a popular 1963 French while floating over a superimposed projection of clouds, birds, bubbles, whiffs of smoke and glitter.
DRUMS+TRAINS (12 min, 2009 ) by Paul Winkler, Sydney, Australia
This work ironically juxtaposes seemingly innocent shots of drummers (but in actuality appropriated from the notorious Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will) with shots of toy trains, becoming an incisive meditation on the Holocaust.
POSSESSED (9 min, 2010) by Fred Worden, Silver Spring, MD
This arresting experimental work incorporates clips with Joan Crawford from the classic 1931 Hollywood film Possessed. Hyper-kinetic, mirrored images create a strobe effect positioning the heroine both on the inside and outside as a train leaves the station. The colliding frames shift between "adagio" and "allegro" phases much as with musical phrases but in the language of visual "montage."
SIX EASY PIECES (10 min, 2010) by Reynold Reynolds, Stuttgart, Germany
Basing this on the book "Six Easy Pieces: Essential Physics" Reynolds de-constructs film as a synthesis of art and technology and refers to an age when artists and scientists had similar concerns and were often the same person at typified by Leonardo da Vinci
YOU KNOW THEY WANT TO DISAPPEAR HELL'S KITCHEN (17 min, 2010) by Stephanie Gray, Flushing, NY
Composed of mysteriously insistent and gritty shots taken with a Super-8 camera, Stephanie Gray's quasi "underground" film was inspired by a letter to E.B. White, famed for his "Here is New York" essay. Mixing the filmmaker's voiceover invoking White's prose combined with lines from a 1960s tune "New York's a Lonely Town", this films is an "essay on the disappearing character of New York's Hell's Kitchen, a neighborhood regrettably renamed Clinton by developers.
COW BOY'S, HEIFERS (W)RAP (5.5 min, 2010) by Jerry Orr, Wyomissing, PA
Perhaps drawing on some inspiration from Leger's "Ballet Mechanique" this riske work plays with an auctioneer's rap under images appropriated from vintage "Blue" films.
LABYRINTHINE (14.5 min, 2010) by Greg Biermann, Hackensack, NJ
Forty-one separate shots that have been appropriated and excised from the Hitchcock classic Vertigo are repeated and transformed into a composite sequence of concentric rectangles as the narrative of the original is replaced by a hypnotic and meditative display of forms and sounds.
RETROGRADE PREMONITION (5 min, 2010) by Leighton Pierce, Iowa City, IA
Shot with a digital still camera, handheld at long exposures, each individual image bears the mark of time from the motion blur - a blur that may in fact contradict the apparent motion of the frame. Part of fifteen pieces that will explore consciousness, it looks and sounds like floating mind - the vicissitudes of thought, feeling and the senses.
SOUND OF A SHADOW (10 min, 2010) by Lynn Sachs & Mark Street, Brooklyn, NY
A summer in Japan, observing that which is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete, produces a series of visual haiku, accompanied by the haunting notes of Japanese flute, in search of teeming street life, bodies in motion, and leaf prints in the mud.
THE GARDEN(10 min. 2010) by Ann Steuernagal, Cambridge, MA
This gritty work is a personal reflection on climate change, created from found, recycled film footage, a truly tactile sense of the filmmaker's message.
Program runs approximately 96 min.
FULL PROGRAM DETAILS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE. www.millenniumfilm.org
Programs are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnerhsip with the city council; and various foundations and individuals.
MILLENNIUM FILM WORKSHOP
66 East 4th Street, New York N.Y. 10003
TEL & FAX 212-673-0090 / EMAIL cinema@millenniumfilm.orgg
WEB www.millenniumfilm.org
Creative-Writing MFA Program--Upcoming Events
Here are some upcoming events by students and faculty in the MFA program in creative writing, Long Island University, Brooklyn -- everyone welcome!
March 25 -- Reading and reception for visiting writer Calvin Baker
Friday, 6-8, Spector Lounge, 4th floor H building
April 1 -- Reading by students in the MFA program in creative writing
Friday, 5:00 -6:45, Bowery Poetry Club, Manhattan
April 8 -- Reading by students in the MFA program in creative writing
Friday, 5:00-6:45, Bowery Poetry Club, Manhattan
April 13 -- Rainbow reading series, in collaboration with the MFA in creative writing, presents Alicia Berbenick and Patricia Spears Jones
Wednesday, 1:30-2:30, Spector Lounge
April 13 -- Book party for Jessica Hagedorn and Louis Parascandola
Wednesday, 5-7, Spector Lounge
April 19 -- Jessica Hagedorn reading from her new novel with the actress Kathleen Chalfant
Tuesday, 7 PM, Powerhouse Arena, Dumbo
April 25 -- Jessica Hagedorn reading from her new novel
Monday, 7:30, Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn
April 27 -- performance by Alex Mindt’s class
Wednesday, 9-10:30, Seminar room 222 (Media Arts)
April 28 -- Book party for Jamey Jones
Thursday, 6-8, Spector Lounge
May 4 -- English Department Awards ceremony
Wednesday, 5-6, Spector Lounge
May 4.-- Alex Mindt is screening his movie, OxycontinBlues, with Q & A afterwards
Wednesday, 6:15-8, on campus location to be announced
May 6 -- Reading by all MFA students graduating May 2011
Friday, 6-8, Spector Lounge
March 25 -- Reading and reception for visiting writer Calvin Baker
Friday, 6-8, Spector Lounge, 4th floor H building
April 1 -- Reading by students in the MFA program in creative writing
Friday, 5:00 -6:45, Bowery Poetry Club, Manhattan
April 8 -- Reading by students in the MFA program in creative writing
Friday, 5:00-6:45, Bowery Poetry Club, Manhattan
April 13 -- Rainbow reading series, in collaboration with the MFA in creative writing, presents Alicia Berbenick and Patricia Spears Jones
Wednesday, 1:30-2:30, Spector Lounge
April 13 -- Book party for Jessica Hagedorn and Louis Parascandola
Wednesday, 5-7, Spector Lounge
April 19 -- Jessica Hagedorn reading from her new novel with the actress Kathleen Chalfant
Tuesday, 7 PM, Powerhouse Arena, Dumbo
April 25 -- Jessica Hagedorn reading from her new novel
Monday, 7:30, Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn
April 27 -- performance by Alex Mindt’s class
Wednesday, 9-10:30, Seminar room 222 (Media Arts)
April 28 -- Book party for Jamey Jones
Thursday, 6-8, Spector Lounge
May 4 -- English Department Awards ceremony
Wednesday, 5-6, Spector Lounge
May 4.-- Alex Mindt is screening his movie, OxycontinBlues, with Q & A afterwards
Wednesday, 6:15-8, on campus location to be announced
May 6 -- Reading by all MFA students graduating May 2011
Friday, 6-8, Spector Lounge
Undergraduate Courses--Summer & Fall 2011
English Majors: Please plan to register as early as possible. Otherwise, we may have to cancel courses for under-enrollment, and you’ll have to scramble to find replacement courses at the last minute. Every semester before you register—see Wayne Berninger.
Non-English Majors: Advanced English courses aren’t only for English majors! The writing and analytical skills that students gain in English classes are very useful in a variety of professional careers. Any student may take these courses as general electives. If you really want to build up your transcript, consider an English Minor (i.e., any four English courses numbered 100 or above). Note: The English minor will satisfy your Distribution Requirement, no matter what your major! If you’d like more information about minoring in English—or if you think you might like to major in English— see Wayne Berninger.
Summer 2011 (First Session: May 16 - June 27)
English 140 Major Authors (Course ID# 2771)
Topic: Toni Morrison
Professor Carol Allen
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 – 4:50 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
We will study a sampling of works by Toni Morrison, a tour de force on the international literary scene since the seventies. We will have the opportunity to address several of her novels along with an essay and speech in conjunction with critical texts about her work and an historical overview which situates her writing. Like August Wilson, her peer in the dramatic arts, Morrison has given us a wide-sweeping view of our world and nation from Slavery to Reconstruction, the Jazz Age, and the Civil Rights Era to the contemporary moment. So, an added benefit of such study will be a cross-century intense reading of America’s cultural, social, and economic landscape.
The course is designed to help you enhance your critical reading skills, perfect your research and writing, gain a sense of various styles and approaches to literary criticism, and become informed about the major social and cultural debates that have arisen in the last thirty years. Assignments include in-class writing, leading class discussion, and a short research paper.
Required texts may include Beloved, Jazz, Love, and Song of Solomon. Additional handouts will be comprised of Morrison’s essays, speech and critical articles.
