What are the graduate course offerings for Spring 2012?

Course offerings may be found at http://schedules.usu.edu/sb/.
Presently, the following faculty have provided brief descriptions of their courses for Spring 2011*:

FCHD 5550-001/7900-002: FEMINIST THEORIES, Dr. Jamie Huber:

Mondays, 9-11:30am 

FEMINISM is a movement to end sexism exploitation and oppression - bell hooks
Click here for the full course description.

SPCH 5000-002: Gender & Communication, Dr. Jamie Huber:

Studies in Speech Communication

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9-10:15am

CRN # 14936

Click here for the full course description. 

English/History 6720-001: FOLKLORE FIELDWORK, Steve Siporin:

 "Fieldwork" in folklore means observing and recording the performance of folklore by the bearers of tradition.  It also means interviewing the performers, the makers, the usually unheralded experts in vernacular culture.

   This course focuses on the fundamental ideas, techniques, and methods used--with sensitivity and respect--to gain access to this knowledge.

Problems that we consider range from the pragmatic to the ethical to the theoretical.  The course emphasizes doing fieldwork, and the readings are geared to issues students will face in the field during the quarter.

Classroom discussion will focus on the issues raised both by the texts and students' experiences in the field.

English 6350 American Literature and Culture, 3:00-4:15 TR, Steve Shively

The topic of this seminar is the literature and culture of Greenwich Village, center of both cultural and counter-cultural activity since the middle of the 19^th century. This neighborhood in lower Manhattan was home to New York City’s old guard wealth before becoming a haven for creativity and non-traditional lifestyles. Among the many writers and cultural figures who called the Village home are Henry James, O. Henry, Willa Cather, Mark Twain, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E. E. Cummings, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Jackson Pollock. The Stonewall Riots and the Beatnick Riots happened in the Village. We’ll explore the Village as both a geographical place as well as a spiritual zone of heart and mind. In addition to reading a representative sample of literature in many genres—fiction, poetry, drama, essays, we’ll study film, visual art, and music. The reading list includes Washington Square, by Henry James; Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos; The Wicked Pavilion, by Dawn Powell, At Home at the Zoo, by Edward Albee, and three anthologies including The Portable Beat Reader. 

“Greenwich Village”

Where now the tide of traffic beats,

There was a maze of crooked streets;

The noisy waves of enterprise,

Swift-hurrying to their destinies,

Swept past this island paradise;

Here life went to a gentler pace,

And dreams and dreamers found a place.”

                                             --Floyd Dell

English/History 6610-Melody Graulich , Seminar in the American West-TTH 1:30-2:45

Narrative Scholarship:

This seminar will focus on what is sometimes called “narrative scholarship” or “personal voice” scholarly writing, which can be practiced in many genres: history, literary or cultural criticism, biography, memoir, essays, photo essays, all of which we will read.  Accepting the premises of postmodernism that all knowledge is constructed, narrative scholarship commonly acknowledges the author’s relationship to his or her scholarly practices and subject matter. Like early feminist and eco criticism, narrative scholarship commonly combines research with personal experience.  It is often essayistic, exploring the writer’s process of discovery, of making connections, of coming to understand.  It also recognizes the fundamental nature of storytelling.  The writer of narrative scholarship speaks to both an academic and a popular audience, eschewing disciplinary jargon, thinking about being artful rather than just getting points across.  Narrative scholarship sits at the nexus of the creative and the academic.  It could be seen as creative nonfiction as written by folks who love primary research.

We will read a variety of examples of narrative scholarship about the history, culture, and nature of the US West, including  all or portions of  Patricia Nelson Limerick’s essays; Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose; David Wrobel, ed.  Seeing and Being Seen: Tourism in the American West; Martha Sandweiss, Passing Strange;  Philip Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places; John-Michael Rivera, The Emergence of Mexican America; Jane Tompkins, West of Everything; Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660; Ann Ronald, GhostWest; Margaret Brady, Mormon Healer Folk Poet: Mary Susannah Fowler's Life of 'Unselfish Usefulness'; Dan Flores, The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains; Evelyn Funda, Weeds, Brandon Schrand.  Four of our authors will visit our class, Ronald, Brady, Funda, and Schrand, to talk with us about their work.  We will also read some examples of my own work in narrative scholarship.

Assignments include two short oral presentations, one or two short papers, and a 20-page final essay of your own narrative scholarship.  I will be very flexible about the genre you choose for your final essay.  The class will include a chance to workshop your final paper and discussion of possible places to send it for publication.

English 6810—Gibson, Intro to Comp Studeis (R 4:30-7:30):

Composition is more than just writing; it is an approach we take to the world around us. Writing is one of the chief methods we have for interacting with large portions of the public, and, as such, it will have a large effect on others' perception of us and even our perception of ourselves. The composition classroom, then, is more than simply a writing workshop, and if we are to be truly effective composition instructors, we must understand how our teaching will shape the way our students see themselves and the rest of their educational experience. In 6810 (Intro. to Composition Studies), we will do this by first examining the work of developmental psychologists who have studied the emotional and intellectual status of first and second-year college students. Robert Kegan, William Perry, Mary Belenky, and others have studied and written about the intellectual development of college-age youth, and we will cover their findings in order to understand the way our students are currently interacting with their environment and with their peers. We will discuss the role teachers need to play to be most effective with our students, and we will discuss a number of pedagogical methods. We will then study different approaches to composition instruction with a particular eye toward how these theories may or may not be effective with our students. Our goal is to be able to enter our own classrooms with a pedagogy that both meets students where they are and challenges them to move further.

English 6340—McCuskey, Brit Lit & Culture (W 4:30-7:00): This course will be on "Victorian Secrets," and will survey the Vicotorian novel from Austen to Hardy. The reading list is below.

Jane Austen, EMMA (Penguin Classics): 9780141439587
Charles Dickens, BLEAK HOUSE (Penguin Classics): 9780141439723
Wilkie Collins, THE MOONSTONE (Penguin Classics): 9780140434088
George Eliot, MIDDLEMARCH (Penguin Classics): 9780141439549
Arthur Conan Doyle, A STUDY IN SCARLET (Penguin Classics): 9780140439083
Arthur Conan Doyle, HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (Penguin Classics): 9780140437867
Oscar Wilde, PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (Penguin Classics): 9780141439570
Thomas Hardy, JUDE THE OBSCURE (Penguin Classics): 9780140435382  

English 6440—Shook, Cultural Issues in Visual Communication
In this class we will take a look at cultural attitudes about visual communication, including: Investigations of what a certain culture may or may not consider permissible to depict; discussions of design issues in icons and logos; taking and presenting photos for international uses; and problems using abstract shapes.

  
English 6884 - Creative Nonfiction Writing—Sinor (Tues. 4:30-7:00)
In this writing workshop, we will be focused on the braided essay, a lyric form of writing that weaves together several narrative strands and then relies on image and  metaphor to bind those strands together. We will look at work by Brenda Miller, John D'Agata, Reg Saner, and others. Students will be asked to complete site visits, conduct interviews, and/or engage in archival work as  they write braided essays of their own.


*Note: this is not a comprehensive list of course offerings.  Descriptions of additional courses and additional information on these courses will be posted as they become available.