Registration for Spring is just around the corner (November 12th). The following are descriptions of some of the courses that will be offered. Check back regularly, as additional course descriptions will be posted as they become available.
6770 Folk Art and Material Culture Prof. Lisa Gabbert
This graduate seminar will focus on the history and politics of the idea of “folk art,” as well as specific examples of traditional art and material culture from around the globe. Students will learn to how to read objects not only as finished forms that illustrate various ideas and cultural values, but also come to understand the importance of examining processes, tools, and production in the making of art. In addition to readings, we will watch a significant number of ethnographic films. Requirements include a seminar-length paper of 25 pages, which may be based either in ethnographic or library research. Our books will cover, among other things, topics such as women’s dress in India, Zapotec weavings, neo-pagan altars, and chairmaking in Kentucky. There will also be a number of articles covering theoretical and conceptual approaches. Required Books
Deetz, James. In Small Things Forgotten: An Archeology of Early American Life. Revised and expanded edition. Anchor Books, 1996.
Glassie, Henry. The Potter’s Art. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Griffith, James S. Hecho a Mano: The Traditional Arts of Tucson’s Mexican American Community. University of Arizona Press, 2000.
Jones, Michael Owen. Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity, 1989.
Magliocco, Sabina. Neo-Pagan Altars: Making Things Whole. University Press of Mississippi, 2002.
Shukla, Pravina. Grace of Four Moons: Dress, Adornment, and the Art of the Body in Modern India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
Wood, William Warner. Made in Mexico: Zapotec Weavers and the Global Ethnic Art Market. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Additional readings will be required
ENGL 6400/7400: Advanced Editing (Grant-Davie, online, with additional face-to-face meetings for students in 7400, Arranged Times)
This course will provide you with editing skills or, if you already have editing experience, it will sharpen your skills and allow you to reevaluate your editing practices. You will practice copyediting and proofreading for correctness, consistency, accuracy, and completeness; and you will practice comprehensively editing for rhetorical effect, organization and content, graphics, and document design.
We will encounter many editorial “rules” in this course. You and others may have quite strong opinions about these rules. In our online class discussions, we will consider the merits of these rules, examining them to see if we can find better support for them than statements like “I’ve always done it this way” or “I just think it sounds better.” When we find two perfectly acceptable ways to write something, we will still look for reasons to prefer one way over another in the context. Your work in this course will include hands-on editing and reading and discussing what scholars and editors have said about technical editing. We will also discuss your editing experiences and views and the challenges that face editors today. Though designed primarily for master’s students in the online Technical Writing specialization and doctoral students in the Theory & Practice of Professional Communication program, the course will also welcome students from the department’s other master’s specializations. We will not address editing skills that are specific to creative writing.
Required texts:
● Technical Editing, 5th Ed. (2010). Carolyn Rude & Angela Eaton. Boston: Pearson/Longman. ● New Perspectives on Technical Editing (2010). Avon J. Murphy (Ed.). Amityville, NY: Baywood. ● Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 10th ed. (2010). Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb. Boston: Longman.
ENGL 7000 Advanced Research Methods in Professional Communication (Professor: Ryan “rylish” Moeller, M 4:30-7:00)
Don’t let the phrase “Professional Communication” fool you. If you agree with any the following statements, this course may be for you:
- I want to know how to formulate a research question.
- I’d like to collect data to support my claims.
- I am planning to write a research-based thesis or research-based article.*
This course is designed to survey major methods for conducting research in academic and nonacademic settings, covering the following topics: generating research questions; selecting a research design; reviewing the most relevant literature; applying theoretical models; and understanding validity, reliability, and generalizability. We will study qualitative methods (ethnographies, fieldwork, and case studies), quantitative methods (surveys, experiments, and simple statistical analysis), and mixed methods approaches to research. At the end of the course, students will submit a formal research proposal to conduct a discipline-appropriate study.
The required textbooks are:
Cresswell, J.W. (2008). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 3rd edition. Sage. ISBN: 978-1412965576
Hughes, M.A., & Hayhoe, G.F. (2007). A Research Primer for Technical Communication: Methods, Exemplars, and Analyses. Routledge. ISBN: 978-0805863352
Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design. MIT. ISBN: 978-0-262-19491-4
* The FDA has not tested these comments. Taking this course may impair your ability to make unsubstantiated claims in the future. Talk to your advisor if you are asked to consult on research grant proposals upon successful completion of this course.