Fall 2011
English 101 Introduction to English Studies (Course ID# 4630)
Professor Patricia Stephens
Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:30 – 2:45 PM
This course is required for English majors in all three concentrations (Literature, Creative Writing, Writing & Rhetoric). You must take it at some point within the first two semesters after completing the English core (i.e., ENG 16 and two courses from ENG 61-62-63-64). If you are at this stage and you don’t take ENG 101 in Fall 2011, then you must take it in Spring 2012. Yes, you may take other advanced ENG courses at the same time as ENG 101. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
This course is a reading and writing-intensive seminar that will focus on non-western twentieth century literature. Our work together during the semester will provide an intellectual framework and a range of analytical tools necessary for advanced studies in English, whether in literature, creative writing, or writing and rhetoric. The course has three over-arching goals: 1) to develop skills and increase proficiency in close readings of literary and critical texts; 2) to develop skills and increase proficiency in writing analytical essays about literature; and 3) to develop skills and increase proficiency in research and MLA documentation skills. Students will read several texts in common, as we learn close reading and analytical skills and will then select a text for further research from a list of texts provided by the instructor. Students will be required to take a mid-term exam and produce a research paper over the course of the semester.
English 126 News Writing Section 1 (Class ID# 5530)
Professor Donald Bird (Journalism)
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 – 2:45 PM
English 126 News Writing Section 2 (Class ID# 6318)
Professor Donald Bird (Journalism)
Wednesdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy a writing-and-rhetoric elective requirement in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. It can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Creative Writing, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Please note that this course is cross-listed with Journalism (JOU) 119. Students who wish this course to count toward their English-major (or English-minor) requirements should be sure to register for one of the above sections of ENG 126 — not JOU 119.
Contact the Journalism Department for information about the content of this course.
English 128 Early British Literatures (Course ID# 6059)
Topic: Questions of Power in Early British Literatures
Professor Sealy Gilles
Tuesdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course is required in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the people of the British Isles experienced dramatic political and social changes—from the withdrawal of Roman forces shortly after 400 C.E. to the religious struggles of the seventeenth century. Waves of invasion, migration, and internal conflict are vividly reflected in the literature as poets and playwrights struggle with questions of power and legitimacy. How does one know who is entitled to rule? What right do the people have to resist unjust rule? What obligations does power bring? What are its costs? Does power corrupt? Can we celebrate it? How is power affected by gender? By ethnicity?
In answering these questions, we will explore literary representations of power in its many guises—brutal and humane, personal and political, controlled and excessive. Texts include Beowulf, Marie de France’s Lais, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare’s Richard III. In addition to the readings, students will receive detailed help with rough drafts, finished essays, and research writing.
English 158 Early Literatures of the United States (Course ID# 4356)
Topic: The American Renaissance
Professor Patrick Horrigan
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:30 – 5:45 PM
For English majors, this course is required in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the United States witnessed one of its greatest periods of artistic achievement, sometimes known as the “American Renaissance.” The course will examine representative works by the major writers of this period, including Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson, as well as some of the earlier colonial and revolutionary-era works that inspired them.
Readings will include fiction, poetry, philosophy, sermons, political manifestos, captivity and freedom narratives, and criticism. In addition to on-going class discussion, students will write a series of short essays in response to the readings and one longer critical essay or creative term project.
English 163 Explorations in Nonfiction Writing (Course ID# 6274)
Topic: Hybrid Discourse
Professor Donald McCrary
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 – 2:45 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy a writing-and-rhetoric elective in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. I can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Creative Writing, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor. Any student (no matter what major or concentration)—including English minors—may take this class two times for credit.
From the video and audio mashups so popular in viral communities to the many print sources in which writers demonstrate their knowledge and facility with different languages and culture, hybrid discourse continues to gain popularity and agency in our society. The composition scholar Patricia Bizzell describes hybrid discourse as a “contact zone” where identity, culture, and voice intersect to create new expressive forms. Hybrid discourse is particularly suitable for expressing multilingual knowledge and skill, for expressing the multiple self. In this course, we will explore hybrid discourse both inside and outside the academy. We will read academic writers such as Keith Gilyard, Victor Villanueva, and Gloria Andalzua. We will read non-academic hybrid discourse found in magazines, novels, and the internet, analyzing how hybrid discourse is constructed and what it tells us about texts and ourselves. In addition to reading hybrid discourse, each student will present a course reading to the class, complete journal entries, and write an academic or non-academic hybrid text, both of which can include different types of media—print, digital, and visual.
English 164 Explorations in Creative Writing (Course ID# 5636)
Professor Lewis Warsh
Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course is required in the Creative Writing concentration. It can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Writing & Rhetoric, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor. Any student (no matter what major or concentration)—including English minors—may take this class two times for credit.
The goal of the workshop is to expand our iddeas of “what is a poem” and “what is a work of fiction.” Are poetry and fiction exclusive or related genres? Weekly assignments will question preconceived notions of form, content and gender, with emphasis on the best ways of transcribing thought processes and experiences into writing. We will also attempt to engage the present moment--the issues of our time, if any, that infuence our writing. Is it possible to write in a vacuum while ignoring the rest of the world? What is the writer's responsibility? Can writing change the world? We will read as models the work of William Carlos Williams, Amiri Baraka, Frank O'Hara, Andre Breton, Lydia Davis, Gertrude Stein, Ted Berrigan, Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Wang Ping, Junot Diaz, and Ernest Hemingway, among many others. Much of the workshop time will be spent reading and discussing each other's writing.
English 165 Poetry Workshop (Course ID# 4403)
Topic: A Poetics of Voice and Time
Professor John High
Mondays, 1:00 – 3:30 PM
Update: course was cancelled.
Non-English Majors: Advanced English courses aren’t only for English majors! The writing and analytical skills that students gain in English classes are very useful in a variety of professional careers. Any student may take these courses as general electives. If you really want to build up your transcript, consider an English Minor (i.e., any four English courses numbered 100 or above). Note: The English minor will satisfy your Distribution Requirement, no matter what your major! If you’d like more information about minoring in English—or if you think you might like to major in English— see Wayne Berninger.
Summer 2011 (First Session: May 16 - June 27)
English 140 Major Authors (Course ID# 2771)
Topic: Toni Morrison
Professor Carol Allen
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 – 4:50 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
We will study a sampling of works by Toni Morrison, a tour de force on the international literary scene since the seventies. We will have the opportunity to address several of her novels along with an essay and speech in conjunction with critical texts about her work and an historical overview which situates her writing. Like August Wilson, her peer in the dramatic arts, Morrison has given us a wide-sweeping view of our world and nation from Slavery to Reconstruction, the Jazz Age, and the Civil Rights Era to the contemporary moment. So, an added benefit of such study will be a cross-century intense reading of America’s cultural, social, and economic landscape.
The course is designed to help you enhance your critical reading skills, perfect your research and writing, gain a sense of various styles and approaches to literary criticism, and become informed about the major social and cultural debates that have arisen in the last thirty years. Assignments include in-class writing, leading class discussion, and a short research paper.
Required texts may include Beloved, Jazz, Love, and Song of Solomon. Additional handouts will be comprised of Morrison’s essays, speech and critical articles.
Fall 2011
English 101 Introduction to English Studies (Course ID# 4630)
Professor Patricia Stephens
Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:30 – 2:45 PM
This course is required for English majors in all three concentrations (Literature, Creative Writing, Writing & Rhetoric). You must take it at some point within the first two semesters after completing the English core (i.e., ENG 16 and two courses from ENG 61-62-63-64). If you are at this stage and you don’t take ENG 101 in Fall 2011, then you must take it in Spring 2012. Yes, you may take other advanced ENG courses at the same time as ENG 101. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
This course is a reading and writing-intensive seminar that will focus on non-western twentieth century literature. Our work together during the semester will provide an intellectual framework and a range of analytical tools necessary for advanced studies in English, whether in literature, creative writing, or writing and rhetoric. The course has three over-arching goals: 1) to develop skills and increase proficiency in close readings of literary and critical texts; 2) to develop skills and increase proficiency in writing analytical essays about literature; and 3) to develop skills and increase proficiency in research and MLA documentation skills. Students will read several texts in common, as we learn close reading and analytical skills and will then select a text for further research from a list of texts provided by the instructor. Students will be required to take a mid-term exam and produce a research paper over the course of the semester.
English 126 News Writing Section 1 (Class ID# 5530)
Professor Donald Bird (Journalism)
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 – 2:45 PM
English 126 News Writing Section 2 (Class ID# 6318)
Professor Donald Bird (Journalism)
Wednesdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy a writing-and-rhetoric elective requirement in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. It can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Creative Writing, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Please note that this course is cross-listed with Journalism (JOU) 119. Students who wish this course to count toward their English-major (or English-minor) requirements should be sure to register for one of the above sections of ENG 126 — not JOU 119.
Contact the Journalism Department for information about the content of this course.
