Is it possible to comprehend the mind of another species? Can humans communicate with other animals? Do they have anything to say? In 1859, the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species set the stage for the scientific investigation of animal minds. This course studies both scientific and non-scientific approaches to the study of thinking and emotion in animals. Students contemplate what researchers, artists, philosophers, writers and filmmakers learn by investigating the minds of animals, focusing on breakthroughs as well as misconceptions. Students conduct their own research on such topics as animal cognition and intelligence, animal language, anthropomorphism, animal testing and bioethics. Examples will be drawn from a range of disciplines in an effort to answer the central question: what is an animal, and what is a human?
Color Climax 281 Animal 22
ENGL 181C -"The Beach: Exploring the Literature of the Atlantic Shore"-begins with some exploration of the dynamic forces at work on the barrier beach, with special attention to the ways in which great literature has taken what is described in the scientific literature and turned it into art. Examples for discussion are drawn from the work of such writers as Rachael Carson and Henry Beston. The general concerns of the course then move to environmental ethics, specifically as ethical questions are embodied in literature's representation of the human relationship with the other-than-human world, from such difficult-to-personify species as starfish, snakes, and spiders. General ethical questions then lead to specific treatments of human and wild animal interaction by various writers. The point is to explore how writers represent the optimal sort of relationship humans can have with the wild world, and what such representation might mean to the ways we personally interact with nature. From these opening considerations, the course turns to an examination of the way in which writers who focus on a specific region of the coast--South Atlantic barrier islands, for example-- establish a sense of the place in their writing. The course then narrows its focus even more, moving from a consideration of a regional cultural identity to that of specific towns or narrowly defined areas within the general region. This narrowed subject is explored in specific detail, beginning with pre-European cultures, the first explorers and settlers and then moving on to other aspects of the American culture history that make the subject area distinctive. For example, a course on the Low Country of South Carolina might start with the accounts of John Lawson, who published his journal of his own trip up the Santee River in 1701, move to accounts of the rice culture so important to the region in the nineteenth century and to the an examination of the Gullah Geechee culture established by West African slaves on Low Country plantations, and then move to writing from more recent writers, all of which help to define the areas distinctive cultural and particularly its literary identity.
Short stories, novels, poetry, drama, and essays by English, American, and other English-speaking women writers. ENGL (WMNST) 194 Women Writers (3) (GH;US;IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. English 194 will constitute a wide ranging study of works by American, British, and other English-speaking women writers, including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and prose. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Bradstreet, Wollstonecraft, C. Rosefti, M. Shelley, Austen, C. Bronte, E. Bronte, G. Eliot, D. Wordsworth, Dickinson, Wharton, Stowe, Freeman, Jewett, Fuller, H.D., Moore, Sitwell, Bishop, Brooks, Plath, Cather, Woolf, Stein, Lessing, Bowen, O'Connor, Welty, Porter, Oates, Olsen, Sarton, Gordimer, Atwood, Morrison, Kinkaid, McCarthy, and Churchill. The course seeks to make students aware of the extensive body of literature written by women through the analysis, evaluation, and appreciation of specific works by women writers. The course also seeks to help students understand the female perspectives-the varying values and interests of women--reflected in the texts at hand and to position these perspectives within wider social, historical, and political contexts. The course also seeks to make students aware of the special problems faced by both women writers and the female inhabitants of the societies they describe in their work. As a course in women's literature, ENGL/WMNST 194 concerns itself with questions of gender. In so far as some of these women writers are black or women of color, it concerns itself with questions of race and ethnicity. In as far as the course looks at women's literature in the context of men's literature, it is concerned with the inter-relationship between dominant (male) and non-dominant (female) culture in the United States as well as in Britain. In so far as the course covers lesbian writers, it is concerned with sexual orientation. Topics under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include a chronological introduction to the development of women's literature, a consideration of a principle theme or themes common to women's literature through a number of works from across a number of historical periods, a consideration of a number of women's works in the context of historical events central to their creation, a consideration of a number of women's works in the context of formal or aesthetic elements common to those works and their various effects. This class will prepare students for advanced courses in women's literature as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts.