English 6340 British Literature and Culture (Cooper-Rompato, T 5:00-7:30, RBW 214)
Topic: Medieval Pilgrimage. This course will focus on why and how medieval lay men and women went on pilgrimage. We'll explore saints' relics, miraculous cures, religious tourism, etc., in relation to the most popular pilgrimage sites of Rome, Santiago, and Jerusalem, as well as more local sites in England. The last part of the class will focus on modern pilgrimage practices. Requirements: weekly reading, oral presentations, and a seminar paper on a topic related to medieval or modern pilgrimage. English 6770 Folk Art and Material Culture (Gabbert, T 4:30-7, RBW 113)
This graduate seminar will focus on the history and politics of the idea of “folk art,” as well as specific examples of traditional art and material culture from around the globe. Students will learn to how to read objects not only as finished forms that illustrate various ideas and cultural values, but also come to understand the importance of examining processes, tools, and production in the making of art. In addition to a heavy reading load, we will watch a significant number of ethnographic films. Requirements include a seminar-length paper of 25 pages, which may be based either in ethnographic or library research. Our books will cover, among other things, topics such as women’s dress in India, Zapotec weavings, neo-pagan altars, and chairmaking in Kentucky. There will also be a number of articles covering theoretical and conceptual approaches. English 6440/7440: Theories of Society and Technology Through the Lens of Professional Communication (Walton, W 4:30-7, RBW 101)
This course will facilitate you in engaging with several theories exploring and explaining the relationship between people and technology. These theories include critical theory (Feenberg), ecological systems (Nardi & O'Day), technological determinism (Roe Smith & Marx), user-centered design (Johnson), and social construction of technology (Pinch & Bijker). Readings will be drawn from fields such as philosophy, social science, and technical/professional communication, but the course will frame issues of study from a professional communication perspective.
English 6884: Graduate Creative Nonfiction Workshop (Sinor, M 4:30-7, RBW 113)
This semester we will be studying the art and craft of memoir writing. We will read both essay-length and book-length memoirs by writers who rely on lyrical language to move seamlessly between the I-now voice and the I-then. We will begin the course with two books on craft and then read examples from the genre. Most of the course will be devoted to workshops, and students will write two essay-length memoirs. All students are invited to take the course, but students who are focusing on creative writing or who plan to use the "personal' in their theses are particularly encouraged to enroll.
English 6730/History 6730: Public Folklore. (Siporin, R, 4:30-7, RBW 113)
Why did Mussolini's fascist government ban the word "folklore" in Italy? To what extent did folklore scholarship assist Nazi Germany's racist ideology? How do American institutions deal with this nation’s enormous cultural diversity? In the class entitled “Public Folklore,” we will ask questions about the manipulation of traditional culture–questions about how traditional culture is conceived and presented in public arenas, how ideas about culture are communicated through public programs, and how conceptions of tradition affect our political, social, and cultural existence. We will also examine folklore’s applied dimensions–does folklore have any applied value for physicians, for instance? Social activists? Managers and other administrators? We will learn what is involved in being a “public folklorist”–an occupation that barely existed thirty years ago but that employs roughly half of all working folklorists today.
English 4610/6610: Studies in the American West (Graulich, TR 1:30-2:45, RBW 214)
This upper-level undergraduate course, with class space for graduate students, will focus on late twentieth century American Indian literature, particularly works by D’Arcy McNickle, Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko, James Welch, Louise Erdrich, and Louis Owens. I will periodically meet separately with graduate students who will read additional books by the same authors, as well as critical works. Graduate students will also lead discussion sessions with undergraduates and perhaps also teach class periods. Before next semester, I will ask for suggestions from graduate students about what assignments, readings, and activities would meet their needs. Graduate students will have the opportunity to spend time with Visiting American Studies Interdisciplinary Scholar Susan Bernardin, who has written extensively on American Indian literature and art, in early April. Please feel free to come by and talk with me about the course.
English 6350: American Lit and Culture/Lit and Culture of the American Farm (Funda, W 5-7:30, RBW 214)
Thomas Jefferson called farmers “the chosen people of God” and claimed that they were inherently virtuous, the best citizens for the new republic. Even if we think Jefferson’s claims exaggerated, there’s no denying that the American imagination has endowed farming with profound and enduring symbolic significance. This course is based on the theory that no other occupation in American culture —with perhaps the exception of motherhood—so fully spans the imaginative range of human experience or is so profoundly invested with symbolic significance, even by those who have never worked or lived on a farm. Thus, farming is a kind of imaginative shopping cart into which we carry around a whole host of rather romanticized ideas, expectations, and beliefs. It is a shimmering ideal and a cardinal experience, one that has been endowed with meaning deeper than merely placing seed into soil. Understanding how our culture continues to mythologize the American Farm can offer insights into everything from public policy to the popularity of country music to current “back to the land” & “local food” movements. Therefore, this interdisciplinary course will examine the story of the American farm in literature, history, mythology, art, film, folklore, music, and popular culture in order to consider how and why our culture idealizes rural landscape and lifestyle so fully, even in our increasingly urban nation.
Literary texts will include The Grapes of Wrath, My Ántonia, A Thousand Acres, The Botany of Desire, The Art of the Commonplace, and excerpts from Silent Spring, Notes on the State of Virginia, and Farm City; students will also be expected to purchase a course packet of supplementary materials from the USU bookstore.