English 128 Early British Literatures (Course ID# 6059)
Topic: Questions of Power in Early British Literatures
Professor Sealy Gilles
Tuesdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course is required in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the people of the British Isles experienced dramatic political and social changes—from the withdrawal of Roman forces shortly after 400 C.E. to the religious struggles of the seventeenth century. Waves of invasion, migration, and internal conflict are vividly reflected in the literature as poets and playwrights struggle with questions of power and legitimacy. How does one know who is entitled to rule? What right do the people have to resist unjust rule? What obligations does power bring? What are its costs? Does power corrupt? Can we celebrate it? How is power affected by gender? By ethnicity?
In answering these questions, we will explore literary representations of power in its many guises—brutal and humane, personal and political, controlled and excessive. Texts include Beowulf, Marie de France’s Lais, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare’s Richard III. In addition to the readings, students will receive detailed help with rough drafts, finished essays, and research writing.
English 158 Early Literatures of the United States (Course ID# 4356)
Topic: The American Renaissance
Professor Patrick Horrigan
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:30 – 5:45 PM
For English majors, this course is required in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the United States witnessed one of its greatest periods of artistic achievement, sometimes known as the “American Renaissance.” The course will examine representative works by the major writers of this period, including Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson, as well as some of the earlier colonial and revolutionary-era works that inspired them.
Readings will include fiction, poetry, philosophy, sermons, political manifestos, captivity and freedom narratives, and criticism. In addition to on-going class discussion, students will write a series of short essays in response to the readings and one longer critical essay or creative term project.
English 163 Explorations in Nonfiction Writing (Course ID# 6274)
Topic: Hybrid Discourse
Professor Donald McCrary
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 – 2:45 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy a writing-and-rhetoric elective in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. I can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Creative Writing, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor. Any student (no matter what major or concentration)—including English minors—may take this class two times for credit.
From the video and audio mashups so popular in viral communities to the many print sources in which writers demonstrate their knowledge and facility with different languages and culture, hybrid discourse continues to gain popularity and agency in our society. The composition scholar Patricia Bizzell describes hybrid discourse as a “contact zone” where identity, culture, and voice intersect to create new expressive forms. Hybrid discourse is particularly suitable for expressing multilingual knowledge and skill, for expressing the multiple self. In this course, we will explore hybrid discourse both inside and outside the academy. We will read academic writers such as Keith Gilyard, Victor Villanueva, and Gloria Andalzua. We will read non-academic hybrid discourse found in magazines, novels, and the internet, analyzing how hybrid discourse is constructed and what it tells us about texts and ourselves. In addition to reading hybrid discourse, each student will present a course reading to the class, complete journal entries, and write an academic or non-academic hybrid text, both of which can include different types of media—print, digital, and visual.
English 164 Explorations in Creative Writing (Course ID# 5636)
Professor Lewis Warsh
Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course is required in the Creative Writing concentration. It can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Writing & Rhetoric, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor. Any student (no matter what major or concentration)—including English minors—may take this class two times for credit.
The goal of the workshop is to expand our iddeas of “what is a poem” and “what is a work of fiction.” Are poetry and fiction exclusive or related genres? Weekly assignments will question preconceived notions of form, content and gender, with emphasis on the best ways of transcribing thought processes and experiences into writing. We will also attempt to engage the present moment--the issues of our time, if any, that infuence our writing. Is it possible to write in a vacuum while ignoring the rest of the world? What is the writer's responsibility? Can writing change the world? We will read as models the work of William Carlos Williams, Amiri Baraka, Frank O'Hara, Andre Breton, Lydia Davis, Gertrude Stein, Ted Berrigan, Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Wang Ping, Junot Diaz, and Ernest Hemingway, among many others. Much of the workshop time will be spent reading and discussing each other's writing.
English 165 Poetry Workshop (Course ID# 4403)
Topic: A Poetics of Voice and Time
Professor John High
Mondays, 1:00 – 3:30 PM
Update: course was cancelled.
For English majors, this course will satisfy a creative-writing elective in the Creative Writing concentration. It can satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Writing & Rhetoric, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor. English majors concentrating in Creative Writing may take this class two times for credit.
What if as poets we were allowed to do whatever we wanted? What would we do? How long would our own experience & voice sustain us in writing? Every innovation in poetry has grown out of a tradition, and in this course we will attempt to discover and connect with our own tradition(s) and poetic freedom. Wallace Stevens wrote that all poetry is experimental. So what is the relationship between tradition, innovation, and a writer’s unique poetic, history, background and culture? If our own voices grow out of the past and from traditions firmly rooted in the power of language, our goal is to discover—to see what’s out there, both as writers and readers—as we examine the literary traditions and lineages from which we have grown. We’ll do this by writing our own poems and by exploring various forms and schools of poetry and by paying close attention to the way that poetry changes through us and through time. We’ll also discuss the act of writing poetry as one of risk-taking and investigation, of destroying and reinventing traditions in our own tongue, of seeing how nothing ever changes until you bring yourself into the process of making/creating. We’ll discuss, at length, what “experiment” means in relation to “tradition” and “poetic.” Among the poets we’ll look at closely are Whitman, H.D., Williams, Pound, Stein, Bishop, Hughes, Cullen, Cane, Spicer, Levertov, Brooks, Creeley, Baraka, Whalen, O’Hara, Zukofsky, Mayer, Howe, and Ginsberg.
English 169 Nonwestern or Postcolonial Literature (Course ID# 5638)
The Hispanophone Caribbean
Professor Maria McGarrity
Wednesdays, 1:00 – 3:30 PM
Update: course was cancelled.
What if as poets we were allowed to do whatever we wanted? What would we do? How long would our own experience & voice sustain us in writing? Every innovation in poetry has grown out of a tradition, and in this course we will attempt to discover and connect with our own tradition(s) and poetic freedom. Wallace Stevens wrote that all poetry is experimental. So what is the relationship between tradition, innovation, and a writer’s unique poetic, history, background and culture? If our own voices grow out of the past and from traditions firmly rooted in the power of language, our goal is to discover—to see what’s out there, both as writers and readers—as we examine the literary traditions and lineages from which we have grown. We’ll do this by writing our own poems and by exploring various forms and schools of poetry and by paying close attention to the way that poetry changes through us and through time. We’ll also discuss the act of writing poetry as one of risk-taking and investigation, of destroying and reinventing traditions in our own tongue, of seeing how nothing ever changes until you bring yourself into the process of making/creating. We’ll discuss, at length, what “experiment” means in relation to “tradition” and “poetic.” Among the poets we’ll look at closely are Whitman, H.D., Williams, Pound, Stein, Bishop, Hughes, Cullen, Cane, Spicer, Levertov, Brooks, Creeley, Baraka, Whalen, O’Hara, Zukofsky, Mayer, Howe, and Ginsberg.
English 169 Nonwestern or Postcolonial Literature (Course ID# 5638)
The Hispanophone Caribbean
Professor Maria McGarrity
Wednesdays, 1:00 – 3:30 PM
Update: course was cancelled.
For English majors, this course is required in the Literature concentration. It can satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
This course will examine the issues of language, identity, and diaspora of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. In The Repeating Island, the Cuban theorist, Antonio BenÃtez-Rojo, called this island chain a “meta-archipelago” because the sea and land borders that might seem initially to separate these isles in fact link them beyond the boundaries of the language-nation-island-state. We will explore the myth of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre which details the vision of this Christian saint amid a fierce storm by three people, two indigenous men and one African man, as a marker of an inclusive Caribbean cultural hybridity that rejects the easy formation of exclusive cultural and linguistic barriers. We will pay special attention to the writings of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba with a wide-ranging, fluid vision of Caribbean culture prevalent amid this dynamic chain of islands and in the larger diasporic world. We will read such writers as José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, Julia Alavarez, Christina Garcia, and Rosario Ferré as we investigate the structures and struggles of individual and collective identity.
English 172 Introduction to Contemporary Rhetorical Theory (Course ID# 6049)
Professor John Killoran
Mondays & Wednesdays 4:30 - 5:45 pm
For English majors, this course is required in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. It can also satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Creative Writing, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
• How does a political candidate’s speech rouse voters?
• How does a lawyer’s argument sway jurors?
• How does an organization’s advertisement influence consumers?
• How do a song’s lyrics move listeners?
In Contemporary Rhetorical Theory, we aim to answer these and similar questions about the nature and power of language. The course is an elective for students across the disciplines as well as in English who seek to understand the persuasive effect of language in their personal lives, their communities, and their careers.
Students will learn perspectives to help them recognize how language persuades us of what we believe and whom we believe. By the end of the semester, students will have developed their sensitivity to the power in others’ use of language and will become more empowered in their own use of language.
For more information, contact Professor Killoran at John.Killoran@liu.edu.
English 180 Genre Studies (Course ID# 6275)
Topic: Graphic Literature
Professor Patrick Horrigan
Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. It can also satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Some of the most entertaining and powerful stories today are being told through the medium of comics—the artful blending of words and pictures on the page. Comic books aren’t just for kids anymore. In fact, books of “graphic literature,” as they are sometimes called, include everything from the adventures of Batman to the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. They might be funny or terrifying, action-packed or deeply psychological, explosively colorful or cool black and white. They might take place in the past, present, or future, on planet Earth or someplace you’ve never heard of before.