Short stories, novels, poetry, drama, and essays by English, American, and other English-speaking women writers. ENGL 194S Women Writers (3) (GH;US;IL;FYS)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. English 194 will constitute a wide ranging study of works by American, British, and other English-speaking women writers, including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and prose. The class will approach this literature from a variety of thematic, historical, and/or generic vantages. Authors under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include writers such as Bradstreet, Wollstonecraft, C. Rosefti, M. Shelley, Austen, C. Bronte, E. Bronte, G. Eliot, D. Wordsworth, Dickinson, Wharton, Stowe, Freeman, Jewett, Fuller, H.D., Moore, Sitwell, Bishop, Brooks, Plath, Cather, Woolf, Stein, Lessing, Bowen, O'Connor, Welty, Porter, Oates, Olsen, Sarton, Gordimer, Atwood, Morrison, Kinkaid, McCarthy, and Churchill. The course seeks to make students aware of the extensive body of literature written by women through the analysis, evaluation, and appreciation of specific works by women writers. The course also seeks to help students understand the female perspectives-the varying values and interests of women--reflected in the texts at hand and to position these perspectives within wider social, historical, and political contexts. The course also seeks to make students aware of the special problems faced by both women writers and the female inhabitants of the societies they describe in their work. As a course in women's literature, ENGL/WMNST 194 concerns itself with questions of gender. In so far as some of these women writers are black or women of color, it concerns itself with questions of race and ethnicity. In as far as the course looks at women's literature in the context of men's literature, it is concerned with the inter-relationship between dominant (male) and non-dominant (female) culture in the United States as well as in Britain. In so far as the course covers lesbian writers, it is concerned with sexual orientation. Topics under consideration will vary from class to class, but may include a chronological introduction to the development of women's literature, a consideration of a principle theme or themes common to women's literature through a number of works from across a number of historical periods, a consideration of a number of women's works in the context of historical events central to their creation, a consideration of a number of women's works in the context of formal or aesthetic elements common to those works and their various effects. Time allofted for the study of the works under consideration will vary. This class will prepare students for advanced courses in women's literature as well as other academic courses that engage in the verbal and written analysis of complex written texts. Students will be evaluated by means of essays written in and out of class, essay exams, term-long reading journals, and class participation. Students should expect to complete a minimum of three written assignments in the course of the term. The course may be used as English Major elective credit or as credit towards the English Minor and will be offered once a year with 60 seats per offering.
Introduces lyric and narrative forms in memoir writing and the personal essay. ENGL 214 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing (3) Creative nonfiction borrows techniques from fiction and poetry while adhering to but also sometimes questioning notions of truth. It stretches the bounds of literary or narrative journalism by asking the reader to consider it as art, primarily, versus as testimony, fact, or information-delivery. Students taking this course will explore the genre's influences in fiction, research, and poetry; critical analyses will complement this exploration, and formal experimentation will prepare students to imagine novel relationships between form and content. Discussing traditional storytelling technique, the course introduces students to story rudiments including the inciting episode, rising and falling action, climax and denouement and the so-called swerve ending. The course also introduces students to the possibilities of the nonlinear "lyric essay" as outlined in Seneca Review and elsewhere, as well as to the "modular" essay; uses of blank space for communicating the unsayable; and how poetic style can circle elusive meaning.In exploring issues of nuance and implied or glanced-at meaning, the course also discusses the place of truth in nonfiction - differing constructions and conceptions of truth; reader expectations for factuality in a work of nonfiction; and the complications of unreliability when the fallibility of memory or a multiplicity of perspectives color testimony.Finally, the course examines the role of nontraditional structure in conveying a postmodern understanding of subjectivity, for instance by looking at the use of multiple voices and personae in the works of certain contemporary authors. While ENGL 215 teaches skills for the journalist in developing feature-style journalism and narrative personal essays, ENGL 214, alternatively, will explore and exploit the influence of fiction, poetry, and other lyric forms. Students in this course will produce writing more appropriate to a literary journal than a news magazine; their writing will concern broad, sometimes disjunctive themes, and stray away from the nut-graf, news-hook, or even an obvious narrative focus.
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