Alternative Paradigms and Emerging Fields: Selected Topics

Course Description

Explores alternative critical paradigms and emerging fields in literary studies. Enables students to master the new analytical strategies pioneered by the specific approaches being considered and to understand the constant development of the discipline in response to new material, cultural, and political pressures.

Syllabus

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

  • To recognize and apply the research methodology needed for the critical study of the literatures, rhetoric, or language of English.

  • To identify and discriminate among literary, rhetorical, or linguistic theories and history to inform the critical study of English.

  • To recognize and summarize the multiple fields of English and the current issues within them.

  • To discriminate between traditional and emerging literary rhetorical or linguistic paradigms.

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure

Percentage/Points

Essay

33.3%

Presentation

33.3%

Short accountability essay

33.3%

Grading Scale

Percentage

Letter Grade

93.0% and above

A

90.0% – 92.9%

A-

87.0% – 89.9%

B+

83.0% – 86.9%

B

80.0% – 82.9%

B-

77.0% – 79.9%

C+

70.0% – 76.9%

C

Below 70.9%

F

Attendance/Participation:

Students must submit weekly essays about class participation (33.3%).

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

  • William Shakespeare, David Bevington and David Scott Kastan, Othello, A Bantam Classic (New York: Bantam Books, 1988). ISBN: 9780553213027

  • William Shakespeare, Barbara Mowat, and Paul Werstein, The Merchant of Venice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009) ISBN: 9780743477567

  • Christopher Marlowe, Martin Wiggins, Robert Lindsey, and Stephen Guy-Bray. Edward II. Revised edition. New Mermaids. Methuen drama, 2014. ISBN: 1472520521

Scholarly Perspectives

This course engages diverse scholarly perspectives to develop critical thinking, analysis, and debate and inclusion of a reading does not imply endorsement.