This course will sample the rich body of graphic literature since the mid-twentieth-century with an emphasis on work from the last two decades. Our goal will be to experience the pleasures and challenges of a medium that combines text and image. We’ll get a sense of the literature’s characteristic themes and ways of seeing the world, and we’ll develop an understanding of what makes the medium of comics distinct from other verbal and visual media, including film.
Books for discussion may include Herge, The Adventures of Tintin: King Ottokar’s Sceptre; Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns; Art Spiegelman, Maus; Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth; Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis; Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic; Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese; R. Sikoryak, Masterpiece Comics; and Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics.
Throughout the semester, students will write a series of short essays as well as a longer piece that may take the form of a research paper or a creative project.
________________________________________
ALSO… FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (& MINORS) IN THE HONORS PROGRAM —
Any of the following Honors electives (taught by English Department faculty) will satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration, or a literature requirement in the Creative Writing concentration, or a literature requirement in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. These courses may be applied toward the English minor. Honors courses are open only to students in the Honors Program.
HHE 169 Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Work, and Cultural Legacy (Course ID# 6345)
Professor Louis Parascandola
Mondays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
HHE 170 War and Peace (Course ID# 6346)
Professor John High
Tuesdays, 3:00 – 5:30 PM
HHE 171 Rubbish! (Course ID# 6347)
Professor Leah Dilworth
Wednesdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
________________________________________
STUDY ABROAD AND EARN CREDIT THAT CAN BE APPLIED TOWARD YOUR ENGLISH MAJOR
The Global College Program of Long Island University invites English majors to study abroad for a semester or a year at one of our centers—Costa Rica, Japan, China, or India. Not only will you have the opportunity to study and travel in a foreign country while earning credit towards your major, but you will also become immersed in another culture, develop your global awareness and cross-cultural communication skills, and be provided with a variety of internship and service learning opportunities. At all centers, students are encouraged to engage in independent-study projects relevant to their academic interests.
The Costa Rica Program in Heredia offers home stays with Costa Rican families, internships throughout the region, and courses in writing, Latin American studies, cross-cultural research methods, Latin American literature, Spanish language, global health and traditional healing, peace and reconciliation studies, environmental studies, and an introduction to experiential education.
The India Program in Bangalore enables students to explore the country’s religious and cultural diversity, the caste system, travel writing, environmental issues, the situation of Tibetan refugees, and the status of women. Students also have the opportunity to study India’s art forms, dance, and music.
The China Program in Hangzhou allows students to study a wide range of topics including the history of China, religious life in China, traditional Chinese medicine, poetry, women’s issues, calligraphy, taiji, Mandarin Chinese language and modernization and economic development.
The Comparative Religion and Culture Program enables students to engage in intensive study of the teachings, rituals, and spiritual practices of the world’s major religions while exploring cross-cultural issues such as identity, human rights, peace and reconciliation, and world citizenship. During the fall semester, students travel in Taiwan and Thailand, and during the spring semester, students travel throughout India and Turkey while they immerse themselves in the religions and cultures of these countries. The courses offered in the fall include: Comparison: Theory and Method, Religions and Modernity in Taiwan, Culture and Society of Taiwan, and Religions and Modernity in Thailand. The following courses are offered in the spring: Comparison: Practice and Critique, Religions and Modernity in India, History and Society in India, and Religions and Modernity in Turkey.
The Australia Program in Byron Bay is offered only during the spring semester. Students explore the relationships between people and their environment from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Students travel throughout Australia and take courses that focus on indigenous peoples, the natural history, ecological diversity and related social and cultural contexts of Australia through seminars, field trips, service learning and internships.
Long Island University Financial Aid can be applied to all Global College overseas programs. For more information call 718 488 3409 or e-mail globalcollege@liu.edu.
A number of $5000 scholarships may be available to study in Global College programs.
English Majors who are interested in Global College should see the next page for the English Department’s Guidelines for English Majors Studying Abroad in the Global College Program—please do not register for Global College without meeting with Wayne Berninger first! Contact Wayne Berninger (718-780-4328 or wayne.berninger@liu.edu).
________________________________________
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT GUIDELINES FOR ENGLISH MAJORS STUDYING ABROAD IN THE GLOBAL COLLEGE PROGRAM
The following are guidelines for undergraduate English majors who wish to study abroad through the Global College Program and apply the credits earned toward their upper-division English major requirements.
Student must receive permission from Undergraduate Registration Advisor (Wayne Berninger) and Chair of English to enroll in Global College. See Wayne Berninger FIRST, before you do anything else.
Before going abroad, student must have completed ENG 16, COS 50, and six credits from ENG 61-62-63-64.
A maximum of 12 Global College credits may be applied toward upper-division English major requirements.
During any semester abroad, student must take 6 credits (or equivalent) in English. Independent study may be arranged, in consultation with Undergraduate Advisor and Chair of English.
Notes
Tuition, fees, and room & board abroad is about the same as tuition, fees, and room & board at the Brooklyn Campus.
University financial aid and scholarships are transferable to Global College. However, students should be aware that there are no work-study opportunities abroad. Also, athletes who receive free room and board at the Brooklyn Campus are not automatically eligible for same while abroad. Department of Athletics may agree to provide athletes with a stipend to cover Global College room & board fees. Students are urged to discuss this possibility with the Department of Athletics before they decide to study abroad.
Global College has additional sources of scholarships for students studying abroad.
This course will examine the issues of language, identity, and diaspora of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. In The Repeating Island, the Cuban theorist, Antonio BenÃtez-Rojo, called this island chain a “meta-archipelago” because the sea and land borders that might seem initially to separate these isles in fact link them beyond the boundaries of the language-nation-island-state. We will explore the myth of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre which details the vision of this Christian saint amid a fierce storm by three people, two indigenous men and one African man, as a marker of an inclusive Caribbean cultural hybridity that rejects the easy formation of exclusive cultural and linguistic barriers. We will pay special attention to the writings of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba with a wide-ranging, fluid vision of Caribbean culture prevalent amid this dynamic chain of islands and in the larger diasporic world. We will read such writers as José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, Julia Alavarez, Christina Garcia, and Rosario Ferré as we investigate the structures and struggles of individual and collective identity.
English 172 Introduction to Contemporary Rhetorical Theory (Course ID# 6049)
Professor John Killoran
Mondays & Wednesdays 4:30 - 5:45 pm
For English majors, this course is required in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. It can also satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. For English majors concentrating in Creative Writing, this course will count only as a general elective. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
• How does a political candidate’s speech rouse voters?
• How does a lawyer’s argument sway jurors?
• How does an organization’s advertisement influence consumers?
• How do a song’s lyrics move listeners?
In Contemporary Rhetorical Theory, we aim to answer these and similar questions about the nature and power of language. The course is an elective for students across the disciplines as well as in English who seek to understand the persuasive effect of language in their personal lives, their communities, and their careers.
Students will learn perspectives to help them recognize how language persuades us of what we believe and whom we believe. By the end of the semester, students will have developed their sensitivity to the power in others’ use of language and will become more empowered in their own use of language.
For more information, contact Professor Killoran at John.Killoran@liu.edu.
English 180 Genre Studies (Course ID# 6275)
Topic: Graphic Literature
Professor Patrick Horrigan
Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
For English majors, this course will satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration. It can also satisfy a literature requirement in either the Creative Writing concentration or the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. This course may be applied toward the English minor.
Some of the most entertaining and powerful stories today are being told through the medium of comics—the artful blending of words and pictures on the page. Comic books aren’t just for kids anymore. In fact, books of “graphic literature,” as they are sometimes called, include everything from the adventures of Batman to the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. They might be funny or terrifying, action-packed or deeply psychological, explosively colorful or cool black and white. They might take place in the past, present, or future, on planet Earth or someplace you’ve never heard of before.
This course will sample the rich body of graphic literature since the mid-twentieth-century with an emphasis on work from the last two decades. Our goal will be to experience the pleasures and challenges of a medium that combines text and image. We’ll get a sense of the literature’s characteristic themes and ways of seeing the world, and we’ll develop an understanding of what makes the medium of comics distinct from other verbal and visual media, including film.
Books for discussion may include Herge, The Adventures of Tintin: King Ottokar’s Sceptre; Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns; Art Spiegelman, Maus; Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth; Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis; Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic; Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese; R. Sikoryak, Masterpiece Comics; and Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics.
Throughout the semester, students will write a series of short essays as well as a longer piece that may take the form of a research paper or a creative project.
________________________________________
ALSO… FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (& MINORS) IN THE HONORS PROGRAM —
Any of the following Honors electives (taught by English Department faculty) will satisfy an English elective requirement in the Literature concentration, or a literature requirement in the Creative Writing concentration, or a literature requirement in the Writing & Rhetoric concentration. These courses may be applied toward the English minor. Honors courses are open only to students in the Honors Program.
