Graduate Degree Schools: Fall 2013 Offered Courses

Waugh
ENLG 6882 Fiction Writing
This graduate fiction writing workshop will expose you to a variety of contemporary fiction, and give you the opportunity to share your own stories with others. Since we will have a variety of levels of proficiency in the class, we’ll approach craft from a pedagogical point of view that should be useful to everyone. But to this end, in Henry James’s words, “You must do it as you can!” I wholly expect you to grab this course by the reins and make it work for you. Part of this means reading closely for how a writer has accomplished a particular narratological feat, and part means living in a hyper-observant way--to quote James again--being “one of the people on whom nothing is lost.” The success of the workshop will depend on your complete engagement and full participation, your ability to recognize the narratological nuts and bolts of a story, to not always be swept along by plot, to be constructively critical of your peers’ work, and to keep in mind that the text is being critiqued, not its author.

Gabbert
ENGL 6770 - "Folklore and Work."
This class will examine the relationship between folklore and work, examining the emergence of expressive culture in a number of occupational settings. These include traditional occupations such as ranching, logging, and oil drilling as well as more white collar settings, such as among office workers and professionals such as attorneys, physicians, and stock brokers.

Hailey
ENGL 6420/7420—User Experience Analysis
Over time the term “usability” has been subsumed by a larger collection of user experience tests that include reader cognition, usability, Web analytics, emotion analysis and other enquiries that provide a much more comprehensive picture of user experience in digital media. In this class we will examine all of the traditional UX analysis methodologies plus a few that aren’t commonly known. Students who take this class and do well should be able to add user experience analysis to their resumes.

Jensen
ENGL 6340 - Brit Lit & Culture
This course will study the work of William Shakespeare in its original cultural context. We’ll read Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World (recommended summer reading); Andrew Gurr’s The Shakespearean Stage (fourth edition only), and four plays by Shakespeare, all published in the Bedford Texts and Contexts series: The Taming of the Shrew, The First Part of Henry IVth, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. (Please note that the Gurr must be purchased in the fourth edition, and plays must be obtained in the Bedford editions; see our course listing on the USU Bookstore website for ISBNs.) There will be additional critical readings posted on Canvas or available through the Merrill-Cazier Library electronic databases; students will also conduct independent work on another Shakespeare play of their own choosing.

Dr. Colleen O'Neill

HIST/ENGL 6610: Graduate Seminar in American Western History

Fall 2013

Monday 4:00-6:30 pm

Old Main 323L

This course will introduce you to key works in US Western history. While its regional focus seems an obvious starting point to define its analytical scope, western history is an often contentious, and somewhat fractured field of study. No consensus exists about what the West is (or was) and how historians should tell its story. Many scholars, including the insurgent "new western" historians, offered totalizing narratives, either to make sense of a nationalist understanding of the past, or to rescue the histories of those peoples (and the natural world) who fell victim to the western expansion of the US government.
The readings are roughly organized chronologically and thematically. I've selected works that exemplify the kinds of questions scholars are asking in the field today. After sampling these readings and discussing them with your classmates, you will begin to see how and why the field is often so hard to define.
Nonetheless, by completing this course you will develop a deeper appreciation for the history US West, and its larger place in American history. Specifically you should be able to:

· locate western scholarship in its historiographical context

· identify and evaluate the central thesis in a piece of historical scholarship

· critically evaluate the author’s argument and use of historical sources

· conduct a productive and lively intellectual discussion

· understand the crosscurrents and tensions in western historical scholarship

· write a historiographical - review essay

· create a dynamic and positive intellectual community

Required Reading
You will find the following books available at the bookstore. (You might be able to find cheaper used and electronic copies elsewhere). These books are also available on reserve in the library. Additional readings will be posted on Canvas.

· Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (Yale University Press, 2009).

· Peter G. Boag, Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past (University of California Press, 2012).

· Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America(Oxford, 2010)

· Thomas Andrews, Killing for Coal: American’s Deadliest Labor War (Harvard University Press 2010)

· Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature, Squatters, Poachers, Thieves and the Hidden History of American Conservation (University of California Press, 2003)

· Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right, Princeton University Press, 2002)

· Lawrence Culver, The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2012).

· Colleen O'Neill, Working the Navajo Way: Labor and Culture in the Twentieth Century(University Press of Kansas, 2005)

Moeller

ENGL 7480 - Computers & Writing

(C&W) draws its theory and practice from Rhetoric, Composition, Communication, and English and Literacy Studies, among others. C&W scholars have been consciously thinking about how technologies impact the ways people communicate through writing for at least 25 years. In this graduate seminar, we will read a history of C&W beginning with Benjamin’s seminal article, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936), discussing New Marxism and play theory, and ending with a comparison of Actor-Network Theory and Activity Theory by way of Spinuzzi’s Network (2010). Along the way, we will explore various technologies like document design software, web design software, blogs, Twitter and other social media tools, wikis, and mobile technologies in order to discuss the influences these technologies have on written communication.
Students will be responsible for weekly readings and discussions, including regular blog posts, Tweets, and wiki updates as well as a final seminar project.

reading list

Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Delueze, G. and Guattari, F. Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Dyer-Witheford, N. Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism

Dyer-Witheford, N. & de Peuter, G. Games of Empire: Global capitalism and video games

McAllister, K.S. Game Work: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture

Spinuzzi, C. Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications

McNeill
ENGL/HIST 6700 - Folklore and Theory and Method

What is folklore? What do folklorists do? Why should you care? Take this course and find out! This course will offer students an introduction to the history and major concepts of the field of folklore studies, and will help students become familiar with its major approaches and theories, some basic research and fieldwork methodologies, and the unique resources that USU has to offer to folklorists.

Hailey

ENG 6470: Technical Book Authoring
Recommended Prerequisites: Proposal Writing, Advanced Editing
Course DescriptionThis course explores technical trade book publishing (that is, technical books you’d find on shelves of your favorite bookstore) as a writing genre, business, process, and product, as well as explores trade book publishing as a foundation for current trends in digital and self-publishing. Broad topics include the history of publishing as an industry and business, the rise and role of literary agents, the publishing process (from inception to published book), technology’s role as a topic and tool, and the author’s role(s), expectations, and dilemmas. Students will complete key parts of the publishing process, with special attention to identifying technical trade book publishers, identifying parts of a technical book, identifying and choosing a publisher, identifying audience, identifying topic niche and need, identifying and assessing competition, developing a book proposal, promoting yourself as the author for the book, planning for broad audience-specific content, identifying parts of a chapter, writing deep content on focused topics, and writing a book chapter.

Major Assignments