HHE 169 Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Work, and Cultural Legacy (Course ID# 6345)
Professor Louis Parascandola
Mondays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
HHE 170 War and Peace (Course ID# 6346)
Professor John High
Tuesdays, 3:00 – 5:30 PM
HHE 171 Rubbish! (Course ID# 6347)
Professor Leah Dilworth
Wednesdays, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
________________________________________
STUDY ABROAD AND EARN CREDIT THAT CAN BE APPLIED TOWARD YOUR ENGLISH MAJOR
The Global College Program of Long Island University invites English majors to study abroad for a semester or a year at one of our centers—Costa Rica, Japan, China, or India. Not only will you have the opportunity to study and travel in a foreign country while earning credit towards your major, but you will also become immersed in another culture, develop your global awareness and cross-cultural communication skills, and be provided with a variety of internship and service learning opportunities. At all centers, students are encouraged to engage in independent-study projects relevant to their academic interests.
The Costa Rica Program in Heredia offers home stays with Costa Rican families, internships throughout the region, and courses in writing, Latin American studies, cross-cultural research methods, Latin American literature, Spanish language, global health and traditional healing, peace and reconciliation studies, environmental studies, and an introduction to experiential education.
The India Program in Bangalore enables students to explore the country’s religious and cultural diversity, the caste system, travel writing, environmental issues, the situation of Tibetan refugees, and the status of women. Students also have the opportunity to study India’s art forms, dance, and music.
The China Program in Hangzhou allows students to study a wide range of topics including the history of China, religious life in China, traditional Chinese medicine, poetry, women’s issues, calligraphy, taiji, Mandarin Chinese language and modernization and economic development.
The Comparative Religion and Culture Program enables students to engage in intensive study of the teachings, rituals, and spiritual practices of the world’s major religions while exploring cross-cultural issues such as identity, human rights, peace and reconciliation, and world citizenship. During the fall semester, students travel in Taiwan and Thailand, and during the spring semester, students travel throughout India and Turkey while they immerse themselves in the religions and cultures of these countries. The courses offered in the fall include: Comparison: Theory and Method, Religions and Modernity in Taiwan, Culture and Society of Taiwan, and Religions and Modernity in Thailand. The following courses are offered in the spring: Comparison: Practice and Critique, Religions and Modernity in India, History and Society in India, and Religions and Modernity in Turkey.
The Australia Program in Byron Bay is offered only during the spring semester. Students explore the relationships between people and their environment from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Students travel throughout Australia and take courses that focus on indigenous peoples, the natural history, ecological diversity and related social and cultural contexts of Australia through seminars, field trips, service learning and internships.
Long Island University Financial Aid can be applied to all Global College overseas programs. For more information call 718 488 3409 or e-mail globalcollege@liu.edu.
A number of $5000 scholarships may be available to study in Global College programs.
English Majors who are interested in Global College should see the next page for the English Department’s Guidelines for English Majors Studying Abroad in the Global College Program—please do not register for Global College without meeting with Wayne Berninger first! Contact Wayne Berninger (718-780-4328 or wayne.berninger@liu.edu).
________________________________________
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT GUIDELINES FOR ENGLISH MAJORS STUDYING ABROAD IN THE GLOBAL COLLEGE PROGRAM
The following are guidelines for undergraduate English majors who wish to study abroad through the Global College Program and apply the credits earned toward their upper-division English major requirements.
Student must receive permission from Undergraduate Registration Advisor (Wayne Berninger) and Chair of English to enroll in Global College. See Wayne Berninger FIRST, before you do anything else.
Before going abroad, student must have completed ENG 16, COS 50, and six credits from ENG 61-62-63-64.
A maximum of 12 Global College credits may be applied toward upper-division English major requirements.
During any semester abroad, student must take 6 credits (or equivalent) in English. Independent study may be arranged, in consultation with Undergraduate Advisor and Chair of English.
Notes
Tuition, fees, and room & board abroad is about the same as tuition, fees, and room & board at the Brooklyn Campus.
University financial aid and scholarships are transferable to Global College. However, students should be aware that there are no work-study opportunities abroad. Also, athletes who receive free room and board at the Brooklyn Campus are not automatically eligible for same while abroad. Department of Athletics may agree to provide athletes with a stipend to cover Global College room & board fees. Students are urged to discuss this possibility with the Department of Athletics before they decide to study abroad.
Global College has additional sources of scholarships for students studying abroad.
Graduate Courses--Summer & Fall 2011
NOTE: Course Description & Instructor Change for ENG 520, Fall 2011. Updated 3 May 2011.
Summer Session One 2011
English 528 Seminar in Creative Writing (Course ID# 2772) / Topic: Flash Fiction
Professor Barbara Henning
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:15 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
In the first volume of Sudden Fiction, the editor writes, "It may well be that the new popularity of the short-short story began in the spirit of experiment and wordplay in the 1960s" (xiv). Since the mid-19th century, the spirit of the experiment has been important to American writers of poetry and fiction. This semester we're going to examine and practice experimenting (appropriating some techniques, forms and approaches typically used in poetry); we're going to think about and practice storytelling (with the autobiographical and fictional "I"); and we're going to examine and practice writing some anti-stories where different discourses and genres might overlap. Also we'll be reading a selection of very short works of fiction, as well as parables, and essays. Throughout the semester, we will also discuss traditional elements of fiction as they apply to your particular stories. There is no required book for the class; instead I have a series of letter/lectures (by me) and a selection of readings (PDFs). In addition to the reading assignment, for each workshop meeting, students will write one or two flash fictions. At the end of the semester, students will submit a portfolio with at least three revised stories. If students have questions about the course, feel free to email me at barbhenn@mac.com.
English 579 Seminar in Special Studies (Course ID# 2773) / Topic: Narratives of Palestine
Professor Harriet Malinowitz
Mondays & Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:15 PM
In this course we will read a variety of narratives about Palestine, primarily written by Palestinians but including one work by an Israeli author and one by a non-Palestinian graphic journalist. It will include fiction, memoir, oral history, and film.
Students will first be introduced to the history of modern Palestine. Though the historical context will briefly cover antiquity to the nineteenth century, the focus will be on the events starting with the rise of Zionism in Eastern Europe in the 1880s and its impact in the Middle East, the end of the Ottoman Empire and years of the British Mandate in the early twentieth century, the events leading up to and immediately following the nakba (“catastrophe”) of 1948, the lives of refugees post-1948, and life in Palestine since then—both under occupation and for those Palestinians who remained in what became Israel. Authors may include novelists Emile Habiby, Susan Abulhawa, Sahar Khalifeh, Anton Shammas, Ghassan Kanafani, Sayed Kashua, and S. Yizhar, and memoirists Ghada Karmi, Ibtisam Barakat, Edward Said, and Suad Amiry. We will also read selected oral histories from the collection Homeland: Oral History of Palestinians and Palestine, and Joe Sacco’s work of graphic journalism, Palestine. Films may include Rana’s Wedding, Paradise Now, Arna’s Children, Lemon Tree, Divine Intervention, Private, and Budrus.
Students will be asked to do oral presentations in class and write one 15-20 page paper.
Undergraduates may be admitted with permission of instructor.
Summer Session Two 2011
English 626 Twentieth-Century American Literature (Course ID# 2774) / Topic: West Indians in the Harlem Renaissance
Professor Louis Parascandola
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:15 PM
Anglophone (English-speaking) Caribbean immigrants played a vital, if often neglected, role during the Harlem Renaissance, an important literary and cultural movement between 1917-1935. There were, in fact, over 36,000 foreign-born Blacks, mostly West Indians, in Harlem in 1930. These immigrants, despite often facing severe discrimination, had a significant effect on American culture and history. In this course we will discuss Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, particularly examining essays (and poems) defining his role as a facilitator of the Harlem Renaissance/New Negro Movement. We will also study fiction and poetry by Claude McKay, one of the seminal figures of the Harlem Renaissance, fiction by Nella Larsen (of West Indian ancestry), short stories and essays by Eric Walrond, fiction/essays by J.A. Rogers and Amy Jacques Garvey (Marcus’ second wife), and drama by Eulalie Spence, the only Harlem Renaissance woman playwright to set her work primarily in Harlem. Finally, we will discuss the views of leading African Americans—including W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston, on these pioneering immigrants. There will also be a field trip to Harlem Saturday July 30 from 12-2.
Fall 2011
English 504 Traditions and Lineages (Course ID# 6276)
Professor Lewis Warsh
Tuesdays, 4:00 – 6:20 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only.
An attempt to understand our immediate past and where we come from as creative writers. The last century was rife with movements—a convenient but often inaccurate way of grouping writers who seem to be working on the same aesthetic ground during a particular period in time. We will look at the characteristics of these so-called groups, as well as the differences between the writers in each group, and we will also see how writing has progressed or backtracked in the course of the last one hundred years. Our main focus will be locating the tradition that each of us identifies with. (It is also important to note that many important writers over the last hundred years worked independently of any of these movements.) We will also discuss the idea of lineage as it relates to painting and music.
Writers we will read as models include Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, Lorine Neidecker, Robert Desnos, Andre Breton, Allen Ginsberg, Joanne Kyger, Gary Snyder, Robert Creeley, Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley, James Schuyler, Ted Berrigan, and many others.
English 508 Linguistics (Course ID# 6277)
Professor Michael Bokor
Tuesdays, 4:00 – 6:20 PM
This course introduces students to the structure and functions of natural human language, focusing on English. Input from other languages may be used to explain linguistic theories, principles, and phenomena. We will examine the structure and functions of English and explore the rules and principles by which words are formed (morphology), sounds are combined and varied (phonetics/phonology), and syntactic units are structured and ordered into larger phrases for communication.
Emphasis will be placed on variations and changes within the English language, focusing on such dialects as Standard American English, British English, African American Vernacular English, Caribbean Creole English, and World Englishes. Some of the questions that will guide teaching and learning in this course include: What is the language we use made of? How can we account for its discrete units? How do languages vary and change?
By the end of the semester, students will:
• Understand variation and change within the English language and how they influence human communication;
• Demonstrate oral and writing competence, using appropriate linguistic theories and principles to explain linguistic phenomena such as language variation and change.
This course is particularly appropriate for students in the Creative Writing MFA program, the Writing & Rhetoric concentration, and such areas as education, language teaching, philosophy, anthropology, and computer science.
English 510 Technical Writing (Course ID# 6278)
Professor John Killoran
Tuesdays 6:30 – 8:50 PM
This is a writing course for professionals and graduate students in any field.
As college-educated professionals, much of what we write within and beyond college would be called “technical” writing: educational and training materials, research reports, proposals, administrative records, marketing documentation, and flurries of e-mail postings. Alas, the measure of our technical writing is the experience we create for our all-too-human readers: often uninformed, impatient, hypercritical, and only occasionally appreciative. However, our writing’s usability can influence how readers read and process (or skim and misunderstand) our documents, and then make decisions or take action based on that experience.
This course will explore the technical writing field’s research and best practices on how to write up information and design documents in such a way as to be optimally read, understood, and appreciated by real audiences. For their main course assignments, students will have some leeway to pursue their academic or professional interests, such as by writing instructional material for undergraduate students, employees, or customers in their field of study or employment. Students will also observe and interview readers as they read, act on, and reflect on their reading experience. By the end of the course, students will understand how such factors as sentence structure, form, rhetorical stance, document design, and cultural context influence readers, and students will have improved their ability to guide their readers through a cooperative and informative reading experience.
For more information, contact Professor Killoran at John.Killoran@liu.edu.
English 520: Nonfiction Writing Workshop (Course ID# 5391)
Topic: Building Your Memoir
Visiting Writer Kaylie Jones
Mondays, 4:00-6:20 pm
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
Many people have the talent to write excellent sentences; few have the understanding of how to structure a marketable book. “Building Your Memoir” will first and foremost address the issue of structure in memoir writing. A memoir is different from a novel in that the events truly happened; the writer’s job is to organize the historical material in a cohesive, compelling way – in other words, to make order out of what might otherwise appear as chaos – to find the beginning of the story and to understand where the story ends.
Other topics will include: how to get past the problems of truth versus fiction; the universal fear of exposure and of offending family members or friends; how to attain equitability in addressing painful topics; how to get around problems of time sequencing and still remain true to facts; and how to achieve originality and emotional balance in the work.
Students will be given writing prompts and will submit work for workshop discussion. Selections from published memoirs will also be discussed in class.
Kaylie Jones is the author of five novels, including A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, and Celeste Ascending, and the memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me, published to critical acclaim in 2009. She has been teaching creative writing for almost 25 years and is Chairman of the annual $10,000 James Jones First Novel Fellowship.
English 523 Fiction Writing Workshop (Course ID# 4168) / Topic: The Narrative Voice
Professor Jessica Hagedorn
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:50 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
We will explore various narrative strategies and ways of creating characters that are credible and complex. What do we mean by a distinct narrative voice? Why are setting and mood important? Be prepared for weekly writing and rewriting assignments; you will be asked to present excerpts from your work for class discussion. The stories of Roberto Bolaño, Marguerite Duras, Clarice Lispector, Aleksandar Hemon, Manuel Puig and others will be read and examined.
English 524 Poetry Writing Workshop (Course ID# 6279)
Professor John High
Mondays, 6:30 – 8:50 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
Coming Back To The Line
As Place in Poetry
Poetry has always served as a place for expression that cannot be uttered in prose, in stories or essays, and in the 20th Century it became refuge for the mapping of language outside of film and other visual mediums as well. The unsayable as home to poetry: the line, that essential music of the poem, is often (as with its cousin in prose, the sentence) neglected in the larger discussions of the meaning and underlying technique or structure of poetry. Yet from Homer, Sappho, and Li Po through Shakespeare and Yeats up to contemporary masters of poetic expression, the line itself exposes the poem’s inner mechanics and elusive mystery. Its sculpting allows the inclusiveness of vastly differing voices, traditions, lineages, and movements. In mapping the geography and music of the line, we will road trip together and make linguistic discoveries of time, meaning, and emotion. Without a heightened awareness of the line, our own poems suffer the delusion of endless repetitions and received language.
The focus of our workshop will be on the line then, which is not to say that our discussions will not include every aspect of craft. Rather, we will begin by looking closely at each line in every stanza and study how the line is or isn’t facilitating the poem’s entry into the larger context we are striving to reveal in our work. We’ll look at other poets ranging from the ancient to the contemporary: Homer, Sappho, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Emily Dickinson, George Oppen, Louis Zukofsky, Paul Celan, Wallace Stevens, H.D., Osip Mandelstam, Aime Cesaire, Edmond Jabes, C.D. Wright, Roberto Bolano, Alice Notley, Akilah Oliver, Nina Iskrenko, Norma Cole, Renee Gladman, Ivan Zhdanov, Cole Swensen, Simon Pettet, Norma Cole, Will Alexander, Forest Gander, and Fanny Howe, among others.
In the book you are writing, what underlies the voice, time, being and place of the work? We’ll begin here and discuss the act of writing poetry as one of risk-taking and investigation, of reinventing poetic language in our own discoveries as we let our poems become truly our own and something new in this act.
A final chapbook, consisting of all your new, edited poems, is due at the end of the semester. We will also schedule a party and reading of our work at The Bowery Poetry Club.
English 571 Eighteenth-Century English Novel (Course ID# 6280) / Topic: A Novel Approach to the 18th Century Novel
Professor Srividhya Swaminathan
Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:20 PM
What conditions of eighteenth-century life proved favorable for the formation of the literary genre referred to as the “novel”? How did the novel gain popularity over the course of the century? How did themes and plot elements change to reflect the socio-political times during which the authors wrote? In what manner did the form of the novel take shape and what literary precursors helped determine the framework? These questions are only a beginning in an entire field of literary studies that examines the emergence of the English novel in the eighteenth century. In addition to reading a sampling of novels published over the course of the century, we will orient ourselves as to the political, economic, social, and cultural changes taking place during the time. Novels were not produced in a vacuum and to read them we must understand contemporary circumstances surrounding their production. This course will combine close reading of primary texts (in other words, what was Swift’s purpose in depicting Gulliver as a giant in the land of Lilliput and a midget in the land of Brobdignag?) and background historical research to understand how and why the genre of the novel took shape in the eighteenth century. A secondary objective in this course will be to develop research and writing skills. Class assignments require students to read secondary criticism, understand the argument advanced, and integrate the argument into their own critiques of the novels. Students are encouraged to explore electronic databases as well as other libraries in the city to conduct their research. Students will also hone critical reading skills by evaluating secondary research on the novel as an emerging genre. PLEASE NOTE: Since this is a course on the novel, students should expect to read a complete novel every two weeks.
English 625 Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Course ID# 6281) / Topic: Masking and Minstrelsy
Professor Carol Allen
Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:50 PM
This course looks at Nineteenth Century American Literature through the lens of minstrelsy and masking, minstrelsy being the period’s dominant popular entertainment vehicle. We encounter oblique and direct references to it in poems, plays, novels, and advertisements. In fact, the minstrel becomes a sign that unites Americans across class, ethnic, and gender barriers while it further segregates on the basis of race. Over the semester, we will examine how various writers bend, shape, and adopt this American icon—especially its mediating qualities—to make art more accessible to a growing body of literate citizens. We will also pay close attention to cases where the minstrel is transformed into the trickster, the conjurer, the martyr, and the hero (making way for the masked comic book heroes of the twentieth century). Texts by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Chestnutt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wells Brown and Pauline Hopkins will be featured along with appropriate criticism and historical writing. A shorter interpretive essay, a research paper and leading class discussion round-out the formal assignments (informal written responses are also required).
English 646 Individual and Small Group Writing Instruction (Course ID# 5042)
Professor Harriet Malinowitz
Thursdays, 4:00 – 8:20 PM
This course is designed to introduce tutors and teachers to the theories and practices of tutoring writing (one-on-one, small groups, and via phone or Internet), with an emphasis on the specific needs of writers who use the LIU/Brooklyn Writing Center. Practical concerns about tutoring will be addressed: structuring sessions and setting goals; assessing, diagnosing and responding to student writing; developing strategies to teach planning, drafting, organizing, revising, proofreading and editing; working on specific grammatical issues; helping students with reading comprehension; responding to ESL concerns; noticing interpersonal dynamics and maintaining boundaries; and building awareness of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences. Participants will also become familiar with the curriculum and pedagogy of the LIU/Brooklyn Writing Program and interdisciplinary writing concerns (through WAC) on campus. Classes will be conducted as seminars/ workshops so that all students have the opportunity to participate in class presentations, mock tutorials, etc. Required for new TAs in English and recommended for prospective Writing Center tutors. Note: All students are required to tutor for one hour per week during the semester and attend biweekly staff development meetings at the Writing Center.
Course requirements: (1) regular participation on class listserv; (2) a written description of an observed tutoring session; (3) a final reflective essay.
Summer Session One 2011
English 528 Seminar in Creative Writing (Course ID# 2772) / Topic: Flash Fiction
Professor Barbara Henning
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:15 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
In the first volume of Sudden Fiction, the editor writes, "It may well be that the new popularity of the short-short story began in the spirit of experiment and wordplay in the 1960s" (xiv). Since the mid-19th century, the spirit of the experiment has been important to American writers of poetry and fiction. This semester we're going to examine and practice experimenting (appropriating some techniques, forms and approaches typically used in poetry); we're going to think about and practice storytelling (with the autobiographical and fictional "I"); and we're going to examine and practice writing some anti-stories where different discourses and genres might overlap. Also we'll be reading a selection of very short works of fiction, as well as parables, and essays. Throughout the semester, we will also discuss traditional elements of fiction as they apply to your particular stories. There is no required book for the class; instead I have a series of letter/lectures (by me) and a selection of readings (PDFs). In addition to the reading assignment, for each workshop meeting, students will write one or two flash fictions. At the end of the semester, students will submit a portfolio with at least three revised stories. If students have questions about the course, feel free to email me at barbhenn@mac.com.
English 579 Seminar in Special Studies (Course ID# 2773) / Topic: Narratives of Palestine
Professor Harriet Malinowitz
Mondays & Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:15 PM
In this course we will read a variety of narratives about Palestine, primarily written by Palestinians but including one work by an Israeli author and one by a non-Palestinian graphic journalist. It will include fiction, memoir, oral history, and film.
Students will first be introduced to the history of modern Palestine. Though the historical context will briefly cover antiquity to the nineteenth century, the focus will be on the events starting with the rise of Zionism in Eastern Europe in the 1880s and its impact in the Middle East, the end of the Ottoman Empire and years of the British Mandate in the early twentieth century, the events leading up to and immediately following the nakba (“catastrophe”) of 1948, the lives of refugees post-1948, and life in Palestine since then—both under occupation and for those Palestinians who remained in what became Israel. Authors may include novelists Emile Habiby, Susan Abulhawa, Sahar Khalifeh, Anton Shammas, Ghassan Kanafani, Sayed Kashua, and S. Yizhar, and memoirists Ghada Karmi, Ibtisam Barakat, Edward Said, and Suad Amiry. We will also read selected oral histories from the collection Homeland: Oral History of Palestinians and Palestine, and Joe Sacco’s work of graphic journalism, Palestine. Films may include Rana’s Wedding, Paradise Now, Arna’s Children, Lemon Tree, Divine Intervention, Private, and Budrus.
Students will be asked to do oral presentations in class and write one 15-20 page paper.
Undergraduates may be admitted with permission of instructor.
Summer Session Two 2011
English 626 Twentieth-Century American Literature (Course ID# 2774) / Topic: West Indians in the Harlem Renaissance
Professor Louis Parascandola
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:00 – 8:15 PM
Anglophone (English-speaking) Caribbean immigrants played a vital, if often neglected, role during the Harlem Renaissance, an important literary and cultural movement between 1917-1935. There were, in fact, over 36,000 foreign-born Blacks, mostly West Indians, in Harlem in 1930. These immigrants, despite often facing severe discrimination, had a significant effect on American culture and history. In this course we will discuss Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, particularly examining essays (and poems) defining his role as a facilitator of the Harlem Renaissance/New Negro Movement. We will also study fiction and poetry by Claude McKay, one of the seminal figures of the Harlem Renaissance, fiction by Nella Larsen (of West Indian ancestry), short stories and essays by Eric Walrond, fiction/essays by J.A. Rogers and Amy Jacques Garvey (Marcus’ second wife), and drama by Eulalie Spence, the only Harlem Renaissance woman playwright to set her work primarily in Harlem. Finally, we will discuss the views of leading African Americans—including W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston, on these pioneering immigrants. There will also be a field trip to Harlem Saturday July 30 from 12-2.
Fall 2011
English 504 Traditions and Lineages (Course ID# 6276)
Professor Lewis Warsh
Tuesdays, 4:00 – 6:20 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only.
An attempt to understand our immediate past and where we come from as creative writers. The last century was rife with movements—a convenient but often inaccurate way of grouping writers who seem to be working on the same aesthetic ground during a particular period in time. We will look at the characteristics of these so-called groups, as well as the differences between the writers in each group, and we will also see how writing has progressed or backtracked in the course of the last one hundred years. Our main focus will be locating the tradition that each of us identifies with. (It is also important to note that many important writers over the last hundred years worked independently of any of these movements.) We will also discuss the idea of lineage as it relates to painting and music.
Writers we will read as models include Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, Lorine Neidecker, Robert Desnos, Andre Breton, Allen Ginsberg, Joanne Kyger, Gary Snyder, Robert Creeley, Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley, James Schuyler, Ted Berrigan, and many others.
English 508 Linguistics (Course ID# 6277)
Professor Michael Bokor
Tuesdays, 4:00 – 6:20 PM
This course introduces students to the structure and functions of natural human language, focusing on English. Input from other languages may be used to explain linguistic theories, principles, and phenomena. We will examine the structure and functions of English and explore the rules and principles by which words are formed (morphology), sounds are combined and varied (phonetics/phonology), and syntactic units are structured and ordered into larger phrases for communication.
Emphasis will be placed on variations and changes within the English language, focusing on such dialects as Standard American English, British English, African American Vernacular English, Caribbean Creole English, and World Englishes. Some of the questions that will guide teaching and learning in this course include: What is the language we use made of? How can we account for its discrete units? How do languages vary and change?
By the end of the semester, students will:
• Understand variation and change within the English language and how they influence human communication;
• Demonstrate oral and writing competence, using appropriate linguistic theories and principles to explain linguistic phenomena such as language variation and change.
This course is particularly appropriate for students in the Creative Writing MFA program, the Writing & Rhetoric concentration, and such areas as education, language teaching, philosophy, anthropology, and computer science.
English 510 Technical Writing (Course ID# 6278)
Professor John Killoran
Tuesdays 6:30 – 8:50 PM
This is a writing course for professionals and graduate students in any field.
As college-educated professionals, much of what we write within and beyond college would be called “technical” writing: educational and training materials, research reports, proposals, administrative records, marketing documentation, and flurries of e-mail postings. Alas, the measure of our technical writing is the experience we create for our all-too-human readers: often uninformed, impatient, hypercritical, and only occasionally appreciative. However, our writing’s usability can influence how readers read and process (or skim and misunderstand) our documents, and then make decisions or take action based on that experience.
This course will explore the technical writing field’s research and best practices on how to write up information and design documents in such a way as to be optimally read, understood, and appreciated by real audiences. For their main course assignments, students will have some leeway to pursue their academic or professional interests, such as by writing instructional material for undergraduate students, employees, or customers in their field of study or employment. Students will also observe and interview readers as they read, act on, and reflect on their reading experience. By the end of the course, students will understand how such factors as sentence structure, form, rhetorical stance, document design, and cultural context influence readers, and students will have improved their ability to guide their readers through a cooperative and informative reading experience.
For more information, contact Professor Killoran at John.Killoran@liu.edu.
English 520: Nonfiction Writing Workshop (Course ID# 5391)
Topic: Building Your Memoir
Visiting Writer Kaylie Jones
Mondays, 4:00-6:20 pm
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
Many people have the talent to write excellent sentences; few have the understanding of how to structure a marketable book. “Building Your Memoir” will first and foremost address the issue of structure in memoir writing. A memoir is different from a novel in that the events truly happened; the writer’s job is to organize the historical material in a cohesive, compelling way – in other words, to make order out of what might otherwise appear as chaos – to find the beginning of the story and to understand where the story ends.
Other topics will include: how to get past the problems of truth versus fiction; the universal fear of exposure and of offending family members or friends; how to attain equitability in addressing painful topics; how to get around problems of time sequencing and still remain true to facts; and how to achieve originality and emotional balance in the work.
Students will be given writing prompts and will submit work for workshop discussion. Selections from published memoirs will also be discussed in class.
Kaylie Jones is the author of five novels, including A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, and Celeste Ascending, and the memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me, published to critical acclaim in 2009. She has been teaching creative writing for almost 25 years and is Chairman of the annual $10,000 James Jones First Novel Fellowship.
English 523 Fiction Writing Workshop (Course ID# 4168) / Topic: The Narrative Voice
Professor Jessica Hagedorn
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:50 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
We will explore various narrative strategies and ways of creating characters that are credible and complex. What do we mean by a distinct narrative voice? Why are setting and mood important? Be prepared for weekly writing and rewriting assignments; you will be asked to present excerpts from your work for class discussion. The stories of Roberto Bolaño, Marguerite Duras, Clarice Lispector, Aleksandar Hemon, Manuel Puig and others will be read and examined.
English 524 Poetry Writing Workshop (Course ID# 6279)
Professor John High
Mondays, 6:30 – 8:50 PM
For Creative Writing MFA students only. Registration limited.
Coming Back To The Line
As Place in Poetry
Poetry has always served as a place for expression that cannot be uttered in prose, in stories or essays, and in the 20th Century it became refuge for the mapping of language outside of film and other visual mediums as well. The unsayable as home to poetry: the line, that essential music of the poem, is often (as with its cousin in prose, the sentence) neglected in the larger discussions of the meaning and underlying technique or structure of poetry. Yet from Homer, Sappho, and Li Po through Shakespeare and Yeats up to contemporary masters of poetic expression, the line itself exposes the poem’s inner mechanics and elusive mystery. Its sculpting allows the inclusiveness of vastly differing voices, traditions, lineages, and movements. In mapping the geography and music of the line, we will road trip together and make linguistic discoveries of time, meaning, and emotion. Without a heightened awareness of the line, our own poems suffer the delusion of endless repetitions and received language.
The focus of our workshop will be on the line then, which is not to say that our discussions will not include every aspect of craft. Rather, we will begin by looking closely at each line in every stanza and study how the line is or isn’t facilitating the poem’s entry into the larger context we are striving to reveal in our work. We’ll look at other poets ranging from the ancient to the contemporary: Homer, Sappho, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Emily Dickinson, George Oppen, Louis Zukofsky, Paul Celan, Wallace Stevens, H.D., Osip Mandelstam, Aime Cesaire, Edmond Jabes, C.D. Wright, Roberto Bolano, Alice Notley, Akilah Oliver, Nina Iskrenko, Norma Cole, Renee Gladman, Ivan Zhdanov, Cole Swensen, Simon Pettet, Norma Cole, Will Alexander, Forest Gander, and Fanny Howe, among others.
In the book you are writing, what underlies the voice, time, being and place of the work? We’ll begin here and discuss the act of writing poetry as one of risk-taking and investigation, of reinventing poetic language in our own discoveries as we let our poems become truly our own and something new in this act.
A final chapbook, consisting of all your new, edited poems, is due at the end of the semester. We will also schedule a party and reading of our work at The Bowery Poetry Club.
English 571 Eighteenth-Century English Novel (Course ID# 6280) / Topic: A Novel Approach to the 18th Century Novel
Professor Srividhya Swaminathan
Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:20 PM
What conditions of eighteenth-century life proved favorable for the formation of the literary genre referred to as the “novel”? How did the novel gain popularity over the course of the century? How did themes and plot elements change to reflect the socio-political times during which the authors wrote? In what manner did the form of the novel take shape and what literary precursors helped determine the framework? These questions are only a beginning in an entire field of literary studies that examines the emergence of the English novel in the eighteenth century. In addition to reading a sampling of novels published over the course of the century, we will orient ourselves as to the political, economic, social, and cultural changes taking place during the time. Novels were not produced in a vacuum and to read them we must understand contemporary circumstances surrounding their production. This course will combine close reading of primary texts (in other words, what was Swift’s purpose in depicting Gulliver as a giant in the land of Lilliput and a midget in the land of Brobdignag?) and background historical research to understand how and why the genre of the novel took shape in the eighteenth century. A secondary objective in this course will be to develop research and writing skills. Class assignments require students to read secondary criticism, understand the argument advanced, and integrate the argument into their own critiques of the novels. Students are encouraged to explore electronic databases as well as other libraries in the city to conduct their research. Students will also hone critical reading skills by evaluating secondary research on the novel as an emerging genre. PLEASE NOTE: Since this is a course on the novel, students should expect to read a complete novel every two weeks.
English 625 Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Course ID# 6281) / Topic: Masking and Minstrelsy
Professor Carol Allen
Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:50 PM
This course looks at Nineteenth Century American Literature through the lens of minstrelsy and masking, minstrelsy being the period’s dominant popular entertainment vehicle. We encounter oblique and direct references to it in poems, plays, novels, and advertisements. In fact, the minstrel becomes a sign that unites Americans across class, ethnic, and gender barriers while it further segregates on the basis of race. Over the semester, we will examine how various writers bend, shape, and adopt this American icon—especially its mediating qualities—to make art more accessible to a growing body of literate citizens. We will also pay close attention to cases where the minstrel is transformed into the trickster, the conjurer, the martyr, and the hero (making way for the masked comic book heroes of the twentieth century). Texts by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Chestnutt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wells Brown and Pauline Hopkins will be featured along with appropriate criticism and historical writing. A shorter interpretive essay, a research paper and leading class discussion round-out the formal assignments (informal written responses are also required).
English 646 Individual and Small Group Writing Instruction (Course ID# 5042)
Professor Harriet Malinowitz
Thursdays, 4:00 – 8:20 PM
This course is designed to introduce tutors and teachers to the theories and practices of tutoring writing (one-on-one, small groups, and via phone or Internet), with an emphasis on the specific needs of writers who use the LIU/Brooklyn Writing Center. Practical concerns about tutoring will be addressed: structuring sessions and setting goals; assessing, diagnosing and responding to student writing; developing strategies to teach planning, drafting, organizing, revising, proofreading and editing; working on specific grammatical issues; helping students with reading comprehension; responding to ESL concerns; noticing interpersonal dynamics and maintaining boundaries; and building awareness of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences. Participants will also become familiar with the curriculum and pedagogy of the LIU/Brooklyn Writing Program and interdisciplinary writing concerns (through WAC) on campus. Classes will be conducted as seminars/ workshops so that all students have the opportunity to participate in class presentations, mock tutorials, etc. Required for new TAs in English and recommended for prospective Writing Center tutors. Note: All students are required to tutor for one hour per week during the semester and attend biweekly staff development meetings at the Writing Center.
Course requirements: (1) regular participation on class listserv; (2) a written description of an observed tutoring session; (3) a final reflective essay.
Overpass Books Event
On March 9th, Overpass Books will be releasing the first issue of their literary magazine, By The Overpass, which is edited by several students in the English Department's Creative-Writing MFA Program (Micah Savaglio, Gulay Isik, Kyle De Ocera, and Giuseppe Infante).
The reading/party will take place at Rhythm and Booze at 10 p.m.
Featured readers:
Eric Alter
Alicia Berbenick
Patia Braithwaite
Kyle De Ocera
Yani Gonzalez
Rachel Jackson
Uche Nduka
Willie Perdomo
Micah Savaglio
open mic to follow
For the address of the bar, information about us or to order an issue/subscription, please visit our site:
http://www.overpassbooks.com
Congratulations on the first issue, guys!
The reading/party will take place at Rhythm and Booze at 10 p.m.
Featured readers:
Eric Alter
Alicia Berbenick
Patia Braithwaite
Kyle De Ocera
Yani Gonzalez
Rachel Jackson
Uche Nduka
Willie Perdomo
Micah Savaglio
open mic to follow
For the address of the bar, information about us or to order an issue/subscription, please visit our site:
http://www.overpassbooks.com
Congratulations on the first issue, guys!
Voices of the Rainbow Event: Valzhyna Mort
Valzhyna Mort is a poet from Belarus known for her vibrant poetry readings. She is author of the first bilingual Belarusian-English poetry book ever published in the US, Factory of Tears (2008).
When & Where
Tuesday, March 3, 2011
12 noon
Health Sciences Building, Room 119
click image to see larger version of flyer for this event
When & Where
Tuesday, March 3, 2011
12 noon
Health Sciences Building, Room 119
click image to see larger version of flyer for this event
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